Difference between revisions of "Kol Seraph"

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Koltan 'Kol' Seraph
Master Sergeant Kol Seraph Brigade Executive Officer 1st Brigade/1st Imperial Legion
Biographical Information
Race	Coruscanti
Homeworld	Coruscant
Mother	Lasha Seraph (née Evard)†
Father	Garran Seraph †
Spouse	N/A
Siblings	N/A
Children	N/A
Born	Year -7, Day 234
Imperial Service
Branch	Imperial Army
Positions	Current: 1BDE Executive Officer 1IL Signals Officer 1st RECON BN 2IC Scout Trooper Archivist
Prior Service	Imperial Academy
Awards

Koltan 'Kol' Seraph is a 19-year-old Coruscanti male, currently serving as a Master Sergeant in the Imperial Army. He also serves as the 1st Imperial Legion's Signals Officer, and as the 1st Assault Brigade's Executive Officer.

"Primus Introire, Ultimus Exire : First In, Last Out"

— The motto of the 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, of which Seraph is Battalion 2IC

Biography

Painful Memories

By age 8, Kol had had enough of servitude

Kol Seraph was born on Coruscant 19 galactic standard years ago, on Day 234 of Year -7, in the district known as Sah’c Town. His father, Garran Seraph, was the manager of an interstellar shipping firm, which he and his wife, Lasha Seraph (née Evard, a commercial accountant from Bonadan, in the Corporate Sector) had co-founded a few years before Kol was born. Unfortunately, Lasha died in a tragic speeder accident when Kol was three. Grieving over his wife’s death and now bereft of her financial expertise, Garran slipped into a steadily deteriorating state of depression, worsened by an increasing dependence on stimulants to escape his problems.

The man in charge of the local crime syndicate’s operations in the Undercity made Garran a proposal to settle the debt if he sold Kol to him as a slave. Kol’s father refused the ultimatum, and the enraged crime boss sent his enforcers to ‘teach him a lesson’. The 3-year-old Kol, hiding under his bed, watched in horror as the boss’ men brutally murdered his father before his very eyes. After they ransacked the dilapidated apartment, the hired guns found Kol and ended up enslaving him anyways, and he suffered his master’s abuses until he was 8 years old, when Kol finally killed his master in his sleep with a knife. After escaping his former master's stronghold, he learned to survive by his wits alone on the unforgiving, ruthless streets of Coruscant's decaying, neglected Undercity, while the syndicate's operations on Coruscant reeled from its boss’ death for months. On the merciless streets, Kol eventually joined a relatively unknown juvie street gang, known as the 'Undercity Shades'. With his ambitious nature and his affiliation with violence, it was not long before Kol became the head of the gang. His leadership eventually brought the Shades notoriety and recognition from rival gangs, and not to mention from the syndicate itself.

Kol always wanted more

Although the events of his life denied him a proper Imperial primary education, and he eschewed the abusive curriculum taught at the Imperial orphanages, Kol understood the value of learning. A testament to his sharp intellect, Kol retained basic reading and comprehension skills his parents had imparted to him at a very early age, and as he grew older, he taught himself how to read and write Imperial Basic. His time as a slave proved to do very little in preventing him from developing his intellect, although the experiences he witnessed at a premature age undoubtedly had an effect on his juvenile mind.

Kol and his followers managed to outwit the syndicate's agents for about 6 years, and could have eventually forced the organization off the planet entirely if it had not been for Cardin Shrike, Kol's most trusted friend, and second in command of the Shades. Cardin had always been secretly envious of Kol’s popularity and resentful of his leadership, and enthusiastically betrayed the Shades when given the chance. In exchange for a small fortune in credits, Cardin approached the syndicate's new Undercity leaders in secret, and betrayed his fellow Shades by giving them information on the gang’s current activities, whereabouts, and safe houses. Despite his vicious upbringing, betrayal at the hands of his best friend was the very last thing Kol expected. The trap the syndicate had set resulted in the deaths of the entire Undercity gang, and Cardin’s too: the one thing the bosses tolerated lests than competition on their turf was a traitor motivated by greed.

