Carlos Driscol

"You think I'll go like a lamb to the slaughter? Always have some kind of contingency plan when they come for you, be it a back door, hidden ship or something to use as leverage. It's not survival of the fittest or the smartest or the meanest, but about having the will to go to any lengths to remain alive. When it comes to being a survivor, I'm the goddamn best there is."

- Carlos Driscol in 2568

Carlos Driscol was a soldier, smuggler, arms dealer, rebel leader and crime lord operating in the 26th Century. Over the years, he became infamous for the brutal tactics used against his enemies, as well as his total lack of compassion for human life, something that led to many betrayals over the years. Driscol was a consummate survivor, fighting to survive and thrive in the worst conditions against insurmountable odds, always seeming to rise up in spite of many failures and setbacks. Driscol saw many years of military service during the before defecting to the Insurrection, upon which he began a long campaign of sabotage and guerilla warfare against the United Nations Space Command, who had to contend with constant Covenant attacks in addition to his own forces.

After he was captured in mid-2552, following various horrific actions carried out, Driscol spent over twenty years in Fenwell Prison, a maximum security installation in deep space run by the UNSC. There, he languished until the fateful day when a group of former allies freed the old rebel, allowing him to run rampant in the outer colonies for several years, unhindered by any laws or morality as he began to rebuild his powerbase, having been abandoned by the United Rebel Front years before.

Starting from scratch on frontier worlds, Driscol eked out a living as a mercenary for a while, though age slowed him down somewhat, before becoming a small-time crime boss on Venezia. This carried on for a few months before mounting rivalry with the locals forced him to flee, losing his leg in the process. Months of travelling, building up new contacts among the downtrodden and the directionless led to the eventual formation of the Minutemen, a criminal group that, although small at first, began to become a real player in the 2570s.

Early life
Carlos Driscol was born on the outer colony world of in 2507. The planet was a hotbed of dissent at the time, many members of his family having links to Insurrectionists. As a child, Driscol grew up in a militaristic household, both of his parents having fought in the Marine Corps before leaving in disgust after the bombing of 2492. As such, the young boy was often subject to lectures on the 'evils' of the UNSC for what was seen by many as an atrocity, giving him quite a negative view against their supposed rulers on Earth. Living in a large metropolis, Driscol attended a school with students of all backgrounds and beliefs, often getting into trouble for inciting violence against supporters of the UNSC in his early years there. By the time he was seventeen, however, in 2524, he had adopted a more neutral view on the subject, wishing to distance himself from the biased views of his parents. He did reasonably well in school, attaining decent grades with designs on running for a job in colonial administration on Cygnus, being quite a talented and charismatic speaker.

By the end of 2626, however, the threat of the Covenant was revealed for the first time to the general public. After seeing the destructive capability of their enemy, Driscol, along with thousands of other volunteers, joined the UNSC military to fight this new foe. Though his parents despised the UNSC for it's actions against rebels, Driscol's parents conceded to him that humanity should defend itself from any and all threats. Barely a week after news of the Covenant reached Cygnus, he had enlisted in the UNSC Marine Corps, and was taken to Reach for training.

Driscol was taken to Reach to train as a Marine, having enlisted with thousands of others once the alien threat was revealed, being assigned to one of many groups taking part in training. While there were many recruits sympathetic to the Insurrection, the general consensus was that the Covenant took priority, most putting up with the harsh training and UNSC protocols for that reason alone. By mid 2527, Driscol had passed through his training and was stationed on Reach with several other platoons, something seen as a dead-end post by most of the recruits eager to see action against the Covenant.

However, with the massive casualties inflicted on Harvest, and the need for soldiers on the ground, Driscol's unit was pulled and assigned to a battlegroup heading for the planet in early 2528, when the fighting was beginning to sway in the Covenant's favour. It was here that he saw his first real combat, engaging a number of enemies advancing on their positions shortly after landing. Wielding an assault rifle, the young man was able to hold the line even when most of his platoon were massacred, being found by reinforcements badly wounded and surrounded by human and alien corpses. Driscol was taken to a field hospital nearby, where he first met and Mira Reyes, who had narrowly escaped death not long before from a banshee strike. The three became good friends as they recovered from their wounds, before being sent back into battle. With the demise of the local commanding officer in the strike, a new person was sent in to take command: Richard Mack Senior. Growing up, Driscol had heard many stories and watched reports on Mack, learning of his fame as a hero in the UNSC's Special Forces years before, single-handedly destroying a massive insurrectionist cell years before. In spite of his parent's attitude, he had always seen Mack as a sort of hero figure, and was surprised to meet him on the battlefield. Taking command of local UNSC forces, Mack, who had come surprisingly close to the frontline for a Colonel, led an assault that broke the back of Covenant forces in the area, cutting off supply lines and winning a major victory for the UNSC with minimal losses. However, Driscol's hero did not quite live up to his expectations outside of the battlefield, Mack being notably blunt in his mannerisms and often harsh, if fair, to the troops under his command. Over the course of the next year and a half, Driscol earned two and the  for his efforts, Buck and Reyes proving to be some of the best soldiers beside him during the battle.

