Ivan Wyke and The Lost

Composed by: Hippo/Ivan     The Lost is the name given to the 4th Mytikan Patrol Unit.   Despite the name, the patrol functions as an irregular unit serving directly under General Ivan Wyke of the Elysium Protectorate. The unit is highly skilled, well trained , and disciplined when it matters despite all outward apperances.   The general is a known meritocrat, elevating soldiers into his unit from wherever skilled or noteworthy additions can be found, often in long overlooked postings or rear echelon ranks. Under his care these soldiers form an effective fighting force, often successfuly completing the jobs that the regular Protectorate military formations are unsuited in handling.   When off duty, or when the ship they live in is traveling through Spike Space, the group often enjoys sitting down for Advanced Dividends & Derivatives to sharpen their administrative skills as often as their combat ones.   Brief information files on the notable members of The Lost are listed below, though many of the other details remain highly classified.   4th Mytikan Patrol - "The Lost"  

Casanova

Full name: Eros "Casanova" Logoulis | Homeworld/city: Heras/Artema   Whether nature, nurture, nominative determinism, or a combination of all three, Eros was the envy of everyone who thought themselves a natural-born lady-killer. His good fortune was only skin-deep for he lacked any other skills or passions that weren't philandering. He was listless compared to his fellow Arteman citizens, lacked enthusiasm in any sort of job, and was far more content partying non-stop and using his dashing looks and in-the-moment smooth talk to land in someone else's bed for the night, away from his nagging family who expected better from him.   His communal non-contributions landed him outside of the graces of his own family and eventually into the hands of community leaders, who proposed an ultimatum: enlist - the only job that would consider taking him now due to his notoriety among employers - or be thrown out of the city with only the clothes on his back. Eros considered the latter option until one of his few friends found out it was δολοφονία τιμής - a planned honor killing, to have an outside family hire an assassin on behalf of Eros' family to purge the black sheep. He instead enlisted to save his own life, enduring the corporal punishments common in the Arteman city-state military due to his numerous infractions and deep-rooted lackadaisical attitude. He was barely remolded into a soldier, but determined unfit for much more than simple guard duty.   Narrowly avoiding the bloodshed at Castle Artema during the assassination of then-Khan Ariadne of Artema and eagerly passed off to Protectorate service after the city's surrender, Eros continued to languish away in guard work at the Arteman garrison, albeit with a clean slate with his new commanders. He was transferred into 4th Mytikan Patrol under General Wyke's orders after being his impromptu lackey around Castle Artema. The transfer was welcomed enthusiastically - Eros had already admired the carefree-but-caring general from afar, but it wasn't until his personal interactions with the general that Eros found he could still be himself while maintaining an honorable position in the Militia and the wider society.  

Castilon

Full name: Spiro Castilon | Homeworld/city: Heras/Chiron   One of several children from a metawheat farming family outside of Chiron, Spiro fit the usual bill of hard-working individuals that come from poor to mediocre backgrounds to seek career establishment through military service with the Chiron city-state. Good physique from farm work, a humble outlook inherited from his overly-strict and pious parents, and good nature towards authority from being more-or-less a model Chironese citizen even made him a candidate for an accelerated officer training program. One would think his sugar-addled brain - resulting in Spiro requiring prosthetic teeth - would have caused him to land in the once-believed dead-end job that was the 4th Mytikan Patrol, but only recently-unsealed records indicate otherwise.   Spiro's military work in Chiron varied between ghoul eradication and bandit suppression, the latter being a concern for corrupt Chironese officials with a secret to bury. Bandits that Spiro and his unit had captured, along with other Chironese prisoners and undesirables, had been illegally sold off to rogue elements of the then-unknown Weeping Company across the L-Gate for experimentation. The prisoners were eventually turning back up on Heras causing havok, all indoctrinated in service to the Still Lady. When the good-natured Spiro started asking questions about the fates of the bandits his unit captured, he suffered professional retaliation. Demotion after demotion, punishment after punishment, all fabricated to hide a horrible truth that Spiro was innocently ignorant of.   The sudden reversal in Spiro's career prospects hit him hard. His family disowned him, believing the punishments and gaslighting past minor transgressions during Spiro's childhood as the cause of his supposed behavior. While the idea of serving in a grunt unit under a boisterous, Slavic-shouting oaf from Mytikas wasn't the most ideal scenario, it offered Spiro a fresh start. Little did he know they would become his new family, one that would lead to his eventual career vindication as General Wyke would save the Protectorate and Weeping Company from a Still Lady coup.   In a favorable military tribunal, Spiro had turned down a restoration of his Chironese position and instead chose to remain with the now-prestigious 4th Mytikan Patrol.  

