Alistar Dimiye

Dimiye on Khmer

Alastar Dimiye was a werewolf who served in the Tech Infantry during the Third Civil War, mostly on the side of Sarah Dunmeyer and her Tech Infantry Rebels.

Early Life

Alastar Soldati Dimiye was born in 2222 on a space station in orbit over the planet of Port Arthur, to a family of primarily Ukranian ancestry. His paternal grandmother, Nana Dimiye, was a powerful mage and a retired Tech Infantry veteran who had gone into business and become one of the wealthiest and most powerful people on the young colony of Port Arthur. His mother was a werewolf, a fact that his parents concealed from him throughout his childhood. When he was 14 years old, Alastar went through his First Change, an experience he was utterly unprepared for due to not knowing he was a werewolf. The shock was too much, and his animalistic instincts took over. In his confusion and fury, he brutally killed both of his parents. When he awoke the next morning, he was on a shuttlecraft to Tech Infantry Boot Camp on Deimos. Told only that he was a werewolf and thus subject to draft, he was not told about what he had done to his parents until seven years later. Dimiye never even found out what Tribe he belonged to.

Fighting on Fieras

Dimiye's first five-year term of enlistment was mostly spent fighting Bugs on in theFieras system. While assigned to the 8-101st platoon at Firebase Dante, Dimiye was sent with his squad to clear suspected Bug activity on Sigourney Ridge overlooking the base. In addition to the mouth of a Bug tunnel, they stumbled across a camouflaged Soul Eater. The Soul Eater wiped out the rest of Dimiye's squad and tried to attack Dimiye. However, Dimiye's totem spirit Polaris protected him, and instead, Dimiye absorbed the Soul Eater. Dimiye then cut his way through the torrent of bugs pouring out of the uncovered tunnel, trying to get back to his unit. But when his unit saw him appear in the midst of the bug horde, they ceased fire long enough for the Bugs ot overwhelm their position. Only a handful of Dimiye's platoon mates survived this incident, including Dimiye, his platoon leader Corban Frost, and fellow trooper Maegwin Harrington. Realizing something had happened with Dimiye and the Soul Eater, Lt. Frost ordered the details of the incident classified to avoid Dimiye being turned into some sort of experimental test subject, and instead a Mind Mage was brought in to wipe Dimiye's memory of the incident. Badly shaken by the death of her lover Arnesto Sandoval in the incident, trooper Harrington was sent to a mental hospital to recover her wits.

Operation Earth

After his abilities brought him to the attention of several superior officers, he was offered an assignment in the undercover division, infiltrating and hunting down Resistance cells as part of Operation Earth. He accepted, and spent the next two years undercover as code name VENDETTA, recieving the Napoleon Medal of Valor for the part he played in the clearing of Resistance cells from the ruins of Atlanta. Only after leaving the undercover division would he learn that his primary target in those investigations, a shadowy Resistance mastermind known to him only as Subject DELPHI, was in fact his own grandmother, Nana Dimiye. Additionally, one of his fellow troopers, Corporal Samantha Rechardson, would later turn out to be none other than Maegwin Harrington, who used her family connections to re-enlist under a pseudonym and get assigned to Dimiye's unit for the sole purpose of tormenting him, blaming him for the death of her lover on Fieras.

Crusader Teams

After his otherwise-successful stint undercover, he accepted a transfer to an assignment in the Crusader Teams. He fought Vampires in the back alleys of New Tokyo for the next two years, never suspecting that his squad leader, Sergeant Aisha Iradne, was in fact once more the disguised Maegwin Harrington, once more trying to make Dimiye's life a string of annoyances and disappointments. After his hitch in the Crusader Teams, Dimiye was again transferred, this time to the Special Service Diplomatic Protection Force, who provided honor guards and security to Federation consulates in the Eastern Bloc, as well as on Alien worlds.

Escape From Khmer

Dimiye during training

His first assignment was as platoon sergeant to the 2nd platoon, 231st Diplomatic Protection Battalion, 13th Tech Infantry Legion. Shortly after his arrival, the lieutenant in charge of the platoon was reassigned, and until his replacement arrived, Dimiye was in acting command of the platoon, which was providing security to the Earth Federation consulate in the city of Chiatzo on the planet Khmer, in the Eastern Bloc. During this brief period of responsibility, the Eastern Bloc declared war on the Earth Federation, and Bloc soldiers attacked the Consulate. Rising to the challenge, Dimiye was prepared for them, and successfully managed to escape from the planet on board the Federation Merchant Frigate Veracruz, along with his soldiers and the entire Consular staff and their families. During their epic flight to eventual safety, they lost the Veracruz but captured the Eastern Bloc frigate Pao Min Wang and destroyed a Bloc light cruiser as well.

