Resistance: A Story in an Alt-History Version World War II Occupied Europe

[EvilEye]

Group B! just because I can :)

[Urbanzorro]

@Crazy Ivan: Character approved, feel free to decide on a group for you to be part of.

[MagicalPen]

I will hop into Group A also. Not quite sure I'd make a good leader of the Cell, but will take the role if no one else will.

[CrazyIvan]

Well I guess I will go with Group B, since two others are in Group A and there is only one in Group B. As for a leader of a cell I think my character might make a good leader, so I will volunteer if no one else wants it as I would prefer someone else to be it. I have some internet restrictions right now and if the leader needs to post a lot I might have small delays, if that is fine then if no one else wants it I am okay with taking it.

[TheGlyphstone]

Details: Missing his left ear, has numerous small scars and burn marks along his arms. On one hand, he sometimes wears a heavy leather gauntlet lined with strips of metal and bearing small iron coils across the knuckles and back of the hand, that hums and crackles with energy.

Name: Sergei Soyuzovich

Age: 36

Biography: Sergei was born in Moscow, though to whom he or anyone else never knew. From birth, he was a ward of the state, growing up in one of Russia's many state-run orphanages. He was noted to be an unusually quiet child by the nuns who staffed the home, less prone to outbursts of crying or screaming than many children of his age, but was otherwise unremarkable. He was barely six years old when the great Red Revolution occurred and the Tsar was deposed in favor of a socialist republic, a political change which had close to no bearing on the young Sergei's life; as the child of unknown peasants, he and his peers were spared the horrors visited upon the youth of the nobility. Nonetheless, the change occurred just as the boy was beginning to develop an awareness of the world outside his home's walls, and so he grew into a boy, and then a man, instilled to the core with an unbreakable loyalty to the People and the State.

Fiercely, almost zealously patriotic, he enlisted in the army the day he turned sixteen and was officially an adult, choosing the surname 'Soyuzovich' (Son of the Union) to openly declare what he concerned to be his lineage and legacy. Again, he proved strangely unremarkable, to where the enlistment officer was on the verge of closing for the evening when he noticed the silent, red-bearded young man waiting in the corner. Originally assigned to an infantry battalion, Sergei lasted barely a year before a grim-faced and gruff man in a long black coat visited him one night after training, and asked if he wanted to truly serve the People on guard against enemies an army could not defeat. That was his introduction into the NKVD, becoming one of the Soviet Union's feared secret political enforcers, and he waged that war as energetically as he had drilled with his rifle. Again, he earned no promotions, seemingly forgotten or ignored by both superiors and potential rivals, until the Allied Powers went to war with Germany for the second time. While Hitler had nominally signed a non-aggression pact with the Stalin, the latter's paranoia had him convinced that the Nazi leader would eventually betray their pact, and so the Red Army began to mobilize once again.

While Poland dissolved into blood and rubble, and Germany systematically destroyed the Allied holdings in Europe and England, the Soviets continued to build, and the NKVD built alongside it. The State would need loyal sons and daughters, who would infiltrate Nazi territory and wait for the time when the inevitable German treachery was revealed, and those children of the Union with treason in their hearts would reveal themselves. They would need to be inconspicuous, disguisable and forgettable - all traits Sergei Soyuzovich had in spades, and so he enlisted again as a forward foreign agent, deployed deep into the heart of Nazi-ruled France where resistance groups still struggled loudly but often futilely against the occupation. In the guise of a GRU agent, he had barely been there a year, just starting to establish reliable ties with local insurgent groups, when Operation Barbarossa hit like a thunderbolt and proved Josef Stalin all too right. Now he works alongside one of the Parisian resistance cells, assisting them in their operations as a physically symbolic promise of potential Soviet aid to their cause once the Germans had been driven back or stalled.

Personality: Sergei prefers to listen than talk, taking in the words of others but valuing his own counsel primarily. He does not advertise it or admit to it, but unlike those he works alongside, he has no particular antipathy for the Nazis or Gestapo. As much as he considers their purge of the harmless Jews to be a waste of time and resources, his long indoctrination and service as a secret police enforcer against dissidents of his own nation temper any outrage he might muster for the German occupying forces. They are enemies and opponents, threats to his own nation that he will dispatch as quickly and brutally as any foe, but he does not hate them. What he hates, unquestionably, are traitors. To a man almost literally raised on the milk of loyalty and comradery, betrayal of one's friends and allies is a far greater crime than the worst physical atrocities. Anyone proven, or suspected, of being a mole among the Resistance would be lucky to escape him with just a bullet to the head - his training in the NKVD included a variety of harsh interrogation techniques, which he has no qualms or compulsions against using should it be necessary.