Corvin

Full name: Ellie Corvin | Homeworld/city: Aslief/Cove Neck   Ellie started her career as a revolutionary soldier on Aslief when the planet first broke away from Remnant rule. Many would lose their greenhorn status in that war, being constantly pushed back by the superior Remnant forces until the Greenbriar interdiction arrived to stem the systematic purge of the planet. Like the other few-in-number veterans that lived to see the end of the war, Ellie saw the ousting of Commander Cole as a slap in the face - had they all not sacrificed so much and held on despite all odds for Greenbriar to interdict?   Being folded into the Elysium Initiative, Ellie would continue her soldierly career as a grunt under personal command of Cole. The position itself was privileged - Ellie would avoid much of the bloodshed and heartache Cyrus Adonis' actions would cost those in the main ranks of the Initiative, and sometimes would have eavesdropping opportunities and spread rumors around of the mistakes and relative insanity of some within the upper echelons.   Faithfully following Cole, Ellie would settle on Heras with the rest of the Initiative and be folded into the fledgling Protectorate born in Mytikas. Crisis after crisis, often only saved at the last minute by scant handfuls of capable individuals, Ellie would witness the harsh birth of the polity through her humble position. It wasn't until the assassination of Commander Cole did life fall apart for Ellie. Finding out the news of losing her hero after fighting off captured Underhill in the streets, Ellie fell into a spiraling depression. Heavy drinking and belligerence would see her reprimanded, demoted, and eventually shoveled into the newly-formed Mytikan 4th Patrol - a move some speculated would end with her being bested by ghouls in the countryside.   Instead Ellie would find the camaraderie she lost long ago in the ashes of Aslief. A unit of broken souls from across lands and stars - fellow drunkards - allowed for commiseration and support. It was her patchwork family that would all walk through hell, coming out whole on the other side. The luck wouldn't last.   Ellie was killed in action on January 2670 on Tecmeda. Despite textbook doctrinal execution of a two-pronged assault, Ellie received multiple fatal gunshot wounds from pre-sapient Adamantian warbots. Her sacrifice allowed two Tecmedan soldiers to be freed and the remaining warbots to be the first to gain sapience on Tecmeda, allowing the sapience protocol to propagate across the planet and end the one-sided genocidal war. She was cremated in a private ceremony on a bluff overlooking the Everflower Tree groves of the Stygian forest on Heras, adorned with honors for being one of the rare souls who helped stop two genocidal wars.  

