Newton Geiszler

Bio
Kaiju, eccentric opinions, tattoos

Personality
According to the PPDC personnel dossier for Newt, he's described as having borderline manic personality and poor social skills and they show in the way he completely talks over Hermann most of all, the way he talks to Raleigh when they meet, the fact that when Hermann talks he'll ridicule him (verbally or via blah blah blah hand motions) and the way he talks to Hannibal Chau of all people. It's strongly implied in both the novel and film that he either has manic personality disorder or that he's bipolar although there's no official confirmation of that at this point in time. Newt comes across as passionate, wild and defiant - it's mentioned that he suffers from chain of command issues due to the approach he takes. Like drifting. With Kaiju. After Marshall Stacker Pentecost said no.

Newt's relationship with the Kaiju is a complicated one and that's long before he decides it's a great idea to go drift with a Kaiju brain. Growing up with a love of manga and monster movies that not only started his interest in all sciences, it also had the added effect of him having a very different attitude towards Kaiju compared to most. In Hermann's words, he's a Kaiju groupie - he calls them awesome (in all meanings of the word in the novel) and his arms have Yamarashi as well as another Kaiju tattooed on them - the rest of his body, according to extra information, is covered in similar tattoos. He thinks they have to be understood rather than simply killed unlike pretty much everyone else.

That isn't to say Newt isn't brilliant. He has his doctorates, he created a milking machine and he and Hermann have co-written papers to help the pilots and at this stage they seem to be all that's left of K-Science and they do good work. When they work because Hermann files many complaints about basically everything about Newt down to his taste in music with a yellow tape line dividing their room with the Kaiju entrails not being on Hermann's side being a particular sticking point. Nevertheless, they do know that the other is right at times but it's science, you never want the other guy to be right and Newt, when Hermann's theories are picked over his drifting idea, is described as sullen, basically boiling with more intellect than he can handle. Honestly, Newt is a case study of being too smart for your own damn good. However, prior to his drift experiment he does point out that the Kaiju are clones of each other, discussing the classification system and afterwards he understands how the Kaiju work and why they attack in the way that they do. He also understands how having a silicon based organism vs carbon based makes them more deadly due to conductivity and such.

In the novel, during preparation for his Kaiju drift experiment, Newt thinks of his own mind as "highly creative, instinctive, yet profoundly analytical" going on to add that he likes to see where his (in his own thoughts still) methodical, logical, reasoning mind will go. Still, when compared with Hermann, Newton comes across as chaos and entropy - his side of the lab is a mess, bits of Kaiju and tanks of Kaiju everywhere, he tends to just slop things around. Even though he's extremely intelligent, described as a genius, with six doctorates and teaching experience at MIT, his excitement and more importantly burning desire to prove Hermann wrong means he doesn't always think important things through. When he drifted with the Kaiju, he completely forgets that the drift process is a two-way connection and it's through this, the Kaiju picking up his memories that likely triggers the double event in Hong Kong. The Kaiju are looking for him. Which almost gets him eaten by Otachi and then the baby Otachi is carrying but luckily it finally nets him that Kaiju brain.

Again related to chain of command issues is the fact that when dealing with black market Kaiju parts dealers, Newt really doesn't behave the way one should in a place called the boneslum and dealing with a man by the name of Hannibal Chau. He gets completely distracted by the chance to see all the various Kaiju parts (given that Stacker gave Chau the rights to Kaiju remains to help fund the Hong Kong base then it's very likely that he's the one Newt gets his newer parts from at least) and chatters on like an idiot. His excitement of being right, of his idea working, of his idea being so damn cool means that he babbles on and forgets that he's with a dangerous man even though he gets a butterfly knife to the nostril. Then guns pointed at him as he's thrown out and off to a public bunker when the Kaiju attack. And then after all that he returns and demands his Kaiju brain from Chau, calling him a 'one-eyed bitch'.

But the thing is that Newt is brave. Everyone knows the dangers of a solo pilot trying to control a Jaeger. Everyone knows the mental strain of drifting solo. A Kaiju brain is an unknown quantity. But he does it. Then he does it again, this time with Hermann right after a double event. And it's through being brave that they figure out how to get through the Breach so they can pass that knowledge on and have their version of a big damn hug at the end. (Because Newt isn't going through Hermann's fist bump issues again.)

Abilities
First and foremost, Newt is a scientist - he's the second youngest MIT entrant, he has six doctorates and he also taught at MIT too. It's never stated as to what these doctorates are exactly but biology is definitely the foremost of them because he deals with the biological samples, discusses DNA etc, dismisses Hermann's mathematics (because what an old rivalry, maths/physics vs the life sciences) and he's pioneered research into artificial tissue replication. He does have interests in all areas of science and they do have many areas of overlap, especially when it's something like K-Science and they're dealing with such unknowns.

Additionally, family gave Newt an interest and some experience in electronics and their application and he proves to be very good at it. In canon he's developed the "milking machine" for the extraction of chemicals (very nasty, very toxic chemicals) from the Kaiju as well as somehow cobbling together a Pons from bits and pieces (the Pons is the basically the helmet with connections that allows for the drift process to be initiated) to initiate a drift with a damaged lump of Kaiju brain.

It's highly unlikely Newt has any combat experience whatsoever unless you count yelling at Hermann. And that could be a doctorate all of its own.

What Should You Know?

 * how do normal conversation?
 * "So hey did you know -insert ten minute ramble on something you don't care about-"
 * Amodar stop eating the experiments
 * Kaiju Kaiju Kaiju

Daily Life
Disclaimer: who has two thumbs and generally just loses track of what day it happens to be?
 * science
 * more science
 * Amodar no
 * emerge for some sort of food, trip over three moogles
 * harrass Serah and Drill Sergeant (sometimes via runes)
 * go out in field - you can never have too many samples
 * dogpiled by moogles
 * look more science
 * dance break as results run
 * movie time as results run
 * poke at phylogeny of monsters
 * add to theories on magic
 * emerge again for sustenance
 * science all night long