〈 CHARACTER INFO 〉
CHARACTER NAME: Michael J. Caboose
CHARACTER AGE: somewhere in his late 20s-early 30s
SERIES: Blue vs. Red Red vs. Blue
CHRONOLOGY: End of Season 12
CLASS: Hero?????
HOUSING: If at all possible, I request a completely empty house in Maurtia Falls, far away from anyone who could possibly take care of him. Nearest the worst side of town.

BACKGROUND:

(Here is a link to Caboose's role in the show, but I'm going to do my best to summarize as well!)

RvB canon takes place within the universe of the Halo franchise, but just barely and only with acknowledgment from the RvB side of the equation. It's basically fanfic with a good budget. However, because it DOES take place within Halo canon, a brief overview might be helpful in understanding the hopelessly nonsensical clusterfuck that is the RvB storyline.

It's the 26th century. Man has achieved FTL travel and has been colonizing other planets in the galaxy for many, many years. There's some political issues involved, but nothing of note pertaining to RvB. The UNSC is the main military power for mankind. Naturally man has also developed super cool guns and power armor and AI and all that fancy high tech stuff, because it's awesome and this is (space) AMERICA. The main story of Halo involves the attack of the human race by an alien religious organization that calls itself the Covenant and then a bunch of ancient ring worlds etc etc, the details are not important. What matters is that the war with the Covenant serves as motivation for lots of secret military projects and a bunch of dumb idiots enlisting.

Picture, if you will, a box canyon. Sun never sets, it's dull and dry and probably hot as donkey balls. One side of the canyon has a small base flying Blue Army flags, another base on the other side flies Red. And within the canyon are soldiers with Army-related color-coded power armor who do very little fighting against each other and a whole lot of bitching and complaining. Why are they fighting each other? 'Cause they were told to. Plus those guys are RED, the motherfuckers!

Michael J. Caboose is one such soldier. He's in regulation Blue because he's a rookie, and because he's probably also a fuckup (as most rookies are). Right after basic he gets dropped into this nowhere canyon to assist with his new squadmates, who dont' think much of him. He screws up fantastically, right out of the gate: Red Team gets their flag because of his mix-up, and then when he goes to assist his teammates Church and Tucker, he (ACCIDENTALLY!!!) blows Church up with a tank and kills him (in his defense, Sheila the tank instruction program is the one who screwed up).

The Freelancer Texas gets called in to clean up their mess. She ends up dead, and the hyper-aggressive AI that was in her head jumps over to Caboose. That's the beginning of his troubles. ...well probably killing Church was, but nobody is blaming anybody for that. Anyway he becomes infected by the AI, who goes by both O'Malley and Omega depending on who you ask. Texas and Church, both ghosts now, go inside of Caboose's mind to force Omega out. It's largely accepted by fandom that the battles that took place inside Caboose's head are what contributed the most to his decline in his mental faculties, since his ability to reason and his awareness look a pretty sharp nosedive.

Ultimately Omega is kicked out of Caboose's head and the gang (IE: the Red and Blue soldiers) all team up and go on a quest to hunt the guy down and kick his ass. Caboose gets stuck with Sarge and ends up beating the shit out of another faction of the Red and Blue armies, because 'O'Malley taught [him] to be mean' and they're tired of these stupid thirteen-year-olds getting in the way. They make it to Sidewinder and meet up with everyone else, bomb goes off, they get thrown into the future (they don't, actually, but they think so) and meet an alien and talking bomb. Caboose gets to go on a super cool adventure with Tucker and basically get in the way the entire time until they make it back to the canyon.

Caboose's specific role from there on out is largely supportive; lots of things happen. Tucker has a baby. Omega makes a comeback. Wyoming (another Freelancer who'd been hunting Tucker) shows up to wreck shit with another AI, Gamma (Gary) and shit ends up REAL fucked until Tex escapes with Crunchbite the alien, Tucker's alien kid Junior, Omega and Gamma all together. The ship seemingly blows up and things to back to normal...ish.

Everyone gets reassignment orders shortly after that and Caboose is sent over to Rat's Nest, where he's tied up and kept in the brig because he's a fucking menace. No, seriously. He is the vehicle destroyer and teammate-back-shooter. Agent Washington shows up and recruits his help with finding Omega and Texas's last known location, because he's hunting something dangerous called the Meta, which is killing Freelancers (not mercs actually, more like a specialized branch of the military but they just tell people they're mercs) and taking their AI fragments and neat gadgets. Apparently all the guys from Blood Gulch have the most recent experience with Omega, so that makes them the closest things to experts.

