Southern Cross Who's Who - Charles Mackenzie Caplan-Somerset

Background

Charles is the second son of James Somerset II (of the Massachusetts Somersets) and Roselyn Caplan-Somerset (of the New York Caplans). As a child of privilege, Charles would have been able to look forward to a life of leisure and luxury; if the First Robotech War changed everything. Luckily for Charles, the toddler and his family were vacationing in Aspen, Colorado when death rained from the skies that fateful day in mid-April, 2011. Though much of the family's wealth had evaporated with most of the Eastern seaboard of the United States, the Somersets had enough physical assets, and family connections, to re-establish themselves. They family settled in the rebuilt city of Denver, which was becoming a major center during the Reconstruction.

As Charles was growing up, his family was establishing themselves as part of the new aristocracy that was emerging. He was able to attend a school and live a relatively stable life, unlike the many millions of refugees scattered across the globe. Charles remained relatively isolated from the chaos a misery of the Reconstruction period until an incident when he was ten years old. Charles and his family were out on a Christmas shopping trip when Malcontent terrorists attacked Denver. For young Charles it was an odd mix of terror and awe as he saw firsthand the robotic mecha of the Earth defense forces battle the giant alien Zentraedi. But what fascinated the young boy even more than the battle that raged before him were the actions of a single person. Amid all explosions and destruction was a lone EMT, moving fearlessly amongst the fire and debris, pulling the wounded from rubble and treating the injured. After the battle, as more emergency workers arrived on the scene, Charles and his family were finally able to get out of where they had taken shelter and leave the area, and for one brief moment the child's eyes met those of that lone EMT and for the first time the boy learned what the word "hero" truly meant.

Even as life returned to normal, Charles would remain fascinated by the EMT, a stranger Charles never even knew the name of but whose actions that day stayed sharp in his mind. Still, life went on. Charles continued to go to school, and continued to life his life of relative privilege. As he entered his teenage years, Charles formed several lasting friendships. His best friend was Edward Lamont, the son of Denver's deputy mayor, and whose family owned a large chemical company; while Helena Cavendish, an older girl at school, was Charles' first crush, though she was really more like a big sister. Charles is also still on good terms with his first real girlfriend, Mariah Jennings. At school, Charles had taken a liking to the arts, studying history, literature and language. His classics teacher, Thomas Clarke, became a mentor to him and remains that to this day.

By the time Charles was in his teens, the world had changed again. After the departure of the Robotech Expeditionary Force at the end of 2022 and the collapse of the first world government, civilization had become more feudalized. Some major centers, including Denver, were beginning to resemble Renaissance Italy, where families jockeyed for social position. Charles family was one of those that sought to improve its social standing and as a result Charles' Aunt Lenore tried to set up an arranged marriage between Charles and the daughter of another of the neo-aristocratic families in the area. Charles, 16 at the time, was deeply in love with another girl, Arianna Christensen, who was from what his family perceived as a lower social class. Charles refused the arranged marriage, an act his Aunt saw as a betrayal, earning her enmity and causing friction in the Somerset family.

As a result of the tensions, Charles' parents decided it would be best if he was sent away for a while and Charles was enrolled in the Robotech Academy in Monument City. Against his family's wishes, Charles continued to keep in touch with Arianna. This went on during his first year at the Academy until one day the letters from Arianna stopped. On his next leave, Charles returned to Denver only to learn that Arianna's family had apparently moved away, though no one could tell him why, or where they had gone to. Despite multiple efforts, it would be several years before Charles would learn what happened to Arianna and her family.

Charles returned to the Academy and decided to pursue a military career. Though his family did not fully approve (except for his older brother, who understood Charles' desire to chart his own course), their connections were enough to ensure that Charles was entered into one of the elite Southern Cross Armies - the Alpha Tactical Armored Corps. With his childhood memories of the heroic EMT still in his mind, Charles opted to specialize in medicine. By the age of 20, Charles had completed his basic training and was assigned to a Hovertank squadron in Monument City with the rank of Specialist. Again thanks to Charles' family connections he was destined to be an officer, the plan being that he would spend a year interning as a Non-Commissioned Officer, followed by six months of officer training after which he would get his commission and would be able to work towards becoming a full M.D. Stationed at central base like Monument City, and his status, meant that Charles avoided any combat duty during the N.W.O. conflict in 2029. During that time he befriended one of the other fresh-faced members of the squadron, a young Private named Kevin Harper. In early 2030, as he prepared to enter officer cadet training, Charles made another friend in Monument City, one that would prove advantageous later. That friend was an up-and-coming officer in the Global Military Police, Nova Satori.

Though it looked as though his career was going as planned, 2030 would prove to be a year of change and upheaval in Charles' life. In April of that year, the Second Robotech War broke out in earnest, and unlike the N.W.O. conflict of the year prior, Charles would not remain isolated as Monument City became one of the central battle zones of the war. As a result of the war, Charles was pulled from officer training after only a couple of months and sent back to his Veritech Hovertank unit, where he would see active combat for the first time. In battle, Charles did his duty and fought the mysterious new enemy that threatened Earth. He also got his first real taste of battlefield medicine; as he was frequently called on to treat his fellow soldiers in the aftermath of combat. As the Robotech Masters began targeting civilian centers, Charles also found himself treating non-combatants as well, the long-ago memory of the EMT remaining an inspiration as the horrors of war surrounded him.

