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05-11-2014, 03:57 PM | #1 |
endlesssummerofthedamned
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Midway, PA
Posts: 3,773
|
A while ago I started rewriting my own version of Larry Hama's original GI Joe story, and I had originally wanted to keep it faithful to that version. It had always been the definitive GI Joe story in my opinion, but there were a lot of elements from the Marvel ARAH run that were just too hard to handle - understandable considering the limitations Hama faced while writing the comics. He had to include specific elements that Hasbro felt would adequately advertise the toy line and was faced with deadlines and other restrictions. I often wondered what the story would have been if he hadn't been limited during the writing process.
So, I started to change the story here and there, exerting more and more of my own personal preferences and changes into the story until I felt that maybe I should just do it my own way. There are still elements that I intend on keeping, particularly the time period. The GI Joe team is still launched in 1982, and Operation Lady Doomsday will be one of the first missions the team is tasked with. However, Cobra Commander's backstory is pretty different. In fact, he starts out as a very sympathetic character that most people can relate to, while we discover over time that the real enemy is the government. I've broken the story down into two parallel stories from both sides - this one is the Cobra story. There will also be a thread that carries the GI Joe storyline. Anyway, here's what I've developed so far: COBRA: RESISTANCE “I hate and fear snakes, because if you look into the eyes of any snake you will see that it knows all and more of the mystery of man’s fall, and that it feels all the contempt that the Devil felt when Adam was evicted from Eden.” - Rudyard Kipling, “The Return of Imray” The man who would become the Commander of the Cobra terrorist organization was born Christopher Paul Anundsen, the youngest of two brothers belonging to a lower middle-class family eking out their typical American lives in a suburb of Springfield, Illinois. His father suffered a languorous death while Christopher was still in grade school, eventually succumbing to the deadly respiratory illness he contracted working in a steel mill. This event was the first in a series of tragedies and injustices that eventually steered the twelve year old towards the nefarious seat of power in which he currently sat. Looking back at the slow trajectory of his criminal progress, the gradual arc is almost impossible to see when attempting connect the two vastly different individuals. His father had wasted away to nothing while trying to maintain his family. A proud, hard-working union man, he tried to instill in his son that honesty and fortitude were the tools a determined man could build a life with. Unfortunately life had other lessons to teach Christopher; after the funeral, the union was unable to recompense his father’s life insurance policy due to a simple clerical error. His mother, already worn paper-thin from the loss of her husband and the stresses that followed in the aftermath of his death, accepted that there was nothing that could be done – and this was mostly true, since any legal proceedings would have required a lawyer, a luxury they were in no position to afford. So Ronald, Christopher’s older brother by five years, dropped out of high school to work at a lumber yard in order to provide for the family until he turned eighteen. In 1967 the United States was in the awful, bloody midst of the Vietnam War, and the military was desperately needed young men ready to train and ship overseas. Even without a high school diploma the Army readily accepted Ronald’s voluntary enlistment and shipped him off to boot camp, and eventually to Vietnam. The money he earned in the Army was sent straight to his mother and brother, and Christopher listened to the details his brother wrote of military life in letters addressed to his mother. He envied his brother’s exciting career as a “12 Bravo” combat engineer, which by comparison had made his own life in Illinois painfully boring. Ronald extended his enlistment and completed three continuous tours of duty; by the third his letters had come less frequently and the sparse details his mother shared with him were uneventfully rote. One day in 1971 Sergeant Ronald Anundsen came home on leave, and while Christopher was excited to see his older brother, it was immediately clear that this was no longer the same person that had left their home for boot camp over four years earlier. He was dark and brooding beneath his obligatory congenial demeanor, and he looked a decade older. Still, for a brief moment it seemed as if life had returned to a more desirable period despite the absence of his deceased father. One morning towards the end of Ronald’s leave Christopher overheard his mother and brother talking about his nearing draft age. He couldn’t follow the whole conversation, but Ronald promised his mother that he would “take care of it.” Christopher, having hardly any understanding about how the military functioned, assumed this meant that Ronald would talk to his boss and ask them not to draft his kid brother. In actuality, it meant that Ronald would volunteer to go back to Vietnam in order to keep Christopher, who could still be drafted, from being eligible to deploy into the same combat zone where his brother was serving. When he learned that his brother was going back to Vietnam for a fourth year, Christopher was terribly upset. He had thought that his brother had already fought more than his fair share of the war and that he his nights of worrying about Ronald’s safety were over. A tragic turn of events several months later suddenly left Christopher with no remaining family; his mother was killed by a drunk driver one afternoon driving home from buying groceries. Then less than two weeks later, while the state had stepped in to make provisions to Christopher’s living arrangements since he was still seventeen and not yet a legal adult, he received word from the Pentagon that Ronald had been killed in action. On the day he turned eighteen Christopher walked in to the Army recruiter’s office and signed his enlistment papers. It may have been defiance, wanting a chance to get the enemy that killed his brother, or it may have been an escape from the constant reminder of how life used to be before he was the only remaining surviving member of his family. Or it may have been an unconscious hope that he might join his family through his own possible death, but the real reason was far less inspirational – it was the easiest path to take in moving forward with his life. So he enlisted in 1972 and was sent to Fort Benning, Georgia where he felt a sense of true belonging and normalcy in the midst of the tightly controlled chaos that was his introduction to military life. He excelled in Basic Training and was given the chance to go through a condensed Ranger Training class which gave him a greater sense of discipline and confidence in his abilities to overcome life’s obstacles. He had been certain that