( just a note for cw: for brief mentions of child sexual abuse)


Player Information

Player: Kris
Contact: PM or geekorthodox
Invitation OR characters played: Mod invite!
Are you over 18?: x2 and change now lol D:


Character Information

Character: Amos Burton
Canon: The Expanse | Season 5x4, "Gaugamela" right when the asteroid hits and everything goes black in the prison
Age: Mid-30s
History: Link
Possessions: At his current canon point, Amos was visiting Peaches (Clarissa Mao) in The Pit, a maximum security prison, and he had to turn over his pack and most possessions to the security's front desk before he could travel down below to actually see her, so all he'll really have when he arrives are the basic clothes on him, and his shoes.
Weapon: N/A
Powers/Abilities: He possesses nothing in the way of powers or magic, but in terms of some standard abilities he has: he's shown to be a very capable mechanic, skilled in hand-to-hand combat and familiar with/comfortable with weapons (shotgun/handgun variety).


Application Questions

Who is the most important person in their life and why? What might be different if this person hadn't been around?
Undoubtedly, at this point in Amos' life (and current canon point), his crew on the Rocinante are foremost, and to whom his unwavering loyalty is given. In any given situation, they would be his priority. This small group has been through a lot together, from mostly just working parallel to each other on an ice hauler before there was suddenly Everything Everywhere All At Once and they were pulled into a very tangled and dangerous web of political conspiracy and uncovering messy things going on with a protomolecule, that has extremely far-reaching consequences for literally everyone in the system, between Earth, Mars, and the Belt (essentially the "key players" in the current state of affairs).

However, everything about who Amos is can be traced back to two people from his past: Lydia and (to a lesser extent) Erich, both connected to him in the life he lived previously on the streets of Baltimore. Prior to being Amos Burton at all, Amos was Timmy. He was the product of unlicensed prostitution, born into that life, and was himself a victim of this from the time he was born, suffering horrific abuses and sexual exploitation he rarely speaks of, beyond declaring that he "hasn't felt fear since he was five years old" and that "there's a lot of past in my past." As he grew older and was "used up" from the perspective of those who used him for his body and nothing more, he was then put to use as muscle for local gang members, with no choice in any of it. His mother died when he was very young and Lydia looked after him — I hesitate to call her a surrogate "mother figure" due to the very complicated and very messed up reality of their connection to each other. But Lydia did look after him, kept an eye on him, guided him to the extent that she could.

Lydia was, in fact, the impetus for him leaving Baltimore at all. At the most pivotal moment of his life, in his early teenage years, "Timmy" was working for a local gang leader known as Amos Burton. A series of events — "the churn" — culminated in "Timmy" being told that he needed to kill his friend, Erich (who was also working for #BadAmos Burton), as the work Erich was doing for #BadAmos Burton was compromised and put him at risk. Young Timmy was fully prepared to kill his friend, as this was simply the task and job he had been told to fulfill. Lydia had a heart to heart with him, essentially asking him who he wanted to be "in here" (his heart), what choice was he going to make? She told him that doing the right thing took strength, if you could even tell what the right thing was. She admitted to him she was not righteous and couldn't teach him to be that, but that maybe between the two of them, they could imagine a version of her that was good and kind and wise, and that he could listen to her.

And he did. What this amounted to was Timmy making the choice not to kill Erich. What's interesting, though, is at this crucial point, Lydia puts some power in his hands. In the novella, The Churn, that expands on this scene more, Timmy says, "That's a long way to say I shouldn't do it."

Lydia says: "Is that what I said?"

Ultimately, the decision is sealed, choice made. Timmy tells Erich a contract is out on him and he's the one who's supposed to kill him. He doesn't tell Lydia or Erich his plans explicitly (though they are all but implied), he just leaves. From here, Timmy doesn't see Lydia ever again (and doesn't see Erich again until he returns to Earth a few decades later). He goes back to #BadAmos Burton and kills him. He doesn't have a plan from there, except shortly after this happens, he's confronted by a small team of people with Star Helix (security) and asked to show his ID, to which he comes up short, being that he's unregistered. They scan his hand in their hand terminal, and his identity comes up as "Amos Burton." Not only that, they go on to say that it looks like he's shipping out to Luna for a mechanic apprenticeship and ask him to verify that. He's quick to go along with it, attributing this to his friend, Erich (who's an expert in forging identities). The only reason Erich did this was that Lydia specifically asked him to, as a favor.

This changes the entire course of Amos' life. Erich had asked him once if he ever wanted to go up there, out in space, and his reply at the time had been, "What for?" It wasn't something he could fathom as thinking about, hoping for. But his choice to kill the man who contracted him to kill his friend set up the course for the entire rest of his life.

Without Lydia at all, it's very likely he would have continued to be used up by others for his body, the sex and violence he could provide, and nothing more, until the churn came for him. In his own words, Amos says that Lydia didn't save him, but rather, she taught him how to save himself. Without Erich creating his new identity, he would have been in trouble, either with the government (for being unregistered), for a crime that would have led back to him, or with anyone remaining loyal to #BadAmos Burton.