In 2531, Harvest was finally been reclaimed by the UNSC. By this point, Driscol was a, with dozens of kills under his belt and a number of peers who had survived the hell that was the. With the battle won, most non-essential military units were evacuated outsystem. Shortly after, Buck suggested the idea of joining the prestigious Orbital Drop Shock Troopers to Driscol, who had become fiercely loyal to the UNSC over the years, a far cry from the denouncements of his youth, accepted, enlisting before being sent to the Special Operations Application Centre on Fargad to undergo psychiatric and intellectual evaluation.

After passing through a series of tests, Driscol was accepted into the training process, along with a few dozen hopefuls. They were then transported to to undergo their training proper. Upon arrival, the trainees were put into several groups, corresponding to their results in the previous tests. Driscol was placed into the leading group, Alpha, along with seven others, including Buck and Reyes. He was also surprised to meet Richard Mack Junior, the son of his former commanding officer, in his team. Upon reaching the training facility, the recruits were briefed by their new Drill Instructor, Second Lieutenant Henry McNair, another veteran of Harvest and dozens of other battles. They would spend the next few months undergoing intense physical and mental training, emerging as fully-fledged ODST's, being remarked on as some of McNair's finest trainees.

Massacre on Tantalus
Driscol and his comrades were assigned to various Helljumper units, participating in multiple campaigns over the years, fighting through many victories and defeats. Two people who remained with him from training were Gregor Papadakis and, the trio operating as some of the best troopers in their unit. In mid-2546, they were sent to Tantalus, a colony world that was supposedly under threat from Covenant advance troops. Upon arrival, it was discovered that the colonists there were nearly at the point of revolting against the sparsely deployed UNSC troops sent in to keep order. Due to the planet's relative unimportance and its abundance of farming space, most of its food was being sent to colonies that apparently needed it more. This did, however, make the lives of the citizens of Tantalus much more difficult as a result, various shortages plaguing the population.

The ODST's did their best to help maintain order and root out any potential leaders who would stir up violence against the UNSC, though Driscol and Papadakis were rather sympathetic to the colonist's plight. This would continue for several weeks until widespread rioting broke out throughout the capital, thousands of angry colonists vastly outnumbering the UNSC forces. As Driscol's convoy was returning to their spaceport base, they were ambushed, Papadakis being badly wounded as a result. Fighting for their lives, Driscol and his comrades were able to drive the enemy back while they moved the wounded trooper towards the base. Their commander, a Major with a history of fighting Insurrectionists, forced them to move on before they were surrounded. Driscol defied a direct order to abandon Papadakis and dragged him almost to the fortified base before he was forced to take cover once more, and was forced back by the Major, leaving his friend to die in the street.

Ordered back into battle when he attempted to complain, a grieving Driscol was horrified to discover that their Major had issued Marshall law and was using the troopers to kill anyone who was out on the streets regardless of whether they were armed or not. In spite of his years of service, Carlos Driscol found himself totally losing faith in the UNSC as his fellow soldiers massacred hundreds in the colony streets in the name of 'restoring order'. During the confusion that followed in the tough street-to-street battles, Driscol was pinned down in a room, alone with the Major who issued these orders. Seizing the opportunity, he shot the man in the back of the head after switching off his helmet recorder and threw his corpse from a window. The battle was all but won once reinforcements arrived to put the situation under control, Driscol gaining a promotion to as one of the few surviving NCO's.

Tantalus was a life-changing moment for Driscol. While he recognised the Covenant threat, the actions taken by the UNSC on the planet were in his eyes, unforgivable. Over the next few months, he began to make contact with a number of people that had been put under suspicion by the UNSC in recent years, having his first contact with the Insurrection while on shore leave shortly after. Driscol agreed with his contact that he would remain in the UNSC military for the time being as an informant for the United Rebel Front.

Battle of Skjope
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By 2547, Driscol had been put in charge of another ODST unit, which included Ash Mitchell and Mal Roberts, the last survivors of Henry McNair's old unit which had been all but wiped out on Draco III. Driscol often argued with Mitchell due to the younger trooper's dislike of his violent and unorthodox methods in the field, though they were both very competent soldiers. When the Covenant attack finally arrived on Skopje, Driscol was in secret negotiations with his rebel contacts about hijacking an arms shipment from a base on the surface, which would more than likely be abandoned during the ground battle.

