Post by Zedic on Jun 8, 2020 6:39:37 GMT -6
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| PERSONALITY & TRAITS |
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| Despite being a professional killer, Richard “Wraith” Lavans is quite approachable. His friendly demeanor, coupled with his slight southern drawl, might even be disarming to others. One may wonder if this is the real Lavans or if this is an intentional ruse, a kind of way for a spec ops commando to gain the trust of others. Physically, Lavans is imposing to most others, standing just over six feet tall and being 240 lbs of pure muscle. He is no gentle giant, not by a long shot, but those under his command might liken him to a protective big brother or uncle even. Beneath Richard’s friendly exterior there is the lethally sharp mind of special operations operative, one that has experience at both planning black ops and executing them personally. Though he can sometimes butt heads with superiors, he seems to go to great lengths to make sure those entrusted under his care receive all the training and supplies they need to get the job done - and to make sure they come home alive. Although a professional military man, Wraith does not adhere to the traditional policy of separation between officer and enlisted personnel. In fact, he can often be found spending his off-duty hours mingling with his NCOs and junior enlisted -whether it be drinking or playing a game of pool or cards. |
| BIOGRAPHY |
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| Richard Lavans was born in Montana, North America, in early UC 0056 to a very wealthy family with a strong military history. The Lavans family estate consisted of a large ranch covering many acres of land and the family itself owned businesses that dealt in the distilling, brewing, fermenting and bottling of alcoholic beverages, as well as the raising of lifestock for beef and milk. Richard himself was one of the younger Lavans children, the 3rd youngest out of nine children. Like his siblings, and his parents and their parents before him, he was pressured into joining the military in order to finely hone his mind and body and become worthy of the name Lavans - or risk losing his inheritance and birthright. Almost immediately after graduating highschool, Richard found himself at the Earth Federation’s officer academy for their Space Force. Rather than going the pure fleet route, Lavans instead opted to seek a commission in the Space Force’s Marine Corps. Like all Marines, he was trained for physical face-to-face conflict and excelled at academy sports like shooting and fencing. However, upon graduation, Lavans applied for and was accepted for training as a aircraft/spacecraft pilot. Upon graduation from flight school, the newly commissioned 2nd Lieutenant was assigned to his unit just in time for the One Year War to kick off. Part of a saberfish fighter squardron stationed in space, Lavans was present during the opening battles of the OYW. Though he failed to achieve the five kills, and therefore ace pilot status, he did manage to make it out alive though not unscathed. During the event Zeon would call Operation British, Richard’s saberfish was destroyed by a Zaku. Though he had killed enemy fightercraft before, Lavans had failed to harm a mobile suit. The encountered that almost took his life left Lavans with a temporary case of shellshock, which him questioning if he was cut out to be in the military. When Lavans heard that the Federation was developing mobile suits of their own, he jumped at the chance as was among the first Federation personnel to be trained on the new machines. Once he mastered the controls, Richard found that all his time shooting and fencing in the academy, as well as basic infantry training, easily translated over to mobile suit combat. Besides absorbing knowledge and applying it to the new weapons so quickly, Lavans also had a talent for training others and imparting his knowledge on to them. During mobile suit training, his mentorship of the NCOs and junior enlisted beneath him didn’t go unnoticed and he was promoted to 1st Lieutenant. After graduating from mobile suit training, Lavans and his fellow graduates were rushed into combat. Richard’s penchant for stealth and surprising the enemy earned him the callsign Wraith, and his mentorship and ability to lead troops into battle earned him a promotion to Captain. The One Year War left a lot of vacancies and voids to be filled in the chain-of-command though and it wasn’t uncommon for young, low ranking officers to be catapulted up the ranks - depending on what career they were. Lavans, or Wraith’s, talent for stealth and critical thinking caught the attention of his superiors. They approached him with an offer to work for Federation intelligence, to work in the world of black ops, an offer Richard accepted. Upon completion of his training and a promotion to Major, Wraith was returned to the battlefield just in time for the Battle of Solomon. After the war ended, Lavans would manage to keep his rank of Major and was entrusted to help train special forces and mobile suit pilots. Though Richard Lavans had initially been approachable and easy to make friends with, even for junior enlisted, the war and black ops training took a toll on him. He still managed to be very much that friendly country boy-ish person, but inside he’d darkened considerably. He also grew much more distant with his family, only concerning himself with them when money was an issue. In fact, using techniques and tricks he’d learned from his family, Lavans began to amass quite a private fortune, though he never committed fully to helping his family with their businesses. Rather, Wraith became almost married to his work, what with he and those under his command covertly hunting down and neutralizing many Zeon remnants -whether by taking them dead or alive. He was so successful, he earned a promotion to Lieutenant Colonel. Yet for all his success, Lavans failed to locate and stop any of the Zeon remnants vital to the execution of what was dubbed Operation Stardust. Just like when the Zaku had almost killed him in his saberfish, Richard began to ponder if he was really meant for military life, taking his failure particularly hard. The rise of the Federation’s Titans gave him all the motivation he needed to pull himself out of his foul mood though. Being a special operations commander, he was offered a place in the Titans, which he refused, already being able to get a good grasp on the group’s demeanor. Wraith no longer lost faith in himself or the causes he was fighting for. Rather, he came to lose faith in the superiors he was fighting for. With the Titans taking over the bulk of counter insurgency operations, Richard found his on-duty time consisted mostly of training cadets and subordinates. Though he was beginning to question his superiors, he did so tactfully and kept the head butting to a minimum -or rather, he kept it to a minimum at that point. Lavans was not the only one with problems with the Federation leadership or the Titans. Federation personnel were leaving to join the newly created AEUG, some of whom were Richard’s peers who offered him a position in the AEUG. Lavans refused any offer to join the AEUG, wanting instead of stay within the Federation and try to provoke change from the inside. By UC 0084, Lavans was promoted to Colonel and begrudgingly helped to silence certain media outlets in regards to the infamous Colony 30 Incident. Three years later, the Gryps conflict broke out, and for the first time since Operation Stardust, Wraith returned to the battlefield. However, this war was to be his last as a Federation officer. At the conclusion of the conflict, he resigned his commission and retired back to his family’s ranch in Montana. Sometime later, he said goodbye to his family and what friends he had and headed to Mars, trying to find some sort of peace. As of UC 111, Richard Lavans resides at Mars’ Vascillia County, having gotten married and fathering a son of his own back in UC 0088. Though he is now technically a civilian, some of his peers and subordinates who migrated to Mars with him still refer to him as “the Colonel”. This label is also affectionately used by Zeon personnel too, whether it be the cadets he helps to train or the commanders that seek his advise from time to time. In fact, despite no longer being a Colonel, one could say he still garners a lot of respect from former friend and former foe a like -even being allowed to sit in and discuss private military matters. |