Driver

Full name: Vasilios "Driver" Stathoglou | Homeworld/city: Heras/Somewhere in the oceans of Heras   To be the only son of Heran pirates wasn’t a badge of honor. Since being physically able to perform chores at a young age, Vasilios worked on a medium-sized, high-speed corsair that ripped through the ocean waves hauling contraband of all kinds and finding targets of opportunity between the inter-Khanate wars or the war against the Overlord. He learned every aspect of taking care of the ship - how every cleaned surface meant greater longevity for the whole, how the engine worked to the finest detail, and how the steering was ubiquitous across all vehicles yet still unique between the same model. It was a dangerous life, for while most merchant vessels and coastal towns proved to surrender and pay tribute to avoid bloodshed, it was the ocean that claimed many of his young friends.   Perhaps long-suppressed in the family lineage, Vasilios held remorse for those his and his family’s “skilled trade” had caused suffering. He would compare his life to that of fictional pirates with fantastical lives and daring adventures for sought-after treasure. He would, over time and through his teenage years, come to terms with the fact that there would never be a mystical horde of gold for him to find. He might not ever be a swashbuckling pirate of great notoriety that the populace would swoon over in defiance of the local magistrates. He was nothing more than a common thief, one whose antics usually meant a torpedo to the hull rather than a swift and fair trial. He finally chose to abandon his life when he saw his parents’ handiwork - a whole crew, face-down in the water, sharks circling from the blood, all for a shipment of worthless, unprocessed metawheat that was dumped overboard.   Vasilios stole a small boat and surrendered himself to Greencoast authorities. In exchange for amnesty, he helped stack evidence and testimony against his parents and other pirate crews in the area, which would become some of the first building blocks to the Protectorate Militia raid on the pirate fortress years later. Having no other skills aside from piloting, Vasilios held various odd jobs as a shipper, small boat operator, and livery servicer before settling on the small-but-consistent income of the Protectorate Militia. He was placed in a motor pool unit, which utilized his skills well but was otherwise painfully boring. Due to his skill, he was granted the nickname “Driver”.   Vasilios was roped into an impromptu road trip with General Ivan Wyke, taking a staff car from Mytikas to Artema. The two bonded over fast food, scenic vistas, and a deep dive into a Dominator’s tomb - eventually meeting and befriending the still-alive Dominator - and nearly walking away with some possibly-cursed treasures that called back to the fantasy pirates Vasilios had previously identified with. Seeing the potential for the adventure he wished he was born into, Vasilios formally requested a transfer into the 4th Mytikan Patrol.  

Gulsvig

Full name: William Gulsvig | Homeworld/city: Ioanakos/Twin-Star Heights   Born into relative privilege, William was generally aloof of the hardships the rest of the Ioanakoans endured daily. His life was filled with imports brought to the surface by spike-capable ships coming to this backwater world well before The Scream, with undeserving servants waiting on him hand-and-foot that should have been thankful William's family was willing to provide a meaningful existence to them. Like many rich kids, William wasn't content on staying put and had an incurable itch for adventure. Stirred on by stories throughout his childhood from these daring space-goers, William would eventually seek passage off planet with these spacers.   The spacers that acted politely when landed in Twin-Star Heights started to show their true colors. They scorned authority and did whatever they could to avoid them, often sneaking through systems. It wasn't until entering a world freshly conquered by the Extaurren Empire did William discover the truth about his servants - they were the conquered, beaten and broken by Extaurren slave-drivers and sold for hefty profits to rich, far-away families like his own to fund further wars and slave-catching. Horrified at the revelation and how it should have been so clear at the beginning, William disowned his family on the spot and sought passage further into the stars and into obscurity.   Lacking in funds but still thirsting for adventure to reforge himself in a better image, William schmoozed his way through lowly dive bars and high social circles of wherever he went. He eventually landed in the company of other daring adventurers, testing their mettle against some of the toughest smuggling jobs around. Taking few established contracts except to cover fuel, food, and supplies, the group became known for various hijinks stemming from their smuggled goods. Rather than being seen as a whimsical dilettante, William and his group were pursued by greedy individuals looking to further their own agendas. The romanticized idea of an adventurer flying through the stars in a rust bucket and holding on by the seat of their pants had waned to the harsh realities around them.   William would eventually settle into enlisting with the budding Protectorate Militia - a compromise between regular pay and some sense of adventure. His still-present rebellious streak and riveting stories of smuggling would get him in enough trouble to have him transferred into the then-newly-formed 4th Mytikan Patrol. His mindset would change over time as the unit's potential under General Wyke's leadership would be unlocked, and a call to return home to Ioanakos - now in the Protectorate's possession but still in the midsts of an enslavement problem - was beginning to pull at the now-mature William as a chance to answer for his family's sins.  

