Gaiaterra: Elysea's Conflict/Aquilan Characters

Malcolm Granger
"Hey Minea, ever seen a Revenant... Up close? Hahaha!"

-Last transmission of Malcolm Granger

Malcolm Granger's passion for flying began early in his life when as a boy of 12 he "borrowed" his father's crop duster biplane to fly to the state fair in (Kansas). Since that incident, it quickly became clear that his future would be in the skies.

In 1938, he enlisted in the Aquilan Air Force and got his first taste of combat shortly after the Aquilans joined the GVAW, seeing action in the Eorzean theatre of the war. Serving as a bombardier onboard a B-29 Superfortress bomber, Granger proved himself to be exceptionally good at his task, delivering bombs to their targets with uncanny accuracy, and earned his first notices for knocking out four SAMs in a single afternoon, although this action nearly cost him his life. Following the GVAW, Granger rose up the ranks, and had managed to reach the rank of Brigadier General, and had been assigned command of a bomber wing when the (insert) broke out. The (insert) saw him achieving a string of military successes, something that, along with the deaths of superior officers, would see Granger promoted to Lieutenant General by the end of the war.

Even-tempered yet uncompromising, Granger has developed novel techniques in fuel management and resource deployment during air superiority operations. Those techniques have been used with success in Elona, (Afghanistan), and other theaters. His squadrons are known for precision execution and a strong will to complete the mission.

During the years of peace following the Empire's victory over the MLA in 2008 V.C., General Granger spent most of his time experimenting with more effective air combat techniques at Area 51, Nevada, in order to modernize the Air Force and increase his arsenal's overall firepower. This is where the first Wyvern-class stealth bomber, Chimera-class strategic bomber, Colossus defense, and levitation pad prototypes were created and then tested. All these prototypes gave satisfying results and passed on to full production. However, their production costs were too high for the whole Aquilan Military to be provided with these new weapons so both General Granger and the Department of Defense worked out an arrangement: as Malcolm Granger is reckoned as the most talented and trustworthy AFAF Commander, it was agreed that he alone would be provided with these weapons for advanced air operations.

Following the Aurora disaster in the war with the MLA and his demotion to captain, Granger was quickly transferred to Cantha theatre, taking overall command of the air force presence in Encantadia in the 2nd Conflict. As a captain, Granger proved an able strategist when it came to aerial operations, and in all respects was a very capable officer, planning and overseeing dozens of air operations against the Canthans and Encantadians. His one quirk was his tendency to join in the fighting at the front, despite the disapproval of his superiors, who were unhappy about the danger that the former three-star general constantly exposed himself to. It was this quirk that would cost him his life.

During an aerial operation to support a Canthan battalion fighting an Encantadian force many times its size, Granger was personally present at the battle in an AC-56A Revenant Gunship (the only one available at the time), devastating entire battalions of Encantadian armor, including one led by Aquil below. Bombardment from the lone Revenant claimed huge numbers of Encantadian forces, even as the Canthan forces were slowly but surely wiped out by the numerically superior Encantadian forces surrounding them.

Even the Revenant couldn't survive forever, but it somehow managed to take a surprising amount of anti-aircraft fire including a shot from Danaya's Strela MANPAD receiving damage to several critical areas. With his plane ailing, the rest of the crew dead from a barrage of shells that had torn through the cockpit, and Granger himself wounded by a piece of shrapnel, Granger was left with few options, with the plane clearly too damaged to make it back to safety.

He could of course attempt to eject from the cockpit, but that would almost certainly guarantee his capture at the hands of the Encantadians. As a high-ranking officer who was bound to have immensely valuable intelligence, the Sang'gres would not kill him; however, his fate would certainly be worse than that.

Granger chose instead to steer the badly damaged gunship on one last attack run, intending to take out as many Encantadian forces as he could. Broadcasting his last transmission over all radio channels as he began his descent, Granger flew the Revenant straight into the middle of an Encantadian formation, obliterating the formation and killing himself in a massive, fiery, explosion.

Gregory Townes
"Our laser beams are cutting through your forces like a hot knife through butter!"

-Gregory Townes, during the Battle of Fort Union

Gregory 'Pinpoint' Townes was a 3-Star Aquilan Army General around the time of the war against the Voshkod and the Ascalians. General Townes was an early pioneer of effective, inexpensive, and realistically deployable laser weaponry in the military, both for offensive and defensive purposes.

