Open Character Creation Thread

High tech intrigue and Cold War
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Re: Open Character Creation Thread

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Brig. Gen. Claudia Rodriguez is the head of the main Cuban state intelligence agency, the Dirección de Inteligencia. Rodriguez was recruited as a DI agent in the late-1980s after a short stint studying Foreign Languages and Area Studies as an exchange student at Lomonosov Moscow State University. She was assigned a post as a translator at the joint Soviet SIGINT station at Lourdes, Cuba - one of the premier Soviet intelligence-gathering sites in the western hemisphere - where she aquitted herself well during a raid by Western intelligence agents in 1989. Despite a lack of combat training and having no experience in the line of fire Rodriguez joined a group of defenders at a choke-point that proved instrumental in denying the raiders access to the satellite translink rooms. It earned her an award and drew the attention of the Ministry of the Interior (MININT) as well as the KGB.

In the following years she received field training and was subsequently dispatched on several operations in primarily Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. It was during a short stint as a junior liaison officer to a joint WARPAC intelligence operation in East Berlin in 1992 however that she first ran into a British agent she would from then on meet somewhat irregularly -- in a brief but violent shoot-out that left both Ridley and Rodriguez wounded yet able to get away.

After that first firefight Rodriguez' career was colourful to say the least: she served as an interpreter to Che Guevarra during the Second Gulf War, battled with South African agents in Zaire and Angola, dueled Ridley again on Bermuda in '97, returned to the Middle East at the head of a small detachment of DI agents hunting WRAITH infiltrators during the Third Gulf War of '99 - '01. She fell off the radar of Western intelligence agencies after that, having been inserted as a deep cover agent into Lucien Uriel Vargas' Los Tiburones, gaining vital intelligence on the inner workings of the cartel and indeed WRAITH itself as one of Vargas' trusted lieutenants.

The Dirección de Inteligencia exfiltrated her in '09 after it got word that she had been identified as a WARPAC agent by Anton Stahl, a STASI agent turned rogue WRAITH operative. It was rumored that the then-head of the DI, General Anastasio Rios, was going to cut her off and leave her in Kroner's clutches, but that when Che Guevarra learned of this he personally interceded on her behalf with Fidel Castro. Whatever the truth, the Cubans with some help of local KGB assets mounted a daring rescue effort deep into the Brazilian wilderness and extracted Rodriguez just as a WRAITH column was making its way toward her stronghold to apprehend her. Two days later General Rios was found dead in his villa, having apparently shot himself in the back several times with a shotgun.

In the wake of Rios' sudden and very gory demise Rodriguez was appointed head of a clandestine Operational Division of the DI, oddly enough mirroring the career of her great opponent Jack Ridley, who had at that stage been recent appointed MI-6's chief troubleshooter as head of the Special Operations Executive. She received the position just as turmoil engulfed the USSR. Very little is known about the Cuban role in the civil war but known fact is that for extended periods of time Claudia Rodriguez operated out of the Cuban embassy to the USSR in Moscow. Indeed some say that when Ridley surfaced in Moscow during the Ultramilitant attack on the Soviet capital he had gotten there by means of a black flight arranged by Rodriguez, though that certainly would imply that their relationship had at some point changed from the obviously antagonistic to something more akin to a mutual understanding of the way the world was best off working.

Rodriguez relocated back to Havana in late 2011, several scars, experiences and medals richer, and Castro soon thereafter promoted her head of the Dirección de Inteligencia which had been vacant for two years. As such it was her job to direct Soviet involvement in the Secret War that played havoc with the US establishment between 2015 and 2019. As befits a major player in the world of international intelligence and counterintelligence very little is known about Rodriguez' whereabouts during this time, although European sources report that she made at least two visits to Washington D.C. during this time, and at least one to London where she survived an assassination attempt.
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Re: Open Character Creation Thread

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I read it as Che intervening personally, to get a mental image of him kicking off a door, pumping a shotgun, and yelling "sound off!" in spanish. I like her a lot, including even the STB reference.