he’d have the chance to go to Vietnam but after arriving at his duty station in Germany he slowly realized that military life outside of the rigorously structured training environment was vastly different. After a steady decline in attitude and discipline he ultimately received an “Other Than Honorable” discharge from the service. He returned stateside with nowhere to go and no real plan to follow. His restlessness helped feed his growing sense of resentment towards the world. Despite his father’s platitude, he began to think that a determined man will never be allowed to build a life and that the odds were purposefully stacked against him. When the game was rigged the only way to win was to go outside of the defined boundaries and create your own parameters to force the game to work to your advantage. He began to read literature on anti-statism, disestablishmentarianism and other similar topics that fueled his anger and paranoia that “they” were out to get him. He drifted towards the American Southwest taking odd jobs to pay his way as needed. He eventually heard of a group in South America that was working to destabilize entire countries in order to give the power back to the people. After several months he actually managed to contact an agent of the Red Shadows looking for new members. He was taken to Columbia where he traveled to an abandoned mountain village in the High Andes of South America. This was the base camp of the Red Shadows, a paramilitary group led by the enigmatic Baron Ironblood that was on the CIA’s Most Wanted list. Immediately upon arrival Christopher felt something wasn’t right; the majority of the people inhabiting the camp were unnaturally docile, almost lethargic – as if they had been drugged. Christopher was wary around the food proffered to him, but with no other alternatives he had to eat and drink what was provided. He had also begun to feel unusual; at first he attributed it to the foreign ecosystem, but he awoke every morning with a terrible headache. It was also odd to him that there was no real “training” to speak of - it was more like a resort than a paramilitary boot camp for a terrorist organization. He awoke in the middle of the night towards the end of his first week and discovered that while the recruits slept, Red Shadows agents utilized some sort of low frequency brainwashing technique on them. He escaped from the camp the following morning with all the provisions he could gather, and spent the next three weeks utilizing his Army Ranger training in the Columbian jungles. Disheartened by his experience in South America, he took some time to rethink his priorities. All he wanted from life was a fair chance to make an honest living. He was no longer interested in the things he had been programmed by society to believe he wanted, instead just wanting a simple life living off of the land without the stresses of bills, debts, taxes and the government interference that went along with the hassle of trying to survive modern society. He was living in San Francisco at the time where he had taken a job repairing small engines and had become romantically involved with a woman named Sarah Bynam. They remained unmarried but had had a son together named William during the summer of 1975. Christopher was also part of a small circle of friends and contemporaries that would get together and dissect the inadequacies of government control and the unbridled advancement of technology. At the forefront of their discussions were ways to get around the growing prominence of federal and state laws infringing upon civil rights. Eventually they decided that their best option would be to start a self-sustaining commune where they would all work towards the beneficial promotion of their conceded goals. One of the members of their group had inherited a large plot of land up in Wyoming that had several log cabins suitable for living in. The group decided to move there shortly after the birth of William. It was 1977 and the commune had grown from a collective of approximately thirty individuals to a group of over two hundred denizens. Named the “Ouroboros Commorancy” as a serpentine representation of the cyclic recreation of life and the temporal existence of humanity on this planet, it had become a symbol for independence from government interference. Christopher had become the unofficial leader of the community, which was a true democracy where every voice with an opinion would be heard and taken into consideration. But the government had taken an interest in what was happening there based on some of the pasts of certain members and branded the entire collective as a counter-culture sect of anarchists. The FBI opened a file on the group and began collecting information on everyone that had been a part of it. Several of the members that had previously belonged to certain movements and protest groups of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s were already in their database including a young woman by the name of Anastasia Cisarovna, and when it came to light that their leader Christopher Anundsen had previously been a member of the terrorist organization the Red Shadows, it was all the initiative they needed to move in on the commune. The details of the ensuing raid were not widely reported in the national press due to governmental censorship and media blackouts. The early morning assault of the commune was meant to be a textbook example of the use of “overwhelming force” with preliminary estimates of casualties as minimal to none. In fact, despite all the fact finding surveillance of what had been deemed a “common hippie commune” by FBI analysts despite labeling them “radicals,” what they came to face was a well-organized civilian militia that stood strong to protect their ground for twelve hours before reinforcements from the local National Guard overwhelmed the members of the Ouroboros Commorancy. In the end nine federal agents, six National Guardsmen and eighteen commune members were dead with a significant number of injuries incurred by the surviving participants of all sides. In the chaotic final moments before the end of the conflict several members of the Ouroboros Commorancy made an escape into the Eastern Rocky Mountains where they laid low for several weeks while the FBI carried out an extensive manhunt for the elusive individuals. Among the five that had escaped were Christopher Anundsen and Anastasia Cisarovna who would go on to form the upper echelon of an international terrorist organization that became known as Cobra. Injured during the battle, Christopher was left with a ragged scar across the left side of his face and left him with a sibilant speech impediment. He had witnessed the deaths of his son William and partner Sarah in the midst of the violence, gunned down by federal agents. The slow burning hatred that he had felt towards the government fully ignited that day, and he swore that he would enact revenge upon the country responsible for taking everything from him. Christopher had studied the government’s use of force in the recent past, particularly the Wounded Knee Incident of 1973 where the FBI clashed with members of the American Indian Movement. He