Violet Sedan Chair

Player Information:
Name: Artell
Age: 26
Contact: artell
Game Cast: N/A

Character Information:
Name: Walter Bishop
Canon: Fringe
Canon Point: Season 3, episode 19 ("Lysergic Acid Diethylamide") (thus before the Machine is activated by Walternate. Precise moment is when Walter falls and 'dies' in the LSD mindscape)
Age: 66
Reference: Wikipedia | Fringepedia

Setting: (revised 2013-08-13 00:27)

Fringe is a science fiction television show set in a modern day world that is for all intents and purposes the same as our own. The main characters of the show are agents and consultants employed by the FBI, who investigate strange occurrences that border on the paranormal but always end up having a scientific explanation.

It is not by any means hard science fiction, though - the scope of what science and technology can do is simply far beyond the means available to us in the real world. The story of Fringe is not driven by rigorous science as much as its characters and the dilemmas they face, with the science being subservient to the story.

Fringe’s primary themes are:

- The ethics of scientific research - what happens when advanced technology falls into malevolent hands? How far can you go with your experiments, even if it’s for the right reasons?

- The conflict between the individual good and the good of the greater community - what is justified and what is not?

- The meaning of fate and choice, of contingency: what would happen if you chose differently? Do truly have free will, and does that will guide you or is the universe simply random?

The main narrative of the show is a conflict between two different, parallel universes. One of these universes can be, for our purposes, called “our universe”. While it has some distinct differences from the world we (us, the show’s writers, the actors etc.) live in, it is by and large the same as our universe. It is also referred to as “the Blueverse”, after the colour of the opening titles for episodes mainly set in this universe.

This is the setting of the majority of the episodes and it is also the home of the protagonists of the show: FBI Agents Olivia Dunham, Astrid Farnsworth and Lincoln Lee, Dr Walter Bishop, and his son Peter Bishop.

Walter is a genius scientist who contracted for the United States military in the past, working in what is called “fringe science” in the show: things like teleportation, time travel, ESP, and so forth. He and his friend William Bell founded Massive Dynamic, a megacorporation that is chiefly responsible for the unusually rapid progress of science compared to our reality. Massive Dynamic plays its own part in the story, early on a source of antagonism and later on an important ally of the main characters. After his lab assistant died in an accident apparently caused by him, Bishop was committed to a mental institution from 1991 to 2008. He was discharged under the guardianship of his son Peter to investigate strange scientific phenomena and crimes for the FBI.

Then there is the “other universe” (also referred to as “the Redverse”). The Redverse’s differences to the Blueverse also serve as a significant contrast, which makes it easier to imagine the Blueverse as our own universe. In the Blueverse, the Statue of Liberty is green, the World Trade Center was destroyed in a terrorist attack in 2001, Boston is the bustling capital of Massachusetts, people drink coffee and sheep exist. In the Redverse, the Statue of Liberty has its original copper lustre, the World Trade Center stands while the White House and the Pentagon were destroyed, Boston is a wasteland ruined by a natural disaster, coffee is a rarity and sheep are extinct.

The Redverse is decades ahead of the Blueverse in technology, especially in medicine, electronics and space travel (daily flights to the Moon). Bishop and Bell, back in the 80s, developed a way to observe this universe from ours, enabling them (and later Massive Dynamic) to steal all those technological advances. In a sense, then, the bleeding edge of our universe is actually based on the work done in the Redverse.

One thread running through the show is the principle of “there is more than one of everything.” Accordingly, the Redverse also has its own counterparts to the protagonists mentioned above. As the story progresses these two sets of characters interact, and the theme of choice and fate is explored as they discover and work out the differences between each other. For instance, while the Walter Bishop of the Blueverse is a scatter-brained, kind old man with few social skills who has spent the past 17 years in a mental institution, the Walter Bishop of the Redverse (dubbed “Walternate”) is the calculating, ruthless Secretary of Defense of the United States. The two Lincoln Lees are very different people, yet when they finally sit down to have a talk, they realize there is no pivotal moment, no single point of divergence to explain why they are so different.

Another stark contrast between these two universes is that while the people of the Blueverse are by and large ignorant of the existence of the bizarre phenomena that are the driving factor of the show’s episodes, the people of the Redverse have to deal with them daily. While the authorities in the Blueverse (and it bears mentioning here that the show is almost entirely America-centric) have been able to keep all the weird things going on under wraps, and can concoct plausible cover stories for them, keeping the lid on things is much more difficult in the Redverse.

This is because crossing over between the universes has caused enormous damage to the membrane keeping the universes separate, and this damage is seeping into the Redverse causing major disasters. Where in the Blueverse, your regular Fringe event might be something like a psychopath going around killing people while sucking their dreams out of them for his own enjoyment, in the Redverse singularities are forming that are capable of devastating entire cities or even the entire planet unless they are quickly contained in “Amber”, a gaseous substance that solidifies in the blink of an eye and puts everything inside it into suspended animation.

In this sense, while the Fringe team in the Blueverse is just that, a small team, in the Redverse it’s Fringe Division, a fully staffed government department with hundreds of personnel who respond to events with scientific and military precision.

The ultimate cause of the damage is that Walter crossed over in the 80s because both his eight year old son Peter, and the Peter of the Redverse, were suffering from a terrible illness. However, while he was unable to invent a cure, Walternate did invent one - but without realizing it. Using the observing technology mentioned before, Walter witnessed the creation of the cure. To save the other Peter’s life, Walter crossed over, brought him back and cured him, but was then unable to give up his son all over again.


