Southern Cross Who's Who - Yossef "Bullseye" von Varenburg

Background

Yossef's father was a mechanical engineer from Munich and his mother was a Jordanian communications specialist working for the UN (later the Unified World Government). The two met when she was working for the UN in New York City and he was doing post-graduate studies there and they married in 2008. Alia was pregnant with Yossef when the Zentraedi fleet bombarded the planet. Both survived the assault, though Heinrich suffered from radiation exposure and nearly died. The two relocated to New Macross City where Yossef was born.

By mid-2014 Heinrich's health had improved and the family relocated to Mars where they were part of the teams reconstructing Mars Base Sara. Heinrich's health took a turn for the worse while on Mars and the family had to return back to Earth in 2017. Heinrich died shortly thereafter and Alia and her young son relocated to Jari, in Venezuela Quadrant. Alia's skills were frequently needed elsewhere and she often had to leave Yossef in the care of friends while she travelled around the world and even off-planet on a variety of projects. In late 2019, while Yossef watched from the control room, the space shuttle carrying Alia to one of the lunar bases was destroyed on liftoff by Zentraedi Malcontent forces. To this day the site of the shuttle exploding frequently surfaces in Yossef's nightmares.

Family friends, a Southern Cross officer named Isaiah Fletcher and his wife, took in the orphaned Yossef. Unfortunately the trauma of seeing his mother killed caused the young boy to become withdrawn and for many years he kept to himself and made few friends. When he did come out of his shell and begin to socialize again Yossef fell in with a bad crowd. Jari (and many other places in South America) was home to rabidly anti-Zentraedi radical groups, a result of the fierce fighting that happened across the continent during the various Malcontent conflicts of the previous decade. To a young teenager who had watched rogue Zentraedi kill his mother the rhetoric of these groups made sense. Yossef joined one of these groups, the People's Revolution, and participated in many rallies. The People's Revolution had been one of the larger resistance groups based in the city of Manaus during the Zentraedi occupation. In the previous decade Manaus had been the unofficial capital of the Zentraedi Control Zone in South America and the seat of Zentraedi control over the region. The People's Revolution was by far the most violent of the resistance groups, staging guerrilla raids and using terrorist tactics against the Zentraedi overlords. They were not above the occasional suicide bombing and many times the human casualties were just as high as the Zentraedi ones, both in terms of Revolution members and civilian bystanders.

There were few Zentraedi still around by the mid-2020s, but anti-Zentraedi sentiment still ran high. Most of the rogue aliens had been killed during the Malcontent Uprisings and the majority of those loyal to Earth had left with the Expeditionary Forces. The People's Revolution, however, learned of an underground community of micronized (human-sized) Zentraedi living in the city of Manaus. When Earth forces finally drove out the alien occupiers in the city at the end of the Malcontent Uprisings many of the micronized Zentraedi simply chose to disappear into the general populace. Now the radical group had found one of the enclaves where these Zentraedi made their home. One night several members of the group snuck into the enclave and killed all the micronized Zentraedi, Yossef slitting many of their throats with a knife left to him by his father.

This action was enough to catch the attention of Earth government officials. An investigation traced the murders to the radical group and several arrests were made, including young Yossef. As he waited to be processed Yossef was spotted by one of his parents' friends, CU Captain Elliot Starks. Starks contacted Yossef's foster father and together they were able to pull some strings and get Yossef out while most of the others who participated in the raid were jailed. Yossef's secret was safe, his participation known only to his jailed compatriots in the radical group and the family friends who got him out of the mess.

To avoid any more trouble Yossef decided to get out of Venezuela Quadrant. He applied to join the United Earth Defense Forces and thanks to his family history he was accepted to the Robotech Academy. His scores at the Academy were high and Yossef was assigned to the Alpha Tactical Armored Corps to become a Veritech Hovertank pilot. After completing his training Yossef was assigned to the 474th ATAC squadron based in the Far East Sector, an assignment generally reserved for cadets on the fast track to a promising career. Despite this, there is still a chance Yossef's past may come back to haunt him. Unknown to Yossef at the moment there is someone conspiring against him, someone with ties to the massacre at Manaus and a grudge against the young recruit.