Born Again Imperial

Kol was given a new outlook on life by the Galactic Empire

It seemed Kol's brutal life was about to be cut short until a squad of Imperial Army soldiers suddenly burst into the scene and made short work of the unsuspecting and ill-prepared syndicate agents. By chance, or perhaps even fate, the leader of the mobster hit-squad that had killed Kol's gang, a Zeltron, murdered the daughter of an Imperial Moff several years earlier, and the Empire had come to bring justice down upon the criminal's head, a fortuitous coincidence for the 16-year-old Seraph. The coldly efficient and professional Imperials saving his life and inadvertently avenging the deaths of his friends had a profound effect on Kol's life. After convincing the squad Sergeant to allow him to tag along, Kol soon made up his mind to join the Imperial Army, motivated by a sense of duty to uphold the Empire's values: the brutal enforcement of order and justice upon a chaotic, lawless galaxy.

Seraph's old Imperial Youth Militia uniform

Having to wait two years before being eligible for enlistment in the Emperor's armed forces, Kol spent the time by enrolling and serving in the Imperial Youth Militia, a paramilitary detachment of the Imperial SAGroup, itself a subsidiary body of COMPNOR, to gain the military ethos he believed he required to excel in an Imperial Army career. Due to his previous life experience on the streets, Kol excelled during his time in the Militia, and through them, he earned a scholarship to attend the Imperial Academy, which he did as soon as he turned 18. Under the tutelage of Captain Rik Zoidic, then CO of the 3rd Imperial Legion, Recruit Seraph found the inspiration he needed to excel in his Academy studies as well. During his time at the Academy, Recruit Seraph's superiors and peers noted that he not only possessed an above average IQ and that he absorbed the customs of Imperial military life with gusto, but also that he was no stranger to violence and the responsibilities of leadership.

Two weeks after graduating, Private Seraph received word from 2nd Lieutenant Santiano Salazar, his unit’s Signals Officer, who assigned him his posting in the Army, and from there, Kol’s life as an Imperial truly began. Upon graduating from the Academy, Kol was initially expecting to receive a posting to 3IL, the Shadow Guards, under the command of his Academy mentor, Captain Zoidic. Instead, he received a message from RADIA stating that they had assigned him to the 1st Imperial Legion, the Immortals, and arguably the most elite Brigade in the entire Army. Initially surprised that RADIA had assigned him to such a prestigious Army unit, Kol felt quite honored about where Army administration had placed him. It was not long after successfully doing so that Kol arranged transport to the Legion’s VSD, and looked upon his homeworld from space for the first time in his life, an exciting prospect for the young Coruscanti soldier.

A Soldier of the Imperial Army

Kol's homeworld, Coruscant, as he saw it for the first time from orbit

Seraph soon came to be viewed as a valued member of the unit due to his incredible self discipline and sense of professionalism, meeting General L'Annan, the Army Executive Officer at the time, through his eccentric BCO, 2nd Lieutenant Akai Ai, whose demeanor and idiosyncrasies often reminded Kol of his former friends in the Shades. Seraph and Lieutenant Ai often joked about life in the Imperial Army and the Empire in general, although Kol always remembered to restrain himself when doing so, so as not to receive disciplinary action for misconduct by any of his other superiors. Despite a few incidents and mistakes on his part that his superiors fairly attributed to military inexperience, the Lieutenant must have been impressed with his performance, as even in the presence of superior officers, Ai took the liberty of labeling Kol as 'the best Private in the Imperial Army' several times. To Seraph’s astonishment, Lieutenant Ai actually made good on his offer to try and make Kol his BXO by requesting permission to do so from ACOMD, although they denied this request, and the position went to Dante Erinith, a newly commissioned officer who was without a doubt the most eligible man for the job.

