Difference between revisions of "Joseph Manse"

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===Death Star===
 
===Death Star===
Joe named his ship "The Death Star" after a fictional, planet-destroying space station in his favorite movie. The ship was spherical, employing a simple but powerful [[Ion vacuum drive#Deuterium Drive|Deuterium Drive]]. The surface was armored, but would have provided little defense. The ship did have significant point defenses and a large number of missile and torpedo launchers.  
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Joe named his ship ''The Death Star'' after a fictional, planet-destroying space station in his favorite movie. The ship was spherical, employing a simple but powerful [[Ion vacuum drive#Deuterium Drive|Deuterium Drive]]. The surface was armored, but would have provided little defense. The ship did have significant point defenses and a large number of missile and torpedo launchers.  
  
 
The main weapon was a massive laser array. While not as powerful as a typical compressed energy weapon, it would still be enough to instantly destroy any ship and cause massive, potentially extinction-level damage to a planet.  
 
The main weapon was a massive laser array. While not as powerful as a typical compressed energy weapon, it would still be enough to instantly destroy any ship and cause massive, potentially extinction-level damage to a planet.  

Latest revision as of 03:57, 20 March 2019

Joseph Manse was a terrorist who lived during the late Sixth Age. As leader of an internet fan group, he used crowd-funding sites and word of mouth to raise a huge amount of capitol, ostensibly to build a themed destination resort space station. Using the project as cover, he constructed a large, armed fleet, with the intentions of attacking The Caucuses on Gleskel Core.

Early Life

Joe was born on Eutra Colony, an experimental prototype community owned by the Gudersnipe Foundation. As a child, Joe was severely overweight and performed poorly in school (even by Eutra standards). He had a very strong gift for mathmatics and could read much beyond his age level, but otherwise received failing marks in every subject. Even those subjects he was strong at he often did poorly in, due to failing to turn in assignments or not taking tests on time.

As a teenager he began to focus more on extra-curricular activities than academics, founding and running several clubs at the school. He went from passing a few subjects to passing none, as he placed all his energy in his leisure activities. He was a fan of many different fictional works, and his clubs were all based around these.

At eighteen, he was formally dismissed from school as a student, but allowed to continue running the clubs (Eutra colony was designed as a money-less utopia, so he was not paid). Teachers at the school described him as charismatic, driven, and an efficient organizer. His club activities were restricted to two hours a day as part of after-school programs, but he was known to spend anywhere from twelve to eighteen hours a day, setting up activities and gathering supplies.

At the age of twenty-three, Joe was accused of inappropriate behavior toward several of the female students at the school, and summarily dismissed from Eutra Colony. Now in a regular GS Town, Joe did not fare well. While he was certainly well-familiar with the concept of money, he had not completed his education and had no marketable skills. He quickly became homeless and acquired a drug habit (such substances were unavailable at Eutra Colony). To supplement his addiction, Joe began selling drugs, and was caught and deported from Foundation-controlled territory before he'd turned twenty-four.

Life Outside Foundation

Now on an Alliance member world, Joe found the police force considerably under-funded and the punishments much less severe, and quickly pulled himself out of poverty by dealing drugs.

Joe was caught several times but escaped or delayed prosecution long enough to organize and close several highly profitable deals. With the money earned, he was able to re-locate to the Chintaka Consortium, which had no extradition treaty with his previous home. Chintaka was formally considered a member of the Alliance, but its government was essentially a puppet-state. The military controlled most of the region, and various gangs and crime syndicates controlled the rest.

On Chintaka

Surprisingly, the now twenty-seven-year-old Joseph Manse did not entwine himself with the criminal underworld of Chintaka. He had a considerable sum of money saved, and used it to rent a modest apartment on the outskirts of a major city. His goal during this time, he later said, was to regain the perfect life he once had as a youth ("perfect" in this instance meaning, "being fed and clothed and allowed to devote his time to various TV and movie franchises he loved, without having to do any real work").

His drug habit continued, and is believed to be a major factor in his later actions.

Joe seldom left his apartment while living on Chintaka, ordering things and mostly immersed in the online communities surrounding his favorite fandoms. He eventually took over management of several, showing the same dogged determination and rugged work ethic that could have made him very successful if he'd ever applied it somewhere useful. Within ten years, he was earning a very comfortable living managing these communities, and decided to re-locate yet again to a region of space where he had more fans.

Activities in Darnell Cluster

At the age of thirty-eight, Joe relocated to the Darnell Cluster, a large stellar cluster in Joint Space. Though he should not have been allowed to move to the region, owing to his status as an exile, he circumvented this by moving to a small sovereign nation, a city-state left over from the Mage Wars that had maintaned a certain level of autonomy, though within the borders of another country and on a planet controlled by a third power. Essentially, he played jurisdictional chicken and won, being able to move about freely in the region.

He had a reputation now as a responsible businessman, owning several media companies. He continued to be addicted to various substances, but managed to stay out of trouble while his wealth and influence grew. He retained ties in the Chintaka system, only garnering allies in their criminal world after he'd made a name for himself.