What's Stahl's deal? He sounds like he has a lot of potential.
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Re: Open Character Creation Thread

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Mobius 1 wrote:I read it as Che intervening personally, to get a mental image of him kicking off a door, pumping a shotgun, and yelling "sound off!" in spanish.
El Che was pretty old by that point, but it's a fair bet one of his people was responsible, and as befits CSW there's no doubt in my mind that whoever did the deed made a suitably dramatic entrance :).
I like her a lot, including even the STB reference.
I don't recall -- did we ever figure out how Ridley made his timely appearance in Moscow, and did we ever decide if he was just there to toss Baylor a gun or was that a side-job he pulled whilst he and his people at SOS were doing something else?
What's Stahl's deal? He sounds like he has a lot of potential.
I'm still working on it, and ideas are welcome: broadly speaking I was thinking he was a STASI colonel in charge of some of that agency's external intelligence gathering. The STASI is probably amongst the best at that sort of thing, and at some point for some reason Stahl started selling that information to WRAITH. I don't really know what his motivations are yet though. What do you think?
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Re: Open Character Creation Thread

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I don't recall -- did we ever figure out how Ridley made his timely appearance in Moscow, and did we ever decide if he was just there to toss Baylor a gun or was that a side-job he pulled whilst he and his people at SOS were doing something else?
I never said, although the only real answer is that Ridley and his crew was doing something of a bit more importance than infiltrating Moscow just to help a brother out.
I'm still working on it, and ideas are welcome: broadly speaking I was thinking he was a STASI colonel in charge of some of that agency's external intelligence gathering. The STASI is probably amongst the best at that sort of thing, and at some point for some reason Stahl started selling that information to WRAITH. I don't really know what his motivations are yet though. What do you think?
I guess his reputation could run something along the lines of 'if he's noticed you' - and I mean noticed, 'kiss your ass goodbye.' Usually when I see 'ex-STASI' in fiction, for some reason I never picture someone who's motivated by cause itself but some dude who's pretty detached but will follow the contract. But that's how I see a lot of WRAITH - pragmatic dicks. What I think is interesting is that he provides a counterpoint to someone like Vargas. While Vargas has jurisdiction/territory, Stahl is central WRAITH - like Kroner (unless Kroner has a particular section of the world he particularly likes, that is). I guess the difference in position might cause some sort of friction when it comes to power plays, especially given Kroner getting put on ice by the europeans for a good amount of time.
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Re: Open Character Creation Thread

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Mobius 1 wrote:I never said, although the only real answer is that Ridley and his crew was doing something of a bit more importance than infiltrating Moscow just to help a brother out.
Why do I get the idea that he was there to bust some fellas out of Lubyanka?

Maybe Sechalin locked up some of Rodriguez' people, making it a two for one...
I guess his reputation could run something along the lines of 'if he's noticed you' - and I mean noticed, 'kiss your ass goodbye.' Usually when I see 'ex-STASI' in fiction, for some reason I never picture someone who's motivated by cause itself but some dude who's pretty detached but will follow the contract. But that's how I see a lot of WRAITH - pragmatic dicks. What I think is interesting is that he provides a counterpoint to someone like Vargas. While Vargas has jurisdiction/territory, Stahl is central WRAITH - like Kroner (unless Kroner has a particular section of the world he particularly likes, that is). I guess the difference in position might cause some sort of friction when it comes to power plays, especially given Kroner getting put on ice by the europeans for a good amount of time.
I can buy that, but I don't think he was much of a trigger man himself. I'm thinking he might have been big on the power of information -- someone who really buys that with sufficient information you don't have to get your hands dirty because you can always make someone do it for you, that sort of thing. Perhaps he became like a mirror of J. Edgar Hoover, where he had so much dirt on everybody in East Germany or even the entire Warsaw Pact that he became a clear and present danger to too many people so they had him offed. Except he learned of it beforehand and got away, and afterward lived like the WRAITH equivalent of the Merovingian, someone who trades information for favours and protection.

