Rusak Petrovich Talietzin (Русак Петрович Талицын)
Keywords: angry, ruthless, lone wolf, dark
Species: human
Age: ~35 (May 6)
Height: 5' 9" / 176 cm
Build: muscled
Occupation: starship captain
Connections: Constant (partner), Ridley (crewman), Lev (identical twin brother)
Species: human
Age: ~35 (May 6)
Height: 5' 9" / 176 cm
Build: muscled
Occupation: starship captain
Connections: Constant (partner), Ridley (crewman), Lev (identical twin brother)
AppearanceRusak has brown hair, copper eyes and medium skin. He wears the uniform of the Terran Space Navy and carries a black samurai sword. Rusak is always scowling and angry-looking.
When reading, Rusak uses copper reading glasses. (He is farsighted.) Rusak's ancestry is a mix of East and West Russian and he has slightly Asiatic features from the Eastern side. |
Best References
Personality
Renowned for his ruthlessness and ferocity, Rusak is as cold-hearted as a human can be. To Rusak, everything is a test of strength, and you either have the strength to seize power or you die. He has little regard for the lives or freedoms of others and has no problem with murder or genocide. He holds animals in higher regard than humans. In Rusak's world, there is no morality, no beauty, only victory or death.
Rusak has no respect for anyone, including himself. He is angry nearly all of the time. Astute observers would note he is almost as angry at himself as at the rest of the world. The only traits he values are strength and obedience. He demands total loyalty from his subordinates and is quick to punish anything less. He doesn't display any loyalty in return unless it has been totally and irrefutably earned, and even then displays are uncommon and usually minuscule.
Strict and unforgiving, Rusak does not reward lateral thinking of improvisation. He is extremely rigid and disciplined and believes a starship should be an extension of its captain's will. He demands perfection from soldiers under his command and has a reputation for pushing subordinates past their breaking points and rewarding failure or betrayal with beheading. He does not consider failure an option.
The only two individuals Rusak holds any affection for are his identical twin brother Lev and Constant. He is socially a loner and does not choose to engage with others, displaying aggression when he does, even to the people he cares about. Though Rusak seems quite the opposite of his brother behaviorally, they share a deep fraternal understanding of one another.
If Rusak has one redeeming quality, it is his patience, which is considerable.
In battle, Rusak relies heavily upon a combination of stealth and offense. He alternately draws his enemies towards or shadows them to an ideal position and then strikes with overwhelming ferocity in the initial assault. His opponents often do not even realize they are being hunted. He commits fully to all his attacks and would sooner die than retreat.
Rusak has no respect for anyone, including himself. He is angry nearly all of the time. Astute observers would note he is almost as angry at himself as at the rest of the world. The only traits he values are strength and obedience. He demands total loyalty from his subordinates and is quick to punish anything less. He doesn't display any loyalty in return unless it has been totally and irrefutably earned, and even then displays are uncommon and usually minuscule.
Strict and unforgiving, Rusak does not reward lateral thinking of improvisation. He is extremely rigid and disciplined and believes a starship should be an extension of its captain's will. He demands perfection from soldiers under his command and has a reputation for pushing subordinates past their breaking points and rewarding failure or betrayal with beheading. He does not consider failure an option.
The only two individuals Rusak holds any affection for are his identical twin brother Lev and Constant. He is socially a loner and does not choose to engage with others, displaying aggression when he does, even to the people he cares about. Though Rusak seems quite the opposite of his brother behaviorally, they share a deep fraternal understanding of one another.
If Rusak has one redeeming quality, it is his patience, which is considerable.
In battle, Rusak relies heavily upon a combination of stealth and offense. He alternately draws his enemies towards or shadows them to an ideal position and then strikes with overwhelming ferocity in the initial assault. His opponents often do not even realize they are being hunted. He commits fully to all his attacks and would sooner die than retreat.
History
Childhood
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, making them quite comfortable financially. Jirva was a stark and lonely place, terraformed to be a northern forest climate. As genetic purists, the Talietzins were concerned with preserving the genetic makeup of their Russian heritage and eschewed the genetic modifications prevalent among most humans. Their beliefs made them odd in the wider eyes of society. Jirva was their sanctuary from the rest of the universe where they might 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 arts and literature and becoming the cultural heir. Petrov Talietzin taught his children that an iron will and discipline far outweighed genetic modifications and instilled in Rusak a ferocity that few could match. Rusak 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 spent his every free moment engaged in his passion for hunting. The Talietzin family raised dogs -- purebred killing machines. They would buy rare predators and animals from across the galaxy and hunt them down in Jirva's forests. It was highly dangerous sport and Rusak excelled in it. He studied the animals, learned their tactics, made their instincts his own.