Defense of Hadley

Arriving in the Federation system of Hadley with Bloc warships in hot pursuit, the Pao Min Wang was critically damaged and Dimiye was forced to abandon ship and escape with his people down to the planet in shuttles. In their haste, they forgot to release from the brig the captured Bloc Navy crewmen of the ship, and their prisoners were unfortunately all killed. Landing on the surface of Hadley, still a harsh and dangerous environment at this early stage of its terraforming, Dimiye and his men killed or captured the two batches of Bloc Marines sent down to the surface after them, and then made contact with the planet's civilian populace and Light Infantry garrison. When it became clear that a full-fledged Bloc invasion of Hadley was in the offing, Dimiye, despite being a mere sergeant major, was offered command of the planetary defenses, and he accepted. Orchestrating the brilliant Operation Market Valley, Dimiye successfully repelled the Bloc invasion of Hadley, and while the losses among his own forces were heavy, they paled in comparison to the 92 percent losses they inflicted on the far larger Bloc invasion force sent against them. During the escape from Khmer and fighting on Hadley, Dimiye had begun a romantic and sexual relationship with one of his troopers, Corporal Reichenspurger Tess, but she was among those killed in the final assault on the city of Hope on Hadley.

Rescue and Rebellion

When reinforcements arrived to relieve Dimiye and his surviving forces on Hadley, it was a fleet centered on the Dreadnought EFS Ariadne, part of the forces loyal to Sarah Dunmeyer following her aborted Coup. Dimiye and his troops had not been previously informed of the full extent of the rebellion, but seeing little choice and grateful to be rescued, they joined the Tech Infantry Rebels and fought on their behalf for the rest of the war. For their part, the rebels were ecstatic to be able to attach their name to Dimiye's exploits, giving their side a propaganda hero to rival Erich Von Shrakenberg, whose actions in Rios and New Madrid were making him a poster boy for the Grand Council Loyalists. Since Dimiye had proven himself an able leader of large numbers of troops on Hadley, Dimiye was put through an abbreviated Officer Candidate School course via viral learning drugs, and given a promotion to Major. Several of his surviving original platoon from Chiatzo were also promoted to be platoon leaders under his command.

Epsilon and the Birth of the Dead Boys

Following up on their success at Hadley, the rebels sent Dimiye and his men to join their counter-offensive against the Eastern Bloc in the Epsilon system. Before the landings, Dimiye gave a now-famous speech to his men. Informing them that he and they were all, from that moment onwards, Dead, he went on to say that only in victory could they be reborn. Despite its macabre tone, the pep talk was remarkably effective and affecting, and from them on the unit became known as Dimiye's Dead Boys. They would become the single most famous ground combat unit of the Third Civil War. Soon, the custom arose of setting the nanotech active camouflage systems of their suits to mimic, not the surrounding terrain in an effort to blend in, but a grinning white skeleton on a black background, in an effort to intimidate and terrify their opponents. In the initial assault on Phi and Kappa Epsilon, they were remarkably successful on both counts. Dimiye personally led a unit of sappers that blew a breach in the walls around Kappa Epsilon, allowing the assault to succeed. Some historians believe it was in part due to the fearful reputation and success of Dimiye and his Dead Boys that the Eastern Bloc commander blew up the city of Alpha Epsilon with himself and 56 million other people inside rather than be captured. Others darkly hint that the blast may not have been set by Bloc forces at all, but whoever did it and however it happened, the Bloc caught the blame, and Dimiye and his men were so shocked and offended at the loss of life that they lost control of themselves and excecuted several hundred Bloc prisoners they had taken.

Port Arthur and a Bittersweet Homecoming

Dimiye on leave, seeing his own face in a propaganda ad

Following the successful liberation of Epsilon, Dimiye and his men moved on to his home world of Port Arthur. In a brilliant move of propaganda and diplomacy, Dimiye himself transmitted his surrender demands to the Port Arthur garrison: surrender unconditionally, or he and the fleet at his back would bypass Port Arthur and go instead to Showa...and completely exterminate all life on Showa and every other Bloc core system one by one until Port Arthur surrendered. With the clear subtext that, if Port Arthur surrendered intact, Dimiye and the Tech Infantry rebels would cease their counter-offensive and turn their fury away from the Eastern Bloc and onto other targets, the Port Arthur garrison accepted his surrender terms. The Eastern Bloc was effectively knocked out of the war, and Dimiye was finally able to return home. While on leave following the surrender, Dimiye was met by his grandmother, Nana Dimiye, who revealed to him her role in the Resistance, and offered to recruit him into the Resistance. Dimiye initially refused, but he made no move to turn her in for her treason.

The Babylon Project

Dimiye's next campaign was the "liberation" of the Babylon system from the Grand Council Loyalists. For the first time, he would be fighting directly against his former government. To compound his unease over this betrayal, Dimiye was invited to join a secret plot against his new leader Sarah Dunmeyer, led by his direct superior General Russell Fargus. After learning of General Dunmeyer's embrace of the Human Augmentation Project (HAP), and the terrible cost in terms of reduced lifespan and other side effects upon the normal humans thus augmented, Dimiye reluctantly agreed to join the coup plot. He also contacted his grandmother and accepted her offer to join the Resistance. Before anything could come of either plot, however, he was sent into combat in the fighting around Tower City on Babylon, as commander of a brigade full of former Light Infantry soldiers enhanced by the Human Augmentation Program. Dimiye played a key role in the rebel victory in the battle of Tower City, turning a Federation trap at the spaceport into a trap for the counter-attacking Loyalist forces, defeating the inept General Edgar Curtis. He also personally participated in the capture of Malachi Spyder, who switched sides and became one of Dimiye's brigade commanders. Following the battle, he was finally allowed to read his own classified personnel file, courtesy of General Fargus, and Dimiye finally realized what happened to him on Fieras, and learned of how Maegwin Harrington had been following him ever since. But her most recent alias, that of Corporal Stacey Johannes, one of his troopers from the platoon at the Chiatzo Consulate, had apparently been killed during mopping up operations on Epsilon, so he was unable to confront her with his newfound knowledge.

