A stoic man of considerable physical stature, Taran Burke is a man that is not unlike a large breed of dog; he’s confident in his strength, both physical and mental, that he doesn’t see the need to run his mouth and he serves as a calm and reassuring presence to his comrades in the thick of deployment. Possessing an iron will and the ever looming thought of what he stands to lose if he fails, Taran is a tenacious and loyal soldier that has been in the thick of the war for seven years now and he is determined to not only protect humanity’s home, but to drive the Bulwark back to their god-forsaken homework and turn it into an irradiated hellscape with the might of a nuclear arsenal.

A family man through and through, Taran’s a faithful man that has often worked on resource rich moons far away from his home on Mars due to the increasingly crippling prices of land and living expenses since the Fall and the sudden influx of the remnant of humanity from beyond the Local Cluster in the past century due to the Bulwark war, sending home what earnings he could to help keep a roof over the head of his wife and daughter, as well as his ailing father. They are the reason he fights, and why he left the well-paying fuel refineries of Titan to enlist.

Generally good natured, supportive, and easy-going, he is a man that lives in the moment and has long learned that you can’t change the past and there’s no sense worrying about the future because it hasn’t happened yet. He’s meticulous and rather handy with hand tools, skills devolved working with heavy refinery machinery and on the military’s exosuits, a program he was eager to quality for. In his downtime, he enjoys reading and working out to keep his body strong, a bi-product of having adapted to a life on Mars where the reduced gravity, about 1/3 of Earth’s, necessitated a steady stream of dietary supplements, far more protein than a Earthborn diet, and physical conditioning to keep the body from withering away. A millennia of colonization is not quite sufficient enough to undo several billion years of evolution, it turns out. Taran also is a fan of board games and has an interest in collecting rare earth minerals, geodes, and other geological fragments from across worlds, partially due to his career paths thus far and to keep an ongoing physical journal of sorts of all the places he’s been, as well as taking time to appreciate that in a civilization that always looks to the stars, there’s still beauty to be found just under your feet. It keeps him humble… and grounded.



A Martian, Taran grew up in the Tharsis province, East of Olympus Mons where his ancestors were third wave colonists on the red planet centuries prior and had still had ample time to lay claim to what was once plentiful land. Having grown up in an enclosed and sealed city under a colossal dome to protect the colonists from the deadly radiation that Mars’ thin atmosphere didn’t filter out and the terraforming process still relatively early in its time table. Taran found more of an interest in the ground beneath his feet and helping take part in expanding the colony even at a young age, helping string up support structures as the large tunneling machines burrowed their way under the surface, giving the Martian cities a substantial underground system of tunnels, soon making a considerable chunk of the colony entirely subterranean. It wasn’t high paying work, but it helped his widowed and crippled veteran father Alistir make ends meet with the extra income, and it was steady and reliable.

That was, until Taran’s college girlfriend Brigid announced one day that she was pregnant. Head wheeling with the sudden news and the responsibility that came with it, Taran knew that he’d have to find work that paid more than what he’d be earning with his current level of occupation. Going to Earth was out of the question; completely overpopulated and not exactly a safe haven for people looking for work, Taran soon signed up for a Titan-based fuel conglomerate’s workforce. Having made claims to 30% of Titan’s surface on account of being the first company to have reached the fuel-rich moon, Kronos Petroleum was arguably one of the most well-off companies in the entire system; their only issue was finding workers willing to do long stretches at such a remote and inhospitable location. As a result, recruiting drives were prevalent on the crowded worlds, and those looking to make a lot of money in a short amount of time couldn’t ask for a better opportunity. Taran sure couldn’t.

Spending the better part of a decade working for KP, working 4 months on, 2 months on leave, Taran was keeping his family’s finances in order and even saving a little extra to make sure they could afford to move somewhere nicer. He became specialized in Exorigs, working with only a few centimeters of protection between himself and the hostile Titan atmosphere, performing equipment repairs and troubleshooting issues with the pumps, robotics, and drills that were essential for the operation on the moon. However, there was always a nagging feeling about the state of the galaxy, and he’d begun to have infrequent nightmares about the Bulwark; sometimes he’d return home and find his family slaughtered, or he’d be working out on Titan and being helpless as the enemy descended upon him. After years of deliberation and trying to justify the decision and the substantial reduction in pay, Taran enlisted and after completing the requisite training, was transferred to the 588th Defensive Army. As he soon discovered, the enemy is just as horrible as his nightmares suggested, and every day spent fighting them is another day his daughter gets to grow up.




Pocket-sized photo album, his mineral collection.



One a lean but strong man due to Mars’ gravity, the 588th’s training regimen and simulated Earth gravity aboard ships, bases, and Krono Petroleum’s outposts has allowed Taran to bulk out considerably, taking full advantage of his 6’04” frame and weighing in about 230 pounds. He is physically powerful and robust, although rather pale due to a lifetime largely not being exposed to direct sunlight, and his pale blonde hair is almost verging on grey, giving him somewhat of a ghostly visage, an image only assisted by his hawk-beak like nose and broad, square jaw and dominant cheekbones. In addition, Taran has a number of burns and scars that have been earned through both the dangerous work conditions on Titan where the planet’s methane atmosphere was all too easy to cause flash ignitions and from the vigors of combat.

Taran has a prominent brow, giving him a somewhat perpetual look of concentration of skepticism, and his slate-grey eyes are only a few shades removed from his hair colour. Despite his harsh and somewhat severe appearance that makes him look older than he actually is, there is a kindness in his eyes, giving him an air not unlike an old sailor from folklore of centuries long gone.