Leonard Townes

"Eat your heart out, Burnett..."
— Leonard Townes
Leonard Melvin Townes is the High Scribe of the Mojave Brotherhood of Steel under the Order of the Sword, residing in the Hidden Valley bunker in 2281.
==Background==
===Early life===
Townes was born in the Lost Hills bunker in California's Central Valley on September 11, 2258, to Brotherhood Scribes Grace and Jackson. Even before his training as a scribe, it was clear that Leonard was different. He could coherently speak full sentences by the time he was twelve months old, taught himself how to read when he was only two and a half and had assembled his first basic computer when he was four years old. This accelerated cognitive function can be attributed to his mother regularly taking Mentats while pregnant with Leonard. 
While some may not agree with taking powerful nootropics while with child, few can argue that it did not benefit Townes and make him a remarkably uncommon child prodigy. During his education in the Brotherhood, there was no technical task Townes could not master instantly and nothing he could not understand after minimal observation. Under normal circumstances, Townes would have had years of education ahead of him, but because of his genius, the Elder council believed he would be better suited researching, repairing and creating technological wonders. In accordance, he skipped the apprentice phase and entered the rank of Scribe under the watchful eye of Senior Scribe Isiah Burnett when he was only nine years old.
===Mojave transfer===
Although Townes was a remarkable asset to the Brotherhood at Lost Hills, both Senior Scribe Burnett and High Elder Maxson VII became quite bothered by his know-it-all attitude during his teenage years. Burnett expected Townes to be his protégé, but a pupil who questions everything you say and even talks down to you is not exactly protégé material. Regardless, Townes was always right whenever his "advice" was found on Burnett's personal weapon schematics; for example, Townes would urge Burnett to "quit being an ignoramus, shift crystal focus to 824 nm, 515 nm (SHG)" or "use your head - CuS comp will melt at these temps, use WC/B composite instead". It was clear he was brilliant, but he was the most insufferable twerp Lost Hills had ever seen. 
To this end, Maxson VII promoted Townes to Senior Scribe and sent him, along with the problematic Elder Elijah and other Brotherhood scribes and paladins, east to form a new Brotherhood chapter in the Mojave Wasteland in 2272. Despite disapproval from nearly every Paladin with him, Elijah insisted that they set up their base of operations at HELIOS One, a solar power plant that had huge potential. Townes didn't care for Elijah's leadership, but since Elijah sent him out with paladins to retrieve and tinker with technology, he didn't complain much.
When the New California Republic laid siege to HELIOS One in 2276 in Operation Sunburst, Townes was on one such retrieval mission. The paladin's PDAs alerted them of the fall of HELIOS and ordered them to rendezvous at the Hidden Valley bunker complex. High Scribe Ruben McKinney had been killed in the siege, which resulted in newly promoted Elder Nolan McNamara promoting Townes to the position of High Scribe of the Order of the Sword when Townes and his entourage of paladins returned to Hidden Valley. For the past five years, he has been cooped up inside the Hidden Valley bunker and is sick of the lack of new tech coming in. He has spent many Mentat filled nights revising and improving the few weapon schematics that McKinney left behind and is currently testing his own schematics to make efficient and user-safe gamma ray emission weapons.
==Appearance and abilities==
Leonard is lanky through and through, at six feet tall (1.8 meters) and 145 pounds (66 kilograms). Surprisingly, spending a vast majority of his time in a dimly lit workshop in an underground bunker has not given him a pasty skin color; still, he has a rather light complexion. His dirty blonde hair is styled into a pompadour and his face is always clean shaven. Leonard wears black Buddy Holly style eyeglasses to compensate for his myopia. His facial muscles occasionally twitch and tick from extensive Mentats use. 
Even without Mentats, Townes is a scientific genius and his knowledge of physics, chemistry, and biology know no bounds, kind of like an obnoxious natural science encyclopedia. As High Scribe of the Order of the Sword, he naturally knows how to handle all manners of energy weapons, including laser- and plasma-based in addition to any other energies he tinkers with, like electromagnetic radiation or sound waves. He is also a computer whiz and has never found a computer that he couldn't access. 
Leonard may be a genius, but that is not to say people listen to him; his sarcastic and condescending attitude makes it difficult for him to get anyone outside his chain of command to do anything for him, and even then, those who do listen are only doing it to get away from him. 
==Equipment==
===Weapons===
Townes carries weapons of his own design around with him, even though the hidden Valley bunker is in lock down and completely safe. His first completed weapon is the laser assisted electrical pistol (LAEP), which converts emitted light energy into pure electrical discharge and was compacted from its predecessor, the laser assisted electrical rifle. Currently in testing phases, the prototype gamma cannon (PΓC) is a hefty cannon based of the Tesla cannon design that emits electromagnetic radiation at a frequency of above 10 exahertz (>1019 Hz) and wavelengths less than 10 picometers (<10−12 meter).
===Apparel===
As with anyone in the Brotherhood, Leonard conforms to his caste's dress code and wears the standard red scribe robe, in addition to "nerd" glasses. He also wears a model of the Pip-Boy 3000 that he modified himself to increase its RAM and memory space. McKinney may have preferred paper schematics, but Townes is all about digital schematics, which he can project onto flat surfaces using his Pip-Boy for quick referencing.
===Miscellaneous===
Leonard has everything his experiments call for in his workshop, like scrap metal and electronics, sensor modules, fission batteries, et cetera. This leave him with some room in his robe to store a couple tins of Mentats, so he can be prepared to experiment at a moments notice.
==Personality==
Leonard is a brilliant, brilliant man, but tends to have a caustic and abrasive personality that goes with it. He does not suffer fools gladly and is very apparent and vocal about this. With an IQ of 190, he automatically assumes everyone he meets is intellectually inferior to him, and he's not wrong to assume that, but he belittles everyone by speaking to them like they were a child.
He is an extreme introvert and somewhat of a recluse, spending much of his time alone in his workshop tinkering with technology. Sometimes he gets so caught up in Mentat-induced experiments or schematic revision binges, he forgets to eat or sleep and is prone to snap at anyone who interrupts him, including other High Scribes. If he wasn't such an amazing asset to the Brotherhood, they would have terminated him years ago.
==Theme song==
In a Sentimental Mood, Duke Ellington (1935)
Category:Characters
Category:Legacy
Category:Brotherhood of Steel characters