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 fervor 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. Then there were supposed radio signals, extra-terrestrial artifacts... Nobody could find proof of anything, but that didn't stop many--even close friends of mine--from having strong opinions.

"Maybe I'm just wise, but I was always instilled with the notion that absolute certainty was a big thing. I was a scientist, for me absolute certainty was a big ask. So I stayed out of those arguments. Still, though, the radio observations were intriguing. There was no proof--nothing 'absolute'-- but the general consensus was that there was a 'high probability' of life beyond our solar system.

"In the months leading up to it, we started getting and increase in patterned radio signals. A friend of mine was a... well, you don't have those, here, but we used to call a person who studied stars through telescopes an 'astronomer'. He wasn't exactly on the forefront of anything, but he had connections to that region of the scientific community and got to see the radio telescope data first-hand. We all poured over it, but it was weird. The signals indicated that there were a lot of transmissions, they were very powerful, and they were very close--we were picking things up that had to be artificial, but looked like they may have been less than 100 light years away. But while the emissions were definitely artificial, we still couldn't find a pattern to them, nothing recognizable, nothing identifiable... the only thing any of us ever came up with--and keep in mind none of us were exactly experts even though we were all scientists--but, to me, the emissions looked like the radio waves that were generated by sentient beings. So we looked into it.

"I won't say how long it took, but after a while someone got the idea that we should try to play them. We had some audio equipment and some stuff to help with distortions, but we didn't need it. Once you actually played the signal out loud... anyone could tell it was voices. Speach. We didn't realize that we knew the language at first, we listened to hours of the stuff thinking it was alien. It sort of was, I mean they were 'aliens' to us, but, and this is funny... we thought they were speaking a different language. It was 'common' all along, just with so many acronyms, abbreviations, and military code-words that we didn't even catch on! They were speaking a different language, they were speaking 'Crimson Blade'!

"Of course we immediately thought of sending a signal back, but it would still take a hundred years to get there, and we didn't exactly have access to a powerful radio transmitter. Still, it was an amazing discovery. People were making it at around the same time all over the world, but we still felt pretty important. A lot of people, including my friends, really wanted to try and grab credit, but honestly, I didn't care, I was just happy to be part of it.

"It was weeks before the first attack came..."

Interviewer: "You didn't see it coming?"

Wyrick: "The Crimson Blade ships made it there first, but not by much. I know now that they were trying to help, doing the best they could, but it was still terrifying.

"We picked the fleet exiting hyperspace. That alone could have been the greatest moment of my life. As a scientist, our instruments had just recorded something... just so amazing. I could have spent my entire life going over the data we gathered from that short moment, but even that wasn't as amazing as the ships. You have to understand, my people had landed on our own moon, sent robotic probes to other planets in our solar system... it was amazing to conceive of a spaceship over ten miles long, one wide, two high. A fleet of them...

"Of course, there was that very real concern that these ships were here to attack us, but I was among the minority who didn't think that was true. My faith was challenged somewhat when the drop-ships came.

"First it was fly-overs. Big, fast ships. I know now they were Harpies being used in a recon-role--it's funny, looking back on what I know now, how much of those transmissions I can understand and sound perfectly normal. After the harpies came the drop ships, first armed with loud speakers, hovering, shouting at us to stay in our homes, to go to ground. I understand a few ships landed in our nation's capitol and basically barged their way right in, demanding to speak to our leaders and trying to convince them to get the military on high alert. The attack was just nine hours later.

"It was pure chaos. The Kamians couldn't get close enough to bombard the surface with energy weapons, so they sent in bombers. The Crimson Blade fought them off. It was terrifying, harpies going toe to toe with Kamian drones in our stratosphere, full on mega-ton nukes going off. For days we couldn't even look at the sky, tens of thousands went blind.

"The Bladers established a garrison at the university where I worked, helping us use the equipment we already had to monitor Kamian movements. We never really got it down, but they thought it was important to help us gather data first-hand. I got to know a lot of the soldiers, one of them even came to my apartment a few times and just... hung out with my friends and I. He was honest with us. He said the forces they had couldn't hope to hold back the Kamians forever. I asked him why they didn't just bring in more troops, all he said was... 'that hasn't worked yet'."

Interviewer: "Of course, this was during a major Kamian push. You don't blame the Blade, right?"

Wyrick: "Didn't then, still don't now. I thought it was amazing that they were even trying to help us. He said we'd be evacuated, explained how the Kamians enslaved every world they captured, and that the best way to slow them down was to simply move the civilians. No slaves meant the Kamians couldn't expand as fast. That's why they called it the 'succession' wars, since after each expansion, the Kamians had to wait a generation to start up again."

Interviewer: "Interesting point. So when, exactly, did you know it was time to leave?"

Wyrick: "There wasn't a whole lot of warning. There were five major battles fought in our skys, and each time, the Kamians got a little closer. Our friends among the Blade warned us that an 'evac', probably an emergency one at that, was definitely eminent. I think a lot of the bladers had taken a liking to me, so they told me if I could to get my family and find a play to stay as close to the campus as possible. Our friend, the blader who spent a lot of time with us, flat out told me that if an emergency evacuation order came, he would do everything he could to make sure we got onto a ship.

"The sixth battle was bad. It was the first time the Kamian bombers broke the line. I'd been sleeping in my office at the university with my girlfriend for several nights, and I gotta say... for the first time I was thankful I got stuck in a terribly office in the basement. None of the campus buildings were damaged, but it did feel safer, being underground.

"The Kamians destroyed a hundred and forty-seven major cities that night, and killed over twp billion of my people. A third of our population. One night. Gone."

Interviewer: "But you know now it wasn't that simple?"

Wyrick: "I've had thirty-five years to reflect on events. I've been an integral part of the war-effort since then. I've shaken the hands of the people who were involved, and I've built weapons for them. I'm not going to speak out about it."

Interviewer: "But how did you feel when you found out?"

Wyrick: "How do you think I felt?"

Interviewer: "For those of you watching this not familliar with the Langara campaign, let me--"

Wyrick(interrupting): "I'LL explain. If you want it told that badly. The final attack wasn't a break in the line. The Crimson Blade forces deliberately thinned out and kept most of their ships and fighters in reserve. They waited for a probing raid, then a real attack, and then they hit the Kamian fleet with everything they had while Kamian bombers were going nearly un-checked, destroying our cities. The Crimson Blade sacrificed two billion of my people in order to destroy fifty-seven Kamian capitol ships."

Interviewer: "Doesn't tha--"

Wyrick: "I'm not mad."

Interviewer: "But weren't you--"

Wyrick: "I didn't find out until years later. Let me... let me tell it. In perspective, you'll understand.

"It was maybe three in the morning. The attack was over, we didn't know yet that the extent of the devastation. Still, the bombers had made it back and found out what we did to their fleet, so they were rallying for a counter-offensive. Thats when the blade decided to pull us out.

"It was exactly as hectic and chaotic as you'd expect. We didn't get to bring anything with us, just the clothes on our backs. All I have left of my homeworld is what I had in my pockets that morning. We were rushed, hustled onto one of the drop ships. My girlfriend, three closest friends, and a handful of our colleagues and associates made it out. My family lived far away, I'll never know what happened to them.