Michelle Visard

General CVG character
name=Michelle Visard


caption=Michelle Visard in "" (1997)
series="The Journeyman Project"
firstgame="" (1995)
liveactor=Michele Scarabelli

Michelle Visard is a fictional character in Presto Studios' "Journeyman Project" series of computer games.

She is Agent 3 of the Temporal Security Agency, charged with protecting time from time travelers who want to change the events of history. She is also a member of the Deep Time Unit, a branch of the Temporal Security Agency which documents history.

Actress Michele Scarabelli portrayed Visard in "The Journeyman Project 2", ', and "', the 1997 remake of the first game.cite web|url=http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0096013/|title=Michelle Visard (character)|accessdate=2008-08-12|publisher=The Internet Movie Database]

Role in the games

Agent 3 is absent for the first half of "The Journeyman Project 2", although evidence reveals that she has preceded the player's presence in several locations. The player, in the role of Agent 5 Gage Blackwood, eventually learns that she is the antagonist of the game, roughly at the point in time when she kidnaps the player.cite web|url=http://www.gamefaqs.com/computer/doswin/game/198969.html|title=The Journeyman Project 2: Buried in Time|accessdate=2008-08-12|publisher=GameFAQs]

In "The Journeyman Project 3", the player is not sure that Agent 3 is even alive until some minutes into one of the first cutscenes, when she reveals clues to her presence. In this game, however, she is not the main antagonist, and actually becomes an ally of the player.cite web|url=http://www.gamefaqs.com/computer/doswin/game/56222.html|title=The Journeyman Project 3: Legacy of Time|accessdate=2008-08-12|publisher=GameFAQs]

Early life

On February 11, 2310 she earned a black belt in Karate. Three years later on April 4 she earned another in Aikido. January 19 of that same year she won first place in the NIT intercollegiate gravball competition. On March 1, 2315 she was hired by the Temporal Protectorate, and on June 9, Visard graduated magna cum laude from Columbia University with a Ph.D. in pre-unification theory and a B.A. in social psychology. Ten years later on July 15 she transferred to the Deep Time Unit. In her free time, she enjoyed Symbiotry cultural exchanges, and existentialist literature.

Later life

Michelle Visard enjoyed camaraderie with Agent 5, Gage Blackwood, and the trust of her superior, Commissioner Jack Baldwin. The agents of the Temporal Security Agency were handpicked by the Commissioner because they could be trusted with the incredible powers of time travel.

She was assigned by the Deep Time Unit to investigate several of the bloodiest and most horrifying wars in history. She began to wonder if Earth in the 23rd century, which she called home, was really morally superior to the world in the past. She suspected that humans really hadn't changed all that much, and still could not be trusted with great power.

Agent 3 decided that there needed to be a balance of power. Humanity had recently joined the Symbiotry of Peaceful Beings, a federation of intelligent and benevolent aliens. Only the humans possessed time travel technology, and there were ongoing negotiations and debates about whether this technology should be distributed amongst all the members or guarded by the human Temporal Security Agency. Michelle Visard plotted to short-circuit the negotiations and secretly give time travel technology to the Krynn, another new race which lacked appendages like arms and hands with which to manipulate their surroundings, and so were behind the other races technologically.

In the course of his duties, Agent 5 unwittingly stumbled across some evidence of her plot, but was unable to determine who was the culprit. Agent 3 quickly acted to frame Agent 5. He was arrested, and briefly escaped to enlist the aid of himself in the past to clear his name. Agent 5 from the past finally managed to gather conclusive evidence that Agent 3 was the real traitor, only to be captured by her.

Michelle Visard imprisoned her colleague in her secret base, a disused intercontinental ballistic missile silo. She was unaware that Gage was accompanied by Arthur the Artificial Intelligence, who sacrificed himself when he infected Agent 3's time travel JumpSuit and sent them both into uncharted reaches of the time stream. This gave Agent 5 the time he needed to work free and track down where the Krynn had deposited the time travel technology. The Krynn planned to change their own evolution to give themselves appendages and assume a position of power in the galaxy. Gage escaped them, warned the Symbiotry of their intentions, and cleared his own name.

The Temporal Security Agency was unable to locate her, though Gage Blackwood warned that since she knew their search procedures, she might be evading them. She was pronounced dead on October 24, 2329.cite web|url=http://presto.tommyyune.com/presto/journeyman3/profiles.html|title=Journeyman Project 3: Agency Profiles|accessdate=2008-08-12|publisher=Legacy of Time - The Official Web Site]

Michelle Visard was not, of course, dead; she was simply hiding in the distant past, at loggerheads with Arthur. She discovered not only the fabled lost cities of Atlantis, El Dorado, and Shangri-La, but also learned that they were destroyed by two races of aliens. One race was the Cyrollans, staunch allies of the humans, and the other was a race humanity had no knowledge of. She altered history to alert the Temporal Security Agency of these discoveries, and by leaving odd clues to her position, forced the agent who would rectify history to discover what she had discovered. Michelle Visard was then prepared to turn herself in.

Gage Blackwood was the only agent available to fix history, and so he made these dramatic discoveries. He returned with Agent 3 to the present day, November 6, 2329. Upon their return, they learned that the unknown race from the past had reappeared and was now advancing upon Earth. Agent 5 convinced Commissioner Baldwin to let Agent 3 use her linguistic knowledge to help Dr. William Daughton to translate ancient artifacts which might aid Earth against the invaders. Once the aliens were successfully turned back by peaceful means, Agent 5 spoke at Michelle Visard's hearing, and his words helped convince the jury to lessen her sentence.

References

External links

*imdb character|id=0096013|character=Michelle Visard (character)
*imdb name|id=0769039|name=Michele Scarabelli
*moby developer|id=24193|name=Michele Scarabelli