Having started as a low-earning freelance trader in the Liberty system, Markus Ridley stayed off the radar of pirates and Liberty Government for most of his early career. He spent his entire life savings and family inheritance to purchase a transport to etch out a living, Struggling to earn enough for his soon-to-be wife and child in the cut-throat space ruled by corporation traders and hounded by pirates, Ridley thought his life was to take a turn for the better when he was offered a substantial amount to deliver cardamine in sealed containers to planet Manhattan.
While Ridley knew the consequences of being caught, the money was too good, and he didn't ask questions as to what the cargo he was carrying was, or who his employer represented.
Due to Ridley's lack-luster reputation he managed to enter and deliver the goods without incident. However, Liberty Police had been informed of the transaction planet-side and Ridley was shot down during the transaction of the goods to his contacts. The recipient of the cargo managed to escape with all of it, Ridley received the brunt of the Liberty Police attack and he was forced to eject as his transport was destroyed.
Ridley received sever facial scars after the attack due to his escape pod being hit with a blast, melting the heat shielding.
Despite no physical evidence, his ship completely destroyed, and no financial link between him and any pirate faction, Ridley was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment, forced to work in a factory to repay his debt. While in prison, Ridley befriended Rogue Pirates, discovering that they, like him, had their lives taken away, sometimes cruelly and unjustly, by the Liberty Government.
It was his time in prison where he developed contacts in the Rogue Pirate faction, and he learned that prisons in liberty were turning into massive recruitment centers for more Rogues. It wasn't hard to see why.
The capitalism and greed of the Liberty Government was exploiting the lower classes, and the message the Rogues gave him was one of revolution and a free Liberty.
Upon his release, Ridley learned his former lover and child had disappeared without ever informing him of their whereabouts, or well being. Heartbroken that the only thing he had left to look forward to upon his release of prison, he turned to the only people he thought would accept him now. The Rogues.
After getting in contact with one of the members he'd been told about in prison, Ridley received another, long awaited surprise. His part of the bounty for the Cardamine delivery for which he was imprisoned. Now with the funds for a well outfitted ship, plus more to spare, Ridley readily joined the Rogue pirates.
For a further five years Ridley stayed with the Rogues, growing ever more jaded as the promises of revolution and freedom seemed nothing more than a pipe dream among the mostly un-organized Rogue factions, who were commonly destroyed mercilessly by Liberty Armed forces.
Further more, the sight of traders being pirated, and even killed by the Rogues distressed Ridley, an action he thought of as counter productive.
Having honed his skills for the last years as a fighter against Liberty Forces, Ridley decided it was time to create a more formidable faction. He saw the potential within the groups of Liberty pirate factions. The Outcasts, the Rogues, and the Lane Hackers needed to be united to show that their combined strength was a force to be reckoned with.
Recruiting pirates of admirable piloting skill, Ridley began to form a pirate fighting squad with the sole intention of attacking and destroying Liberty Armed Forces and Liberty sympathizer to weaken Liberty's hold on their sectors, while allowing traders and miners to continue unharmed, in an effort to galvanize more support for the Rogue's cause.
Mostly funded out of his own pocket, his group began as nothing more than a small, rag-tag band of hit-and-run guerilla fighters against Liberty Police and Liberty Navy forces, relying on rapid and powerful attacks using bombers, VH fighters and gunboats as the primary, or usually single fighting force, than larger cruisers and capital ships, which he believes are best kept in reserve until the final, largest, brutal encounters with the Liberty Government. His goal, to establish a large and quickly mobilising, Liberty opposing fighting force that would leave Liberty in fear and ruins after their incursion into Liberty Space.
He named his branch of pirates the Reavers, to let Liberty know their iron fist would collide with the pirate's own.
Excerpt taken from Electronic Diary of M. Dawson. RE: Meeting with Ridley.
The man sitting across from me wasn't too much younger than me. About mid forties, but those burns on his face made him look older, and keep to the shadows.
