Michael Sisk

== Michael Sisk ==
Michael Sisk was an American businessman, executive, investor, and later a political and military leader for Seaboard, a quasi-state which succeeded the United States after the great collapse.
Known for his deceptive leadership tactics and secretive projects, Sisk came to major prominence due to his involvement in funding and overseeing the creation of the Jinanvirus and the subsequent pandemic. Following the fall of the Federal Government, he successfully organized the development of Seaboard and appointed many previous corporate directors as heads of various parts of the government.
Within the highly militarized quasi-stage, Michael Sisk saw ambitious projects, military advances and takeovers, as well as mass exterminations. Controlling most of the Northeastern United States as well as sections of Afghanistan and Thailand, Michael Sisk was the Chairman of Seaboard until his death.
== Early Life ==
Born in Southampton, New York, Sisk’s parents were both wealthy English immigrants. Shortly after immigrating to the United States in the 1940s, Sisk's father, Clifford James Sisk, formed Seaboard Technologies, a research and development company. After World War II, Seaboard Technologies was contracted by the Department of Defense for research into the effects of high altitude flight on the human body.
In 1957, while Seaboard Technologies was strong and profitable, Michael Sisk was born in the town of Southampton, New York, on long Island. He grew up in Manhattan, going to prestigious private schools. Compared to his siblings, Michael was known to be rowdy, informal, and disobedient. He traveled frequently in his youth, but was opposed to his wealth upbringing. Michael Sisk ran away from home as a teenager, and lived on his own in the late 60s and early 70s, before settling in Oakland, California.
His older brother joined the Army in Vietnam against his parents wishes, and was killed sometime near the end of the war. His younger brother was chosen by his parents to succeed them, eventually going to college for business.
Without support from his parents, Michael Sisk went to college, majoring in architecture. However, he later switched his major to political science. Frustrated with college life and his peers, he drooped out before attaining his Master's in 1979. After, Sisk began political organizing for the California Social Democrats. He was prominent behind the scenes in the early 1980s, and ran for Mayor of Oakland in 1984. He was defeated in a landslide, but ran again in 1988. Defeated again by a thin margin, Sisk formed a comprehensive report on how he claimed the opposing party used their financial influence and voter suppression to win the election, before blaming the American Moderates.
Shortly after his defeat, Sisk's younger brother died from complications related to AIDS. After this, he became severely depressed, breaking up with his girlfriend. He moved back to New York at the end of 1988, where his father tried to get him back into the family business. Sisk begrudgingly conceded, but refused to return finish his college degree.
Sisk had two sisters, both who married into wealthy families and remained relatively unaffiliated with Seaboard Industries. He married in the early 1990s and fathered his son in 1993.
== Takeover of Seaboard Industries ==
Beginning to play a role in the leadership and financing of the Seaboard Biotech department, he also oversaw attaining government grants. In 1991, Sisk sought out a very specific individual in the field of biology and genetics. Due to having a very wide-reaching but concise criteria for such a person, Sisk searched stringently among many potential candidates until he located Arthur Wald, a MIT doctorate and aspiring scientist with unorthodox views who met his expectations. After much discussion with Wald, Sisk recruited him to lead a covert biotech laboratory. Self-funded by Sisk and without the knowledge of his father and the CEO of Seaboard Industries.
Sisk was extremely successful in directing laboratory teams, hiring employees and researchers, and securing funding and revenue, as well as being responsible for unprecedented growth within his sector. In 1992, Clifford James Sisk died unexpectedly of a Heart Attack at the age of 74. Shortly after his death, his only living son, Michael, assumed control of Seaboard Industries/Technologies and became the CEO. With majority control and stake in the company, he began secretly diverting funds to various underground projects. Assuming the gene-editing project led by Arthur Wald would see results by 1995, he planned to begin covert biochemical attacks to major executives and politicians he had met and learned to depise. He planned, with the hoarded recourses possessed by the company, to split from a virus-torn United States by the beginning of the 2000s.
The premier laboratories, notably Wald's genome projects, failed to match Sisk's expectations and were continuously pushed back. As Sisk began to doubt Wald's commitment and loyalty in 1993, he found and hired Viktor Markov, a former Soviet KGB member and scientist to oversee and manage his laboratories. Sisk oversaw Markov's immigration without problem, and developed a bond with the very brash man who he believed would be necessary in, by his commanding presence, incentivizing progress within his covert operations. Around this time, Sisk opened a new space tech branch of Seaboard to bring further revenue, one that specialized in military satellite components.
== Further Planning of Goals ==
Sisk originally desired to find a way to create genetically modified individuals to comprise a significant portion of what he hoped to see in a future, new order. However, despite his intentions, Arthur Wald's findings showed that such would be impossible, and demonstrated to Sisk that altering the genetics of already born or developed individuals would not be a likely path forward. After coming to terms with this in the early 90s, Sisk began drafting out what would become Seaboard's sentinel program into the mid and late 90s. Once his laboratories had significant breakthroughs, Sisk recruited Darius Johnson, a renowned football player, to study and isolate his exceptional genetics. Johnson agreed due to Sisk's payments. After finding other less exceptional subjects, Sisk located the Hunter of Terror, a notorious and well publicized Navy SEAL. However, this man did not have any intentions of being Sisk's "lab animal", but recognizing his potential, Sisk had him kidnapped and forcibly examined without his consent. The Hunter of Terror was released with a substantial payment but no proof of capture.