had insisted that the members of the Ouroboros Commorancy be ready for a similar event, using his own military experience and the knowledge of other members of the community to train everyone in survival and warfare preparedness. They had also amassed a large amount of weaponry and ammunition, something that had gone unnoticed by the FBI during their surveillance of the compound. He also had the additional foresight to keep the community’s funds secure in an off-shore bank account to prevent government seizure in the event of an investigation. Prepared for the eventuality of a hasty evasion, there were several supply caches around the compound. After taking provisions from one of these, Christopher and Anastasia made their way across the border into Canada and eventually to Europe while the other three members went off on their own. Anastasia returned to her family’s home in Debrecen, Hungary where Christopher first learned of her aristocratic heritage. He began to call her the Baroness and she continued to refer to him as Commander. The Baroness had not returned to her family’s estate since she left in the late 1960’s. During her final year of school she had been allowed to accompany her older brother Eugen to Vietnam where he had been attempting to aid the humanitarian effort by bringing in badly needed medical supplies to the native Vietnamese people caught in the midst of the conflict. Her brother was killed during the Tet Offensive of 1968 by NVA troops, and she had mistakenly identified an American soldier as her brother’s murderer. These two events coalesced to drive Anastasia to become a radical student activist involved with anti-US groups that had eventually allied her with other international terrorist organizations that cultivated her hatred towards the US government and bureaucracy in general. She was in San Francisco when she first met Christopher Anundsen, and he had managed to convince her that revenge would never displace the lack of justice that had blackened her own personal history. He told her of his own losses, and the two formed a lasting bond that would tie them together for several decades. Upon returning to her home the Baroness found that her father had died several years earlier. Her mother welcomed her long lost daughter home; she had believed that she had been killed along with her brother nearly a decade ago and to find Anastasia still alive was a miracle. The two spent time catching up with one another, but when it came to the details of Anastasia’s radical past she had to be creative to spare her mother the details of some of the more controversial decisions she had made. Her mother also made arrangements for the Cisarovna fortune to be divided between the two surviving members of the aristocracy. After several months of laying low and recuperating from what had come to be known as the “Commorancy Occurrence” when mentioned by the US press, Christopher had fallen into a bleak depression. He began to question his own personal ideals, worried that his naïveté had made him responsible for the deaths at the standoff at the Ouroboros Commorancy, including Sarah and William. But the more he dwelled on the events that had happened, the angrier he became – at the US government, but also at the apathy of the citizens that had allowed their country to go unanswered for the strong-armed actions against those trying to make a better life for their selves. He dreamed of toppling the American oligarchy wrongly labeled a democracy and setting free the unwitting and oppressed masses. In his mind he began to develop an organization that could make his dream a reality, a plan he eventually shared with the Baroness. And he decided that the person that had been known as Christopher Anundsen had died in Wyoming and that he would go forward nameless, a ghost that would only answer to the title of “Commander.” The two worked together and use all of their resources to establish a connection with a variety of underground anti-government and terrorist cells through some of the Baroness’ past contacts. At the same time they decided that in order to quickly collect funding for their cause, their first move should be to collect as much leverage against as many US senators, congressmen and military leaders as they possibly could in order to extort them into either paying them to keep their gathered secrets out of the public light or in exchange for personal favors. They initially hired two experts in intelligence gathering that came highly recommended from several of their sources; an expert in disguise and covert surveillance who went by the name “Zartan” and an ex-MI5 operative that had turned rogue and specialized in seduction targets or “honey traps” that was known as “Vergence.” They were expensive but quickly proved to be worth the investment; within six months’ time they had seven political and military leaders under their control with four more near the breaking point. Meanwhile, the Commander and the Baroness had an insurmountable amount of work ahead of them. Their initial goal was to amass, arm and prepare a thoroughly diverse brigade-sized paramilitary force within the ensuing two year period, with the hopes of expanding to a full division. Their financial expenditures were making a healthy return for their organization but they needed followers – not just mercenaries looking for work, but idealists and fundamentalists with similar goals in mind. He had studied a variety of historical military scenarios where well trained and heavily supplied armies with superior numbers had been defeated by ill-equipped natives with little or no prior combat experience. The driving force behind these uncharacteristic results was the indigenous population’s convictions to hold on to the only thing that mattered to them – their home. This meant that they would need to largely recruit their soldiers from within America. They became the organization known as Cobra when they returned to the US; in keeping with his snake fascination, the Commander chose the cobra as an evolutionary continuance from the serpent-themed Ouroboros Commorancy. The cobra was symbolic on several levels; it was known as a hooded snake, and the Commander had taken to wearing a hood when conducting business. But snakes in general are also commonly representative of a dual expression denoting both good and evil. The Commander was well aware that Cobra would be branded the enemy despite their attempts to rid the US of the true nemesis of the people. With forged documents and aliases (the Commander was “Draco Imperator,” the Baroness was “Anna von Stromberg”) they entered the country approximately two years after they had originally escaped across the Canadian Border. Their first stop was a return to the Commander’s home town. In the eight years that had passed since he’d left his home town had become even more economically depressed and run-down. It pained him to return to the place that had only left him with memories of loss; so much that he couldn’t even remember his parents’ faces anymore. Despite his own personal anguish he decided that this location would be an ideal starting point for their operation. They began to search the streets