Radical

Radical, AKA Dr. Connor Duran. He is also the former bearer of the mantle of The Cartesian of the Lords of Order, though those powers have been rescinded due to his refusing to follow orders.

Description
As Radical: This man stands about five ten, and he's dressed in a black and red costume of sorts. The shirt and pants are solid black and look like they might be armored. Over this is a black trenchcoat. He conceals his hands and face with leather gloves and a full mask over the head. There are two obvious special lenses built into the mask. Setting off off of this black is a series of red highlights on his knees, boots, belt, and piping on his jacket and mask.

As Cartesian: A man, dressed in a pure white suit and matching white trenchcoat. His hair is similarly white, with skin that matches. His face is completely featureless, like he's wearing a mask, though it's hard to tell if that's exactly what's being seen.

As Connor Duran: A man standing about five ten, dressed in a purple button down dress shirt and charcoal slacks. His brown hair is styled well, and he looks like he might be one of those people who is...a little overly orderly, based on how he holds himself.

Origin
Connor Duran was merely a man on his way to becoming a mathematics professor at CBSU. He knew that his family had served the Lords of Order for generations as the Cartesian of Order, but he didn't know if it would ever fall to him. That changed the night that his uncle Randal explicitly went against the orders of his superiors, and had his powers taken away from him. The Lords of Order could have picked a successor from another family, but inexplicably...Lord Antherion pushed for the choice of Connor as the next Cartesian. The mystic powers were handed down to the young professor, leaving him in the situation of having to learn two new worlds: The University and The Superhero world.

...and then in turn, just like his uncle before him, Connor refused to kill a young woman named Rira. The woman was a supposedly a nexus that might swing the war between Chaos and Order, and Lord Antherion's solution was to remove her from the playing field. When Connor refused, his channeled magical abilities were taken away, leaving him to his own devices.

Gaining access to multiple arcane libraries, he researched multiple topics: Dimensional Physics, Kampfringen (a martial art connected to Kabbalah), and the Fae language. Thankfully, time passes differently there, which also gave him time to figure out how to design the devices he would need to continue the work of being a hero.

Powers
No longer does he have the magic of the Lords of Order to use as a crutch. Instead, Connor has focused on learning more about the dimensions, leveraging what he remembers from his time as the Cartesian. He knew that it was possible to use technology to emulate some of what he could do previously. To this end, he's created four devices.

The first two are the simplest. He has an armored costume, which includes specialized lenses in the mask. Those lenses protect him from bright lights, but also allow him to peer through the dimensions when they are activated.

The next device is his Dimensional Harness, which allows him to cause two apparent locations to actually be co-located briefly via folding space. It also allows him to step sideways into other dimensions entirely. He's learned a couple of minor tricks with it as well, such as opening portals to uninhabited worlds to send ranged attacks away from him or to just reach a hand through to grab something at a distance.

The last device is a Spatial Distortion Projector, which can be used to create miniature singulatities for either attacks or to just warp the apparent distance in a sizable area, making distances actually further apart than they should be.

Over time, he has also re-learned how to use magic. He had the knowledge of how to cast spells, but not how to gather the energy to do so, as that was previously provided by the Lords of Order. First, he created a mana battery, to gather energy he could use to cast small spells. But as he gained further skill, he no longer needed that and could cast magic without its assistance. In addition, he learned some Chaos magic from Lazare, in an effort to try to become more of an agent of balance between Order and Chaos.

Now, he is an accomplished mage once again, with a reasonable repertoire of spells.

Personality
Connor is no longer as OCD as he had once been as the Cartesian of Order. Clearly Order's influence on him had morphed his personality somewhat. Having a fairly strong mind, he had not been overwhelmed by it, but there's no telling how his successor might respond. He still has a tendency to be overly analytical at times, which is something his uncle Randal has warned about, and Connor heeded...which led to his powers being taken away.

Randal has attempted to pass down what he's learned during his time as the Cartesian, so that the same mistakes aren't made again.

Relations
Connor is both a historian and a mathematician. His uncle Randal, the former Cartesian, has taught him many things over the years since it was known that Connor was expected to take over the role upon Randal's death. The family is fairly well off, though that money hasn't reached Connor as of yet. Connor is also a newly minted Mathematics professor at CBSU, and learning his role as a professor at the same time as he's learning about how to balance his double life.

He's also become friends with Rira Gonzalez, the woman who is supposedly a Nexus of Chaos and was the reason Connor lost his position as the Cartesian. He has also become friendly with Raven, who was very helpful during his time of transition between heroic identities.

He and his uncle have also become good friends with Grimm over time. Connor and Randal view her as family at this point.

History
Connor grew up locally, on the west side of town. He always liked to hear the stories from his uncle Randal, who lived in Green Acres. It took him quite some time to realize that he was being groomed for the role of Cartesian by his older relative. Eventually, Randal ended up revealing to him what it was the Cartesian did, and what role Connor might have to fulfill. These are somewhat heady things for a teenager to try to keep to himself while in college, but Connor knew that his fellow students might think him a bit crazy if he mentioned anything about it. It's not like 'The Cartesian' was a household name like Random Factor, after all.

Since refusing Lord Antherion's order, he has come to realize that he needs to continue to try to protect people. Perhaps he can use technology to mimic some of the magic he was able to perform previously? Certainly not all of it would be possible to duplicate, but some of it should be doable. It was time to get studying...and he knew exactly where he needed to go: The Great Library.

Then came the crash course in multiple disciplines.

After he debuted as 'Radical', he has continued to study both physics and the mystic arts, trying to combine both disciplines. With the help of Amelia 'Raven' Steinberg, he has learned that he still can channel mystical energy, but he is currently unable to gather the energy from his surroundings. His next step was to create a device to gather and store mana, so that he could then utilize it for some spells.

After that, he enlisted the aid of Lazare to also teach him Chaos magic, and can now cast both Order and Chaos magic with equal facility. And he no longer needs the mana battery to do so.

Rogues Gallery

 * Cartesian
 * Lazare
 * N'razthol
 * Lord Krul
 * David Flyte