Ignacio Rodriguez

Chesterfield Act Registry of the Expressive Database

File #18 Feb 2019 20:59

Summary

Name Luis Ignacio "Nacho" De Jesus Rodriguez Aliases Status Registered Expressive (Class U Unknown) Ability Forcefield manipulation Gender Male Birthdate Age 28 Height 5'11" Build Athletic Eyes Brown Hair Very dark brown Residence Red Hook Employment Botanica La Romana Parents Luis De Jesus Yanira Rodriguez Siblings None Marital Status Single Children God no First Scene Last Scene Profile Registered Evolved but non-manifested, Nacho works in a botanica in the Red Hook district.

portrayed by David Castañeda

Background

Ignacio Rodriguez was born in the Dominican Republic, and spent most of his childhood there. He was what his elders called “travieso” — he was always getting into something that he shouldn’t have been getting into due to a natural curiosity. He always seemed to come out the other side unscathed, though, through some combination of luck and the early development of the ability to talk his way out of a good number of things.

He came to the US when he was 10, and he and his parents moved in with an aunt who ran a botanica in West New York, New Jersey. His curiosity didn’t diminish, especially in light of all the very interesting items in his new home, but he soon found that his aunt seemed to be the one person he couldn’t bullshit. She put him to work early helping her in the shop, mostly to keep him occupied. She found that he was very interested in the practices of Santeria, though, and so she taught him about that too. Between school and all of this, he managed to keep (mostly) out of trouble. He did amass a rather large group of friends and positive acquaintances, due to his knack for starting up and carrying on a conversation with just about anybody.

That is, until the fall of 2006.

He was almost at Ground Zero when the blast detonated, and got caught up in the aftermath just like everyone else. He hadn’t manifested any powers during or after the solar maximum period, so he assumed he was in the clear — until the genetic test revealed that he carried the SLC-E gene. It was certainly a surprise. But since he had no powers to classify, he remained an unknown quantity as tensions rose and chaos began to be the order of the day. His aunt, meanwhile, saw what was happening to the community, and the country at large, and so established the botanica as a safe house for SLC-E positive people to hide, or, in the most extreme cases, wait until they could get passage out of the US to various locations in the Caribbean. Ignacio assisted her in this, making contacts with the Ferrymen and eventually making the shop a safehouse for them.

Throughout this time, his powers still had not manifested. He didn’t have a lot of time to worry about it what with a constantly revolving door of hunted people around him, but he did always wonder. As he met more and more SLC-Es, he was certainly happy to help them, but there was always a weird feeling of being the kid who got picked last for a team. And of course, all wrapped up with a nice heaping handful of guilt, since…did he really want to become hunted like that? How could he justify being jealous of people who were literally dying because of who they were?

Feelings are complicated.

As events escalated into the succession of Mitchell as president and the descent into the Second Civil War, he kept up the resistance in the ways that he knew how. He got some military training from the freedom fighters, but mostly he kept doing what he did best — bullshiting his way out of trouble, and using that ability to help those who needed help by hiding them in plain sight.

Eventually, the war ended, and it was time to pick up the pieces. He still hadn’t manifested a power, and so he came to the conclusion that he was just a dud — that the test had been wrong, and there wasn’t anything special about him at all. He still had his contacts from before, and so he moved to the Safe Zone to help with the revitalization, but always with a slightly bitter taste in his mouth about being utterly unremarkable in a world full of exceptional people.

It made him a relatively easy target for Shedda Dinu.

What started as a feeling of helping people who were persecuted in the war grew into a heavy resentment of non-evolved, especially since he himself was, for all intents and purposes, non-evolved. He was very good at hiding it outwardly, but he started hearing more and more about an organization who believed that the evolved were superior, and that they deserved to be put above those who were not. It was very appealing to him.

Of course, he wasn’t as useful as someone who actually had a power that had manifested. But he did have skills that were of interest — and his place of employment was pretty useful, too. He was now the owner of the botanica where he’d worked, having been left it by his aunt, and he began selling refrain out of it to those in the know. He wasn’t the biggest distributor, but he was very reliable.

That’s where he is now — still running the botanica, still without a manifested power, though with the promise that maybe, when his ability comes into play, he will be able to take his rightful place as Evolved.

Psych Profile

Ignacio is the kind of guy who can go to a party where he’s a total unknown, and leave with several new best friends and probably some phone numbers, too. He can talk to anyone, and while he isn’t always nice, there’s usually a reason when he isn’t. You have to actually piss him off. He’s the kind of guy who’s able to keep in touch with people from his past and seem like he cares about how they’re doing — whether he actually does or not.

He’s a little bit of a bullshitter — not a liar, per se, but someone who never really read the books assigned in high school and still managed to pull off an A, though he’s probably annoyed some people along the way by being That Guy. That Guy who never shuts up in class and who the teacher likes even when he’s getting the stuff he’s saying straight out of his ass. However, he isn’t a flake, and even if it can be obnoxious, he always follows through with what he says he’ll do. He’s a pretty good guy to have in your corner, all things considered.

Behind this fronting lies some serious insecurity, though. Being on the front lines and seeing people do amazing things, and always thinking that next time it’s going to be you, but it never is? It doesn’t make for the most healthy self-image. He’s got a little bit of a chip on his shoulder about it, while also wanting to be accepted as one of them, since he is one of them. Sort of.