for people who might be interested in a better alternative to the big government that had ascended to a place where they could look down upon the suffering of those they had sworn to serve. The big government that had no moral qualms over increasing their own already ample salaries paid for by the American workers while those same tax payers’ families went hungry. The Commander and the Baroness bought up large portions of the industrial section of Springfield that had been shut down and began to revitalize them. They organized political rallies and managed to get their own operatives into the mayor’s office and township and city boards. Misrepresented charity fundraising in some of the wealthiest parts of the most affluent cities nearby was another source of revenue for Cobra, carried out by some of the earliest Cobra agents. Behind the public displays of Cobra’s legally ambiguous rabble-rousing, the Commander had begun to amass a stockpile of military-grade arms and weapons systems they kept stored in the industrial sector of Springfield with a contract through the MARS Industries “black market” international arms resource supply chain. MARS CEO James McCullen XXIV (otherwise known as “Destro”) had concerns over supplying a single organization with so much hardware directly within the US borders. A man that was well known for unscrupulous business practices when it came to reinforcing his bottom line, Destro was also a shrewd industrialist and savvy capitalist who had no interest in stirring up an international scandal with a global superpower such as America. A scandal such as that could irreparably damage the reputation of MARS for generations to come. He insisted on meeting the Commander face-to-face; an irony since they had both taken to conducting business hidden behind masks. Since devising Cobra during his stay in Hungary, the Commander always conducted business with a hood draped over his head to conceal his identity as well as hide his disfigurement, while Destro proudly wore the beryllium steel mask that had become an honored tradition of his family’s clan. As it turned out, the meeting was practically settled before it had a chance to begin; the Baroness had met Destro beforehand and had managed to fully assure him of Cobra’s discretion while escorting him to meet the Commander. Destro had become enchanted by the Baroness when he first laid eyes upon her, and while not losing his keen acumen for business he decided that he would go as far out of his way as possible to assure that he would meet her again. The Commander was surprised by the effortlessness it had taken to reassure Destro of his sagacious intent and was more than pleased with the final outcome of the meeting. When, as a show of good faith, Destro agreed to supply Cobra with several of MARS Industries’ top of the line newly developed HISS (HI-Speed Sentry) Tanks free of charge, the Commander became suspicious of Destro’s intentions and wondered if he was being set up. He accepted apprehensively, oblivious to the palpable attraction Destro felt towards his second-in-command as well as her own interest in the arms dealer. He decided that Destro must be setting him up for some sort of deception and made a mental note to have his intelligence operatives do further digging into the recent business practices and transactions of MARS Industries. Elsewhere, Zartan and Vergence had independently continued to dig up an unprecedented amount of dirt on a number of Washington, DC’s elite ruling class. They had begun their work for Cobra unaware of each other, but the proximity within which they were working eventually resulted in their overlap and introduction. Once they discovered they were working for the same employer they agreed to compare their notes and work together for a while. Eventually they discovered a secret conclave of top Pentagon officials known as the “Vanguard of Patriots” that were plotting to unleash a series of terror attacks domestically that would appear to have been committed by foreign extremist groups in an attempt to gain more military jurisdiction and control upon US soil, as well as budgetary increases and role expansions. The two undercover operatives agreed that the Commander would likely reimburse them a generous bonus payment for this priceless bit of information. They withdrew from DC temporarily and headed to Springfield together in order to parlay with the Commander. What they found when they arrived was unbelievable; Springfield was a community that outwardly appeared normal in every aspect, but beneath that façade was a fully-functioning and well-armed military industrial complex. In less than two years’ time the Cobra organization, which had initially been only the Commander and the Baroness, had turned an economically depressed slum into an industrious, thriving community and had grown to approximately 4400 members with an annual net income upwards of $12 million. Zartan and Vergence were so impressed with the Cobra organization that they began to have second thoughts about their original plan; it was clear that there was something more than just another terrorist group that had been cobbled together from shiftless dissidents and petty criminals guided by a fanatic with a chip on his shoulder. What had been accomplished here was unprecedented, and it was clear that Cobra had clear and concise goals in mind. In the end they offered the information to the Commander for free and joined the cause.
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Trade: http://www.hisstank.com/forum/g-i-jo...uff-trade.html Feedback: http://www.hisstank.com/forum/buy-se...nstrelboy.html Disclaimer: The aforementioned post is the express opinions and ideas of the poster, and do not imply that those who have taken the time to read these views on this open forum should share or agree with them. Last edited by minstrelboy; 05-11-2014 at 04:03 PM.. |
05-11-2014, 03:58 PM | #2 |
endlesssummerofthedamned
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Midway, PA
Posts: 3,773
|
When they had first begun enlisting for Cobra, the Commander had decided that background checks of prospective recruits needed to be as thorough as possible. He knew that once the FBI caught wind of his operation that they would try to send in their own undercover agents in an attempt to infiltrate their group and collect as much information as they could, and he couldn’t accept that carelessness might be their undoing. He definitely did not want a repeat of what had happened at the Ouroboros Commorancy, which had initiated his paranoia of outsiders. Outside of normal questionnaires and standard background checks, potential Cobra associates were subjected to surveillance and extreme interrogation augmented with a variety of truth serums and lie detector tests. Failures would again be subjected to blackout inducing drugs and returned to their homes unaware of what had happened. It was a taxing process, but Cobra would not stand strong if it was built from dispassion and indifference; Cobra was a system of fervent beliefs and ideals that had to be unified through every member. Every person within the Cobra organization was a zealot to their cause.