Kennet

Full name: Ephülen Kennet | Homeworld/city: Gudrun/Bladona   Ephülen has been consistently playfully teased over his "lack of interest" in human partners. In reality it was some off-handed comments relating to the few romantic interests he had about this or that person where the only pattern was that they all happened to be non-human. In the open Protectorate culture, such relationships weren't considered taboo, just a moderately-rare oddity.   The behavior stems more from Ephülen's upbringing. He was the human foster child of Bladonna Taros, as his birth parents had died from Underhill raids when Ephülen was very young - too young to remember his given, human name. As a result he grew up as a human among the Bladona Taros, with fair interactions among the native Piggen and Geon of Gudrun. His foster parents didn't hide Ephülen's humanity from him, but they treated him as if he were their own biological son, steeped in a melting pot heavy with Taros influence, culture, friends, and family. To Ephülen, other humans might as well have been another alien race.   Much of this changed during the violence that brought Bladona's integration into the wider UNW. Ephülen's foster parents were opposed to the unification enough to aid and abet low-scale terrorism, eventually being caught and imprisoned. The generosity Ephülen's foster parents afforded to take him in as a young child conflicted with their violence toward unification. The foster son of terrorist pariahs left Gudrun as a result, only taking what he thought best of his multi-cultured upbringing and leaving the rest behind. Such upbringing didn't fold into the relatively homogenous local Protectorate Militia units very well - the only job he could easily find - until he landed in his new family among the interestingly-diverse unit of 4th Patrol.  

Milaia

Slate designation: M-2K7-Z-43030 | Homeworld/city: Nesuna/Dreadburgh (Weeping Company)   When a person dies in the Weeping Company, they do not truly "die". The brain slate, esoteric technology that allows one to control their engineered organic frames, can be backed up digitally or physically recovered and reused if relatively intact. In theory, a form of immortality, but at a heavy cost. Like all human technology, brain slates are imperfect. Memories can become fragmented, mixed together nonsensically, and lost. Slate technicians have standard procedures to remove fragmented memories to prevent crippling distress, but it is believed other memories may be manually removed to make for a "compact" soldier - grist for the mill in the Weeping Company's generational war against the Still Lady as she conquered the L-Gate planets.   Such was Milaia's life and career. Precious memories to her, often insignificant to anyone else, were removed through purposeful action or to counter corruptions from her multitude deaths. Relegated to a mere Nat frame that was only above a natural-born human, her main duties were designated marksmanship and "slate-fetching" fellow fallen soldiers her commanders determined were better than her and worth retrieving over restoring from a backup.   Disenfranchised due the actions of the Weeping Company Council, her ruthless commanders who demanded non-stop one-way loyalty, and the countless reboots from backups due to myriad unknown deaths, Milaia had considered forming a pact with the Still Lady like some of her comrades had for relief. Her only hobby, hidden from command, was assembling a custom designated marksman's rifle - *Early Retirement* - out of the best of the best salvaged parts she could find and brought a small solace to her bleak life. The only goal that kept her going was to recover the memory of her mother's face and voice.   Thought dead while manning a garrison in the wilds outside of Dreadburgh, Milaia and what remained of her unit were happened upon by General Wyke seeking answers on why Chironese prisoners, illegally sold to the Weeping Company, were turning back up on Heras with advanced Company weapons. Upon finding the group had fragged their commander - a Still Lady turncoat who was forcibly indoctrinating the prisoners - were hiding out and awaiting their deaths, either by Still Lady forces or execution by the Council for insubordination. The unit's information would lead to the reveal of an internal coup, saving the Weeping Company by the skin of its teeth.   General Wyke allowed the deserted unit to join the 4th Mytikan Patrol as reservists for their individual initiative that would have been punished by the Company instead. Milaia would be moved from reserves and into an active role upon Corvin's death. Returning to Dreadburgh, Ivan would reveal to the council the pivotal role Milaia and her unit had played in the war. The secret getting out caused the resignation of the council and the promotion of Ivan to become Nesuna's Governor-General. Safe from retribution, Milaia is free to chase her memories without fear of retribution from an unfairly martial society.  

