Scott Edwards

Scott Edwards (service number 25155-09242-SE) is a former Orbital Drop Shock Trooper. He served as the leader of Fireteam Wolf during the Human-Covenant War, Created Conflict, and Battle of Zeta Halo.
==Biography==
===Early Life===
Born to Leoni and John Edwards in 2511, Scott and his home world of Cygnus II enjoyed years without significant strife or peril, relatively speaking. Though, while the violence of the Insurrection had yet to reach the system, the colony's population had little love for the UNSC. Especially as news of TREBUTCHETS ever increasing intensity and the UNSC's continued stripping of Colonial Military Authority responsibilities made headlines every other week.
This culminated in the CMA being fully absorbed into the UNSC by 2525 with the news of an alien attack on Harvest. Scott's father, John, had been an officer in the CMA Navy himself, but had rejected the chance to transition into the UNSC when it was offered. John spoke little of what motivated this decision, and he was even less forthcoming on what he had experienced in his time in the CMA before that. But one night, when Scott was fourteen, he had found his father drinking alone and when John noticed his son, he asked the boy if he understood the difference between what was right, and what was just.
At the time, the young man had no answer. John apologized, and insisted that it was best to forget he had said anything at all.
Growing up, there was little remarkable about Scott. He was a boy who came from a stable home who led a boring, stable life. He had problems, friends, and interests but never too many of any at any one time. For a long time, he was content-- if not happy, with this. In a world where people were losing everything in alien glassings or rebel bombings, what right did he have to complain?
But there comes a point in such a young man's life where they crave nothing more than a chance to prove themselves. Where after a hundred "About Me" forms left unfilled or bare minimum introductions, they start to question if there's anything inside them worth sharing at all. Every person may be the hero of their own story-- but was it a story worth telling?
Scott, evidently, did not believe so.
UNSC recruitment seminars in the Inner Colonies tended to favor a more patriotic angle, beseeching all able-bodied men and women to fulfill their duty, and take up arms in the name of Mother Earth. In the Outer Colonies, however, language and rhetoric such as that was wisely kept to a minimum with a greater emphasis on the practical and economical benefits of enlisting. Scott required little convincing.
Briefly, Scott had hoped to follow in his father's footsteps, and become an officer in the Navy. However, when he learned of the mathematical skill required for all naval officer candidates, he pivoted and chose to enlist in the Marines instead. As long as it got him on a ship away from Cygnus, it was good enough for him.
===Battle of Eridanus II===
Private First Class Edwards, alongside the thirty other men in his platoon, was charged with the defense of a trio of M95 missile batteries, stationed right outside of the human city of Luxor. Hours into the battle, a pair of Covenant drop pods occupied by Jiralhanae warriors crashed right in the middle of the Marines' formation, taking the men completely by surprised. In mere minutes, the majority of the thirty man platoon, including his two close friends, PFC Jack Thompson and Lance Corporal Geoffrey Bice, were killed in action in combat against the Jiralhanae.
Edwards was left as the sole survivor, having been rescued by the timely arrival of ODSTs from the 105th Division who had been sent to secure the missile batteries. These efforts were ultimately futile, however, as the planet's defense was abandoned shortly afterwards.
=== Harvest Campaign ===
Following the destruction of his unit on Eridanus, Edwards was reassigned to a battalion partaking in Admiral Cole's campaign to retake the colony Harvest until 2531. As Edwards had only arrived at the tail end of the bloody campaign, he saw limited action against the Covenant. While Harvest was reclaimed, and the young marine could count himself as one of the lucky few to witness a UNSC victory against the alien menace, Edwards was not satisfied. 
Any hope he had of redemption during this time had been dashed. 
=== ODST Recruitment and Forming Fireteam Wolf===
In 2532, Edwards had served long enough to apply for the Orbital Drop Shock Troopers. A chance he took as soon as he was able. Few of Edwards's previous squadmates would have described the young man as a particularly exceptional soldier, but thanks to his quick-thinking, tenacity, and unconventional methods that bordered on insanity, Edwards survived the months of hellish training designed to weed out all but the most dedicated.
By the 2540's, Edwards had become a veteran Helljumper of the 105th, and risen to the rank of Staff Sergeant. However, over the years, he had seen more than his fair share of fallen friends, decimated units, and planets glassed. Although his home planet had been spared from the ravages of the Covenant War, Edwards never visited, and his correspondence with family members became shorter and less frequent over time, until he simply did not write home at all.
