James Doyle
| James Doyle | |
 | |
| Profile | |
| Origin | Solar System |
| Occupation | Fighter Pilot, Lieutenant |
| Affiliation | Western Alliance, 92nd International Volunteers Squadron |
| Born | January 12, 2179 A.D., Titan Colony (Age 21) |
Background
James Doyle was born on the Titan Colony, one of the many battlegrounds of the Sol War. After its liberation from initial Coalition occupation in 2162, the colony experienced a massive growth wave that persisted for the next two decades, a result of the large influx of refugees and the frantic attempts by the Alliance to continue the war effort.
James was born at the very height of the fighting, when Alliance forces managed to push the Coalition all the way back to Luna in Earth orbit. However, by the time he had come of age and joined the Alliance Naval Fighter Corps, the course of the war had taken a drastic reversal. Without large amounts of sustainable industrial capacity, the Alliance eventually began to succumb to the Coalition's inherent industrial might based in facilities back on war-ravaged Earth and the inner planets. A failed last-ditch strike on Earth signaled the beginning of the end, and within very short order the Coalition's flag began its unstoppable march to Pluto.
By this point in time, manpower in what remained of the Western Alliance was at an all time premium, and the drive to recruit more civilians who had been born in the middle of the conflict was stronger than ever. While Doyle's eventual assignment to the 92nd International Volunteers Squadron would belie a sincere desire to join the effort, it is worth noting that it was made up of "volunteers" in name only; while every citizen of the Alliance knew they were fighting for sheer survival, organized drafts were widely employed in the effort to organize available manpower.
In any case, Doyle was first trained on the Phoenix-class medium fighter, a highly advanced interceptor which by this point in time was rather antiquated equipment. The 92nd was deployed aboard the ANS Exeter, a cargo vessel haphazardly converted to escort-carrier duty. In the next month, the 92nd would suffer a horrendous series of defeats at the hands of battle-hardened Coalition squadrons, with the final kill-to-death ratio in the area of 1:5. Doyle, a freshly commissioned Lieutenant, barely managed to hold his own, and on two separate occasions was shot out of his fighter.
It was during this month of October 2199 that the Saturn Sector fell. Doyle's family, still living on Titan, were killed during the mass exodus to Pluto where the Sleeper Ships were scheduled to depart. The loss of Saturn led to the fastest advance ever seen in the eighty-year long war; the ANS Exeter would meet its fate, along with many other Alliance vessels, at the guns of the CS Pukov II Assault Carrier during the Battle of Triton. Doyle, and some six remaining pilots from his squadron, managed to escape the battle zone with their lives, but not much else.
This pitiful remainder of what was once a thirty-man fighter squadron was reassigned to Barnegat Base on Pluto. Their numbers were not strengthened, but they were given new fighters of the Minuteman-class. The Minuteman was a short-range light fighter with minimal armament, designed to be mass produced in the vain effort to fend off the oncoming Coalition tide, so for all intents and purposes it was little better, if at all, than the Phoenix fighters most of their squadron had died in.
James Doyle, still a Lieutenant even after five months of fighting, was present at the Battle of Pluto which occurred shortly after the launch of the Sleeper Ships. Had the battle progressed normally, there is no doubt that he, along with the rest of the Alliance's leftovers, would have been killed even if he had surrendered. But as fate dictates, the battle never took place, and the Solar System was obliterated.
In Sirius
Occasional reports by traders, Freelancers, and a few scientific outfits have claimed that they have encountered a lone, unidentified fighter being flown by a self-proclaimed "Lieutenant James Doyle" of the "92nd International Volunteers Squadron". Sensor returns have betrayed that the ship being flown is a Border Worlds Dagger, but a few witnesses have contended that the reports were wrong, citing that while the vessel bore resemblance to the modern craft in question it was not of that class. A research vessel of the Pryce Institute for Advanced Scientific Research claims to have detected "tachyokinetic radiation" in connection with the appearance of this craft, although standard scanner suites are not equipped to detect such emissions.
A few bar-room theories have already sprung up regarding this phenomenon. Some suggest that the pilot and the fighter are real, but that the pilot is a hopelessly insane ex-Liberty Navy officer and that the Dagger was "given bodywork" to resemble such an old and obsolete ship. Others insist that it is an apparition, a "ghost" of the past that has traversed space and time to expose the citizens of the Sirius Sector to the horrors that they had escaped from. Few believe that this phenomenon is the actual Lieutenant James Doyle in his Minuteman, and those that do are considered to be insane. Some claim to have heard the pilot speak of scenarios, ship names, bases, and personnel from the Alliance era, but given the sore lack of available information after eight hundred years these statements are practically impossible to verify.
The Minuteman
An Alliance light-fighter of the late-war era, the Minuteman was symbolic of the futile struggle the Alliance was facing, and its depressing reaction to it. Extremely simple in design and concept, it was meant for nothing more than "power through presence", which is to say providing numbers instead of actual capability. By this point in the war, the Alliance had lost almost all of its industrial capacity, and what manpower remained was in the form of panicked refugees. The Minuteman was a horrifying attempt at putting them to use.
The Minuteman that James Doyle was supposedly assigned was no different from any other that came off of the improvised production lines. Its propulsion was a single, simple fusion-ion engine, a departure from the twin or sometimes quad-engined setups of previous fighters. The afterburner assembly was equally simple and predictable, effective though it was. The engine was very sparing with fuel, but reserves were limited nonetheless. It was equipped with a rudimentary Jump Drive for quick deployment operations, allowing it to jump across an entire planet sector in a single lightspeed leap, albeit after exhausting most of its fuel supply. The fuel itself was a standard Hydrogen-based mixture, little different from modern fuels save for its density; modern fuel mixtures utilize molecular compaction methods that squeeze molecules in the gaps between atoms and atomic particles of other molecules, whereas the Minuteman's fuel has not been compacted at all.
Its hull was of a basic design, with a central fuselage and two partially-aerodynamic wing struts protruding from the rear. As for armament, the Minuteman was given a paltry pair of Gatling tachyon guns and twin Hawk missile launchers. While considered "sufficient" for the time, it was by no means on the same level of that fitted to Coalition fighters. Shielding was of the basic gravity-manipulation type, truly effective only against projectile impacts and several close laser blasts. The Minuteman was in fact equipped with the first generation of emergency shield recharge batteries in an effort to prolong its operational capability in the field.
Given its role, and its era, it lacks any such amenities as tractor beams, anti-grav hovering devices, and cruise engines, putting it at a distinct disadvantage during operations in the Sirius Sector. This is another piece of evidence used to denounce the validity of the "ghost pilot".
Diplomacy
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