Tal Ravis

Tal Ravis
Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination
"God forgives. I don't."
Profile
Origin	Liberty
Occupation	Interceptor Pilot
Gender	Male
Affiliation	Gas Miners Guild
Liberty Marine Corps (Former)	4 years
Rank	Lance Corporal
Status	Active
Born	August 6, 798 AS, Planet Manhattan.
Died	N/A

Tal "Underscore" Ravis is a Marine-turned-Freelancer-turned-Interceptor Pilot who is the main protagonist of Discovery Freelancer.

Biography

Early Life

Tal was born on August 6th, 798 A.S. in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Planet Manhattan. The first of three children born to a disadvantaged family of blue-collar workers, he was also the least successful in comparison to his brothers Hudson, who became a Primary Fleet Liberty Navy Officer, and Xavier, who dealt in the lucrative platinum trade before joining the ALG. Indeed, he showed little potential in academics and labor skills, and upon graduating from high school at the age of 18, he found himself enlisting in the Libertonian Marine Corps for lack of anywhere else to go.

Service History

Tal, posing after a training exercise on Planet Los Angeles.

Tal turned out to be a rather unspectacular Marine despite his outstanding marksmanship abilities, and was only able to obtain the rank of Lance Corporal in four whole years of service. Trained to be a "Reconnaissance Man, Parachute Qualified, Combatant Diver and EVA Certified", he was subsequently assigned to the elite 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, based out of Planet Los Angeles.

As there was not yet a large-scale ground offensive that required the deployment of such specialized deep reconnaissance units, his unit was relegated to their secondary mission of conducting boarding raids on transports stopped by Navy or Police vessels. Considered to be part of the "striking arm" of Liberty's latest method to crack down on the Cardamine trade, he took part in many raids on unmarked, Freelance, Junker, and Pirate transports, taking enemy fire on at least three separate occasions. Despite this, however, he never once had the opportunity to fire a shot in anger during his entire four-year enlistment.

Later in his enlistment, mostly in order to comply with battalion regulations that required at least one scout sniper in each platoon, he was selected to attend the prestigious Scout Sniper School, where he was able to successfully graduate after a long period of intense training and testing. Once graduated, he returned to Los Angeles, where he conducted several more raids on contraband transports before his enlistment ended.

Promised action by his recruiter, he was severely disenfranchised and demotivated at the end of his four-year enlistment, and as such he separated from the military at the age of 22.

Later Career

Once out of the Corps, he quickly realized that he'd need a method of providing for himself, but found out over the course of six months that he lacked the patience to fly freight, the temper and personality to be a cop, and the mechanical skills required to be a mechanic. After a slew of more disastrous jobs that left him no options, he finally realized that he could exploit the few achievements that he had under his belt, and began to flaunt his Rifle Expert qualification and Scout Sniper graduate status in an attempt to find contract work. The Core was one of the first organizations to offer him a job: a week-long search and destroy mission on backwater Nauru, in the desolate Omicrons.

As usual, everything rapidly went south, with no Corsair sightings on top of his deployment being extended to a six-month occupation in order to better secure the planet for future Core operations. It was also during this time that the Neural Net suffered a massive disruption that severed communications with Core Command, leaving him and his band of fellow mercenaries under the command of Paladin Nova Hawken, who's tenure as Company Commander severely demotivated the mercenaries. Communications were eventually restored, although the damage had been done: trillions of credits worth of damage across the entire Sirius Sector had been reported.

After Nauru, he wandered around Sirius looking for work, finding small contracts here and there until he was offered a job by the Gas Miners Guild. He accepted their offer to become a Stork captain, and flew freight for a brief period before being transferred to the GMG's esteemed paramilitary division as an interceptor pilot. Stationed on Gas Miner Ogashawa, he flew combat sorties in a Karasu heavy fighter dubbed Silver Bullet, after the ship's distinctive appearance and an incident that could be classified as an aerial ramming attack.

