app for ryan's gulch

[depersonalized]

☞ Character Information;
Character Name: Ethan Ross
Canon: Original character
Canon point: Seven months past the incident with Brian.
Setting:

Neurally Integrated Networking Electronic Therapy. Otherwise abbreviated to NINET.

But what, exactly, does this high sounding title convey?

In this world, neuroscience has gone leaps and bounds ahead of where it was ever thought it would be, up to the point of being able to tap the brain's full potential with computers, and build virtual realities from the potential thus given. The worlds can then be broadcast to anyone that has their brain tuned in through the use of specialized equipment. Every mind that is broadcast the world will appear there, as well as being able to interact with the other minds that have been tuned in.

To summarize, it is now possible to create a miniature, selective collective unconscious.

This level of technology is used solely for situations of the utmost importance-military combat training, help control robots where it would be too dangerous for humans, and other possibilities, including NINET.

NINET is utilizing this technology to treat mental health patients. When regular counselling, medicines, or any of the other options do not work, NINET is the resource.

The subject, known as a Case, is placed into a realm along with another person, a Doctor. The Doctors are specially trained in therapy, information technology, the workings of NINET, and have volunteered for the task at hand of treating these Cases. They work on a one-on-one basis, and will take as many sessions as it takes for the Case to be cured, or will continue to see the Case on a regular schedule in order to help them maintain their lives.

The range of those who use NINET is across the board, from would-be suicide victims to psychopathic criminals, and although it has not eliminated mental disorders in society, it has certainly given a beam of hope to those previously labelled "incurable" by medicine of the past.

Patients and Doctors:

The technology behind NINET certainly has its opponents, who wasted no time in revealing exactly where these realms drew their potential from-people who would have their brains merged between the conscious and subconscious by a process in which the barrier between them is torn down, leaving their "awake" to be a lucid dream state. It has been argued that such mental manipulation is inhumane and deceitful. The supporters point to signed legal agreements and videos that show those who become resources for the technology fully consenting to this while in their rational minds. The people are questioned many, many times throughout their training to ensure they still wish to undergo the process and say goodbye to the rational world.

These people are known by various names depending on what purpose of the technology they devote themselves to; those who devote themselves to NINET are known as Patients. Such ones are kept with a quiet, comfortable, safe life, as they can no longer go out alone into society, but they may go places with others.

The Patients gain total control over their minds. With that, it may manifest in the mental manipulation of code, hyper-awareness surpassing that of military spies, an absolutely stunning memory and capacity for knowledge, empathy and sympathy at their core. It has been remarked that it seems like a balance for the mental pain of no barriers.

A Doctor works with a Patient in order to create the optimal realm for the subject's session, which is the programming written by the Doctor in order to broadcast it into the equipment and have it conveyed into the Doctor and Case's minds. The balance in a session goes like this: Patients control the virtual realms with their brains (if they want to make a giant robot they make a giant robot), Doctors guide the person the session is for through it, and can request for Patients to make or destroy things. When the Doctor decides the session is complete, they ask the Patient to send a command to the system to release all three minds.

The system is not perhaps the healthiest for the Doctors, who spend long periods connected to the machinery, and subsequently their minds stay connected to the dream state the sessions require for an extensive length of time. A milder version of the Patients' mental instability is possible, and although it is light enough to not warrant concern, it still affects some Doctors, and they become unable to differentiate between dream and reality at times. The possibility of a complete surrender to NINET has been discussed-in effect turning a Doctor to a Patient-but such cases are rare enough that they can be passed off as flaws in the system, for no medicine is ever completely perfect. Those who do surrender are referred to as "Doctors", to acknowledge their former prowess but to distinguish them from regular Doctors.

Some Doctors become attached to certain Patients, finding it easier to communicate with them and create the desired realms, as well as the Patients latching on to certain Doctors and preferring to work with them. Allowances are made as often as possible, as the Doctors and Patients have both said that their minds work in tandem to ease into the realms, connecting on a deeper level in order to provide as much help for the Cases as is possible.

