Josef Marks

Josef Marks
Profile
Origin	Rheinland
Affiliation	Volksfront,Bundschuh
Born	May 5th, 770 A.S., Planet Holstein
Died	Still Alive

Education

Bachelor's of economics 790 a.s. Daumann Industrial College

Master's degree of political science 791 a.s. Munich University

Doctorate in history 795 a.s. New Berlin University

History

A son of two deceased parents, Josef Marks’ life story is a meteoric rise to the height of Rheinland society, followed by a fall just as dramatic and rebirth as a fiery Revolutionary.

Early Life

When his father, a miner in Daumann's employ, died in an industrial accident shortly after his mother's death in childbirth, Josef, lacking relatives, was given into the custody of Daumann. These were not happy years for Josef, for while it can be said that Daumann fed and clothed him, little more can be said about that which was provided for young Josef.

Considering these circumstances then, It was remarkable to see Josef perform so well in his education, and was to be selected for a scholarship to the elite Daumann Industrial College. Seeking perhaps, to distance himself as far as possible from the company that raised him and the parents whom he never knew, Josef chose to study economics. This was a field of study far from the rock crushers of Dresden and the Omegas, and offered an escape to Josef.

Graduating with honors, Marks looked to continue his education, but was obliged to man a desk at Daumann – payment, in return for the years of childhood support, though pitiful, and the cost of his education. However, Marks’ high level of achievement at the college, comprising not only his grades but already a body of published work, attracted the attention of several larger universities. With the help of a kind professor at the industrial college, Marks was able to convince New Berlin University to settle the matter with Daumann. Marks finished his second degree there, a master’s of political science, and went on to complete a doctorate in history at the University of New Berlin.

Academic Career

Marks' thesis "The Ongoing Cycle of Revolutions" is to this day considered a revolutionary deconstruction of revolutionaries and the regimes they fight and a landmark in the field. His current status largely ignored by the ivory tower, it is continues to be referenced in the historical and political papers of his academic peers. It is also believed that Marks first came into contact with underground dissenting organizations while doing the research for the paper. Long sympathetic to the numerous dissidents in Rheinland, Marks had admired them since his rough childhood in the hands of Daumann.

His thesis was well received by the university, who immediately offered him an assistant professorship. Already an up and coming intellectual at the age of 25, Marks continued to impress and was made a full professor at the age of 32, in 802A.S. He became known among students as a popular and exciting professor, and remained a prolific writer. He entered into the circles of the Berlin intelligentsia, and a more social side of his personality became visible.

During this middle period, Marks was involved with the local Bundschuh chapters on campus, and often wrote propaganda material for them. From time to time, he would also contribute whatever information he would hear from his many well-placed patrons and friends Berlin society.

And so Josef Marks existed, and for 5 years, nothing notable happened.

Dissidence

During the infamous university raids of 805, many of Marks' comrades and friends were rounded up and sent to Vierlande as part of a republic-wide clampdown on dissidents. While Marks' more influential friends prevented him from being arrested and sent to the "rock"; the officer in charge of roundups at New Berlin University, Wolfgang Lepheim, flagged him for future reference.

Nonetheless, the Bundschuh slowly rebuilt their network of students, and a man who had been on the fringes of the movement earlier, helped to rebuild the New Berlin society around his fiercely renewed passion. His writing taking a different slant now, Josef's material grew dangerously treasonous. In 809, officer Lepheim received a warrant to tap and monitor all of Marks' communication. Seeing the writing on the wall, Marks realized that his remaining time on the planet was short. Whether he would leave New Berlin for Vierlande or Bruschal would depend on his actions.

Defection

To this day, Marks' escape is exhibited to RFP recuits as both an example of the ingenuity of the enemy they are facing, and of what will happen when they perform so poorly in the public eye. Officer Lepheim is currently doing a density survey of all the rocks in Omega 11.

At 5 p.m. June 17, 813 A.S.; a bomb exploded outside the campus precinct of the RFP. Fearing a possible attack, all RFP officers, including those monitoring Marks, were called to the station to regroup. At this time, Marks and a few other Bundschuh assets, stole the station's "Ragnar" command center. Having been monitoring Marks, it was hijacked in the chaos of the explosion.