They collect Church and run into a few friends; Caboose shoots Agent South Dakota in the back trying to 'help' her, but that works out since Washington wanted her shot anyway. Caboose picks up the AI fragment she had, Delta, because Church doesn't want to reveal to Wash that he's 'dead' and Washington has Issues. Volumes of them.

They find out the Meta is Maine, chase him down and Caboose ends up savagely attacked so that the Meta can steal Delta from him. Wash reaches him and uses a healing unit to keep him alive and Church ends up having to dive back into Caboose's head to find out what the hell's going on in there. Church gets another good look inside Caboose's head; he notes some degredation from last time (lending credibility to the multiple-AIs-causing-brain-damage theory) and leaves with a message left from Delta.

Again, for the rest of the season Caboose's role is largely supportive. He travels with the group, collecting clues and together they leave to assist Agent Washington in his bid to sneak into Freelancer HQ and take down the Director of the program, claiming he screwed him over and all his friends. We find out some big stuff, blah blah Church is actually an AI who was mercilessly tortured to create the fragments, it's all very tragic. Caboose makes a getaway with the Reds and the AI fragment that was assigned to Washington, Epsilon, with orders to turn it over to the authorities so that they have the evidence needed to put the Director away for life.

He had ONE JOB.

Instead of turning it over Caboose keeps the Epsilon unit, hangs out in the base opposite the one given to the Reds and begins construction on a new best friend, since Church is now technically dead. Donut arrives from the desert and delivers a message to Caboose that Tucker needs help, found some stuff in the sand, yadda yadda Blue Team Problems (tm). After taking the Epsilon unit over to Red Base's hologram chamber and the AI appears as Delta to give Caboose a message to get over to the ruins in the sand where Tucker is, so Caboose decides to go on a grand adventure. Sarge and Grif tag along for some convoluted reasons like blah blah they need someone to fight but if Caboose dies on the trip (likely) they won't have a Blue to fight and it's all very complicated.

They end up in a minefield outside the desert ruins and their jeep gets wrecked in an explosion. The excavation team is pretty shady but allows them time to fix their jeep so they can get out of there, but the Reds and Caboose keep poking their nose into things and the excavation team (revealed as a bunch of assholes who killed the REAL team) decides to kill them to avoid any interference. Tucker opens up the temple, having closed it to prevent the fake excavation team from getting inside to all the alien artifacts and everyone runs in. Caboose wanders off to find something to put Epsilon into and locates an alien artifact eyeball floating laserface thing and installs Epsilon...who sounds and acts like the late Alpha!Church. Caboose is quick to reassure them that it's Church though.

The Reds take off to go settle some things that went nuts back home (the Meta coming back and teaming up with Wash to smack the remaining Red team around for not turning in the Epsilon unit, for example) and the fake excavation team aliens follow Epsilon around, worshiping him which makes Caboose HELLA jealous because HE TOTALLY DID IT FIRST. Red team brings Simmons back and Epsilon, who has been having visions, asks Caboose for help. Caboose heads over to one of the Project Freelancer bunkers with Epsilon to assist him with creating a new Tex (for some reason) and put him into an additional robot body (for another some reason). Tex beats the shit out of the Reds and Tucker (who followed) and there they all confirm what Wash had told them last season and what Tucker has known for years: there is no Red vs. Blue war. They are simulation soldiers, conscripted for the sole purpose as training dummies for the Freelancers. This comes as a massive blow to the ego of everybody who is not Caboose. Caboose doesn't care.

New!Tex and Epsilon!Church head off to go figure out where the Director is so they can get revenge. Tex shoots Church to get Wash (who gets a beacon when someone from PFL gets hurt) and Meta to show up, because she's gonna ask them. The team gets the beacon back at the bunker too and Caboose begs the others for help to go save Church, and after some speeches and cajoling they tag along. Caboose gets stuck on babysitting duty and looks out for Epsilon, also known as The Worst Church Ever, and fails at that too because after some awesome fights by other people not Caboose, Epsilon fucks off to chase down a girl who doesn't even really like him much and leaves everyone else behind, because fuck those guys. Who needs friends? Not that cockbite.

