Gaiaterra: Elysea's Conflict/Protectorate Characters

Yoshiro
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Yoshiro was the Emperor of the Katsuragi Protectorate. The longtime ruler of the Human side of the Protectorate, he was cherished as a living god by his people and the military. Emperor Yoshiro was a traditionalist who strictly followed the code of Bushido, the way of the warrior. He fundamentally believed that the Protectorate's destiny is to rule the entire world, he being Emperor by divine right and that his fate was preordained. Self-disciplined, he and the phoenix king changed the Protectorate military into one of the most modern ones in the world during the time of his reign together with his son Tatsu, Crown Prince of the Protectorate.

His wife was Tokugawa Kikuko, Princess Takamatsu (Kikuko) of Ulthuan, who he married on 4th February 1930 at the Kokyo Imperial Palace in Avelorn. Shortly after the wedding, Prince and Princess Takamatsu embarked upon a world tour, partly to return the courtesies shown to them by King George V of Fereldan. The Prince and Princess returned to Ulthuan in June 1931 and took up residence in Takanawa in Minato, Avelorn. While on the trip, an incident claimed the life of the greatest part of the royal family, including all his siblings. Following this, Takamatsu took over the throne, and in May 1932 he became a father. He only had one child, Crown Prince Tatsu. In this time, he changed his name to Yoshiro.

He rarely showed emotion and often spoke in a seemingly wise tone. While the Voshkod and Alliance were fighting each other, Yoshiro was building up a massive high-tech military force to fight against the seceding Elves led by Malekith in the Sundering. He gave up the command of the Protectorate military after he realized his belief in predestination was false for uncertain reasons, giving the command to Tatsu. He later got over his depression, just in time when the Dark Elves attacked the palace. He was almost killed by the Dark Elf commander Hellebron as he sported a special King Oni mecha, the Greater King Oni "Scarlet Chrysanthemum", marking his last appearance in public. What then happened is speculative, but the official reason for his death is a Khainite Assassin killing him from behind.

In private, he was an avid fan of two things. One was speed-racing, much to the complaint of his son. The other thing was battleships. From 1922 to 1925, he studied at the Imperial Protectorate Naval Academy, which formed his later way heavily. Yoshiro practiced bonsai, the art of growing trees, or woody plants shaped as trees, in containers. He often paid attention to his small tree, pruning it, reducing its roots and the such. Health-wise, he kept fit by training in kenjutsu, and occasionally he would invite an Imperial Warrior that he saw in action, to duel with him by crossing their katana. After Emperor Yoshiro's death, it was up to Emperor Tatsu, and later Kanmina, to take care of the tree that Yoshiro left behind.

Tatsu
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Emperor Tatsu was a man of vision, like his father. He saw an Ulthuan equal to, even greater than the Western nations of the world. He saw Ulthuan's technology outpace anything the Hawke or Voshkod could envision. And he died seeing his inventions decimated by the enemy.

His mother dead from complications during childbirth, Tatsu was raised in the mold of his father. Tradition and honor were the laws an emperor lived by, and he was constantly told that one day the reigns of leadership would eventually pass to him. He learned politics, military strategy, and the ways of Bushido. He prayed constantly to his mother for guidance and asked her to watch both himself and his father in their decisions.

By age 21, Tatsu had decided to explore the wider world. With his father's blessings, Tatsu set out from Ulthuan to Fereldan, fascinated by the rumored technologies the Alliance claimed to have. He was greeted with fanfare by the royal family of Fereldan, the young Queen greeting her guest with Fereldan pomp and flair. The young Tatsu was awed by the Fereldan military, the massive lines of regimented soldiers and generals with dozens of medals, hundreds of tanks, and a naval fleet that was the envy of the world. He was shown the Fereldan government in parliament but was less impressed with the constant arguing and even jokes that were thrown about. Government behaving so flippantly was confusing for him, but he kept his tongue; he was a guest in the country. The queen herself took a shine to the quiet and reserved Tatsu, and throughout the trip told him that a leader knows their place in relation to the people; ahead of them in thinking, but always under them in service.

Once home, Tatsu vowed to make Ulthuan a similar powerhouse to the Fereldans. He drew back all of Ulthuan's students and best minds to help him mold a new military, built on new traditions. There was friction between father and son, with the emperor favoring his traditional methods as his son continued to push for ever-increasing modernization. Soon, a compromise was reached; Tatsu could design as many weapons and technologies as he wanted, but his father wanted them to adhere to the philosophies of their ancestors.

