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Butler, Eric: Goth Underground defector DANIELLE DEVEREAUX and MAXIMILLIAN MORELL rescued from his former compatriots. He is now a student at COLLEGIUM CAINE but, due to some light sensitivity, doesn’t get out much. Caballera: She is a female brick who can run as fast as a bullet train, lift about 3.5 tons, and leap across a football field. Caballera and the second BROTHER KNIGHT, who are believed to be a married couple, are considered regional protectors because of their mobility. However, not much has been seen of Caballera since LAURIE NUNEZ-WATKINS was elected to the City Assembly after the VOTE THE BASTARDS OUT RECALL CAMPAIGN. Caine, Aurelie Roma: Secretly the co-founder of TEAM HYPERION as Romanyi The Sorceress, she was killed in the 1993 explosion of the team’s airplane. Legend has it that, after the team was deadlocked in picking a name, Roma Caine arbitrarily named the team for a classical music record label. Also, it was her investigation into local police corruption that (a.) caused the airplane explosion in 1993 and (b.) the shake-up of the BUREAU OF PUBLIC SAFETY in 2002. Caine, Joshua, Ph.D., Ed.D.: Maverick educator and founder of COLLEGIUM CAINE, he is the uncle and legal guardian of billionaire orphan DANIELLE DEVEREAUX. He founded his namesake alternative school, based out of DEVEREAUX MANOR, in 1989 and is very devoted to its free-form Socratic curriculum. As the brother-in-law of the late DANIEL DEVEREAUX, the widower of AURELIE ROMA CAINE and the grandson of JERICHO THROCKMORTON, he’s not exactly hurting for cash himself. He’s worth about three or four billion dollars. Secretly, Caine was THE FROZEN GHOST, a co-founder of TEAM HYPERION in 1969. In 1993, The Somnambulist mind-controlled him into blowing up the superhero team’s airplane, killing all aboard except himself. He still bears the emotional scars from the event, and the 2002 revelation of his role in it. As Nevermore, he was the mentor to fledgling versions of THE FOUNDRY (see also DOE FAMILY) until TABULA RASA assumed leadership. Captain Atlantis:
World War II-era hero known for his empathy with sea creatures and his hatred for Nazis, he was an active part of the Allied war effort. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave the humanoid the rank of captain in the US Navy, and official sanction to fight enemies of the United States, through a 1941 executive order. A few years after the war ended, he disappeared, but he is rumored to have—-pardon the pun-—resurfaced recently near Ravensgate.
“Car-54”: Slang term, both a noun and a verb, used by PHILIP SNOW, MATT SHINMEN and their clique. It refers to unauthorized, “unorthodox” (i.e., of dubious legality) police work: “SCU really Car-54’ed those Anarchists out on 84. They never knew what hit ‘em.” The Cave (2442 N.E. 3rd Street): This fairly new punk club draws on the Goth mystique and the décor of its former life as a funeral home. Free advice: Don’t mention the name of the nightclub GREAT SCOT!, or you’ll arouse the ire of the owner. It seems former business partners Bruce and Clark had a falling-out, and the more foul-tempered of the two owns this place. Charlton, Victor O’Neill (Vic): Ravensgate-born, his true parentage and birth name are unknown. Easter Sunday 1969, a nun found a month-old orphan on the steps of the St. Hubbins Orphanage and named him for a saint, a monsignor and a brand of cigarettes. As an adult, he is the rabble-rousing right-wing columnist for The Ravensgate Mercury Weekly and an adjunct faculty member at COLLEGIUM CAINE. He has been a commentator for KRGO-TV, was the op-ed mouthpiece of The Ravensgate Oregon Journal until he angered publisher JEAN-PIERRE D’AUBAINE, and was the catalyst of the partially-successful 2002 “VOTE THE BASTARDS OUT!” RECALL CAMPAIGN. Charlton is famous for the quote that inspired that campaign, and for the following nugget: “Police Guild President Dan Swill wants to affiliate with the Teamsters. If you ask me, the last thing the Teamsters need is another link to organized crime.” Chen, Joseph Robert II (Joe Bob, Junior): Junior is an improbable self-made gangster from Georgia who has thrown in with the Ko organization here in Ravensgate. He is courtly, soft-spoken and very subtle—except for that tacky Junior’s Roadhouse place that he runs, and the garish Nudie Cohen cowboy suits he wears. Cieznik, Aleksandr: Alex Cieznik (pronounced CHEZZ-nik) runs the Vishenko, but no one seems to be able to catch him doing anything illegal. Cieznik is the son of Soviet defectors and puts up a good front as an alleged “day trader” and “venture capitalist.” Cieznik, Mihaly (Mikey): Alex’s older brother allegedly does not speak with his shadowy sibling (yeah, right) out of fear he’d jeopardize his position as Ninth Ward Assemblyman—and Pro Tempore Chairman of the METROPOLITAN ASSEMBLY OF SUPERVISORS. City Assembly: Although the term “City Assembly” has been out of date since 1986, it refers to the METROPOLITAN ASSEMBLY OF SUPERVISORS FOR RAVENSGATE AND GREATER NEHALEM