While Epsilon plays pretend for an entire fucking season (complete with make-believe versions of all those friends he left behind acting as props in his totally imagined love story epic saga that he ends with telling the girl he's harassed who knows how many times that he FUCKING FORGETS HER- okay I'm done) the remaining Reds and Blues (Wash is on Blue Team now because Caboose decided to adopt him and Tucker was forced to give in or suffer Caboose's whining) are recruited by the presumed-deceased Agent Carolina to spring Epsilon from a UNSC holding facility so they can enlist his help to find the Director for her own personal vendetta.

Caboose assists in getting Epsilon out and goes along as they hit up all the places the Meta was before in an effort to find clues about where the Director might be holed up. Caboose's role again is largely supportive, traveling along and voicing his concerns about Carolina being mean and scary, reaffirming that Washington is their friend and a member of Blue Team, trying to stick with Church even when Church eventually defects to Carolina's side of the extremely tense partnership between she and the sim soldiers. It's not until Church blows up at his friends when they express their reluctance to take part in a suicide mission to satisfy Carolina (and Church's) thirst for revenge that Caboose finally turns his back on his friend and leaves. When Church and Carolina leave to take on the Director alone the Reds and Blues follow after them and together they engage a huge room of fake Texbots. Epsilon helps Caboose 'remember how to get angry' and he tears into the bots, taking out a ton of them single-handedly with sheer force until the other soldiers help supress the bots and Epsilon ends up shutting them all down.

The soldiers are finally recognized as having brought the Director and the dirty dealings of Project Freelancer to justice and are given an all-paid trip back to their homes, but their ship crashes en route on a backwater colony planet they've never even heard of. Carolina and Church pick up some transmission about shady happenings and disappear to take care of that; they don't even fucking say goodbye because of some dumb family thing and Caboose spends the next half a season COMPLETELY DEPRESSED because his best friend disappeared on him A-FUCKING-GAIN. Washington tries to get through to him but he just. Y'know. He tries so hard...

Caboose fills the void in his heart and his life by finding a gigantic Mantis-class war mech buried in the rubble of the crashed spaceship and repairs it, bringing it back to life and introducing him as Freckles to the rest of the Reds and Blues. This mech is fucking huge and also extremely aggressive and EXTREMELY LETHAL, and recognizes Caboose as his master which is. A disaster in the making. And the disaster comes to a head when Washington and Tucker, arguing and trading sarcastic insults, suggest that Caboose be the new leader for Blue Team. When Caboose accepts and the others try to reneg on it, Freckles threatens everybody with deadly force for disobeying a commanding officer. Caboose plays pretend and annoys everybody for days and forces them to go along with his stupid stupid ideas until Washington reaches out to him and actually talks about how sad he must be about Church leaving. Wash's heart-to-heart speaks to something in Caboose and he relinquishes command and tells his killer deathbot to listen to Wash instead of forcing people to do HIS bidding, which is a relief for everybody involved.

About then their camp is attacked by a merc named Locus and they meet Felix, some OTHER asshole merc who claims that the rebel army of Chorus called the New Republic, are entrenched in a civil war and desperately need their help. The sim soldiers refuse despite their desperate need to get off the planet because they're sick of fighting other people's fights. The opposing army, the Federal Army of Chorus along with Locus are coming for them though and they have to prepare. They all do their best to fight off the attack and Felix tries to get them out of the canyon in which they'd been stranded, but Wash, Sarge, Lopez, Donut and Freckles are all wounded and left behind in the escape.

Caboose, Tucker, Grif and Simmons are the only soldiers that make it out and to the base of the New Republic. In exchange for helping them locate and rescue their friends, Vanessa Kimball, the general of the New Republic, asks for their help training and assisting their army in defeating the Feds. Caboose is elevated to the rank of Captain in the New Republic army and is given a squad with a very enthusiastic Lieutenant. He, along with the other three sim soldiers, engage in training routines to prove they're ready to take on the Feds and go rescue their friends.

They do not succeed. Because they are all fucking terrible soldiers, with the seldom exception of Tucker. Caboose is especially awful at it, despite being in the best physical shape.