Is there an event in your character's life that they'd do differently? How so and why?
I don't think Amos would really change anything or do anything differently; everything he's done now has led him here, and his place is with his crew, his tribe. A lot of his actions are how he's learned to cope and adapt in the world, and the ways he had to learn to survive from a brutal upbringing. He had to learn to act quickly and efficiently; hesitating would get him killed. By the same token, agonizing over a choice he made would do nothing for him because what's happened has happened and cannot be changed. He sees the world pragmatically, and very black and white — something happens, and people are either the cause of something happening, caught up in the something that's happening, or fixing the something that's happening. He says this more plainly by stating that there are three types of people: bad ones, ones you follow, and ones you protect. This is essential to guiding many of his actions, and sets the framework for the lens by which he views people and the world.

By his own measure, he knows he is not a good or righteous person naturally, and he's constantly trying to be better, to do good, by following the actions of those he sees as righteous. He doesn't get caught up in the idea of "what if" or regret. However, he is shown to be one of the most self-reflective and self-aware characters in The Expanse universe, largely because he is aware his moral compass is broken and doesn't point north. He doesn't have an ego; when he does something he determines to have been wrong, he will apologize for it. But I attribute this not to regret, but rather the ability to introspect, to be aware of what he sees to be the better choice to make if the same situation (or similar) happens again, and the willingness to change course.

To reference a canon example of his lack of regretting his decisions: Amos had at first been willing to and ready to kill Clarissa Mao, who was intent on killing Holden. We later see Amos develop a close bond and connection with Clarissa (whom he refers to as Peaches); he is protective of her and when he comes to visit her in prison, he tells her that he had someone to help him (Lydia) and it had meant something, and he was trying to do the same for Peaches. This shows he has the ability to reflect, shift his perspective, and approach a regretful killer a different way. He doesn't feel regret for how he treated Peaches initially, wouldn't have even done anything differently than he had, but both the circumstances themselves have changed, along with Peaches and her perspective on everything, and he has the willingness to change with them. To use the book Nemesis Games to supplement what we see in the show in this dynamic — Amos considers how him and Peaches are alike in many ways, being they've both killed people, and that it felt weird to think he'd be the one walking out of prison but she wouldn't. He determined the difference for this was she felt bad about all the things she'd done, and he didn't, and regret and punishment went hand in hand for her.

In an important scene in Season 2, Naomi apologizes to Amos about a situation that happened on Ganymede. They disagreed about what to do, when Naomi wanted to save as many people as they could, and Amos felt it was not the right choice. When she apologizes to him, he's quick to say that he's sorry, that she had needed to do something and he didn't listen. "I’ve been trying to make choices on my own lately and I can't seem to make the right ones."

He is contrite about this, but not stuck in feelings like regret. Rather, he'll take that moment and use it to guide him towards making better choices, even when he feels like he can't always trust himself to make the right choices on his own, without the guidance and influence of others.

What's the greatest challenge you foresee your character facing in the setting?
To reference a bit above, Amos is extremely loyal to his crew and he attributes a lot of his ability to function in the world with a halfway decent sense of right or wrong as owing to the fact that he has these righteous people around him and he can follow them without the worry of whether or not he's making the right or wrong choice. This has changed him and shaped him and allowed him to start to feel perhaps less unsure when making choices on his own, but due to the stark reality of his traumatic past, he's not connected to feelings, emotions, and goodness naturally the way others are.

So a lot of the actions he takes that could come across as "good" and "right" are often because he's got the voice of Holden and Naomi in his head, and he uses them to keep him balanced. That can only sustain him so far. He has learned and grown, but he doesn't have access to feelings and emotions the way others do, and without that, he can do things that might gradually be increasingly cold and brutal. He can make good choices and do good things, but his ability to feel those things naturally is a little lost to him, kind of like they're tucked away on the other side of a large gorge and he could get there, in theory, but the bridge over the gorge is collapsed. A very real challenge is going to show up, I think, in the longer he's away from his crew and the inclination to do whatever it takes to survive, that will often be exceedingly harsh to those who have a healthy, instinctive sense of right and wrong.

The canon point I'm taking him from is just when the asteroids hit so this is an Amos who hasn't yet been wandering around a post-apocalyptic wasteland with Peaches, but we see from the show that the longer he's away from his crew, the more brutal his actions can become. I would use that guidance to shape his actions, the potential for him to make choices that could be increasingly cold and ruthless, until and unless he begins to build up a solid framework of good people around him.

The challenge with this is he is not someone who naturally needs anyone at all. He could be a solitary creature, the last man standing. He is aware of what happens when he is, though, especially when he's still got people around he needs to actually interact with and work with on some level. He does not seek out tribes and families of his own accord, so it remains to be seen how this would play out. At the same time, he is not openly dismissive of people, either, it's just not his natural inclination to "continue the conversation," as it were. If he meets someone in a moment and their business concludes, even if he's determined he likes them, he's not the type to go seeking them out right away, so he can easily be lone wolf about all of this.

What's the easiest thing you foresee your character adapting to in the setting?
If anything could be said to be a motto of his, it's — "Float to the top or sink to the bottom. Everything in the middle is the churn." And the churn is when the rules of the game change. The "game" being survival, when the old life and old ways are torn down and something new is built. When Amos describes the churn, he says "guys like him end up dead and it doesn't mean anything, or if he happens to live through it, it doesn't mean anything either." To quote briefly from his POV chapter in Nemesis Games, he succinctly boils this down to "adapt or die." Here in this setting, the rules of the game simply will have changed. He will need to — and will — change with them.

While his arrival here is not something he asked for or wanted, he's here, so he's going to adapt and survive. There's really no other option. He'll do what he needs to do, get himself grounded, and handle what comes at him.


Samples

Sample: Link