It was while living in Darnell that Joe made his first request to attend The Caucuses. In his rambling, eighteen-page cover letter, he reasoned that, as the recognized head of the science-fiction community, he should have a place of honor at the proceedings. His application was rejected without comment.

Over the next thirty years, Joe would continue to apply for entry into each Caucus, going so far as to use his vast army of followers to bombard the organizers with requests and petitions. The Foundation eventually released a formal statement that Joe was denied entry because he had been exiled from Foundation territory, and Gleskel was very, very much Foundation territory. It is unclear exactly when Joe decided to attack the Caucuses, but he never stopped applying even up to his assault.

Joe had long floated the concept of building a mobile destination resort and casino, made to look like a battle station out of his favorite fandom, but FTL-capable. There would be lengthy cruises, a full-time population, and every amenity and amusement possible. The station (as he continued to call it) would travel from system to system, hosting conventions and delegations, and generally just being awesome. The concept may even have been economically viable, though it remains dubious.

While Joe's corporate empire could probably have raised venture capitol for the project, he instead turned to crowd-funding. He had, by all accounts, billions of direct followers, and countless more all across the Multi-Verse. Asking each to donate a small amount, in most cases about the cost of a cheap meal, he was able to raise an unexpected sum. More than enough to fund his resort and operate it for decades even at a loss.

Return to Chintaka

Officially, Joe chose Chintaka for construction because he felt that "the region was economically depressed, cheap labor will mean lower costs, but at the same time raise the standard of living" (his actual statement went on for quite a bit longer; Joe was not known for brevity, especially in his later years).

Despite making claims of bringing revenue to Chintaka, most of the money went to bribes to the military and local syndicates. The vast majority of Joe's workforce, millions strong, were his most devoted followers, who re-located with him. The station took only five years to construct.

Along with building his dream, Joe purchased a fleet of "support ships" that he claimed publically would be used as "freighters, shuttles, and goodwill ambassadors" in support of the resort. Most of these ships were former millitary vessels, purchased surplus, and illegally re-armed. A considerable percentage of the money Joe raised, was used to purchase weapons through Chintaka's corrupt military.

Joe now had legions of rabid followers and a fully-equipped invasion fleet. His plan, according to the few confidants who survived, was to invade and hold the Gleskel system, keep its people as hostages, and use the local population to build more ships and weapons. Ultimately, they said, Joe wanted to conquer the entire Gudersnipe Foundation, despite the practical impossibility of doing so. However, it seemed most likely that he merely planned to attack and destroy the Caucuses. Without logistical and technical support from Chintaka, he had no hope of maintaining his fleet, and their combat capabilities were dubious at best.

Death Star

Joe named his ship The Death Star after a fictional, planet-destroying space station in his favorite movie. The ship was spherical, employing a simple but powerful Deuterium Drive. The surface was armored, but would have provided little defense. The ship did have significant point defenses and a large number of missile and torpedo launchers.

The main weapon was a massive laser array. While not as powerful as a typical compressed energy weapon, it would still be enough to instantly destroy any ship and cause massive, potentially extinction-level damage to a planet.

The ship was powered by warm-neutrino, boiling water reactors, capable of "pulsing" or temporarily ramping up their power output to considerable levels. While the ship's reactors had no capacity to explode or even melt down catastrophically, the engines were still powered by volatile Deuterium. A completely superfluous shaft led from the surface deep into the interior, and ended close to the main storage tanks.

Counter Offensive

When Joe's plans to attack the Caucuses became clear, the Crimson Blade (in the short story Fan Fiction) immediately launched a counter-offensive, led by Hunter Jusenkyou. The attack plan called for 'a small squadron of highly maneuverable fighters to fly in below the perimeter defenses' and launch a missile strike on the vulnerable opening. Because of the intense precision required, the missiles had to be loaded with sophisticated flight software and a specialized targeting computer.

While the attack failed to destroy the station before it exited FTL, they were able to take it out before it could fire its primary weapon. Owing to the superior maneuverability and capabilities of the Allapa Dismissive fighter, the strike force suffered surprisingly low casualties.

Death

Joe was killed when his ship exploded. He was killed very dead. His remaining fleet was blasted into a fine pink mist by an armada assembled to defend Gleskel Core. There are some reports that he was piloting one of the defensive fighters battling with Hunter and his squadron, and that he survived the explosion and escaped, but these are not based on any solid evidence. Communications logs recovered after the battle indicate he was on the command bridge when his ship was destroyed, having apparently suffered some sort of break down. He died reciting movie lines.

Despite the evidence of the logs, reports persisted that he was piloting one of the defensive fighters battling with Hunter and his squadron, and that he survived the explosion and escaped; but these are not based on any solid evidence. Never the less, they became the premise of a long-standing cult, based on the belief that Manse fled into deep space and would ultimately return, at the head of an army, to destroy the Foundation and establish an empire of the faithful at Gleskel Core, which he would then rule for ever. This cult was mocked openly by the Foundation; but remained active until the coming of Samuel Fate, whom they mistakenly welcomed as Manse's successor, until he wiped them out.