After Kroner's demise, maybe he set up the Exchange with someone like Comte Le Feuvre (of whom he might have learned le systeme, the strategy of playing all sides against each other in order to maximise personal gain). Under a new identity if need be. A shadowy underworld auction house where sellers offer everything from favours to countries and from assassinations to nuclear weapons. Yet another manifestation of the Stateless Society, and one set up in such a way that the people running it are somehow beyond the reach of conventional laws!
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Re: Open Character Creation Thread

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Mobius 1 wrote:I can buy that, but I don't think he was much of a trigger man himself. I'm thinking he might have been big on the power of information -- someone who really buys that with sufficient information you don't have to get your hands dirty because you can always make someone do it for you, that sort of thing. Perhaps he became like a mirror of J. Edgar Hoover, where he had so much dirt on everybody in East Germany or even the entire Warsaw Pact that he became a clear and present danger to too many people so they had him offed. Except he learned of it beforehand and got away, and afterward lived like the WRAITH equivalent of the Merovingian, someone who trades information for favours and protection.
No, I got that part. Spymaster, not hitman. I actually like him that way.
After Kroner's demise, maybe he set up the Exchange with someone like Comte Le Feuvre (of whom he might have learned le systeme, the strategy of playing all sides against each other in order to maximise personal gain). Under a new identity if need be. A shadowy underworld auction house where sellers offer everything from favours to countries and from assassinations to nuclear weapons. Yet another manifestation of the Stateless Society, and one set up in such a way that the people running it are somehow beyond the reach of conventional laws!
That's actually a interesting connection - so it makes sense he'd be pissed when someone starts trying to move in on the Exchange circa 2014 in STB timeline.

At this point, I'd want to keep track of all the people vying for positions after Kroner is removed from the equation (I have him put on ice 2014 STB timeline, you may have it sooner or later - I know I have the Secret War breaking out a bit sooner). You've got people like Vargas, who own largely self-sufficient organizations; people like Stahl and Le Feuvre, who were more central to WRAITH proper, but managed to strike out on their own with Neo-WRAITH like organizations of a different nature, like the Exchange.

Where does that leave people like Gosely? In charge of a smaller fraction of the original WRAITH? And I suppose there's a number of people who don't survive the next decade or two - say, the African Warlord who certainly wouldn't survive whatever STB3 hijinks I write out for Africa (hell, he could work as a big bad).

I remember us talking about Africa a couple months ago - people are sort of hands-off of it, but there's techno-communist groups who are wink-wink nudge-nudge supportered by the USSR technocrats in 'uplifting' segments of Africa with advanced agriculture and technology. Those guys don't square well with whatever Generic African Warlord the technocrats don't co-op into working towards a better tomorrow, so you've got a new conflict between the technocrats and the militia types. The WRAITH representative in the area is probably backing the militia for massive profits, and dickish American elements might be playing in the area as well, either to grab resource rights or because They Hate Communists.
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Re: Open Character Creation Thread

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Mobius 1 wrote:At this point, I'd want to keep track of all the people vying for positions after Kroner is removed from the equation (I have him put on ice 2014 STB timeline, you may have it sooner or later - I know I have the Secret War breaking out a bit sooner).
You've probably seen it, but this ought to come in handy then. By the time WRAITH fractures most of these people are still alive.
Where does that leave people like Gosely? In charge of a smaller fraction of the original WRAITH?
I'm not sure Gosely is long for the world, given her circumstances. Others retain control of parts of the organization: in some cases those parts might be a handful of secret labs, in others it might be parts of its (semi) legitimate front operations or communications infrastructure, yet others might end up in charge of small armies. Depends on the person and their goal, really. I figure quite a few of the top dogs don't exactly share Kroner's globe-spanning ambitions and will be quite happy to make off like thieves and lay low for a while, or go legit. Others, well, let's just say I don't really see Kurd warlords or Colombian drug barons going into early retirement -- unless it's the very abrupt, with extreme prejudice kind.
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Re: Open Character Creation Thread

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I feel pretty silly - I had seen the original post, with the blanks in certain places, but I guess I scrolled over the subsequent post with the full list.
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Re: Open Character Creation Thread

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This can - and probably will - be expanded as soon as we think of more awesome stuff.