Player Limits: Not much that I can think of, though I reserve the right to change my mind later.

Death: If it means something - taking a random sniper bullet to the head would kinda suck, but I wouldn't refuse a semi-heroic sacrifice, or being killed by the inevitable mole/double agent, or anything else that'd contribute to the story beyond 'he's dead'.

[TheGlyphstone]

Since the groups are even right now, I'm fine with either one, but I'd much prefer whichever cell I end up with to be the one assigned to disrupting the German invasion of Russia (for obvious reasons). Since Carnival's character is in Cell A already, I'll pick that one; we can collectively drown out the protestations of the capitalist pig against working to defend the Union. ;D

Absolutely not a cell leader though.

[Kaiten]

Still looking for people? Cause WWII is one of my particular interest points.

[Kendra]

Urban I am so sorry - I'm going to have to pull my interest for now and hopefully will check in on it again when RL and other posts are so overwhelming.
Good luck with the game, I'll be lurking when I get a spare moment to see how it's going ;)

*hugs*

[RubySlippers]

I have no preference as to the cell but my character is heavily into the social and soft intelligence gathering side and would be bad in combat operations, that and if wounded having to explain to everyone where she got shot would be problematic. Her main mission is to feel intelligence to the allies and keep them apprised of goings on in the city, her connections to a cell would be supportive of that.

[Urbanzorro]

@Kaiten: I'm sorry to hear that, I know that RL can be quite hectic.

@Kendra: Sure ;D I'm still accepting but the deadline (once I get the start up threads posted) is approaching so I'd suggest you hurry

@RubySlippers: I've gone ahead and put you in group B so that things can be balanced. That doesn't mean that either group A or B will be more combat oriented. I'll be posting up a more in depth explanation of how the cells will work along with other stuff once I get the startup threads done ;D

@Question Mark: I'm going to have to ask that you align your character with the resistance simply because there is not enough interest in playing on the German side for it to be worth while to expand the game to encompass that as well. Thanks!

@ Everyone: Here's our player list & the Group A/B split as it is so far. I'd say we have enough players for start up so I'll begin working on the opening threads now. If anyone hasn't chosen a group by the time they go up I'll just add you into one or the other. ;D

Group A:
Monique Chevalier-de Calderón(CarnivalOfTheGoat)
Conner O'Fearghail(Eeyore)
Sergei Soyuzovich(TheGlyphstone)

Group B:
Blue Smith(EvilEye)
Richard "Ace" Chevalier(Sergei Soyuzovich(TheGlyphstone)
Rosemond St.Marie(RubySlippers)

Undecided
Adolf L Müller(Question Mark)

[TheGlyphstone]

I'm apparently Wolverine, because you've assigned me to both groups. :)

[CrazyIvan]

and my character is not controlled by me, but by another character played by another person. :)

[CarnivalOfTheGoat]

and my character is not controlled by me, but by another character played by another person. :)

And he's not even your senior officer or handler, to crown the indignity!

[Kaiten]

Details: Tends to stay in civilian clothes most of the time, even during missions.
Name: Marcus Sorne
Age: 33
Biography: When speaking of his childhood years, Marcus tends to say "Simple, and that's all". Simple was truly the word as his childhood was certainly a plain one. He spent his early days on a farm in the American Mid-west. His days were spent farming, playing with his friends and tinkering with farm equipment and other things that his family had lying around. It was a pleasant life, which, unfortunately could not last forever. The country soon fell into ruin, and over time, even the farmers suffered, as their lands became plagued with horrible droughts. Marcus's family in particular was hit particularly hard as their entire land was left completely useless, forcing the family to flee with what little possessions they had left.

With little money and little ability to grant himself a job, Mrcus decided that it was better to leave, than just be another mouth to feed for his still struggling family. He turned to petty crime and made too many mistakes forcing him to continually evade the law, before he became desperate enough that he had to stow away on a cargo ship bound for Europe, as his only true means of escape.

Europe of course was no better. The great depression had been quite hard on the world, and Europe was not different in any way. He struggled hard to get whatever jobs he could to stay afloat, with the vain hope that he could do it, but the language barrier in many countries was hard to overcome. He eventually did overcome it, and even used it as a means to lie to employers who seemed to favor those of their own specific ethnicity. The depression however did not change, and eventually he didn't want to take anymore chances, and vied for a more permanent source of income rather than going from job to job.