Kol began his career as a Marksman in the 1st Recon Battalion

Private Seraph's first posting was as a designated Marksman of Alpha Squad, the command Squad of the 1st RECON BN's 1st Section, under the immediate command of Sergeant Mikhail Perry, a career soldier the young Private came to respect immensely. The 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, also known as 'the Vanguards', was the premier Recon unit in the whole Imperial Army, and it was in this outfit that Kol Seraph first proudly donned the armor of the Imperial Scout Trooper. As a Marksman of Alpha Squad, Kol saw his first combat action, on the politically troubled planet of Fenves, in the aid of besieged government forces seeking to deliver the planet into the Imperial fold from Rebel insurgents. The so-called Fenves Intervention, known officially as 'Operation: Exorcist', was a resounding success for Imperial forces, although the leader of 1st Section's Bravo Squad, the Section's 2IC, was wounded in action, and shortly thereafter, she retired from active duty. Not long afterwards, Seraph, on Sergeant Perry's personal recommendation after he distinguished himself during the Fenves operation, received a promotion from Private to Corporal, and therefore became Perry's new 2IC. This appointment simultaneously made Seraph Squad Leader of the Section’s Bravo Squad.

ISD Protector

A disabled Protector

While en route to the Kuat Sector and their next assignment, Bravo Squad participated in the defense of the Imperial Star Destroyer Protector after the actions of a Rebel saboteur crippled her, and afterwards, when Rebel reinforcements subsequently arrived to attempt to take control of the ship. Coordinating their efforts with their Navy comrades, Seraph and his Squad successfully repelled the hostile boarding action, although the survivors of the Rebel strike force managed to wound Corporal Seraph quite seriously while he personally saw to the defense of the Protector’s bridge, and was forced to spend the next two weeks immersed in a tank full of bacta solution to recuperate. Bravo Squad itself was decorated for the unyielding support it gave to wounded Imperial Navy personnel throughout the ship, saving several dozen lives.

Elandorea Raid

All of Seraph’s Legion comrades were shocked when one of their own, Corporal Alzie Jamima, an Imperial Academy honors graduate and Seraph’s peer in the 3rd Infantry Company, went AWOL. After a probationary period had ended, Legion Command charged the errant Corporal guilty of deserting her post. This incident sparked further outrage when Jamima had commandeered her assigned craft, designated Inferno 10, which LCOMD had tracked to none other than a recently discovered, Eidola-controlled base on the Imperial planet of Spira, in the Lytton Sector. To deal with the fallout of this incident, LCOMD deployed two units. The first was the 2nd Heavy Armor Battalion, tasked to wipe all traces of the pirates from Spira for good, and the second was a small unit of 1st Reconnaissance Battalion soldiers. The latter’s objectives were to bring the traitorous Jamima into Imperial custody, and secure Imperial property (Inferno 10 itself) and spare it from the complete destruction of the pirate base. The unit chosen for this inherently dangerous operation was Corporal Seraph’s former Squad, Sergeant Perry’s Alphas.

LCOMD gave Alpha Squad 48 standard hours after deployment to complete their mission and extract themselves, at which time 2nd HARM BN would have the go-ahead from Command to commence their operation and obliterate the Eidola cancer on Spira. After the 2-day operational window ended, LCOMD still had received no word from Perry or his men. Fearing the worst, but reluctant to condemn an elite Imperial Army unit to death by friendly fire, LCOMD had no choice but to accept Corporal Seraph’s proposal for Bravo Squad to conduct an extraction operation. The most time Seraph and Bravo Squad had to conduct their operation was 24 hours, as the 2nd Heavy Armored Battalion could not afford to delay the commencement of their own operation any longer.

Under Seraph’s orders to split up and pursue the completion of multiple, simultaneous objectives, Bravo successfully infiltrated the Eidola facility, codenamed ‘Elandorea’, and shortly discovered that most of their Alpha comrades, Seraph’s former squad mates, had been killed, and the survivors had been imprisoned.

As Section 2IC, the duty fell upon Corporal Seraph to complete Alpha’s mission, and rescue the Alpha Squad survivors, before getting the hell out of dodge. Carrying out the remainder of the Raid as Acting Sergeant, Seraph successfully directed his Squad with the experience and decisiveness expected of a veteran leader. Kol personally led the rescue operation of the Alpha survivors, conducted by Bravo Team 1 (consisting of Private Bisenti, Private Faroe, and Bravo Lead himself), liberating only two Alphas out of the former 8-man unit. After liberating the exhausted, tortured POWs and securing their confiscated arms and armor, Team 1 and the Alpha survivors linked up with Teams 2 and 3 for extraction.