History:

Ethan Ross was born a normal, perfectly healthy son to a middle class family in Arizona, growing up a practical stereotypical statistic. Quiet life, son to two parents in their thirties, learning to ride a bike and write his letters in his neighborhood while growing up. Sheltered? A little, but his parents only wanted what was best for their son. They had the dream of him growing up to be a lawyer, a business owner, something where he would take charge of his dream and power through.

He certainly had the charisma to do so. And no one could call him shy. Starting from elementary school, his circle of friends and acquaintances was strengthened into a solid bunch. You could call him fairly popular. And he lazed through his assignments, floating along with decent grades. He could have tried harder, anyone who knew Ethan knew if he had his mind on something he’d try his best, but there was no motivation. No spark to make him turn his eyes from random games and hanging out to his future. He’d become something, and it didn’t matter what.

All that shifted during his junior year of high school.

A collection of supposedly “incurable” mental health patients reached headline status around the globe. The reason why? The relatively recent method of treatment known as NINET had selected them out to receive their version of therapy and would make the results public. Much emphasis was placed upon the cases’ consent and the personal nature of the treatment. When the results were collected in the end, the results were stunning. All medical jargon and stilted phrasing aside, the sheer fact could be brought down to two words: it worked. And everyone had shown improvement, some even going so far as to be declared cured. Claims of false documentation and lying from the cases sprung up immediately, but in legal trials, the research was shown to be nothing but honesty.

Ethan watched it all enraptured. NINET was certainly something he had heard of, but never bothered to look at closely. It seemed too out there, too touchy to be realistic. But here was proof that the concept was valid, reachable, and that it really was all it wanted to be. Something to actually help those that needed it instead of just saying so. The people who ran it, the Doctors…they were honest, in a way that the others in the medical industry weren’t. And they became his idols.

He became obsessed with researching them, digging into the background of NINET, and seeing what it took to join them. This path became his dream, and he threw himself into schoolwork, trying to graduate high so he’d have a better shot at getting accepted to further education and from then on pursuing his goal. When he finished high school, second in his class, Ethan finally told his parents what he planned to do with his life. They didn’t take it well, and instead of supporting him, grew furious that he would dare take such a “dangerous” job, one so “inhumane” and “abnormal”. They vowed not to pay for any more education beyond the year of college they had already done for, demanding he switch his goals to something more sensible. Ethan sat and heard it all, nodding when appropriate, letting them rage. When they had settled down enough, he quietly told them that if that was the case, he would find a way to pay for the rest of his education and move out as soon as he could, as they were not going to stop him from following this. Tears, threats of disownment, bribery, nothing affected him, for in the end he would repeat his desire.

True to his word, during the year he picked up two jobs and moved in with his best friend while taking his courses, and spent the next three years getting by on nothing while never losing his oddly intense drive. During that time he took interviews and relentlessly worked so that he would get admitted to the Doctors’ training program directly after he got his degree. It paid off in the form of an early acceptance letter that guaranteed his immediate transfer to one of the campuses, this one in California, three months after the end of his final college year.

Ethan moved to the campus in Monterey, unpacked his things, and descended into what was known among Doctors as “hell work”-four years of massively intense training that managed to combine medical school with information technology training, with an amount of hardware and engineering thrown in-Doctors were also expected to know how to repair small to moderate damage to the equipment. During this intense training, he fell majorly ill by pushing himself too far, but recovered within a month to catch up on the work he missed. Afterwards was the mandatory year of understudy as junior Doctor. During this time, Ethan met the Patient Cassandra Moriarty, and the two became friends. When the year ended and he received his certification (Ethan was 27 then), they began to work together.

In Ethan’s second year of working as a Doctor, him and “Andie”, as he had come to know her, encountered their most difficult Case, a man known in the records as solely “Brian”. Brian was a convicted murderer with bipolar disorder and psychosis, who had shown no reaction to regular therapy or medication. And as the pair would learn, he had no intention of letting NINET work, either. He refused to talk seriously to Ethan, leading into long sessions of no progress and testing the limits of Ethan’s patience. Finally, Ethan decided to create a realm based off of Brian’s delusions as a sort of last resort into attempting to help. He knew that this was risky, and should he be found out, some sort of punishment would have to happen. But seeing it work was too much of a lure for him, and so he went ahead and made the realm.