Minerva

Full name: Skylla Minerva | Homeworld/city: Heras/Haphaestea   Skylla is one of three surviving daughters of the Minerva family - herself, her twin sister Kirke, and their younger sister Aliki. Skylla's parents were very well-regarded geothermal specialists, skilled in small-scale exploitations of the volcanoes around Haphaestea. Skylla and Kirke as twins were expected to pick up their parents' life work as a joint venture and creating their great work together in the geothermal field, just as the parents had to earn their status within the city. For a high-middle-born individual, the road was already paved for Scylla.   But not all that was found within the vents of the volcanos would bring the family profit or status. The night following Scylla's parents return from an expedition with something in tow from one of the active volcanos, her home and the family workshop erupted in flames and spewed poisonous gas. With their rooms furthest from the mystery item's eruption, the three sisters were able to escape the house with only moderate injuries. Their parents died in the poison gas, their bodies burnt afterward to ash. Haphaestean officials never disclosed what had happened. The mystery item from the volcanos, not revealed to any of the sisters by the parents, had been taken away and the incident covered up.   The poison gas that took her parents took away Minerva's ability to taste or smell. Her two sisters received smaller doses suffered far less effects, but all three gained minor burn scars. Any progress Scylla and Kirke made toward their great work had gone up in flames, along with the means to start anew. Social support wasn't enough, so Scylla enlisted in the Protectorate Militia to generate income while Kirke stayed in Haphaestea to look after the young Aliki.   Kirke, however, betrayed Scylla. In an attempt to consolidate her own power within the upper echelons of Haphaestean society - possibly even eying a shot at becoming a Khan later on - Kirke falsely accused Skylla of intellectual property theft from other families, providing expertly forged and planted evidence to rob Scylla of all credibility. Incensed, Scylla's now-erratic and loud, combative behavior would land her in 4th Patrol. She vowed to never step in Haphaestea again, even if her name was ever cleared.  

Parker

Full name: Louis Parker | Homeworld/city: Heras/Mytikas on official paperwork, but never corrected by Louis   Louis is, for the most part, non-verbal. Most people that lack spoken communication abilities don't end up in the armed services, but between an unscrupulous recruiter and Louis' ability to go along with anything put in front of him, he ended up in boot camp. Unable to stammer out much more than "sir" or "ma'am" in the affirmative or negative, he found himself in multiple court-martials for insubordination throughout his career. Of course, during said court-martials, he hardly said much at all, leading to judiciary head-scratching and the handing down of default punishments.   Several punishments later, Louis was assigned to 2nd Janusus' Militia mess hall as one of the backroom cooks. He performed well enough like any of his other jobs, but between a busy, uncaring superior and the isolated nature of his job, Louis was left to his own devices. Nobody knows where it came from in the depths of his mind, but Louis attempted a culinary dish that ended up with the mess hall kitchen completely immolated. When questioned by military police investigators who were certain they'd get nothing out of him, Louis said something different - "inverted hotdog". Unable to communicate exactly what he meant, further baffling witnesses, investigators, and military tribunals alike, someone had the bright idea to send him for a psych evaluation. A speech professional was able to determine his non-verbal nature, and finding Louis may have been illegally misled into enlisting, he was swept under the rug into the 4th Mytikan Patrol unit.   In September 2669, a master chef on Thorgunna was able to create the "inverted hotdog" with minimal kitchen staff casualties and structural damage. With a simple nod of approval from Louis, it has been mass produced and has become a flagship product line of the coveted Wyke Rations.  

