THE COMMANDERS
Major Jonathan Kyle, Commanding Officer, Army Biotic Assault Corps
Jonathan Kyle was a career Army officer whom had served as early as the First Contact War. He was considered one of the great innovative thinkers in the ranks of the Alliance military, particularly when it came to special forces tactics. He had served loyally for many years, most notably during brief but brutal Alliance counterattack in the First Verge War. In the inter-war years, he was promoted to the First Legion's planning staff, under the Army Director of Intelligence, Major-General Heinz. His behind-the-lines proposals had been key to the seizure of human-populated independent colonies during Operation Okami in 2176. Consul Taro and Minister deBankole both considered him to be one of the finest officers in the Alliance.
In 2177, after ferocious engagements with asari commando units under batarian employ in the Terminus, Kyle proposed a new unit be formed along similar lines. It was to be an all-biotic corps of special operators from the Army's existing B programme. At the time, biotics were parcelled out to individual units a dozen at a time, and assigned according to the wishes of the unit commanders. Very few chose to group any of the biotics together, and none formed coherent biotic units. Most commanders viewed biotics as largely a niche ability, inferior to heavy and mobile firepower, unreliable for use by anyone except the asari. This was perhaps indicative of the discrimination faced by biotics more generally during that era of human development, an era now thankfully ended due to the contribution of such individuals during the Reaper War. In part to suppress any notion that the military discriminated against biotics, the High Command signed off on the proposal in September 2177.
New graduates of the B programme from B5 to B7 were eager to join Major Kyle's unit, and this coincided with a large number of the second wave of biotics born between 2157 and 2159 coming of age. Soon, what was originally meant only as a section-sized unit was almost the size of a company, although only a platoon would see action on Torfan. Kyle himself became a strong advocate for the biotic cause, after witnessing the feats they were capable of on the battlefield. Despite this, the unit saw very little action. This was mostly down to the wrapping up of the 'March Around The Core' in early '78. Almost every world that could be attacked had been already. There was simply no role left for conventional ground forces until the Kite's Nest Offensive began. Doubts about the utility of the unit had begun almost immediately.
Major Kyle fought tooth and nail to keep the unit alive, and the hearing to make the final decision on it was coincidentally on the same day as the secret Senate hearing on the kidnappings across the Verge. Kyle appealed directly to both Consuls and to Alice Dennison while waiting in the wings. Dennison in particular remembered. When planning the attack on Torfan, the list of available units was scant, and Petrovsky's doubts about the Army Biotic Assault Corps were softened by the politician's support for them. More than likely, he regarded that any blame for failure on their part could be deflected onto Dennison. Kyle had his chance to prove the viability of biotic combat in human service, and he had everything to lose should he fail. His troops were well aware of the stakes as well, not only for their own futures but for those of the poor souls being processed for sale like cattle.
Lieutenant-Commander Jane Shepard, Naval Ordnance Coordinator - N7, Verdun Squad, Fifth Fleet
If any one person in human history was born to military service, it was Jane Shepard. Born in 2154, she was delivered in the medical bay of Alliance Frigate Command Lorient, in the European Union. Her mother was Flight-Lieutenant Hannah Shepard, a name famous in its own right, and her father was a Deck Chief John Beaumont. Both mother and father came from military families, in her father's case the line of service stretched on and off back as far as the French and Indian War. Although born on Earth, she was raised on Arcturus Station until she was eight, and joined her mother on-board ship commands in the aftermath of the First Contact War. She was given extensive genetic therapy prior to the Genetic Preservation Act of 2162, which closed loopholes allowing for non-cosmetic therapies on children. At sixteen, she became an Alliance naval cadet, joining the Advanced Placement Programme for children of servicepeople in the aftermath of Mindoir. She studied Combat Technologies at the Naval Academy, before signing on as an officer candidate for the N Programme.
Shepard's early military records were mixed. She excelled in combat, physical and electronics exercises. However, she was consistently insubordinate, preferring her own plans to orders given by superior officers. During her N Programme training exercises, she managed to subdue a whole opposing squad with only one other N candidate as opposed to the usual two, using the third member of her team as bait. This was contrary to her orders, and she was informed to fall into line or fall out of the military. She chose the former, and slowly lost her more openly impetuous streak while keeping her apparent ruthlessness. Her instructors began to trust her instincts more as she progressed rapidly from N5 to N7. Her talents with a sniper rifle, and for concealment with and without cloaking technology, were carefully honed.