Proceeding to make all haste for the exosphere, Marks utilised the craft's powerful broadcast equipment to take his best shot at publically destroying the RFP's reputation. As police forces desperately attempted to neutralize the well-equiped armoured transport, Marks broadcast almost every scrap of dirt that he had collected on the Police, the Military, Daumann, and the Kanzler. Maniacally being chased across New Berlin space, a wing of Bundschuh fighters swept in, and escorted the transport, "requisitioned in the name of the people," to places unknown.

Volksfront Service

In league now with a whole new type of revolutionary, Marks thrived among the mixture of ace fighter pilots, fiery ideologues and shadowy leaders at Bruschal Base. Already well known for his writings and planetside involvement with the Volksfront, he was quickly welcomed into the fray. Nonetheless, the Volksfront needed pilots, and within a few weeks, Marks had been given basic fighter training and was serving with a patrol unit.

However, Marks showed his true talent when he convinced a few befriended mechanics around Bruschal to overhaul the Ragnar he'd stolen into a full-on pirate radio platform. Rechristened Volksradio, the transport zig-zagged frantically across Rheinland space, broadcasting the Volksfront's mixture of freedom, liberty and democracy to whomever would listen.

Increasingly a target of police investigations, Josef continued to evade capture but remained wary of the ever-present threat to his freedom.

Captured

In the spring of 815A.S. Josef returned to planet Neu Berlin to tour the university campuses of the planet. He was still held in high regard by the student populace, and even select faculty members whom he had taught when last he had been on Neu Berlin. Although the mission was risky, Josef successfully argued to the Volksfront leadership that his presence on the planet would be treated as a sign of the Volksfront's renewed commitment to their grassroots operations.

Unfortunately, Marks' plans did not escape the notice of the Polizei. Inspektor Muller, an officer who'd been chasing Marks ever since his escape, learned of Marks' imminent arrival through a student mole. While Muller knew little more than when Josef would be on planet - the student had been a fringe member of the student party, easily frightened into revealing information when faced with delinquency charges - Muller did the service proud researching where Marks might appear. Informing his superiors of this information, higher ups became greatly interested in the prospect of capturing Marks, and Muller was given all the manpower and equipment he might need. With his people in place, all that Inspektor Franz Muller needed was a time and a place.

That day came on Von Rohe's Day, 815 A.S. At the one place on the entire planet where Josef Marks could be expected to make an appearance - the central campus of the University of Neu Berlin, Muller and his people were waiting when the inevitable protest came on the revolution's anniversary. First confirming that Marks was in the crowd, Muller ordered the riot police to envelope the protesters while he sent in a few plainclothesmen to fetch Marks in the confusion. No fighter to begin with and caught off guard, Marks was apprehended by the police and brought to the basement of Polizei central headquarters.

Imprisoned

Franz Muller was triumphant. Having captured one of Rheinland's most daring fugitives, he headed back to headquarters to revel in his superiors praise, and to gloat - just a little, at a man who'd thought himself invulnerable. His surprise was understandable then, when upon returning to the interrogation quarters, where he'd sent Marks, he was stopped just short of the door by two beefy men in dark suits. Flashing unrecognizable badges, they were polite but firm: as a risk to national security and with a demonstrated capability for flight, Josef Marks was to see no one at the present time. Furthermore, this case - important as it was to the well-being of the nation, was to be passed on to a dedicated Volksfront unit.

Though spared the opportunity to gloat, the next few weeks were by no means disappointing for Franz Muller. Having attracted the attention of higher-ups for both his investigation into and eventual capture of Josef Marks, he was bumped a few rungs up on the pay scale, assigned to a better office with a more interesting beat - homicide, and left satisfied. Franz Muller's thoughts about Josef Marks became few and far between, and eventually almost forgotten.

