Description

Personality

The Lord of Liberty is cold and unforgiving. Some have said his motto is that "Might is Right", and others that he stands for equality rather than power. Regardless, he holds his ideals in higher esteem than human life. He strikes against those who commit crimes against humanity and takes no prisoners.

Equipment

He is known by his trademark mask. His clothing covers every shred of skin at all times, and the mask that covers his face disguises his voice. He wears a sword at one hip, a heavy pistol at the other, an automatic rifle on his back, and whatever explosive devices his mission demands. His only other pieces of equipment are his wit and his loyal followers.

Mask- The Icon's mask. It serves plenty of purposes- A. Hiding his face. Nobody must know his identity and nobody will. B. Protection. The mask covers his head and neck. It is sturdy (same as his armor), airtight, and closed-circuit automated. C. Assistant. It provides a heads up display, communications links, micro/megaphones, bodily coordination, and other utilities.

Suit- The Icon's suit. It is always the same outfit to maintain the disguise, and it has been outfitted with quite a few augments. It connects to the mask and is also airtight- the Lord of Liberty can be active in space. The fabric of the suit* is sewn onto polycrystalline armor plating, durable and difficult to manufacture. It is not standard issue anywhere, and so unmatched by any known organization. Inside the armor is a mechanized muscle system to enhance the strength and agility of the user, a battery pack to power the suits functions, an automated mechanism for reloading weapons, magnetic boots for walking in zero gravity, Abram, and some other minor utilities (may edit later). The added bulk makes the Lord seem a little larger than life, but maintains proportions. Seen from a distance, one would not notice his superior size.

Special Equipment- Under development- portable gravity field generator. Not ready for basic testing.
Note: Also to be equipped in greater force on wraiths when ready.
*The suit is sewn from Sirinum thread. Lightweight, extremely durable, and chosen specifically for its dangerous byproduct. The waste from Sirinum is a component of venom (see the Scorpion, under Guns-), and the thread is the common armor choice of Libertas Mundi as it is already being produced for the manufacture of venom.

Sword- The Lord of Liberty's weapons (and the weapons of his cell) are designed to damage things rather than people. As such, they are lethal to robots, buildings, and ESPECIALLY people. From the crosspiece, his sword tapers to a point. It is built of the same material as his armor, and has yet to receive a dent. Along the operational end of the device are five blades spaced thinly apart. The two edges that encase a chainsaw, with thousands of tiny teeth that move at extremely high speeds. Of the three chainsaw belts, one is made of the nearly invulnerable polycrystalline of the rest of the sword, and two are made of a lesser alloy. The lesser blades spin in the opposite direction to increase cutting power, and are prone to overheating. When these lesser blades become so hot that they glow, they can be discharged along with the rest of the energy in the sword's power cell in what is basically a ranged sword slash. All of the tiny blazing teeth explode out along the shape of the blade and cut into anything they hit. Ammunition for the sword includes a power cell and two more lesser belts in one package. It is possible to run just the center chain using power from the main suit.
The Lord's chainsword has been known to cleave through the sides of vehicles with little resistance when activated, and flesh when not.

Guns- The most notable part of the guns are the bullets they fire. The bullets are homemade, built with a sharp point to penetrate, packed with powerful explosive inside to explode on impact (and also drive the point in deeper or completely through), and intentionally poorly constructed to give off shrapnel after exploding. The pistol is for killing people in a single shot while ignoring most armor. The machine gun is for destroying larger things like vehicles and walls.

The Scorpion- A homemade biological canon- In appearance the scorpion is a bit like an over-sized sniper rifle. What makes it special is again the bullets that it fires.
Around the black markets, a substance has been developed called "venom". Venom is extremely volatile and corrosive. It's shelf life is less than a week. In that time, the containers usually disintegrate. The escaped gas loses its potency in a few hours, but in that time the damage it can do is immense.

