Dr. Julian Bashir (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
licencetoheal) wrote2025-12-26 07:04 pm
licencetoheal) wrote2025-12-26 07:04 pm
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PLAYER INFO
Name: Throck
Preferred Contact:![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
throckmorton
Age: 30+
Invite Link: Invited by Sam
CHARACTER INFO
Character Name: Julian Bashir
Canon: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Age: 32
If Under 16, why is this character a good thematic fit for Somnia?: N/A
Canon Point: 5X15 "By Inferno's Light" when he's still in the internment camp
Wiki Link(s): Here
SOMNIA-SPECIFIC QUESTIONS
1. Dreams are how Sleep chooses you. What might draw your character into Somnia— a wound, a wish, a weakness? Would they follow the dream, or run from it?
Maybe a bit of a wound and a weakness, geared around his secret of being genetically engineered, which hasn't been revealed at his canon point.
Julian tends towards being lonely and isolated, largely because his parents set him up to be by having him illegally genetically engineered as a child to "correct" that fact he was developmentally behind (a very ugly thing.) Augments are considered frightening and dangerous in Federation society due to them starting genocidal wars in the past. Were people to discover his Augmented status he'd be at risk of losing his Starfleet commission and ability to practice medicine. (At a later canon point, his secret is discovered and the only reason he doesn't suffer this is that his father takes a plea deal to go to prison.)
But worse than anything else, his parents set him up to feel like accomplishment is the only thing that makes you worthy of love. They couldn't love him as a disabled child and cheerfully flaunted all his accomplishments as a gifted one.
I'd like to have it be that his insecurities about his genetically augmented status and the loneliness and isolation it has set him up for are what the dream focuses on and uses to draw him in. Something that confronts the wound his parents gave him, and the way he tends to be a little needy when it comes to winning over others.
He's run from it because it's not something he really wants to confront. He's been hiding it his whole life.
He's also currently struggling with a clash of his past idealism and the heart aches and hardships of war. Over time, he's seen more and more death due to the war. He started the series a bright-eyed, fresh-faced med school graduate, and is now weighed down by the heavy devastation that comes with so much conflict and death. He's saved many people but also felt quite a few slip through his fingers.
It doesn't mean he's doomed to cynicism, just that there's inner conflict, and that it'll be a fight to retain some of that hope and idealism. He's right on the cusp of the canonpoint where he emotionally pushes others away a little self-protectively; his recent time in the internment camp was a turning point for this. Emotional distance won't let him survive in Somnia, though, so he'll have to work hard at connection.
2. Somnia is a slow unraveling—of worlds, and of selves. How does your character respond to fear, transformation, and losing control? Do they fight, adapt, collapse?
Bashir is a fighter but he's definitely one that takes on damage when he does it. Over time, the ongoing conflict and war has been wearing him down making him a bit more frayed and world-weary. He used to be almost naive, due to growing in a near-utopian society where everyone's needs are taken care of, and humanity has tried to "evolve" past its pettiness. But he's seen the truth that the world is uglier than he once thought - even the Federation has its flaws and ideologues.
He would fight to survive in the new environment and exert whatever control he can over it - especially since providing some doctoring is a way of responding to any darkness around the group - but he'd definitely struggle to avoid wearing down over time in a horror setting. He'd have to find some new ways of coping, especially since the body horror aspect of transforming would leave him feeling more freakish than usual, like the internal has been dragged out for all to see.
But no matter how worn down he got, he'd still fight, even if his way of "fighting" is more often offering compassion and care. Trapped in a Dominion prison camp, he and several others had successfully figured out how to open a wall panel so one of them could climb inside and rewire things to send an SOS message out. Even as a bedraggled POW, kidnapped from his bed at a medical conference, he refused to give up.
And he also refused to stop doctoring, trying as best as he could to offer what little medical care he could to some of his fellow captives in the Dominion prison camp.
And as much as he hates it, having taken an oath to help others, he's willing to pick up a phaser and kill if it's necessary.
3. Connection is the only constant. What kind of bonds does your character form— fast and burning, slow and wary, deep and desperate? How might that shape their time in this world?
Julian grows on people slowly.
Like a fungus.
It takes a while for them to warm up to him, because he can come off arrogant, miss social cues, and be a little glib and sarcastic.