Given the information provided to him by his team of blackmailers, the Commander decided that the leverage in his possession would be useful for far more than a steady stream of tax-payer funded revenue. The Vanguard of Patriots might actually be coerced into subsidizing some of Cobra’s expansions across the US. In fact, one of the members of the Vanguard of Patriots conspiracy being extorted had done some digging of his own in an attempt to find out who was blackmailing him. Retaliation against this offense was foremost in his mind, but when his extensive digging brought up incriminating bits of evidence that had possibly revealed some sort of terrorist plot, he had other ideas. Believing the organization extorting him was merely a petty band of militant criminals, he decided that it might be beneficial for the two sides to come to an arrangement of convenience. The Vanguard had yet to formulate any solid plans regarding the terrorist acts they would unleash upon their own soil for “the greater good,” but Brigadier General Thurston Crowther and several other council members felt the time to act was now. The Commander decided to meet with General Crowther, who of all the generals he was shaking down seemed the most corrupt, making him a prime candidate for his plan. Still incensed that the Commander held leverage over him, General Crowther wasn’t exactly looking forward to this meeting his blackmailer, but he was certain that once he’d fulfilled his usefulness the Commander would be thrown in the deepest, blackest hole he could find and left to rot. Having decided upon the location where they would meet, the general presumed that having the upper hand would keep him completely safe, protected by two squads of Special Forces operators. Completely unaware of the vast scale of Cobra’s operation, General Crowther anticipated some petty resistance from the Commander’s own security forces, but he never could have expected what he came face to face with. When his blackmailer arrived, he casually walked into the abandoned building as if he were walking through the park and instantly began to call the shots. General Crowther found the Commander’s audacity somewhat humorous – particularly since he had his face shrouded in a blue mask - until his own troops were brought before him completely incapacitated by Cobra’s security forces. The Commander assured the general that he could kill him right now, or at any other point in the future that he felt his usefulness had been outlived. He asked Crowther what he might be able to come up with that would save his miserable life, because at that point him time the Commander couldn’t think of anything. The general frantically foraged through his brain, afraid and desperate to save his own life, seeking some valuable nugget of information that would appease this obviously unhinged extremist. He offered him more money, military weaponry, property – all which the Commander showed no interest in – before offering him access to top secret government files. That did intrigue the Commander, provided that he was given something truly unique right off the bat. The general took the initiative to inquire that if he liked what he saw, then the Commander might deign to return a small favor. He considered the request, saying nothing for a long, tense moment. He then turned and walked away from the general, reminding him that he expected a delivery on his end within a week’s time. Meanwhile, the official Cobra insurgency was in full swing as they began recruiting efforts across the nation and even branching out to other countries. Within the US, they primarily focused on homeless veterans and economically depressed and crime-ridden areas where they proved to be the most successful. The middle and upper-class had nothing to really fight for since in their daily struggles to survive they were too distracted by first world problems to understand what true hardships were. In contrast, the lower-class had nothing to lose which made them more ready to stand up for something better. Cobra offered those who met the criteria well-paying jobs, affordable housing and a virtually crime-free city to transfer to. Entire families were shipped across the country to Springfield where they would start a new life. The only stipulation was that they were all to serve Cobra in some capacity to rally against the falsified democracy that had misguided the entire nation into blind subservience. Cobra had also set their goals on recruiting for their own special projects that would require individuals with expert training and experience in a variety of particular backgrounds. Some of these experts were to be scientists and engineers that would be utilized to create new technologies, while others would be soldiers of fortune to perform duties of a less scrupulous nature. The reputation of Dr. Archibald Monev, aka “Dr. Venom,” was world renowned; the Swiss-born physicist was responsible for his fair share of international crimes, most famously while working alongside ex-Nazi SS officers and for the Red Shadows while living in South America. Not exactly someone that the Commander was eager to align with Cobra, but it was much more difficult to find highly skilled scientists of the same caliber as Dr. Venom that were willing to leave their positions behind in order to work for an unknown group of anarchists plotting to overthrow the government. Dr. Venom had years of experience behind him and had also recently developed a device he called the “Brainwave Scanner” that could be used to influence political leaders through neurological manipulation. Major Sebastian Bludd was an ex-Australian Special Air Service officer that later served in the French Foreign Legion. After this he became a freelance military advisor and discovered that his skills were better compensated for by military despots and criminal organizations than they were by legitimate governments. As a result, he had built up a fairly prevalent criminal activities file through INTERPOL, but he was quick and adept enough to stay ahead of anyone tracking his movements. He had been offered a fair sum of money from an unknown organization that was called Cobra to carry out some relatively unchallenging yet discreet missions for them; a piece of cake for an old pro like Bludd. Once he came to know the Commander and his group, the atmosphere appealed enough to him to convince him to stay. Truth be told, he wasn’t getting any younger and the position he was given – training their private militia – was pleasurable. The international saboteur known only as “Firefly” had technically never been tied to a single terrorist bombing or assassination; in fact, his existence has yet to be proven. Beginning in 1977 a large number of high profile bombings across the world occurred with no obvious connections between them. Every assault was unique in its own way with one dubious exception – they were too singular. One of the top international terrorist investigators involved theorized that with no other common thread to connect these cases, and since no other organization had stepped forward to claim the work as their own and make demands, one must be led to believe that the careful orchestration of each individual attack was carried out by one individual. The theory was correct, though he would never be able to prove it. Firefly was a rumor, and with no way to contact him the Commander followed a hunch and put out the word through a variety of international terrorist organizations that he was seeking the expertise of a “specialist” and was willing to pay top dollar. Eventually his hunch played off when Firefly contacted him. The scale of the situation and the wavering moral ambiguity of his dealings had begun to worry the Commander. Doubt settled in and he had begun questioning his motives, wondering if he had taken the wrong path at some point. His personal losses had left large, ragged holes across his emotional psyche, and he thought back to the time he convinced the Baroness that revenge would never fill in the despondent hole created by the losses and wrongs that pushed one to seek vengeance. He reminded himself that this wasn’t about revenge, but about righteousness. It was about bringing balance and fairness and prosperity back to the American people. It was about lighting the fire of a revolution. And in any revolutionary movement the virtuous side will usually be given difficult decisions to make that lead down dubious paths towards their ultimate goal of victory and