The Gallic Seigneurs

[The Gallic Union]

NAME: Joseph-Ignace Florentin ( @Thunderer )

RANK: Seigneur, Capitaine de Vaisseau

AGE: 42

BIRTHPLACE: Planet Marseille

GOVERNING SYSTEM: Provence

FLAGSHIP: /S/-Tonnant

Biography

Joseph-Ignace was born in 702 AGS on Planet Marseille. He always thought of this as a mistake, but since it had already happened, he thought it proper to make the best of it. He was born by caesarian section, not breathing and without a heartbeat, but was miraculously revived by the best doctors available to a Gallic noble family. His parents married not out of love, but for wealth and influence, and their marriage was uneasy and full of disagreements. They rarely spent time together after the birth of the dynasty’s heir. They could not agree whether to name him Joseph or Ignace, so they settled on Joseph-Ignace. His father rarely spent time with him because he was busy managing his island fiefdom of Ratonneau. He died during one of the infrequent visits to his son: he slipped on a toy and fell down the stairs. Joseph-Ignace was 7 at the time, but he didn’t mourn his father, as he barely knew him. His mother had been raising him before this, but this was more out of obligation than out of love. After her husband’s death, she felt freed, but instead she was unbridled like a beast, and went to live a life of debauchery on her own, abandoning her son to a strict governess. Joseph-Ignace learned much from his mentor, but despite that he never spoke fondly of her, her methods made him despise and fear her. The governess was a former navy commander and maintained military discipline and, as was her obligation to a member of the Gallic feudal class, she taught Joseph-Ignace military matters. Yet Joseph-Ignace was by his own choice a pacifist, and all he wanted to do was dance, act and write poetry. When he turned 18 and assumed reign over Ratonneau, he gladly fired her, and cut his mother’s funding. However, he didn’t intend to use it to develop Ratonneau, he spent it to secure a life of debauchery for himself. Music, lights, parades of prominent guests, ornate dresses, scant skirts, pompous wigs, for two years that was the usual scenery on the island.

But by then, he had squandered all the wealth his father had painstakingly accumulated. At this time he received a call to duty -- the Council was preparing an offensive into Dauphine and the Royal Navy needed commanders for its newly built ships. He spent three years training on the gunboat Rapide, but in 725 AGS, the Council finally came. There were two major battles: at Gap and at Bourgoin-Jallieu. The Rapide participated in the latter and distinguished itself, but the lone gunboat could not prevent the tactical defeat at Bourgoin-Jallieu and the situation was only saved by the decisive victory at Gap Station. Joseph-Ignace was promoted to a cruiser commander for his courage and reposted to the RNS Ambitieux. It was on this day that he received the notice that his mother had passed away from liver cirrhosis. Or maybe it was the day before, he is not sure.
Military service never did much to change Joseph-Ignace’s personality, but it did change his priorities. He used to despise war as an unsanitary business only suitable for savages, but having seen it, he realised that, besides partying, it was the only thing that he was good at. He never began to like war, but he did come to terms with it and he embraced his fate and this necessary evil that it came with.
Aboard the Ambitieux Joseph-Ignace met his true love. At least he thought it was his first love -- he had never loved anyone before, so how could he be sure? It was his first officer, a commoner woman, the daughter of a wealthy Solar Engineering shareholder, called Barbara. But their love was short. In 729 the Council launched its overwhelming offensive into Languedoc. Being the fearless warrior he is, Joseph-Ignace sacrificed his ship to allow an ambushed Royalist squadron to escape. The Ambitieux was boarded, some crew were taken prisoner, some were killed. Joseph-Ignace was taken prisoner. Barbara was killed. Oh, Barbara! What nonsense is war!

Joseph-Ignace spent a year in a POW camp, begging for a bullet every day, but he was a worthy prisoner and the Council sought to exchange him for a worthy prisoner of their own one day. This day came.

In captivity, Joseph-Ignace mingled with various kinds of desperate and bored individuals and got himself addicted to gambling. When he was freed, this habit stayed. Every month, he would quickly burn through his imposing paycheck and fall into debt. He became heavily indebted to a Corsican mafia lord. He liked the dice, but he never won it, yet this didn’t worry him -- the worst that could happen was that it could get him killed. But Barbara’s wealthy brother Jacques, who also mourned Barbara, felt sorry for Joseph-Ignace, and paid him out of debt. This admission of empathy eventually turned into a romantic relationship. Jacques and Joseph-Ignace understood each other, they were of similar ideas practical, philosophical and erotic. Jacques was slightly older than Joseph-Ignace and he was one of the rare commoners who were given command of a Valor, and Joseph-Ignace saw him as some kind of a mentor that he had always wanted, but never had.

This relationship also had a tragic end. Jacques being a commoner, his ship was grouped with the Gallic spearhead in the invasion of Leeds. It was one of those few that were destroyed. Joseph-Ignace didn’t see this as personal business between him and the Bretonians, though he wasn’t fond of them or any other savage Sirians to start with, but between him and fate. And he accepted this fate and painfully embraced all the sorrow that it had and certainly will bring him, because there wasn’t more he could do.

He spent most of the Great War trying to get himself killed, and his crew, regardless of what they thought about it. But all this did was get him promoted for bravery. By the end, he was in command of the RNS Bonne Naissance, a state-of-the-art Valor class. At New London his ship was part of the Dax Fleet and it was thanks to his recklessness that the destroyer squadron was able to break through and reach the New London atmosphere.

But what savigary it was! Inadvertently, he had killed his father and his first love, but this he did by intent. All that was in his mind was victory, victory at all cost, and it had shrouded his mind. For a week after the defeat at New London, having seen the barbarity being done to Leeds, he entertained considerations to desert and join the Council. The formation of the Duchy of Burgundy was his salvation. He left Aquitaine as soon as the MRG gave the order, with his ship and most of its crew.

When he returned, Joseph-Ignace found himself stripped of his land, as it was on Minarchy soil. All that he had left were his title and his career. Why did he not die in New London? No, to hell with all of it, he started thinking. He will drink wine, he will make parties and he will make love, and he will forget everything. Nothing mattered any more. It was during one of such drunken weeks of his that he distinguished himself again, now for the Confederacy, against… he didn’t remember any more. The Outcasts? The Kusarians? Probably both on different occasions.
Without a fiefdom and with a gambling habit, he was again in debt, but these battles came at the right time. Saving his life, Joseph-Ignace came into close acquaintance with Pierre Vaillant, the admiral of the Confederate Navy. Joseph-Ignace was one of the few Vaillant trusted and this mattered when the Confederacy was abolished to form the Union. Vaillant needed a connection in the new government. When new regional governors were to be appointed, the new government sought to respect local traditions, everywhere except in the former Minarchy, which was seen as a decadent state and to be disestablished as thoroughly as possible and replaced with whatever remained of the Pre-Minarchy structure, yet without causing too much disarray. Joseph-Ignace, a baron from Marseilles, was second in line for a governor because all but one ahead of him had either been killed in the Marseille Revolt, or exiled, or were in hiding, or they simply weren’t politically suitable. The candidate that was in front of Joseph-Ignace passed away very suddenly and under suspicious circumstances. Some rumour that Pierre Vaillant smiled when he heard the news -- something he rarely does.

Back on Ratonneau. It was his again. His island, his people -- his memories. Was it a victory? Not really. Most of those memories were unpleasant. But the position of seigneur will help Joseph-Ignace pay off his debts and throw bigger parties. Until fate lets him go…
Good luck, Marseilles. What will be will be.

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