Connor Henry Babbage

Connor Babbage

MAGUS OF

Personality

Connor’s work is his life. He’s constantly working, tinkering with the Analytical Engine and other projects he has going on, constantly finding new applications towards infusing magic with technology, with his focus being on steam-driven works that go far beyond the abandoned technology of the steam engine that died when the Internal Combustion Engine took root in the world. His dedication and the workload that is inevitably taken by him as a result of him leave him with a huge ability to focus...but poor ability to transition.



As a result, in communicating with others, he can appear very aloof or distracted. This isn’t really how he feels, but he’s just constantly thinking about his next project or how he can improve a design, or what mistake he can repair and learn from. Because his mind is always buzzing, it can be hard to put a great deal of his attention on speaking to people. As a conversation continues, however, he gets more invested in it rather than the normal person who starts to tune out or gets bored. After all, anyone interested enough to deal with his standoffish nature tends to have something important to say.



Once past the point where he actually gets invested in a conversation or the generally distracted exterior, there’s a person who’s very awkward around people. He has difficulty understanding others, who definitely are not as clearly focused as he is. Among Magi it’s not as bad, considering everyone has their own research that they focus on and they all have similar priorities as he does. However, among normal humans, he’s commonly seen as a social outcast, words don’t come easily and while he can maintain a conversation, he comes off as stilted and standoffish.



When working with his usual clientele, magi in need of technical expertise, he’s quiet and in the background, just how they’d like it. He doesn’t interfere with their research, and they don’t interfere with his so long as he remains on-call. His natural reticence serves him well when working in a service role, and he’s naturally able to work well with people who keep their contact him brief, and focused on the point. Occasionally he’s had more talkative retainers, who quickly learn not to try so hard and leave him be.



When time between contracts seems to be on the long side, he has a habit of managing a mechanic shop in whatever area he was left in. Generally capital gained from either his contract of savings from him or his family’s stockpile of wealth is more than enough to get comfortably situated, and he makes money, selling the store relatively easily once a new contract shows itself. However, while he can put on an air of professional personability, there’s still an awkward element that comes up. His service is at a point where most don’t question it, though.



When people try to get close, Connor is generally baffled at the thought. He doesn’t really view himself as someone people would want to be friends with, he’s standoffish, tending towards the sidelines and changing locations constantly. While he never really warms up, he becomes more easy to talk to as he knows another person more, even if his trouble dealing with people leads to more than a few unintended slights or insults.

History

The Babbage line of magi had a very peculiar root, that being in experimental science. The famous mathematician and mechanical engineer, Charles Babbage, used the newfound technology of the steam engine to try and create the world’s first computers, the Difference Engine and the Analytical Engine. The first was planned to be a more simple calculator, while the Analytical Engine was meant to be a full computer. He was unable to complete these designs, the Difference Engine due to a lack of inspiration for a such a simple machine, and the Analytical Engine for being ambitious beyond the bounds of what science could accomplish.



Near the end of his life, the feverish devotion he put towards attempting to complete the Analytical Engine became the seeds for magic to develop within the Babbage family, his desire for a world of steam-powered technology sowing the seeds for the next generation to inherit the power to directly change the world through magic circuits.



Henry Prevost Babbage, his youngest son, was the only one that developed these circuits at a reasonable level..He used it along with his prior determination to finish his father’s work and complete at least the Difference Engine, as well as a working prototype of the Analytical Engine built into a mill. From there, he focused his life on thaumaturgy, and under the tutelage from the Clock Tower, adding an astonishing amount to his Magic Crest. Eventually, he reached the point his father dreamed of, utilizing high thaumaturgy to replicate an ideal world where steam technology has advanced to a point where a utopia was created, and began to apply it to devices. Perfecting this application has become the root for the family’s magecraft ever since.



While at the Clock Tower, his affinity with technology, something increasingly relevant to the world was found to be an oddity, which led to the development of the Babbage family’s eventual role: tech support to the Lords that elected to retain them. They were handsomely rewarded for their support and ability to be absolutely sworn into secrecy as magi themselves, and were given free reign to pursue their own research. Building on the magic found in the crest, they all took to technology naturally and were able to infuse it with magic. However, they still focused primarily on the technology that was closest to them, that deriving from the Dimension of Steam the Great Founder created.



Connor himself lived a fairly average, boring life. He learned magecraft while traveling from place to place as expected from his line, under the tutelage of his father. He learned engineering and mechanics of all stripes, taking to it like a prodigy, an element inborn in the family. Upon reaching 11, he was given the standard rite of passage for the family, left in a junkyard, he was to manufacture an Analytical Engine, and apply it to the creation of a Mystic Code. Completing this challenge flawlessly through the influence of some careless comic books he’d idled through by the time, he’d completed a base prototype of the Analytical Engine Mk. 7, a suit of mechanized armor he continued to tinker with throughout his life.



Unfortunately, his idle life couldn’t last forever. At the age of thirteen, his parents died in a tragic plane accident, and he inherited the headship of his family all too early. This led the already shy and reserved boy into the seclusion that he continued with. While he generally recovered in a year or two, he still preferred solitude and had difficulty communicating with people. Still, he was able to continue the work of his family rather effortlessly, and due to the careful records of his parents, little knowledge was lost.



Continuing undaunted by the tragedy, he continued to carry on the research, and eventually ended up going to the Clock Tower at the relatively young age of 16. Spending three years studying, he kept the true facets of his family's magic a relative secret, although he continued the regular practice, avoiding paying tuition, board, and materials, as well as receiving a significant stipend by filling in his family's role as the Clock Tower's resident technician.

Quantity: C

Quality: B

Water+Fire