The sim soldiers come to the conclusion that they're much better off just going themselves instead of getting their soldiers killed and head off to the last known location where Wash and the others are being held. They break in almost entirely by luck and manage not to die horribly by what's probably also luck, but they find out that Wash and the others are not being horribly tortured by Locus and have instead been allowed to wander free with all their weapons, which makes so little sense. And then they all turn around and all the Federal soldiers are...dead?

Caboose and the others find out that Felix and Locus have been playing both sides of the army to keep them in war so that they would all kill each other off and leave the planet open to materials harvesting, because it has this enormous store of old alien weaponry and tech that the two mercs have been picking up and modifying with their own small private pirate force. Carolina swoops in at the last minute and saves them before Felix and Locus can her friends. Church is with her and they reveal that they've been following the transmissions from the mercs between them and someone called Control, who they believe to be the force behind everything.

They decide the easiest way to do this, since evidence points to their ship being crashed on PURPOSE, is to find out who had stuff on the ship and they split up to collect the shipping manifest from the ship's databanks. The Blue Team group gets jumped and they end up getting following back and Caboose almost getting stabbed in the neck saves him but incapacitates herself in the process, and they take time to recover.

The mercs offer them one last escape; they say they'll provide a ship to take the soldiers off of Chorus so long as they never speak of what's going on, but after some discussion the Reds and Blues come to the conclusion that they can't really do that because that would be awful, actually, and decide to stay. Tucker gets a stern talking to from Caboose because he had been acting like a little bitch about Church leaving, and Caboose once again cements himself as Church's best friend. He thinks.

Tucker comes up with the plan to storm the communication jammer towers that the mercs have been camping to keep transmissions from getting out. Caboose assists in bringing down the tower so that Epsilon can get out a message to keep the two armies from tearing each other apart in one final battle, but Tucker is seriously wounded and Wash is nowhere to be found, having been preoccupied with keeping Locus busy. But hey, they save the day! So they should be okay, right?

PERSONALITY:
Caboose's personality is best described as that of a very confused but happy toddler who may or may not have PTSD. His grip on reality is tenuous at best; on the best days he's at least partially divorced, though he manages to grasp simple concepts most of the time and occasionally even complex situations.

While Caboose could never have been accused of intellectualism, he was still of typical neurological abilities and understanding when he first started out. After the invasion of his mind by the Omega AI, and with Alpha and Beta kicking the tar out of Omega and all of them ejecting forcefully, Caboose's mind began to deteriorate until he was at the point where he could barely function on his own. He has difficulty understanding the danger of many situations (which is a problem because he's usually in very dangerous situations) and his memory is spotty at best. His thought processes are very simple, almost to the point where he's difficult to understand because he can't make the usual leaps in logic of which other characters are capable.

This does not mean that Caboose is limited emotionally, however. He really does mostly operate as how a very young child would, looking at people as 'friends' or 'not friends' and not knowing quite how to cope with loss. In his defense, a lot of really weird shit happens to them so he has no basis upon which to take something as 'normal' or 'not normal,' but that also works in his favor because he tends to accepts strange things happening much better than other characters do. He's easily adaptable because, as Tucker has said once before, there's really only two ways he reacts to things: he either doesn't understand, or he doesn't care.

Caboose's motivations are simple: He wants to be happy. He wants to have friends. And he wants his friends to be happy. Those three are not static in terms of their importance; one or the other may become a priority, but those three are pretty much it. He tends to go along with what other people tell him and while he doesn't lack in survival instinct, he doesn't always understand that he's at risk. Or sometimes he does, and just doesn't care. Or sometimes he does, and he'll say 'no I don't really want to die so no thank you please' and it really all depends on what's at stake. If he can reasonably refuse and still keep all his friends alive, then honestly he's fine saying no. Help your rebel army? Nope no thanks. DO IT TO SAVE WASHINGTON (and Donut and Red Sergeant)???? GUESS I'D BETTER.

In the show Caboose is described by others as being an idiot, a moron, braindead, or just plain dumb. It's largely relative; compared to other people his age, Caboose's cognitive abilities are absolutely not at the same level. He tends to zone out during conversations or make up reasons or concepts entirely to fill in the blanks of things he doesn't understand. He usually spends a lot of his time lost and confused. Even if a character took the time to explain to Caboose in simple terms what was happening, he'd usually come to the wrong conclusion anyway. This has long since stopped bothering him, and as for his self-evaluation Caboose absolutely doesn't think of himself as perpetually stupid. He might think of himself as occasionally being dumb when he does something silly but as for thinking he's a moron? Nope. He's just Caboose. He seems pretty aware of his difference from the other characters but it doesn't really bother him, or much affect how he does things. Caboose does not lack for self-esteem.

