Tariq al Zubi

## **Appearance**

**Height:** 5' 11''

**Hair Color:** Black

**Eye Color:** Dark brown

## **Strengths and Weaknesses**

**Skills:** Tariq can speak Arabic, English, French, Turkish, Classical Latin and also, perhaps more importantly, has a limited grasp of written Ragon. He is also an adept mechanic and a fast runner.

**Weaknesses:** Tariq isn't a fighter and years of having been looked after by trained soldiers hasn't given him much incentive to learn these skills.

## **Personality**

Calm and driven, Tariq was not someone who panicked under fire despite also not being someone with any particular combat skills. A compassionate man, once committed to a task, Tariq rarely wavered from it, dedicating himself to it's completion.

Tariq also had a strong bond with Rebecca Cohen, whom he treated as a daughter. While he is usually calm, sensible and compassionate, all of that could go out the window if he felt that Rebecca was in danger. Later in life he would form a similar bond with Aethienn.

After years serving under Kiellar Command, with the sole driving purpose of defeating the Ragon Empire, Tariq lost much of his compassionate nature (though those he was close to, such as Aethienn, were still able to glimpse it) though the steely resolve to achieve his goals, no matter the cost, remained.

## **Background**

**What he did before the War:** Associate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Jordan

**What he does now:** Commodore in Kiellar Command.

**Backstory:** Born into an impoverished 'Latin Rite' Christian family in Amman, Tariq was never expected to achieve much beyond growing up to take over his father's grocery store. However, from an early age, it became apparent that Tariq had an unusual gift for languages and, more importantly, the will to fully apply himself to his studies.

It was not an easy road, but by his early thirties, Tariq had managed to gain the title of 'Associate Professor of Linguistics' at the University of Jordan, in his home town of Amman, much to the delight of his parents. Some of his studies were spent abroad at Durham University where Tariq picked up a 'home counties' accent while speaking English. During this period he married and his wife, Mina, had three children. Tariq bought a house in a fashionable part of town. Everything appeared to be looking up for the growing al Zubi family. Until the ragons arrived.

During the first days of the Ragon War, Tariq, along with numerous other Linguistics and Crytology experts, was asked to look into the captured logs of a ragon scout vessel in the hopes that translating it would give the forces defending earth an advantage. When it became rapidly obvious that the war could not be won, the efforts to understand the ragon language began to focus around information that might allow the forces of earth to locate the wormhole to the Andromeda galaxy and potentially use the theoretical 'Temporal Slingshot' to go back in time to stop the invasion before it began by intervening with the Carter Expedition.

Before that could happen, Amman was hit. Tariq's wife and children were all taken though he managed to survive, hiding in the basement of the University before fleeing to a cave complex in the hills. While Tariq grieved for his family, the event only served to motivate him to work harder, ceaselessly chasing the seemingly impossible task of translating the ragon logs.

Across the region, other cities were hit, though a few people held out hope that the translation of the logs might allow earth to strike back and a steady trickle made their way to the complex near Amman. Tariq, still grieving for his family, met a young Israeli conscript, Rebecca Cohen, who arrived at the base escorting an Israeli cryptographer. She was young, frightened and reminded him a lot of how he'd have liked his daughter to turn out. Gradually, a bond began to form between them and Tariq nicknamed her 'Windflower' after the red anemones that bloomed on the hillsides each spring.

Four years after the invasion, a breakthrough was made, and while the logs were not translated in their entirety, the team managed to plot the location of the wormhole. Somewhat problematically, the only completed Temporal Slingshot was in Denver, Colorado. Realising they might be the last chance for humanity, the team of academics and soldiers who had made the caves near Amman their home, packed up and set off for Colorado.

After a long, dangerous trek, of which Tariq is the only surviving academic, the team managed to find a submarine in Mersin, Turkey, which they used to cross the Atlantic to New York. Unfortunately, within a day of disembarking, the team was ambushed by ragon hunters. Tariq and Rebecca were the sole survivors.

In New York, Tariq managed to put another party of survivors together with whom he managed to complete the trip to Denver and get to the 'Temporal Slingshot'. Tariq successfully piloted the Slingshot towards the wormhole, though the vessel was hit by fire from a pursuing ragon craft shortly before entry and the craft spun off course, crashing into a planet in Andromeda a considerable length of time before the Carter expedition was due to arrive.

While Tariq's injuries would have killed him on earth, he was found by a Kiellar Science Vessel exploring the area who managed to repair the damage in part by replacing parts of his body with mechanical prosthetics (which also gave Tariq an unnaturally long lifespan). The brain damage Tariq suffered, left him with partial amnesia. With no memory of his actual name he took on the name 'Ouroboros', naming himself after the logo used by the lab in Denver.

Over the years, Ouroboros would rise to the rank of Commodore in the Kiellar Command hierarchy and would go on to prove the main adversary of the Carter expedition in the Beta Timeline. While he was unable to permanently capture the expedition or achieve his direct goals, his meddling in the timeline indirectly led to the formation of the 'Concord' between Kiellar Command, the Gollar Confederacy and Federation of Civilised Worlds who's combined power was sufficient to create a universe where Earth was never overrun by the Ragon Empire.