Dropping onto the planet's surface, Driscol's platoon were ordered to defend a shipbuilding corporation's headquarters, while vital tools, machines, and personnel could be evacuated. They were able to defend the location for some time against the Covenant onslaught, killing hundreds but being reduced to under half their number in the process. Knowing that they would be wiped out if they held their ground, Driscol ordered a retreat, leaving dozens of workers behind as they fled the facility on warthogs. They travelled for several hours before stopping in a rural town, where a fight immediately broke out.

Corporal Mitchell, tired of Driscol's very uncaring nature when it came to abandoning civilians to the Covenant, confronted him as they took cover in a nearby house, the argument nearly turning fatal until they were both calmed down by Private Roberts, who reminded them of the mission at hand. Having come very close to murdering Mitchell, Driscol called for his rebel comrades over a private channel, finding out that their raid had been successful. The Covenant soon bore down on the village, infantry swarming towards the troopers there. While most of the survivors were ready for a final stand, reinforcements arrived in the form of the rebel Pelicans, who kept the Covenant at bay long enough for the unaware troopers to approach.

The moment Driscol greeted the rebels, he shot Mitchell in the stomach and climbed aboard a Pelican as a firefight broke out, several troopers being killed as the others fell back into cover. While aboard, Driscol handed over the device he had been ordered to protect at all costs: a, to the rebel leaders before mocking the ODST's through the COM and departing. Unbeknownst to Driscol, his old squad would be saved before the Covenant regrouped, although by this point he was offworld in a stolen ship. Skopje would mark Driscol's final departure from the UNSC, reports of his betrayal being reported back almost immediately after the battle. Now a wanted man, he pledged allegiance to the closest thing the rebellion had to a unified force: the United Rebel Front.

United Rebel Front
Driscol and his comrades arrived shortly after on the rebel-run settlement, which acted as a supply base for many insurrectionist groups operating in what remained of the outer colonies. With the stolen nuclear weapon delivered, Driscol's group were given a hero's welcome there. Having only dealt with a few contacts in the past year, he was surprised to find an entire settlement living outside the confines of Earth-run UNSC law, moreso when Driscol discovered that most of the people living there were civilians, not soldiers. He remained on Eridanus Secundus for several weeks until he joined up with a large group of URF soldiers on a mission to 'liberate' several Outer Colony worlds which had been all but abandoned by the UNSC.

The next few years were spent moving from planet to planet, making quick attacks against lightly fortified bases and stealing from supply ships as they left slipspace. To Driscol, the URF seemed like little more than opportunistic pirates at times, though he greatly enjoyed fighting on the ground against those he had once served with. From time to time he would still check in on his old friends from training, largely through news footage of successful ODST engagements. He was surprised, if little else, to find that a few had perished, including and.

Driscol rapidly rose up the ranks in the URF, largely due to former commanders getting themselves killed, and was considered as a Colonel by 2551. He cared very little for rank or title, having lost all affection for the military and its rigid rank structure as it reminded him too much of the UNSC. Nonetheless, he proved to be a very capable field commander as he led his ever-growing force to victory on many occasions. With the Covenant destroying colony after colony, the UNSC had little time to spare sending a massive attack force after the URF force wreaking havoc in what remained of the Outer Colonies and instead opted to hire mercenaries from the PMC known as Lion's Claw, dispatching them against Driscol's men in mid-2551.

This new forced proved to be much more formidable than even the UNSC Marines, the well-trained and equipped mercenaries quickly adapting to the strategies used by Driscol's URF force and inflicting several defeats on the rebels before they managed to launch a counter-offensive. During a heated engagement in the remnants of a colonial city, Driscol became separated from his men and was forced to take on half a platoon alone. His light machine gun took care of most of the men with ease, though he found himself defeated by the mercenary commander, who would have killed Driscol if his reinforcements hadn't arrived in time. Rather than have his soldiers kill the enemy commander, Driscol let the man live on the condition that his forces stand down. They did so shortly after, the man identifying himself as Abd-al-Qadir ibn Asad, the founder and CEO of the PMC.

Driscol was surprised to see the man, who was known in many circles as 'The Lion', fighting on the battlefield himself rather than managing his company from behind a desk. Asad spoke with Driscol for some time, the two forming an odd friendship out of mutual respect before parting ways. The URF soldiers let the Lion's Claw mercenaries go as they both departed the planet for good. After stopping by on Venezia, another Insurrectionist outpost, Driscol moved his force towards Mamore, a world with a long history of rebel activity.

Mamore Insurrection
After several months of smuggling supplies and people through the UNSC-controlled spaceports of Mamore, Driscol's soldiers managed to gain a sizeable foothold in a rural town, recruiting disaffected locals to the cause as they did so. It was around this time that he encountered a young Remi Marshall, who was serving in his army. Driscol took the young man under his wing and taught him a lot about survival in hazardous situations, imparting some of the skills he had learned as an ODST years before.