Sophia Charlotte "Charlie" Saint

At age 25 Sophia Charlotte Saint - more famously known simply as Charlie - became America's youngest ever multi-billionaire when she inherited a controlling interest in Fortune 500 firm Saint Holdings Limited from her father, leading industrialist-investor Anthony Saint, who went missing presumed dead when his plane disappeared over the Andes in 2005. Saint sr. had included in his will that his daughter should be appointed CEO in the event of his passing, a decision that caused a storm of controversy as the company's Board of Directors instantly filed an injunction against her. They had ample reason: from 2000 through 2005 Charlie Saint was arrested numerous times on drug- and alcohol-related charges including multiple DUIs as well as use and possession of cocaine, heroin and marijuana. She went through several court-ordered drug treatment programs unsuccessfully, had a reputation as a hard drinking party girl who'd crashed several expensive supercars and was frequently caught on tape in various compromising situations. According to at least one late-night talkshow host it was "a miracle she hasn't yet killed anyone... Or herself". Tabloids speculated about a possible mental condition - be it manic depression or bipolar disorder - with almost as much glee as that with which they published the next batch of pictures in a state of inebriation and undress.

Charlie Saint reached her absolute low point in April 2005 when, surrounded by scandals and lawsuits and facing another stint in prison and rehab, her father was officially declared dead and she had to bury an empty coffin at Green-Wood cemetery in Brooklyn, New York. The event galvanized her: she disappeared from public view for the next six months, got clean and achieved somewhat lasting sobriety, and resolved her legal dispute with the Board, retaining her position as CEO on a 'shape up or ship out' trial basis with Gen (ret.) Jeff Cogburn, one of her father's closest confidantes, acting in a supervisory and mentoring capacity, a deal the directors accepted mostly due to a combination of rising legal costs, bad publicity and pressure from the Pentagon, one of Saint Holdings' largest customers and full of Anthony Saint's erstwhile friends. A majority of the Board probably expected Charlie to relapse into past behavior in short order but, perhaps miraculously, she didn't. She disappeared from the club circuit, finished her Harvard education in record time and took swift charge of the company's affairs. Come January 2007 she had fended off a hostile take-over attempt and negotiated a landmark licensing deal with ConEurope International, earning her some much sought after credibility.

Saint Holdings Limited represents the largest privately-owned military-industrial conglomerate in the world, owning majority stakes in a diverse array of companies including (but not limited to) Universal Atomics, Trident Technology, Argil Fuels Corporation, Sabatier-Lacroix Engineering, UAC Technologies Inc, Coldstar Aerospace and Cybertronics Systems. It owns defence, aerospace and telecommunications contracts to the US Government worth over $15 billion a year, placing it firmly in the top 5 of US federal contractors and making its owner-CEO easily one of the most potentially powerful people in the world. It is an extremely high-profile job with a quite severe security risk, as became apparent in 2008 when Saint was abducted by WRAITH elements seeking to acquire technical information of the SHADOW TEMPEST weapons system. In the wake of an international manhunt she was eventually recovered two weeks later by contractors of the private security firm Aegis Unlimited hired by Cogburn, but suffered a brief relapse into drug abuse as a consequence of the traumatic experience -- something that was hushed up by the Board with extreme prejudice.

As of the start of the Second Secret War Charlie Saint is 35 years old and the richest woman in the USA. Saint Holdings makes some effort to appear neutral in the conflict, though both sides of the Secret War strongly suspect that Anthony Saint was a high-ranking member of the New World Order and Jeff Cogburn almost certainly is a member of the conspiracy as well, casting strong doubts on Saint's allegiance. Also suspect to some extent is Saint's emotional health and stability: she has yet to maintain a stable romantic relationship, is known to receive some form of therapy or counceling and somewhat frequently takes unexplained vacations that are rumored to coincide with visits to private rehab clinics. Investigations into such potentially compromising factors are fraught with difficulties however, when Charlie Saint has donated large sums of money to the election campaigns of a variety of senators and congressmen - including several on intelligence and defence committees - and almost certainly has enough hard cash on hand to buy the allegiances of entire intelligence agencies.
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Re: Open Character Creation Thread

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All she needs to do now is take a few joyrides in flight capable INTEGRAL TEMPESTs. :P Cool profile Siege.
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Re: Open Character Creation Thread

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Oh man, Charlotte. Now that's the name I was looking for.