A 29-year-old Captain Townes was appointed to West Point to teach his theories; however, he found academic life too slow and returned to battlefield command in 1972 V.C. With his unique knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of laser weaponry, Townes consistently received favorable marks during live-fire exercises and wargames, which had landed him the position of working together with Alexis. This four-star general continues to push the technology envelope in harnessing energy and improving power efficiency, and the Army is counting heavily on him.

In the beginning, he only had two laser weapons because of the Tacitus Convention banning blinding lasers such as the Laser Defense Turret and the Laser Crusader. Even worse, the LDT itself is actually forbidden to use (Laser Crusader's weapon AI is coded to not shoot laser with high temperature against infantry, hence it is allowed but he had to keep LDT's lethality because of that) but Townes successfully hid it from the (Geneva) Staff until the Aquilans heavy losses in the Second War against the MLA in 2023 V.C., which made the (Geneva) Staff decide to check every Aquilan arsenal after the nation's biological weapons were stolen by the MLA and imposed a hefty fine including an imprisonment warning and he was forced to tune down LDT's lethality. He then tried so hard to bribe the (Geneva) staff until he was finally authorized to have lethal lasers at the expense of public support. After that, he quickly developed an even more powerful laser technology on new units (but he did not have much time to upgrade the LDT and the Laser Crusader) which can instantly burn anything else to a crisp. He also managed to make the charged particle into a form of a mini bomb for bombardment purposes.

In spite of his reputation as something of a crank, obsessed with precision and the superiority of laser-based weapon systems, the Aquilan Army counted heavily on him to assist in the modernization of their forces. Shortly after the President went berserk, he refused to take orders from Ackerman and locked down his base of operations, Fort Union, effectively going rogue. As a result, he earned a medal from the Aquilans, a pardon from Vice President Hoffhassle, and the enmity of the Minutemen, as he was a native of Embry.

Based in the former Fort Union, Redwood Shores, Western Region, General Townes had begun working on the rearmament of the members of the Embry Army loyal to the Aquilans, as well as the research and development of several key Strategic Defense Initiatives for Civil Defence. His role in the killing of President Ackerman, however, did not go unnoticed by the Minutemen, who in mid-June began an offensive of revenge against Fort Union, resulting in a three-hour-long pitched battle.

While the tracking lights, laser defenses, and plasma artillery of the base made short work of PAWIed armor companies and infantry, a strike team of Tunnel Rats and Sidewinders infiltrated from underneath and were able to take out the base's cooling systems, frying overcharged laser turrets and reducing the plasma artillery to streams of gas.

Townes himself took to the field in the waning hour of the battle, the normally composed general disconcertingly cheerful as he straddled the barrel of his personal 'pet project' - a custom tank chassis fitted with Townes' own experimental "Omega" plasma projector. Minutemen after Minutemen fell to the tank's blue beam of death, Townes himself taking potshots at anyone in reach with his laser pistol, until only the brave sacrifice of an entire squad of Minutemen allowed the attackers to hit the Omega Tank's vulnerable rear heat system. The resultant blast from the explosion and intense light emitted would render the Omega Tank and Townes completely vanished, and a good section of Fort Union nothing more than bubbling glass and slag metal.

The former Fort Union was quarantined shortly afterward to protect scavengers, and in mourning of his passing several Laser Thors and Plasma Tanks have taken to spraying Townes on the sides of their vehicles - defiant, riding his personal tank, and a symbol of increased hostility towards these "Minutemen". While the SATURNs cannon and locomotion is based on Townes Omega Cannon.

Alexis Alexander
"I analyzed your strategy and I wonder: do you even have a strategy?"

-Alexander Manning in a phone call to Alexis Alexander

Alexander was a high-ranking logistics staffer during the GVAW, becoming famous for her multi-tiered defenses of supply lines. This was impressive enough to garner her a scholarship and a distinguished career in the Marine Corps and by extension the Aquilan army. She had a strong emphasis on the protection and acquisition of resources, writing several theses about it and theorizing it was best to only go on the counter-offensive when such resources were overflowing. Indeed, in theoretical battles she ran herself she had an almost child-like confidence in this ability, and numbers apparently showed the wisdom in this. And during the earlier stages of the MLA conflict, Alexander developed a tiered system of defenses that did not allow a single strike on her supply columns. Alexander became known for her strong emphasis on resource acquisition and defense in the early stages of a conflict, going on the offensive only when she has overwhelming firepower that was untouchable by the enemy. It was even rumored that she is well versed in the occult arts (whether she is an occult artist or she learned these skills from her family remains a mystery), which explains the SATURN's presence.