Unfortunately, the original Silver Bullet was disabled in a confrontation between Guild forces and Nomad-Infected Kusari Naval Forces pilots. While conducting a strafing run on an Isejin-affiliated gunship, his vessel was caught by a full primary battery salvo from a Hatchet destroyer which erased the entire rear half of the fighter. With no weapons or engine remaining, he coordinated an ejection to avoid capture by Wild forces and was rescued by Guildmaster Keiji Namura, suffering minor injuries related to the initial impact.

Once he recovered, he temporarily took a leave from the Guild to participate in a small-scale offensive on Planet Tomioka, operating under the alias Daniel Recker with the Blood Dragons in their attempts to recover a downed Togo battleship. His injuries were relatively minor in comparison to the intensity of the fighting, with some mortar shrapnel wounds on his legs and lower torso and a large series of cuts on his face from a bullet that grazed the side of a concrete barrier he was peeking around, which in turn sent concrete and metal shards into the left side of his face.

He returned to the Guild just in time for the reveal of three new Sigmas, and was reassigned to Niigata Star City's interceptor division, with a brand-new Karasu nicknamed Silver Bullet II as his tool of destruction. Due to the system's isolated nature, he rarely sees combat, and instead mopes around Niigata by himself during his free time. Sources state that he is still there to this day.

Ships

GMG|Valdez.Maru Exxon Valdez, Stork GMG|Tal.Ravis Gas Grazer, Kamome GMG|Tal,Ravis Silver Bullet I, Karasu (Destroyed) GMG|Tal,Ravis Silver Bullet II, Karasu GMG|Underscore Space Amoeba, Garanchou GMG|Tal;Ravis Hercules, Kaichou Tal Otis, Kestrel Tal.Ravis Murder to Excellence, Scimitar Tal,Ravis The Joy, Scimitar (Spare) Tal.Ravis! Primetime, Sabre Tal,Ravis! Gotta Have it, Jackdaw

Skillset

	Attribute	Value	Additional Notes
	Health	█ █ █ █ █ █ █ ░ ░ ░	- Missing a few pieces here and there.
	Fitness	█ █ █ █ █ █ ░ ░ ░ ░	- Former Reconnaissance Man, Combat Diver, Parachute, and EVA certified, keyword former.
	Dexterity	█ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ ░ ░	- Well-trained and versed in rapid operation of manually-cycled (bolt, pump, and lever-action) weapons.
	Strength	█ █ █ █ █ ░ ░ ░ ░ ░	- Sufficient to haul significant quantities of equipment on long hikes.
	Martial Arts	█ █ ░ ░ ░ ░ ░ ░ ░ ░	- Rudimentary bayonet and hand-to-hand training.
	Firearms	█ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █	- Former Marine Corps Scout Sniper. Can blast the balls clean off of a fly at 250 yards with a scoped rifle, and at 125 with iron sights.
	Leadership	█ █ █ █ █ ░ ░ ░ ░ ░	- Terminal Lance.
	Observation	█ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ ░	- Rotated on and off as a spotter during live fire exercises, later trained to be an interceptor pilot.
	Self-control	█ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ ░ ░	- Keeps it 300, like the Romans.
	Charisma	█ █ ░ ░ ░ ░ ░ ░ ░ ░	- As charming as a 25-year-old brick wall.

Shotgun Diplomacy (Faction)

Faction	Relationship
Gas Miners Guild	Allied
Everybody Else	Neutral
Blood Dragons	Neutral
Golden Chrysanthemums	Unfriendly
Kusari Naval Forces	Unfriendly
Hogosha	Hostile
Samura	Hostile
Outcasts	At War
Corsairs	At War
Nomads	At War
Aoi Iseijin	At War

Shotgun Diplomacy (Personal)

Faction	Relationship
Keiji Namura	Allied
Komachi Kurosawa	Unfriendly
Koftik	Unfriendly
"Empress Jess"	Unfriendly
Sapphire Raven	Unfriendly
Aoi Kunieda	Unfriendly
Everybody Else	Unfriendly
Hudson Ravis	Hostile
Xavier Ravis	Hostile
Helena Devine	Hostile
Nova Hawken	Hostile
Destroyer Kakushi	At War
Iban	At War