BB

Name

Archetype
(Short Blurb)
Player	Your_Handle
Metatype	(Metatype Here)
Street Cred	0
Notoriety	0
Public Awareness	0
Titles and Awards	0
D.O.B.	November 9th 2056
Folder	https://drive.google.com/open?id=1d1FLaKxhLBj2s8pUNllCOty_TqppHv-e
Priority	Metatype - X Attributes - X Magic/Resonance - X Skills - X Resources - X

Character Information

Background

The Talmud recounts a story where in the 1st century BCE "[Rabbi] Hillel, when asked by a prospective convert to Judaism to teach him the whole Torah [Jewish Bible] while he stood on one leg, said: “That which is hateful unto you do not do to your neighbor. This is the whole of the Torah, The rest is commentary. Go forth and study.” [1]

For Ben Blackman this central guidence from his schooling in childhood has led him to no end of trouble.

• ISRAEL*

From a young age Ben was unnaturally successful as a silver tongue agent of chaos... conning, cajoling and wheedling all of the residents of Moshav Nahalal in Northern Israel where he was born. A collective farm, Nahalal, was established by socialists in 1921 and there Ben was raised firmly in collectivist teaching with secular Judeo ethics... and something else.

He cannot remember when it first started, but throughout his happy childhood he always felt the internal pull of his conscience like a tidal force. Whenever he would near conflict, of his making or of others, he would feel the pull to a path of reason or distraction or barganing ... anything except direct conflict. Eventually as he Awakened he learned to differentiate the internal pull from his actual conscience... he came to believe the pull was guidence from YWVH and this led him to study Qabbalism at a local Yashiva in high school.

Working on the Moshav (selling farm products by vid) and studying his emerging magic could have gone on forever, but ultimately was interrupted by the compulsary military service requirement. By this time Ben understood his magic enough to recognize he mystically was unsuited to be a soldier and requested a consciencious diversion so he could perform his national service not in uniform. With his impressive powers of persuasion it was not difficult to convince the various authorities that this was the right move... and that success brought him to the attention of Aviva Goldbloom and the Israel Security Agency (aka "Shin Bet" or "SB").

At the time Aviva was the Director of Research Study Group #4 at the SB. This unit was tasked with providing magical support services to the various departments of the SB and Ben's abilities and skills were picture perfect for one of her debreifing/interrogation teams. Ben was scooped up for what he thought would be his 3 year term.

BB, as Ben was nicknamed in the agency, became a star interrogator and debriefer. He refined and perfected skills conning, cajoling and wheedling 5 days a week on the hardest criminals, dedicated operatives and the most committed zelots. With time and patience he drew out a treasure trove of actionable intelligence.

And then he discovered the inevitable political corruption that seems as endemic in the 6th world as magic... and those old values from the collective, from the torah, from the Yeshiva and from that tidal pull of rightness that so perfectly meshed with his own sense of right and wrong led him to leak to a Haaretz journalist... and everything went to hell.

At his core Ben is an optimist. Sheltered, he believed that right actions could not but be rewarded. The journalist he picked, Yair Amsalam, did not run the story, instead his boss killed the story and called his friends in government aligned with the politician in question to let them know they were leaking.

Aviva Goldbloom ran a 5 star mole hunt through her units. She put her top team on the interviews and BB spent 6 weeks searching for himself. He might have gotten away with it, but finally someone called out the legbreakers and had at Yair. What was left of Yair eventually gave up enough informaton that led to BB.

Considering the stature of the politician BB was surprised that instead of a trip to the desert and 9mm poisoning, he was treated to a secret military intelligence court. A quick trial later (he was after all truly guilty) BB was sentenced to 12 years term for leaking classified information.

Prison was not hard for someone with BB's skills. He stayed out of trouble, did the right people favors, and was just settling in when the Mossad finally convinced the powers that be to lend BB out for some suicide squad type missions.