Even by the mid 1990s, Wald's slow but steady dealings with small animals had yielded desirable results. As Sisk sought to look beyond these scopes and into human subjects, he took a keen interest in Brigitta Wald, the wife of Arthur Wald. Sisk kept a distanced appreciation but personal understanding of her, and began to believe that retroactively, his choice in hiring Wald, despite his growing apprehensions, could amount to something greater. Once Wald's findings appeared sufficient to Viktor Markov, Sisk ordered the creation of a new laboratory, compartmentalized so that it was unknown to Wald.
This laboratory began initial testing, with success, in modifying and creating clones of embryos that, on purpose, never reached fruition. Sisk had yet to find a suitable host that he was confident in. However, his sparse interactions with the Walds, including Brigitta and her son, began to weigh heavily on his mind. Sisk met with Brigitta Wald at night in 1998, and, as had been done before, discussed her own contributions to what she believed to be viral modifications for productive reasons. However, what became more obvious was her growing dissatisfaction with her husband's work- much of which she was in the dark about. When Wald expressed interest in distancing her family from Sisk and Seaboard, he used this to orchestrate a deal. Admitting the appreciation he had for her and her husband's, as he saw, "genetic gifts", Sisk desired to gain access to her fertilized embryo.
After much conversation, without Arthur Wald's knowledge, Brigitta Wald, under Sisk's request, became pregnant again. She went under analysis, where her fertilized embryo was extracted, and over a course of time, modified, before, as discussed, being reintroduced into Brigitta's body. According to Markov and Sisk, the engineered embryo had no external influence, but instead, was a selective modification to represent the best genetics of both Arthur and Brigitta Wald. However, unknown to Wald, the modified embryo had been cloned and kept in cold storage while other genetic subjects were compiled and analyzed.
== Further Orchestrations ==
In 1999, Sisk, desiring a more strong-armed head of security for Seaboard amid their activities, got a short list of potential subjects. Originally intending to hire Lyons Russel based on his rap sheet and what Sisk viewed as a favorable mentality on his part, Sisk instead settled for Levi Frazier, a Canadian-born military academic with qualifying credentials.
The sentinel program, now with heightened security, began in full swing under Sisk's guidance. With the first stable, fully modified embryo from the Walds, Sisk authorized it to be cloned many more times. He designated a team to scope out and locate surrogate mothers for the fertilized embryos, which Sisk intended to be birthed in a range of 2-3 years. The surrogate mothers were chosen based on many screenings, taking into account health, lifestyle habits, stability, and their believed potential to stay loyal to agreements. The mothers were to host the child, separate from it at birth, and after receiving a lump sum payment, not disclose or speak of the matter. The surrogates themselves had little to no information regarding the true nature of the children they bore.
Sisk began orchestrating further, keeping a web of hidden projects in development, often under various departments of more benign or civil surface-level purposes. Contracting to German firearms companies, Sisk authorized the mass-production of modified Heckler and Kosh G36 rifles chambered for 9mm, coined "G39". Armor, preserved food supplies, and vehicles were also produced in bulk.
By the early 2000s, project Gilded Honor began, which was an effort to engineer a mutated virus that used Brigitta Wald's original research as a foundation. As with most Seaboard's underground developments, these projects were mostly kept out of the spotlight. Sisk knew it would never be secretive given thousands of employees, so he simply hid his own plans in plain sight, his workers in production believing all work was done under contract for the military. The heads of different departments were somewhat aware, in varying degrees, of Sisk's ambitions. Very few were fully aware.
Starting in 2015, investigation began into the production of firearms by Seaboard Technologies, led by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. It came after leaked documents related to the production, asserting Seaboard Technologies didn't have the required federal permission to mass produce the weapons. Michael Sisk sought out business attorney Jared Coleman, who made it evident he could get the company out of the troubles for the right price. However, Coleman was aware of a greater scheme, and made an agreement that when whatever was to happen in the world goes down, he and his family would be supported and bolstered. Sisk agreed, and was able to keep the company relatively unscathed, resulting in fines and the ending of production of the rifles until proper business licenses could be attained.
In 2016, Journalist Olivera DeBravka began leaking documents related to illegal practices by Seaboard Technologies and Michael Sisk. He attempted to keep the documents covered up, which was partially successful. Before the end of the year, various anonymous parties alleged that Seaboard Technologies Biotech branch was designing a Supervirus. Michael Sisk then created fake documents to release in conjunction with these claims, suggesting multiple governments conspired together to create a planned pandemic. Due to the seemingly outrageous claims, the truth was buried with false claims and was all dismissed as conspiracy theories, failing to gain widespread attention.