User:Oook/Sandbox/Harry Fletcher

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Revision as of 23:35, 21 February 2008

Name: Harry Fletcher

Born: Peckham, London, Earth

Age: 39

DoB: 2367

Service Record:

• 2367 - 2383: Civilian
• 2383 - 2384: Marine Corps Basic Training
• 2384 - 2387: Private
• 2387 - 2389: Private 1st Class
• 2389 - 2391: Lance Corporal
• 2391 - 2406: Corporal

Childhood

Born in London, Earth, to a schoolteacher father and a mechanic mother, Harry Fletcher was the eldest of two children. He was always a more physical boy, enjoying sports and with little time or patience for academic study, and his parents' attention resultingly fell far more on his younger sister Susan, always brighter, always more of a hard worker, always with more 'potential'. This would lead the slightly disillusioned Harry, deprived of the parental attention that he craved, towards 'acting out' so as to be noticed. Petty juvenile crimes dotted his childhood, and all it succeeded in doing was making him more distant from the world in general and his parents in particular.

At age sixteen, his father, sick of bailing young Harry out for minor crimes repeatedly, insisted that the boy got himself a job so as to make some use out of himself. By this time, the Borg War had started up, and along with it came a barrage of a recruitment drive from Starfleet. Bribing a suspect friend of his to alter his records, Harry thus - to make himself 'useful' and to escape from what he considered his moderately oppressive family - lied about his age and enlisted in the Marine Corps.

Military Career

In better times, the Federation might have balked at a delinquent such as he, but recruiting officers were desperate enough that they even allowed a shoddy job of altered records to slip by without taking any sort of a closer look. And thus, Harry Fletcher was away, intent on making something of his life after all. He had not joined for idealism, for protecting the Federation; he was interested solely in having something to do, and freedom to enjoy himself without consequence at the end of the day.

Observers would have said that the discipline of the Marine Corps and the harshness of the war did Fletcher good. He buckled down early on and became a model soldier, excelling particularly in close-quarters combat, but showing an aptitude with a whole range of weaponry. His was also a keen tactical mind, demonstrating an aptitude for efficiency above everything else.

Right out of Boot, he was assigned to a front-line regiment, trapped repeatedly on hell-holes of planets locked in continuous conflict with invading Borg landing parties. Early on, several things about Harry Fletcher became remarkable. First was his considerable aptitude for killing things, showing an almost disturbing imagination when it came to improvising how to take down a Borg drone that had already adapted to the phasers. The second was that, although he proved himself to be an excellent soldier, he abhorred responsibility for anything other than himself and his rifle, happy to work with his fire team and squad, but refusing to take on any leadership roles. The third was that he seemed to repeatedly land himself in units that were decimated in combat. This in itself was not so unusual, for Fletcher - by his own request - was almost always in a front line regiment, but sheer odds suggested that, by at least the third unit that needed to be disbanded due to too many losses, he should have been killed. And yet, five years on in a war where there were so many dead men's boots that promotion was usually awarded based on whether or not you knew which end of a rifle to shoot, Fletcher remained a private, a standard foot-soldier, and was happy.

This would change at the campaign withdrawing from Khitomer. Fletcher's regiment was landed on a moon, fighting Borg drones off until the civilians could be evacuated, but part-way through the raging battle, the Borg used the a local power facility to charge up a transporter inhibitor. Fletcher's company was one of the major outfits assaulting the Borg-held city to try and destroy the inhibitor to allow the Marines to be beamed out, but the battle went from bad to worse. First, his squad was separated from the rest of the unit - then the squad took heavy damages, including their sergeant. As the remaining fire-team leader froze up completely at their apparent doom, Fletcher stepped up to the plate. He rallied the other half a dozen or so men, and made an attempt to get them back to the rest of the regiment.

They had, however, become completely turned around and lost in the urban Borg wasteland and, in trying to rely on secrecy to go through the city rather than taking the long way around to where they knew the Federation forces were, almost inadvertently stumbled upon where hordes of troops could not make it to - the power plant the transporter inhibitor was relying on. In a snap decision, Fletcher declared to the survivors that they were in a better position than anyone else to take action, and that they were going in.

Harry Fletcher only made it back to the regiment with three other survivors of his squad, but it was to a drop-zone where, now, the Marines could be beamed back to their starship, and the withdraw from Khitomer's moon could be completed. Fletcher was decorated for his actions in destroying the power plant, and superiors snatched at this operation to push him into more of a command role, desperate for competent NCOs.

He was promoted to Lance Corporal, with the intention that this would only be temporary while he learned the ropes and accellerated in rank. But it seemed Fletcher had other ideas. He was happy enough with the men he was working with, a lack of manpower often leaving him as an acting squad leader within his regiment - the same regiment he had been with at Khitomer, and the longest surviving outfit Fletcher had, to that point, served with. Yet he was never anything more than an 'average' troop leader, not suffering unnecessary casualties, but not pushing his soldiers to the levels of excellence that had become expected in the aftermath of his mission at Khitomer.