Even though his personality is largely positive and happy, Caboose is known of having his bouts of depression and frustration. In particular he tends to argue the most with his teammate, Tucker. Caboose is fully capable of not liking people, of getting annoyed when his plans or attempts go awry or are ignored. While fear and doubt don't tend to play key roles in his overall behavior, Caboose is certainly capable of becoming discouraged. He has a full range of emotions and expresses them with no problems at all. In fact, he tends to be a lot more honest about how he feels than others, though he does occasionally get embarrassed and try to hide his behavior if he doesn't want other people to know about it.

It's also worth noting that Caboose is very, very rarely angry. He gets irritated, frustrated, upset and exasperated but the cases where he crosses over into actual righteous anger or rage are incredibly rare. Caboose doesn't get drawn in by huge, impossible causes unless they directly involve people he cares about. He feels passionate about things, but not usually to the point of anger. More like to the point of incredibly irritating clinginess, mostly in the form of Church (whom he is convinced is his best friend). Caboose has been abandoned quite a bit in his career as Blue Team Rookie, and it's made him extremely reluctant to let go of anything that brings him happiness.

At the same time though, Caboose is a soldier. He's been through basic training (even thought it was before the AIs broke his head) and he's seen a lot of people die. Some he's even killed himself, on accident and (very, very rarely) on purpose. He doesn't quite grasp the seriousness of death in all situations, but he does know that dead people are dead and generally do not come back. He still tends to have a rather cavalier toward death most of the time, simply because it's so common a thing to deal with for him. Oh that guy was shot? Probably a dead guy. You can tell because he's not moving anymore, unless he's asleep. But probably dead.

To summarize, Caboose is a generally pleasant and friendly person with a casual approach to war, violence and death, varying levels of difficulty when it comes to understanding other people, extremely forgetful but, for the most part, harmless. He loves the people he loves and he loves them a lot. He likes making friends and he does his best to remember his manners. He just sometimes doesn't know when to quit.

POWER:
Power Armor: Caboose, like the rest of the RvB folks, comes equipped with powered armor that protects from the elements, the harsh vacuum of space and light gunfire/abuse. In addition to providing protection and convenient waste disposal, the armor comes equipped with a few magnetic strips to hold weaponry/ammunition and enough onboard memory storage and hardware for an AI unit to integrate with the armor and provide tactical assistance, as well as project a holographic avatar.

Freckles: Caboose is...not reliable with actual weapons in his hands. And by 'not reliable' we mean occasionally lethal to anybody on his team and especially anybody who needs his help. 'Freckles' is a combat-specific simple AI that used to belong to a gigantic assault droid. The assault droid was destroyed but Freckles, the AI, was recovered and eventually installed into Caboose's assault rifle. Freckles controls the trigger (when Caboose tries to fire on his own, all that comes out is confetti and a festive party horn sound), can scan for the heat signatures of enemy units and auto-target hostiles. Freckles is basically Caboose's guard dog and while somewhat aggressive (incredibly aggressive), he usually does not attack unless threatened. He does take personal offense to anybody talking smack about his master though, so that's probably something to look out for. Or disable completely. Maybe Freckles can't shoot anybody JUST because they're saying mean things to Caboose, let's go with that.

Juggernaut: Caboose already has unnatural strength and durability in canon. He easily flips an assault jeep back onto its wheels, withstands 10x Earth's gravity and lays some serious smackdown on a ton of combat androids who are modeled after the toughest Freelancer ever, Agent Texas. He's inhumanly strong. Tucker and Church called it "God's way of compensating."

This is simply a conditional boost to that ability. The boost only comes into effect when Caboose is angry, already a very rare occurrence. Caboose usually doesn't even know how to be properly angry and usually requires outside assistance (from an AI, for example) or if he agitates himself into a frenzy. ...except he usually forgets how to do that. He's largely harmless, seriously.