So, through careful deliberation, and through some well versed lying, corroborated by fake papers, he headed to Britain and signed up with the army. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but soon he lived to regret it as war soon broke out. In his time in the British armed forces he had learned the power of the RAF. So when he heard of their bases falling, one by one, he knew that the fight would be a hard one. Though wary, he stayed determined to fight as hard as he could. It would not come to pass, as after a particularly gruesome battle against the invading Germans, he took a shrapnel burst to the leg and was taken captive, hauled off to a German POW camp to sit out the war. And sit out he did as news of Europe falling under the hammer of Nazi Germany soon spread throughout the land, fed to him and his compatriots to lower their morale.

Unable to take the abuse, he and a few others escaped, but were attacked midway by guards, leaving Marcus the only one to barely escape with his life. Using his lying skills and wit to blend into the occupied countries, he soon found himself in paris, carving out a small niche for himself and even dipping into criminal activities with a moderate inn as a front. Though he was now surviving, living with the survivor guilt of both the POW camp and the fall of Europe, soon festered a grudge within him. At his inn he would entertain any Nazi soldiers that would come knocking, but at other times, would often use his enterprise to target military installments, doing little true harm but enough to calm his nerves.

Though not truly connected to him by the Nazis, he was however discovered by an OSS agent... who saw him as a prime candidate. Considering the loathing he had for the Nazis, he soon accepted and his criminal enterprise, soon turned into a small scale espionage operation. Of course, at that point he mostly had to work alone, but soon gained a reputation, using his inn to supply and take care of injured resistance members, as well as a specialty in interrogation, using rather off means in order to get information.

Personality: Marcus is a rather confusing individual. He smiles and is gracious to those around him, but during operations that kind smile becomes more of anomaly, as in such a situation, it usually doesn't warrant that kind of smile. He has little care for his enemy and uses any means necessary in order to gain what he wants and isn't averted to A-moral activities.

Player Limits: I don't really have any limits, but I agree with TheGlyphstone's idea that a random quick death is a bit off.
Death? I think I might be ok with that.

I certainly wouldn't mind if he became a cell leader, since most people seem to just say that they will do it if noone else wants to.

[CarnivalOfTheGoat]

Nice, Kaiten! OSS get all the really cool toys.

[NiceTexasGuy]

Wow, interesting concept.  I don't know how I missed this earlier.  Absolutely loved the background reading.

If you have room for one more character, I have an idea that is pretty much ready to go.  If not, I understand if you don't want things to get too unwieldy.

[CarnivalOfTheGoat]

Heya NTG! Nice to see you again.

I think per UZ's response above that there may still be space open, but of course I can't speak for him. I do know he said:

the deadline (once I get the start up threads posted) is approaching so I'd suggest you hurry.

...two days ago. So IMHO you might, might want to just riff up a quick concept rather than waiting. Not because of any sillyness about forgiveness/permission but rather to show you have a character in mind and will be ready to go in time if the character is accepted.

[TheGlyphstone]

Minor note, but I'd kinda forgotten about the GRU being the foreign arm of the Soviet intelligence (I'd thought the NKVD was external while the KGB was internal, rather than them both being internal). So I changed up my backstory a smidgen...he's still NKVD, but with a second set of impeccable false documents identifying him as a GRU agent, in addition to his primary set of false identity papers that I haven't decided on yet. Maybe a Georgian nationalist who fled to Paris after the 1924 revolt was crushed...

[NiceTexasGuy]

Hello yourself, CotG, and thanks, nice to see you here also.  Don't worry, I'm not going to try to play Oddball the tank guy in this one, too.   ;D

Anyway, Senor Zorro, here's my character for your consideration:

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Image:

Details:

Name: Pyotr Illyich Chekhov (aka: "Peter" or Father Peter)

Age: 36 years old (in 1947)

Biography: The short version:  Pyotr is a Russian Orthodox priest, born and reared in the U.S.A. and educated in Paris.  He was studying in Paris when the Germans came and has lived there ever since.  He is vehemently anticommunist, but isn't too fond of the fascists either.

The longer version:  Pyotr's father is a Russian Orthodox priest, who left Russia for America long before the revolution. His mother is the product of a marginally Lutheran German father and a devout Roman Catholic French mother.  Pyotr's father went to America in response to a calling from his church, while the mother accompanied her family in search of opportunity.  They met in San Francisco which is where they made their home.  They never mastered each others language(s) and communicated via English in the home, but also retained ties to their respective ethnic communities within the big city.  By necessity, of course, Mom learned a bit of Russian when she converted to Orthodoxy (to marry Dad) and Peter grew up with a working knowledge of them all (English, Russian, German, and French) -- Russian because of his involvement in the Church, French and German because of his mother and visits to those countries during his youth.

