Ivan York

**Ivan York**, later **Ivan hinn Ivarson**, was the founder of the Rinnarit Republic, and its first President.

## Appearance

He was a male Norwegian adult with peach skin, platinum blond hair, and brown eyes. He was seen wearing a dark green uniform with a peaked cap.

## Personality

Ivan was fierce, hot-tempered, and bitter.

## History

Ivan was the younger twin of a family from a mining colony orbiting the star of Vega, his older brother being the more peaceable Peter York. As a young boy, he and his brother were abused by a stern teacher, Dominico Fraterone, which led to his hatred of Dominico's Italian heritage and Catholic faith, distancing himself from the rest of his family. He was also an avid bookworm who was dismayed by the accounts of atrocities in Earth's history, which also fuelled his hatred.

As Ivan grew up, his brother became a chaplain, while he himself became a hitman and a hired executioner. His friends tried to stop him from beating up his colleagues whenever they spoke in Esperanto. During a riot, he and his followers hijacked a large ship and teleported to a random coordinate, which caused them to end up in Sarpinia. His tormentor Dominico was killed during the riot while he was fighting someone who broke into his church.

There, his brother Peter purchases a parcel of land, where he preaches Christianity to the enslaved locals. Ivan's aggressive speeches made him more popular than his pacifist brother, and he leads a successful revolt against the Mannofrin Corporation that enslaved the Rinnarit tribe before establishing the Rinnarit Republic. Under his leadership, his state spread south and west, its armies joined by enthusiastic Norse locals and space pirates who were attracted by his hatred of Earth and its history, his violence, and his promises of freedom from the Corporation's rule. He also gave them more privileges than his state church to make them more powerful, to prepare them for war against Earth and to "avenge their pagan ancestors".

As the first President of the Rinnarit Republic, he ruled as its dictator. Among his policies include a fervent hatred of America and the 21st century, and expulsions of suspected Americans and other peoples for their historical crimes. He also ordered the Rinnarit state church to adopt Greek Orthodox mannerisms and for the English language to have many Latin words replaced with Greek and Germanic calques, to expunge anything "Roman" from its rites.

When the Farsiders sought for more soldiers for their campaign against Earth, Ivan and his armies eagerly volunteered. He sent thousands of soldiers to wage war against the Earth Union and its enemies. Out of anger against everything Roman, he personally joined one of his soldiers' campaigns during the bombing of Italy. At the battle of Milan, his troops exhumed the body of St. Ambrose -- notorious for his persecution of pagans -- and invoking a curse in Odin's name he threw a spear at the saint's bones, and then a knife at a portrait of Jupiter.

A few months later, he returned to his country, greeted by crowds of Norsemen who celebrated his "justice against the medieval Church and the Caesars". Among the crowds were people who tried to worship him as "Odin's champion", but he ordered them to be arrested, refusing to claim "godhood". He also refused a request by his supporters to be consecrated in a blot as a "rising einherjar". He later died of radioactive poisoning, most likely by breathing in the irradiated Italian landscape.

He was given a Rinnarit cremation fit for a king, and his ashes were interred under a column that read in three languages, "All I want for this cursed world is justice."

### Legacy

In later times, Ivan was reviled by later Rinnarit society as a mass-murderer. Even his descendants rejected him, although they acknowledged that he founded their country.

During the 45th century, a descendant of Ivan, Bjorn Jorikson, demolished Ivan's tomb as he chanted a prayer to Jesus. This led to his assassination by one of his officials, who cut off his head and offered it to be fed to Loki.

## Trivia

* The Norse supporters of Ivan York referred him as "Ivarson" or "Ivar", comparing him to Ivar the Boneless for his cruelty and ferocity. To them, Ivar was a hero and a role model for them to emulate, in their war against Earth's empire.
* A painter known as Didymos Rajamukka (an ethnic Rinnarit) made several portraits by President York's request. These paintings consisted of medieval European kings, popes, crusaders, Saracen kings, and Roman emperors and centurions. Whenever Ivan was in a bad mood, he grabbed a knife and angrily ripped and slashed the portraits, yelling curses at the saints and blaming them for the atrocities of the Church.
	+ At one point, Ivan once attempted necromancy to summon the soul of his tormentor Dominico "from Hell" to beat him up: Didymos stopped him before he was able to set up his ritual.

## See also

* Ivan Jorvik, the canon counterpart.
* Pahhurkas