In Outcast, Cutter Slade will escort three scientists to a parallel world in order to repair the damaged probe.
Cutter Slade (Ulukai)
Meet the protagonist of Outcast, Cutter Slade.
Cutter is a typical example of a state-of-the-art warmachine created by the US Navy SEALS. He can thank his physical strength and endurance, expertise with weaponry and ability to improvise to SEALS boot camp.
Next to that, Slade has also a keen interest for foreign languages, which makes him a GI-Joe and brainiac in one. Other less positive attributes are his love for wodka and less than polite behaviour against others. This is partly also because of a long law-suit against him for a terrible accident during a civilian mission.
Marion Wolfe
Marion Wolfe is the exo-biologist of the crew, she’ll be in charge of survival and communication on the away-mission on Adelpha. Although the two hardly see each other, Wolfe has a rather unfortunate affiliation with Cutter Slade. She was one of the members of the civilian mission with herself, her cameraman (Wolfe was a reporter at that time) and Cutter Slade. The intention was to parachute on an oil-rig. Wolfe and Slade made it safely, but the cameraman landed on a crane. Neglecting Slade’s orders, he cuts up his chute and ropes and he gets in the huge metallic jaw of the crane. Slade manages to stabilize the crane with the two swaying metal chains hanging out of it. Slade then orders Wolfe to use the controls of the crane to guide the crane to the platform, so the cameraman can get to safety. But, in complete panic, Wolfe pushes the wrong button and the cameraman plummets to his death… All this results in a law-suit against Cutter Slade, led by Clare Fitzgerald, Marion’s mother, fueled with rage and convinced of the innocence of her daughter. Since that traumatic accident, Wolfe has amazingly stabilized and matured. She now makes for an excellent addition to the team.
William Kauffman
William Kauffman is the leader of the “SideStep Project”. This is the practical application of Einstein’s “Superstrings” theory (which Kauffman completed and received a Nobel prize for), meaning that an infinite number of universes exist parallel to our own. Along with his illustrious partner Anthony Xue, Kauffman succeeds in launching a probe to a parallel world. The probe however gets damaged. Kauffman is mainly concerned about getting to the “other side” as quickly as possible, fix and retrieve the probe and get back to Earth as soon as possible. He, unlike his collegue, leaves the reason of the malfunctioning of the probe open.
Anthony Xue
Unlike Kauffman, Xue’s life was incredibly tough. He came from a poor family, and so he had much trouble getting a full-scale education. With the highest score possible, he gets a BA in physics. Soon skies seem to brighten up for Xue, when he gets to rate an entire lab in the prestigious environment of the MIT. He begins experimenting with matter-anti-matter reactions. The first test results were so promising, Xue became obsessed with the completion of his tests, and he took less and less precautions. In 1999 however, an accident occurs and 11 lab-members were killed. Although a court didn’t find him guilty of these 11 deaths, he lost all chances of recognition from the scientific community. Not much later however, the US army gives him a new chance to prove his matter-anti-matter energy source in tandem with prof. Kauffman’s “other dimensions” theory. Xue accepts this offer. The prospect of being doomed to stay unknown and the fact that everyone considers Xue as “Kauffman’s assistant”, is one he cannot stand. In the next few years, the “SideStep Project” advances incredibly. Next to the pure professional, no relationship whatsoever is created between Kauffman and Xue. Now, he faces an even more humiliating fact: He and Kauffman lose the probe and all signs point out that it was a failure of the probe’s energy source. Although Kauffman left all options open, Xue stands firm and believes it is Kauffman’s string tunneling device that is malfuncioning.