He speaks English and Russian like a native, and is fluent in French, though he could never pass for a native.  Nor could he pass for a native German in most situations, but might get by for the short term if he faked a cold.  Thanks to the Spanish heritage of his native California and its relationship to French, he also knows a bit of Spanish, but not enough to be considered literate in that language.  Pyotr spent a great deal of his childhood in Europe visiting relatives in France and Germany. He, and everyone in his family, hates communism. Despite his many trips to Europe, he has never been to his father's native Russia.

Just because it was planned he would follow in his father's footsteps and enter the priesthood doesn't mean he couldn't be a typical boy.  Peter enjoyed the typical American sports (baseball, basketball, football (of the oval variety) and swimming.  He could hold his own, but didn't particularly excel in any of them.  Summers spent in Europe also introduced him to the other version of football (aka: soccer).  He detested piano lessons but parental prerogative forced him to persevere.  He would also take dares at the drop of a hat, and has the scars to prove it.

In addition to sports and girls, he grew up with a love of sailing, and spent many a weekend on San Francisco Bay in his youth.

On graduation from high school, Peter enrolled in San Francisco State Teachers College, majoring in History.  While seeing all the turmoil going on in the world, he began to have doubts about the contribution he could make as a priest in the Orthodox Church, and enrolled in ROTC.  Due to his language skills, he was commissioned into the Intelligence branch of the U.S. Army and spent his entire time at Ft Detrick, Maryland and Washington, DC.  Oh his release from active duty, he remained in the inactive reserves and resumed his quest to become an ordained priest in the Russian Orthodox Church.  As there were no (Russian Orthodox) seminaries in the USA for him to attend, he found himself in Paris at the Institut de théologie orthodoxe Saint-Serge, or St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute. This is where he was when the Germans entered Paris.

At the beginning of the war, as an American citizen (whose country was not yet at war with Germany) and an ordained deacon, he was walking more than one fine line by getting involved with the resistance movement.  He decided he could live with that.  After the U.S. entered the war, he found further justification in the fact he was still a reserve officer in the U.S. Army.  Though circumstances would preclude him being called back to active duty, Peter reasoned that said circumstances justified his taking the initiative by involving himself in the struggle.  Though he has not shared this information with anyone, he has secretly put together a U.S. Army uniform, complete with shoulder patches and collar insignia, which he keeps hidden.  He is now a priest whom the Germans classify as an enemy alien and not allowing him to return to his native country.  His Gestapo dossier might contain information on his army background.

Personality: Peter is a bit of an idealist, so naturally sees the resistance as an agent of good opposing evil.  He isn't so naive as to believe that nasty things don't happen in war, and he has had to make compromises.  Though he has picked up a weapon and used it on occasion, he prefers his contribution be through gathering or dissemination of intelligence and sabotage... and of course in trying to meet the spiritual needs of his comrads -- a sort of "unit chaplain" if you will.  He is also an optimist, and believes that someday the war will be over and they can start rebuilding their societies and their lives, though he is prone to discouragement from time to time also.  Mainly, he feels that as a clergyman, he has the burden of setting the example of maintaining a positive attitude.
 
Player Limits: All's fair in love and war, though I would prefer he not be raped by SS Zombie tentacle-monsters.

Death? yes

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(OOC Note:)  First, I fully understand that this character may not fit in with what you were looking for.  If this is the case, no hard feelings, and I had much of this written up for another game which never got off the ground, so it wasn't a waste of my time.

I am not Eastern Orthodox and know oh-so-little about the church.  Like many people, I find the eastern churches, their beliefs and practices, to be quite alien to that which I'm accustomed.  It might not seem so alien to me if I were Catholic, but I'm not.  Still, I have a great deal of respect for their history and the way in which they worship, and have wanted to delve more deeply into what they believe and how they do things and why. This could be an opportunity to do so.  At the same time, it should be understood that I'm hardly the expert on the tenants of my character's religious beliefs and practices, and even much of the terminology is ... (sorry, I can't resist) ... Greek to me. 

Still, I'd like to give this a shot, and I want to emphasize to my fellow players that if you are more familiar with the Orthodox way of doing things and see I'm doing something not consistant with my character's education and background, please feel free to let me know.

