Geoffrey Tolwyn
| Geoffrey Tolwyn | |
|---|---|
| -2673 | |
| Place of birth | Earth |
| Allegiance | Terran Confederation, Black Lance |
| Service/branch | Terran Confederation Navy |
| Years of service | -2673 |
| Rank | Space Marshal |
| Commands | TCS Concordia, TCS Vesuvius |
| Battles/wars | McAuliffe Ambush, Enyo Engagement, Enigma Sector Campaign, Operation Back Lash, Battle of Ghorah Khar, Sixth Battle of Munro, Battle of Sirius, Battle of Earth, Border Worlds Conflict |
| Awards | Medal of Honor |
| Relations | Reggie Tolwyn, Elizabeth Tolwyn, Kevin Tolwyn |
| Other work | Head of the Strategic Readiness Agency |
Geoffrey Tolwyn was a Terran officer from the Terran Confederation. He was once one of the most prestigious Admirals of the Terran Confederation Navy and eventually attained the rank of Space Marshal.
History
Geoffrey Tolwyn was a very complex man whose personal history was tied very closely to that of the Confederation throughout the 27th Century. On numerous occasions he was responsible for preventing tragic disaster, even extinction of the human race. A lifetime of bitter fighting ultimately changed him however, and although he outlived the Kilrathi War, he was never able to find peace. Arguably more important to the war effort than even Christopher Blair, Tolwyn's fate diverged significantly from the war's premier fighter pilot. The circumstances that sustained him for decades proved to be his undoing, and ultimately Tolwyn met a sad and unfortunately end.
Young Tolwyn was assigned to the TCS Albemarle for his cadet cruise with his classmate David Whittaker. While they were flying a training mission Tolwyn's helm console exploded, and the shuttle he and David were on crashed on the planet they were surveying. He was trapped in the wreckage, blind and without his helmet. The planet's atmosphere contained sulfur dioxide. Whittaker, his helmet destroyed in the crash, somehow managed to get Tolwyn to an emergency pressure bubble. They both spent six months in the hospital recovering. He befriended Banbridge and Duke Grecko around this time after taking one of Banbridge's classes at the Academy. It was in Banbridge's quarters that Geoff first met his wife Elizabeth Clara.
In 2634 he accompanied Winston Turner to McAuliffe and became one of the first heroes of the declared Kilrathi War. Despite having primarily simulation experience, he successfully flew a Wildcat fighter to defend the TCS Concordia against the Kilrathi who had just destroyed the McAuliffe Skyhook. Ensign Tolwyn decided to fly in the counter attack despite having suffered from second degree burns, a dozen durasteel shrapnel wounds and having part of a rudder pedal dig out his leg. Turner attempted to talk him out of flying, but he failed. After a dogfight he encounters the ejection pod of the Kilrathi ace Ratha, but doesn't kill him because it wouldn't have been "British." After the delaying action he landed on the Concordia with only 15 seconds remaining to jump. After his heroic efforts in the defense of McAuliffe he was recommended for the Medal of Honor.
In 2639 Captain Tolwyn once again played a vital role in the Enyo Engagement and parallel defense of McAuliffe. When Kilrathi forces stormed the planet and held a quarter of a million hostages under orbital guns, Tolwyn rallied the remaining defenders and coordinates a massive counterstrike. Flying Raptor Heavy Fighters a small force deployed mines around a nearby jump point. The Kilrathi easily avoided the field, but when the mines were radio-detonated a large Confederation fleet jumps in and headed straight for the Kilrathi gunships with minimal loss of civilian life.
In the 2640's his wife and sons had been killed in a Kilrathi raid. Later in his life news reporters often pointed to this as the reason for his spectacular career and downfall. One of his sons was named Reggie.
Although often a great leader, he was impatient and often personally assumed command in a crisis. He once made the TCS Tiger's Claw the flagship of a battlegroup to hold off a Kilrathi Fleet against overwhelming odds until Confed could send support.
Tolwyn relieved then Captain Thorn from duty for cowardice in the face of the enemy. He was also well known to be willing to risk lives to achieve his goals. He threatened massacre of several Pilgrim worlds in a bid to recall the Supercruiser Olympus that had gone rogue with Pilgrim agents in the early 2650's.
In 2654 he spent some time as commander of the Tiger's Claw when Confed High Command wanted to distance him. He worked closely with young pilots Christopher Blair, Todd Marshall and others that became more prominent as the war progressed. He became attached to the Claw and worried for its survival when it embarked on a Secret Mission to destroy the Sivar Dreadnought in 2656. With the Tiger's Claw's destruction on 2656.033 it was Blair that Tolwyn blamed. He had him court-martialed for negligence and sent back to In-System Security until fate brought them back together again aboard the new TCS Concordia in 2665.
