Daniel Starling

**Daniel Starling (sometimes goes by the name of Daniel Star)** is a mad, Hispanic scientist from New Mexico. He has spent his entire life traveling the wastelands of the United States with no real end game in sight.

## Biography

Daniel's past is somewhat of a mystery, it is suspected that even he doesn't know it all, possibly by choice. Daniel is a gifted scientist, who is incredibly resourceful and quick on his feet. Daniel's early life mostly revolved around New Mexico, where he found himself easily taking advantage of the politics there. His usual tactic was to encourage two sides of a conflict to fight and then make his fortune, looting the many corpses that the conflicts left behind.

This sustained Daniel as he recovered from memory loss, a time that he seldom likes to talk about. By end of this ordeal, he knew only one, simple truth...

He was dying...

Refusing to accept this, Daniel got to work, defying death itself. His journey took him to the Big Empty, where he managed to steal a number of technologies, that did not stop his body from dying but did allow him to transfer his consciousness into a host. Without hesitation, Daniel did this and has been doing it ever since. His mind currently occupies a 27 year old singer from Reno. He likes to use Hispanic hosts as his accent would sound weird otherwise.

This wasn't the only technology that Daniel took away with him, he has also tinkered with the Think Tank's Lobotomites, allowing him to create minions out of any corpses that he finds. Daniel has since been building up a small army of these 'minions' for reasons currently unknown...

## Personality

Daniel is a very self centered man, with seemingly no real goal or ambitions. He hates any form of government, since they often try to stop him from doing what he wants and never invests in his fellow man. Daniel isn't necessarily malicious though and has even been known to help a few people, if it didn't mean going too far out of his way to do so or if helping them was interesting in any way to him.

Usually though, if Daniel does have a stake in something, he is hoping to gain from it and he's more than happy to abandon the side that he picked or sabotage it or reveal that he has been playing both sides at some point or another. He has no investment in human affairs and cares nothing for anyone who cannot help him in any way.

Though he does whatever he can to survive, without regard for anyone else, he does show remorse to Harriot, after she confronts him about killing George McGill and possessing his body. He even acts as McGill for a moment, allowing her to say goodbye.

## Appearances

Daniel appears in Brothers in Binds and is later an antagonist in Godless America.

## Trivia

* Daniel makes a reference to Half Life 2, telling Harriot that he needed an MIT graduation to flip a switch as well as her.
* Daniel claims to have killed thousands of people within the course of his life.
* Daniel claims to have had a sexual relation with a Ghoul woman, in New Mexico. He initially planned to save her, by taking on a gang, that threatened the town but actually ended up betraying her, realizing that it would be impossible to win the fight. He took their only hope of making it out of the city and fled.
* Daniel is the first character in Tales of the Wastes to die and come back to life, in a host body.