Personality:

At first impression, one might be forgiven for assuming that Walter is an old man suffering from dementia and perhaps some kind of disorder.

Walter is erratic and eccentric, and he does not always have the same kind of control over what he says and how he acts that normal, well adjusted people do. His train of thought becomes derailed constantly. He is obsessive (especially with foodstuffs), neurotic and averse to change (in his personal life and space, he needs things to be just the way he likes them), and can even seem aloof or emotionally cold. He can become extremely driven by a pursuit, be it intellectual or something more base like finding just the right recipe for the perfect custard. Walter definitely has the presence of mind to comprehend that this is how people perceive him, as well, and it can sometimes frustrate him.

However if you have the opportunity to know Walter closer, you can also see Walter's other side: a kind man with an endless capacity for love, and a child-like ability to marvel at the world and all the amazing things in it, which is a core component of his scientific genius. He is also a humanist: even though his methods - especially in the past - can be unethical, he has the best interest of mankind in his mind.

Walter used a great deal of psychedelic drugs in his youth, and continues to do so on occasion after leaving the institution, practising "self-medication" with substances like LSD and marijuana. This helps explain his eccentric personality for good and for ill.

Walter loves his son Peter unconditionally, and he has nothing but sympathy and friendship towards the people in his social circle as long as they can tolerate his idiosynchrasies. When you attempt to comprehend Walter, you need to remember that he was first an ambitious and brilliant scientist, and then locked up in an institution for almost two decades. He has almost no social skills to begin with once he's released, with no awareness of what is appropriate in polite company or even how ordinary life works.

However, as his relationship with Peter is mended and as he is able to actualize himself through his work for the FBI, these traits begin to fade away. He still needs his support network around him to fully function, though - he is agoraphobic, and slightly sociophobic. The Fringe team is essentially a surrogate family: Peter obviously is his son, but Olivia is (as time goes on) like a daughter to him, and Agent Astrid Farnsworth, his ever-suffering assistant, like a favourite niece.

After waking up in Tu Vishan, Walter would first assume that he is on a particularly interesting psychotropic trip. After a while, however, he would come to grips with the reality of the situation, which would induce panic in him because of being separated from the aforementioned surrogate family. He would require a lot of time to adjust, and plenty of understanding from his fellow residents. He would also immediately begin to collect equipment and materials to start a laboratory to continue his research, and ultimately he would attempt to find a way out of what he assumes to be another parallel universe back to his own universe. He would accept the statement that he is between life and death, since he considers life and death themselves to be purely subjective and contextual states - he would simply assume that this is the local way of referring to existence itself, or perhaps a clue into how he can leave this universe for his own.

As for working, he's always wanted to try a bit of gardening.


Appearance:



Walter to the right.

Another picture.

Abilities:

Walter is extremely intelligent and scientifically imaginative. He received his PhD from Harvard, and has also done research at Oxford and MIT. He has an IQ of 196. He is an expert in essentially all the natural sciences, though he is particularly talented in physics, chemistry and biology, and may need to consult literature or experts on specialist topics beyond those. He is also familiar with engineering and electronics, so he can build the devices he envisions given the right tools and materials.

He is also a talented cook, and claims to have worked as a sous-chef in his youth (under the man who invented Ho Hos, no less).

Inventory:

Just the clothes he is wearing: underwear (if we're assuming he remembered to put them on that morning), trousers, belt, shoes, a collared shirt and a brown jacket.

Suite:

Walter would prefer a residence in the Metal Sector. One floor should suffice for his needs.

In-Character Samples:
Third Person:

It reminded him of St Clare's, and just that thought alone settled in his gut with cold dread. He was alone, surrounded by strange and unfamiliar people... that were not even people. It reminded him of that one time in 1964, or was it 1965, when Belly and he dropped some acid and began to imagine together that everyone in Cambridge had been replaced by plastic automatons. It ended with them getting arrested trying to steal a shop mannequin to conduct experiments on and the look on Belly's face the next morning still made him grin.

And at least the world outside wouldn't run away from him. That's what they had told him, at least, that time would not flow while he was in this place - that the place was "outside of time." So it wouldn't really be like St Clare's, where he spent 17 years in stasis, full of useless drugs and useless therapy, while his son grew up to hate and resent him.

And there were all these minds he could work with in this enormous city! Perhaps he could develop himself, use this limitless time to improve, to study, to make plans. He looked around the suite they had generously given him. It was big enough - he only needed a little alcove to sleep in, really. There'd be tables and cabinets, he would need at least four bunsen burners, some chemicals...

"Astrid! We need a refridgerator in here!" he said out loud before catching himself.

He had only been away from them for a few hours, and already he missed them terribly.

Network:

[Video]

[A greying white man in his 60s appears on the screen. He looks haggard and just a bit desperate.]

I am Doctor Walter Bishop. If anyone hearing this recognizes that name, or the name Peter Bishop... please contact me. I theorize that we are... stranded, in a kind of pocket universe centered on this giant turtle, and I believe... [his face brightens up as he launches into his plan] that if I were able to synthetize some Cortexiphan with the materials available here, if we can find a weak spot in the membrane between the universes... I'll need to rebuild my device for that as well... then perhaps with enough people from the same parallel universe we can breach the membrane and return! It's all a matter of resonance and frequency, you see.

[His expression falters, understanding how even accomplishing any one thing of these would be a small miracle in itself.]

Also, if anyone knows where I could get some blueberry pancakes, that would be wonderful.

[Perhaps he will start from the smallest miracle and work his way up.]