Fairly late into the war, in 2548, Edwards had been assigned to lead a unit following the recent death of their previous leader. Although a single fireteam may have seemed beneath him as a Staff Sergeant, Wolf was a highly valued Force Recon team in the ODSTs. However, Wolf was slow to accept their new leader at first, often second-guessing his orders and acting in ways that undermined his authority. 
Davien Calson, Wolf's marksman, was especially unimpressed with the Staff Sergeant, not only distrustful of the outsider, but also of the belief that he should have been in charge of the team instead. A belief no one shared, but one Calson held all the same. 
Over time, however, Edwards earned the trust and loyalty of Wolf, and proved an effective leader. While Edwards and Calson continue to butt heads regularly, the marksman at least now has some degree of respect for the older man, and has accepted Edwards's command.
===Battle of Circumstance===
While Reach was attacked by Covenant forces, the rest of the colonies in the Epsilon Eridani system were also under siege at the same time. One such colony was Circumstance, a world renowned for its prestigious private schools and military academies. If Reach was considered the beating heart of the UNSC, than Circumstance, it was said, was its future, raising and polishing the next generation of military minds. Because of this, the evacuation and survival of Circumstance's students was considered a high priority. Likely because there were many high-ranking officers in the UNSC and officials in the UEG who had children or grandchildren attending school on Circumstance.
As part of this effort to evacuate the planet, Wolf and a full battalion of ODSTs were deployed to disable the Covenant anti-air emplacements they had arranged around one of Circumstance's largest cities, and personally escort the thousands of students attending Sherman Academy to a location were dozens of dropships were set to evacuate them to the carrier, UNSC Two Steps Back, waiting in orbit.
However, the carrier was gutted from nose to stern as the UNSC faced greater and greater losses in Epsilon Eridani, and most of the battalion that had dropped with Wolf had perished as the Covenant began to glass the city. 
Although a far cry from the thousands originally from Sherman Academy, Wolf did manage to get a few dozen of young men and women off-world, and aboard the UNSC Aeolus, a Charon-class frigate that had originally been part of the battlegroup assigned to the Two Steps Back. The frigate fled Epsilon Eridani shortly after, intent on returning to Sol. 
===Defense of Earth And the End Of the War===
As a result of the mandated random jump to ensure that they were not followed before jumping directly to Sol, Edwards and the UNSC Aeolus did not reach Earth until the Covenant had already attacked the planet. Over the next few months, Wolf partook in several engagements with the Covenant from one end of humanity's homeworld to another until the war ended in 2553, including a brief skirmish over Zanzibar Island.
The end of the war saw a sizeable exodus of UNSC service members, as many men and women retired, content in the belief that humanity had been saved in part thanks to their efforts. For many, the days that followed were a time of celebration, as fathers and mothers were reunited with their children, husbands with their wives, and for some, the dreams and aspirations they had long since set aside while they performed their duty.
For Edwards, there was none of that. There was never anything Edwards had seriously wanted to be, until the day an ODST saved him back on Eridanus II. In his youth, he had had his fair share of girls he liked, and even some who liked him back, but none that stayed in touch after his first year in the Corps. And just when it seemed like Edwards's home had been spared, he discovered that back in 2552, Cygnus II had been glassed by the Covenant. His parents' names were not among the list of known survivors.
===Post-War ===
For one reason or another, the rest of Wolf found themselves in similar positions of uncertainty, and chose to remain together in the UNSC than leave and attempt to forge a new path in what remained of human space. For these mangey mutts, the team was the closest thing to family they still had.
In the years following the end of the Human-Covenant War, while humanity had managed to evade extinction, threats to the safety of their worlds still lingered. Be it in the form of alien warlords rising from the ashes of the Covenant, looking to finish what their predecessors started, or the resurgence of human rebellions, intent on weakening the UEG further to solidify their claim to independence.
In this age of shifting alliances and tense interspecies relations, combatting these threats were no longer always as simple as dropping half a battalion of ODSTs on their heads and letting God sort them out. Instead, a more subtle approach was required.