She was also Algrin Ironhand's mentor as she was the only one approving his ideas of a fully cybernetic army as the "Army of the future" and helping him get funds for his secret experiments, thus effectively starting the "Robotic Revolution" in the Aquilans prior to his defection.

Camp Franklin, Belfast, Maine was Alexander's base of operations, and it hosts the Qualification Trails for thousands of aspiring Aquilan soldiers who seek entry into the Aquilan officer school. Easy access to the Atlantic combined with the Nikos Stavros International Research Laboratory has made Camp Franklin one of the Aquilans' most prestigious training facilities. Nearby Belfast Bay is used year-round as the training grounds for Amphibious Combat Scenarios and live fire exercises.

However, it was quickly brought up that for such a high-ranking officer, Alexis hadn't, in fact, had an iota of combat experience. However, many assumed she would be a competent general, and General Manning, a long-time correspondence to Alexis, organized war games between the Guardians to show her ability.

While few held it against her that the Aquilan army ultimately won, it was noted that Alexis showed complete and utter tactical inability. She showed no overriding strategy that made sense while using more than anything but the most basic units in a disorganized manner. Worse, observers noted she seemed to have no sort of specialization or favored tactics herself, simply doing what seemed correct to her at that moment.

Despite what could be considered a horrifying failure, it was noted that where Alexander erected defensive positions and ordered her troops to hold the ground, Manning couldn't breach without severe casualties in the wargame. Knowing her utter lack of tactical skill was a death sentence, but knowing her strategic planning was still valuable, Allied commanders have her work with an officer who does know combat skills to help, the late general Townes.

However, Alexander is a more controversial general than most others due to her overconfident and secretive personality. First, she had to deal with numerous criticisms against the Ion Tower Project that caused FASA to overspend the funds and "congest the satellite traffic". Then, she had to quell international anxiety and uproar over the SDI Project that was deemed to "topple the Balance of Power and form a hegemony". Afterward, she had to settle a court case regarding her involvement in Ironhand's cybernetic army project, including ICC's lawsuits regarding her development of Saturn's AI as the research broke some human rights laws. Finally, she had to admit the existence of the Weather Manipulation Device, which she originally wanted to keep classified before her efforts flopped. All of the issues she caused have brought constant criticism against the Aquilan Army, whether it is domestically or internationally. Some higher-ups once thought of getting rid of her but due to her achievement of "resurrecting" the Aquilan Military Muscle, she still stays in the Military.

But she would finally be forced to retire when she created the SATURN, and subsequent arrest when the Aquilans realized the SATURN AI is more human than it looks, coincidentally she was arrested just a day before Townes's death, leading to the third officer under Townes, Theo, becoming the new commander.

Now she spends her time in the Aquilan prison, though she does work on writing books about defensive tactics and logistics that help other officers.

George D. Ironside
"I will now come into your caves and blast you out of them!"

-The last known words of Ironside to the Lizardmen, before disappearing

George D. Ironside was the current commanding officer of Aquilan Forces in charge of the continued support of the Lustrian theatre. Ironside served in the Zemurian Aquilan Reserves during the GVAW and became a highly recognized individual with numerous successful peacekeeping operations in the interwar period.

Most notably, under Abrams, he doubled the Aquilan presence in Lustria, standardized their equipment, and during the (insert), launched an offensive against the Lizardmen resulting in the complete neutralization of Communist activity in Lustria. Currently, the Aquilan support in Lustria appears to be shifting from the local support and training of the Canthans, to some new strategy.

General Ironside had been seen personally inspecting several roads and firebases along the border with North Lustria, an action that is seen as odd amongst men of his rank. The recent lack of Luresian activity and numerous disappearances of Voshkod ships in the Egria Bank have led to shortages in the Leagues supply lines. Ironside had been rumored to be warmongering South Lustria and exploiting the dire situation in Lurensia for his own reasons.