What followed was 5 hard years of Bolivian Fire Drills, Blue Books, Sinless Winners and Tech Supports (ooc: long and short cons from "Cutting Aces") with the hardest of the Israeli security serrvices hardmen. Ridden as a traitor, since no one knew what he was convicted of and he wasn't sharing, BB was used as a disposable team member, Each con riskier than the last with only his fast talking between him and a very painful end. Eventually his luck ran out on a cabin cruiser off the coast of Cypress where he spent a week that felt like a year being tortured and interrogated by a talented team of shadowrunners hired to find out who he worked for.

Since the Mossad has a reputation to keep (no one tortures or kills their agents except the Mossad) he was ultimately extracted with maximum prejudice to his captors. BB spent the next 3 months in a coma and the next year in physical and mental therapy.

Back in the hands of civilians BB wisely used all of his skills to get to and to work out an arrangement with Aviva Goldbloom who had thought him in prison all these years. At this point Aviva had moved up in the SB (in no small part due to BB's skills when she worked for him and in no small part of BB using them on her right then) and she used her influence to broker an agreement. Still largely crippled, BB would make himself scarce. get the hell out of Israel and lay low somewhere. Mossad reserved the right to call him up for work at some future point if they needed him or to putting out his lights if he ever talked again. Indeed, Meyer Sandt, the Mossad controller who made the final call, couldn't think of one good reason he shouldn't have BB buried but it seemed a workable plan when BB negiotiated it.

• SEATTLE*

BB has spent the last 5 years laying low in the Seattle Sprawl. With a criminal SIN and a well earned dislike of corporate and national intelligence agencies he has done his best to build a life on the margins. He started, and runs, a pirate shadow site (called "Unequal") where everyone from the tin foil hat crowd to the Men in Black conspiritors like to virtually gather to get fresh dirt and unfliltered news on what is going on in the Seattle sprawl. The site is maintained with a guerrilla combination of site advertising, bounties for information and magical advertising during town caller style news performances put out on the streets of low security districts.

These street shows feature 20 foot tall Trid Phantasm spectacles presenting some of the most juicy bits from the "Unequal" site. They advertise and promote the site and promote local businesses who claim they have no official relationship with the "Unequal" or its shadow site.

BB himself stays deeply under wraps. Even in private he is almost always sustaining both Improved Invisibility and the False Impression spell to mask his astral signature. He almost always uses an Illusion to interact with anyone. This is one of the secrets of how the "Unequal" seems to have an army of reporters of all metatypes... they are all invented characters created by BB to keep him off the radar.

Through the staff at the "Unequal" he has contacts throughout the sprawl. Using Trid Phantasm he will make video or voice calls in the image and/or the voice of the reporter or even will "meet" with contacts. Often at "in person" meetings he will have eloheim (Qabbalic spirits) invest some object nearby so as to listen in on a conversation through his spirit so he may be safely far away even if he is still in line of site.

He is pleased with the life he has built and the comfort of regular script... particularly because now he makes money on influencing the large amoral players in the Seattle area (and sometimes further) by outing their schemes or shining a light on their corruption. And he is pleased because at heart he is an idealist in a dark and unpleasant world where the powerful show no restraint in pursuit of their goals... and he feels his platform will allow him to make a difference.

On top of the "Unequal" site he also has recently begun freelancing as a Runner to come up with "Real Scoops for the SINless" an investigative show he is trying to launch on his platform.

Goals

A. To get healthy. 6 years later he is still very damaged from his torture (Infrm). Since he is laying low he can't go to public clinics so he is trying to find his answers in the shadows. B. Tikkun Olam[2]. Healing the world by combating the mighty with publicity. If you have a fire you call the fire department, if you have a crime the police... but if the world is on fire there is no one to call... you must channel the amoral powers to thwart each other... play evil forces off of each other for the good of the people... and shine a light on them as the people's opinion still matters. C. Meet a nice person at Temple and maybe have a family.

Footnotes

[1] https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/hillel/

[2] https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/tikkun-olam-repairing-the-world/

Affiliations

Contacts

• John Doe - Connection 1, Loyalty 6 - Fixer (Networking)
• Jane Doe - Connection 6, Loyalty 1 - Weapons Smuggler (Swag)
• Template:Contact - Connection 0, Loyalty 0 - Street Doc