Rubin Locke

Rubin Locke was one of the first elected Ministers of the City 17 Council, and quite possibly it's most prominent defector pre-Liberation. Following the disintegration of most Union strongholds during Liberation and spared the annihilation of the City 17 Citadel, Locke was taken into custody by the state of Free Russochina, later deported two months later to East Lambda and eventually becoming a coerced 'founding figure' of the Urban Defense Department. Viewed as pragmatic and reclusive, his involvement with the department ended eleven years later. Mystery and lengthy conspiracy theories continue to surround his later disappearance.

City Seventeen Council
The history of Rubin Locke's life remains highly contested by historians in the post-liberation years, most of the information having been lost in the complete destruction of the Central Citizen Database in both Geneva and Kyiv, and subsequent archiving of most Civil Administration employment records deep within Russochina vaults. Although some video footage from an early, cancelled interview featuring Locke for a post-Liberation documentary has been collaborated as genuine from sources within both East Lambda and Russochina, the inaccurate rumors and hoaxes that have sprung over the years have watered down most of what is available.

Locke is presumed to have been born somewhere between 1970 BL and 1980 BL, and raised as the son of a business conglomerate heir. What little records remain indicate that the organization inherited substantial influential political connections, but the extent of this is unknown and remains shrouded in secrecy. Nothing from this period can be substantiated, and the record remains vague right up until Locke was drafted into the 'reformed' Senate of Kyiv, in early 2010, his qualification listed as 'architect'.

Interred into the Senate as part of the sudden emergence of the reformer placements, Locke swiftly found his feet and later went on to become a Minister two years later, under Public Affairs. His tenure as Minister was uneventful, save for six minor corruption scandals within the department and the famous 'Hongmail ' attack at a Tribune Campaign Event in 2013. Three days following the massacre, he was shuffled out of the department, and removed from the record for a brief period.

Locke resurfaced in 2016, glimpsed in a minor broadcast escorting officials from Union Laboratories. Files recovered from Union Laboratories remain classified in several post-liberation states, but as some have been leaked to the public or otherwise sold into private collections, it has become known that Locke was working as a liaison between the two organizations. Most global projects that can be attributed to him remain heavily redacted or hidden within state archives, but it is commonly believed that he had a heavy hand in the Oceanic Border Protection Wall, the Exogen Research Subterranean Farm and the Orbital Multi-payload System. Many claims of weaponized union technology remain unsubstantiated beyond the occasional leak. Certain conspiracy theorists insist that Locke was a co-founder of a supposed Union Colony on the planet Mars, and as a result of his abandonment by the colony later leaked covert information.

It is not yet understood if Locke reached out to the infamous Engel Haas, or if the opposite occurred. Yet what is known is that three months after initial contact in 2019, Eurasian Liberation Army (ELA) attacks increased substantially with increased success, as did the murder rate of state-sponsored informants. Most of the remaining information passed on to the group by Locke that has not been archived and hidden extends to certain scientific advances, lists of informants and most daringly of all, the flight schedule for a "Esoteric Field Reactor", which was subsequently stolen during transport.

The covert exchange of information continued into 2022, where it ceased two days before Liberation. Archived surveillance footage reveals that he was seemingly tipped off, as Locke is observed slipping by the Citadel Transhuman Guard, evading the intentional massacre of most of his colleagues by their hand, and arriving at Kyiv's sole operating train station. The last sighting pertains to him in citizen fatigues, shepherded into a waiting train by Eurasian fighters.

Post-Liberation
After the subsequent annihilation of Kyiv's Citadel, Locke disappeared and likely would have remained in hiding were it not for the subsequent review of camera footage by the fledgling precursor government of East Lambda. Free Russochina admitted that they had detained and interviewed him, and following a lengthy, month-long debate between the upper echelon of both governments, Locke was released into East Lambda's custody. Far from the broken-down, teary expressions of many fellow bureaucratic 'holdouts', Locke greeted the waiting cameras within Vance with waves and warm smiles, announcing to the public that "the time for humanity's next chapter had come".

