William Black
Mr. William Jeremy Black (a.k.a. Erik Hammond)
Written by: Null Kit
Pre-Crash records and culture makes note of something known as the 'Streisand Effect', a strangely-named phenomenon describing how attempts to censor or hide a piece of information unintentionally intensifies efforts to attain it. The pertinent example of the Streisant Effect is in the origins of one William Black, the founder and president of the motorcycle-club known as the Children of Eden, an individual who would have simply been dismissed as a Adept puppet of the gang's anti-metahuman benefactors, had such people not made such a conspicuous attempt to hide every shred of the man's past. But they did, and as such it is a legitimate pleasure to continue disseminating every secret about this man and his myriad of failures. Don't let Mr. Black's carefully cultivated drawl and unkempt-but-not-too-unkempt hair fool you: He's only a biker by committee, a carefully sculped proxy of several anti-metahuman interests including the former Raleigh-chapter of Humanis to push their agendas under the facade of grassroots public-works and activism. Behind the affectation of chilled self-proclaimed "dad vibes" lies a focussed and bitter mind, willing to undertake any extreme and underhanded method to further his cause and vilify the opposition, unfettered by any notion of sympathy or fair play, even to his own subordinates.Physical Description
General Physical Condition
Up until recently, William Black's medical history could only be conjected to owing to the secrecy of his benefactors. In fact, it was only because of the work of Agitator and a carefully-planned data-steal into the Evo Metahuman-Architectural Haven that we even know of the connection between William Black and his former identity, let-alone these fragments medical status taken under his new pseudonym.
I just wanna point out the irony of a Humanis shill getting his surgery done at an Evo arcology..Black's benefactors went to great effort to make Mr. Black's cosmetic alterations not only covert and under-the-table, but as hollistic as possible, to preserve the man's natural Adept powers as best as they can. Intensive biosculpting has gone not only into making William's appearance distinctive from his former self, but great care and attention has been put into adding a facade of wear-and-tear to the freshly carved flesh; fake scars, tattoos made to look worn and faded from the get-go, even stretch-marks suggesting weight-gain in the past.
Mental characteristics
Personal history
The southern-fried president of the Children of Eden wasn't always William Black. Before the founding of his Humanis-sponsored club, he once lived under the name of Erik Hammond. The more astute of you might recognise that as being the name of an influencial member of the Raleigh chapter of the Humanis policlub, and if you guessed that they were one and the same you would be correct. We'll gloss over most of Hammond's life, save for parts relevant to his new identity, as such information is easily and publically accessible, despite Humanis's best efforts.
Erik was a staunch anti-metahuman activist who involved himself heavily in promoting media-figures with similar attitudes but preferred to stay out of the limelight himself, letting his financed proxies speak on his behalf while he quietly took his accolades and payments from the powers-that-be in Humanis. One of those more infamous figures was a matrix-DJ by the name of Alexander Clayton, an anti-metahuman spokesperson who at the best of times could be described as 'enthusiastic', especially regarding his opinions on conspiracy-theories about corporate and government interests in 'pro-metahuman invasion'. It's still not entiirely known why Hammond advocated financing and endorsing this man, but Hammond was allegedly insistant in ensuring a wide and broad audience for the paranoid utterances spewed from the 'Clayton Communique'.
Hammond's endorsement wasn't as insane as it sounds now in retrospect: Clayton's a nutcase, sure, but not only did he legitimately believe in what he was saying, he's also a former firefighter who won an award from the mayor for his work, still involved himself in a lot of volunteer-work after he retired. A lot of locals were willing to tolerate and even humor his conspiracy-theorizing up until recently because of that.Hammond's endorsement of Alexander Clayton inevitably came haunt him as the self-styled not-radio host descended deeper and deeper into his conspiracies of anti-human corporations and their government pawns, to the point where said corps began to grow less tolerant of the man's accusations. This concluded in his infamous 2076 live-broadcast, not a week after the bombings at the Universal Omnitech School of Medicine that led to multiple deaths and many more injuries, where infront of an audience of thousands, Clayton claimed the entire thing to be a staged event to drum up support for invasive laws and corporate-precepts regarding security, going so far as to call the grieving next-of-kin a "gaggle of heartless crisis-actors high on personasofts." Public opinion turned against Alexander Clayton instantly, and with great ferocity. Clayton himself was forced to leave Raleigh entirely, while the local Humanis chapter, who at the time were associated with Clayton by way of Erik Hammond's open advocacy, went from being a tolerated political force to completely pariahed over the cause of several months as public opinion began scrutinizing in earnest. Decades of trust built up with the public went up in flames, and Hammond was responsible for it. Officially, Hammond retired and dissapeared along with several other members of the Raleigh chapter of Humanis, but his true punishment was far more severe than a simple forced-retirement. Hammond was culpable for a great crime in the eyes of Humanis, but not so great that his talent would simply be scattered to the winds. Over several weeks of training and cosmetic alterations, Hammond was stripped of his identity and and shreds of esteem that remained with it, and in its place a new identity was crafted, a newer and more 'publically acceptable' persona meticulously crafted to appeal to the citizens of the now-wary and scrutinous public of Raleigh. Now named William Black, the disgraced humanis promoter was given a relative pittance, a slice of unremarkable property and a token amount of outside-support to accomplish simple objective: Fix the mess he made. William set forth with his means, founding the Children of Eden MC to cover his goal of making Humanis a semi-respectable name in Raleigh again, by any means necesarry.
So if we know this guy's actually Hammond, why don't we oust him?
Even with the datasteal from Evo, the evidence we have is almost entirely circumstancial and conjecture. The only thing we have solid evidence for is that Mr. Black had cosmetic surgery to no longer look like a dude who's really hated in Raleigh.
Education
William retains all his education and training undertaken as Erik Hammond, but any further training under his new identity is unknown in its specifics, save for evidence of basic and advanced combat-training.
Employment
President of the Children of Eden Motor-Cycle club, formerly spokesperson and PR-consultant for Humanis Raleigh PCC
Year of Birth
2044
36 Years old
Birthplace
Oxford, England
Children
Pronouns
He/Him
Eyes
Blue
Hair
Brown
Skin Tone/Pigmentation
White
Height
6'1''
Weight
252 lb.
Aligned Organization
Comments