Doug Ramsey

Doug Ramsey, formerly a student at Xavier's, currently works as the entirety of the Snow Valley Memorial Center's IT department. His mutant powers are based around pattern recognition. In addition to granting him comprehension of both the written and spoken word of every language ever created by human beings (and in one notable exception, a language that had not been invented yet), he can also crack codes and interpret body language.

Details

Character Journal: x_cypher

Real Name: Douglas Aaron Ramsey

Codename: Cypher

Aliases: Lexicon, Aron Hugaldrson, Nick Wood

First Appearance: August 25, 2004

Date of Birth: May 7, 1987

Place of Birth: Denver, Colorado

Citizenship: American

Relatives: John Ramsey (father), Mary Ramsey (mother), Katie and Jennifer Ramsey (younger sisters)

Education: Graduate of Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, class of 2005. Currently pursuing correspondence college courses.

Relationship Status: Once again dating Marie-Ange Colbert

Occupation: Doug is the sole member of the IT department for Snow Valley Memorial Center.

Team Affiliation: X-Force

Biography

Childhood

Doug is the eldest of three children born to a typical Denver middle-class family. Whilst his bookish habits and slightly smaller stature made him a target for bullying in school, for the most part his childhood and early adolescence were happy. He was part of the Alison Blaire fan club, enjoyed his computer games and Magic: The Gathering tournaments and was otherwise a normal, if slightly geeky, teenager.

The difficulty began when, as part of a normal physical, blood tests were taken that revealed Doug was a mutant. He appeared to have no active power, however, and it was felt there was no need for special training or assistance. Then the results were somehow leaked to the public. Doug's family began to be harassed by the anti-mutant group, Friends of Humanity, who had a presence in their city. Reluctantly, in order to protect his family, Doug agreed to leave home and attend Xavier's, arriving there in August 2004.

Life At The Mansion

Despite his natural shyness, Doug settled in quickly at the mansion. After several months he discovered his power was to understand any language, and after a minor freakout and an incident at the local mall where he was assaulted by FOH sympathisers, he adapted quickly to the idea. He became firm friends with Jamie Madrox, with whom he had much in common, as well as Everett Thomas, Kitty Pryde and Marie-Ange Colbert. He also became an older brother figure to Artie Maddicks and later, Miles Blaire. He also had the habit of falling for girls who were, inevitably, in love with someone else, thus dooming himself to disappointment; first with Paige Guthrie and then later with Marie D'Ancato.

It was this propensity to fall in love quickly that resulted in the love potion debacle. Driven to the point of contemplating suicide in the aftermath, it was Jamie and Marie-Ange who brought him through; it was this act of friendship that led to him and Marie-Ange later developing a relationship. In Asgard, Doug came into his own as a bard, his language ability and his natural singing talent allowing him to blend well with the heroic culture. With Amanda Sefton providing the power, it was Doug who cast the teleportation spell that allowed them to return home.

Doug continued to show in various small ways that there was more to him than the bookish nerd. But when his pattern-recognition abilities translated a series of Marie-Ange's visions and dreams as an attack against Alison Blaire which would result in Rahne Sinclair's death, he made plans of his own to prevent it. In the aftermath of his being shot and nearly killed, Doug was put on punishment training by Scott Summers. He was still recovering when the Halloween party was crashed by a demon, his language skills enabling to find out what the demon wanted. He also used his powers for the first time to project body language, providing a commanding presence to clear bystanders out of harm's way. His hacking and coding skills, combined with Forge and Kitty's talents were also invaluable in repairing Haroun's cyberware and in the Las Vegas breakin.

These various incidents, plus his girlfriend becoming a trainee, prompted Doug to recant his earlier declarations he would never be an X-Man and he joined the team under the trainee name of "Lexicon". He found he was more useful than he had anticipated, although he tended to be relegated to safer, more background tasks, something that he began to chafe against as 2005 ended.

X-Force and the Snow Valley Center

2006 began as a series of losses for Doug. After assisting Pete Wisdom in retrieving his sister, Doug and Marie-Ange returned to the school, only to have a spectacular public argument as a result of a journal thread with Doug's oft-times rival, Forge. It was clear things were not well with the couple - Marie-Ange was frustrated by Doug's passive nature, and Doug resented her pushing him so much. They broke up and his intervention in the Quentin Quire incident only widened the rift between himself and Marie-Ange. The departure of Jamie and Kitty to California was another loss, and another reason to not remain at the school: shortly after Doug received and accepted an offer to become the new Snow Valley Memorial Research Center's IT department and a member of the shadowy strike force team, X-Force.