COUNTY. Even Assemblymen still use the term. Ravensgate and Nehalem County merged in 1986, although several suburbs rebelled against the merger and incorporated as independent cities. MIHALY “MIKEY” CIEZNIK is the Chairman Pro Tempore of the Assembly, the person who runs its meetings in the absence of MAYOR SALOME THROCKMORTON-D’AUBAINE. See the GOVERNMENT section of this website for further information. City Hall Massacre (1 April 2002): See also APRIL FOOL’S DAY RIOTS, POLICE STRIKE OF 2002, RUST CITY MASSACRE. Anarchists rioting in Downtown Ravensgate during the 2002 Police Strike had converged on City Hall and faced down a combined force of National Guardsmen, scab cops and Federal marshals. A sniper hiding in a manhole behind Anarchist lines opened fire upon the police and Guardsmen, wounding five. The volley of return fire killed 21 and wounded nearly 200. Authorities speculate that the RAVENSGATE CRIME COMMISSION as revenge for the 1999 WTO-copycat riots that damaged businesses they protected set up the incident. Since the same cast of characters converged on Ravensgate in 2002, all the wiseguys had to do was set up a situation where soldiers and cops felt they had no choice but to fire live ammo at the Anarchists. Club Sanguine (320 Xander Avenue N.E.): Members of several local crime families frequent this Goth club and cybercafe in the heart of the Old World neighborhood, but this edginess adds to its mystique. Rumors abound about its “vampire clientele,” but perhaps other Goth club owners are just jealous of Sanguine’s success. Cody, Daniel (Rube): A 1998 graduate of Crook County High School in Central Oregon and a 2001 graduate of the Oregon State Police Academy, Cody was a rookie patrolman assigned to the STREET CRIMES UNIT when THE DOE FAMILY foiled a robbery attempt by SAMURAI SEVEN. He was the first police officer inside the bank. Now with the SPECIAL OPERATIONS BUREAU, he does odd jobs for its commander, Inspector MATT SHINMEN. Cody was decorated for valor for pulling fellow officers to safety during the RUST CITY MASSACRE. Collegium Caine (2100 W. Ackerman Avenue): An alternative school located inside DEVEREAUX MANOR, it has strategic alliances with several local and regional universities. Consequently, it can offer GEDs and some collegiate degrees. Some advanced degrees are awarded by allied schools via correspondence and under the supervision of JOSHUA CAINE, HARVEY “BINK” WITTGENSTEIN or WILHELMINA “WILLY” PURVIS. Secretly, some students of the school are superheroes being tutored in ethics and proper use of powers. See THE FOUNDRY section of this website for more details about Collegium Caine. Community Diversity in Policing (C-DIP): See also AFRICAN POLICE BRETHREN. In order to combat an entrenched system of corruption and racism within the ranks of the Checkerheads, C-DIP formed in 1980. In his attempts to circumvent the good-ole-boy network, represented by the RAVENSGATE POLICE GUILD, Superintendent PHILIP SNOW forged alliances with the various ethnically-based police fraternities. Prominent members of C-DIP include School District Security commander Joaquin Marquez and the late precinct captain LILITH ROMANESCU. CDIP and similar groups formed the Ravensgate chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police after the RAVENSGATE POLICE GUILD was disbanded in 2002 under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. COMETPRO (Counter-MetaCriminal Project): COMETPRO has been around since the early 1960s. It was J. Edgar Hoover’s pet project to shadow both Iron Curtain soldier and super-spy projects and the U.S. Air Force’s own Project Bluebook. The classified portion of the infamous “Trojan Snake” memo, released in July 2001 under the Freedom of Information Act, reveals the depths of Hoover’s later-years paranoia: “It would be just like the Communist countries, and their fifth-column agitators within our intelligentsia, to create the appearance of outer-space civilizations. Like the Trojan Snake (sic) sliding through the gates of Troy, ideas of galactic civilizations will create sympathies for one-world government and the subjugation of the American Ideal. And since I am on this subject, will someone please surveil one Eugene Wesley Roddenberry . . . .” The first FBI Director to fill Hoover’s pumps, immediate successor L. Patrick Gray, turned COMETPRO into what it is today, a multi-agency task force aimed at fighting super-powered criminal threats. COMETPRO in the 1970s actively recruited super-powered or peak-achievement agents from within the FBI, Secret Service, US Marshals Service and similar agencies. It developed powered armor in the mid-1980s, and the basic design has remained mostly unchanged: |
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More recent models, the Purvis2000 Series reserved for fire-team leaders, feature interchangeable weapons interfaces. As characters, you have no idea what’s in these suits, but you are aware of the difference between the ceramics-heavy and the metallic-shell suits.
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