View source for Julian Friez

{{Infobox Character
|name          = Julian Friez
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|birth_date    = Varies
|birth_place   = usually ''[[Sol Bianca]]'' or [[Hades]] Station, [[Pluto]]
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|residence     = Varies
|nationality   = Varies, usually [[Fenspace Convention]]
|ethnicity     = American
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|employer      = Varies
|occupation    = Varies, usually Plumber
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|footnotes     = There are multiple people with this name and somatype - see the main text for details.
}}

''Open Character(s), created by Sirrocco''
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== Notable Mundane Attributes ==

* ''Job Skills'': He's a skilled professional plumber, competent professional handyman, and talented amateur auto mechanic. Those skills were a lot more useful back on earth.
* '''Dane as they come'' This guy really doesn't belong in space. He prefers the company of folks who aren't Fen. The less Fen they are, the more he likes them. When there's a space station large enough to support more than one of him, will frequently hang out with himself. He also does not like looking out on the empty void of space or alien environments, and will take interior rooms whenever he can. Those Dane groups that have to be in space for some reason find him comfortingly predictable.
* ''You can never really go home again''. Julian really belongs on Earth, among people like himself. He knows this. Unfortunately, his obvious biomods mean that people like himself don't want to have anything to do with him. He knows this, too. It makes him sad, and he tries not to think about it too much. A number of the Julians have started drinking heavily when not on duty.

== Wavium Abilities ==

* ''Plumbing's plumbing, right?'' Has a strong intuitive understanding of how 'wavium environmental systems work, regardless of what principles they work on. If it's supposed to keep people alive in space, he can figure out what's wrong with it and how to fix it. May also have some insight into how to make small but meaningful improvements.
* ''Well, I've done a bit of work on cars before. Lemme see.'' Has a similar intuitive understanding of the workings of engines and other fundamental vehicular parts (though not as strong). If it is vital for getting your vehicle to move from point A to point B, he can probably figure out what's wrong with it, given time, and how to fix it so it works again.

== Quirks ==

* ''One...Two...Waiiit a moment...'' Clone Julian is a result of one of the Prof's machines mixing a chunk of biomass and a chunk of [[handwavium]]. It was not a single-use machine. Individual Julians will tend to pick a place, (generally a space station or particularly large spaceship) go there, set up shop, and never want to leave. He's had '''enough''' tourism for one life, thankyouverymuch. Regardless, there will be a copy of him in any sufficiently large location where the plot calls for one.
* ''Dane As They Come, Dammit!'' Absolutely refuses to believe that his insights are in any way unusual. He's a professional plumber and an amateur auto mechanic. That's all. Any attempt to convince him otherwise will cause him to react...badly.
* ''Well...except...'' In addition to the intuitive grasp of wavetech, each clone has sprouted some blatantly obvious physical oddity, often requiring at least moderate modification to clothing. Julian doesn't like to talk about it.
* ''Oh, hell. Not '''him''' again!'' Some may argue that this is actually more normal than quirky, but, whatever the case, Julian is deathly afraid of the Professor, and will lock himself in his room and hide whenever he thinks the guy might be on the same station. Actually being in the Professor's presence will cause him to react by, for example, shrieking, dropping to his knees, covering his face with his arms and crying out "What more do you want from me? Why can't you just leave me alone?" It generally takes him a day or two to totally recover from a close call, and as much as a week to recover from a face-to-face meeting. This is complicated by the fact that the Professor has a natural interest in the ongoing status of his various experiments, and considers the Julians to be one such.

== Background ==
''It Slices! It Dices! It makes Julian Friez!''

[[The Professor]] heard of these things and swore that if Hardtech could do it, then so could wavetech. Unfortunately, no matter how hard he looked for Julianne Fries, he couldn't find the girl, so he settled for the next best thing. The resulting (rather large) machine has three buttons, three functions, an input hopper, and a retrieval door. The retrieval door is approximately refrigerator-sized, and opens into a holding compartment that is likewise about that of a refrigerator, but without the shelves. The guts of the machine look to take up about that much space again, once you've accounted for the relatively thick walls. Successfully pushing any button down will pop the other buttons back up, and pushing it down again will pop ''it'' back up, turning the machine off. If "slice" is pushed down, anything put into the hopper will show up in the retrieval area, sliced, with accompanying whirring noises. "Dice" acts in a similar fashion, but dices instead. Pushing down the "Make Julian Friez" button causes a display to light up, indicating what sorts of things the hopper requires. It first requests a sample of handwavium, and the remaining requirements seem strongly dependent on the variety of handwavium provided. All requirements are organic, and none are ''all'' that rare, but the machine will accept no substitutes. From the moment the button is pushed, the machine locks down. If you want to use it for anything else, or even open the retrieval door, you're going to have to give it what it wants. Once you ''do'' fulfill its requirements (which generally weigh out to about 200 pounds or so of biomass all told) the machine displays "Thank you, please hold" on the front screen, and starts making various strange whirring, churning, and other noises. This goes on for a while - anywhere from an hour or two to a little over a day - before the door opens up and produces a fresh clone of Julian Friez. Well, mostly a clone. It ''is'' handwavium after all, and Julian invariably comes out with a new and more interesting biomod, and a few interesting adjustments to his psyche. Still, it's pretty darn close. Close enough for the Professor, anyway.

Sadly, Julian is about as dyed-in-the-wool 'Dane as they come. At the time he steps out of the machine, his last memories are of being grabbed from the back of his tour group and thoroughly experimented on, followed by shadowy memories of strange sensations, often including extreme pain, and then being decanted, naked and with a biomod, into the middle of a Fen ship. He's a good plumber, a decent general handyman, and a talented amateur auto mechanic, but has no other particularly useful skills. The ''real'' Julian Friez (who was paid pretty well for his trauma before being returned to his tour group) has since changed jobs, states, names, and (unlisted) telephone numbers, just to be sure. He does this every few months, upon the inevitable discovery that the Professor sent a Christmas Card his way. Again. Usually out of season as well.

(Rumor has it that someone's hired the original Julian Friez as a secret agent. He's desperate enough, he's broken enough, and he can build himself a solid cover identity as a plumber/handyman anywhere in the country with two week's notice. When he finally ''does'' find out about the 'wave-built tracking device surgically implanted along his right femur, he's going to be ''pissed.)''

== Stories ==

One or more Julian Friez have a notable or major role in the following stories:

* A Life and Death of Julian Friez
* An Unwelcome Visitor

[[Category:Characters|Friez, Julian]]
[[Category:Open Characters|Friez, Julian]]
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