Doug's new life was challenging, but more rewarding than his life at the school. Depsite having to work with Remy LeBeau, against whom he still held something of a grudge, he was less sheltered than he had been with the X-Men, and his talents used to their utmost, beyond computer hacking and code-breaking, and he began combat training with Pete. He became more self-confident, and began dating again, although his relationship with the newly-returned Marie was brief. Marie-Ange's acceptance of a position at Snow Valley created tension, but with the support of their mutual friend Amanda Sefton, he managed to begin creating a friendship and working relationship with her. It was only when Marie-Ange began dating Garrison Kane that Doug realised he was still in fact in love with her, something Amanda realised during one of their regular curry nights. Following the stress of Tennessee and China (where he was crucial in communicating with Xorn) and meeting Marie-Ange's new beau, he and Amanda went drinking, after which they ended up sleeping together. By mutual agreement, they decided to remain friends, however, since both of them were in love with other people.

In a twist straight out of a soap opera, after Forge determined that Doug still had feelings for Marie-Ange, and still feeling somewhat responsible for their initial breakup, the mutant inventor took Marie-Ange out on several dates in a ploy designed to make Doug admit that his feelings for Marie-Ange had not gone away. Despite the convolutedness of it all, the plot worked, and Doug and Marie-Ange began dating again.

2007 has been an eventful year for Doug thus far, between narrowly escaping a sticky situation in Africa, dealing with prehistoric bugs in the brownstone, death worms, and being turned into a woman, and Belladonna Boudreaux-LeBeau's machinations and their effects on Amanda and Marie-Ange. With each mission, though, Doug's confidence that he is in the right place to do what needs to be done has grown, and he has become more comfortable with his role in X-Force.

Physical Characteristics

Height: 5'9"

Weight: 170 lbs.

Eyes: blue

Hair: blond

Other Features: Doug's left ear is pierced, and he wears a small silver or gold stud in it. He has one notable scar, on his chest right above his heart from the events in Asgard.

Powers

Doug's mutant ability is best described as an extremely advanced form of pattern recognition. The main focus of this ability is language; Doug can reconstruct an entire spoken or written language with only a few words as a sample. By identifying linguistic context, Doug's brain can decipher the meta-context behind a language's structure and use that as a sort of "universal translator" with the end result being the ability to speak fluently in any language he is exposed to. The more familiar he is with a language, or the larger a base sample he has to work from, the more natural his speech becomes, often to the point of speaking with an impeccable regional accent.

Doug's power also applies to interpretation of unspoken communication forms such as Braille, Morse code, and sign language. Through experience, he has also learned to apply his power to interpret subconscious body language from people, gaining the ability to accurately judge a person's intentions or emotional state from unconscious physical cues. With training, he has adapted this facet of his power to self-defense, using it to predict an assailant's strike fractions of a second before it is thrown.

Doug's pattern recognition also applies to the intuitive logic of computer programming "languages" and mathematical algorithms used in cryptography. He has shown an ability to break highly complex cryptographic encoding without the use of a supercomputer, and can read some forms of encoded messages as easily as plain text.

Equipment

Doug always has his PDA with him.

Trivia

Doug enjoys what has been termed as "waging savage war on his taste buds", that is, he has an obsession with spicy food. He and Amanda frequently go for curry nights after work.

He, Jamie Madrox, and Guido Carosella knew each other previously from an Alison Blaire fan site.

He was one of the lead singers for the student band People Covered In Fish.

Plots

2004

Asgard

Love Potion Number Nine

One To The Chest

Red X Mission: Stonewall

Remy's Eleven

Repodemon

Skippy (plot)

2005

Mutants and Molotovs

Reavers (plot)

The Enemy Within

Upgrade

2006

Ghost of a Chance

Masque (plot)

X-Men Mission: The Perfect Nanny

Operation: Opening Salvo

Operation: Don't Leave Me With The Germans

The Rictor Effect

Race Around The World

Operation: Body Snatchers

Libri Veritatum

Operation: Flesh Mechanic

Dogs of War

Operation: Xorn

2007

Operation: Tower of Babble

Operation: Cruel Country

This Savage Land

Remix

Voodoo Child

Operation: Broken Ground

The Winding Way

New Orleans Is Sinking

Meta

Player: Twiller

E-mail:

AIM: tknophobia

Player Icon Base: Ryan Phillipe

Meta Trivia

Doug Ramsey basically began as the X-Project version of his player, as he was nervous that he wouldn't be any good at this whole LJ RPG thing.