His former base of operations was Bien Hoa Airbase, a military airfield located in South-Central Lustria, about 20 miles (30 kilometers) from (Saigon) near the city of Bien Hoa within the Dong Nai Province. It was at Bien Hoa Airbase that the Aquilan army entered the Aquilan-Lizardmen War. The declared mission of the base would be to train indigenous air forces in counterinsurgency and how to conduct air operations.

Aquilan planes, with Lustrians aboard, were soon flying to destroy Lizardmen supply lines and forces. Flying from Bien Hoa, operations emphasized "training" for reconnaissance, surveillance, interdiction, and close air support missions. This mission was expanded to include forward air support, combat support liaison, visual reconnaissance, forward air control of fighters, artillery adjustment, and escort for convoys, trains, and helicopters.

The slow degeneration of Ironside's morale finally crumbled after a negative report Walter Cronkite made about the situation of the Aquilans and Canthans in Lustria. Hearing the man speak about the stalemate that the war had resulted in, where neither certain victory or certain defeat was possible, Ironside famously declared he would go into the caves of the Lizardmen themselves and secure a "certain" victory for the Aquilans.

Afterwards, using both defecting Aquilans and Canthan teams who supported him, Ironside went AWOL into the jungles of Lustria, where he has not been seen since. Attempts at sending both captains and photojournalists to find him have so far turned up nothing.

Eugene Griffon
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Nicknamed "Guile" thanks to his precision airstrikes, Griffon began his career in the Air Force as a drone operator in the early 21st century. As such, he never felt the tension and anxiousness of putting one's own life on the line but his outstanding abilities didn't go unnoticed as the importance of unmanned weapon systems in modern warfare grew exponentially along with the Aquilan people's unwillingness to get too deeply involved in foreign backwater conflicts in the following years. It was a time of opportunity for him, who was generally seen as reliable and methodical at his job, but cold and - as many of his detractors would say - technocratic on a personal level. Indeed, Griffon always had absolute faith in the supremacy of the ASAF, even over the other branches, and cared very little for those that were on the receiving end of his airstrikes, as he thought of them as nothing more than vaguely humanoid blips on an IR screen.

To no one's surprise, many senior Marine Corps and Army officers were outraged when this man, who they'd perceived as a heartless and gutless armchair warrior, rose up to the Air Force's Major Command at the Aquilan East coast: Despite his indisputable expertise, they believed that Griffon's promotion was largely the result of the "Aurora scandal", which ruined the careers of several aspiring Air Force officers who had essentially blown the lid off a black R&D project that had been rumored to exist since the early 1980s V.C.. As a result, the hyper-sonic FB-40 Aurora aircraft was pushed into service against the MLA, only to suffer humiliating losses due to its overly intricate design. Heads rolled and Griffon was expected to be less of a bone-headed maverick than his predecessors; a task that he fulfilled to the best of his abilities by salvaging the remains of the new Aurora 2 program into something worthwhile and protecting the Air Force from the sharp budget cuts of the post-war recession.

Though he would take early retirement in the year 2016 V.C. against the Collective when his force was tasked with the evacuation of the civilians in (insert) when the Collective suddenly broke through and in his force's desperate escape his plane was shot down. Leading to four hours of bloody fighting as he, his forces, and the civilians hunker down in the wreckage of their Spirit, Griffon himself immobilized by a large fragment of metal impaling his leg, as Francis's force hurried to his rescue. And while they were successful, at the cost of Thorn's life and almost all of Task Force Adam, the injuries Griffon sustained before and after the rescue, consisting of losing both his legs, his left hand, right eye, a quarter of his organs, and massive 3rd degree burns on most of his remaining body, meant that Griffon had to retire from active duty.

At the present, Griffon is now acting as the military advisor for JFK, with his off-duty often advising the production of prototype aircraft, going to psychical therapy to adjust to his prostheses, and going to psychological therapy to help with his survivors guilt over Thorn's, and everyone who died saving him, deaths.

Francis Thorn
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A quiet professional trained in the shadowy arts of covert warfare, Thorn, better known by his nickname "Chessmaster", has never been the kind of General to attend parades in dress uniform and look pretty. For example, there goes the popular anecdote that Aya Breanne, back then a young try-hard Lieutenant, once tried to chew him out for not saluting her, only to realize too late that the man in that basic unadorned chocolate chip uniform wasn't just an elderly NCO, but rather a 4-Star General who subsequently ordered her to a month of latrine duty under the blazing sun of (Saudi Arabia), an experience that humbled her and a memory she never wants to recall. Thorn has been in charge of special operations since the first MLA attacks on Aquilan installations in the Askaira/Elonan region, providing him with an extensive network of valuable contacts among the Aquilan special forces, up to and including the legendary Navy SEALs. A determined fighter and cunning strategist, the General likes to micro-manage every minuscule detail of his operations while cruising above the field in his Spectre gunship with a cup of fine Arabica-brand coffee.

