Edward Bromswell

Presidential Portrait of Edward Bromswell

**Edward Bromswell** was the first President of Artemis serving from 1984-1991. Bromswell is known as the man who made Artemis a reality after he invested into the Artemis Project following the Paris World Fair in 1968. During Bromswell's tenure, Artemis prospered greatly under free economic policies, however, after frequent psychotic episodes starting in 1985 and the death of his son Mason causing his mental health deteriorate. After frequent leaves of absence and an authorization for the Artemis Defense Force to dissolve the Authority, Bromswell was declared a tyrant by the Artemis Authority on January 21st, 1991 and was promptly executed by Chancellor Claude Stewart.

## Appearance

Bromswell was a handsome middle aged man with brown slightly greying hair, brown eyes, and a wide jaw line. During his years at Harvard, he was heavily athletic and had a keen gift for creativity and risk-assessment culminating in his early career as an entrepreneur and investor. In his later years, Bromswell often sported a black suit with a red tie. When he became President of Artemis, he would wear an ornate pin which dignified him as his position. While on outings he would wear a green vest with a flannel shirt and khakis with boots.

## Personality

While in office, Bromswell was an excitable man ready to pick up and run with an idea. This led him to trust others easily, ultimately leading to his downfall. Bromswell expressed a calm, collected demeanor in public carrying himself in a dignified and often distant manner. He rarely engaged with the lower-class and often viewed their simple lives with disdain. Among colleagues, Bromswell was observant of a situation and was quick to assess it with the appropriate logical response. However, as his psychotic breakdowns became more frequent, paranoia replaced his usual jovial demeanor leading to a harsher personality in private around his family. He would often argue with his wife Sofia, or berate his mother-in-law Anette Haarsted. In the months leading up to his death, his psyche became even more unstable leading to violent outbursts where he broke furniture and one time beat Anette to the verge of death. In his rage, he threatened Sofia to assassinate Claude Stewart. His paranoid got the better of him when he played into Claude's hands by authorizing the Final Dissolution. By the time of his death, Bromswell was a broken man who cringed to power out of spite and rage.

## Life

### Early Life

Edward Bromswell was born into a wealthy intellectual family in up-state New York near Albany. Bromswell lived a life of privilege where his family would travel the world for extravagant vacations in his childhood and he studied abroad in several of the most prestigious boarding schools across the nation. Bromswell during his early adolescence developed a knack for investment building when he took a loaned $10,000 from his father and grew it into a multi-million dollar portfolio in a matter of five years. As Bromswell matured in the 40s he saw an era of unprecedented change and prosperity for the world, watching the first moon landing became an inspiration for him to take the leap in investing in Artemis later down the line.

During Bromswell’s college years Bromswell attended the Harvard Business School. It was during this time Bromswell gained a large appreciation for the arts as he performed in many plays in the Theater troupe. Bromswell was a prolific painter as well, having one of his works featured in an art magazine during his Junior Year. It was also around this time Bromswell started up his first business enterprise dealing with large advertising on highways, he and a couple of other members of his friend group had started a multi-million dollar corporation over the course of 4 years due to shrewd business tactics and a marketable face at the head of it. Bromswell ended up graduating suma-cumlade and valedictorian of his class. After college, he and his fellow business partners sold the business after his Father announced that he would be the next heir of the family business Clifford Incorporated. Clifford Incorporated was a large brokerage firm on Wall Street that managed high profile portfolios for old wealthy American families. During Bromswell’s early years in the business he grew the company’s profits ten-fold, and then when his father finally retired and he took over expanded Clifford Inc. into an international brokerage firm. Over the course of 7 years Clifford Inc had regional HQs in London, Paris, Berlin, and Tokyo. During this time Bromswell dabbled in politics becoming an influential donor for a number of conservative parties across Europe and America. Bromswell became friends with several politicians and influenced many of the policies of these governments.

