Stephan Charbonie

Stephan Charbonie
Also known as	Stefan Charbonnier
Nationality	French
Occupation	Systems Engineer
Status	Alive
First appearance	Request 02: Air in G

Stephan Charbonie is a character in Flower, Sun, and Rain. He is a systems engineer, and a frequent guest at the Hotel Flower, Sun, and Rain.

Appearance and Personality

Stephan is a pale and thin man with spiky blonde hair. He wears casual clothes during his time at the hotel. He is extremely intelligent and is able to create improved factory systems using advanced technology. He often comes off as annoying, going to great lengths to inconvenience Sumio Mondo, who he views as his rival. Stephan is obsessed with football, and often goes on long rants related to it, applying obscure football terms to everyday conversation.

History

Backstory

Stephan is a professor specializing in systems engineering. He is a VIP at the Hotel Flower, Sun, and Rain, visiting several times a year. He claims to be staying at the hotel to work on his thesis, but is also there to study the factory hidden underneath Lospass Island. He is responsible for creating the Fantasista Android Bombs, and was the one who remodeled Step Sding into a human bomb while overseas in France.

Flower, Sun, and Rain

Stephan first appears in Request 02: Air in G, as a hotel guest staying in Room 404 to work on his thesis. He calls Sumio Mondo from his room, and asks him what he knows about inspiration. After introducing himself as a systems engineering specialist, he asks Mondo to bring his suitcase down to the pool for him. Mondo locates the football-shaped suitcase in the stairwell and asks Mati Sding to deliver it to Stephan's room. Stephan calls Mondo on the roof to lecture him for not bringing it himself. Stephan goes on to ramble to Mondo in football terms before asking him to speak to Yayoi Hanayama, who he had been secretly admiring. He gives Mondo the hint "La vita continua". Stephan calls Mondo again through Yayoi's phone, and asks Mondo to search for the answer "in the system". After discovering the answer by studying football formations, Mondo unlocks the bag in Stephan's room and answers the ringing phone inside. Stephan asks if Mondo knows the trequarista that he adores, which he correctly identifies as Alberto Ferrente. He tells Mondo that he had set up this scenario as a "system" for experiencing inspiration by solving the problem. Mondo tells Stephan to take the shot himself, before hanging up and kicking the bag out of the window, into the exploding plane.

Stephan appears again in Request 04: 'S Wonderful, meeting Mondo in-person at the Power Dinner hotel bar. Mondo asks him to help with Maria Nicharesuk's request to take care of a 'vampire'. Stephan gives Mondo the hint of "silver bullets", but is surprised that Mondo still didn't understand the answer. Stephan avoids answering Mondo and instead directs him to speak with Stuart Rock. When Mondo returns for Maria's second request, Stephan rants to him about the "flags" of football and digital games. He tells him he will trigger a flag for him and that the next hint is in the guidebook. Mondo returns to Stephan a final time to ask about the "Earthquake" computer virus. Stephan tells him to head to Maria's PC in Room 407.

Stephan meets Mondo again in Request 06: Air in G, blocking the way to the hotel's entrance gate. He tells Mondo that he had entered a bet of whether Yayoi would choose a blue drink, or a poisoned red one. Yayoi drank the red one and fell unconscious, which Stephan says is due to her not reading the guidebook's horoscope. He tells Mondo that the poison put her to sleep, and will kill her in two hours. As a condition of losing the bet, Stephan helps Mondo by telling him the antidote was hidden in his room by someone called the "Witness". Stephan later calls Mondo in Room 404, and triggers another flag for him by telling him the antidote's location is written in his PDA. He reveals that he's jealous of Mondo for stealing Yayoi's heart. He then warns Mondo that Edo Macalister is the one pulling the strings. After cracking the PDA, a message from Stephan tells Mondo that the poison was really just a sleeping pill, and that it was a test to see if Mondo is easily tricked. He says that he'll tell him more when they meet again, as the plane explodes outside.

Some time later, Stephan is talking to himself outside as Christina passes by him. Immediately after this he meets Toriko Kusabi, who asks if he saw Chris. Stephan believes Toriko is talking about a football player named Chris, and goes on a long rant related to a past game. Toriko dismisses him and moves on. According to Sue Sding in Request 17: Kill the Past, Stephan was no longer staying at the hotel.

Stephan appears for a final time in Request 18: An American in Paris, meeting Mondo outside of the airport. He says he was weakened by his bet with Mondo, and wants to cancel out the bet by saving his life. He tells him that he was the one to develop the Fantasista Android Bombs, which must be shut down to trigger the Mother Bomb in the airport. Stephan promises to meet Mondo again and stand in his way. He says goodbye and runs off, stealing Giggs in the process.

The 25th Ward: The Silver Case

In #05 electride, an unseen character reacts to an ad campaign for the Postal Federation. The person criticizes the nature of the ad, and compares the ad he's thinking of to the football player Juan Román Riquelme. This obsession with football may indicate that this person is Stephan, and that he is responsible for engineering the "system" of the Postal Federation in Ward 25. The uniform of the Postal Federation also resembles that of the Fantasistas.

Official profiles

Has been staying in Room 404 for 3 months, writing his thesis. Occupation: Professor (Specialty in System Engineering) Place of Birth: France

Trivia

• Stephan's room number is 404, likely a reference to a 404 error.
• Stephan serves as the primary antagonist of two chapters of the game, Request 02 and Request 06. Both of these chapters share the same title, Air in G.
• In Stephan's profile and Request 02, it is said that he has been at the hotel for three months. However according to the end of Request 06, he has actually been there for eight months.

Gallery

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  Portrait
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  Stephan's profile in the DS version