Team 3 in action

Team 3, Private Sidewinder and Private Hicks, accomplished the first of Alpha Squad’s two primary objectives, and apprehended Jamima, whom Corporal Seraph considered personally responsible for the deaths of his former squad mates. Relying upon their training and discipline, Team 3 was able to escort Corporal Jamima through the pirate base, linking up with Team 2. Team 2, consisting of Private Petrik, Private Delorian, and Private Franco, accomplished the second of Alpha’s objectives by securing the stolen Imperial Army starfighter and defending it against wave after wave of lightly armed pirate mobs led by deadlier mercenaries in Eidola’s employ.

With all three primary objectives completed, and his men reconsolidated without sustaining casualties, Acting Sergeant Seraph declared the Elandorea Raid over, and called for immediate extraction. As soon as Bravo Squad blasted its way clear of the Eidola base, Seraph relayed his Squad’s mission complete status to LCOMD. At last, given clearance to begin their operation, the 2nd Heavy Armor Battalion moved to assault Elandorea in force, and easily swept aside all enemy resistance, which had been significantly scattered and demoralized by Bravo’s operation. Within hours, Imperial forces had completely annihilated the Eidola presence on Spira, and declared victory.

With Sergeant Perry killed in action, and in recognition of his excellent leadership of Bravo Squad and rescuing the Alpha survivors, LCOMD promoted Acting Sergeant Kol Seraph to full Sergeant, making him Commander of 1st RECON BN’s 1st Section. As Alpha Squad did not at the moment possess enough members to be considered an ‘active squad’, Seraph’s superiors granted him special dispensation from standard Imperial military doctrine, and allowed Sergeant Seraph to continue to serve as Squad Leader of 1st Section’s new command squad: the Bravos. Despite having saved two of his former squad mates, Seraph refused to recognize the Elandorea Raid as anything other than a pyrrhic victory.

Unit Administration

As 1st Section's new Commander, as well as Bravo Squad Leader, Seraph had quite a workload to get used to upon returning from the Elandorea Raid. The Section's newest member, Private Ka`Marick, who had been slated to be added to Alpha's roster, now had no Squad to serve in. Ka`Marick possessed prior combat experience before enlisting with the Imperial Army that Sergeant Seraph knew better than to ignore. When LCOMD followed through with promoting Ka`Marick from Private to Sergeant himself, Kol approached him with a choice: either he now could leave 1st Section to become a Section Commander himself, or he could remain in 1st Section and serve as Seraph's 2IC. Fortunately for Seraph and 1st Section, Sergeant Ka`Marick chose to remain on Bravo's roster, agreeing to temporarily take up the dual positions of Section 2IC and Bravo Squad Leader. This allowed Sergeant Seraph to concentrate wholly on his duties as Section Commander: to rebuild 1st Section into a viable combat unit in the wake of Alpha Squad's dissolution.

In due time, Kol's hard work and the talent he displayed in his administrative duties was noted by his superiors, and on the Year 13, Day 37, he was appointed to Signals Officer of the 1st Imperial Legion, replacing his predecessor, 1st Lieutenant Salazar, who had been promoted and appointed to Army Signals Officer at an earlier date.

Conveniently, a position opened when Command Sergeant Marco Kerred, Commander of the 1st RECON BN, received an officer’s commission and transferred to command another unit. His replacement, Command Sergeant Hellebore, lacked a 2IC and chose Master Sergeant Seraph, newly promoted and the most eligible soldier in the battalion, to take his place. Hellebore’s own protégé, Sergeant Perry, held the young Coruscanti soldier in high regard before his death at Elandorea. Therefore, the newly promoted Master Sergeant left command of 1st Section to his former 2IC, Sergeant Ka’Marick, and became 2IC of the 1st Reconnaissance Battalion. However, before leaving 1st Section, it is worth noting that Seraph reconstituted Alpha Squad, leaving Ka'Marick in command of a fully combat-ready unit. Command of Alpha Squad naturally fell to the new Section Commander as well.

