Julius van Straaten

Julius van Straaten is the Federal United Nation's and Terran Republic's Director for Interplanetary Affairs, making him the de facto second-in-command at the FUN. He was promoted to this position by Lilia Fatima-Drake, after the death of her husband Marcus Drake and her takeover as the Chief-Director of the FUN. Van Straaten's promotion was mainly influenced by his significant involvement in the FUN's discovery of interplanetary transportation methods and due to his achievements during an Amphibian Army raid on a Mexican FUN research facility. In his position as Director for Interplanetary Affairs, van Straaten is mainly tasked with securing the protection and slow expansion of the Terran Republic. Where, due to the autonomy given to him by Fatima-Drake, he repeatedly bends his orders out of the sight of his superior.

### **Appearance**

Van Straaten is a fairly tall, clean-shaven man with brown eyes and short, dark brown, curly hair. Due to his past as an engineer and scientist, he is often seen wearing either a dark blue engineer suit or a white lab coat, despite it no longer being relevant to his job. He only wears a formal suit or the military uniform appropriate to his position if absolutely necessary.

The FUN's second-in-command also carries a few scars of different origins. Most notably, a small burn mark above his right eye originating from his time as an engineering apprentice and a bullet wound on his left hip, where a bullet grazed his flesh during the Amphibian Army's raid on the Mexican research facility.

### **Personality**

Due to having no history in the military Julius van Straaten tends to be a lot more level-headed than most of the people around him. He always wants to resolve a problem through diplomatic means before being forced to pick up arms and beginning a military conflict. Nonetheless, van Straaten is very much aware of the power he holds and is not afraid to use it to his advantage. Alongside his level-headed nature, the Terran Republic's Director for Interplanetary Affairs also used his confident attitude to get the generals of the Terran Space Fleet on his side. This has gone so far, that at this point most of the generals have sworn their loyalty directly to van Straaten, instead of the FUN's Chief-Director and Terran Republic's leader, Lilia Fatima-Drake. His confident nature is also backed up by the fact that van Straaten executes his actions in a calm and calculated, yet direct manner. He always plans for any eventuality, but once he begins an operation or an armed engagement he aims to execute his plan as quickly as possible. Which can lead to him being very unadaptable in crises.

### **History**

Van Straaten was born in Papenburg, Germany, close to the German-Dutch border to a pair of middle-class Dutch parents. He was the eldest of three children, with him having both a younger brother and sister. During his younger years, it very quickly became obvious that he had a talent for the scientific, which led to him studying engineering, maths, physics, and chemistry at some of the best universities on Earth. He also ended up writing doctoral theses in all four of those subjects. After his time in university, he was recruited by the FUN's European scientific branch, thanks to the recommendation of one of his former professors, Dr. Thorsten Martin Hemmert, who had also started working for the Federal United Nations. After a few successful periods, working on several different projects for the FUN, including ..., van Straaten joined a top-secret project, in Mexico, that concerned itself with space travel for the FUN's planned expansion into the galaxy. It was during this time that he first encountered the Amphibian Army and earned the honors that led to his meteoric rise through the ranks at the FUN.

### **Story**

Julius van Straaten's first involvement with the Amphibian Army came when they raided an FUN research facility in northern Mexico, towards the end of the First Drake War. In that facility, van Straaten and his colleagues were researching possibilities for interplanetary space travel, using technology stolen from the Amphibian Army as a basis for their research. When the Army attacked the facility to reclaim their stolen tech they killed most of the personnel stationed at the facility, including both armed guards and research staff, also killing van Straaten's friend and mentor, Hemmert, in the process. Even though the Amphibian Army wanted to hunt down every last scientist to make sure that the knowledge of space travel would not end up in Marcus Drake's hands, van Straaten's quick thinking allowed a few survivors to flee through the facility's sewerage system, giving Drake and the FUN the possibility to construct crafts capable of interplanetary travel.