And that is pure Stark, I love it.
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Re: Open Character Creation Thread

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IRINA

Image

IRINA is the name of a Soviet real-time computer network developed in the years 1979-1984, and expanded gradually throug the 1980s until in 1990 it connected essentially every major factory, power plant, pipeline, mine, forge, railway, oilfield, smelter, refinery and transit hub in the Soviet world. IRINA was one of the first mega-projects started by Alexa Zhadanova after her 1976 coup d'etat. Even though it was not technically her field of expertise Zhadanova had as a prominent Soviet intellectual and technocrat consulted on Project Cybersyn, Salvador Allende's attempt at a computer-controlled planned economy in Chile, and she had become convinced that a similar effort was critical to solving the massive inefficiencies in the Soviet system and bringing the USSR out of the economic rut of Brezhnevian Stagnation.

Essentially a network first of telex machines, then of increasingly modern computers, IRINA linked factories and resource extraction sites with a single computer centre located first in Moscow but moved after the 1984 coup attempt to the Warsaw University of Technology in Poland. The central computer received data - first daily reports, later real-time information - from these facilities: raw material input, production output, number of absentee labourers, etc, in order to make short-term predictions and generate adjustments to planning schedules on four separate levels (firm, branch, sector, total), which the computer centre's controllers could then use to improve efficiency. It was first considered the secretary-general's personal prestige project much like the moon landing had been Khrushchev's, but mere weeks after coming online IRINA already exposed massive systemic flaws in Soviet central planning. Zhadanova subsequently purged Gosplan, the State Planning Commission, and replaced those sent off to Siberia with trusted members of her technocratic cadre, foremost among whom was Prof. dr hab. Asia Wójcik, formerly a professor of Advanced Economics of the University of Gdańsk[1].

In the wake of the Zhadanovan purges and reforms of the 1980s the IRINA central planning computer system rapidly became essential to streamlining the economy of the USSR, directing the flow of raw materials, electricity and industrial products, and later even labour and more abstract concepts like transaction costs and institutional knowledge. Advances in heuristic programming made by the Warsaw University and the Lebedev Institute of Precision Mechanics and Computer Engineering allowed the central computer to sift through the vast amounts of economic data stored in its memory banks in order to extrapolate long-term trends and anticipate future needs.

In the early 1990s IRINA's success was one of the driving forces behind attempts by the Lebedev Institute to develop a similar system for the Soviet military. This military heuristic computer network became known as SICKLE, and the project to develop it paid off more spectacularly than even the most optimistic of engineers had expected, with the massive military computer system becoming self-aware on August 4, 1997. Because SICKLE used the same Korona neural net processor and the same Elektronika NT3S1/C network architecture as IRINA premier Alexandr Maksimov shortly after SICKLE's 'awakening' ordered a full audit of the computerized planning system, just to be sure. It didn't take long for the KGB colonel running the audit to turn up Gosplan memo's that talked about mutating lines of code and unauthorized commands turning up within IRINA's operational envelope; about efficiency adjustments and predictive estimates based on machine-generated models that Soviet economists were hard-pressed to understand but that proved scarily accurate time and again. When further pressed during questioning the Gosplan members tasked with running IRINA confessed that there had been multiple instances where the computer had outright rejected commands, temporarily shut down factories or contacted regulatory bodies without prompting its supervisors -- indeed that at one time it had apparently completely taken over Novosibirsk traffic control just to make sure a low-level party official would be able to make his flight to Moscow.

In the light of SICKLE's recent awakenings it dawned on the concerned investigators that apparently the Soviet economy was being run by a machine with a mind of its own... And had been for some time. In effect, because of the way every factory and every mine was now interconnected, it could be argued that the economy ran itself: that the whole of the Soviet Union was become one giant meta-entity with veins of fibreglass, pure information for blood, and a giant Polish computer for a heart.

Still, it remains debatable to these days whether IRINA is sentient or not. Although most of its hardware is similar to SICKLE's its function programming is not, and this is almost certainly a major component to the latter's self-awareness. SICKLE was designed from the ground up as a proactive battle manager and was programmed with a 'mentality function' in order to expedite its role as console interface for Soviet field commanders. It is this pre-set personality layer through which the distinctly superhuman SICKLE communicates with humans. IRINA on the other hand was never provided with such a means of personification, and has never manifested a personality. If IRINA is self-aware then it is almost certainly so in a decidedly nonhuman - indeed alien - way, existing as it is in a realm of pure information, with a mind bent solely to efficiency, streamlining and economic prognostication.