Return to the Front

It seemed that just as he was getting accustomed to the prospect of non-combat duties in the Imperial Army, Master Sergeant Seraph was again called upon to lead his fellow Immortals in combat operations on a couple of occasions. The first was a highly experimental joint task force training exercise carried out by integrated elements of both the Army and Navy, following the Military Integration reforms of early Year 13. The precise details of this training operation are still classified, but it can be shared that elements of both the 1st Legion's Infantry and Reconnaissance Corps performed admirably under strenuous conditions, under the command of 1st Lieutenant Akai Ai, and Master Sergeant Seraph, his Acting XO for the duration of the Operation.

The second, however, was no training exercise. A string of terrorist attacks in the form of suicide bombings, perpetrated by anti-Imperial insurgents on the Empire's capital of Coruscant, Seraph's home planet, forced the soldiers of the 1st to prematurely suspend their roles in the aforementioned training exercise, return home with all haste to restore general order, and bring Imperial justice down upon the heads of those insurgents who still remained alive. Upon entering the capital's orbit and swiftly deploying to the likely target of the Rebels' next strike, Seraph and his comrades swiftly and efficiently brought the crisis to an acceptable resolution with extreme prejudice. Seraph himself, concerned of the presence of hostiles on his homeworld, diligently did all he could to ensure none of the cowards' ringleaders either escaped Imperial custody, or with their lives. Kol only realized some time later that around this time, his actions were being closely monitored by powers beyond his immediate vision at the time, powers that had the ability to make or break him...

On Day 73 of Year 13, Master Sergeant Seraph's candidacy for the position of Brigade Executive Officer was once again brought under consideration, following 2nd Lieutenant Erinith's rather abrupt announcement that he would be rescinding his Commission and resigning from the Imperial Army. After only a short period of deliberation between 1st Lieutenant Ai (who had rather infamously requested ACOMD to allow Seraph to serve as his XO when he was but a mere Private fresh out of the Academy), Captain Morcha Drayson, 1IL's Commanding Officer, and Seraph himself, the 19-year-old Coruscanti Non-Commissioned Officer became the new Executive Officer of the 1st Assault Brigade. Added to Seraph's exultation at such a development in his career was the fact that, as Legion Signals Officer, he himself would be responsible for updating his Legion's records to make note of his own latest achievement.

Description

Kol's traumatic experiences, namely witnessing firsthand his father's murder, suffering as a slave of the Black Sun Criminal Syndicate before murdering his master, and later, fighting his way to a position as a gang leader in Coruscant's Undercity, have left their marks on his mind, but most prominently on his body as well. When men like Seraph smile, it is a twisted parody of the usually reassuring expression, akin to a predator baring its teeth. More often, Kol’s expression changes from its typical stern self into a self-satisfied smirk that leaves too much to the imagination.

Recruit Academy Recruit	Private Alpha Marksman	Corporal Bravo Lead/1st Section 2IC

Sergeant 1st Section Commander	Master Sergeant 1st Battalion 2IC, 1BDE XO

Imperial Personnel Profile

General Information

Surname: Seraph
Given Name(s): Koltan, 'Kol'
Race: Coruscanti, Class A Citizen
Gender: M
Rank: Master Sergeant, Imperial Army
Service Number: IA-B52-693-665
Education: Imperial Academy Graduate
Age: 19
Homeworld: Coruscant, Sah'c Town
Family: Garran Seraph (father; deceased), Lasha Evard (mother; deceased), no siblings

Psychological Profile

Personality Type: Rationalist
Rationalists are motivated by a desire to understand and gain power over their surroundings. They seek to control, predict, and explain reality, to be seen as competent, and to most of all possess competencies, capabilities, abilities, capacities, skills, and ingenuity pertaining to their field of concentration. They seek to do things well under varying circumstances, to constantly improve, to be free of errors, to increase their store of knowledge and to learn as much as they can, to rearrange their environment to suit their needs, to speculate about the possible motivations and thoughts of those they associate with, and to attempt to fit their experiences into some sort of system. They tend to be adaptable, impartial, tenacious, and uncompromising leaders.

