For today's update nobody really cares about, here's my character origin for the Emerald City game we'll be starting shortly.  I spend way too much time on these things.  This one takes the form of a fluff piece in a local magazine.  I used a Seattle skyline since I didn't have an Emerald City one.  Close enough.

As usual for me, there are tons of subtle little pop culture references, and at least one reference you'll only get if you live in my town.

Emerald City’s favored son, Jon Clark Nedor has long been loved from afar, traveling the world, frequently alone, sometimes assisting parties as varied as Doctors without Borders, Books without Frontiers, and the U.S. State Department.  He’s often known as the Renaissance Man of the new Millennium: a true polymath, scholar, and inventor.  Recently, he has returned to the city of his birth

EC caught up with Jon, who the press has dubbed Mister Amazing, for an interview.

EC: Thank you for your time, Mr. Nedor.  Lots of people want to know more about you.  Pardon the humor, but you’re pretty amazing.

JCN: It’s my pleasure.  Ask me anything.  I might even know the answer.

EC: Since you’re known as the seventh smartest man alive, I certainly hope so.

JCN: <laughs> That was totally a joke, and now it follows me everywhere.  I don’t really know where I stand, or even if you could really make up a list that wouldn’t just be “my favorite geniuses.”

EC: Well, you’re our favorite genius.  And a certified one.  Besides multiple advanced degrees, three well-received books, and a Centurion prize, you’ve developed some really impressive technology.  Of your inventions, which is your favorite?

JCN: They’re all my favorite, at the time.  I mostly build things I see a need for, and once I have it I move on to the next challenge.  I guess my favorite is the skybike.  I mean, seriously, it’s a flying bike.  Who wouldn’t love that?  The core of them all, of course, is the Deep Energy Converter, which remains held up in litigation with the Department of Energy.  I have a Congressional dispensation to build them for my own use, but not to distribute them or use them for “public provision of energy.”

EC: But you’re not bitter, right?

JCN: I’m pretty solidly bitter.  Deep Energy stands to free the world from its fossil fuel addiction, reduce pollution, and improve quality of life for billions of people.  But instead, I have four converters, one running my home, one in the skybike, a little one for my force pistol, and one for emergencies.

EC: What can you tell us about the case?

JCN: I can’t really discuss pending litigation, and I won’t express an opinion of the merits of the case, scientific or legal.  The scientific literature on Deep Energy speaks for itself, and anyone with an internet connection can find out all they need to know about the legal case.

EC: You’ve been abroad for over twenty years.  For quite a bit of that, you were completely off the grid.  What were you up to, and why did you come back now?

JCN: My father always pushed me to excel, not in an adversarial way, but he encouraged me.  He gave me the tools.  He paid for the best tutors, made sure I had the best opportunities.  He never made things easy for me, but he always told me I could do anything I put my mind to, and he’d be there to catch me if I fell.

When I was eighteen, I felt like I’d reached the highest point I could reach at home and it was time to go see more of the world, and it was time to see how I could do without my dad there to back me up.  I sort of went on walkabout.  I studied for a few years at a monastery in Tibet, and spent about a year as a fugitive of the Chinese government.  I traveled to the Middle East and Africa.  I attended Oxford.  I did a fellowship at CERN.  Mostly, I just went wherever I felt like and did whatever seemed to need doing.  I tried, as much as I could, to avoid dropping my dad’s name or use his connections.  It didn’t always work out that way.  Several times, people who were connected with my dad needed my help.

Eventually, I figured out that dad would always be a part of me, but that didn’t mean I was letting him carry me.  Then, in the past year or so, I came back home a few times, more and more often.  Last month I decided to stay.  Dad loves this city, and so do I.  I thought it was time to give something back to the city that has done so much for our family.

Wow, all that sounds really self-aggrandizing.  I don’t want people to think I was running around like some kind of superhero who needs no one and nothing.  I had a lot of help at every turn.  I wouldn’t be here today without the aid and sacrifices of many good people.

For that matter, I’ve met a few superheroes, and they don’t need no one and nothing either.  They’re people with some really stressful jobs.

EC: Now that you’re back in town, what are you going to do?

JCN: I’m starting a consultancy, bringing unique perspective and expertise to unusual problems.  It’s probably not really the kind of thing you can make a living at without a multi-million dollar trust fund.