Seig

Full name: Vinzenz Seigenhofen | Homeworld/city: Rawhani/Stack City   Not recorded on any official Protectorate personnel databases, Vinzenz is ex-corpo security for Neptune Microsystems on Rawhani. His professionalism, demeanor, skill, and even ability to hold his drink are rare qualities not found among The Lost outside of official events or active conflicts requiring them to be in uniform or geared up. By all accounts, he was "normal" and not some strange individual warranting a dead-end career in a reject squad. By chance and through no fault of his own except others having difficulty pronouncing his non-truncated surname, Vinzenz would end up in Ivan's 4th Mytikan Patrol anyways with the soon-to-be Myrmidon. Much later in an alleyway in the bustling market of Chiron during the attempt to get General Wyke to relax with some infamous Dank Crew reefer, Seig inhaled second-hand smoke. In the extreme catatonic state that he later would not be able to recall, Vinzenz would recall his memories of Rawhani.   After his unit was dispatched to a protest suppression, Vinzenz returned to the barracks having not expended a single round of lethal ammunition. The action was considered insubordination by the corporation and a deep betrayal of the remaining unit. Vinzenz had cracked and was unable to shoot another innocent protestor with a legitimate grievance. As retribution, Vinzenz was beaten unconscious, flown hundreds of kilometers into the Rawhani desert, and left to die of thirst and exposure with only his torn corpo security armor to his name.   Miraculously, after falling unconscious in the hellscape, he awoken in an emergency clinic in Stack City. Forever grateful and wanting to atone, Vinzenz took up guard duty for his new home, weeding out corpo spies and finding other outcasts left for dead. Eventually word of the oasis in the desert, free from corpo control and full of their enemies, the corporations of Rawhani would attempt to smother the city out of existence.   The city stood little chance against the the coordinated corpo attack, but word hit Vinzenz that his old security unit was present and an active party to the atrocities taking place within the city. One-by-one, Vinzenz would hunt down all fifteen members in cold blood with only a knife and the cover of darkness. All are buried in the desert, along with the "civilized version of himself". It wasn't until the Dank Crew weed did he reveal he still sees their faces in his sleep. He considers what he did not only revenge for himself, but for what the corpos did to Stack City.   When the interpolity transit system came online, Vinzenz elected to leave his old life behind. Knowing only how to fight and kill, he joined the Protectorate Militia, leading to his fateful placement in the 4th Mytikan Patrol, faithfully guarding his next family.  

Smokes

Full name: Stavros "Smokes" Iakovou | Homeworld/city: Heras/Artema   There is no mincing words when it comes to Stavros' past - a crude thug of an assassin, sent to end feuds and bloodlines between the prestigious minor families and clans that make up the courts and businesses of Artema. He was a shadow-stalker, and alleyway crawler, the hooded figure in the night to whom children of nobility were trained to run, hide, or in desperation, fight against. Some poison here, a blackjack there, and a knife blade to end it all. Stavros was not proud of his work. The employment was irregular and extremely dangerous, often ending in failure as there were numerous countermeasures in place funded by generational wealth. He was an expendable tool, a nobody to these families, and an deniable asset that could be easily misconstrued as a common footpad or wandering, unworthy vagrant looking to steal from those more fortunate than him.   The part that bothered him the most was of the successful hits, a concerning amount of victims were "sacrificed". Guards would be elsewhere, security systems in a lax state, and the target uncharacteristically alone. They happened often enough to convince Stavros that it wasn't a fluke. The truth was revealed when his knife didn't immediately end the life of his mark. In the victim's dying breaths, they tell their assassin that they suspected they were an δολοφονία τιμής - an honor killing for appeasement - an agreement between families to arrange an assassination for some social or political reason, and that Stavros was an unwilling pawn. Some people in these families - men, women, children - were nothing more than scapegoats to further someone else's socio-political gain.   Not believing his victim at first, Stavros would continue his grizzly job. The thought, however, poisoned him. He would scrutinize old and current jobs. He would research his targets. As the evidence grew, he turned his casual smoking habit into a full-fledged addiction and dependency. He could no longer feel much of anything except for the rush of nicotine and the soothing of tetrahydrocannabinols. When neither were in his system, he could only think of the innocent blood on his hands.   Stavros would abandon a contract kill and destroy all methods of contact. To shelter himself from retribution, he enlisted in the Protectorate militia garrison within Castle Artema - the royal family he would claim you needed to be "several kinds of crazy" to take on as an assassin. Unknown to the royal family house guards, Stavros blended in plain sight and kept a simple position at the garrison's front office. He would get roped into General Wyke's antics at the castle and transferred into the 4th Mytikan Patrol. Stavros continues to smoke like a chimney to this day, but his elevated position as an irregular hopping through the sectors has given him a chance to redeem himself by defending others.  