Negative Attributes:
Rationalists tend to exert at least several of the following traits: Authoritarianism, Bossiness, Craftiness, Domineering presence, Impatience, Intolerance, Manipulativeness, Pride, Resistance, Short-temperance, Stubbornness, Tactlessness, Lack of affection or sympathy, Attention to detail and protocol that borders on fanaticism.

Physical Description

Height: 6'2
Weight: 180 lbs
Build: Athletic
Skin Color: White
Eye Color: Green
Hair Color: Blond
Addendum:
Clean Shaven and well groomed,
Signs of past physical trauma (scars)

Imperial Army Service Record

Ranks

Grade	Insignia	Rank	Time held (Combine Time)	Time held (Real Time)
[E-1]		Recruit	Year 12 Day 189 - Year 12 Day 191	June 6th, 2011 - June 8th, 2011
[E-2]		Private	Year 12 Day 191 - Year 12 Day 284	June 8th, 2011 - September 9th, 2011
[E-3]		Corporal	Year 12 Day 284 - Year 12 Day 327	September 9th, 2011 - October 22nd, 2011
[E-4]		Sergeant	Year 12 Day 327 - Year 13 Day 043	October 22nd, 2011 - January 11th, 2012
[E-5]		Master Sergeant	Year 13 Day 043 - PRESENT	January 11th, 2012 - PRESENT

Awards

Ribbon	Name	Date Awarded	Awarded by
	Imperial Academy Basic Graduate (IABG)	Year 12 Day 191 (08-06-2011)	Rik Zoidic

Appointments

[LSO]
Appointed to the position of 1st Imperial Legion Signals Officer
Year 13 Day 037
January 5th, 2012

[Archivist]
Appointed to the Imperial Archives Staff
Year 13 Day 059
January 26th, 2012

[Brigade Executive Officer]
Appointed to the position of 1st Assault Brigade Executive Officer
Year 13 Day 073
February 10th, 2012

Memorable Quotes

"Welcome to MY world, where we do things MY way..."

— Kol during his time as leader of the Undercity Shades

"Hail to the Emperor, the Empire, and the New Order. May its righteousness never falter!"

— Cadet Seraph reciting the salute of the Imperial SAGroup

"A great people can be killed, but they cannot be intimidated."

— Recruit Seraph on the Empire's citizens during his time at the Imperial Academy.

"There is no room in an Army uniform for second thoughts, especially not one cut from His Majesty's cloth."

— Private Seraph upon hearing the news of the desertion and arrest of former classmate and friend, Private Kaylin Shen

"So long as the Empire is victorious, it does not matter how much blood we lose, or how much we shed."

— Private Seraph's opinion on what victory means to the Empire

"Come on, you Rebel DOGS! You want to live forever?!"

— Corporal Seraph, while participating in the defense of the ISD Protector

"I am at a loss to explain why death in battle is so sought after. I even hear of some recommending their offspring to seek it. Better to live and keep fighting, I say."

— Corporal Seraph addressing his men before deploying on the Elandorea Raid

"Well, that life made me the man I am today. Down there, 8 years is half a lifetime. We're talking about the Undercity, mind you. Much of the planet, the tops of the towers I mean, is quite beautiful. You know, I see Coruscant as being a mirror of the Galaxy itself. There is horror and real danger in most places, but there is also beauty, even in the most unlikely places."

— Sergeant Seraph discussing his early years and his homeworld with Crewman Urist Nammoth

"Thank you for this honor, sir. As always, you will only get my best."

— Sergeant Seraph to 1st Lieutenant Santiano Salazar, the ASO, upon being appointed LSO of the 1st Imperial Legion

"I don't always gun down civilians. But when I do, I make sure they have bombs strapped to them."

— Master Sergeant Seraph, referring to the suicide bombers his unit neutralized on Coruscant

"I shall honor the memory of my predecessor by serving as best I can in the position you have elevated me to, sir."

— Master Sergeant Seraph to 1st Lieutenant Ai, upon being appointed Brigade Executive Officer following 2nd Lieutenant Erinith's resignation