[Urbanzorro]

@Everyone: Ok the threads are all up and the game is now open/started. Also the recruitment phase has ended so please no more character sheets until/unless I wind up re-opening the recruiting phase.

Here is the link to the OOC thread which will have the links to all other threads.
https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=114546.msg4981829#msg4981829

@NiceTexasGuy: I'm going to go ahead and accept you as a player, but I haven't gotten a chance to review your character sheet just yet (what I'm about to start doing) So you're approved as a player pending character approval.

[CarnivalOfTheGoat]

Still, I'd like to give this a shot, and I want to emphasize to my fellow players that if you are more familiar with the Orthodox way of doing things and see I'm doing something not consistant with my character's education and background, please feel free to let me know.

I'm only familiar in the most miniscule fashion but I commend you (and this may go out to several people in this thread since they might not have SAID they were playing something unfamiliar!) on playing something outside of your knowledge base/comfort zone. I feel digging up background elements for historical characters and trying to place them 'in context' is an awesome way to learn things. Monique is admittedly a cheat for me: I did a paper on milicianas (female militia soldiers) in the Spanish Civil War.

EO is considered a branch sect of Christianity and apparently it is commonly considered to be closer to Roman Catholicism than, say, Protestantism or the Anglican church. Wiki has a (possibly too ecclesiastic) run-down on the difference between the two here. Which might or might not be of use depending on how much you know about Catholicism.

[TheGlyphstone]

Heck, my character research all came out of Wikipedia.

[CarnivalOfTheGoat]

Minor note, but I'd kinda forgotten about the GRU being the foreign arm of the Soviet intelligence (I'd thought the NKVD was external while the KGB was internal, rather than them both being internal). So I changed up my backstory a smidgen...he's still NKVD, but with a second set of impeccable false documents identifying him as a GRU agent, in addition to his primary set of false identity papers that I haven't decided on yet. Maybe a Georgian nationalist who fled to Paris after the 1924 revolt was crushed...

Sergei works okay either way. The NKVD definitely DID conduct foreign espionage and assassination...And so did its twin/sibling the KGB. The GRU is the military foreign arm, while the KGB and NKVD were nominally civilian and nominally internal (in reality, both services picked up tons of military operatives...And the supposedly foreign-oriented GRU maintained lots of armed interior personnel and meddled about with anyone who they considered to be doing 'less than their utmost' to support the military). There were several Soviet civilian and military intelligence organizations in competition with each other, raised by various people with various goals and they merged and divided and re-merged again SO MUCH that there's an entire wiki page devoted just to the chronology of how they divided and rejoined. In the early 40s, the KGB split out of the NKVD and then rejoined it again. To make matters even more convoluted, there are hints of splinter groups and 'loyalist' groups to various directors which may or may not have been informed of certain departmental changes in a timely fashion, particularly in regard to agents in the field, AND there are recurring usages in later documentation of terms relating to agencies which were long-'extinct' by that time period, such as the Cheka and Okhrana.

During WW2 various ComIntern groups (overt and covert) were manipulated by/under control of the GRU, the NKVD and the NKGB, and it wasn't unheard of for a single cell to have covert representation of all three Ministries.

There's a hat-tip to that in Monique's bg where she's brought into Russia as a ComIntern veteran, interrogated by the NKVD, and then co-opted by the GRU...So she considers herself to be working for the GRU, but she's hardly in a position to tell an NKVD or NKGB Kommissar where to get off since technically they're all in service of the Party. And to make matters worse, they all tend to deal with foreign ComIntern similarly: "What have you done for the State lately? Mmmhm. Very remiss, comrade. Very. I suppose we shall give you one more chance to redeem yourself."

All this means, should you choose to play it that way, that Sergei can lean on Monique fairly hard no matter WHICH set of documentation he chooses to bring up.

Wiki's really helpful on short notice. It isn't always the most accurate source, but it's usually adequate. :)

[NiceTexasGuy]

CotG, thank you.  I generally keep Wikipedia open when I roleplay and refer to it frequently. 

[CarnivalOfTheGoat]

Also, I apologize if anyone is bothered by my posting all of this. I'm putting up stuff about things which people have manifested some question about or suggested they were unsure of in their character backgroundss, in the hope it will be helpful to them.

I'm NOT going to jump down ANYONE'S throat and be all 'Oh hell no, that wasn't that way.' We've got an alternate history setting here, after all. :)

But I dig on espionage history and all its offshoots (including superweapon programs and the like...I track FOIA on things like Project Azorian...Such a geek.) so if I CAN help I am very happy to!