Tolwyn was hostile towards Blair and didn't try to hide his disgust of the pilot. Thanks to desperate circumstances and the convincing of Wing Commander Jeannette Devereaux, Blair was able to vindicate himself and uncover the truth behind the destruction of the Claw. Tolwyn commanded the Concordia for seven years before moving up the chain of command once again.
As the war ground on, Tolwyn picked Jason Bondarevsky, Etienne Montclair and other comrades for the new command of the TCS Tarawa. He thought of them as his best people, and wasn't yet aware of Operation Back Lash and what it would land them in. He thought he was doing them a favor. When more information was revealed, the thought of having to abandon Strike Force Tarawa if they couldn't make it out on their own was unbearable. After the pivotal action at Vukar Tag he was able to detach the Concordia to come to the Tarawa's aid on its return from an end run to Kilrah. With the success of Operation Back Lash Tolwyn was recommended for the Medal of Valor with Diamonds.
His nephew Kevin Tolwyn was coming into his own by this time and the elder Tolwyn often fought with his sister-in-law over Kevin's career. She wanted him to be a clean career officer and become an Admiral through the political route, because of the death of Kevin's father in a training accident. Geoff knew good officers were required on the front lines however. Kevin represented the latest in a string of military Tolwyns fifty generations long. Tolwyn's family had a 1,000 year tradition of serving in the army, navy and airforce of Britain and the space forces of the Confederation. Tolwyns earned six Victoria crosses and served at Waterloo, the Somme, in the Battle of Britain, Minsk and the siege of London against tyrants such as Hitler and Zhing.
In 2668 with the Confederation striking hard and winning major victories, Tolwyn was the first critic of the peace armistice extended by the Kilrathi. He authorized an attack on a Kilrathi carrier shortly after learning about the cease fire and this brought to him a humiliating court martial. Tolwyn was declared guilty of disobedience for breaking General Order number 2312A, ordering suspension of all hostilities. This newfound freedom was actually orchestrated by the Confederation Military Chief of Staff so that Tolwyn could build a team that could infiltrated deep into Kilrathi space and uncover evidence that the armistice was indeed false.
On the far side of the empire, his operatives uncovered evidence of massive shipyards constructive supercarriers that could slice to the heart of the Confederation. This information was delivered barely in time to cobble together a makeshift defense of Earth, but not before the inner worlds of Warsaw, Gilead, and Sirius Prime were wiped out. President Harold Rodham officially pardoned Tolwyn for the Munro incident, and reinstated him as a full admiral in command of Third Fleet, with the mission of organizing Earth's defenses. Tolwyn's commission was reinstated and he directed the Concordia in a harrowing battle throughout the Sol System. This near catastrophic defeat of the Confederation truly embittered Tolwyn and caused a shift in his thinking. He received the Senatorial Medal of Honor for his defense at the Battle of Earth.
Shortly before the Concordia went down he was assigned to the Behemoth project at the Weapons Development Office to oversee the weapon's final implementation, taking the place of Ubarov. He didn't like the Behemoth's poor maneuverability and defensive capability. He also wasn't yet on board with the idea of destroying entire planets. Although he got involved with the Behemoth's planning nearly ten years prior, he was interested in hearing about alternatives, until his old friend David Whittaker came to see him to recruit him for the Belisarius Group.
He told David Whittaker he wouldn't have anything to do with the Belisarius, and Whittaker then said it was just some vague idea and not an actual plan. Tolwyn pretended he believed him but his paranoia was piqued. The Group could have had him killed, but it was probably Whittaker who held them back. Not knowing whom he could trust, Tolwyn didn't alert ConFleet Security. The Belisarius Group has a secret agency within ConFleet Security, Y-12. He couldn't contact anyone who he thought he could trust either, because the group would have them killed.
He decided he had to finish the war as soon as possible, so the Group no longer had an excuse to stage a coup. That's why he pressed Behemoth into service. He later told Jason he didn't know Paladin was developing the Temblor Bomb, or he'd have assisted him instead.
Still, he was somewhat tempted to go along with it the Belisarius plan. The civilian government was messing up the war effort, and he thought that a military government, if led by the right people, would have a better chance of winning. However, he would want to give control back to the civilians after the war, and he didn't think there were enough people who thought the same way; they'd keep the military government in place indefinitely.
