Joseph Stieker (D-913)

## Joseph Stieker

2010

**Joseph Jeremy Stieker** (b. 1968) is a middle-aged man who grew up in western Montana, outside the small isolated town of Cramburg. Joseph was a rancher before the outbreak and used his knowledge of hunting, crop harvesting and wildlife training to help his group to survive decades into the apocalypse.

## Biography

### Early Life

Joseph had a rich life growing up in the prairies of west Montana outside Cramburg, Montana, Growing up on a small farm an hour away from the Canadian border, he was raised as an only child by his mother after his father passed away after a hunting trip gone awry. Joe had a close relationship with his mother as she taught him all she knew, from tending crops, herding cattle, and training horses, to fishing and hunting.

Attending George A. Custer High School in 1982, Joe became close friends with Ajay Siddiqui and while the two would split after graduation (with Ajay heading off to attend medical school in Illinois) they would become lifelong friends, going on frequent hunting trips throughout the remainder of the decade. Not long after in 1988, Joe's mother was diagnosed with cancer, thus Joe decided to stay at home and work on the farm throughout his twenties, eventually taking over for his mother until she passed in 1993. By his early-thirties, Joseph ran the family farm by his lonesome, until marrying in late 2000.

### Tragedy

     Several years down the road, tragedy would once again strike. After Joseph had learned from his neighbors about a family of brown bears that had been passing through the area and causing a good deal of commotion. On a particularly cold day, Joe would leave his home on the ranch to spend the day tracking the animals, hoping to either scare them off and/or lure them away from his farm in fear of potentially losing crops or livestock.

While out, one of the bears, an adolescent, had approached the house and managed to break in, lured by the smell of the dinner his wife had been cooking and felt threatened upon seeing her, mortally wounding her. Joseph mourned his wife's death for years to come, eventually becoming depressed and often blaming himself for leaving her unprotected and an easy target for the curious animal. Yet, perhaps showing his better nature, Joseph felt no antipathy towards the creature for it's frightened actions nor desire for vengeance. Mrs. Stieker was buried out in the prairie near his ranch.

### Apocalypse

On September 12th, 2010, just hours prior to the start of the Apocalypse, Joseph had visited Cramburg to share a couple drinks and catch up with Ajay, his cousin Vishal, and son Meraj at Calvin's Tavern for the first time in a couple of years. The two witnessed as the situation in the town center began to quickly decline into chaos, starting when a patron attacked one of the waitresses, and culminating in the invasion of The Other.

Joseph and Ajay soon led a group of civilians to take refuge in the town's nearby union hall, barricading the entrances. As the town remained under siege, the group, aided by the arrival of officer Wilfred Cunningham yet unaware of the international nature of the chaos, plotted a three-piece plan: One group would leave out the front entrance and travel to the Cramburg Township Police Department, attempt to inventory the stations' resources and make contact with the national guard or military to organize a rescue and evacuation. Alternatively, traveling to the nearby city of Great Falls if all else had failed. Meanwhile, a second group would attempt to sneak out the back, assess the inventory of the nearby hunting store and attempt to rescue further civilians trapped in their homes or businesses, although they would be at great risk from the infected and creatures roaming the street.

After agreeing on the established plans, each survivor in the hall would draw straws to decide who would be a part of what effort, with Vishal, Cunningham, and David drawing to search the station, while Joseph, Ajay, and Meraj drew to rescue survivors. At Joseph's request, Rachel Trau would remain with Cunningham's group, as he felt it was the safest option. As the first group prepared to leave the safety of the hall, Ajay would show his vulnerable side by lightly embracing his cousin a final time, while Vishal simply informed Meraj to not "let the old men (Joseph and Ajay) bicker their way into an early grave".

### Reawakening

Almost one year after the initial outbreak, Joseph, alongside Ajay and Meraj, found themselves as the only surviving members of their group and had since left Cramburg. Instead, traversing the wilderness of western Minnesota on horseback with the goal of reaching the coast upon hearing murmurs of an established safe zone.

The group relied on Joseph's expert hunting, gathering and survival skills to survive, as well as pure luck: scavenging from abandoned vehicles and strangely desolate small towns, but the growing worry of future trouble and further encounters with The Other had led the trio to debate joining with a larger group of survivors to ensure food and protection, however, a negative experience weeks prior with a survivor named Devraj Shankar has shaken their faith in strangers.

