TEAM FORTRESS 3- NOVICE TRAINING FACILITY
The Ludwig Siblings (Medic's Children)
Sometime (About a year) after Team Fortress disbanded, in 1977, while taking odd jobs to kill time as a field medic and forensic examiner for various organizations, Herbert Ludwig(medic) meets and starts seeing a German woman name Elizabeth "Betty" Gottliebe who already has two daughters from a previous marriage; Margot (6) and Ann (3), born in 1973 and 1976.
By this time Herbert has already had his own child, his firstborn son; Oskar(aged 2 and a half), who is a direct genetic clone Of him, and is born via being inseminated into a an artificial 'womb' Herbert had managed to create.
Despite falling in love with each other rather quickly, Betty and Herbert consistently butted heads, going back and forth in what was very quickly becoming a very toxic relationship.
Betty liked to drink, a little too much quite frankly, and it made her a very angry and vile person.
on top of this, she and Herbert could never agree on the topic of starting a family, much less the topic of actually getting married. (which in the end, they never did.)
with the constant stress and pressure of the back and forth, the fights and the children, Betty picked up a habit of smoking cigarettes, in an attempt to ditch the drinking.
However, the choice of starting a family together was made for them. Soon after they moved in together for the second time, choosing to start merging their existing families into one, Betty found out she was pregnant, with Herbert's child. The two of them were initially excited, and actually planned a wedding, even. But then things quickly started falling apart, as Betty learned what things Herbert was doing for "work" and found out partly about Oskar's origins and became horrified, and thats what really started their problems.
She didnt like his "sadistic, freaky science shit" -(and she was paranoid that he would also try experimenting on her daughters, or on their unborn child, who she was also growing suspicious of. As she was quickly becoming convinced that the baby she was carrying was also somehow one of his experiments, and that she had essentially been made into his "lab rat".
- Throughout the entirety of her pregnancy and even during her labor at the end of it, Betty chainsmoked, and got into countless fights with Herbert over quitting.
After Ema was born, they lived together in a tense state of quiet as a sort-of family, still never marrying.
Right from the beginning, Betty felt little to no maternal connection with her daughter, and showed little interest or care towards her, her apathy being replaced with resentment and anger as she got older.
- For the first few months, things were mostly okay, except for Ema. Betty didn't care for Ema, so she was often left with her father when he wasnt off at work, or she’d be left in her room by herself for hours alone to cry until one of her older sisters checked on her, or until her father came home.
- after six months of living as a semi peaceful, yet still considerably toxic household, Oskar fell ill and became quite... troubled.
After this bout of illness, Oskar ceased behaving and developing like a normal child, his behaviors over the next few years eventually reaching a level of antisocial and borderline agressive behavior that was no longer manageable in their current situation.
This officially ended their relationship, and in 1982, with Ema being just barely 4, Margot 9, Ann 6, and Oskar being 5, they separated, with Herbert taking Oskar alone, as he believed he wasn't fit to manage two children at once with the current state of the eldest. He instead left Ema with her mother, in his naivete believing she would generally be better off with her own mother and half sisters. He wasn't at all aware of what went on and how she was treated when he was away at work and such, and Betty and her daughters would act much nicer and more attentive to her when he was home, convincing him that Ema would be okay.
However, with her father gone, she was hardly okay, being either entirely ignored by her mother, who was mostly quiet and apathetic when sober, or being treated harshly by her when she was drunk. Additionally, her younger sisters were virtually raised to single her out and picked on her constantly.
- A few years after, in 1990, Herbert would be contacted by Miss Pauling for the first time, and would bring Oskar along with him, eventually inspiring the Novice program that would begin two years later.
Things seem to be going more smoothly for Herbert, until just after New Years 1991, when Oskar fell seriously ill once more, and Herbert would have to make the difficult decision to give his son up to the Grey Grove Asylum (formerly the once abandoned Grey Grove Sanitarium, now under new ownership.)
in 1992, shortly after the Novice program starts, Betty just so happens to call Herbert, deciding she wants him to take back his child. Herbert, himself had just happened to be on his own again, having had to give up his son, he decided he wanted to have his daughter in the program, and agreed to take her from back Betty, intending to train her as a medic. (This quickly falls through however, as Ema faints at the sight of her own blood.) After this, ema ends up finding herself more suited with the engineer.
in late winter of 1992, almost december, Herbert decides to visit Oskar in Grey Grove Asylum after he has supposedly been the first to recieve a "harmless therapeutic procedure."
However, much to his horror, he finds his son in a horrific state when Herbert arrives at the facility to see him.
The staff have him in a room by himself at the farthest end of the hallway. He's connected to tubes and wires and a respirator has to breathe for him because he cannot yet control his own diapraghm. His bruised, swollen black eyes, and an oozing, poorly stitched incision in the crease between the inner end of his right brow and the bridge of his nose indicate something far darker.-
He had been essentially lobotomized.
When Herbert confronts the head doctor about this, all the shmuck could say was that it was an "accident". how exactly do you accidentally lobotomize someone???
In a blind rage, Herbert ended up beating the man half to death, and then demanding to the nurse who was watching that they make sure his son is transferred to Fortress Falls the second he's stable enough... or else.
