The Man Named StuG

Appearance:

Stuart is a slightly taller than average Anglo-American man, quiet by nature, and many see him as excessively passive. His neighbors don't think too much about blocking his access to the garbage chute, or cutting in front of him in lines. He's a big softy and what is he going to do? Get upset?

Closer Inspection

Stuart has a number of tattoos that are associated with the Pacific Rim Coalition's army and armored police. These most notably include the 3rd Cascadian Volunteer Infantry (notable for having served in the defense of Korea and barely surviving the sack of Seoul 15 years prior) and the Seattle 9th Armored Police Battalion (The Black Dogs).

Even Closer

Stuart has PTSD, and the posture and gait of a person who has had a number of cybernetic augmentations. He is indeed a cyborg, he's got a buffet of awards and medals, and he really doesn't care if a snippy impatient skug cuts in front of him at the Food Dispensary, its not important.

Medically Close

Gibson was a Lance Corporal in the 3rd Cascadian Volunteer Infantry, served in the Korean campaign, and spent a year in Korea after the fall of Seoul as part of the partisan resistance to the ACPS occupation force. During that time he carried out a prolonged guerilla campaign against the ACPS 31st Rocket Brigade, and the 99th Mechanized Infantry. He underwent a number of paramilitary augmentations after being wounded, becoming a 'cyborg commando' for the PRC. He was evacuated only after Nippon high command organized a cease fire with the ACPS, exchanging a cessation of partisan combat for reopening Korea to trade and accepting Korea's assimilation into the ACPS. After reaching Nippon, Gibson was debriefed, and sent to Cascadia for an Honorable Discharge after collecting his medals. He currently has a military pension and no longer has to maintain employment or occupation.

After a year, Gibson signed up with the Seattle police and was given a position in the Armored Police, based off of his experience with power armor, personal armor, and weaponry heavier than pistols. He served in the 9th Armored Battalion for twelve years, and was mostly involved in riot and crowd control, and later anti-terrorism, when the 9th was repurposed. Gibson was blown up in a confrontation with the Black Dragon Society during a raid on one of their underground fortresses. He spent six months in recovery and ended up with a entire new set of cybernetic augmentations, with a large part of his ribcage replaced with a cromwell chassis. He returned to service, and three months later was discharged from the 9th Battalion.

Skeletons in the Closet

Gibson was a broken man after Korea, he had fallen in love with a fellow partisan, and a few weeks before the cease-fire, she was fragged through the head by another partisan in a friendly fire accident. The cell was wiped out because Gibson killed the man, and then his friends when they tried to go for revenge. When he was evacuated he was a raw mass of uncontrolled rage and hostility, and his treatment in Tokyo was to normalize him so that he could reintegrate into society, the amount of damage he inflicted on the ACPS occupation force was deemed high enough that anything else he had done in country was forgivable. Estimates place his impact at being responsible for destroying 8% of the 32st Rocket Brigade himself, and his actions lead to the destabilization of the 99th Mechanized Infantry being broken down and reformed into the 99th Foot Infantry and the 275th Motor Batalion.

In the Seattle Armored Police, Gibson was considered a marginal member on paper, but in the field was top 1%. This lead him being recruited into the Sanyangkkun. The Sanyangkkun was a secret society inside the Seattle Armored Police, specifically within the 9th Battalion, and most were Korean War veterans. They knew about anti-terrorism, statism, and the dangers that they represented to the city and people. During that time, Gibson and other members of the Sanyangkkun systematically hunted out certain individuals and brought them to confession, laying out plans and contacts, and used this information to find corrupt officials, terrorist leaders, and the like and remove them with judicious use of violence.

The King Street Station Insurrection was a nine day long protest and riot that turned into a street fight and later defense of the King Street Subway station. The events of the Insurrection snarled civilian commerce, injured a large number of police and hundreds of protestors. The Insurrection ended after the 9th moved through an access tunnel and took the station by force. Gibson was wounded when a protestor detonated a bomb next to him, and he was placed on medical leave.

