Wyrick Balnor

Wyrick was Chief Technology Officer of Industrial Face Annihilators, LLC, during the mid Sixth Age, and received several accolades during his life for his substantial contributions towards increasing the company's production while decreasing failure rates. While no one factor ever wins a war, his contributions and leadership effectively doubled IFA's output and ensured there was never a shortage of high-level weapons systems.

While he spent most of his life as an uninteresting business executive, Wyrick became a minor media sensation in A.Y. 6500 when his unique history came to light. During a televised interview when he was being recognized for his contributions to the war effort, a newscaster asked him about his childhood, and the story he proceeded to tell delighted audiences. The media ferver was short-lived, but he continued to be held up as a shining example for the Foundation.

Life Story

What follows is a transcript of Wyrick's interview:

Interviewer: "So, I imagine coming this far in life must leave you a bit retrospective at times; did you ever think you'd be handling development and manufacturing for a major corporation?"

Wyrick: "No, no I can't say that I did. I didn't even ever really expect to fly in space, let alone work there. It's been... a journey, let's call it."

Interviewer: "What was it like where you grew up?"

Wyrick:(laughs) "What is it like anywhere?"

Interviewer: "Were you born on Langara?"

Wyrick: "That... would be a 'no'." (laughs)

Interviewer: "Well that sounds just cryptic enough to be interesting, why don't you tell us about it?"

Wyrick: "Sure, sure. Let's see... I guess I won't bother with any place names, you won't have heard of them anyway. Yes, I was born outside the Foundation, not exactly way outside but we didn't have off-world travel, communication, or... well, we didn't even know intelligent life existed elsewhere.

"The debate was quite hot. The mainstream scientific community believed human life evolved on my homeworld, but our archeologists couldn't seem to find any solid evidence of humans more than around five thousand years old. Nobody could find proof