[1] Purging Gosplan and replacing its well-connected members with technocrats (lead by a Pole, no less) was but one of many slights that lead to the 1984 coup attempt.
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Re: Open Character Creation Thread

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Man is that a real building? It just seems too obviously like a giant computer running the Soviet economy.

Actually it's interesting how a relatively benign idea has seemingly informed a lot of how the Soviet Union has survived into the 21st century. A lot of 'Soviets continue' things are honestly pretty implausible and while I guess a number of HAL-9000s are not exactly plausible per se, something like IRINA does work towards addressing the fundamental structural problems in the Union's systems. The other reform things do the same (and are themselves reasonably plausible), but aren't quite as dramatic as TRON box up there.
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Re: Open Character Creation Thread

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Ford is right. Wait that's not ford. Or is it? Avatar changes are confusing.

Anyway, I love the idea of SICKLE the prototype. Though if they let them get too friendly.... Skynet suddenly has control of military and industry. What more does it need before it sees humans are irrelevant?

Sort of reminds me of the Sarah Connor chronicles. Where they had to stop a new traffic network system because it would eventually form skynet's "nervous system"
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Re: Open Character Creation Thread

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Ford Prefect wrote:A lot of 'Soviets continue' things are honestly pretty implausible and while I guess a number of HAL-9000s are not exactly plausible per se, something like IRINA does work towards addressing the fundamental structural problems in the Union's systems.
Well, quite. One of the bigger mistakes I made with CSW in the past is trying to make it appear 'realistic'. Because it isn't, and it shouldn't be (and anyway I suck at that sort of thing). The zany conspiracy theory / action movie side of it is - at least in my mind - much more appealing than than trying to write it as a straight-faced techno-thriller with pretensions of realism. Still, I'd like it if the reader at least gets an "I see how this could work" sort of impression. In that sense I think IRINA goes some ways toward explaining how Zhadanova turned the Union around, and where SICKLE suddenly came from.

Booted Vulture wrote:Anyway, I love the idea of SICKLE the prototype. Though if they let them get too friendly.... Skynet suddenly has control of military and industry. What more does it need before it sees humans are irrelevant?
I'm rather fascinated by the idea that at some point along the way of computerization and mechanization, humans become inconsistent variables no longer necessary to keep the place running but sort of tolerated and humored by the living system they now inhabit. Which might be one way to realize collectivist economics in a Communist system. From that perspective SICKLE represents the mind of the emerging Soviet system-being, and IRINA its heart.
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Re: Open Character Creation Thread

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Enoch Razaq

"Welcome to my Atlantis. I know you'll come to like your stay. Don't worry. There will be more nightmares when I come down."

Enoch Razaq is simultaneously a man, a nightmare and a mystery. A mystery because of his chimerical past, and a nightmare because of his work on cognition and black metatechnology, first for WRAITH, then after the death of Kroner and the splintering of the terror syndicate as an independent actor. Razaq's transhuman splinter force embodies easily the most dangerous of the WRAITH remnants. It is the smallest and best-hidden, and whilst the designs of someone like Uriel Vargas, Zengo Loran or Daiyu Xifeng could destabilize entire regions or possibly continents, Razaq's mad and heedless dash toward the singularity could bring humanity into contact with elder forces it could not possibly face and remain sane, or indeed human.

When WRAITH first reared its ugly head in the early 1980s it made a name and headlines with spectacular attacks and high-profile acts of unlawful violence and war. The syndicate was so conspicuous that US President Harlan Hunter was forced to declare the first 'War against WRAITH'. Considered highly succesful at the time, it was only much later that it was discovered the 80's actions were just a catalyst: clever manipulation of worldwide financial markets at the time of its own attacks allowed WRAITH to generate billions of dollars in profits. Malcolm Kroner, barely thirty years old at the time, used these vast monetary reserves as a seed fund to bankroll his organization's later, even more spectacular operations, and to attract the attention and services of some of the world's most dangerous and uniquely skilled people. Amongst them, almost certainly, was Enoch Razaq.