It took another two years, with the mess of the war, before word finally reached the right ears of Harry Fletcher's true abilities, and Starfleet's special forces approached him. His were skills, they recognised, that worked best in small groups of other talented operatives with a set objective and vague, open parameters.

For six years, Fletcher worked in the special forces, charged most often with going behind enemy lines with a small team of men and crippling Borg resources wherever possible. He was not a great leader, nor a good second - nor even was he particularly suitable as a sergeant figure. But he was an excellent soldier, with strong initiative when it came to his own responsibilities, and with his wits about him sufficiently to get himself and others out of the many hot situations they often tumbled into, sometimes intentionally. He polished his fondness for weaponry, expanding particularly his horizons in phasers and disruptors, discovering a greater comfort with non-Federation armament for its more military design. Also he uncovered a hitherto unknown talent when it came to stealth, on one training exercise managing to get so far as placing a sticker on the underside of the base commandant's office chair and getting out without being detected. Fletcher similarly proved himself adept at surviving in a wide range of environments, particularly excelling at the training exercises that required him to survive in the wilderness without being detected by locals or sets of soldiers pursuing him.

The operations he participated in remain classified, and Harry seems to have no inclination to extensively discuss them unless he is directly asked by someone he thinks has any reason to need to know, but he gives no impression that his war-time experiences were anything very particular - that is, particular for a special forces soldier. But as the war drew on and the Federation came closer and closer to Sol with the encroaching Borg, special forces became less valuable than more cannon fodder, and Fletcher's unit was disbanded, the members returned to the infantry units of the Marine Corps.

He led a squad through to the end of the War, managing to prove once and for all he was not an infantry commander. Time spent with special forces made him distant, a little inclined towards lone wolf operations compared to how a normal squad would act, and, most importantly, saw him getting very frustrated when dealing with normal soldiers who would often need a lot more instruction and precise orders than he was used to operating under or needing to give.

When the war finished, Fletcher put in requests through whatever channels he could get his hands on for either more special operations, or just not having to hold a leadership role. A superior of his clearly took Harry's frustration with his men as a challenge, and in the direct aftermath, he was assigned to Marine Boot Camp to instruct Basic Training to the fresh post-war recruits.

Every new recruit is convinced that their drill instructor hates them. In the case of Corporal Fletcher, they were right. He despised the low standards expected, standards that had dropped through the wartime desperation for soldiers, even soldiers not as adept at combat as they could be. Many of the lower-end recruits washed out of his classes even though they made the official grade, and were probably relocated to other, more 'gentle' instructors. Fletcher didn't care, though, often taking to some of the most extreme techniques to teach his recruits. On one operation where they were dropped in an unfamiliar environment in the dark and were expected to navigate their way to a meeting point, Fletcher provided each group with the wrong map and, on the back of it, had written down notes of landmarks that would lead them to the actual meeting location. He did, much to the criticism of his superiors, have favourites amongst his recruits - though not only was this based genuinely on merit, they themselves thought they were being punished, for Fletcher's favour meant more intensive training. These 'Special Lads' would go on to form something of a bizarre old-boy's network in the post-War enlisted ranks of the Marine Corps, and would, after the fact, recognise the value of the lessons learnt from being pushed harder than anyone else. Many of these 'Special Lads' - though there were not that many per class - now serve as SABREs.

His was not a natural aptitude for teaching, though he did get results. Rather than inspiring recruits to learn and improve, Fletcher used their fear and their hate as motivators, and apart from the favoured recruits who had the natural aptitude to cope with his attitude, he was deemed unsuitable as an instructor for anything more sophisticated than basic training.

When the Marine Corps were disbanded and the Federation Mobile Infantry was formed, Fletcher was offered his pick of jobs, instructing or troop commanding. Unable to understand why his superiors didn't know what he wanted, he refused point blank to take any assignment other than in the newly-formed SABREs. His first operation was in counter-terrorism against elements on the newly-rediscovered Bajor that were considered suspect, but though Fletcher was happier in this work than he had perhaps ever been, here his superiors understood him better and recognised that domestic threats were not his favoured enemy. Subsequently, he was assigned to a unit which took operations first in the Vulcan conflict, then against major pirate elements, acting as the team's primary scout and infiltration expert.

His unit, and Fletcher himself, operated with such success that they came to the attention of General Vesuvious fairly rapidly, and several names from the team were put forward when the formation of the unit designated 'Hell Hounds' came about. Corporal Harry Fletcher was one of them, and he was the only to make it through to the elite team.

Personal Life

It is impossible to meet Harry Fletcher and not have an opinion of him, though usually that is one of distaste for his arrogance and his rudeness. Nevertheless, he forms superficial attachments easily, and has many vague acquaintances throughout the Fleet. Friends are harder to make, and he has a difficult time relating to anyone who doesn't understand the special forces way of life, let alone the military life. So he has a scattering of contacts and friends, usually people he's served with, and the Federation's more localised habits means that Fletcher can walk into almost any FMI-friendly bar on Earth and find someone he can have a drink or a brawl with - either are equal entertainment and social interaction to him.