So he rushed to get Behemoth into service, pushing people to their limits, and not knowing Ted Rollins and Laurel Buckley suspected Hobbes of espionage. He was too worked up with getting the Behemoth underway to pay attention around him. His plan for implementing the Behemoth was to use an unassuming carrier, the TCS Victory, staffed with legendary pilots such as Christopher Blair, Todd Marshall, and Ralgha nar Hhallas. Ships such as the TCS Coventry under Captain Jason Bondarevsky would defend its battlegroup. He formally transferred his flag to the Victory on 2669.245 to oversee the deployment of the Behemoth himself. Just four days later the massive superweapon was destroyed in spectacularly tragic fashion. After its loss, the Admiral was relieved from Project Behemoth. He returned to Sector HQ at Torgo to face an inquiry into the reasons for the loss of the ship. He and his staff left the Victory on 2669.249. With the Behemoth destroyed, Tolwyn thought victory was certain for the Kilrathi.
Fortunately Christopher Blair ended the war with the Temblor Bomb before the Belisarius Group had the chance to seize power. The officers on his Behemoth court-martial were agents of the Belisarius Group. They acquitted him, but later reminded him that they could take him out if he raised trouble. The loss of the Behemoth in 2669 was a devastating blow for him. Although Belisarius interests made sure he was found blameless for its loss, he returned to duty just in time to negotiate a peace that his rivals James Taggart and Christopher Blair had won. His court-martial after Behemoth was sensational, and when he was let off the hook there had been indignation across the Confederation, but it quietly died down in the wake of peace.
After the war The Belisarius wanted to trigger war on the frontier so they could once again find justification to stage a coup. Tolwyn wanted to avoid this by stopping rogue Kilrathi Ragark in his tracks; he figured if his Project Goliath was a success they had a chance at stopping the Kilrathi and Belisarius would not have had the excuse they needed to seize power.
Fearing the Group wanted to use his nephew to get at him, he sent Kevin Tolwyn out to the Landreich and accompanied him there soon with a crack team of allies. All the secretive conspiracies playing out within the Confederation began to make Tolwyn paranoid. This combined with the bitter feelings he felt over the civilian government's mismanagement of the false peace armistice and other events. Jason Bondarevsky felt that Tolwyn had changed since the old days. There was now a chasm between them. He was like a gambler who'd lost everything but kept playing, hoping for a big break, but not thinking about the consequences. Tolwyn executed Project Goliath in 2670 to head off a Belisarius provoked war between the Kilrathi, Landreich and Confederation, but began to think about his own machinations to keep the Confederation fit.
On 2671.055 Tolwyn announced he would resign his Landreich commission and return to Earth to be placed in command of the Strategic Readiness Agency, but believed that in this new time of peace he would be unable to prepare the Confederation for the next threat. His paranoia got the better of him and Tolwyn declined to share his ideas on the Genetic Enhancement Program to confidants like Bondarevsky and Vance Richards. Eventually this program took on a life of its own. Tolwyn blamed Admiral Vance Richard's counterintelligence for failing to recognize Hobbes as a traitor in 2669, which caused the loss of the Behemoth. He didn't get to win the war, and instead Paladin was hailed as the man who saved the Confederation.
On 2673.223 Tolwyn delivered his biennial report to the Defense Committee of the Great Assembly. In it he charged the Union of Border Worlds with instigating piracy and lawlessness on the fringe of society. Secretly Tolwyn was using a force of Black Lance fighters and secret weapons to instigate his own war in order to keep civilians geared for fighting. He believed there were more dangerous threats than the Kilrathi in the universe, and he believed he was the only one who could save the Confederation from them.
Unfortunately he lost his grip on reality and committed various atrocities to further this obsessive need to defend his people. He seems to have lost his humanity, with only his sense of duty remaining. After an intervention by Christopher Blair and William Eisen, he failed to convince the Great Assembly to vote for war. His conspiracy was revealed. He faced a long and sensational trial. The Admiralty court found him guilty of genocide and 15 lesser crimes. He was stripped of rank and sentenced to life in prison. He was still proud when the guards lead him out of the court.
He was convinced that humanity would now face extinction at the hands of the next enemy that came along, likely the core-ward race the Kilrathi were so afraid of. He originally thought Blair had condemned all of humanity, but in his prison cell, he realized he'd pushed his plans too quickly. He'd also realized too late that there was no need to have the entire population be genetically pure. It wouldn't have been perfect, but it would have worked to purify just the military. Realizing his haste had brought the project down, he decided he actions would have been responsible for condemning the entire race despite his lifelong efforts to save it.
With this sudden realization he hung himself in his prison cell.
