General Kade "Ripper" Gorson

Kade Gorson was born in AES 903 in the small town of Fort Firedale, one of Flandre's frontier towns in the Barcuvian edgelands. When the Cetacean Wars broke out in the 920s, he enlisted in the Flandrean military, where his exceptional leadership and near-preternatural ability to anticipate and account for surprises made him rise to the rank of captain by the end of the war. When the Cetacean Wars were ended in 929 by the Assembly's official recognition of the Hegemony of Whales, Gorson was quoted as saying, "Let the blowers have the bloody oceans, it'll give 'em somewhere to hide nex' time I come to rip 'em a second hole." Nor was this a mere boast, as Gorson did in fact rip a whale a new blowhole during the Second Battle of Lords' Cove, whence his nickname, "Ripper". His deep and enduring hatred for the whales of the Hegemony has made his name — or, at least, the whale noises they use to name him — an expletive in the planet's oceans.

Despite his extraordinary success and eventual promotion to the rank of general, Gorson was often sidelined on the national stage because of his fringe views. Like any Flandrean, Gorson was extremely adept at planning for any and every contingency. Unlike his peers, however, Gorson's contingency planning was uncharacteristically preemptive. For Flandre, the future is sacred, and interacting with it must be done receptively. The essential element of Flandrean piety is precisely to let the future happen as it may, and their reverence for it is constituted by planning for it no matter what it brings to pass. Gorson, the only Flandrean officer to execute an ambush that wasn't a counter-ambush, was thus a cultural pariah, because he tried to shape the future actively rather than reactively.

Even though he was kept out of the spotlight, "Ripper" Gorson was still a military genius. He remained a mainstay of the Council of Exarchs, advising the Council on military matters even after his retirement in 973. Sadly, he became somewhat unhinged in his later years, advocating for such policies as helping Selestei destroy Zor Olo, or declaring war on horseball — not players of horseball, mind you, but the abstract concept of the sport. He died at home in 984 at the age of 81.

A portrait of General Kade "Ripper" Gorson hangs in the Butterfly Effect Advisory Committee's break room, to remind us all of the importance of shaping the future proactively. Personally, ever since the unlikely series of coincidences that landed me in this closet, I've considered him a role model for his perseverance despite being relegated to the fringe.

Though he is known to posterity as General Ripper, Kade Gorson began his service in the Flandrean Navy, where he fought in the Cetacean Wars aboard the cruiser Blade Awaiting, which he captained by the end of the Wars. In the 30s, Gorson's fleet assisted J.U.S.T.I.C.E. in offensives against the Vulterbase rebels occupying the xenoarcheological ruins at the south pole. His experiences fighting against the rebels' alien-derived technology would later form the basis of his advocacy for arming the Taurus Research Station. After the Taurus weaponization, the Hegemony of Whales banned him from the oceans, and Flandre, weighing the options, transferred him from the navy to the army.

Citations: Joint University Strike Team for Interdisciplinary Collaboration Enforcement / Taurus Research Station / Xenoarcheological ruins