Military Training
At the age of sixteen, Rusak's family paid his way into the officer training program of the Terran 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 socially or politically scandalous situations. While other officers had affairs or gambled or drank, Rusak kept to his discipline. He seemed perfectly respectable. Shortly before his twenty-ninth birthday, he was promoted to ship captain.
Captaincy
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. Many crewmen tried to transfer out. That suited Rusak just fine; new recruits were easier to mold than old soldiers accustomed to laziness. Word of his vigorous training practices spread, causing some to question his ethics. A rumor (likely true) emerged that 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 many years. Rusak hungered for a war. Every night he prayed for tragedy to befall the Confederacy.
Emerging Conflict
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, Rusak brought the Seit Ruan about and rained destruction on the attackers. He even had the audacity to issue orders to 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. It was what Rusak had been waiting his whole life for.
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. Rusak was temporarily placed in charge of the fleet.
Fleet Command
It was not a position Rusak had any intention of giving back. He immediately replaced all other captains with his own rigidly disciplined crew, many of whom were loyal to Rusak over even the Terran High Command. 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" for all the damage it took.
Antioch Peace Accords
Entirely too soon for Rusak's liking, it was over. After a mere two years and three months, the galaxy was tiredof 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 had declared peace on him! He was only just starting!
Unwilling to abandon the task he had started, Rusak disregarded the peace treaty and went on the assault. His first few targets were entirely unsuspecting in the wake of the peace treaty and fell easily to his assault.
All other fleets (from both sides of the conflict) were soon mobilized against Rusak, but Rusak had practically written the textbook on stealth maneuvers and his fleet was the most highly trained and efficient fighting force in the galaxy. 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 transport to a halt. People were terrified to travel. He disabled communications in many areas of the galaxy, isolating and terrifying billions. He struck at whim and tricked his pursuers into all manner of traps. He attacked unguarded planets and installations and civilian targets. Because starships were designed to be as near to self-sustaining as possible, his reign of galactic terror might have continued for decades.
Mutiny
Dissent began to grow in the ranks. Rusak was quick to behead those dissenters he could find, which did not help morale. People missed their homes and families. Rusak severely 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.
Rusak's death became a major source of conspiracy theories. Either his death had been arranged, or it was a lie and a cover-up and Rusak still lived, perhaps having switched places with his twin brother. The truth, of course, was that Rusak came to be in the Many Worlds.
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 were correct.
The Many Worlds
After his death during the escape attempt, Rusak was recruited by the Supreme Commander. 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 and 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, leaving 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 Many Worlds, he resides on a decommissioned starship parked in nullspace instead of in an abode the Neighborhood.
Ridley & Constant
It was through hockey that Rusak met Ridley and Constant. He initially cared little for the young boy and dog, but when Constant was injured one day, Rusak used his knowledge of canines to treat her. He did not understand exactly how intelligent and human Constant was, he merely perceived her as being a remarkably smart dog. As he preferred animals to humans, he did not mind her attentions and became quite fond of her, treating her as his own. Constant came to care for Rusak deeply, but he was oblivious to her affection.
When Ridley was old enough, he enlisted and requested to train under Rusak at Constant's behest. It was highly contentious: Rusak had not been trusted with any crewman since wartime and had a reputation as the worst commanding officer despite his effectiveness. Ridley was undeterred. Rusak agreed to the posting to try and teach Ridley a brutal lesson by being even crueler than his reputation. Instead, Ridley impressed Rusak, striving to complete even the most impossible tasks and never complaining, and Rusak certainly didn't mind having Constant around.
Virtual Reality
One day, Constant brought Rusak a VR helmet. Rusak had no interest in it, but Constant was persistent. Rusak had long entertained Ridley's "translating" of Constant's wishes as harmless eccentricity, but when he put the helmet on, he found himself addressing her directly and discovered her mind was equal any human's. Rusak was shocked and angry. He had spoken many things aloud to Constant in private under the belief she couldn't understand him and now felt betrayed and foolish for not having believed Ridley's claims about her mental capabilities.
... to be continued ...
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, making them quite comfortable financially. Jirva was a stark and lonely place, terraformed to be a northern forest climate. As genetic purists, the Talietzins were concerned with preserving the genetic makeup of their Russian heritage and eschewed the genetic modifications prevalent among most humans. Their beliefs made them odd in the wider eyes of society. Jirva was their sanctuary from the rest of the universe where they might 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 arts and literature and becoming the cultural heir. Petrov Talietzin taught his children that an iron will and discipline far outweighed genetic modifications and instilled in Rusak a ferocity that few could match. Rusak 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 spent his every free moment engaged in his passion for hunting. The Talietzin family raised dogs -- purebred killing machines. They would buy rare predators and animals from across the galaxy and hunt them down in Jirva's forests. It was highly dangerous sport and Rusak excelled in it. He studied the animals, learned their tactics, made their instincts his own.