It was not a success, to put it mildly. After attempting to kill Ethan in the realm, Brian emerged unchanged by the experience, and Ethan sank into a deep depression from his failure and his anger at himself for even thinking such an idea would work. He considered completely resigning, as he could not forgive himself even after he had been forgiven by others. But he was forced back into working, even if it was simply paperwork until he could dull the memory long enough to have the long-delayed eureka moment that no, it wasn’t his fault that the cure was beyond him, that he was human and had limits.

He went back to his regular work the next day.

Over the course of the next six months, Ethan built himself back up to the confidence that he had lost after Brian, effectively moving past him but with a new goal: to remind himself that limits were there for very good reasons, and to never break them without cause.

Personality:

Dr. Ethan Ross is, at a glance, a silly yet incredibly honest man. The type who gets happy over exotic fruits available at lunchtime, excitable as a boy fresh out of high school, greeting everyone with a smile, the type of man you could sucker for the shirt off his back. And indeed, you might be able to in certain situations, yet Ethan would see nothing wrong with it. After all, if he can help anyone out, he'll do so gladly. Altruism is his cornerstone, the one thing it would be impossible to overlook if you knew him. From his career choice to how he immediately places the health of others above his own, Ethan is as much defined by his desire to help people as others are by their pride. This makes his commitment to his position as a Doctor unshakable, regardless of those who spread rumors against it-he's seen its effects on people, he knows it can help, and he knows how to inform people of its risks, so why deny them a service that could benefit their lives? The concept of not helping, of not being able to give himself entirely to the world is completely foreign to him.

This is both a strength and a weakness, as Ethan will prioritize others even when it would be wiser to take care of himself first. Others should eat even when he's working himself to the bone, others need to be comforted even when he's shaking with fear. They are what's important, and his own wellbeing can wait in the face of theirs. Inside, he is completely lost in regards to personal goals-anything selfish simply doesn't exist, and never has. He moved to California to pursue the goal of being a Doctor for the result of assisting others, his excessive self blame after the Brian case was because of his failure in the one thing that matters. His backbone in regards to himself is unused, and as long as he can keep denying that such is the case, it will stay there.

His drive is unmistakable; mixed with his curiosity, there's no stopping him in going after the information he seeks. That drive is why he survived his education, and his thirst for knowledge kept it interesting. Ethan has only had it sharpen with time, and he loves listening to stories people will tell or absorbing what knowledge they'll dish out. Having an open mind is practically a requirement to keep on his path, so he figures the best way is by letting in all the information he can get, and when a subject is interesting, he can latch onto it in order to fill up whatever gaps in his mind it may. In his crusade for knowledge, to be helpful, to be the most ideal Doctor he can be, he is still the same passionate man who came to the campus years ago and it shows no signs of slowing down soon. Though it does occasionally lead to some rash decisions, if the reward can make up for the risk, his line of thought is "why not?"

From his large amounts of interaction with the world and machines of NINET, Ethan has fallen into that gray area between Patient and Doctor. Not enough to decommission him, the episodes he can have leave him in a wake initiated lucid dream (abbreviated to WILD) state in which his dreams and reality blur together and he is much more receptive to ideas that would seem ludicrous outside of it. Ethan doesn't always make sense during these times, his moods shift around, and hallucinations are not uncommon. However, afterwards, he will apologize for his behavior to anyone around, and proceed like it's no big deal at all.

Abilities: Ethan has great skill in psychiatry, a decent grasp of information technology and programming, and very good social skills. He keeps his body in a healthy physical condition, and knows how to shoot a gun. He also knows quite a bit about electronics and how to repair them. He is also able to fall into hyperfocus to detach himself from reality in order to get a lot of work done in a shorter amount of time. Other than that, he's simply an average man. In Ryan's Gulch he'll try to apply these towards rebuilding a version of the machines that he used back home to aid him in attempting to resume his old job of therapist.