Tatsu actually found this quite easy to work around. With technologies like beam weapons and nanotechnology, he could easily make technology into a form and philosophy his father could understand. The beam katana, the Tsunami tank, the revamped Shogun battleship. Each proved to Emperor Yoshiro that the way of war could still exist on the modern battlefield. Though still mindful of tradition, Yoshiro quietly beamed with pride over his son's accomplishments.

By 1965, Tatsu had transformed the Protectorates armies from technologically infantile and conscripted into a modern force of new samurai. Even as Crown Prince, safely able to coast along on his successes and no longer worry about anything, Tatsu still kept his father's teachings close to his heart. Working closely with daimyos Tenzai and Shirada, his designs improved on their own breakthroughs, and his appointment of shogun Nagama as chief infantry officer of the Empire ensured the Empire's limited soldiers would be the best at their vocation.

However, his philosophies on actual war fell on deaf ears. The emperor's psychological warfare shocked the barbarians, yes, but it also hardened their resolve. The Voshkod held on to Mor Dhona, as the Dark Elves conducted a campaign of island-hopping in the Pacific. Constantly he tried to convince his father of the folly of their methods, but the Emperor would not listen. Many times the crown prince would confront his father on his methods, leading to fierce arguments at the midpoint of the war. It was after one argument nearing the end of the Sundering that the Dark Elves' raid on Avelorn began. Quickly the royal family led the defenses, the young crown prince advising his own forces masterfully to aid Avelorn's garrison against the traitorous invaders followed by rapid precision airstrikes and bombardment that finally forced Malekith and his forces to retreat.

Finally ending the war, Tatsu returned to find a weeping Shinzo at the entrance to the royal chambers. Bursting through the paper doors, he slowly stepped to his father's prone body, clawed and shot by the Dark Elves. Despite the damage, the face was clearly that of Emperor Yoshiro. Expelling the doctors and guards, the crown prince broke down. Begging forgiveness from his father, he later stepped out, broken by the loss of his only remaining family.

Shaken to his core, Tatsu tried to collect himself for the sake of his people. As a month after his father's passing the War Of The Beard began, and on his orders, the commanders of the Empire were to show no mercy. Each patch of ground, every mile of water would be paid in blood, as ever-increasing fanaticism took hold in the military. Yet the Protectorate couldn't match the sheer weight of machines and men the Coalition put out. Eventually, his intelligence alerted him to the incoming Coalition fleet. What happened next is more effectively told in the specific battle report, but in the end, the direct line of Emperor Jimmu had broken. Tatsu was laid in state, as a phantom ruler as the leaders of Ulthuan met together to decide who would rule them now that the Imperial line was broken.

Though dead, Tatsu is still revered among the militarists in the Protectorate. His contributions to Ulthuan's modernization, the rise of the manufacturing sector, and his decision to heavily pursue military psionics were all seen as securing Ulthuan's future even in defeat. Emperor Tatsu is all but elevated to the position of the war-god Bishamonten, a fate he would have found most humorous.

Shiro Kamina
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When Shiro Kamina was seven years old, a bully decided to pick a fight with him. While attempting to avoid his blows, the young boy managed, quite by accident, to cause the older boy to stumble and fall.

Even at his young age, Kamina knew it was not honorable to strike his opponent while he was down. It didn't stop him from kicking the bully repeatedly in the ribs and stomping down on his hand, leaving the unfortunate boy with six broken bones. Because that day Kamina came to the most important realization of his life; that honor was meant to protect the bullies from the bullied. If you didn't want to be bullied, you had to defeat them completely, and let nothing stand in your way.

The third child of one of the wealthiest industrial families in Ulthuan with the prestige of Protectorate Blood in its veins, Kamina soon found himself in command school, learning to command the forces of the Protectorate for the coming war. He soon established a strange reputation; he did extremely poorly on his written assignments, never giving the answers his teachers wanted, but in simulation and war games he never lost a battle, and in practice duels he never lost a fight, due to a tempered pragmatism combined with a cynical, almost paranoid streak and an extremely creative tactical mind.