In late 2175, she was promoted from Sub-Lieutenant to Lieutenant for her assignment to the Fifth Fleet. She joined a full squad of N7 marines in the sub-orbital drop, ground assault role. Her first combat mission was during the Battle for Elysium. She was dropped as a force of eighty N7s onto the grounds of St. Eugene's Cathedral to resolve the hostage situation the batarians had created there. Although it was a brief firefight, Shepard distinguished herself by eliminating the batarian commander with a shot through the stained-glass windows. This caused enough confusion and shock for the entire enemy force to be taken without the loss of a single hostage, the conscripts only held together as a fighting force by their loyalty to caste.
As a result of her success on Elysium, Shepard was promoted to Lieutenant-Commander and reassigned to reconnaissance as a Naval Ordnance Coordinator. The Fifth Fleet was reassigned to help Troop Command Columbia in the Yuki Cluster, and Shepard went with it, aiding the capture of that region of space until the end of 2177. After that came some months of waiting, during which she was formally cautioned for involvement in a bar fight on Terra Nova. Many units were placed on leave at this time, as the Alliance plan for the attack on the Kite's Nest was not yet ready to be implemented.
When the question of Torfan arose, there was some examination of whether or not a naval strike against likely batarian bunkers on the moon would work. The Navy's staff found that the planet's delicate ecosystem would be too badly damaged by a strike powerful enough to penetrate the rock and metal formations protecting the bunkers. As it was the Army's game, they decided to assign an N7 team for coordinating air support, so that some Navy presence could be pointed to in case of success.
As a result of her service on Elysium, as well as her impatience for combat, Shepard was assigned to join the Army Biotic Assault Corps troops along with two N5s as her escorts. It was perhaps the most fateful decision in the history of the Alliance. Her role was planned to be small, almost insignificant. Fate it seems had other plans. Shepard's natural aggression, sublime combat skills and utter stubbornness in the face of what must have seemed like certain defeat were to become infamous. These traits, although essential in any war, would prove utterly invaluable to the prosecution of the Reaper War.
Captain Sasko Char, Batarian External Forces Commander Torfan.
Records of Sasko Char's military career are non-existent thanks to the Great Upheaval and the Reaper War. Much of the information available about him comes from references in documents not directly related to his activities, and testimony from batarian rebels in the post-Reaper era. More is known about his life before service. He was born into the very highest of warrior caste families, and as is expected of sons of the Char dynasty, was trained for physicality and cunning as soon as he could walk. His family was not among the conspirators that brought down the old regime, but fell into line behind Arch-Hegemon Ar'dra in short order, not having the resources to resist nor seeing any reason for doing so. Ar'dra, for his part, rewarded the family for their practicality with governorships in core batarian space, and Sasko Char with a place in the External Forces.
The Captain trained under General Gadnalak's supervision, was selected for initiation into the Special Intervention Unit, and survived the utterly brutal regimen of live fire combat exercises and drug-enhancements required for service in that section of the External Forces. He served with the SIU during the First Verge War and the cold conflict in the inter-war period, being present on Mindoir until leaving on the last shuttle with Balak and Gadnalak. This experience would see him appointed to lead a new unit for the beginning of the Second Verge War; the Firstborn. This unit was deployed within human space in secret, to begin a campaign of disruption and terrorism throughout the rear of Alliance forces. Elysium stopped these orders from being pressed however, and Sasko Char was ordered to Torfan to coordinate mercenary activity from there.
Anhur and the Alliance victories of 2177 stripped that role of any meaningful point, and when the order came to begin kidnappings, the Captain was only too happy to facilitate. Furthermore, with the flood of refugees and batarian loyalists onto Torfan, he was given the manpower to create an effective fighting force, with which he intended to begin hit and run attacks in support of his Arch-Hegemon's objective to bring the Citadel into the conflict. This idea would be annihilated by Shepard's arrival, as would Sasko Char himself.