Babel
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Ian "Babel" Donovan, is a mentor at Halcyon Academy.
Origins
It was a rare but minor mutation – the genes that limited the size and development of the Broca and Wernicke areas of the temporal lobe were unable to fulfill their function, and the young Ian Donovan found himself speaking fluent English at the age of 6 weeks. Unable yet even to lift his own head, he could nonetheless primly correct his father’s failure to use the subjunctive mode. By the age of 6, Ian could understand and speak, with native fluency, over 40 languages.
Except for this, Ian was an unremarkable child with an unremarkable childhood. His mutant ability was unthreatening enough that he got to go through the regular teenage ordeal of high school and first love and heartbreak and growing up, but useful enough that he received a full ride USAF scholarship to MCU.
After graduation, his unique talents saw him recruited to Army Special Forces and deployed to the Middle East, where he was called often to the field to translate or interpret obscure dialects. In the summer of 2007, Ian’s battalion intercepted communication that led them to the location of the known terrorist sorcerer Simoom. They could not afford to wait for UNTIL reinforcement, and so the brave men and women of the 43rd division threw their lives against the creatures of myth and sand conjured by the sorcerer. Sandstorm and fire swept again and again through the soldiers, flensing skin from flesh and flesh from bone. When it seemed that all their bravery would be for nought, a stray eddy of desert wind brought the mutterings of the distant sorcerer to the ears of young Captain Donovan.
It was a language far more complex than any he had ever worked with – there were inflections that strained the rational mind, and sounds no human throat was ever meant to produce. But it was a language nonetheless, and Ian understood it. He understood it as no sorcerer had since Atlantis, since Mu, since Enoch and the great Cataclysm of the Ancients. He understood its syntax and its semantics; he understood how the position of each pause altered the meanings of each word that came before; he understood how even tone and posture conveyed fractal levels of meaning in this subtle language of magic.
Simoom was telling the living desert that the invaders meant it harm – and now Ian told it otherwise. In moments, all the raised magic quietened and died. The bewildered Simoom was quickly apprehended, and the war in the Middle East soon resolved. To this day, no one in the military outside of Ian’s closest friends know of his contribution to that war effort.
After his return to the continental United States, Ian requested, and was granted, a transfer to the Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command – more commonly known as Psyops. As part of the reserve component stationed in Millennium City, Ian Donovan spends most of his time doing the same thing he did in the Special Forces – teaching others of better ways of conflict resolution than violence.
Powers
Ian's mutation makes him a universal linguistic prodigy, able to untangle, interpret, and master any language with a just a few minutes of continued exposure. This skill in linguistics also grants him mastery of verbal spellcasting, making him a master of sorcery. He also possess the Gibeonite Prisms, which he's holding in safekeeping at the request of the Trismegestus Council, and which grant him power over light and crystals. As a benefit of his special ops training, he is also skilled at military combat.
Though Babel is his primary code name, Ian goes by a variety of call signs, depending on which tactical tools he is employing in the field at the time: Babel (sorcery), Gibeon (the Gibeonite prisms), or Jericho (military combat training).
Affiliations
US Army - captain
- US Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command (PsyOps)
Halcyon Academy - mentor
- classes
- The Psychology of Supervillains - There are exactly seven profiles of supervillains. In this course we will discuss each one and the weaknesses which a good superhero can exploit once he identifies which personality and criminal profile fits the supervillain. Classes will involve both a theory component and a practical component.
- The Semantics of Banishing - Demons getting to you? DEMON getting to you? Sometimes, even for the mystically-inclined, rote banishings can only go so far. Things could even get worse if you mix up the subject and object positions of the banishing, or confuse the declinative for the nominative. Learn to construct your own syntactically correct banishing spells!
- clubs (faculty advisor)
- Outdoor Activities Club - Go outside once in a while. Damn kids.
