R

Species: human
Gender: male
Age: 37
DOB: May 6, 2371
Birthplace: Jirva, Capella Mining System
Occupation: starship commander
Languages: Russian, English
Hobbies: hunting

Personality
Renowned for his ruthlessness and ferocity, Rusak is called the Black Sword Captain by friend and foe alike. He is as cold-hearted as a human can be without turning reptilian. He has little regard for the lives or freedoms of others and has no problem destroying life, human or otherwise. He treats all living creatures as animals and sees the act of killing as nothing more than animal slaughter. He does not have a single ounce of compassion in his body. He has no respect for anyone, not even himself. To him, everything in the universe is a test of strength. Either you have the strength to seize power, or not, and if not, you die. There is no morality, no beauty, only victory or death.

Extremely rigid and disciplined, Rusak asks from his subordinates only one thing: their complete and utter obedience. He is strict and unforgiving. He does not reward lateral thinking or improvisation. To him, a starship should be a well-oiled machine following the orders of its captain. He drills his soldiers longer and harder than anyone else. He demands performance and pushes people past their extremes until they crack. Failure is not an option.

Rusak's tactics rely heavily on two things. Stealth and offense. He spent much of his youth hunting elusive prey and learned well how to be evasive. He draws or shadows his enemy to the position where he wants them and then attacks with such ferocity he usually overwhelms the unsuspecting target in the initial assault. His opponents generally do not even realize they are being hunted. Any attack he makes he commits fully to. He would sooner die than retreat.

Socially, Rusak is a loner. He does not engage with others much, has no real friends, and prefers not to be bothered. His only use for others is to display his aggression. If he has one redeeming quality, it is probably his patience. He's a very patient man. Aside from that, totally unredeemable.

Physical Characteristics
Height: 5' 11"
Weight/Build: moderately muscled
Hair: dark brown
Eyes: copper
Skin: average
Face: perpetually angry/scowling
Attire: Usually long black coats, typical sleek "futuristic-style" fashion. The green and white uniform is the Terran Navy uniform which he rarely wears any more, though he still has it. (The green represents Earth, the black space, and the white is just for the irony of it.)

Collective History: By the Sword
In 2404 the Third Galactic War broke out. Its causes were many. Racial tensions, senatorial disputes, large-scale poverty and famine across several sectors. In an instant, two hundred years of galactic peace was forgotten.

The first strike occurred, quite unannounced, against the Confederated Navy of Terran Planets. The Qulsham attacked the Fourteenth Expeditionary Fleet, killing Admiral Leicester in the process. A young captain named Rusak Petrovich Talietzin rose to power in Leicester's place. Talietzin went on to lead the Fourteenth to many victories against the Qulsham and their allies, the Fia. He became known as the Black Sword Captain. During the next two years, he killed over four billion Fia colonists, completely eradicating the colonies of Lusuu, Ialon, and Ishmah, and destroyed hundreds of enemy ships, killing hundreds of thousands of enemy soldiers. He single-handedly turned the tide of war in the Confederation's favor.

In 2406, both sides were ready to end the hostilities and return to peace. Representatives gathered in the Antioch system and signed the Antioch Peace Accords, bringing an end to the war.

But the Black Sword Captain was not satisfied, viewing the peace accords as insufficient when, if the war continued, the Confederation was sure to be victorious in the long run. He took his fleet and went rogue, refusing to recognize the treaty. Desperate to have peace once more, both sides tried to stop Talietzin.

The chase went on for nearly two years. Talietzin evaded his pursuers and attacked every target of opportunity he could find. He killed military ships, civilian transports, and mining drones. He raided colonies and outposts. For nearly two years, the galaxy lived in fear that he would turn up on their planet, or near their ship.

This might have gone on indefinitely, but Talietzin's first officer decided enough was enough and section nined Talietzin. He then surrendered the fleet to the authorities at the Yggdrasin Sinkhole.

Talietzin's trial was brief and widely-publicized. He was found guilty of treason, genocide, and military misconduct and sentenced to life imprisonment. His supporters decreed the verdict as a politically-motivated sacrifice. Before he was jailed, he attempted to escape, and was killed in the process.

There is speculation that, at some point during the trial, Rusak switched places with his twin brother Lev, and that it was his brother who died in the escape attempt, not Rusak. Some believe that Rusak is still alive, living under his brother's identity.