Outside the battlefield, he is known for his extensive lectures on history-making and Aquilan geo-strategic planning which netted him a position as a guest scholar at West Point after the MLA faded into obscurity in the eyes of both the Aquilan public and the CIA. At a time when many intelligence analysts still dismissed Voshkod shooting star Premier Lunafreya as a mere puppet of the post-Garlean elites that allegedly controlled the Kremlin in the second and third family generation by this point, Thorn was among the few who took her and her pervasive rhetorics about a "Greater Voshkod at the helm of a new Eurasian hegemony" seriously. As a result, his shadow warriors were the first covert forces to be unofficially deployed to Eorzea in order to get further insight into the crisis. Their findings would be a decisive factor in favor of the possible involvement of Aquilan troops.

But he would meet his hand in the year 2016 V.C. against the Collective when his force responded to Griffon's SOS. Leading to a bloody urban firefight as Thorn's Task Force Adam pushed through the defenses of Libra, and managed to reach Griffon and his forces despite heavy casualties. But as they retreat the Collective's allies manage to ambush them, and a concentrated strike on Thorn caused his Spectre to crash but he and his team survived, thus knowing that he's too far to return back with the pursuing enemy without slowing the evacuation, sacrificed himself by staying behind to give the evacuating forces time to escape, his last message telling Aya that she's now in command and ordered his force to not save him, and spend the next minutes fortifying their wreckage, including turning the Specters weapons into emplacements, and surroundings.

Now trapped behind enemy lines and surrounded without any rescue. Thorn and his forces began a drawn-out urban battle against (insert), making sure that they took as many of (insert) down with them. Finally ending with Thorn, severely injured, igniting the satchel of grenades he held to make sure they don't capture him.

For his and his force's sacrifice, Thorn was posthumously given a medal of honor. His successor Aya, who had known him since the latrine incident, renaming the decimated Task Force Adam into Task Force Eve.

Jeremiah Bradley
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Born and raised in the Lone Star State, Bradley, nicknamed "Treads" for his love of tanks, hails from a family that can trace its proud military heritage as far back as the (Texan) Revolution of 1835. Throughout the decades, there had always been at least one Bradley who fought and died in one of Aquila's many conflicts. As such, the General is well known for his rather romanticized faith in destiny and the nonchalant attitude towards mortality that comes with it. Detractors have often denounced him as a careless thrillseeker and glory hound. On the contrary, his hotheadedness is conspicuously absent from his actual tactics, which rely on the solid, time-tested Aquilan doctrine of "shock and awe", utilizing well-coordinated spearheads of superior tanks to annihilate the enemy.

As an aspiring Tank Commander, Bradley earned his spurs during the Second Gulf War and subsequently rose through the ranks when Aquila fully committed itself to the hunt for MLA forces across the Askaira Dunes. At that time, he also made headlines with a collegial, if somewhat vitriolic rivalry between him and the now MIA Empire General Ta Hun Kwai, culminating in their joint offensive on Darnassus, the MLA-controlled capital of Kalimdor in the mid-(insert). Despite the temporary success, the MLA soon recovered and dealt fatal blows to the Aquilan forces in Hawke, forcing the government to cave in to the war-weary population and withdraw.

Unsurprisingly, Bradley who was now regarded as a fanatical warmonger and political liability protested, only to find himself disciplined while his unit was among the many that got reduced in personnel and equipment. Nevertheless, the General kept his faith, knowing that one day, the Aquilan military would once again call upon an old, die-hard devil dog like him while keeping his troops combat-capable by means of technical resourcefulness and clever ingenuity in the face of daunting budget cuts.

Michael Dugan
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Joseph Conti
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Aya Breane
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Theo Ross
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Jacob Ferdinand Kametz
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Michael Blazkowicz II
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Tanya Adams
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Lee Ferguson
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Marian Hawke
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Colonel Burton
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