Background: Col Tanner was born on Nemyer, and served in the Marine Corp with distinction for over 20 years, before being selected for training at the new Hiver Technical Academy on Aubaine. Once again he performed admirably and was selected as the chief of security and contact for the Dawn League Scout Apollo. With great fanfare the Apollo set out on a mission of discovery and exploration. When the ship contacted the natives on Montazuma everything seemed to be going well, but a week into the mission the natives turned on the crew. Tanner and three other crew members tried to hold off their attackers for quite some time in an effort to let the rest of the crew escape, but they were overwhelmed. Tanner was the only one of that group to survive, though he was seriously injured. During the next few months of captivity, Tanner was often abused and beaten. Throughout this his main concern was for his crewmates, especialy after the navigator was killed, leaving Tanner the ranking officer. He managed to deflect much of their captor's anger and abuse onto himself. When the Ashtabula rescued them, there were only seven surviving crew members.

On their return to the Dawn League, the survivors of the Apollo were greeted as heroes, but Tanner refused all acolades and awards, blaming himself for the eight members of the Apollo who died on Montazuma and for the six crew members of the Ashtabula who died rescuing the Apollo's crew. He believes that as Chief of Security and Contact, he should have been aware that the natives were going to turn hostile, and prevented their attack. His crewmates refuse to believe that, and claim that without him, none of them would of survived. After being debriefed, he was given shore leave; he took advantage of the time to return home to Nemyer, which had recently been rechristened Oriflamme.

For several weeks he pondered his future. He had to decide if he would return to active duty with the Marine Corp, accept an offer to join the newly formed RCES, become a freelancer or something else. The one thing he never comptemplated was retiring and settling down. He felt he had a duty to the 14 men and women who died because of him, and he had to find someway of paying back their sacrifice.

He found the way, when Oriflamme's 29th Assembly District reached an impasse in selecting its representative to the Assembly of Worlds. The 29th district had many small Holdings, with no one faction having enough votes to push through its nominee. Tanner's name was suggested as a compromise canidate, who was beholden to no Trust or Holding. After a few hours of persuasion, he agreed to accept the position. It was a way he could make dramatic changes on not just one world, but dozens.

He dedicated his position to those 14 souls who he believes he failed, and he has a plaque in his office with their names engraved, so that he will never forget their sacrifice.

He sees his mission in the Assembly as one where he can guide the RC into the Wilds and help allieviate the tyranny that so pervades the Wilds. Some look at this mission and suggest that he start at home, but he disagrees. Oriflamme is ruled by those most capable of bringing the new technological discoveries into production and spreading their benifits to the citizens of Oriflamme. A citizen who swears alliegence to a Holding on Oriflamme does so of his own free will, and in return he gets a promise of protection and security from his Technarch. Liegemen of a trust are never laid off in bad economic times. When they reach a venerable age, they are allowed to retire and provided for. Liegmen are never cast out when they are of no longer any use. In fact, the old ones are treated not as a burden, but as a valuable resource, which can pass on their wisdom to the next generation. The true tyranny lies in the dictators in the Wilds who take from their people, but never give anything in return.

Tanner views the situation on Helios as fairly ridiculus. Helios gets one vote in the Assembly for its 700 citizens, while other worlds get only one vote for millions. This is the same situation which prevents the newly recolonized boneyards from getting a vote in the Assembly, otherwise the worlds of the Coalition would send out dozens of small groups to start ill advised colonies in an attempt to gain a larger voting bloc. Even though he thinks the situation is ridiculus, he thinks there are more pressing issues to deal with.

He also has no taste for those members of his faction that think humans should reign supreme. He met several Schalli, while at the Technical Academy, and has the deepest respect for their abilities and sentience. He believes that everyone should be judged on their abilities and nothing else.

He is a very strong supporter of the RCES and RCN, and in general is in full support of their mission. He favors the rapid integration of the worlds in the AO, by any means neccesary, once those worlds have been secured and pacified, then the RC can move onto the rest of the Old Expanses. He doesn't mind allowing TEDs and Mystic Dictators into the RC, as long as they have a popular mandate. Even if their governments are not the most enlightened, if they have a popular mandate it would be tyrannical for the RC to overthrow these governments.

He views the growing resistence movement on Oriflamme to be misguided. He regards the members as traitors and terrorists, who deserve to be hunted down and put down like the mad dogs that they are. If they had legitamate concerns, then they should take them up with the Technarch Council, instead they go out and butcher innocents.

Appearence: Tanner is of average height, has brown hair which is starting to recede and to grey. He often remarks that it close race between going grey and going bald. He keeps his hair very closely cut in a standard Oriflamme marine style, even though he has resigned his commision. He wears conservative civilian clothes, with little ornament. Even though he has dozens of awards and medals, he does not display them, as he feels that they are unimportant. He has a slight limp from the injuries he suffered on Montazuma.

Skills:Tanner is an expert in slug weapons, hand to hand combat, tactics and security. Most of these skills are with that TL-8/9 weaponary that was available on Nemyer, but he also trained at the Hiver Technical Academy. He fishes as a hobby and is quite good at it. In particular he enjoys deep sea fishing.

Contacts: Tanner knows most of the officers in the Oriflamme Military, and in general is highly regarded by them. He is also on good terms with many of the RCES officer corp. Being one of the few survivors of the Twelve, he is regarded as a hero, not just on Oriflamme, but on all the worlds of the Coalition.

Summary: Tanner is a true hero. All of the heroic acts that he has perfomed, he did not for glory or the rewards, but because they needed doing, and he was available. He honestly does not believe he is all that special, or deserving of accolades.