## Personality

Joseph is semi-serious man, often bullishly wanting to perform any tasks to completion immediately rather than prolonging them, even if that results in complications down the line. He is very loyal to his friends and those he cares and attaches himself and the self-perception of his identity to the mosaic of people in his life. As such, he is very altruistic and takes comfort in aiding them through rough times, talking them through and soothing their pain. Joe is a frequent jokester and nary lacks a story to tell. He is typically laid back, but this shrouds a rather surprising amount of energy for his age that can spur up in sudden bursts. Joe loves the outdoors and is a seasoned hiker. His "best medicine" is horse-riding as he states the breeze helps to clear his mind.

Joe is typically described by his closest friends as "a kid in a grown man's body", but Joe himself refuses to admit such a claim. He often plays up being as tough and intimidating as he can in an attempt to be taken seriously. Despite this, he's shy when it comes to strangers, and while he can get a good conversation going, he rarely wants to initiate a discussion. He often tries to reason before engaging in physical conflict, but can get carried away when fighting, often screwing up sentences and saying things he doesn't mean. Joe is not the best in conflict either, usually choking up and becoming disoriented, not having much experience with fights from his rather calm life pre-Apocalypse.

Joe is open-minded and tends to look for the good in everyone, leading him to get along better with younger folk than people his own age who are often more set in their ways, such as Ajay or Cyrus. Nevertheless, while more cynical minds tend to see Joe as being naïve, due to his honorable and benevolent nature, most hold a certain level of respect for him, regardless of their difference of opinion.

## Physical Appearance

Joe has a hefty build, with shaggy brown hair, a wide cleft chin and a signature bushy mustache. He frequently sports a beige denim vest, with a green short sleeve shirt, and tan jeans with light brownish-red cowboy boots. He also wears a white Evilla De Oro Stetson.

## Appearances

* *Reawakening*

## Relationships

Family
* Unnamed father †
* Unnamed mother †

Romances
* Unnamed wife †

Friends
* Ajay Siddiqui † - Best Friend
* Meraj Siddiqui † - Friend
* Vishal Siddiqui † - Friend
* Wilfred Cunningham † - Friend
* Michael Trau † - Friend
* Rachel Trau - Friend
* Marley - Ally-turned-Friend
* Steven Wiltshire † - Ally-turned-Friend
* Gerald Samson - Ally-turned-Friend
* Ronald Anderson - Ally-turned-Friend
* Matt Wiltshire † - Ally-turned-Friend
* Ralph Currey - Ally
* Cliff † - Ally
* Irwin - Ally
* Jim 'Doc' Sullivan - Ally

Enemies
* Colton Ritter / The Rider † - Enemy, situational ally, attempted killer
* Devraj Shankar † - Enemy, attempted killer
* Lance † - Enemy, former ally, attempted killer
* Darius McLeary † - Enemy, attempted killer
* Devonzel McLeary † - Enemy, situational ally, attempted killer
* Sid † - Enemy, situational ally, attempted killer
* José † - Enemy, former ally, attempted killer
* Javier † - Enemy, attempted killer

## Further Notes

* Joseph is descended from a family of Irish immigrants who settled in the American midwest and central Canada following the Great Potato Famine of the late 1840s.
* In earlier drafts of *Reawakening*, Joseph's name was **Rick Collins** and opposed to being a rancher, he was an 40-year-old engineer from Wisconsin, who had only just moved to Cramburg four years prior to the Apocalypse. He would've had a mild interest in paleontology, knowing more about extinct animals than most of the townsfolk in Cramburg (par David Hamming). Joe would also be divorced, rather than widowed. On the issue, Joseph would joking exclaim that his wife "hated hunting, guns, and everything American". Later in development, this would be altered being widowed due to a car accident that an inebriated Joseph was responsible for, before being changed once further.
* Joseph was initially going to be one of the primary protagonists of *Apocalypse* alongside Ajay and Meraj Siddiqui, with the trio's plan of heading towards the coast in *Reawakening* originating from a scene in that work between Joseph and Liam Kendall. However, several shifts in direction during the development of *Reawakening* led creator Martin Kevil to create three new characters: Dontey Bailey, Wilfred Cunningham and Vishal Siddiqui to serve in their place, writing their origins as initially being part of the same group of survivors during the Fall of Cramburg Township: a role that would come back around when the opening chapter of *Apocalypse* was expanded upon to include the trio once more.

## Sources & Links

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 *Reawakening*
2. ↑ *Apocalypse*, Chapter #1: *"The Fall of Cramburg Township"*
3. ↑ *Reawakening*, Issue #1: Dark Days