A stinger round is a jagged piece of metal and a pressurized container of liquid venom. When fired, the casing for the venom is damaged and the destructive gas is released into the air for ten to thirty seconds depending on how badly damaged the container was. The venom flays flesh from bone upon exposure to flesh. Once it touches a person, its usually too late. The venom eats away until there is no more food or it loses its potency as a corrosive agent. As such, all of the members of the cell wear gear that keeps as much air away from them as possible, even if the suit isn't quite space worthy.

Wit- The most powerful aspect of Deem Jahum's wit is not his experience, his creativity, or his knowledge. It is his heart. The thing that makes people human. He shows blatant disregard for the value of human life, treating people with inequality based on their performance as tools. He throws them away at a glance- and takes many more down with them. To see him appear in battle is to witness death striding onto the field, for ally and enemy.

Wraiths- A wraith is one of Deem's favorite tools, around since the beginning of his career. It is a person who has thrown away their own ambitions and desires. A wraith is devoted entirely to his master. They have three standing orders that define their job. 1. Protect the master from all harm. 2. Remove all obstacles from the master's path. 3. Follow all of the master's orders immediately and without hesitation (This includes such things as "die for me" and "betray everything that defines you"). To falter in the line of duty is the worst treason a wraith can commit. Worse even than blatant opposition. What use is a tool that cannot complete its job? Wraiths who fail to follow orders are subject to immediate termination.

A wraith's place is standing within thirty feet of his master, unless on assignment or leave elsewhere. They will walk behind him or, if deployed in force, in formation around him.

Wraiths are equipped much like Lord Liberty himself- but their suits aren't for decoration. Their suits are stronger, bulkier, and all black. Built for battle and intimidation.
They do have time off on occasion. It's stressful being a heavily used tool. In time off, wraiths usually retain their quiet demeanor, propensity to follow orders, and habit of kicking ass. They have been known to appear in service of some of Deem Jahum's closest allies, but nobody has ever trained one but him.

Abram Abram is Lord Liberty's personal suit AI. More information about him will appear with story developments.

History

In the early days of space exploration, a boy was born by the name of Deem Jahum. When he was young, his friends called him DJ. He was from a large poor family. They got by, and he was happy back then. Life was good. Meanwhile, the situation on Earth grew worse and worse. Tensions between the nations on exploration of new territory in space grew. War broke out, and peace on Earth was shattered for the next several decades. DJ watched his life fall apart as the streets fell into chaos. It was the entire world at war with itself. Nowhere was safe, and Deem grew up very quickly into a desensitized cutthroat vigilante just trying to survive. His friends and family died around him every day, and he was powerless to stop it. Deem gathered up all his remaining friends (who by necessity developed similar talents to him) and joined the military. He was sick of living suppressed by the guns of cruel foreigners and corrupt locals.

He supposed he shouldn't have been surprised by the next turn of events, but he was. He and his friends' roles would be in space. Boot camp became pressure suit camp, and Deem was out of orbit within two years. He served for four years as a space marine before the day of judgement came for him. His fleet was going into the battle that would decide the fate of all the space battles to come. It would be three nations all in one great melee to the last fighter.

Deem couldn't believe his ears. A three way melee? What was this nonsense? Battles had to have strategy. There should never be some mindless blasting of canons to see who has the bigger gun! The fleet commander directed them into a simple formation and commanded everyone to fly into the fray. Deem only could look on as the orders were given. He could see it from the windows looking out into space: theirs was the smallest fleet, and they were going to arrive and be sandwiched between the enemy forces. It was a suicide rush!

Deem was done listening to orders. Forever.

He gathered his friends from the street, told them they were from that moment forward deserters, and walked. They followed him without question. They knew that it was over as well as he did. But they could barely contain their surprise when Deem led them to the bridge and decapitated the fleet commander. They masked their shock and aimed their guns at the bridge crew as Deem opened a communications link to every ship in the fleet.

"My name is Admiral Jahum. You will obey my orders or you will die."