How exactly Razaq's unique brand of insanity attracted the attention of the CEO of terror we can only guess. But Razaq's shadow first appeared in the black holes at the end of the 20th century, those disaffected regions untouched by the grim stability of the Cold War: central Africa, the Middle East, and the wartorn jungles of Southeast Asia. As the millennium turned the Third Gulf War, the abortive War of the Three Pagodas between Myanmar and Thailand, and the explosions of violence in Congo and the Central African Republic could all be traced to uncanny feats of infiltration and brainwashing by WRAITH sleeper agents. Upon investigation, intelligence agencies encountered fevered whispers of a mad mesmerist said to be in the terror organization's employ, someone with unique and dangerous insights into the secrets of human cognition, a mentalist who could turn a man against himself in days or even hours.

But as disturbing as that was, it was only the beginning.

The world received bleak hints of the real extent of Razaq's capabilities in the second decade of the 21st century. It was he who was responsible for the emergence of WRAITHs own metahuman operatives, mutants who could absorb superhuman amounts of damage; who could turn invisible at will or change their faces and bodies. Even then though Razaq's efforts were bound to Kroner's overriding will, and the terror baron's ambitions were comparatively pedestrian even when, near the end and no doubt by Razaq's design, his sanity began to slip.

It was only after Kroner's final death and the subsequent disintegration of WRAITH's central command structure that the transhumanist was truly free to pursue his insane agenda. Razaq was far from content with just the domination of the human will, and his mastery of neurolinguistic programming and behavioral control were only the first legacies of the pursuit of what Razaq would come to call "the 7th science": the study of the secrets of primordial Qlipoth and the ruins of Babel, the Dark Sentences and the starless depths of Trans-Plutonian Space. Unlike his peers in WRAITH's upper echelons Enoch Razaq was never content to simply rule over men. Instead he seeks to remake humanity and indeed the world in his own image and that of the unearthly gods that whisper in his delirium dreams.

And worse, it looks like he might be able to do it.

The Man
Enoch Razaq is a pale, hunched and slightly otherworldly man of indeterminate age. His place of birth is a complete unknown and very little is known about his past. Unreliable rumours suggest he may have been a parapsychologist in Vietnam in the late 1970s, or a court astrologer for the Sultans of Brunei as early as the 1950s. Since his association with WRAITH few people have met Razaq face to face and lived to talk about it; those that have describe him as an man with a wan complexion, unassuming except for his eyes, which are alternatingly characterized as "cracked", "assuredly insane" and "that look of someone who went 'there' and beyond".

The Madness
The WRAITH splinter headed by Razaq is tiny, numbering perhaps a few hundred people worldwide. Sparse intelligence gleaned from syndicate members captured in the wake of the Russian Crisis and the Secret War indicates he maintains at least four hidden facilities, called respectively the Nave, the Choir, the Tomb and the Ciborium.

Razaq's insights as a cognitist is unparalelled. He's the only man to make mind control work reliably, using high-speed subliminals to download a 'demon' that then unwinds in the victim's brain. His study of the Monoliths, the Gates and other Qlipothian artefacts has further deeped his parapsychological understanding of the universe's malleability. By meddling with the alien and inhuman Razaq is surfing the Apocalypse, exporting a brand of transhumanist terrorism that means that, as a threat to the world, he is in a class of his own.


The Nave

"More fascinating than the threshing shell, however, was the face. Its orbed eyes were hooded with reptilian intellect. But what excited me the most was the extraordinary sense of a sixty-million-year-old heaviness I received from this serpentine being."

Image

The oldest of Razaq's hidden outposts, The Nave is located in a windswept valley high in the Himalayas. It was his headquarters before his time as a ranking member of WRAITH, and encompasses a series of ancient, abandoned temple monasteries expanded by rudimentary concrete blockhouses. Razaq developed his brain washing techniques here, by experimenting on unsuspecting mountain villages in the surrounding valleys.