Sutherland

Full name: Geoffrey Sutherland | Homeworld/city: Unknown to all but Sutherland   Among his fellow enlisted, it is speculated that Geoffery is the son of landed gentry. His high standards in food and clothing, his "affluent-sounding" accent, his table manners down to what size fork goes where - all point to an upbringing within high society. However, Geoffrey never confirms or denies this, instead relishing in the attention and letting rumors run free. The reality wasn’t too far from the truth - Geoffrey was one of four legitimate children and potential heirs to their father’s entrepreneurial empire and a sizeable pseudonymous stake in Ad Astra. Assuming a second, worse Scream didn’t happen, credits would never be an issue for the Sutherland family ever again - possibly for tens of generations with subpar management. But the bulk of that wide fortune was outside of Geoffrey’s reach aside from a quite-generous remittance.   Geoffrey’s father had a requirement for his children: live their lives as normal people for some years, utilizing only their remittance and whatever they earn to build themselves up - learn to succeed with just a minor boost from the family to show that they are capable of managing their time, money, and lives in a way to further the family’s name and fortune as the oldest generation passes. Those that performed the best would receive the family fortune - the rest get nothing other than what they were able to build themselves. Although Geoffrey didn’t buy into the “see the galaxy” recruitment propaganda the Protectorate Militia spewed onto the masses, he did see the value in a military career. He intentionally chose the enlisted route, knowing the somewhat meager pay was less of an issue with a well-funded safety net behind him.   The only catch to the father’s will: it must never come to light who the Sutherland children were or the fortune they were all competing for. It meant automatic removal from the father’s will along with a familial excommunication. Some have already found out tidbits of information, such as Yulia Wyke interfering with Geoffrey’s personnel record for her own criminal uses, but to this day Geoffrey maintains an air of silence over his past, his connections, and his potential wealth.   However, he was still a spoiled rich kid. Too many infractions involving Geoffrey and some high-cost, high-brow inebriated activities on- and off-duty landed him in the 4th Mytikan Patrol. It turned out this was an opportune position, as the unit allowed Geoffrey to still haughtily goof-off while still furthering his enlisted military career and experience; hopefully it wouldn’t escape his father’s eyes that Geoffrey now protects one of the most important Protectorate generals.  

Vladis

Full name: “Vladis Vladis Vladis” | Homeworld/city: “Vladisplanet”/“Vladislandia”   The bold-faced lies on Vladis’ paperwork didn’t deter the Militia recruitment office - Vladis was just another warm body suitable for duty, whatever that happened to be. The central databases had a conniption and deep-fried its own circuits trying to verify all of the provided data, leading to various investigations, reprimands, demotions, and in one case, a full-on fist fight. Vladis would be at every one of those painful-for-the-Militia-administration moments, watching and smirking silently, as if they had planned the whole fiasco.   It would be apparent to everyone that Vladis was a secretive person - even more secretive than Sutherland - and afforded little about themselves in any way, shape, or form. Whenever Vladis was questioned, they would manipulate the conversation to smoothly pry out detail after detail of the questioner instead. It was all a game to Vladis, where they wanted to control everything around them for their own amusement. The secrets they would learn would be used against the secret-holder, often for innocuous pranks that usually involved some kind of physical pain, but it was enough to unnerve most other militia, especially commanders with something to hide.   After too many incidents of fellow militia being left strung-up in closets in compromising positions or far-too-spicy hot sauce added to the mess hall’s meals, all suggesting - but not indicting - Vladis’ involvement, they were bounced around multiple Protectorate units, leaving mildly-twisted pranks everywhere in their rank. Each time, Vladis would get away with it, often walking away from a commander’s desk with a casual smirk and a clearly distraught, blushing CO. They would eventually be shoveled into the cesspit that was the 4th Mytikan Patrol unit at the time. Rather than being uncomfortable with Vladis’ sadomasochism, the unit - Ivan included - took it as another form of debauched entertainment. Vladis could see the misery hidden deep-down in most of the unit, and their constant social manipulation and near-psychopathic open mind put them into a de facto therapist role.   Of the only things learned of Vladis, now graffitied into a wall of the Silenus, is that they will never leave the company of the 4th Mytikan Patrol, thinking the unit as their own dear possession.