He would game the rules of simulation as far as he could to get maximum advantage, and he pursued his objectives with a single-minded determination. Most of his instructors considered him an arrogant and dishonorable fool, who got lucky on the field but was not a proper commander of men, but throughout his time in the academy, he was protected by Shinzo Nagama, the famed Luresian War veteran, who recognized the importance of his pragmatism on the battlefield.

During the war he led the offensive on the Dark Elves and later against the Coalition, joining battle after battle, determined to destroy his enemies completely. This attitude was one of the things that saved the Protectorate from destruction by the combined efforts of the Voshkod and Coalition and gained the Protectorate an honorable surrender.

After the war was over and the only two living members of the Imperial family, Emperor Yoshiro and Crown Prince Tatsu had died in respectable battles the way they wanted to, as warriors, it was among the remaining Shogun to decide who would take the place as the new Emperor. The extended family of the Emperor declined the position, citing a belief that one more suited to politics than they should take the throne. The politically savvy Shogun Takara Sato rejected the position of ruler outright, as it was her opinion it might bring a negative reaction among the public should a woman suddenly take over the throne. The oldest and wisest Shogun, Shinzo Nagama, had offered his place to a younger generation several times, but Kamina convinced him to stay as an advisor, and of them; Kamina was the one who had the strongest direct heritage from the house of Yamato thanks to direct patrilineal descent from the Taisho Emperor through a concubine whose son would marry into his family. Thus, it was for Kamina to take the throne and bring the Protectorate forward in these grim times.

After his ascension to the throne, Kamina immediately pushed through several reforms, the most controversial being the end to the traditional discrimination of people with foreign ancestors, particularly the High Elves' discrimination of their allies the Katsuragi and Erune, as well as giving them equal status within the Protectorate. When the Traditionalists tried to use this as an excuse to knock Kamina off the throne, Kamina's popularity with the Protectorate people as well as unexpected support from the Militants was enough to get the Traditionalists to back off for now, despite the fact that doing something like that would have been a political death sentence just a few years ago.

In private, Emperor Kamina is known to tinker with anything that sparks his immediate interest from the mechanical to the scientific. Kamina would carefully analyze anything and figure a way to turn it to the Protectorate advantage, earning him the nickname "The Scholar" by the Shogunate.

Takara Sato
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Daimyo Sato was born the sole child of her family, her father was saddened by his lack of a son to carry on his family's name but heartened when he saw his daughter finding her way constantly to the ancient armor worn by her ancestors in combat. Consulting his family's advisors, he discovered she had a destiny to fulfill; a path as a leader of warrior women. Confused but heartened by the certainty of her destiny, Takara's father had her learn with the sword, the bow, and the horse.

By her fifteenth birthday, she had learned the bow, mastered the sword, and tamed each horse given to her. Her father smiled with pride but knew no law letting women serve under the banner of the Protectorate. He saw only a future of her marrying, being forced to subdue her destiny in exchange for her own sake in society. Then the call for women was announced by Prince Tatsu on his return from studying abroad. Destiny was indeed going to come true.

The training of the Rocket Angels is something Sato will not speak of. The end result was that she led them. She was their cadet commander, and now was their leader in war. She led the first assaults on the Coalition with her classmates and eventually was transferred to aid the Eastern Fleet in the defense of Ulthuans territories. It was during this time that she became friends with Admiral Shirada. The two were an odd match; Shirada was born aboard a mighty battleship, and Sato was molded into a warrior by time. Yet the pair was soon a common sight whenever they could secure leave. The calm and thoughtful Shirada was the perfect foil to the often brash and hot-tempered Sato.

The battle of the Bering Strait was a huge personal blow to Sato. Though a victory for the Protectorate, the death of Naomi Shirada hit her the hardest. Gone was her role model on how to be a commander. The losses to both the Voshkod and Coalition compounded her grief. She felt responsible for not protecting the Emperor better (Even being nearly half a world away), and during the Second Battle of Avelorm not being able to save the Protectorate from total defeat.

Now, Sato waits. She has tried to rebuild the Rocket Angels after the heavy losses they took during the war. She has fully bought into the idea that Yuriko Omega is a goddess in human form, and that soon she will raise a new army against the foreign oppressors. But for now, Sato trains her new charges in the same secrecy she had been.

Alith Anar
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Eltharion The Grim
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Finubar
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Drang
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Ferry
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Lowain (and Elsam and Tomoi)
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Metera
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Norio Tomokawa
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Hiro Minamoto
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