### Building Artemis

In 1969, Bromswell was visiting one of his regional HQs when he went to an Opera House in Paris. There he met his future wife Sofia Haarsted where she told him about an exhibit at the World Fair called Artemis. She took him on a “date” took him there where he fell in love with the architecture and premise reminding of his dreams to one-day live in outer space. After the Fair, Bromswell promised to Sofia that he would help lobby governments to fund Artemis’s construction. After several trips persuading elected officials to donate to their cause, Bromswell professed his love to Sofia and asked her to marry him. When tragedy was afoot, Bromswell stepped up to fill in the gaps in funding with his own fortune when governments pulled out due to fear of the project’s increasing costs. Bromswell’s one condition for doing so was that he would be made President-for-life upon the city’s completion. The Founding 4 agreed to it, and as such Bromswell was declared President-for-Life. As Artemis neared completion, Bromswell’s workload increased and he became awfully stressed and paranoid, he often would lock himself alone in his room with his work for days. When Artemis was finally completed in 1984, he sent many of the invitations out to the first residents of Artemis. Bromswell oversaw the institution of the first government under Claude Stewart and the application of its laws.

### Presidential Term

Bromswell's Lifetime Presidential Term began in 1984 when he called the first session of the Artemis Authority in July to put into motion the final plans for the mass-transport of 20,000 residents on New Years Day. Throughout the meeting, Bromswell exhibited exemplary leadership skills deputizing jobs to the 1st Government Claude had recruited. In August 1984, Bromswell joined Claude Stewart and other important defense and national security officials in becoming the first humans to officially live in the completed city. Throughout the four months of lead-up to the arrival of the first transport ships, Edward's confidence slowly faded as the tedium of ruling wore upon him. He became reclusive and experienced his first psychotic breakdown in December where he locked himself in his private study in the Presidential Residence for more than a week causing him to miss the New Year's Welcome Ball. Instead, a pre-recorded message was played which he hastily put together the night before.

Following the Welcome Ball, Bromswell returned to normal duties overseeing the first full meeting of the Artemis Authority and overseeing the government's agenda to spark economic progress and build up a size-able defense force. Bromswell delegated responsibilities upon Claude while he managed more big picture policy for the city. In the first three months of Artemis's existence, scandal already befell the upstart administration with Defense Minister Samuel Elworthy's bugging of Emilia Stewart in an attempt to expose the Stewarts as seditious traitors. Elworthy came forward to Bromswell with the matter and urged him to arrest Claude Stewart. Minister of Justice Constance Bitteridge quickly de-escalated the situation by turning the tables against Elworthy by unveiling documents showing he illegally tapped into Athena's Eye servers to conduct the surveillance on the Stewarts leading to Bromswell ordering Elworthy's arrest. Following Elworthy's execution for sedition as Stewart and Bitteridge unveiled Elworthy was conspiring with British and French officials to conquer Artemis, Bromswell fell into a deep depressive state leaving him blind-sided to the out-roar which swept the Artemis Defense Forces (ADF) located at Jupiter's Fortress outside Deimos Square. Instead of reacting to the situation himself, Bromswell authorized sweeping authority be granted to the Chancellor to react to situations of unrest.

Several months later in June, the St. Catherine's Massacre occurred where first lady Sofia Bromswell was shot. Bromswell vowed harsh penalties be enacted upon anyone that would dare to touch the first family after Quincy Longwood, the culprit, was captured a week later. Bromswell signed a death warrant before any trial had occurred. More tragedies befell the first family at the end of the year when Bromswell's son Mason Bromswell and the family's maid Edna Johansson were poisoned by chemical gas released by an unknown assailant. Edna's death traumatized Mason leading to his suicide only months later. Bromswell, devestated by grief, opened a vast investigation into the poisoning, however, the investigation stalled for a year. Further devestation, hit the family with the assassination of Eva and Sebastian Schmidt by the Outer Reich who were dear members of the first-family. A Year later, in 1986 Daniel Hunt, the Director of Research and Development at Mistros Incorporated, admitted to owning an un-regulated laboratory to Emilia Stewart leading to his eventual capture by Artemis Law Enforcement. Enraged, Bromswell immediately signed a death warrant for Hunt and oversaw the execution himself.