peace. Such is warfare, and so long as they don’t stray too far from the path of rectitude they will emerge on the right side of history. General Crowther had made good on his promise; arrangements had been made for one of Cobra’s operatives to collect two thick binders of classified top secret documents. The Commander began skimming through the pages looking for anything that might reveal a weakness in national security that could be exploited or some abominable evidence that could be brought before the American public as proof of their elected officials’ own hubris and indifference towards the citizens of the nation. There were references to the CIA’s research into the paranormal and experiments in the behavioral engineering of unsuspecting test subjects. There was information on a “Doomsday Device” the military was currently constructing based off of technical information the government seized after Nikola Tesla’s death. There was an Army Corps of Engineers study into how an island might be artificially sunk back into the ocean. There were many other items of interest, but they were all incomplete. He expected as much from General Crowther, an insidious man with his own personal edification his only motivation. He knew that the general would be eagerly awaiting his contact to arrange further negotiations. The Baroness attended the second meeting with General Crowther, backed by a full platoon-sized element of Cobra’s most elite tactical response unit. The general once more thought he would manage to gain the upper hand, believing that by sending an underling in his place, the Commander was letting his defenses down. But he also underestimated the Baroness, instantly assuming that she was stereotypically “the weaker sex” and could be easily manipulated. As a reminder that she was anything but what his chauvinistic views had perceived her as, she broke his nose when he got too close to her and tersely demanded that he supply the Commander with complete files on the subjects that had interested him. She dropped a list before him as he knelt on the ground trying to stop the flow of blood gushing from his shattered nose. Reminding him that they were still undecided over whether or not he was any use to them, she suggested that he delivered the files as soon as possible. The general was outraged by the insolence of this group. He had thought that he might use them as a way to expedite the Vanguard’s agenda, and he had been willing to overlook the blackmailing – it wasn’t as if he were paying them with his own money. But this last offense demanded payback; against his wishes, he brought the issue up with the other members of the Vanguard of Patriots. Unfortunately for General Crowther, they weren’t feeling too compassionate towards his situation. In fact, they considered ejecting him from their council since he had failed to bring the situation to the group’s attention earlier, before it had gotten out of hand. But several members agreed that if this group could be used reliably, it might suit their needs for moving their initiative forward. It was 1980 now and bits and pieces of vague and unrelated information regarding a domestic terrorist organization had filtered across the desks of the FBI for some time now, but with no connecting leads there was nothing more to do than take note of the information and file it away, waiting for something more concrete to pursue. General Crowther, now feeling insulted by both Cobra and the Vanguard of Patriots, decided to anonymously pass along some embellished information based upon the little he had been able to dig up on the Commander. The evidence was far from damning and required more substantial proof, but the tip had given them enough to open a case file and begin an investigation. The Commander had come to regret allowing General Crowther to slither away from their first meeting, as the man had quickly become a troublesome thorn in his side. He had access through his own operatives within the FBI that reported back to him that exceedingly little information had been revealed to them by Crowther. Relieved that their operation still remained under the radar of the government (and apparently the Vanguard of Patriots), he remained irritated by the bind that dealing with Crowther had put him in. The general was as problematic to their security as much as he was useful in supplying vastly technical information that the Commander wasn’t ready to lose just yet. Much more than an interesting curiosity, the access to restricted and highly classified government and military documents had given Cobra’s Research & Development branch an endless amount of resources to investigate. For now he would wait, keeping a close watch on the general for as long as the supply of information continued. After screening the information provided to him by General Crowther, the Commander disseminated copies of what had interested him among the leading scientists of the R&D branch. Dr. Venom’s laboratory was locked down for the time being – he had been conducting experiments with a variety of extremely toxic equatorial jungle plants in order to extract highly virulent properties that could have a myriad of applications. The Commander wasn’t sure what sort of applications, and the nature of some of Dr. Venom’s experiments had made him uncomfortable. One of the other scientists - a physicist by the name of Professor Arthur T. Appel with a degree in applied science that specialized in environmental engineering - had taken the literature supplied to him and began working on a proposition to develop their own island just off the coast of the US in international waters, whereby they could form their own nation. The Army Corps of Engineers exploration into destroying an entire island by utilizing the volcanic energy stored beneath it that had formed it supplied a vast amount of detailed information on how this could be done. The proposal was intriguing in the event that a hostile takeover of the Capitol was not feasible or if Springfield was discovered. The Commander greenlit Professor Appel’s project, allowing him to work out the larger details before actual surveys would begin. At the same time that virtually all aspects of Cobra continued to flourish and grow, they had also expanded into the private sector under the new business models they named “ARB Co.” and “Broca Logistics.” Directed by the successful Corsican-born financiers Tomax and Xamot Paoli, twin brothers who were the CEOs of Extensive Enterprises, these companies, which were essentially fronts for Cobra expansion, recruitment and supply, began turning a profit within their first year of operation. Tomax and Xamot Paoli had both served with the Foreign Legion Paras in Lebanon, Bosnia and Algeria before the officers’ Putsch in 1961. Afterwards they fought in the South American and African bush wars, refining their skills as deadly mercenaries. It was during the mid-1970’s diamond wars of Sierra Leone and Angola that they became extremely wealthy, secretly siphoning hundreds of millions of dollars in diamonds from the warlords of both sides, which they in turn sold for a handsome profit. With their new wealth they decided to move from the dirty, bloody frontlines of global skirmishes to Switzerland, where they became financiers in Zurich before building their own business Extensive Enterprises, which specialized in working within the legal grey areas of international laws and catered to clients with less than reputable business practices. The delivered maximum returns for their customers’ investments – with a fair percentage off the top as payment for their services. In the same manner as they had with MARS Industries, Cobra and Extensive Enterprises enter into an exclusive contract binding them together as a unique conglomerate of powerful businesses. In a rare moment that the two had to spend together since their first meeting, the Baroness had revealed to Destro that Cobra had been receiving copies of highly classified US documents from a top source within the Pentagon. The information was intriguing to Destro, who suggested that she mention to the Commander that MARS Industries R&D department might make better headway into utilizing whatever technical details were practical enough to put to use. She agreed, admitting that some of the personnel they had working within their own R&D sector were less than top tier – it was the one area within their organization that was severely lacking. In an effort to bridge a lasting relationship between