Interview with Weber Beckmann,
Supplemented by his personal psychologist.
Psychiatrist's addition: Weber is a complicated individual to figure out. His delusion makes him believe that he was in the 80 year war as a cruiser captain. I think that, through extensive examination of the subject, that I have figured out what his real story is.
[begin interview playback.]
So.
You want to hear about me, kid?
Your fault, then.
The name is Weber Beckmann. Captain Weber Beckmann.
My father was Admiral Fredrik Beckmann the third of the battleship Nibelung of the Imperial Rheinland Navy, and my mother was someone he picked up in a bar on a freeport in the Omegas.
[Psychiatrist's note: This much is true, except that his father wasn't in the Imperial Navy, only the Military. As far as I know, his mother was indeed a zoner of some sort that Weber's father met on the Freeport.]
I was practically born, bred, raised, and hazed in Rheinland's military. My father was an admiral, so it was only natural that the house was kept under practical martial law. As such, I had a lifelong appreciation for order and discipline, and I came to hate chaos right down to an almost obsessive-compulsive level. As such, I was my father's favorite child. He was naturally quite displeased when I announced my intentions to go not to Academy, but to university - for mechanical engineering.
[Psychiatrist's addition: Everything he just said is more or less true, as far as I can tell.]
And then I was victim of an attack by the GMG as I was working my first engineering post, on a Naval Station. That changed my entire perspective on the war - it wasn't one we were fighting against the GMG, it was the GMG fighting against us too. And the civilians were in danger. I knew what my job was, and I knew what I had to do - I had to join the Navy.
[Psychiatrist's addition: At this point in his life, he references an attack by the GMG that led him to join the Rheinland Military, but it was actually an attack by thugs near his home that led him to join said organization - a desire to leave the violent planets and see the stars with a peaceful company. He's expressed his inner desire to simply find peace to me on occasion. I think that his delusion with being a an ex-cruiser captain strengthens his revolt against war, as much bravado as he might put up in front of it.]
That done, I jumped to the rank of Captain in just a few short years of service after exiting the academy with my father's blessing. His position and clout with the rest of the Imperial Navy made sure that I was put in a position of authority immediately. Had I been made of anything less, I would have failed and disappointed him - but I managed to make it through what he gave me, and soon I was taking on bigger commands and commissions. I was made for the job, apparently. Perhaps my father's style of raising me literally did make me for the job.
Whatever the case, I was a respected member amongst on all the ships I ever worked on.
Keep in mind that this was all during the 80 years war. Rheinland was killing the GMG, and the GMG was killing Rheinland. It wasn't a pretty fight, by any stretch of the imagination, and it had been going on for far too long. It has always escaped me as to why exactly the Imperial Rheinland Fleet was not able to defeat the GMG.
[Psychiatrist's addition: He did advance rather quickly to the rank of captain in Orbital Spa and Cruise, but not because of his father. It was entirely his skill and charisma that made him successful.]
I'd gotten a rather hefty command of my own - the RNC Jormungandr[i], the toughest cruiser you could ever imagine. Improved armor, added flak cannons, larger generator, etcetera... It was an impressive beast. I was in command of this ship for three weeks before high command told us that we were going to end the war. They pushed the entire fleet into Sigma-13 in a massive offensive. It was a majestic sight, seeing the entire fleet like that. There has never been such a fleet, nor will there ever be. It was like the march of the gods...
And then, against all odds, the GMG destroyed the entire fleet in an attack of their own.
Do not ask me how it happened, don't ask me about the battle. All I know is that it was catastrophic.
The march of the gods turned into the twilight of the gods, into the Ragnarok.
And there, in the middle of it, was my ship, providentially called the [i]Jormungandr.
[Pause in recording]
The battle had been raging for hours, it seemed. It may have been days, or only minutes - I couldn't tell. The Imperial fighters were swarming around, their deadly pilot-crafted weapons blazing at the GMG, who buzzed like flies around the might of Rheinland.
I was, at this point, begining to worry, despite everyone's initial and perhaps still lingering optimism.
I, at the helm of the green might of the Jormungandr, rallied several other cruisers to my side, and they several gunships each, and those gunships several fighters.
This force dived into the depths of the nebula below the battlefield, aiming for a surprise attack. We could see the dim flashes above us, and we could hear the sound of every explosion, a muffled boom through the nebula's gasses. We couldn't see what was making those explosions, but we knew, somehow we knew, that it was our comrades and not the GMG.
After several tense, quiet minutes of moving through the cold dark, I called the command, and our force leapt upwards, straight at the GMG.
[Pause in recording]
Somehow they anticipated our movements, somehow they bested us. To this day I do not know.
But there we were... powering towards the center of their fleet from below them. Our mortars launched, our turrets blasted, our fighters shot, and our torpedoes rocketed - all straight at them. And, seeming to shrug off the assault, they dove at us like it was simply to be expected. We shot through their main fleet, straight up, shooting and keeping a constant speed, hoping to be a distraction that would win the victory, if nothing else.
We sustained heavy casualties. I'm not sure how many of theirs we took down.
We turned around and began another pass. Was it heroic? Suicidal?
I don't know.
It was patriotic, we did it for Rheinland, we didn't matter any more. Victory did, our nation, our nation's pride - our pride. Their capital ships were facing us at this point. Mortar fire ensued from both sides. A gunship dropped on my left, a cruiser sundered into pieces on my right. But the Jormungandr, she just kept going, seeming immune to their cannons.
All batteries were spilling the green tachyon of Rheinland weaponfire, bathing their ships in the sickly venomous glow of our onslaught, the venom of the Jormungandr, just like in the legends...
Every man knew we were doomed. We knew that this was a last charge. We were the only ones left.
And as we dove, firing away, a single bomber charged to meet us, guns blazing. They impacted on the hull with little effect. We knew, though, that his torpedoes were the real danger.
I told all batteries to fire at him - the flak, primary, secondary, and even the tertiary arrays.
Against all odds, he survived, we missed, he dodged... I don't know.
The bomber was right in front of us... in front of the Jormungandr, rising up to meet the cruiser... Thor rising up to meet the venomous serpent like in the tales of old.
We felt the impact of his torpedoes as he strafed along the side of the cruiser, dropping every torpedo he had on us in a cascade of pryclastic fury. He was clipped by a turret and spun off 9k into the nebula before he exploded.
We breathed a sigh of relief in our groaning ship.
And then we felt the implosion of the reactor.
I barely managed to make it to an escape pod. Most weren't even that lucky.
The ship literally blew itself to shreds... and those who escaped it could only watch from their pods as the GMG decimated the Imperial Fleet.
I drifted for what seemed like ages of blackness, but I was finally picked up by the Rheinland Military, unceremoniously discharged, and left on New Berlin. It was at this time when I got enough money to buy a Starflier and then left for Liberty, disgruntled and in want of a job with a company that didn't have killing in the job description.
[Psychiatrist's addition: In a nutshell, pirates attacked his OSC liner and destroyed it. He managed to escape in an escape pod, but was fired by OSC for his incompetency. He then went to Liberty, annoyed and disillusioned with Rheinland and in need of a job somewhere where no one knew him.]