Individual History
Rusak and his identical twin brother Lev were born on Jirva, his family's private estate moon in the Capellan Mining System. The Talietzin family owned the rights to the system, which made them quite comfortable financially. Jirva was a stark, lonely place, terraformed to be a northern forest climate. The Talietzins were genetic purists, preserving both the genetic makeup of their Russian heritage and eschewing the genetic modifications so prevalent among most humans. This made them more than a little odd in the eyes of outsiders. Jirva was a sanctuary from the rest of the universe, where the Talietzins could live as they pleased.

Rusak's elder sister Irena was groomed to be the family's financial heir, freeing Rusak to pursue war instead. He was destined from the beginning to be the family's military heir, with his brother Lev pursuing the arts and literature and becoming the cultural heir. Petrov Talietzin taught his children that an iron will and discipline far outweighed genetic modifications, instilling in Rusak a ferocity that few could match. He was not the smartest, the strongest, or the fastest, but he was the best because he accepted nothing else, and Rusak was wise enough to pick battles he could win.

Tutored by private instructors, Rusak learned what was required of him and spent his every free moment hunting, his true passion. The Talietzin family raised dogs, purebred and trained to be killing machines. They would obtain rare predators and animals from throughout the galaxy and hunt them down on Jirva. It was highly dangerous sport, and one Rusak excelled in. More than simply hunting, he studied the animals, learned their tactics, made their instincts his own.

At the age of sixteen, his family paid his way into the officer training program of the Confederated Navy (as all rich families do). For the first time, Rusak was forced to compete with genetically modified humans, most of whom looked down on him for being unmodified. He was not at the top of any of his classes, but he had a cunning streak that got the better of even the brightest students at times. He was not above sabotage and held everyone else in an unhealthy degree of contempt which made him no friends and a few enemies. Being his enemy usually proved worse in the long run. Rusak was patient and had a long memory for slights. It was extremely hard to get the upper hand against him and maintain it, so eventually his classmates realized the futility and stopped trying. They left him alone, which suited him fine.

After four years, at age twenty, he graduated and began his professional military career. He was promoted precisely on a schedule in keeping with his family's financial contributions, even if he was not well-liked or particularly notable. He took to carrying around a sword, a ceremonial remnant of the uniform from years past. It raised some questions, but compared to most of the other officers, Rusak was an exemplary soldier, never getting into any scandalous situations. While other officers had affairs or gambled or drank, Rusak kept to his discipline. He seemed perfectly respectable. So, shortly before his twenty-ninth birthday, they made him a ship captain.

Rusak had been waiting for this. The Seit Ruan was a light cruiser in the Fourteenth Expeditionary Fleet, nothing notable or fancy, but it was a command. He promptly set about whipping his crew into shape. He cracked down on gambling and drinking, held his men to high standards, and drilled them until the exercises were second nature. There was a lot of grumbling. A lot of people tried to transfer out. That suited Rusak just fine; new recruits were easier to mold than the soldiers accustomed to laziness. His practices were a bit of a problem, though, and there was a rumor Rusak would be relieved of his command as soon as there was an excuse for it. (Simply demanding your men do the job they signed up for was not reason enough.)

Meanwhile, Rusak was bored. The galaxy had been at peace for so long, and Rusak hungered for a war. Every night he prayed for something to happen.

And then it did. By some stroke of fate, the Fourteenth Expeditionary was the target of the first attack by the Qulsham. The other starship crews and captains were lazy. Only Rusak was truly prepared. He set his crew into motion and they performed as smoothly as in their hundreds of exercises. While other ships in the fleet were being bombarded, he brought the Seit Ruan about and rained destruction on the attackers. He even had the audacity to order those ships not crippled by the initial assault as if he were in charge of the Fleet. The Qulsham had focused their initial attack on the admiral's flagship, leaving almost all the lighter warships and cruisers intact. In the absence of the flagship, many of the other ships followed the orders coming in on the comm. Enough that, instead of the Fleet being eradicated, the Qulsham were driven back. On that day, the war began. On that day, a legend was born. this was what Rusak had been waiting his whole life for.

More than that, after the battle's end, Rusak continued to issue orders to the rest of the Fleet while strategically taking advantage of media attention to gain political clout. The military command was given the choice between recalling the fleet to install a new commanding admiral and sacrificing the Fleet's position, or sending reinforcements and giving a distinguished captain the temporary position of acting admiral in the hopes of holding that position. They bowed to public opinion and the reality of the situation. They put Rusak in charge of the Fleet for the time being.