When he does become angry however, his strength and durability will become progressively more impressive the angrier he gets. What was just enough strength to tear down a wall becomes enough to barrel clear through a building, through ten feet of steel plating, through absolutely anything in his way. Lifting jeeps becomes hurling them into the air like shotputs. If he's angry enough, he becomes a completely unstoppable force, undeterred by physical opposition. Anything that comes at him intending to stop him- well, he just goes right through it.

〈 CHARACTER SAMPLES 〉
COMMUNITY POST (VOICE) SAMPLE:
HELLO.

I am Caboose and I am from space. This is Freckles. Freckles, say hello. [Caboose hefts up an assault rifle and a grating, tinny voice responds:] No hostiles detected.

Good boy. [Caboose picks up the comm and blocks the camera with his thumb.] This is my house! Annnnd this is my street where I live, and this is the street past that street and then a whole bunch of streets after that one. There's some people over there who also have guns, and there's some people who buy things from each other instead of at the store. Annnnd there's some gates, and some bars on windows because I think that's a very nice jail. [Sirens in the distance, and accompanying gunshots. The camera remains covered.] This is my new home! There are a lot more people here and I'm gonna go meet all of them, so I have to go. Be good! Don't eat dessert first!

LOGS POST (PROSE) SAMPLE:

Caboose has a certain order to how he does things, and waking up in a new world isn't going to disturb that. Sure, he has to adapt accordingly (and if there's one thing he can do, it's adapt to really fucking weird things happening) but that doesn't mean much in the long run. He can still wake up, drink his orange juice, put his armor on (take it off, put it on again, take it off, put it on RIGHT on his third try) and leave where he sleeps. There's a lot less people here who are okay with him carrying Freckles in his hands, but he just puts Freckles on his back like a backpack (which is also so cute) and they go to the store to get more orange juice and cookies with the money the nice soldier people said he gets.

Freckles doesn't like a lot of the people he walks by; he keeps saying things like 'threat detected' or 'hostile forces approaching,' and Caboose keeps having to reprimand him and tell him that just because someone has a gun doesn't mean they are a bad person! After all, Agent Washington and Red Sergeant carry guns all the time. Even Donut carries a gun! Completely harmless people, all of them. Even if Agent Washington used to be scary and shot that girl they were only trying to help, but that was in the past and nobody should be blamed for things that happen in the past by accident.

After all, how bad could people with guns be when they have so much fun painting things! Caboose can see some right now, painting bright colors and pictures over on the side of the grocery store he just left, probably because the bricks and stuff were dirty and ugly. Caboose sets down his bag of groceries and trots over; several hundred pounds of bone, muscle and armor make a lot of noise and the boys who were painting pictures run away for some reason. Caboose looks at the spray paint cans they left behind, and up at the painting they had left unfinished.

It looks so much better with some flowers and some robots and lasers and also more of him and Freckles and Sheila and Church and Washington. So, so much better. And when the police come over to look at his drawing Caboose shows them happily, shows them how he started painting it from the words the other boys were working on, and then he collects his groceries to head back to his house. The policemen tell him he has to go in their car and hey, that's pretty nice of them to offer him a ride home, so he accepts! His mother always told him to be nice to people who do you favors.

They take him over to their workplace instead and tell him to sit on a bench and he does, which he thinks is a little bit weird but this world is not all that smart since they don't even have space armor or spaceships or anything, and there's no colonies on their moon and they call themselves Earth even though the name is already taken. So he sits there and he decides to drink the orange juice he bought so it doesn't go bad, and after a while the policemen come back and tell him he's 'free to go.' Which is also confusing, since Caboose didn't know he'd have to pay them something to leave, but that's fine. He asks them for a ride back to his house since he thinks he'll get lost if he walks, and they're very nice and take him back and tell him he's probably just confused, like Principal Miller did also and he tells them yes, he is sometimes, but he does okay. One of them asks him if he has someone to help him and Caboose replies he does! Of course he does. He has Freckles!

It's late by the time he gets back, but it was a really fun day and he met an awful lot of people and got to paint on a building and drank a lot of orange juice. He is gonna be so healthy.

FINAL NOTES: Freckles DOES speak and has a very rudimentary personality, but he doesn't have a lot of motivations beyond 'protect master/make sure master loves me the most' and he can't hijack Caboose's comm to talk to anyone. Is it all right if I keep him able to speak to other people?