Fireteam Wolf, alongside several other similarly sized and skilled ODST elements were assigned to the Eclipse-class Prowler, the UNSC Zephyr. The Zephyr's mission was to eliminate or undermine various threats to the still-recovering UEG as discreetly as necessary, to ensure that the UEG retained political deniability. These efforts included, but were not limited to, such actions as assassinating would-be Covenant Remnant leaders before their sect grew out of control, raiding and recovering illegal stockpiles of UNSC or Covenant contraband, and the capture of certain Insurrectionist VIPs.
In 2554, the Zephyr responded to a distress signal originating from Kepler Base on Paris IV. Officially, Kepler was a meteorological research station tasked with studying Paris-IV's suitability for future terraforming efforts that sought to undid the devastation wrought by planetary bombardment. The fact that an ONI Prowler was sending Fireteam Wolf groundside to investigate, with orders to destroy the station should they find no survivors, convinced the team that there was more to Kepler than met the eye.
By 2558, following the end of the Requiem Campaign, Wolf was reassigned to the Anlace-class frigate, the UNSC Molon Labe. Alongside dozens of similarly skilled and accomplished ODST fireteams, Wolf also found themselves sharing the ship with several Spartan fireteams. This was all in preparation for Operation: ROYAL FLUSH, an extended covert campaign against the New Colonial Alliance presence on the former UNSC colony of Firenze. 
Firenze's history is wrought in political uprisings and Insurrectionist sympathies. Early in the Insurrection, there had even been a confrontation in the planet's high orbit between the UNSC Navy and a motley rebel fleet. While the Firenze rebels ultimately lost their battle of independence, they had managed to down a Halcyon-class cruiser, the UNSC Indomitable, during the fight. This small rebel victory, however pointless, had become a symbol of pride for the colonists in the years that followed. And it was here that Dmitri Cross, Admiral Drake's right hand man, decided to make into his seat of power. And ROYAL FLUSH was meant to deny him this.
Eventually, it was discovered that Cross had turned the site of the cruiser's eternal resting place on Firenze's moon into a fortress. Wolf, alongside the Spartan detachment aboard the Labe, assaulted the Indomitable, intent on capturing Cross and dealing the NCA a mortal blow. Moments before Cross was apprehended, however, a Guardian appeared over Firenze, and brought the world to heel. Wolf, alongside the other UNSC survivors, returned to the Labe, and escaped the system.
=== Created Conflict ===
With Cortana having declared herself and her Created as the shepherds of the galaxy and true successor to the Forerunners, the Molon Labe along with the rest of the UNSC were forced into hiding to escape the AI tyrant's wrath. Back during the Guardian's activation on Firenze, the Labe's shipboard AI, Mennyko, was attacked and seemingly destroyed by another smart AI, Haven, who was Spartan Commander Jason-009 personal aide. Haven had evidently chosen to align herself with Cortana, and had intended to deliver the Labe and her crew to her on a silver platter. With Mennyko gone, she would have succeeded were it not for the quick thinking of a particular Marine officer, who destroyed Haven's core matrix and databanks with his service weapon.
Haven's betrayal and Mennyko's destruction was a devastating blow to the crew, but they could not sit idly by and lick their wounds forever. Prior to February of 2559, Scott Edwards and Davien Calson were ordered to escort Agent Arti Singh to the asteroid habitat of Arsenal. There the three would go undercover, and meet with Singh's informant, an eccentric Yonhet named Faz. Initially only there as a precaution, Edwards and Calson were forced to intervene when a pair of Kig-Yar entered the bar the meeting was taking place in, intent on capturing Faz themselves.
After the pair were dispatched, Faz was escorted onto an Owl, and later, the Labe itself. The Yonhet's information had to do with the location of an abandoned UNSC manufacturing facility, dubbed HYDRUS Station. While the Molon Labe and the UNSC at large had great interest in the location, Fireteam Wolf themselves would have no further involvement, the task of investigating the station instead falling to a mixed team of twelve Spartans from the Labe. 
At some point before Operation WOLFE, the Molon Labe joined with the Infinity and assisted in jamming the entirety of planet Reach for the sake of Blue Team's mission. When that was completed, the Labe remained with the Infinity, following it into battle at Zeta Halo.
===Zeta Halo ===
The Banished ambush on the Labe and the other ships escorting the Infinity was swift and brutal. Combined with a series of unfortunate cryo pod complications that delayed Wolf's awakening, the ODSTs barely had time to make themselves decent before the frigate was crumbling to pieces around them.