their two sides, Destro offered to supply them with some of his own scientists for a trial period in order to see what they might come up with, including his rocket lab head engineer Yancey Franklin Benjamin who they all called “Scrap-Iron.” One of the projects that had interested the Commander the most was the “Doomsday Device” currently in development by the DOD. Since the project was still active, the detailed reports in the Commander’s possession did not reveal the full scope of the mechanism, nor was it exactly clear in what its intended purpose was to be. The head of the development team, a nuclear physicist and liberal human rights advocate named Dr. Adele Burkhart, seemed to be under the impression that the project was designed to bring about world peace. But the official DOD documents he’d read over made the device sound as if it would be a weapon of immense destruction that could be used to decimate entire populations anywhere across the globe in seconds. Whatever nation had control of such a terrible device could literally rule the world. Even more damning, a large number of reports on the DOD side of the operation had been counter-signed by officers that he knew to be members of the Vanguard of Patriots. He felt he needed to act quickly if he was trying to attempt to stop the “Doomsday Device” from reaching completion. The senior members of the Vanguard of Patriots had been aware of the blackmailing of some of the lower-level members of their concern for some time. Unaware of who had been making the demands, they kept a watch over the targeted members as they were concerned that some of their more impetuous decisions could compromise their scheme. At the top of this last was General Crowther, who had ineptly entangled himself with an outside organization, had handed over classified documents and then attempted to inform the FBI of their operation. It was time for something to be done about Crowther – once he convinced this “Commander” into doing some favors for the Vanguard. They brought in General Crowther and had him tell them everything he knew about the Commander. After several hours of using highly reliable truth extracting tactics on the general, they realized that he truly didn’t know much at all of the Commander’s operation. It was obvious that the subject had an above average intelligence, that he’d been amassing a large amount of wealth and had a need for classified military documents of a technical nature. With this being the only real information at hand, much of which was speculation, they decided it was time to meet with him. The Commander had met with General Crowther - who frankly looked terrible – who conveyed the message that his bosses were requesting to meet with him. After giving him the time and place to meet, Crowther had little else to say. It was a precarious situation to be certain; if he agreed to meet with the Vanguard of Patriots, the Commander could be walking directly into a trap that he may not have the ability to walk out of. On the other hand, if he could ingratiate himself to them he might be able to propel his plan onto the fast track. The meeting between the two sides began with both sides hoping to form a temporary alliance to attain certain mutual goals, but the tension that had built up prior to the event resulted in the opposing security forces firing on one another. With the Commander and the Baroness caught in a dangerous situation, their reserve forces were called in to eliminate the threat and allow them to escape. Once the Cobra security forces had safely extracted their leaders, they began to sterilize the location before evacuating. In the midst of the firefight the Commander had received a severe concussion when his skull had been grazed by a random bullet. The Baroness took charge and made certain that the Commander received urgent medical treatment from his top doctor. She then arranged for their private jet to prepare to take them to an island in the Caribbean, which would be followed by a large body of their own troops to keep them secure. She felt that the fallout from the botched meeting would result in a widespread manhunt for them, and with the Commander injured their best chance would be to get out of the country as soon as they possibly could. This had all been part of a contingency plan that also required the suspension of all Cobra operations in Springfield and throughout the rest of the country until it was safe to resume their activities. Since the battle between Cobra and the Vanguard of Patriots took place domestically and had involved US soldiers, the FBI was called in to investigate. And since Cobra had taken to hiding and were opponents to the government, the military involved could paint the scenario any color they wished. The official story was that they had been investigating a terrorist plot and had pretended to be sympathizers within the government that wished to aid their cause. Their ultimate goal had been to thwart the terrorist group, but they may have misread their intelligence since the group only seemed interested in killing them. The “Battle of Columbia Heights” became an FBI case file and their cursory investigation turned up very little outside of what had been supplied through the testimony of the soldiers involved. It was decided that since the military had initially been involved in the investigation that the case would be handed over to the DOD. Tasked with bringing these domestic terrorists to justice, a specialized team of soldiers was assembled to hunt down the group responsible for this violent act. (The group formed would be the Special Counter-Terrorist Group DELTA, Code Name: G.I. Joe, and branches off to the series “G.I. Joe: Grunts”) The Baroness remembered visiting the island and staying in the castle when she was still a young child. Her parents had brought her and her brother Eugen to this tiny island in the Caribbean on several occasions, and her father told her about the history of the old Spanish fort that dated back to the 17th century. It had been nearly two decades since she had last been here, and it still looked almost exactly the same. The local population was a small village of primarily fishermen that resided along the coast. The Spanish fort had remained unlived in since her family stopped vacationing there, but fortunately the small airstrip was still intact. The effects of the Commander’s concussion had lasted for several days, leaving him dazed and confused at times and spending most of his time resting. His short term memory seemed to be affected, as he had difficulty remembering any of the recent events just prior to his injury. The Baroness was left to deal with the organization of the incoming troops, as well as the logistical arrangements for supplies to be shipped to the island. This was somewhat alleviated through help from both Destro and the Paoli brothers, as well as the Cobra members left behind in Springfield. When the Commander felt well enough to once again take control of things, the Baroness noticed a marked change in his personality. He had become even more paranoid, but was also impatient and prone to violent outbursts. He was initially irritated that the Baroness had taken him away from his operations in Springfield, but once she explained to him what had happened he expressed skepticism since he couldn’t remember any of it. But the new scar alongside his right temple and emerging images that flashed through his mind convinced him that it must have happened. The Baroness persuaded him that the suspension of their operations within the US was the right thing to do until the investigation subsided. He grudgingly agreed and disappeared for several days. When he reemerged, he had decided he needed a specially built helmet designed with integrated communications and life-support systems. The Baroness contacted Destro who said he would gladly construct the helmet to his specifications if she would deliver them personally and have dinner with him. After the formalities of their meeting were taken care of, Destro asked her about her long-term goals with Cobra. She was uncertain, since it was difficult to see where Cobra would be in six months let alone several years. Against her better judgment the Baroness told Destro of the events that happened recently, of the Commander’s injury and his change in personality afterwards. Destro suggested that if at any moment she decided things were too dangerous with Cobra, there would always be a place for her with MARS Industries.
