Well, here's to another step done of the Great Catchup.
Ketchup?Name: Alexander Cavel
Age: 73
Appearance: Tall, with
dark boots that reach to his knees and an over-covering
outfit with black pants that covers his almost full body
armor, which in turn covers his patchwork of old, scarred skin. He always wears
gloves similar to the design of his boots. His face is a little young looking for what is age really is, but the age does show; nobody could mistake him for being younger than late 40's (and he looked that same way for people some 30 years ago as well). The most distinctive feature of his face are his blue eyes; from a distance they look normal, but up close one can see many sparkles of white inside that the more technologically literate would take as obvious indications of artificial eyes.
(Imagine the boots to be a little more... modern, with a similar gist but less clank-y, armor to be more modern and less peel-y as well, and trim a bit of the neck thing off the outfit and stick the proper gloves in there. Although come to think of it, perhaps the ideal gloves are in between the two types? Gah, this is why I hate using internet pictures :P)Starting Faction: The Society of Steel
Skills: He's been around long enough to have some very set ways, something that the advancing nature of his faction has never been able to undo. Early on he was inspired enough to rise up the ranks and smart enough to move into leadership positions; these days he has a skeptical and has not a little pessimistic outlook on things. He'll help anyone who is against the Sphinx if there's enough in for him and he sees success as likely with a minimum of damage to his nation (or, more likely, himself), but at the end of the day he is his own agent with a faction to run, and a faction he will do everything to protect the many secrets of. And oh yes, he does keep secrets.
Standard Equipment: Very durable external light-plate armor under his normal clothes, including particularly strong boots and gloves; his eyes can be considered equipment due to their scanning capabilities; and a phaseblade of his own design.
Bio: Alexander Cavel was born into a special breeding program by the Human Federation designed to produce a generation of enhanced intelligence humans. His generation was supposed to be the "stepping stone" to another that would serve as the final stage of the government's attempts to create biologically superior humans in physical and mental areas. He spent his early life in a lab, first being loaded with knowledge, modified DNA and physical enhancements, and then being set loose on the project's network systems to scan the code for errors while his sperm was collected to create the next generation. Alexander was very good at the job, and in fact found one error that was pinned as part of the cause of future issues.
The second generation proved a complete disaster, and resulted in the whole project being terminated and him being thrown to the streets of an unknown world.
He made a comeback when he joined the government in its last years of existance again, this time working as a technical field agent; while others busted open rebel facilities, he busted their computers. Before the government fell apart completely and he severed all connection, he was doing the infiltration (or assault) in addition to the hacking, thanks to a special procedure he underwent that gave him a light-titanium bone structure; an immediate advantage over almost anyone around him. He was additionally involved in several top secret government projects that, should they have been completed in time, could have turned the tide of the chaos.
When the government did go into total chaos, he met up with two others who felt the secrets of the government needed to be preserved by capable hands. With the two others he gathered a following of ex-government employees, engineers and others who would help transform his homeworld of Kolban IV, a former government outpost with barely sufficient atmosphere to make do, into a fairly capable industrial powerhouse. The majority of the Society of Steel is now on that planet, as well as a few surrounding moons and space objects. Cavel has made the faction extremely independent and advanced; but the population is low, and the military forces he has command of are only sustained by a mixture of brain-in-jar systems and lesser computer architecture. Still, he holds quite a bit of influence in the sector, although he usually takes a non-active side of conflicts and instead steers the faction in the direction of creating technologies that he must fend off challenges from other factions daily to keep secret. Indeed, he has hated the Sphinx Domination ever since it sent an assassin after him a decade ago (although, to be fair, he never really liked them before that either) who stabbed him in his left shoulder with his own phaseblade; he still feels the effects of the wound to this day, and it is a constant remind of who to never do business with.