Military Training
At the age of sixteen, Rusak's family paid his way into the officer training program of the Terran 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 socially or politically scandalous situations. While other officers had affairs or gambled or drank, Rusak kept to his discipline. He seemed perfectly respectable. Shortly before his twenty-ninth birthday, he was promoted to ship captain.
Captaincy
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. Many crewmen tried to transfer out. That suited Rusak just fine; new recruits were easier to mold than old soldiers accustomed to laziness. Word of his vigorous training practices spread, causing some to question his ethics. A rumor (likely true) emerged that 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 many years. Rusak hungered for a war. Every night he prayed for tragedy to befall the Confederacy.
Emerging Conflict
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, Rusak brought the Seit Ruan about and rained destruction on the attackers. He even had the audacity to issue orders to 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. It was what Rusak had been waiting his whole life for.
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. Rusak was temporarily placed in charge of the fleet.
Fleet Command
It was not a position Rusak had any intention of giving back. He immediately replaced all other captains with his own rigidly disciplined crew, many of whom were loyal to Rusak over even the Terran High Command. 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" for all the damage it took.
Antioch Peace Accords
Entirely too soon for Rusak's liking, it was over. After a mere two years and three months, the galaxy was tiredof 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 had declared peace on him! He was only just starting!
Unwilling to abandon the task he had started, Rusak disregarded the peace treaty and went on the assault. His first few targets were entirely unsuspecting in the wake of the peace treaty and fell easily to his assault.
All other fleets (from both sides of the conflict) were soon mobilized against Rusak, but Rusak had practically written the textbook on stealth maneuvers and his fleet was the most highly trained and efficient fighting force in the galaxy. 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 transport to a halt. People were terrified to travel. He disabled communications in many areas of the galaxy, isolating and terrifying billions. He struck at whim and tricked his pursuers into all manner of traps. He attacked unguarded planets and installations and civilian targets. Because starships were designed to be as near to self-sustaining as possible, his reign of galactic terror might have continued for decades.
Mutiny
Dissent began to grow in the ranks. Rusak was quick to behead those dissenters he could find, which did not help morale. People missed their homes and families. Rusak severely 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.
Rusak's death became a major source of conspiracy theories. Either his death had been arranged, or it was a lie and a cover-up and Rusak still lived, perhaps having switched places with his twin brother. The truth, of course, was that Rusak came to be in the Many Worlds.
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 were correct.
The Many Worlds
After his death during the escape attempt, Rusak was recruited by the Supreme Commander. 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 and 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, leaving 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 Many Worlds, he resides on a decommissioned starship parked in nullspace instead of in an abode the Neighborhood.
Ridley & Constant
It was through hockey that Rusak met Ridley and Constant. He initially cared little for the young boy and dog, but when Constant was injured one day, Rusak used his knowledge of canines to treat her. He did not understand exactly how intelligent and human Constant was, he merely perceived her as being a remarkably smart dog. As he preferred animals to humans, he did not mind her attentions and became quite fond of her, treating her as his own. Constant came to care for Rusak deeply, but he was oblivious to her affection.
When Ridley was old enough, he enlisted and requested to train under Rusak at Constant's behest. It was highly contentious: Rusak had not been trusted with any crewman since wartime and had a reputation as the worst commanding officer despite his effectiveness. Ridley was undeterred. Rusak agreed to the posting to try and teach Ridley a brutal lesson by being even crueler than his reputation. Instead, Ridley impressed Rusak, striving to complete even the most impossible tasks and never complaining, and Rusak certainly didn't mind having Constant around.
Virtual Reality
One day, Constant brought Rusak a VR helmet. Rusak had no interest in it, but Constant was persistent. Rusak had long entertained Ridley's "translating" of Constant's wishes as harmless eccentricity, but when he put the helmet on, he found himself addressing her directly and discovered her mind was equal any human's. Rusak was shocked and angry. He had spoken many things aloud to Constant in private under the belief she couldn't understand him and now felt betrayed and foolish for not having believed Ridley's claims about her mental capabilities.
... to be continued ...
Suggestions
- In his bunk on his starship, reading his brother's book "Буря." (Lev's name is written as Лев Петрович Талицын
Optional: Constant present in canine form. - Practicing with his black katana.
Gallery
Artists, please use the Primary References first!