During the next few years, Bromswell quietly managed the Presidency from behind the scenes rarely making public appearances except to minor parties. Instead, he was consumed by grief for the loss of his son, Eva, and Sebastian isolating himself in his study for days at a time. During this time, his psychotic breakdowns became more frequent and his outlook on the world hardened. When his Father-in-law William Haarsted come to him in an effort to secure funding for Silose to compete against the powerful Mistros-Adnet Pact, Bromswell turned him away leading to the financial downturn of Silose.

Years passed by and he isolated himself more for greater spaces of time. The situation on earth was looking grim as the old powers prepared for war. Rather than authorize further funding to protect the sovereignty of Artemis, Bromswell unilaterally cut funding for the ADF and additional institutions to lessen the burden on corporations during a 2 year recession which had devastated the Artemis economy. Bromswell's funding cuts opened up the perfect situation for the Outer Reich to begin plan a massive mobilization of sympathizers against the Artemis Government.

In 1994, Claude Stewart formed the United Future Party, a party dedicated to reforming the Presidential system to an elected position and pursuing Claude's ideal for progress. Bromswell feared the platform of the UFP and agreed to the advice of General Geralt Fredericks to begin investigating Stewart on charges of corruption and sedition. Stewart, unfazed by Bromswell's show of strength, went on to win a landslide victory in the September elections. That night, the Outer Reich attacked killing hundreds of civilians and occupying Deimos Square with armed guards. Bromswell refused to act, leading to Stewart calling upon emergency powers to suppress the foreign threat. Following the incident, Stewart called for Bromswell's resignation as President and vowed to pass a written Constitution which restricted the powers of the Presidency and make it an elected office.

In November, Bromswell ordered Athena's Eye to appoint an independent counsel to subpoena and look through Stewart's documents. During this stressful time, Bromswell's mental health collapsed, he became sadistic and deranged in which during a conversation with his mother-in-law Anette Haarsted, he stopped her mid-sentence and beat her with a cane. Bromswell then threatened Sofia Bromswell to assassinate Stewart to prove her loyalty to him. Sofia shortly disappeared after that point and joined the Stewarts out of fear. The independent counsel moved slowly as Claude made significant headway and looked poised to pass his new Constitution by the next month, and so Bromswell took drastic action. On January 20th, 1991, Bromswell signed the Final Dissolution which ordered the dissolution and execution of all of the members of the Artemis Authority under the advice of General Fredericks who was a Stewart sympathizer.

On January 21st, 1991 the Artemis Authority met to pass the new Constitution until the ADF rushed into the chamber and began to shoot into the crowd of MPs. Claude Stewart, who had planned the day meticulously under the operation name "Promised Day", ordered Athena's Eye, who were hiding in the ceiling and behind the wall panels, to open fire upon the AFD soldiers. A bloody scene unfolded where more than 50 MPs were shot dead and over 150 ADF soldiers were killed on the spot. Claude called upon the Artemis Authority to declare Edward Bromswell a tyrant. The Authority voted unanimously for the declaration, empowering Claude to execute Bromswell with the remaining Athena's Eye Agents. They rushed into Bromswell's Office where he was seated with his general staff, who quickly turned against him and held him at gun point. Stewart explained that it was he who planned this day, and Bromswell simply had followed exactly what he was told. Stewart shot Bromswell in the head letting him die instantly, ending the tyrannical first President of Artemis.

## People Killed

* Quincy Longwood
* Daniel Hunt
* Samuel Elworthy
* At least 60 protesters during the Elworthy Crisis (Unintentional)

### Failed Attempts

* Claude Stewart
* Sofia Bromswell (Unintentional)
* Anette Bromswell
* Artemis Authority (150)
* Central Pointe District (More than 20k)
* General Staff (5)