He does have a good heart though, and his willingness to help others as a doctor and the things he's willing to risk, are often enough to make others fond of him. People also admire a lot of his principle, with his best friend Miles O'Brien telling someone about his sense of honor and integrity. In the show he goes from a few crewmates thinking he's slightly annoying to becoming one one of their most trusted friends, with bonds tested by the challenges of wartime. In fact, a shapeshifting Changeling doppleganger chooses to replace Julian to sabotage the Federation and their allies, because they trust him unquestioningly. The Changeling almost provokes an explosion on a nearby sun powerful enough to destroy the fleets and nearby planet of Bajor before they're stopped.
I think he'll form relationships that are a little slow and awkward until he does something concrete to win people over. The fact his profession lends itself towards showing care for others can sometimes make his sincerity easier to accept, even for the cynical. A former spy on the station, Garak, quickly comes to realize Julian is a steadfast and genuine friend, if slightly naive by his own Cardassian standards.
4. What are two major forces in your character’s personality that are often in conflict? (Ex: logic vs emotion, power vs guilt, obedience vs rage, etc.)
I think there are two pairs he really struggles with equally: empathy vs. ego, and idealism vs. deception.
Empathy vs. ego: he genuinely wants to help others, and genuinely cares, but also wants to be seen helping. He sometimes humble-brags and talks up his accomplishments. It's largely to compensate for the fact he was raised in a away where he felt he was only valued for intelligence and accomplishments, so he struggles to find more natural ways to connect with others. Instead, he thinks he has to impress them to form some kind of connection, so he inflates himself a bit.
In truth he doesn't actually think that highly of himself, he's just hoping others see him in a good light. Even moments where he thinks he's a god among men as a doctor can be quickly deflated by a hard setback.
The show also shows his desire to help and his intelligence can blind him to the fact that his entire tack can be flawed. In one episode he tries to help a species facing a disease that was given to them due to their rebellion against the Big Bad Empire on the show. The disease has slowly killed them for generations, infecting each new generation as they're born.
After an attempt to cure leads to several deaths, due to the setback and the heart ache over hastening their deaths, Julian criticizes his own arrogance for thinking he could solve the problem in a week and he insists that the plague must have no cure. But his friend Jadzia points out what's really arrogant is thinking that if he wasn't smart enough to solve it instantly that no one ever can. It makes Julian settle down his ego and request from Starfleet to stay on the planet longer to work on the disease. In the end, after a much longer time working on it, he can't find a cure, but finds a vaccine so pregnant mothers can give birth to children immune from the plague, allowing further generations a better future.
Finding that healthy space of "flawed but good," of threading a needle between trying to help but accepting he's not a god and that his help may be imperfect, has been a thing he's had to struggle and grow before he can do it gracefully.
Idealism vs. deception: He values Starfleet's idealistic principles - including honesty - but has been living a lie his whole life. And it's been an active lie as he's hidden his genetic status in many places it should've been disclosed. I think this is part of why he has an obsession with spies and spy media, since they so often involve double lives, but usually in the service of doing good and fighting someone trying to blow up the planet with a moon laser.
It's a positive spin on someone living a double life, instead of just lying about doing something that's illegal.
He doesn't like the lie, he doesn't like that his principles tell him to be honest and forthright. But if he tells the truth, he could lose everything, and have both his commission and even being a doctor taken away from him, something he tacitly know is also a bad thing since he has the capacity to genuinely help others. He could probably survive leaving his Starfleet commission but losing his ability to practice medicine would destroy him.
VESSEL SELECTION
Which Vessel Type are you choosing: Token or Offering? Offering
Why does this Vessel type feel appropriate for your character? I'd like to go with something where Julian has to deal with being changed, and externalizing the way he feels unnatural due to being genetically engineered.
Choose one OR list three subclass options within your chosen Vessel type that you think would suit them: Kimera. It feels appropriate that he'd basically turn into a freak of nature. "Unnatural," "freak," and "monster" are words he uses when describing himself in canon, when the truth about his genetic engineering comes out. Now it'll be visible externally. He's from the time before it got exposed so he doesn't know he won't get kicked from Starfleet, but even in the show after he's allowed to stay, he sometimes feels out of place
Samples: here
here
here
(Hopefully that's enough, I got sucked into my yearly required overnight rotation mid-tdm.)
