Name: Major General Arthur Howard
Age: 34
Gender: Male
Social Status: Britannian
Appearance: Tall. Stocky. Arthur has the body of a lifetime officer, one who never quite let his fighting shape deteriorate. His short, formerly-brown hair is quickly graying, a fact he is none too pleased with. His pale skin lightly tanned, rough after a life in the proverbial [and occasionally quite literal] trenches. His shoulders are broad and his stance confident, his jaw wide and nose bent. He stands just taller than average, bolstered his posture being rarely anything less than military perfect. He is rarely seen out of his uniform. He keeps tidy and hygienic almost religiously, learned from life on campaign, and occasionally smells like the cigars he infrequently indulges in. A grin usually sits proudly on his face, a frown of reverent determination when before his superior officers.
Personality: Arthur's personality is the result of a casual and jovial man living the life of a soldier for nearly 20 years. He hates when people are late, and refuses to be tardy himself. He keeps his work and person in rigid order, the discipline required for command stretching deep into his personal life. He walks quickly, speaks loudly, and has mastered the obedience required for successful operations and the feigned respect required for promotion. His sense of humor is crass and frequently fatalistic, and among peers he is highly irreverent towards middle management of all kinds. Arthur clearly delineates between work and recreation. A learned workaholic, he favors the former over the latter, and his natural relaxed tendencies shine through in the latter.
In command, Arthur relies on an understanding of operations-level warfare garnered from years of experience and a voracious career of studying modern military theory. He is aggressive, and values keeping the initiative in combat. He does not hold the knightmare in such high esteem as his compatriots, much to the disdain of his knight underlings, and focuses on combined arms and firepower superiority at key areas. On the defensive, he fights with the same mobility as he attacks, favoring mobile defense in concentrated depth. He is a capable administrator, but has learned long ago to rely on his hand-picked staff officers. Usually having at his disposal the manpower and materiel advantages of Britannia, he likes to engage the enemy constantly, with ubiquitous low-level combat giving way to large, frequent offensives. He attempts to know all he can about his enemy, and tries his best to plan around the enemy he faces, holding as he does a dislike of military dogma and the cloying orthodoxy of not only his peers but the majority of his commanding officers.
History: Arthur was born to an unremarkable family. His mother worked as a secretary before she had him, his father a squire to the local lord, both the bottom rungs of the middle class and both desirous of status and money. He grew up an only child in the heart of upcountry New Hampshire. He went to school and achieved enough success to earn a scholarship to first a prestigious high school and then West Point, buoyed by a promising football talent.
He settled into a niche at the Britannian Military Academy, one in which he would sit for the rest of his life. The military fascinated him, and in turn it consumed all his time, his evenings deep in the bowels of the main stacks interrupted only by outings to hunt and fish with his few friends. Academically, he excelled, earning both friendship and hatred from those peers he left behind and those few bright stars who he challenged at the top. Socially, he floundered: he was unpopular, both because of his birth in the lowest of the middle class and because of the seriousness and determined aura he adopted outside the company of his few close friends, so uncharacteristic for a 17 year old boy and so nested in the Britannian ideals and philosophy. Arthur's life in the sticks had not prepared him to resist the overwhelming Britannian indoctrination and propaganda present in its second most prestigious military academy, and he fell for it hook, line, and sinker. He dreamed of a better life, one of wealth and ease, in a Britannia that allowed any with strength of character and talent to ascend in society.
He graduated a year early, eager to begin earning paychecks and hungry for practical experience in the conflict he found so fascinating and bewitching. He graduated fourth in his class, and earned a place as a 1st Lieutenant in an armored division of the regular army stationed in Area 3, what used to be known as 'Mexico'.
His time in Area 3 saw very little combat, and for four years he served diligently training forces and demonstrating skillful administration and peacetime soldiering. He earned his promotion to Captain at 23, an age not unheard of but exceedingly rare among those lacking a title of nobility.
When he was 24, his chance for glory and advancement presented itself. He was transferred to one of the new knightmare units, the newness of the units necessitating pure merit promotions in their earliest stages. He sees this as his absolute luckiest moment: he knows full well how difficult knightmare commands are to come by for non-nobles even by two weeks into the One Month War, and understands how quick promotion and success comes to those who are assigned to them. He was deployed in Kyushu with the 2nd Armored Infantry Divison's knightmare battalion, and played a major role in the six day battle of Fukuoka, in which he earned a Distinguished Service Cross and a promotion to Major for a masterful rearguard action which allowed for the extraction of the 22nd Marine division safely, and a successful counterattack which help break the back of the opposing 4th Japanese Mechanized Division.
He ended the war with his George's Cross, a Distinguished Service Order, and a purple heart he received for a shell fragment which buried itself just below his right buttock. He wears them proudly, though omits the final item to this day, if only to avoid telling the embarrassing story.
He was transferred out of Japan, and earned Colonel and Brigadier General in quick order after sporadic combat in Argentina over four years, and finally was made Major General in 2018 after a long spell away from the field which was encouraged in no small part his new wife, who gave birth to twins in 2016. With his second star on his shoulderboard, he was moved back to Japan and attached to the 89th Armored Division, a knightmare-heavy experienced unit kept on the islands to discourage the Chinese across the sea and the few remaining rebel elements among the Elevens.
Relationships w/ Other Characters: Currently pursuing Jack Blake for terrorism and partisan activity within his jurisdiction.
Is working with Elise, who is currently attached to the 89th Division or testing help and oversight with her projects.
SOMETHING with Stratovarius
Goals: He dislikes the tyranny and injustice so institutional in his government. He follows in the intellectual footsteps of men like Hobbes and Napoleon, though he will never admit it, and dreams of a world governed by the strong and fair hand of a true world empire, free of injustice and driven by merit alone. If he can amass power in Britannia and defeat her enemies, such a world might be created from the husk of old Britannia when she stands alone.
Skills:
Operational Command
Oratory
Organization
Physical Exertion
Empathy
Likes:
Firearms
Fox Hunting
Cigars
Ballroom Dancing
A Crisp Salute
Meritocracy
Dislikes:
Tyranny
Dogma
Alcohol
Inactivity
Driving
Heavy Metal