With no weapons, and no gear, Wolf was forced to evacuate in their drop pods. Despite his best efforts to keep the drop pods together as they fell, Edwards was forced to order his team to maneuver to evade not only anti-aircraft fire from the Banished, but falling debris from their own ship as well. With every bolt of plasma dodged, or warped plate of Titanium-A evaded, Wolf's pods grew further and further apart, with no time to reorient themselves and regroup before they made landfall.
Edwards had been knocked out on impact, and when he awoke, he found himself face to face with a Brute, who was tearing at the drop pod door to try and get to the trooper. Thanks to a bit of luck-- and the clever use of his drop pod's explosive bolts, remaining fuel, and the emergency flare gun that had been left within the HEV, Edwards managed to end the Brute and its Grunt underlings.
Later that same day, Edwards came upon a squad of Marine survivors from the UNSC Infinity pinned down by more Banished attackers. While Edwards suffered minor injuries at the hands of an Elite Ultra that had attempted to run the Staff Sergeant through with its energy sword, together with Hotel, they were able to repel the attackers. Unfortunately, there was little reason to celebrate, as by the time Edwards arrived to help, most of Hotel had already been wiped out. 
Among the few survivors were the young Corporal Mendez, the boisterous Lance Corporal Nasato, and a Hospital Corpsman Wagner, who was less than impressed with the aging Helljumper who had little else but the clothes on his back, and a salvaged plasma rifle. But that was something Edwards meant to rectify. Donning the helmet, armor, and rifle of Sergeant North, Hotel's previous NCO who had bled out before his arrival, Edwards took Hotel under his wing, and would lead them in the hard days that followed.
==Personality==
In his youth, Edwards had been carefree and affable. But you'd never think that, looking at the hard-faced, straight-laced man he is now. 
He has rarely allowed himself to crack so much as a smile in Wolf's presence, and has forbade his team from adorning their gear with "personal touches" and any other unauthorized additions, despite it being commonplace in the 105th. Calson's flagrant disregard for this commitment to keeping everything clean and practical is frequently why the marksman has drawn his Staff Sergeant's ire in the past. 
Lloyd and Brandt have not been spared from his reprimands either, though their offenses rarely get him as twisted.
No matter it may seem like on the outside, Edwards loves his team. True to the Helljumper ethos, Edwards leads his team from the front, and often assigns himself the most dangerous task whenever possible. The first unto the breach, and the last to board the ship home.
==Appearance==
Edwards might have been handsome once, but the years had not been kind to him. Sharp features and high cheek bones accentuate his long face, the skin pulled too taut for wrinkles, save for the deep, dark bags under his eyes, and the branching crow's feet in each corner. Speckles of silver had begun to show between his short dark hair. Physically, Edwards should be a decade or so younger than his birth date would imply, thanks to cryo. But stress takes it toll all the same.
Calson once joked that the Staff Sergeant aged in dog years. A statement he refused to retract, even as he was made to scrub the entire latrine clean by hand.
He had sustained a facial injury near the corners of his thin lips during the Brute attack that wiped out his platoon on Eridanus II. Little trace remains of it today, save for how the right corner of his mouth seems to always come to rest as a perpetual half-snarl, should Edwards forget to remain mindful of his expressions.
==Equipment==
Like most ODST team or squad leads, Scott's helmet features a Command Network Module attachment, which provides a consistent connection to the UNSC battlenet during missions. This hardened uplink also allows him to remain in contact with Wolf's ship of origin up in orbit and access said ship's databases as necessary. Otherwise, Scott deploys with a relatively standard battledress configuration. Fitting his penchant for being the first one into hell, Edwards prefers weaponry that are most effective in a close-quarters situation. By 2554, Scott had adopted the DAYBREAK exoframe in lieu of his late-war ODST armor. The mechanical assistance provided by the suit's hydraulics and linear actuators have allowed the aging Helljumper to retain the combat efficiency rating of a man ten years his junior.
==Gallery==
File:Edwards0910Visor.png|Edwards in his DAYBREAK exoframe armor, featuring a hardened command network module..
File:WolfTeam1.jpeg|Edwards (Center Right) along with the rest of Fireteam Wolf.
File:ScottODST.jpeg|Edwards in his late-war ODST battledress.
File:WolfTeam2.jpeg|Edwards leading Wolf during the Battle of Circumstance.
File:WolfTeam3.jpg|Edwards and Wolf in a desperate struggle for survival.
Category:AlphaBenson
Category:Characters
Category:ODST