Name: Throck
Preferred Contact:
Age: 30+
Invite Link: Invited by Sam
CHARACTER INFO
Character Name: Julian Bashir
Canon: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Age: 32
If Under 16, why is this character a good thematic fit for Somnia?: N/A
Canon Point: 5X15 "By Inferno's Light" when he's still in the internment camp
Wiki Link(s): Here
SOMNIA-SPECIFIC QUESTIONS
1. Dreams are how Sleep chooses you. What might draw your character into Somnia— a wound, a wish, a weakness? Would they follow the dream, or run from it?
Maybe a bit of a wound and a weakness, geared around his secret of being genetically engineered, which hasn't been revealed at his canon point.
Julian tends towards being lonely and isolated, largely because his parents set him up to be by having him illegally genetically engineered as a child to "correct" that fact he was developmentally behind (a very ugly thing.) Augments are considered frightening and dangerous in Federation society due to them starting genocidal wars in the past. Were people to discover his Augmented status he'd be at risk of losing his Starfleet commission and ability to practice medicine. (At a later canon point, his secret is discovered and the only reason he doesn't suffer this is that his father takes a plea deal to go to prison.)
But worse than anything else, his parents set him up to feel like accomplishment is the only thing that makes you worthy of love. They couldn't love him as a disabled child and cheerfully flaunted all his accomplishments as a gifted one.
I'd like to have it be that his insecurities about his genetically augmented status and the loneliness and isolation it has set him up for are what the dream focuses on and uses to draw him in. Something that confronts the wound his parents gave him, and the way he tends to be a little needy when it comes to winning over others.
He's run from it because it's not something he really wants to confront. He's been hiding it his whole life.
He's also currently struggling with a clash of his past idealism and the heart aches and hardships of war. Over time, he's seen more and more death due to the war. He started the series a bright-eyed, fresh-faced med school graduate, and is now weighed down by the heavy devastation that comes with so much conflict and death. He's saved many people but also felt quite a few slip through his fingers.
It doesn't mean he's doomed to cynicism, just that there's inner conflict, and that it'll be a fight to retain some of that hope and idealism. He's right on the cusp of the canonpoint where he emotionally pushes others away a little self-protectively; his recent time in the internment camp was a turning point for this. Emotional distance won't let him survive in Somnia, though, so he'll have to work hard at connection.
2. Somnia is a slow unraveling—of worlds, and of selves. How does your character respond to fear, transformation, and losing control? Do they fight, adapt, collapse?
Bashir is a fighter but he's definitely one that takes on damage when he does it. Over time, the ongoing conflict and war has been wearing him down making him a bit more frayed and world-weary. He used to be almost naive, due to growing in a near-utopian society where everyone's needs are taken care of, and humanity has tried to "evolve" past its pettiness. But he's seen the truth that the world is uglier than he once thought - even the Federation has its flaws and ideologues.
He would fight to survive in the new environment and exert whatever control he can over it - especially since providing some doctoring is a way of responding to any darkness around the group - but he'd definitely struggle to avoid wearing down over time in a horror setting. He'd have to find some new ways of coping, especially since the body horror aspect of transforming would leave him feeling more freakish than usual, like the internal has been dragged out for all to see.
But no matter how worn down he got, he'd still fight, even if his way of "fighting" is more often offering compassion and care. Trapped in a Dominion prison camp, he and several others had successfully figured out how to open a wall panel so one of them could climb inside and rewire things to send an SOS message out. Even as a bedraggled POW, kidnapped from his bed at a medical conference, he refused to give up.
And he also refused to stop doctoring, trying as best as he could to offer what little medical care he could to some of his fellow captives in the Dominion prison camp.
And as much as he hates it, having taken an oath to help others, he's willing to pick up a phaser and kill if it's necessary.
3. Connection is the only constant. What kind of bonds does your character form— fast and burning, slow and wary, deep and desperate? How might that shape their time in this world?
Julian grows on people slowly.
Like a fungus.
It takes a while for them to warm up to him, because he can come off arrogant, miss social cues, and be a little glib and sarcastic.