After the First Drake War ended with Marcus Drake's death, Julius van Straaten got his promotion from the Chief-Director's successor, Drake's wife, Lilia Fatima-Drake. And by the time the Second Drake War had begun van Straaten had long since left Earth to pursue Marcus Drake's last order: the creation, expansion, and protection of the newly formed Terran Republic. During the period in which the Second Drake War raged on Earth, van Straaten got involved in quite a few armed conflicts of his own, most notably the Siege of Kalifax. Which was a fruitless attempt by van Straaten and fifteen of his generals to claim the Interplanetary Federation's planet of birth and secondary capital world for the Terran Republic. It was during this time that van Straaten concluded that Fatima-Drake's rule of the Terran Republic was inefficient and dangerous to the security of the republic he had worked to secure. As a result, van Straaten began the planning of a political coup. To this end he started recruiting non-human and meta-human individuals to help him achieve the takeover of the FUN and more importantly the Terran Republic. Some of these individuals include a crew of bounty hunters embedded in the Kalifax Resistance known as the 'Wildcards', this crew consists of the captain a magic-using male, Baistean called Targamas Fate, a Krovak called Kha'Zikath, a female elf called Yvraine Vilnia-Stella, and a female Kiphian known Sivir Devin. But, after the Third Drake War, only one of the four is still both alive and free, as both Kha'Zikath and Vilnia-Stella died in a fire exchange between the Kalifax Resistance and the Amphibian Army, while Sivir Devin was captured by the same Amphibian Army and handed over to the Interplanetary Federation in exchange for the bounty on her head. Another notable person recruited by van Straaten is the daughter of the Amphibian Army's vampire, Alucard, and granddaughter of the infamous vampire lord, Dracula, Madalin Bisrica. She joined van Straaten after falling in love with him and killing her grandfather, due to her knowing that he would never approve of a relationship between her and the second-in-command of a human empire.

These undertakings, of securing and expanding the Terran Republic, continued to the end of the Third Drake War, after which Fatima-Drake had enough of the conflicts on Earth and interrupted the Terran Republic's expansion to recall most of the Terran Space Fleet under the command of van Straaten. With almost the full power of the FUN at their disposal, Fatima-Drake and van Straaten destroyed High Command, sending their remnants into hiding, and taking full control of the Terran Republic's capital planet. But van Straaten's recall also had the side-effect that both the Interplanetary Federation and the Celestial Emissary saw the weakened defenses of the Republic's borders and started new campaigns of invasion.

After the Third Drake War had come to a definitive end, with the destruction of High Command, van Straaten turned his attention back to other matters. Among these were the Terran Republic's security and driving back the force of the two empires, who had invaded the Republic's territory. He also devoted a significant amount of attention to his plans of taking control of the Terran Republic and the FUN. This included hiding the results of his disregard for certain orders given to him by Fatima-Drake. The clearest example of this is the Director for Interplanetary Affairs' very inclusive and tolerant policy, which stands in contrast to Fatima-Drake's wish for only humans to be allowed to live within the territory of the Terran Republic.

### **Powers & Abilites**

While the Director for Interplanetary Affairs has no meta-human powers or for that matter any form of battle capabilities, he still has plenty of skills that make him valuable to the Federal United Nations and the Terran Republic, as well as hugely dangerous to their enemies.

#### **Diplomatic Prowess**

Despite never having received any sort of diplomatic education, van Straaten is very capable of using his natural diplomatic talent to avoid armed conflicts.

#### **Tactical Understanding**

Van Straaten also possesses a rudimentary understanding of battle tactics involving spaceships. This is furthered by his scientific and technological knowledge, with him favoring tactics that target the vital parts of enemy ships, such as engines or bridges.

#### **Scientific Knowledge**

Van Straaten possesses a high grade of understanding of engineering, mathematics, physics, and chemistry. He is also continuously expanding this knowledge as he travels through the galaxy as the head of the Terran Space Fleet.

### **Weapons**

Julius van Straaten never carries around any form of weapon. But he is always accompanied by two heavily armed bodyguards, called Sven Markus and Valentin van Straaten, with the latter being Julius van Straaten's younger brother.