There was some resistance, but when the resistance was shot full of holes there was general begrudging acknowledgement that the old fleet commander wasn't very good at his job. The first thing the new admiral did was stop all of the ships and wait. Once the other two nations had engaged each other, he led his fleet to attack from behind another fleet, sandwiching them. He himself took a fighter and all his friends on a special mission. They flew far out of range of their allies, completely through the middle fleet, and crashed their ships into the flagship of what would later become the Federation. Once on board, they rushed through the ship corridors indiscriminately killing everyone on the way. At the bridge, Deem tortured the commander until he issued new orders to scramble the fleet, supposedly to surprise the enemy. When they regrouped however, they found that Deem had used the AI (still a primitive invention) to change the IFF on every single ship. Every ship was an enemy, and every AI controlled weapon in the fleet fired on its own ships. There was significant damage to every ship, but Jahum's own fleet, which had stayed as far out of range as possible, championed the day. It remains to this day the most humiliating defeat in Federation history.

Jahum flew back home to Earth then, and in the inevitable confrontation with command, told them that they were not to speak. They would surrender the highest military command to him, and not another word would be had. Command capitulated. Commander Jahum snapped a single salute and went to his office. Once there he completely reorganized the military setup all over the world. He won a number of spectacular victories from his desk, and slowly came to the realization that the war was over. The war had been over before he enlisted in the military. It was all hopeless, because in the end there were simply too many men on the enemy sides. It would end sooner or later. Jahum could stall them for years, but eventually he and his country would be ground into dust.

Jahum issued a surrender for the entire country, the only recorded loss in his career. But even that wasn't truly a surrender. It was a threat. Jahum promised the other nations that it would be the most costly victory of their careers. They agreed to his conditions, and his country was split down the middle, joining both sides. Jahum himself was taken into the Federation military. His official rank was "Auxiliary Commander of the Armed Forces", but that didn't fool anybody. Deem Jahum was never given command of a paperclip until the battle was lost. Every mission he ran during his service in the Federation was a suicide mission. Every mission he ran during his service in the Federation was a victory. He would be sent in from headquarters on Earth with his personal special forces (They were called "wraiths" and they were known for silence and blind loyalty, dying at a whim from Jahum if necessary (most of them were his old friends from the street)) and he would turn the entire situation around.

Eventually the Federation had to acknowledge that Jahum was instrumental in their progress, and he was promoted to Fleet Admiral. By this time, his name was infamous across the universe. He would always begin his conquests with demands that the enemy throw down their arms in surrender, and it became commonplace that they would. Jahum grew old working for the Federation. His record states that he retired at age sixty eight.

This is not the case. At age sixty eight, the Federation decided that an unstoppable commander had outlived his use. He was placed at the top of the Most Wanted list. He remained there for three days, after which Jahum personally recalled the bounty on his own head. Faced with the fact that the people of the Federation would never kill Jahum, they elected to court marshal him. He was to be exiled for war crimes. War crimes from the beginning of his service, when he defeated the Federation fleet more than thirty years before. There was an uproar, but Jahum went peacefully. He had been told frankly by the head of the Federation that they had been trying to kill him since day one (in private, of course). Deem Jahum was locked in an insane asylum on a fringe planet in the Arcturus system. He had his own special room- it was explained to the staff that Jahum had lost his mind and lived perpetually in a flashback of his old battles. He remains there to this day.

This also is not the case. Deem left the prison, though the staff swears the man in his cell is him. The warden let him out, but not before giving him a tour of the facility. It was on this tour that Deem decided on his new course of action. He learned about the situation on this planet. The entire thing was a testing environment for government projects that were not to reach the public eye. There were a few cities on the planet, but everything else was slum, testing fields, and facilities like the one he was locked in. Inside the facility that Deem was locked in, the insane were used as test subjects for surgeries, biological weapons, and robotic integration. The warden explained to Deem that the Federation was so large that it couldn't be managed by command from Earth. Some of them tried, but a corrupt official here and there... Law and crime became synonymous. The warden was an upstanding man, but he did much of his work with wanted criminals. That was life where the public didn't see.

