Maximilian Stahl
Maximilian 'Max' Stahl is the youngest of six children and the only son; he is originally from District 8, and now serves in District 2 as a Peacekeeper. His application can be found here.
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| Background | |
|---|---|
| District | 2 (originally 8) |
| Age | 25 |
| Profession | Peacekeeper |
| Rank | CPT |
| Height/Weight | 6'0"/175 lbs |
| Hair/Eyes | Red/Green |
| Parents |
Heinrich Stahl (father) Gretchen Stahl (mother) |
| Siblings |
Katja Stahl (Oldest sister) Yvonne Stahl (2nd oldest sister) Liesel Stahl (3rd oldest sister) Erika Stahl (4th oldest sister) Mitzi Stahl (Youngest sister) |
| Weapons |
Bo staff Rifle (Peacekeepers) Pistol (Peacekeepers) Riot shield and baton (Peacekeepers) |
| Ship | N/a |
|
played by Artemis | |
Contents |
Peacekeeper Corps
Maximilian Stahl currently holds the rank of Captain in the Peacekeeper Corps, and works as a veterinarian with the Peacekeepers' police dogs and muttations.
While he joined initially wanting and expecting to become a canine handler, Max's recruiter Corporal Haya saw his aptitude for learning and pushed him into veterinary school; he excelled greatly thanks to a lifelong interest and love of animals, graduating his schooling a year early and earning his commission as a Peacekeeper officer.
He has been in the Peacekeeper Corps for around 7 years now, and recently picked up a promotion to Captain for his work in veterinary medicine and his work in improving the lifespan and quality of the Peacekeepers' police dogs. In the meantime, on top of his duties as a veterinarian, has shown an interest in the science the Capitol uses to make muttations and has been studying them in hopes of breeding them himself or using their procedures to breed police dogs.
Early Life
Max Stahl wasn't born into the typical background of a Peacekeeper.
He was born the youngest and only son to a family of six in District 8, and from the very beginning was expected to go into the so-called 'family business' as a factory worker. Max's father was rarely at home, slaving away in the factories all day, leaving young Max at home to be doted on incessantly by his mother and 5 older sisters. In spite of the fact that the family had relatively little in the way of material possessions, being the baby of the family and the only boy meant that he was spoiled rotten. Though he didn't have any extraordinarily close or tumultuous relationships with any of his sisters at the beginning, Max spent the most time with his youngest sister Mitzi being the closest in age. She would be the initial catalyst that encouraged him to look beyond the so-called 'family business'.
In the rare moments that Max did manage to get to himself, he often liked to disappear in pursuit of what little wildlife he could find. When he was very young, it was mostly limited to bugs and the occasional frog. As he grew older, Max became less interested in creepy-crawlies and toads, and instead started taking an interest in the strays that often prowled the alleyways. Any of his sisters and his mother could talk at length about the various puppies, kittens, rabbits and birds he would bring home, asking if wide eyes if they could keep the creature. Initially, he would be sent back outside to return the animal to where he'd found it; even if his mother and oldest sister relented to let him keep an animal in the house for a little while, Max's father was far less tolerant, saying they couldn't afford to feed another mouth and that he'd have to take care of the creature himself if he wanted it so badly.
Max reached his teenaged years, and despite the attention lavished on him by his mother and sisters was a reclusive and generally introverted young man; he greatly preferred the company of animals. Though he was disallowed from having a pet of his own, Max often went out of his way to slip some of the local strays scraps from the dinner table; it was his getaway from having to socialize with his schoolmates, who often targeted the quiet, scrawny kid as their source of entertainment. On one such occasion, a handful of boys and girls followed him home, finding one of the dogs Max tended to; they tethered the dog to a fence and began throwing rocks at it. Max caught them in the act, first trying to stop them and being shoved aside for his troubles; instead he put himself in front of the dog, being pelted with rocks until his assailants got bored and left.
Around the same time, Max was slowly making friends with one of the local Peacekeepers who had bailed him out of a fight once; after this instance in particular, the young man had taken Max under his wing. Every day after school, he would run to the Peacekeeper's home, where he would spend hours showing Max how to fight (and as he got better, how to defend someone else). With time, and with the help of a growth spurt at the age of 14, Max slowly but surely turned into a scrapper with a reputation for fighting dirty. His sisters weren't particularly happy to see their baby brother coming home scraped up, bruised and dirty; his father was the least pleased to find out that he was being taught to fight by a Peacekeeper of all things. By the time Max had reached 17 years old, his mind was made up; he didn't want to be a factory worker, he wanted to be like his mentor and become a Peacekeeper.
Kaiser
Max had only graduated veterinary school a couple of weeks prior when he'd been out on a jog; he'd paused, hearing the heart-wrenching sound of a pup crying somewhere. Following the sound to a dumpster and finding nothing inside of it, Max had gotten down on his hands and knees to peer under it, finding himself face-to-snout with a tiny, furry, amber-eyed face and Max was in love. He had searched the alley, the tiny fuzzy body tucked into his shirt to keep the trembling puppy warm, unable to find its mother or any siblings; Kaiser had been completely alone. Max had spent much of the night giving Kaiser a bath, meticulously combing his fur for fleas and coaxing him to suckle from a feeding bottle. He'd cried again when Max had tried to put him to bed in a box with a hot water bottle wrapped in a towel, and had spent the night with the barely 3-week-old puppy curled up in the crook of his arm.
They've been utterly inseparable since.
Max has trained Kaiser in the manner of a Peacekeeper police dog, and among other things is able to attack (and release) on command, climb ladders, track and search for targets, and stand guard.
Present
Besides his day-to-day duties as a veterinarian and a Peacekeeper officer, Max has recently picked up several projects.
Cadet Kristopher Waite has been assigned to Max in a sort of mentor-student relationship; the two got off to a rocky start, as Max had no desire to have a Cadet following him around and evoking Waite's temper by taunting him in a spar.
He also occasionally serves on recruitment duty, and sparred with Olivia Revenue, a prospective Peacekeeper recruit; he has since become her recruiter, preparing her for when she becomes old enough to enter the Academy. (Max has approximately a thousand insulting nicknames for her.)
Trivia
- Stahl family naming dynamic is German
- Maximilian is derivative of 'Maximus', meaning 'Greatest'
- Emmerich is a two-element name; ermen meaning 'whole/universal' and ric meaning 'power'
- Stahl is a German surname (and word) meaning 'Steel'
- Heinrich means 'Home ruler'
- Kaiser, German form of Roman 'Caesar', means 'Emperor'