It was not a position Rusak had any intention of giving back. He immediately removed all the other captains and replaced them with his own rigidly disciplined crew who would follow only him. He forced everyone in the Fourteenth Fleet to drill as hard as his own crew had for the post two years. Faced with the urgency of war, the Fourteenth obeyed. The schedule was grueling, but within six months he had the fleet at a suitable level of readiness and competence and they went on the offense. They razed planets and obliterated fleets using every trick Rusak knew from his years of hunting. His tactics were brutal and primal and unlike any conventional battle plans. He was compared to the blitzkrieg of the Third Reich. He never took any prisoners. He earned the nickname the Black Sword Captain for both his ruthlessness and for executing an insubordinate officer with his sword on the bridge of his ship, a move that shocked many, but by that point he was simply an unstoppable force. He performed several more executions personally, but accounts differ as to the number and reasons.

Interestingly, though they sent him a flagship, the Queen Mary, Rusak preferred to command from the Seit Ruan. As a light cruiser, it was practically invisible to the enemy. The Qulsham in particular liked to attack the obvious command ships first, so Rusak primarily used the flagship as bait for traps, letting the Queen Mary take the flak. It became somewhat affectionately known as the Bloody Mary after all the damage it took.

Entirely too soon for Rusak's liking, it was over. After a mere two years and three months, the galaxy had enough of war, and the Antioch Peace Accords were signed. Rusak was furious. He had worked so hard to create a fighting force capable of winning this war and they declared peace on him! He had only just gotten started! In the interest of finishing what he started, he disregarded the peace treaty and went on the assault. Best of all, his first few targets were entirely unsuspecting in the wake of the peace treaty.

Of course, the fleets were all mobilized against him, but Rusak had practically written the textbook on stealth maneuvers, and his fleet was the most highly trained. A galactic cat and mouse game began, with Rusak's fleet (minus that behemoth the Queen Mary) playing both the mouse and the cat. They hit any target they could find, including civilians, military, pirates -- anything. Rusak single-handedly ground intergalactic trade and travel to a halt. People were terrified to travel. He disabled communications for areas of the galaxy. He struck at whim and tricked his pursuers into all manner of traps. He attacked unguarded planets and installations. Because starships were designed to be as near to self-sustaining as possible, his reign of galactic terror might have continued for decades.

Unfortunately, there was some dissent in the ranks. People missed their homes and families. Rusak underestimated his crew's desire to go home. While hiding in the Yggdrasin sinkhole, his first officer invoked Section Nine of the military charter and seized command, surrendering the fleet and handing Rusak over to the authorities. Rusak was immediately put on trial. It lasted three months. The verdict was guilty on all counts and the sentence life imprisonment. Never one to give up, Rusak immediately attempted to escape. He was killed during the attempt. His death was reportedly due to the fact the stun weapons employed by the guards were configured to take down individuals with genetic modifications to their pain threshold and strength.

Some say Rusak's death was a vast government conspiracy, or a lie. Some say he switched places with his twin brother. The truth is...

Post-Extraction
After his death during the escape attempt, Rusak was retrieved by the Supreme Commander to join the Imperium. He was an integral part of several assaults on Deity Command during the Fleet era. He became a member of the Supreme Commander's Black Circle. He became associated with the group of Russians who later formed the Russian Hockey League. At the Conference, he voted to extend the conflict, and for the second time was forced to abide by a peace treaty, a fact which has left him rather angry and unfulfilled. He joined the Russian Hockey League to have an arena to vent his frustration. Unlike most of the others in the Imperium, he resides on a decommissioned starship parked in nullspace instead of in the Neighborhood.

It was through hockey that he met a boy named Third and a familiar named Constant.

To this day Rusak remains convinced his only mistake was not executing his first officer on the Seit Ruan quickly enough, and that otherwise all his actions have been the correct ones.

Identical twin brother named Lev.

Rusak is heterosexual, his twin Lev is homosexual. Though at the surface they seem to have little in common (Rusak is a warrior, Lev a man of letters) they do share a deep fraternal understanding of each other.

Has halted his age at 37, his age at time of death.

When reading, wears copper wireframe glasses, a gift from his brother.