Although his private historical trial has been picked clean over the decades by wary historians composing lengthy books with the barest of what unredacted segments remain, Rubin Locke was among the few to escape the 'turncoat hearings' with both his life and subsequent freedom, a starling fact given his lengthy past with the regime and the very public executions that plagued the few civil board remnants that had been captured alive. Some suspect that interference from the Russochina state played a part due to his early Eurasian connections, others, that his alleged scientific and strategic talent allowed him to remain alive provided he used his abilities for the East Lambda government. Regardless, he was 'drafted' into the transitional board of the Scientific Progress Department, then moved to found the Urban Defense Department alongside Leon Odette nine months later, becoming a key figure in the establishment and subsequent direction of departmental policy. The early foundation of what would later become the Reclamation Authority, the subsequent adoption of heavier weaponry (including then-shunned Pulse Firearms) and counter-insurrection campaigns to decimate early Benefactor cults have all been attributed to Rubin Locke's involvement. It is rumored that he had a hand with designing Vance's liftport.

Agreeing to meet with a waiting camera television crew for an interview, Locke was filmed making vague and contradictory statements regarding the United Territory of Central Europe's post-Liberation claims of supporting the victory, declaring that "the zealous [sic] bitch" had "accomplished not much of anything, except wasting sewer-dwellers and getting people killed out in the wastelands...". Upon being informed that the camera crew were actually from the UTCE, Locke venomously denied his prior statements, angrily yelled that the UTCE's leader, Lyall Seyler "...was and always will be a terrible con artist who stole the accomplishments of others, including Engel Haas and the brave men who fought for humanity's freedom, unlike that idle collective-pandering defeatist!" and stormed out of the interview. Minutes later, agents from the UDD intervened and seized all of the camera equipment, but failed to apprehend one hidden tape. When it was smuggled back into the UTCE and broadcasted publicly, many voices from both the UTCE and East Lambda insisted on Locke's resignation from the department, although this failed to happen at the time, largely as Locke claimed that the camera crew intended on kidnapping him and two were later arrested on concealed weapon charges. Nevertheless, it sparked considerable tension and called Rubin Locke's earlier post-Liberation record into heavy questioning, with many authors using the opportunity to write skeptical books on the subject, most of which found considerable popularity within Europe.

Disagreement with Lambda Seat and Disappearance.
Eventually, Locke was promoted into serve within the Lambda Seat government, resigning from the UDD after a lengthy hallmark of service on 11 A.L.

It is publicly believed that his 'promotion upstairs' served as a way to defuse East Lambda and UTCE tension, especially as the UTCE had declared war with Russochina after the death of Jonathan Seyler the year before, and after a heavy barrage of campaigning by Locke to become involved in the conflict, Lyall Seyler was assassinated. The extent of Locke's involvement remains unknown, but popular theories insist that it was in retribution for the death of Engel Haas.

His tenure on the council being rather brief, there is little for historians to gauge beyond a few landmark decisions on Reclamation Authority policy, and several classified meetings that have yet to have their transcripts revealed. Locke was never been seen again in the public eye following an passionate, albeit mostly ignored speech urging the fledgling Lambda Seat to mount an orbital assault on Mars, the specifications unknown beyond that his proposals were vetoed with extreme prejudice, and largely issued with disbelief. It was this political defeat that resulted in his permanent exile from the council and subsequent disappearance. Originally declared missing in 14 AL by the Lambda Seat, following many vague and contradictory sightings during a six-month period his status was upgraded to 'Deceased', although this is still contested by many post-Liberation historians.

Some conspiracy theorists insist that Locke secretly enlisted the aid of one Jiroaki Kudo (another surviving ex-Union politician who found distinction in the UDD), an entire battalion of heavily armed UDD forces, and mounted an attack on the Ōsumi archipelago within Zaibol territory. While this would explain the subsequent disappearance of Tanegashima Island and the discovery of deceased Generation One transhumans within the archipelago, it doesn't explain why despite seemingly being considered 'freshly deceased' at the time of seizure, autopsies have revealed that they starved to death due to nutrient exposure and had the cellular age of six hundred years, or the presence of foreign materials dating back to 1990 both within the transhumans and the archipelago, a curious impossibility.

The most recent rumored sighting was in 49 AL, within Kytheria, although this has been almost entirely dismissed as an impossibility due to the simple fact that Locke would be a centenarian at minimum, and that these 'sightings' simply do not make any geographical sense. __NOINDEX__