Driscol's force moved from settlement to settlement across Mamore, utilising a number of stolen civilian and military vehicles as they attacked a number of UNSC outposts on the way. While at first they took prisoners, the amount of Marines that surrendered to the rebel force had become too much, leading to Driscol enacting a zero tolerance policy on their enemy. He then ordered for the execution of every prisoner, using this to test the loyalty of his newer soldiers and weed out those who refused. This caused some stir amongst the ranks, with a number of people believing that the executions would make them little more than common terrorists rather than an army with a cause. Driscol had several dissenters killed to restore order before moving on, his army set on destroying a large encampment controlled by the Marine Corps.

On May 10, 2552, Driscol's forces launched their assault on the encampment, using a truck rigged with explosives to gain entry before storming the place under the cover of night. They killed over fifty soldiers, taking a number of casualties themselves before they finally seized the base. With a number of weapons and vehicles captured in this assault, Driscol was set to march on one of Mamore's larger cities, which was already unstable due to pockets of insurrection there. As they departed from the ruined base, however, the rebels came under heavy attack from an, which after only twenty minutes of attack had killed over half of Driscol's forces.

The survivors, which numbered as just over a hundred, managed to flee into Mamore's mountainous region, using the area's caves for cover from any more UNSC counterattacks. With this crushing defeat, Driscol planned for his forces to flee to a nearby spaceport, hijack the first ship they found, and flee the planet, retreating to Venezia or the Caucasus Station to lay low. Before they could make a move, the makeshift camp came under attack by a, who slaughtered nearly everyone there. Driscol was able to save the life of Remi Marshall, giving him time to escape before the attacker disarmed him, breaking his hand in the process. Realising that his attacker was a Spartan, the rebel tried to fight back one more time before being knocked out with a TTR round.

Imprisonment
"You're not being jailed for what you've done, Carlos. You're being erased."

- Frederick King during Driscol's interrogation.

Driscol awoke in an ONI-run prison soon after the attack with his army completely dispersed and a number of broken bones in his right hand. After spending three days with no contact other than a guard bringing him food, he was finally brought for interrogation, where he first met Frederick King, an ONI agent with decades of experience. Rather than make a big show in the media about Driscol's capture, ONI had decided to simply make it appear that he had disappeared, keeping a total blackout of his campaign on Mamore to the general public. He was then told that although his forces were all but destroyed, their actions had greatly destabilised the colony world and had led to smaller uprisings across the planet.

Skills and Abilities
As a trained soldier since his early twenties, Driscol had decades of combat experience and was a veteran of a number of conflicts against both the Covenant and the UNSC. Even at an advanced age he would often surprise enemies who underestimated his strength, being remarkably fit and healthy for his age, chain smoking notwithstanding. Driscol was trained in a variety of weapons, though he much preferred the, or SAW, in combat. Driscol was not the best at head-on engagements, preferring explosives, ambushes and general trickery to win on multiple occasions.

In terms of strategy and planning, Driscol did prove to be surprisingly competent, being able to wage a successful guerilla campaign for months at one point, and orchestrating multiple assassinations years later. His position of leadership was forged largely out of either money promised to mercenaries and fear of reprisal from those who disobeyed him. He had very few loyal followers due to his generally paranoid and hostile nature, though in battle he was an inspiring leader, though much of this could be simply attributed to his powers of manipulation to get his own way.

Personality
As a young man, Carlos Driscol was known for being a rather friendly, if vocal individual and a trusted ally on the battlefield. Even during the five years of hell that the Harvest Campaign had become, his generally optimistic personality earned him the respect of his colleagues. This characteristic would assist him greatly in becoming an emerging squad leader during his brutal ODST training, where he emerged as the top-graded recruit by the end. However, as years of war went by and Driscol witnessed the deaths of many friends, he became much more jaded and bitter regarding the war in general and following the Tantalus Massacre, openly insulted the UNSC.

Growing older, Driscol's personality only seemed to worsen as he became rather rude and obnoxious towards his subordinates, openly mocking Ash Mitchell and the others when he left them to die on Skopje and treating any failure harshly. There were only a handful of people whom he truly respected, having lost all faith in the near-defunct United Rebel Front after they had abandoned him and being very wary of any surviving Insurrectionist groups. Driscol would also go to any lengths to remain alive, selling out or simply his comrades to save his own skin when things went downhill. While seen as cowardly by many, it was this characteristic that enabled Driscol to survive as long as he did in spite of his many enemies. He had very little regard for life, human or otherwise, seeing most others as no more than pieces on a chessboard to control.

Literary References

 * The Damned
 * Halo: Shrike
 * Awakening Demons (RP)