"Pirates with honour." He said, his vice firm and careful, almost slow when choosing his words. "That would really give Liberty something to fear. Instead of just a rag-tag bunch of us pirating traders, a fighting force dedicated to destroying their armed forces."
The man made a point. Most Rogues would run at the first sign of a Liberty Patrol. Especially those capital ships.
"They're better armed and outfitted than us, but I know that a battleship captain would **** his pants at the sight of a squad of fully armed Barghest's staring him down."
He smiled, ever so slightly, the first sign of expression I saw from him since I sat down. "We're pirates. You want to train us to be a fighting force? It'll be like training animals more than people." I told him. I wasn't convinced this guy was being realistic.
"There's one thing unifying us that will draw us together. Our hate for the Liberty Government. Killing a Liberty pilot is enough of an excuse to band together for most of us." He told me this with an air of certainty. He was right. It was the very reason I was here talking to him after all.
I'd been a rogue most of my life. All I ever knew was destruction and death at the hands of Liberty. I would have retired years ago, but instead I got my own crew together and managed to live long enough to get my hands on a gunboat. Sure it's not as satisfying as being behind the controls of a Werewolf, decimating Liberty fighters, but at least the seat was comfier.
"You might have a point..." I was starting to agree with him. After all, if I could get a crew of Rogues to work together on a Gunboat, would it be so different to organise the rogues for something other than pirating innocent traders. "I'll tell you what. As long as the credits are good and I don't get killed, I'll follow along with this fools endeavor. I know some names I can get you in contact with."
A slid him a book of names, as well as a few credits to pay for the drinks. These coming months may prove interesting if Ridley's idea is successful. I still think Reavers is a stupid name. At least I'm not going to be in charge.
Zlen Washburn was a former head in the Information Processing Technology (I.P.T) education department at planet Manhattan, New York. He had it all; fame, fortune, power, respect and a family he could respect and rely on. However, all had changed the day Liberty Security Force (LNS) shot down the door to his home and charged him with theft, kidnapping, identity theft and hacking of the Liberty Police records located in West Point. This was not the truth of course. Liberty once again suspected the wrong person; then arrested him.
Washburn was then taken to Texas for trial. However, a pirate force attacked the prison ship carrying Washburn en route. The ship was badly damaged in the attack, with massive hull breaches and electrical failures. Several prisoners managed to escape from their holding cells in the ensuing chaos. He used all his previous knowledge of I.P.T. to hack his way through the decaying ship, and commandeered a small fighter to escape. When he returned home, he grabbed his family and his ship and took the Lanes to head to Baffin. However, on his way to the California Jump Gate, a Royal Liberty Navy (RLN) fleet commander had stopped him and his family in their tracks. As Washburn pleaded with the RLN to let him go, Washburn quickly put his family in the escape pod. Unfortunately, an RLN had seen this action take place and immediately shot the pod, thinking Washburn was inside.
Washburn's life and all that was in it, had been destroyed with a single shot from the RLN. He immediately took action avoiding the RLN and taking the jump into California and heading throughout the Jump Holes into Cortez, Coronado, then lastly Baffin.
Being given the title of a criminal, the only people who accepted Washburn were those who had committed all the crimes for which he was charged, namely the Lane Hackers. Swearing vengeance upon all of Liberty for murdering his family and destroying his reputation, Washburn, in an act of sheer vindictiveness killed liberty children, thus inflicting the same pain as he too had suffered.
Washburn is one of the most feared Hackers known; for his ability to avoid identification and consequent apprehension and justice and his feared desire for revenge on liberty. His skills were noticed immediately by Markus Ridley and he was approached with an offer to join a newly established pirate force specifically formed to target the Liberty Government. Washburn jumped at the chance for revenge. He was found by a man named Ridley, hey discussed the stories that they have had, and shared the hatred for liberty. And from that day and to this day, Zlen Washburn is now no longer Washburn, but now Gravity.Reaver.O ...a 'Reaver'.
