Character Profile: Bassam Hussaini

[Chrysalis]

Character Sheet

Malta, circa 824 A.S

Name: Bassam Hussaini

Known Aliases: Michael Henderson, Azhi-Dahaka, The Overseer

Origin: Planet Samarra

Occupation: Overseer of the Silver Sun

Height: 1.95m

Affiliation: The Commune

Rank: Overseer

Status: Infested

Born: February 21st, 789 A.S.

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||Background

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Bassam Hussaini was born in Samarra's sprawling Assyria megalopolis, to Barak Hussaini, a prominent member of the Warrior Caste and an unknown mother, presumably of low birth. As a mere toddler at no more than three years of age, he was sold into slavery by his own father, who peddled him off to Slavers in order to settle a gambling debt. He then spent most of his later years in indentured servitude, slaving off in inhumane conditions under the scorching Samarran sun.

During the prelude to the Samarran civil war, Hussaini was conscripted by the Zealot Order and brought to their Temple deep in the Eastern Wastes, where he was surgically implanted with an ancient nomad incubus, and set loose into the wastes, becoming a puppet operative of the Temple's interests. He subsequently met and joined a marauding band of desert Raiders, consisting of notably Jared Nomak, Adrian Thrax and Jaden Wexler, followed by about a three dozen of men.

He then spent several years raiding and pillaging among them, enriching himself and gaining trust with the men and their leaders. At the dawn of the first year of the civil war, Hussaini manipulated Nomak and his band of Raiders into infiltrating the Black Gold Fortress, Samarra's only proper spaceport, in an effort to secure a strong Temple loyalist stronghold, as was ordained by the psionic mindshare that controlled his every move. After the takeover of the Fortress, Hussaini spent the next few years ruling the same as part of a triumvirate consisting of himself, Nomak and Thrax. This continued until the unquenchable flames of rebellion engulfed the entire planet, the revolutionary forces destroying Temple holdings and killing off most if not all infested figures that until recently controlled Samarran society in the process.

Finally, a large force amassed before and besieged the Fortress, forcing Hussaini, Nomak and Thrax, as well as a few others to board several ships and launch into space in a state of panic. Relying on old astronomical data, they found the legendary jumphole that brought their people to the system in the first place, and with an extreme leap of faith, jumped through, finding themselves in the Edge Nebula on the other side, close to the Outcast homeworld...Malta.

The Raiders quickly aligned themselves with the Outcasts, and took upon themselves to distribute the Maltese orange deep into Sirius. Hussaini found himself again in a high position, part of the renewed triumvirate reminiscent of their lordly days on Samarra, but now at the helm of a growing pirate clan with an ever-expanding influence of interstellar proportions. Thus the Samarran Raiders were born and Hussaini found himself a niche as a proselytizer and supporter of the "spirit worship" both on Malta and in the Raider ranks, and further enabled for more efficient interpretation of the Spirits', or Annunaki's, as the Raiders called them - will. Business was growing, and the Raiders were becoming more politically involved within the sector, and for a time, it was good.

Though their fortune quickly changed. Due to their frequent and quite open support of the Slomon K'hara, the Raiders found themselves in the crosshairs of the Order. In a lighting-fast strike, the Order obliterated their base of operations in Texas, with most personnel onboard during the strike. Hussaini himself was away during the time, chasing a lead on a powerful artifact in the Omega worlds, and when he heard the grim news, he opted to go under and stay hidden, out of fear for his own life. Eventually though, he was identified as an infectee and captured by an independent research group, who held him captive in a hidden facility on Planet Deidus for a full year. However, in time he managed to break himself loose and find his way back to civilization. Shortly thereafter he reunited with a patrol of the Commune, who brought him up to speed with the developments and pointed him in the right direction. After some time he finally tracked Jared Nomak who welcomed him with open arms and formally reinitiated him into the Commune, where he currently serves as his right hand.

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||Personality and Goals

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Hussaini is a creature of paradoxes and great extremes, with a generally alien outlook, even by infectee standards. After consciously surrendering to the control of the incubus back on Samarra, the two creatures have merged and evolved in unison, ultimately becoming one indivisible organism. The personality that was born out of this symbiotic relationship, though, was one that by human standards could only be described as sociopathy, possibly driven to this direction by the trauma of being cut off from the mindshare on Samarra and as a necessity to adapt to the cutthroat niche he occupied.

Hussaini has a highly developed form of cognitive empathy, capable of observing and 'surgically' dissecting the words, body language, and emotions of people he interacts with, but at the same time, he isn't quite capable of feeling any of it himself, making him an expert manipulator and liar, through his complete lack of other types of empathy. He even appears to derive some pleasure from inciting emotional conflict and plotting at the detriment of others, as this is the only way he can have a glimpse into the minds of regular people and partake in the human experience in the smallest of ways. Though prone to brief obsessive fascinations towards select humans, he is generally disinterested and unable to develop anything resembling a meaningful relationship, except in the rarest of cases.

On the other hand, he is also similarly disconnected from the Sirian Nomad mindshare, possibly due to previous trauma, though he himself has theorized that the unstable wormhole he and his companions used to reached Sirius had somehow influenced or damaged his brain. He can make himself seem normal to other nomadic entities by voluntarily faking a connection, but if he were ever caught unawares, and observed by a nomad or another infectee, all that would be seen and felt would be an emptiness - the lights are on, but there's simply no one home.

People who've known him for longer periods of time undoubtedly notice his misanthropic outlook on the human race in general, and indeed he regards most of humans as lesser beings, unevolved and self-destructive. On the other hand, he regards himself as perfectly evolved and incapable of erring, and through this grandiose delusion he's ordained himself a goal - his Magnum Opus - a Great Work, to bring the rest of humanity to his own level, to reshape them in his own image - and ultimately recreate the perfect community he lost on Samarra. And in following the ideology of "The End Justifies the Means" in the truest sense, he doesn't care who or what he destroys on the way to his goals.

Recently, he's also developed a paranoid and emotionally unstable bend, which contrasts with his earlier callous cold and calculating true self, and though he still manages to keep his cool most of the time, unpredictable mood swings tend to get the better of him more and more often.

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||Notable Links Involving the Character

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Communique between Nomak and Hussaini, Notice of Reappearance
Communique with President Martelli of the National Council
Communique with Estefania Casta of the Ghosts of Razgriz
Following the Sky-Wolf
Ash-Born's Ascension(Incomplete)
The Beginning and the End
Of Beasts and Men(Incomplete)
The Memory Shard - Personal Logs