What I hope is that my experiences will let me see things other people don’t see and my skills will let me do things that might otherwise take a host of separate experts.  At the same time, I want to help with the Nedor Foundation and volunteer with some local charities to help them make the most of resources and opportunities.

EC: Is there anything you don’t do?

JCN: I can’t make a soufflé to save my life.  My teacher at La Cordon Bleu despaired of me.

And really, there are a lot of things I can’t do.  People hear that I’m skilled in multiple disciplines and think I’m omnipotent.  I’m really not.  If I’m more skilled than other people, it’s because I’ve had more opportunities, and I’ve always been very focused on learning whatever the world could teach me.

EC: People do say you could do anything.  They say if you turned your hand to politics, you could be state governor in the next election and President in no more than twelve years.  You’re not just a celebrity, you’re a voice for change and unlike a lot of celebrity spokespeople, you really know what you’re talking about.  Experts in the causes you champion acknowledge your expertise.  If you wanted, you could be JFK, Bill Gates, Lee Iacocca, maybe all three at once.

JCN: But I don’t really want any of those things.  I enjoy helping people.  I love learning.  I thrive on solving problems.  Power comes with responsibility, or it should.  And money is just a tool to get what you want.  I pretty much have all the responsibility I can handle, and I have all the stuff I’ll ever need.

EC: Tell us more about these problems you solve.  Like the job you did for the State Department in the Congo.

JCN: I carried out negotiations, and when those failed a rescue mission of some hostages from the Sons of the Dark Earth.  That was pretty intense.  Despite what people think, I’m not usually an international man of mystery.  It got even more interesting when the SDE called up something called a Dark Totem.  The Freedom League even got involved to put the thing down.  Captain Thunder really is awesome to behold.  That was the first time I used a force gun.  I had cobbled one together as a proof of concept.  It was kind of big and failure prone.

While the Freedom League fought the Dark Totem, I helped rescue the hostages from the SDE compound.

EC: Was your life in danger?

JCN: Not really, although it was pretty scary at the time.  The Totem was at a temple several miles away, and there were only a few guards left at the compound.  And it turns out that other than all their crazy magical stuff, the SDE didn’t have much in the way of weapons – they were on patrol with AK-47s with just a few bullets each.

I’m still trying to figure out what the Dark Totem really was, maybe an energy-based alien trapped in a matrix of Element X, and the latent psychic energy from the terrorists was enough to free it.

EC: And what kind of problems do you solve now?

JCN: I hope less dangerous ones, although a little excitement is good once in a while.  Right now I’m working with a company that owns the old Forum Imperial mall and a group of Suquamish merchants and craftspeople, along with some Chinese Americans and an artists’ collective to revamp the mall into a cultural center.  They all really want the same thing, but they don’t always know how to communicate with each other.  I can’t talk a lot about specific details, but if we can iron out the kinks, it’ll make a lot of money for some people who really need it.  It’ll help revitalize a part of the city that’s currently suffering economic decline.  And it’ll be cool.

Since the alternative is that the mall where I saw all three Star Wars movies gets bulldozed and turned into warehouses or something, I think something cool is a much better alternative.

I’m also consulting with PrimaTech on a new aerosat design that will be able to help rescue workers in isolated areas and improve communications in the third world.

Before you ask, an aerosat is an ultra-high altitude dirigible with minimal payload that uses solar power and storage batteries.  Put one up, and it’s good for about a week to bounce data.  I’m helping them improve their batteries and power efficiency so they can stay up a little longer and have slightly more powerful engines so they’ll be more stable.

EC: All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  What do you do for fun?

JCN: Work is fun for me.  Otherwise I’d do something else.  But I try to find some time every day to relax.  I like live music.  Emerald City is great for that.  On Thursday nights, I play jazz and blues with some guys at Sachmo’s down on Byrne and Claremont sometimes.  It’s kind of an informal jam session.

I like to build new stuff and test it out.  Sometimes I’ll do some surfing or diving.

 I still love to travel and see new things, so even though Emerald City is my home again, I think I’ll move around a bit, at least to visit friends.

For now, I’m trying to get reacquainted with my home.  I’ve been away too long.

--EC.