John O'Brien

art by PixelWayve

John O'Brien is a protagonist in The New Albion Radio Hour. He is father to Constance O'Brien and brother to Jacquelyn O'Brien. He is a human, modified into a supersoldier fighting for the Government of New Albion. He is voiced by Oliver Marsh.

## Background

John's parents were members of Voodoopunk movement in its early days. While John's father was a part of the movement with all his heart, John's mother was drawn to it for other reasons, mainly because of John's father. After New Albion became a police state and the prosecution of the Voodoopunks, it was John's mother who secured safety and social standing for the family.

John lost his parents while a teenager and started working as a blue-collar worker to provide for his sister Jacquelyn and himself. While Jacquelyn still attended school, John became annoyed by her artistic and free-spirited personality. Despite loving her, their relationship cooled and they had very little contact.

John married Vivian some time before the all-out civil war broke out in New Albion. She gave birth to their daughter Constance. However, Vivian was killed in the early rebel bombings, predating the civil war. John, who loved Vivian with all his heart, resorted to drinking.

John and Constance moved it with Jacquelyn following Vivian's death.

## The New Albion Radio Hour

### Act I

John, drinking more and more, meets a man in a bar. The man says he heard what had happened to John's wife and tell John there's a way to avenge her death. He offers that John takes part in a government experiment to turn him into a modified supersoldier. John accepts. *(The Pitch)*

Leaving his daughter behind *(Daddy Left)*, John is the only one who survives the experiment and ends up half-human and half-weapon, iron tubes in his veins. He sits in the Green Room, waiting for a decisive mission which would secure the outcome of the war. There, John looks at the mannequins with screens for heads and reminisces of his daughter *(The Green Room Pale)*. Summoned for duty, John leads a platoon of men to a substation in The Crier's Boulevard - his orders are clear, anyone they find is disposable *with extreme prejudice*. However, when John breaks in he finds a woman and two men inside. The woman turns out to be Constance and John lowers his weapon, walks into the hallway and starts fighting his own soldiers. *(The Operation)*.

### Act III

John, unaware that Jacquelyn and the Voodoopunks had used Thomas as a spirit vessel, fights the government soldiers in The Crier's Boulevard. During this fight, Thomas is placed next to the MCG and the spirit song is transmitted throughout the city. It spreads around the city like a virus. It incapacitates the government soldiers but also the general population. During this time Constance and John reunite as the city around them falls. Both of them are immune to the song. *(The Blood Red Dogs)*.

Jackie and Thomas head to the surface to find John and Constance happy and serene. John and Jackie reunite and admit to each other that they understood the other one's reasons for leaving their relationship deteriorate. They both take blame. In the meantime, Thomas asks Constance how she survived the song and stayed herself, to which Jackie added that she and Thomas were previously possessed and were immune, while John was no longer human and could not be possessed by it - adding there was no reason why Constance was still herself *(The Reunion)*.

After Constance sings another song, dispelling the first one, and Lloyd Allen (the narrator) giving up on the planned narrative, suddenly deciding to kill off Constance just out of spite for Jackie, the government forces come to their senses and see Constance, *the most wanted thief in the city, standing right before them*. Just as the soldiers are about to attack Constance, John steps in.

Thomas takes Constance and Jackie stays with John, but is shot. John manages to exchange pleas for forgiveness and make peace with Jackie before she dies. John rages against the government soldiers and even though he dies, he takes the soldiers with him *(Finale)*.