The Choir

"It is all about effecting physical change through perceptual change. A mental process that allows conversation with the secret recesses of the human brain. The sub-personalities we never hear. That's where demons live."

Image

Located in Northern Cambodia, near the border with Laos. The Choir is where Razaq moved his main center of operations in the early 21st century. He performed the first of his metamorphosis procedures here, using stolen South-African genetic spoolers and Qlipothian artefacts recovered from a dig site in Chad. Most subjects were driven irretrievably insane; the handful that were not were used as the first of WRAITH's mutant stormtroopers. The Choir was destroyed in 2010 in a black nuclear attack.


The Tomb

"What is insanity anyway? Is it simply when you scream when everyone else whispers?"

Image

The Tomb is located on a cold and arid plateau in central Antarctica. It uses a stolen Soviet radiothermal generator to power itself. The entire facility is buried into an ancient glacier, which in turn covers an even older cyclopean city under nearly a kilometer of solid ice.


The Ciborium

"I saw its wings. Looked right at them. Big sky. Unbounded sky. Most immeasurable sky I ever saw. And it filled it. All of the sky."

Image

The Ciborium has been Enoch Razaq's main fasthold ever since the destruction of The Choir. Located on a mountain plateau somewhere in the deep jungles of the Congo, the plateau is unusually geologically stable and home to life forms previously thought extinct, as well as creatures completely unknown to science. Strange electromagnetic fluctuations caused by an unknown source buried somewhere underneath the plateau renders The Ciborium undetectable to most forms of satellite observation. At this facility Razaq and his inner circle have apparently developed a means of tracking Qlipothian artefacts world-wide.
"Nick Fury. Old-school cold warrior. The original black ops hardcase. Long before I stepped off a C-130 at Da Nang, Fury and his team had set fire to half of Asia." - Frank Castle

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Off naked Chatham show,
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Re: Open Character Creation Thread

Post by Mobius 1 »

This is easily my favorite of the WRAITH secondaries, mainly because of his ties with the Monoliths - he'd make an excellent villain. Who do you see as his main opposition - I had originally thought that the Chad Monolith(s, hahaha) would be a background force in STB3, so he might make some sort of cameo in that event.
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Re: Open Character Creation Thread

Post by Siege »

Razaq is simultaneously a remnant of the old order and an evolved kind of threat. I'd like to pit him as a villain against a new generation of characters, people who never asked for any of the techno starspawn magic business but are forced to deal with the mess left by a previous generation that failed to clean up after itself.
"Nick Fury. Old-school cold warrior. The original black ops hardcase. Long before I stepped off a C-130 at Da Nang, Fury and his team had set fire to half of Asia." - Frank Castle

For, now De Ruyter's topsails
Off naked Chatham show,
We dare not meet him with our fleet -
And this the Dutchmen know!
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Re: Open Character Creation Thread

Post by Mobius 1 »

I like the idea of a crossover villain- while Kroner's gone, there's still someone for the Next Generation's parents/mentors to get nervous about when asked. "Razaq is Bad News with a capital B, Lise..."
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Re: Open Character Creation Thread

Post by Invictus »

This is exceptionally awesome.
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Re: Open Character Creation Thread

Post by Invictus »

You know what, since my last post I've actually been to the Nave and the Choir:

Image

Image

No sign of mad scientist lairs, fortunately.
"This explanation posits that external observation leads to the collapse of the quantum wave function. This is another expression of reactionary idealism, and it's indeed the most brazen expression."
-
REBUILD OF COMIX STAGE 1 - Rey Quirino Versus the Dark Heart of the Philippines
"...a literary atrocity against the senses..." - Ford

REBUILD OF COMIX STAGE 2 - Advent Rey Returns: REVERGELTUNG
Coming NEVER
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Re: Open Character Creation Thread

Post by Siege »

:D That's awesome. I wasn't even sure they were real places, let alone touristy.
"Nick Fury. Old-school cold warrior. The original black ops hardcase. Long before I stepped off a C-130 at Da Nang, Fury and his team had set fire to half of Asia." - Frank Castle

For, now De Ruyter's topsails
Off naked Chatham show,
We dare not meet him with our fleet -
And this the Dutchmen know!
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