Call Sign: In one of Yossef's first hovertank combats he threw himself into the middle of a group of enemy mecha to draw their fire, making a target of himself and earning the call sign Bullseye.

Recent History

Yossef was with the 474th when the squadron was sent on an apparent suicide mission to Indochina, arranged by individuals in the command structure that had been compromised by the conspiracy the members of the 474th had stumbled upon. He was one of the survivors of the mission rescued by the 21st ATAC and became a part of that squadron. At the battle of Shanghalla it was Yossef that saved the UEG ambassador's plane from nuclear destruction, a feat he was rewarded for despite the fact that it resulted in the deflected WMD destroying the island city instead.

Yossef continued to fight with the 21st through the early stages of World War IV. On a mission in Manila he discovered that the New World Order had connections with the radical anti-Zentraedi groups Yossef had run with years earlier. The GMP decided to take advantage of this connection and pulled Yossef from the 21st ATAC to use him in a covert mission. Yossef was given a cover story of being dismissed from the Southern Cross and sent back to South America, where he renewed his relationship with the radical groups and, as a skilled mecha pilot, was quickly recruited as a pilot for the NWO. Yossef served as a NWO mecha pilot for several months, continuously feeding intelligence back to the GMP. Near the end of the war Yossef and his NWO mecha team were forced to retreat from approaching EBSIS forces. Cut off from his GMP support, Yossef was captured by the EBSIS and was held as a POW after the war ended. When his identity as a former ATAC pilot was discovered, the EBSIS began interrogating Yossef to learn any Southern Cross intel he might have. One of the interrogator's was Wendy Curtis, a former friend of Yossef's teammate O.L. who had defected to the Soviets. When the Soviets realize that Yossef has no useful intel for them he is eventually freed in a prisoner exchange with the UEG. Now back in Southern Cross hands, Yossef's service record is restored and he is granted a medal and a promotion to Corporal for his undercover mission. After a short debriefing period Yossef returned to Australia and rejoined the 21st. Due to his new rank, Captain Mace decided to make Yossef squad leader for one of the squadron strike teams.

The arrival of the Robotech Masters heralded the start of the Second Robotech War and Yossef saw considerable action with the 21st in battles across Australia. When one of the squadron (Lt. Tracy Myers) was captured by the enemy and turned into a Bioroid pilot Yossef devised a plan to get her back. He used his foster father's connections to go over the head of the new commander of Dundee Base and got approval for the plan directly from the office of Chief of Staff Emerson. Emerson not only endorsed the mission, he also promoted Yossef to Sergeant and gave him control of the operation, much to the annoyance of the 21st's temporary commander, Cavalier (Captain Mace was in the stockade at the time). The operation was a success and Lt. Myers was successfully recovered and deprogrammed, eventually rejoining the 21st.

Yossef was one of the members of the 21st to survive the final battle with the Robotech Masters. The ranking surviving member of the squadron was Lost Boy, but he was the squad medic and when the group entered combat he would always defer to Yossef's judgement. Together the pair got the team and the group of alien refugees they had discovered to safety in New Zealand, where they joined up with the military and government remnants on the island nation and the 21st began helping the local military set up a national defense network.

After Yossef's hovertank was destroyed in a battle with pirates, Lost Boy voluntarily left the squadron to join the New Zealand Civil Defense as a doctor. Yossef inherited Lost Boy's VHT and the command of the 21st. To make the command proper the senior Southern Cross officer on New Zealand (a Colonel) gave Yossef a brevet commission to Second Lieutenant. Since then the 21st has joined up with the SLV Ulysses submersible mecha carrier as it travels the world seeking out the remnants of the UEG and the Southern Cross in an effort to rebuild.

United Earth Forces Service Record

Assignment History

Honors and Awards

Mission/Conflict Summary

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