It was through the King Street Insurrection that two things became known. The Seattle Metropolitan {Public Safety Department] learned about the existence of the Sanyangkkun, and the the Sanyangkkun discovered the Seattle Metropolitan had influence with a half dozen terrorist organizations, ranging from the Black Dragon Society and street level gangs to international terrorist organizations like Amerikka Command, Shadow Law, and the Python Patrol.

The next three months were a cat and mouse game of Public Safety using all their agents and tools looking for the Sanyangkkun, and the Sanyangkkun working out how to get all of the Public Safety people involved in one place. Things came to a head with Public Safety's Operation Witch Hunt, that selected Gibson as the target to incriminate the Armored Police in pro-terrorist, vigilante activities, and legislate for their disbanding, and their funding to be rolled into Public Safety. Public Safety explicitly did not know Gibson was a member of Sanyangkkun, and only picked him from his record, with its notes on depression, PTSD, and non-stellar service, he seemed an easy target for them.

The Agmong Incident is not spoken of, and is barely documented. Gibson was used as a lure by the 9th Battalion, and drew the vast majority of Public Safety officers and their own lap dogs, the 22nd SWAT company down into the Agmong Geofront, Little Korea, under Seattle proper. On paper, the Public Safety Department and the 22nd carried out a contain and control action in Agmong, looking for a number of potential terrorist leaders and encountered strong resistance and were unable to call for reinforcements before being wiped out. A number of officials resigned over the incident, and one committed suicide. The actual events involved Gibson drawing the pro-terror faction of the Safety Department into the sewers under the city and gunning them down in a breathtakingly violent gun battle that left forty officers and agents dead, six forced to resign, and one killed and made to look like a suicide. After the event, Gibson officially retired from the Armored Police, took his pension, and moved east, leaving the PRC to re-settle in the Atlantic Federation's Commonwealth of New England.

The Concession

There was a price that had to be paid, and Gibson paid it. Public Security was given a hard shakedown, offices were changed, and it altered the trajectory of crime in Cascadia. The department had been gaming both sides to gain public support and funding, keeping the threat of terrorists right at the edge, and keeping the terrorists under their thumbs since they were secretly supporting, and even giving them material aid and financing. The Sanyangkkun continue to remain a secret, and with Public Safety humbled and castigated, their activity has gone down a good deal.

But Gibson couldn't stay, he knew too much, and many saw him as a potential liability. Foolish men would have then tried to take him out, send more forces against a man who had proven himself a one man army more than once. His superiors offered him a deal, early retirement, a large severance package, honors and medals for a good show, but he had to leave Seattle at the bare minimum. They approved of him not just leaving Cascadia, but leaving the boundaries of the Pacific Rim Coalition entirely.

Retirement and the Big City

After spending more than half of his life under military discipline, Gibson was free.

What an alien and isolating feeling.

Settling into life after proved difficult. Gibson still maintains an exercise regimen, even though his legs are cybernetic and running doesn't offer him much benefit. He still makes a super minimal effort at being socially engaged, dating at a very low level, despite no longer being an intact male, and being possibly the lowest visibility person in the building. He could have retired to a middle level in one of the arcos, but the levels of security and biometrics would have just highlighted how much of him is cybernetic, and its one thing for the neighbors to know his legs are fake, it's another for everyone at the security desk to know that his genitalia are plastic.

Living in the urban slum was better. Fewer questions, fewer police, fewer biometric scans.

He was free in a different way.

Who is Stuart Gibson

Stuart is a weapon that has been put into mothballs, left in reserve. Superficially he is a normal guy, quiet and reserved, who takes out his trash, is polite to his neighbors, and doesn't say anything when the kids start shouting about FPS games and the military being badass. When the time comes, he is a monster. His abilities are high, his experience is high, and his capability is through the roof.

Usage:

Hidden Hero, Secret Badass -  Gibson is the guy you didn't know was a decorated veteran, at least until the bugs showed up, then he's the tough guy who knows how to organize survivors and get people to safety. He is an ace in the hole for a DFE game.

Out of Retirement - One of the PCs is his friend, and when they need someone for heavy weapons and support, Gibson is their guy, spouting he's too old for this shit while being the only person who knows how to fly a crashed hovercraft or operate that suit of police issue heavy power armor.