Luo Bai He

The young son of a rich family from Beijing, Luo Bai He was little more than a bystander and later a (still rather well-off) refugee during the Two Week War. A sheltered but conscientious young man now the last remaining member of his family, Bai He wound up expending what remained of his family's wealth helping others during the crisis, leaving himself penniless and wandering. When one of the temporary refugee settlements Luo was staying at was hit by a sudden raid from the alien killing machines, Luo Bai He chose to stand his ground with little more than a sharp piece of metal, insisting he be left behind to slow the machines down. Although the young man hardly stood a chance against the drones, his resolve inspired others to do the same, in the end allowing most of the refugees to escape slaughter. Luo Bai He's bravery attracted the attention of the elderly scholar Lun Meng Di, who decided Luo was worthy of being granted his still-unactivated Suit. Taking Luo under his wing, Lun educated on philosophy and tactics, and with the power of a Suit, Luo's natural charisma and selflessness saw him gain a following of appreciative refugees - the basis of what would eventually become the Luo Faction of the Survivalist's Coalition. As a warlord, Luo was the youngest by far, and his faction was considered the weakest and most resource-poor.
While many other warlords were unable to attend the Che wedding for various reasons, Luo was the only warlord to outright reject Che's invitation. During the investigation into the mass murder that subsequently occurred, the Iron Army discovered an invoice for the purchase of Polonium from the Russian Federation by the NLA, to be delivered to a location under the control of Luo's warband. Although this would later turn out to be evidence planted by Chris Riley to implicate Luo and the NLA, it was sufficient to generate suspicions of the warlord's involvement in the assassination, a possibility that came as a surprise even to Che En Lin when it was suggested to her. When Zau Yi attempted to use Keng Si to send a letter to Luo while he was imprisoned by ACC, the letter turned out to merely be a warning to Luo that the Axe Gang Bandits were using Personality Rehabilitation techniques and to be cautious regarding the passage of POWs and refugees coming from areas with Axe Gang activity, indicating that Zau not only had no belief that Luo was behind the poisoning, but that he knew Luo to be the most compassionate of the warlords and therefor most vulnerable to Axe Gang treachery. This proved prophetic, as once the Axe Gang had absorbed the leaderless Che faction, Luo suffered significant territory losses to relentless and bold Axe Gang attacks.
Luo's faction remained on the backfoot against the bandits, relying heavily on support from the Huang warband and later the Iron Army and ACC. Luo himself admitted to the Pilots when meeting them for the first time in person that his position within the Survivalists Coalition was that of the weakest warband and warlord. Nonetheless, the Pilots found Luo the easiest warlord to deal with; the man was always willing to meet with the Pilots in person and accommodate them despite the increasingly dire circumstances within his camp. He did not begrudge Damien August for immediately pulling back on a tentative offer to lend FAIRYs and RAMs to the faction despite their clear need for the assistance. The most interesting interaction Luo Bai He had with the Pilots was his meeting with Jeanne-Amandine Lepen, who met the man in December in order to oversee training Luo's soldiers in tactics better suited to counter the Axe Gang. Jeanne would spend the month living in the Luo encampment and, having come to regard Luo as a virtuous and principled man, developed an intense personal interest in him. Luo himself certainly trusted Jeanne and appreciated the assistance she was offering, and when a mysterious bunker was discovered during a bandit attack, he personally requested Jeanne investigate the matter. The bunker, as it would turn out, was connected to a nuclear missile silo complex, which the bandits had intended to use to finish the Luo faction off. Jeanne succeeded in capturing the silo, but chose to launch the missile at the Beng encampment and pass the blame off as arriving too late to stop the bandits. Meeting with Warlord Huang a few days later, Luo admitted to sending Jeanne to the bunker alone, immediately drawing Huang's suspicions. Luo was adamant that Jeanne's account was truthful, however. When Huang demanded he be allowed to inspect the bunker himself, Luo forbid it as a violation of his trust in Jeanne, causing Huang to accuse Luo of being an accomplice in the disaster. Nonetheless, Luo refused to allow Huang to conduct his own investigation in spite of his own secret doubts to Jeanne's truthfulness.
The Axe Gang later released a recording of the events inside the silo, including the orders they issued to target the Luo camp with the missile in order to finish the faction off. Even then, Luo chose to believe Jeanne, deciding the recording had been fabricated. Public belief, however, leaned towards the missile being reprogrammed to target the Beng encampment to eliminate a rival warlord, causing Luo's popularity to decline. Without Huang's military and materiel support, Luo's faction continued to suffer a string of defeats against the Axe Gang, causing the Iron Army to condemn the faction and plan to assassinate Luo and his top personnel in order to prevent the Axe Gang from seizing the faction's remaining population and resources. During a battle against the Axe Gang, Luo Bai He was heavily wounded and Lun Meng Di was kidnapped - a clear signal that Luo's banner was soon to fall.
Jeanne, desperate to rescue Luo from an increasingly inevitable death, sought to secure the assistance of Moqaddas, hoping that the direct support of the faction would be enough to keep the Iron Army and the Axe Gang at bay. Luo appointed Jeanne as warlord in his stead, counting on her and Moqaddas to save his people. However, by mid-January, the Iron Army had declared war on the Luo faction, and no armies had come to their aid. Luo managed to have a quiet meeting with Jeanne, and when he learned of the situation his faction now found itself in, took back command of the faction, determined to not let the blame fall to Jeanne. Two days later, the Iron Army launched their attack against the Luo faction, encountering only minimal resistance and finally finding Luo himself on a simple throne at the heard of his encampment, already dead from his previous injuries. In a record left before he died, Luo acknowledged that he thought An Guo had made a rational decision to attack, admitting that alone the Luo faction was not strong enough to survive. Luo allowed those in his army still willing to fight to do so and ordered all remaining under his banner to surrender to the Iron Army. Testament to the amount of faith his followers had in the man, the majority of what remained of the Luo warband complied and cooperated with the Iron Army as Luo Bai He had asked.
Category:PACYOA: TE
Category:China
Category:Luo
Category:NPC
Category:Deceased