His family life is mostly non-existent. His parents died in the Battle of Sol from the bombardment of London, though his contact with them was minimal since his enlistment and their death did not hit him very hard. His sister he always got on with, though she is now working as a lawyer at the Palais de la Concorde, having cultivated her intellect and made something of herself. She and Harry are as emotionally close as could be with their regular physical distance, but they are from very different worlds and lives and they both recognise this is a barrier almost impossible to overcome. Harry still writes to her often.

Fletcher also has a daughter, a sixteen year-old girl named Angela Palmer he fathered in a one-night stand when on leave on Earth. Her mother Helen is a civil engineer, and did not inform Fletcher of the girl's existence until after the war. Theirs is a tenuous and new relationship, though Fletcher has won his daughter's love by taking her out on trips of extreme sports, much to her mother's disapproval and the girl's amusement. Still, his connection to her is more that of a big brother, or some sort of estranged, amusing uncle than an actual father, something Fletcher has not been willing to sacrifice his work for to correct.

The biggest impact Harry Fletcher has perhaps made on the FMI is the unintentional network of comrades-in-arms that were once the favoured amongst the recruits he taught. The 'special lads' as he called them, usually using it as a derisive label, have all benefitted from both the extra training Fletcher gave them, and his recognition of their potential. Many of them are young SABREs, and most of those who are not are already high fliers in the NCO ranks. They stay in contact with each other, considering that if another soldier has trained under Harry Fletcher's harshest tutelege and lived to tell the tale, then he deserves their respect, and it has become something of a slightly suspect network of favours.

Fletcher owns a bulldog, an ugly creature named 'Ripper' he used to use to scare his recruits. Since returning to active SABRE duty, he tends to foist the dog off on whichever random contact living on Earth will have it if he is off-world. His daughter's mother refuses point blank to allow the animal in her house, but does not always get her way if there is particularly short notice. Angela, to everyone's amazement and Fletcher's amusement, adores Ripper, who has been labelled as potentially dangerous by animal experts if left unattended. Ripper, however, has yet to actually attack anyone without his master's express orders - which are sometimes given.

Out of Character Issues, Notes, and Thoughts

• The name is subject to change. I'm looking for something fairly down-to-earth without being too dull, which was why I went for 'occupation' names - Butcher, Baker, Candlestick-Maker. He would have been called Butcher if firstly it wasn't a bit obvious for a vicious bastard to be named Butcher, and secondly he wasn't loosely inspired by Billy Butcher from Garth Ennis's 'The Boys' graphic novels already.

• The rank, and this is something which might have issue across FMI. I designated him with the lowly rank of Corporal because he's meant to be be an active, independent soldier, but neither a basic trooper nor partaking of the leadership role or supportive role of a Sergeant. However, I'm drawing both my knowledge and inspiration from the Royal Army, wherein a Corporal is a significant backbone role and, according to Wiki, has responsibilities roughly equivalent to those a Staff Sergeant would get in the US. So the rank is low, but it's meant to be - I'm just wondering how to culturally translate this without making it seem like Harry's crap for still being a Corporal after 23 years of active service.

• As mentioned above, he's inspired by Billy Butcher of Ennis's comics. This is really only loosely, in that I haven't read the entire line and it's a different universe. The similarities aren't extensive, save that I thought up Harry after reading about Butcher, a vicious, Cockney bastard (with a terrifying dog, but that's more of an intentional homage). So the character's voice is liable to sound very much like an irritable Michael Caine. And the language will become quite foul.

• The stuff about how many fire teams to a squad, whatever, is probably inaccurate as I did it at work and I'm not au fait with the numbers. However, it did occur to me that such designations and numbers change from army to army, so it made me wonder if we've got any interest in just pinning down those sorts of numbers and facts for FMI. Without defaulting to the US Army. Which I'm already doing by calling a 'section' a 'squad'. So, yeah, the numbers and references there are subject to change.

• I've been perhaps vague with a 'specialty' for the character, mostly because he's not fully formed. However, if you're Special Forces, chances are you're probably already goddamn brilliant at running, jumping, climbing trees, shooting, killing, and so forth. So 'specialism' becomes a lot more vague. Fletcher is likely as good a shot as any other member of the team, which would still be stupidly good compared to normal soldiers. I've also put him as having talents when it comes to survival and stealth, for both infiltration but mostly I'd figured scouting. However, where I imagine the true expertise lying is melee combat, fists and knives and broken bottles. Up close and personal. Which leads on to...

• I do not intend for Harry Fletcher, or whatever his final name becomes, to be a nice person. He will be a coarse, violent, foul-mouthed, disrespectful bugger who just may enjoy the violence in his work too much. If you walk into the same bar as him you might end up getting uproariously drunk and having a great time, or getting bottled in the face by him, and it'll probably boil down to circumstances and his mood rather than any of your own actions. Leading onto this, I have been wondering as to whether or not he should have discipline problems in his background, or is this likely to be too disruptive for a Special Forces type?