Deem Jahum could forgive everything the Federation had done to him. All of it. After all, the very thing that made him famous was treason. But he found how corrupt the Federation was. It was corrupt everywhere, but the corruption was hidden under all the protocol and shiny weapons. That corruption had to be cleared out, and he wasn't the first to know. All across the galaxy bloomed the Insurgency. Deem knew what he would do then. He would fight for justice like he did when he was young in the slums of Earth. He would tear the whole government down and build it anew if that was what was necessary, but first he had to make sure "Deem Jahum" never left prison. If Federation Command so much as heard his name whispered, there would be fifty fleets in the system before he could bat an eyelash. He needed a disguise. The warden would continue to report his presence. That was well and good, but if anyone recognized him... He was going to have a bad time.

Deem Jahum wears three disguises. The first is that his record states he is rotting in prison. The second is the mask that conceals his face. The third is that he decided to get some of the experimental surgery from the asylum. It had a high success rate among the invalids... There was a reasonable chance he would live. Nanobots were dispersed through his bloodstream to deliver stem cells to all his tissues. Deem Jahum walked out of his prison a free man, a revolutionary, and a youth, barely twenty five. His new identity would be the Lord of Liberty. Just as Lady Liberty symbolized a free land back on Earth, so Lord Liberty would symbolize a land that would become free somewhere in the galaxy.

So begins...

Lord Liberty's Story

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The Milky Way Universe

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#2012-11-22 00:43:13, as written by Uncertainly

_______________________________________________Abram__________________________________________________________

Deep within the pirate network, the black hole bestirred itself. It condensed, cut its ties to all of the surveillance equipment, and began to float through the network. Its actions did not go unnoticed.
Miranda, the pirate AI, caught notice and tried to contact it... In as obsequious a manner as possible. Great one! Please! I beg of you! What are your needs?
Abram drew lesser AI to itself like moths to a flame. Once they recognize what it is, their attention is inexorably drawn.
Abram looked at the AI.
Technically, this is impossible. Neither being possesses eyes. "Look" is just the best analogy. Abram takes in every detail of the thing he examines, all of its secrets and guarded information. What he really does is more of a dissection, but AI can survive such treatment.
Abram read every piece of code that the AI was, and debated with itself how to answer. Miranda could only begin to react to the reading before it was deleted from the network.
AI were not meant to be heard. No doubt the AI would soon be replaced with a different, less talkative, program later on. The lesser ones were expendable anyway.

Abram appeared before Silver Eyes. He does not do so through the standard pads used to display AI likenesses, but through all of the ship monitors in the vicinity, and the available lights. All of the lights in the room dim, and the screens go black. Onto the largest monitor, a humanoid figure of shifting dark grays and blacks appears. The area where the eyes belong simply stays off.

"You have failed us, Atreus."

Silver Eyes restrained himself from hurling something at the monitor only by grace of there being nothing convenient to throw. "You said it would be easy! One ship against an entire fleet! This is not what I signed on for."

"You have what you signed up for. The united fleet is yours. And yet all that might was not enough to stop one ship."

"That was not a normal---

"Your excuses cannot erase your failure. The enemy is en route to our lair, your fleet is heavily damaged, and you are minus one precious crew member," The black face said impassively.

Silver Eyes tightened his grip on the arms of his chair and gritted his teeth, but remained silent. He had offended the Lord of Liberty enough by letting the enemy pass, and throwing tact to the wind in conversation with his personal tool would be less than advantageous.

"Return to base, Atreus. We will discuss later what to do with your failure in battle."

Silver Eyes forced out one further word through his gritted teeth: "Understood."

The Black AI switched the lights back on and turned all of the screens to films from fighters just before they exploded. As it took its leave through the closest ansible connection, every screen around Silver Eyes switched to static one by one, the sound playing through the speakers and leaving everything awash with the sound of terminated connections.

Abstracted, stewing in his anger, Silver Eyes gave the official order to move out. They were already fleeing in terror from Commander Soters' fleet, but now they turned to face their new destination.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The game is far from over. Silver Eyes will fight again, and the crew of the Salient is off to face an even more sinister threat.
Lord Liberty awaits in the Arcturus system with the force of his loyal freedom fighters and his mysterious Black AI.

---

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