Evolved Ability

Ignacio has the ability to create and manipulate forcefields. He is able to vary the shape, strength, and permeability of these forcefields depending on his needs as well as the amount of time and concentration he can dedicate to creating and controlling them.

He is able to create any number of “fields” but the total area of his fields can amount to no more than 1000 feet at any given time (that sounds huge, but a 30X30-foot “sheet” would be 900). The more fields in play or the more complex the construct, the more taxing it is for him to contain them. Thus, a large “wall” could be held with little concentration or effort for as long as he remains conscious and capable of holding it in his mind, but 20 mini-fields would last perhaps 30 minutes, requiring more focus on holding all of them and thus exhausting him more quickly. He is only able to construct any field within 200 feet of himself. If he moves outside of that 200-foot space, the field will drop. The fields can be shaped into simple constructs (walls, columns, rails, ramps, bubbles, etc.) (For the sake of easy math, consider his fields to be flat shapes with negligible width, so we are not working with cubes or surface areas. To create a “bubble,” consider a flat surface enveloping a target.)

The forcefields have no momentum themselves except when created or dropped; once placed, they remain where they are until he loses concentration, allows them to dissipate, drops them, or moves out of their range. Thus, they cannot be used as any sort of offensive projectile, but can cause damage when being constructed — if the forcefields were at their strongest, it would be like bringing up a steel wall of similar size. In addition, Ignacio can create a forcefield too large for a space and cause destruction that way; for instance, if he were in a glass cell smaller than his max field size, the force of the field would break the glass. He can also place a forcefield around an enemy, then cut off his or her oxygen supply, or throw one up in front of a speeding car. The laws of physics will apply: Bullets will ricochet, fists may be broken.

To terminate a field, Ignacio can either consciously allow it to dissipate or he can allow it to "fall" as it would by gravity before it dissipates. If he loses concentration, focus, or consciousness, he cannot control the fall, and the field will drop, reverting to the most solid state, whether he wants it to or not, before ceasing to exist after a couple of seconds.

Changing the texture, permeability or transparency of the fields takes more concentration and effort on Ignacio’s part. As a default, his forcefields are clear “solids” that serve as an inexorable force to energies, solids, liquids, and gas. Objects thrown against a field will rebound as if they have hit a solid wall. With concentration, Ignacio can allow the fields to become more permeable to filter through liquid or oxygen, but this is taxing and he will be limited in how long he can keep these up, depending on how many fields are active. He also can shift the tensile strength, or “texture” of the fields to make them “softer” if he wishes to cushion something that is impacting it — useful when used in defense or on a friendly target. In addition, if he wants to raise or drop a forcefield with less damage, he can do so by affecting the field’s permeability and strength, then strengthening the field as desired. In addition, if he keeps the fields "clear," he can see them, but others will not. However, he is able to make them visible for the sake of others (they then appear a bluish white).

Finally, while Ignacio’s fields block physical attacks, they also have a limited protection to psychic powers as well. If the evolved psychic needs to speak to him or someone behind one of his fields to impact him with his or her power, they will be heard, but any psychic direction will not affect Ignacio or any other shielded person. Other psychics who do not need to speak will find it more challenging to reach the minds of anyone behind one of the fields, causing some delay, but can eventually break through with effort — like forcing their way through a fog.

The number of fields he has “up”, how many fields he’s made in a day, and how much “altering” he’s done are all matters that can build up to a “burn-out.” The first sign this is happening is his fields will begin to fail or act erratically, fluctuating in permeability and/or shape. Eventually, physical collapse will occur and he will be cut off from his ability until he rests for eight hours or more.

Appendices

Note: Ignacio goes by the nickname "Nacho" among his friends. This is a common nickname for someone named Ignacio in Spanish-speaking countries.

Alts

Facts

Known by Many

Known by Some

• The place where Ignacio works, Botanica La Romana, was a Ferryman stop in the Second Civil War.

Known by Few

• Despite being non-manifested, Ignacio is a member of Shedda Dinu.

Hooks

Relationships

Friends

La Rubia		Can you really call someone a friend when they're kind of annoyed by you sometimes? Well, you probably can. Whether they would agree is another matter altogether.
La Ex		They were together, and then they exploded spectacularly. They're still friends…maybe? Sort of? Attempting?

Associates

Acquaintances

Skills

Spanish

Growing up in the Dominican Republic and living in a majority Spanish-speaking neighborhood means that Ignacio never lost his knowledge of Spanish. He is completely fluent.

Dancer

Ignacio enjoys music and dancing, and he is quite good at it.

Firearms

It was more or less essential to learn how to use a gun at least somewhat during the war, especially if you didn’t have any powers to help you out. Ignacio isn’t a sharpshooter, but he can hit the broadside of a barn.

Santeria

Ignacio practices Santeria, and is quite knowledgeable on the subject.

Lucky

There have been some very close calls, but if an event can tip in a couple of ways, Ignacio has found in his life that it usually seems to come down in his favor. Not supernaturally, of course, just regular naturally.

Contacts

Ignacio knows a lot of people, and if someone needs something, he probably knows a guy, or at least knows a guy who knows a guy. Or gal.

Media

Playlist

Logs