He does have a good heart though, and his willingness to help others as a doctor and the things he's willing to risk, are often enough to make others fond of him. People also admire a lot of his principle, with his best friend Miles O'Brien telling someone about his sense of honor and integrity. In the show he goes from a few crewmates thinking he's slightly annoying to becoming one one of their most trusted friends, with bonds tested by the challenges of wartime. In fact, a shapeshifting Changeling doppleganger chooses to replace Julian to sabotage the Federation and their allies, because they trust him unquestioningly. The Changeling almost provokes an explosion on a nearby sun powerful enough to destroy the fleets and nearby planet of Bajor before they're stopped.
I think he'll form relationships that are a little slow and awkward until he does something concrete to win people over. The fact his profession lends itself towards showing care for others can sometimes make his sincerity easier to accept, even for the cynical. A former spy on the station, Garak, quickly comes to realize Julian is a steadfast and genuine friend, if slightly naive by his own Cardassian standards.
4. What are two major forces in your character’s personality that are often in conflict? (Ex: logic vs emotion, power vs guilt, obedience vs rage, etc.)
I think there are two pairs he really struggles with equally: empathy vs. ego, and idealism vs. deception.
Empathy vs. ego: he genuinely wants to help others, and genuinely cares, but also wants to be seen helping. He sometimes humble-brags and talks up his accomplishments. It's largely to compensate for the fact he was raised in a away where he felt he was only valued for intelligence and accomplishments, so he struggles to find more natural ways to connect with others. Instead, he thinks he has to impress them to form some kind of connection, so he inflates himself a bit.
In truth he doesn't actually think that highly of himself, he's just hoping others see him in a good light. Even moments where he thinks he's a god among men as a doctor can be quickly deflated by a hard setback.
The show also shows his desire to help and his intelligence can blind him to the fact that his entire tack can be flawed. In one episode he tries to help a species facing a disease that was given to them due to their rebellion against the Big Bad Empire on the show. The disease has slowly killed them for generations, infecting each new generation as they're born.
After an attempt to cure leads to several deaths, due to the setback and the heart ache over hastening their deaths, Julian criticizes his own arrogance for thinking he could solve the problem in a week and he insists that the plague must have no cure. But his friend Jadzia points out what's really arrogant is thinking that if he wasn't smart enough to solve it instantly that no one ever can. It makes Julian settle down his ego and request from Starfleet to stay on the planet longer to work on the disease. In the end, after a much longer time working on it, he can't find a cure, but finds a vaccine so pregnant mothers can give birth to children immune from the plague, allowing further generations a better future.
Finding that healthy space of "flawed but good," of threading a needle between trying to help but accepting he's not a god and that his help may be imperfect, has been a thing he's had to struggle and grow before he can do it gracefully.
Idealism vs. deception: He values Starfleet's idealistic principles - including honesty - but has been living a lie his whole life. And it's been an active lie as he's hidden his genetic status in many places it should've been disclosed. I think this is part of why he has an obsession with spies and spy media, since they so often involve double lives, but usually in the service of doing good and fighting someone trying to blow up the planet with a moon laser.
It's a positive spin on someone living a double life, instead of just lying about doing something that's illegal.
He doesn't like the lie, he doesn't like that his principles tell him to be honest and forthright. But if he tells the truth, he could lose everything, and have both his commission and even being a doctor taken away from him, something he tacitly know is also a bad thing since he has the capacity to genuinely help others. He could probably survive leaving his Starfleet commission but losing his ability to practice medicine would destroy him.
VESSEL SELECTION
Which Vessel Type are you choosing: Token or Offering? Offering
Why does this Vessel type feel appropriate for your character? I'd like to go with something where Julian has to deal with being changed, and externalizing the way he feels unnatural due to being genetically engineered.
Choose one OR list three subclass options within your chosen Vessel type that you think would suit them: Kimera. It feels appropriate that he'd basically turn into a freak of nature. "Unnatural," "freak," and "monster" are words he uses when describing himself in canon, when the truth about his genetic engineering comes out. Now it'll be visible externally. He's from the time before it got exposed so he doesn't know he won't get kicked from Starfleet, but even in the show after he's allowed to stay, he sometimes feels out of place
Samples: here
here
here
(Hopefully that's enough, I got sucked into my yearly required overnight rotation mid-tdm.)