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05-11-2014, 03:59 PM | #3 |
endlesssummerofthedamned
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The “Doomsday Device” had become an obsession the Commander spent virtually all of his available time working on. He read and reread the documents he had, going over them and searching for the most minor bits of information he might have missed during his previous examinations. He began outlining a plan that involved kidnapping Dr. Burkhart and coercing her to help him build his own version of her device that would be used to force the nations of the world to obey his demands and relinquish control of their governments to him, or there would be dire consequences. He was convinced that what society needed was a strong, determined leader that would keep the governing bodies beneath his seat of power accountable while providing fair and equitable opportunities of gainful employment to the people. Freedom was an illusion, a placid falsehood used to misrepresent an imaginary world that could never truly exist. Nature was cruel and unforgiving, but it retained a necessary balance that kept things in order, and humanity refused to fall in line with this way of life. Time and time again, their ideas formed paths they followed to human suffering, misery and inequality which inevitably led to war, disease and death. He’d been foolish to think that he could ever just take control of a single nation and bring it to order. The entire world needed to be made to respect one another - it was the only way that society would ever survive. It was as if the trauma his brain received had made everything clear to him now. The details had always been there floating around in the corners of his mind, but the concussion had somehow assembled them into an organized doctrine of government that made sense. It was his purpose in life. America was too large to start with, he now realized. He would have to start small in order to build an empire that could topple the “land of the free.”
(Without the proper medical treatment he should have gotten, the shock to the Commander’s mind had skewed his sense of morality and warped his perception of reality. The resulting decisions he made would go mostly unchallenged, slowly escalating towards more radical terrorist operations and immoral scientific experimentations.) The Commander and the Baroness remained on the Caribbean island throughout the summer of 1981 with a battalion-sized detachment of approximately 500 Cobra soldiers, making it their temporary base of operations while they searched for other countries that might be sympathetic to their cause and grant them asylum. Springfield remained undiscovered, and in an attempt to keep it that way the Commander decided that they would continue to build their forces outside of the US. He’d put too much effort and planning into Springfield to risk having it all blown by returning there and continuing their operations. Eventually they found refuge in a country named Sierra Gordo, a tiny Latin American nation along the western coast of Middle America bordering the smaller countries of Sierra Muerte and the Republic of Punta del Mucosa, all three of which lie between Nicaragua and Costa Rica. They aligned with the Sierra Gordo Liberation Front, an anti-American left wing organization that promised Cobra asylum in their country in exchange for arms and advisors. The Commander sent the Baroness and Major Bludd along with a company of approximately 100 soldiers to help train the S.G.L.F. The S.G.L.F. and the Sierra Gordo Contra Militia had been warring against one another for nearly two years; after the 1979 revolution that had driven the military dictatorship out of the country ending a 47 year reign of power, the S.G.L.F. stepped in to seize control of the government, essentially beginning a similarly brutal reign under a different flag. The S.G.C.M. resistance was hastily assembled to fight back against the S.G.L.F., and the country had remained in turbulent state of flux. The S.G.L.F., with their superior numbers and weapons had sent out death squads to round up the S.G.C.M. freedom fighters, who only wanted to bring democracy to their country. The Commander’s decision to aid the S.G.L.F. was one of practicality; any armchair strategist could plainly see that the S.G.L.F. would win this war eventually. Cobra’s help would only bring about the end sooner and in the process would be saving countless lives. Once his plan was put into action, he estimated that Cobra could take control of Sierra Gordo in under a week. The neighboring Sierra Muerte to the north, a country beleaguered from the violence of statists and revolutionaries spilling across its borders, would readily accept any treaty that would help end the constant state of war. They’d been secretly aiding the S.G.C.M. in the hopes that their resistance might overpower the S.G.L.F. and stop the bloodshed, despite knowing that a move so bold would incur the wrath of Sierra Gordo’s government. The Commander knew once Sierra Gordo was under his control that Sierra Muerte would readily follow. There was a wild card in the midst of these warring factions, however – the Tucaros. The tribe of Tucaro Indians indigenous the area had been known to kill any outsiders without warning, though they generally stay confined to the jungle. Not too much of a threat as far as the Commander was concerned. Once the uprising against the S.G.C.M. had been largely quashed, Cobra became a more prevalent force within Sierra Gordo. They were given a large unused facility approximately eighteen miles southeast of the capital Rio Lindo to utilize, most which had been reclaimed by the jungle. Using their own assets coordinated through Extensive Enterprises a large influx of resources began channeling into Sierra Gordo as they began renovating Cobra’s newly acquired real estate. Cobra engineers began at once clearing back the jungle growth and assessing the existing structures and planning improvements to the site. By the end of 1981 the compound was 65% finished and while the families that had remained behind to keep Springfield running stayed under the radar, the Cobra forces in Sierra Gordo were a prevalent force across the countryside fulfilling a versatile range of roles, including private security and helping to rebuild and improve the country’s infrastructure. Increasingly apprehensive over the direction that Cobra had taken since they left the US and from the progressively distant attitude of the Commander, the Baroness decided to forcibly bring these issues to his attention. She was his second-in-command after all, and she had the right to question his motives particularly when they seemed to countermand previous edicts. The Baroness expressed concern over his mental state since the changes seemed to first manifest after his injury at Columbia Heights, citing their highly suspect alliance with the S.G.L.F. – a violent group that had no moral qualms over employing death squads throughout the countryside. She reminded the Commander of when they first met and how he had convinced her that revenge would never return to her what she’d lost. But he somehow managed to assuage her fears, calmly persuading her to accept that the majority of the populace would never willingly consent to peace. It would only happen by force, and the only way to force this to happen would be to take away their freedoms, nation by nation. He shared his plan to take over Sierra Gordo with her, explaining that the price of true freedom will demand the lives of some but in the end those who survive will be rewarded with an ultimately utopian society.
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05-11-2014, 03:59 PM | #4 |
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05-11-2014, 04:00 PM | #5 |
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05-11-2014, 04:01 PM | #6 |
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