Assault on Avalon

Before the Babylon system could be fully liberated, however, the entire Rebel force was pulled out suddenly and ordered back on board their ships. While some of the legions snuck back to Wilke's Star to support the Fargus-led Coup against Auntie Sarah, the bulk of the forces, including Dimiye and his Dead Boys, were sent to the ill-fated attack on Avalon. Dimiye led the EVA assault that took the Achilles Orbital Battlestation, and then dropped onto Avalon itself. Stranded on the surface while a Loyalist counterattack kept the rebel fleet busy in orbit, Dimiye led the efforts of Operation Cancer to cut off the Loyalist fleet from communications with Fleet HQ on the ground, and to stir up as much trouble as possible in the Federation capital. Following the defeat and withdrawal of the Rebel fleet, most of the survivors of Dimiye's unit were killed or captured, and Dimiye himself went missing, last seen charging into the teeth of a Loyalist position without even the benefit of power armor.

Rebirth as Brother Caleb

Somehow transported safely off Avalon by the magick of his grandmother, Dimiye was sent on his first mission with the Resistance. Taking on the identity of Brother Caleb, a young recruit to the Righteous Army's top-secret All-Father Project, Dimiye played the part to perfection, greatly helped by a complete artificial personality and set of memories implanted in his brain by a mind mage. He quickly became the best pilot trainee in the program, and was sent to conduct the first test flight of the hugely oversized suit of power armor. On its first live-fire exercise, he used its powerful Free Electron Cannon to destroy research base including all personnel involved in the project, as well as the orbital defenses and industrial infrastructure of the San Angeles system. Then he moved on to Alpha Centauri and repeated the attack there, before taking the All-Father prototype mecha and its complete design blueprints to Earth and delivering them to his grandmother and their companions in the Resistance. Finally, he accompanied his grandmother and (a clone of) Marko Vitek to Wilke's Star to attend the final negotiations for an alliance between the Resistance and the Tech Infantry Rebels, now led by Dimiye's friend and former commander, Russell Fargus, after the successful coup to overthrow Sarah Dunmeyer during the disastrous invasion of Avalon. Dimiye attended the early sessions wearing a holographic disguise, which was turned off as Vitek's clone presented him to Fargus as a "gift" to seal the alliance. Shocked at his return, but grateful to have a propaganda hero to reinvigorate the morale of their faction, Fargus and company (after much poking and prodding by medics and mages to establish he was who he appeared to be) enthusiastically welcomed him back, promoting him to Brigadier General and giving him an entire Legion to command.

Mission to Midgar

Dimiye and his new legion were sent to reinforce the Midgar system, under attack by the K'Nes Tor. Initially, the operation went well. Dimiye authorized the use of nuclear weaponry to pave the way for a successful landing by his troops, and this shocked and decimated the enemy forces. Later ground combat also seemed to favor the Dead Boys, with several infiltration attacks by the K'Nes repulsed with heavy losses to the attackers. But Dimiye and his troops were betrayed by one of their own. Maegwin Harrington, last seen during the mopping up operations on Epsilon in the guise of Stacy Johannes, and who had been reported killed in action, turned out to be both still very much alive, and still very much insanely fixated on destroying Alastar DImiye's life. Disguised as a Light Infantry general officer who had in fact been killed during the earlier K'Nes occupation of the system, she fed vital intelligence to the K'Nes in exchange for being able to personally torture and interrogate Dimiye after his capture. And he was captured, due to foolishly trying to fight off a K'Nes sneak attack without benefit of his power armor.

(to be continued)

Behind the Scenes

Dimiye was Frank's player character during Season 4.3, and one of the most popular characters in the history of the game. His Actor Avatar is Russell Crowe. His Dead Boys Brigade is a reference to a unit of the Coalition States military in the Rifts roleplaying game setting. The storyteller and player went to great lengths to make the other players believe that Dimiye was dead on Avalon and his player withdrawn from the game, going so far as to announce that in the next Newsletter. In fact, Frank was still in the game, using a secondary email address to write the story of "Brother Caleb" under the pen name of "Tim Reynolds", Marcus' cousin. A few weeks later, several of the players held a get-together, the legendary first "Positive Chi Convention". At that party, Marcus read aloud the latest act. When the reveal came that Brother Caleb was actually Dimiye, Frank stood up and unbuttoned his flannel shirt, to reveal that he had been wearing a cardboard sign reading "CALEB IS DIMIYE" on a string around his neck for the past several hours, in preparation for that moment.