Thanks to his friendship with Nova, 2030 was also the year that Charles finally learned what happened to his childhood sweetheart. With Nova's military intelligence access, Charles found Arianna's name on a casualty list, one of the many dead after the Robotech Masters destroyed a military base overseas. This was one of many lists that high command was keeping under wraps for fear of the public learning the true number of civilian casualties in the war. Charles' sadness at learning of Arianna's death soon turned to anger, however, when he learned what had happened so many years earlier in Denver. The reason for Arianna's sudden disappearance was that her father had been offered a job on the other side of the world, one he could not refuse as it would bring he and his family out of poverty. The job would be on an old military base in Australia called Fort Gibson, and Arianna wondered how she would be able to keep in touch with Charles. The problem appeared solved when the person who arranged the job for her father promised Arianna she would pass messages on to Charles, a promise that would prove to be a lie. Instead of passing letters along, this person simply destroyed them, and when it suited her, she forged a letter from Charles telling Arianna he wanted to break off the relationship. The person responsible for Arianna's father's transfer, and for preventing her and Charles from staying in touch, was Lenore's daughter, Charles' cousin Evelyn.

As the war dragged on and losses mounted, the Southern Cross high command became more and more desperate. Charles' family connections could no longer protect him and he found himself engaged in front-line combat with more and more frequency. Charles' diligent efforts as a battlefield medic did attract some attention, and allowed Charles to make at least one powerful connection of his own, in the form of Lt. Col. Carson Riley, in Southern Cross High Command. By early summer 2031, things looked bleak for the Earth defense forces and it appeared that Charles would be sent off on one of Field Marshal Leonard's suicide missions - where the Supreme Commander would simply send wave after wave of ships, fighters and mecha against the enemy in the hope to achieve at least some kind of minor victory. By the end, Leonard was issuing orders to shoot anyone involved in one of these offensives who tried to retreat. Luckily, Lt. Col. Riley did manage to get Charles assigned to one of the Hovertank squadrons assigned for civil defense duty at Monument City so he managed to avoid being part of the hopeless offensive. As part of the squadron's support team, Charles befriended the unit communications specialist, Private Gabriel (Gabe) McManus.

In the final battle of the war, Charles and the rest of his unit, the 403rd Home Guard, engaged in brutal street-level combat against waves of enemy Armored Fighter Bioroids and combat-drug crazed ground troops. Casualties were high and once enemy ships began targeting the cities, civilian casualties grew exponentially. Many had ignored the warnings to evacuate, feeling that being in the same city as the military headquarters would protect them; instead it made them a target. Even the destruction of the Robotech Masters mothership did not end the fighting, as the remaining enemy ground forces simply doubled their efforts. After several more hours of fighting the last of the enemy were finally defeated, killed or having fled the city. Of his unit, only Charles, Pvt. McManus, Science Specialist Karen Davison, and the squad's top NCO, Sgt. Turner, remained. Charles and Gabe had to cut Sgt. Turner from his burning Hovertank and while Charles managed to save his life, he could not save Sgt. Turner's right leg, which had been badly crushed when his mecha was hit.

In the wake of the war, Monument City was in ruins. Many survivors chose to flee, while other waited for aid that would never come. Word slowly trickled in that the enemy had been defeated, but that there was no surviving government or high command. All the senior officers had apparently either been in command of ships in the devastating space battle or had been at headquarters alongside Supreme Commander Leonard when the Robotech Masters destroyed it. Lt. Col. Riley was one of the few surviving superior officers, having been directing battles from the front line. In the aftermath, many surviving Southern Cross soldiers simply deserted, some even taking their mecha with them. Others chose to remain and help protect the remaining civilian population and slowly some semblance of order was restored. Charles was one of the few remaining trained medics left in the city and he found himself nominally in charge of a rapidly growing field hospital. McManus and Davison rallied beside him, helping where they could, but only Charles and two others were properly rated to perform surgeries and other complex operations and honor and sense of duty would not allow Charles to neglect the wounded.

Charles also learned that Nova Satori had survived as well, and he also learned about Lt. Dana Sterling and the 15th ATAC's small camp outside of the ruins of Monument City, where the hovertank pilots were protecting a group of alien civilians that had survived the destruction of the enemy mothership. Many of the soldiers in Monument wanted to take the aliens, the more senior ones claiming security reasons, but Charles knew most of them simply wanted to take their anger and revenge out on the aliens. Charles, on the other hand, believed Nova when she told him that the aliens were civilian refugees; as much victims of the Robotech Masters as any of the civilians at Monument City. Charles even managed to help Nova smuggle what medicine he could spare to Lt. Sterling's camp. Meanwhile, the refugee camps around Monument City had stabilized and the remaining military units had regrouped into some semblance of order. With the situation as good as it could be, several senior officers, most notably Lt. Col. Riley and GMP Major Alan Fredericks, took a group of soldiers and set off to try and re-establish contact with other surviving units in New Detroit, and further afield in Yellowstone City and Denver.

Now, a year after the war's end, Charles continues his duties as senior medic, helping where he can. There are still occasional stragglers, a combination of surviving soldiers and civilians that trickle into Monument City, having made the trek in the false hope that some element of government has survived. Among one of these groups was Charles' old squad-mate, Private Harper, who had survived the war's end. While Charles was pleased to see Kevin alive, Harper for some reason harbors some kind of resentment toward Charles and refuses to speak to him, going out of his way to avoid any contact with Charles. One of Charles' few solaces over the last year has been an old recording of Mozart, which he has been playing over and over again with more and more frequency, but the strain has taken its toll, and Charles has recently begun turning to drugs, mostly morphine, to help him cope with the stress.

Call Sign: The 403rd Home Guard did not use call signs, and Charles has yet to adopt or be given one since joining the 21st.

United Earth Forces Service Record

Assignment History

Honors and Awards

Mission/Conflict Summary

Warp Zone | Robotech RPG | Southern Cross | Who's Who | Dramatis Personae / 21st A.T.A.C. | Charles Mackenzie Caplan-Somerset