Josef Marks fared slightly worse than his lawful counterpart. Left alone for a week on Neu Berlin while authorities decided his fate, he was packed onto a nondescript freighter one day and shipped of to Vierlande. His trip came to an end in a quiet room in a quiet hallway, in an entirely quiet section of the station where all the walls were soundproofed. The silence didn't last for long.

His sleep disrupted by flashes and explosions of light and noise, the food diverging in unusual vitamin surpluses and deficiences, unusual temperatures and humidities - Marks bore them all in a tiny cell where he was unable to stretch out or stand up. After a month - his captors came. With smiling faces that could belong to any father, they handed Josef a smoke and asked him about the Volksfront. He spat in their faces - the door was closed once more. This continued for a year. At the end of it all, Marks hovered on the edge of a dozen different deaths, emaciated and ghoul-like, but still defiant.

On that one year anniversary of his happy stay - Marks had no idea, having lost track many months ago, everything changed. Moved into a roomy cell with a comfortable mattress, a nutritionist came to see Josef every day. The lights went on and off at predictable hours - the temperature a pleasant cool. Again, no one came to speak with Josef. Near his former weight after nearly a month, Josef was escorted out of his cell to a clean interrogation room. Alone he faced the same man who had offered him a smoke so many times. Once again, the question was asked - would Josef like to talk about the Volksfront? Spitting again, the door opened and a Vierlande guard walked in. Josef suffered on of the worst beatings his life that afternoon.

And so, a new cycle emerged, this one weekly. Josef would be brought to the impeccably clean room - always with no trace of anything else ever happening there - and beaten awfully. The pain withstanding, they always seemed careful to stay away from any broken bones or obvious facial wounds. This time, the pattern lasted almost two years, the questioning tone of the man with the smokes and the solid fists of the guard growing ever more urgent and powerful. Josef retreated into his mind, reciting poetry in step with the fists, laughing at prose as he bleed and bruised. He could not be broken. This was a man who had lost everything, his only possession of value his most important - information.

And as suddenly as before, everything changed.

Escape

Josef never saw the man with the smokes anymore now, only the guardsman, stoic as ever. After being beaten every day for a month, he was loaded onto a transport and shipped off, his destination unknown. Incredibly weak from the most arduous portion of his imprisonment, he didn't even have the will to sit up and look out the window and so his location remained a mystery.

Not everyone however, was lost in space. The transport, a standard civilian model to avoid attention, fell prey to a wing of Junker fighters in the Crow Nebula. Rescued by the same obscure fortune that had imprisoned him, Marks alone survived of the transport's crew, his fragile body tractored aboard one of the CSV's. Too weak to travel, he spent the next month on Yanagi, doing whatever odd jobs his condition allowed him to do. Upon his recovery, he limped out of the cargo bay - a souvenir of his escape, and boarded a transport for Bruschal.

Return to the Volksfront

Marks returned to the movement to find everything changed. Long since resigned to an epitaph in a quiet corner of Bruschal, he had some difficulty regaining the trust of the new leadership. His fiery intensity however, distilled further by a long stay at vierlande, quickly demonstrated his commitment. Recomissioned as a Kapitain, Marks has rejoined the fight with greater passion than every before.

Current Status

An infamous and influential figure, Josef Marks has gained no small amount of notoriety in the public eye. He has used this to his advantage, publishing large amounts of propaganda in his name, and hosting much of the material on "Volksradio" a subversive radio station.

Craft

Borderworlds Series "Saber" A common craft among a certain “independent” breed of individual, Marks is known to pilot one, though his skill in it is unknown.

Associates

Unknown

Outstanding Warrants

Treason

High Treason

Defaming the Kanzler

Slander

Libel

Destruction of government property

Theft of government property

Assault and battery

Espionage

Tax evasion

Speeding

Illegal Parking

Impersonating an officer of the law

Distribution of subversive media

Conspiracy to commit crime

Resisting arrest

Use of unlicensed spacecraft

Noise bylaw violation

Illegal and unlicensed radio broadcasts

Racketeering

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Josef Marks	Thea Bauer	Lyubomir Gechevski	Kaspar Keitel	Helmut Pajo