Bartholomew Ritter

The IC Story
Bartholomew Ritter began his career as a simple archaeologist, but became famous in galactic history as one of the worst mass murderers of all time. Today his name is a curse, and he is remembered as a Tyrant and madman.

From Professor to Tycoon
Ritter was born on Sivad in pre-Sanctuary times, and became a professor of archaeology. He was involved in the study of several key archaeological finds around the galaxy, but later retired from his scholarly field to pursue more economically rewarding challenges. He founded what would later become one of the largest and most profitable companies in the known worlds, Ship Builders Inc., or SBI. SBI's success quickly earned Ritter a vast fortune, and his success continued after Sanctuary returned from Hiverspace. His corporation developed vast holdings on Sivad and elsewhere, and he diversified his corporate interests to include space exploration and the development of raw materials to support his business.

La Terre and the Power of SBI
Ritter's company was instrumental in the discovery of the world that would later become known as La Terre (thus nammed in memory of Ritter's recently disappeared wife, Elianor Freyssinet), and he helped found the human colony there, eventually moving SBI's headquarters there and constructing the company's largest shipyards there. The stock of SBI soared, in part because La Terre was a world rich in polydenum, providing the galaxy with a third known location (the others being Sivad and the Parallax) that was rich in that vital but unstable mineral. Ritter became one of the richest men in the galaxy, and began to enjoy austentatious displays of his wealth and power. SBI also became one of the galaxy's richest and most powerful corporations, with offices on numerous planets, including Sivad and Demaria.

From Tycoon to Tyrant
After the Death of Earth, the colony on La Terre grew rapidly as many survivors settled there. Ritter, who had become the nominal leader of the colony, now tried to solidify his control. In a fit of egomania, he openly proclaimed himself the Sovereign of La Terre, despite the fact that up to this point the colony had been ruled by a democratic government. This caused considerable unrest on La Terre, and widespread protests against Ritter's rule were held. Ritter, however, controlled the La Terre Defense Force, which backed his continued rule, and his tremendous wealth made him a formidable enemy. While it appeared that La Terre might be heading for a violent revolt, he clamped down more strongly on dissent and appeared to grow increasingly paranoid, claiming repeatedly that there was some kind of grand conspiracy working behind the scenes to secretly shatter what he, personally, had built on "his" planet. It was clear that power and wealth were thoroughly corrupting Ritter, and slowly driving him mad. Other say that it was the disappearance of his wife, Elianor Freyssinet, that had driven him slowly but surely to madness, also pointing out the uncanny physical likeness between Elianor and Ritter's new fiancee, Erin. Whatever the cause, the results where the same, sadly - sadly for La Terre.

After the LTDF narrowly prevented Gustav Eiger from destroying the planet by detonating a plasma bomb among the deep veins of polydenum running through the planet, Ritter decided to develop a contingency against any serious threat to his rule. Taking a cue from the madman Eiger, he had plasma bombs placed deep in the polydenum mines beneath the surface, which he could order detonated if it appeared this hidden "conspiracy" drove him from power. Nobody except one or two of his top commanders in the LTDF knew of this contingency.

From Tyrant to Mass Murderer
When the Lem'ing fleet began its assault on known space in 3001, the first location they attacked was the planet of La Terre. While their intentions were not initially known, the purpose of the Lem'ing assault was to destroy the spacefaring capabilities of the known worlds to prevent any further incursions into their own space. La Terre, therefore, was a logical place for them to begin their assault; while it was still a relatively small world, it had become of tremendous economic importance because of its polydenum supply and it was home of the massive SBI shipyards, one of the largest ship production facilities in the galaxy. It is now believed that the Lem'ing, as they did elsewhere after their assault on La Terre, were intending to destroy the SBI shipyards and any ships on or near La Terre before moving on. It is likely, based on the later record of the Lem'ing fleet, that they would have withdrawn from La Terre soon afterward, leaving the embattled Ritter government untouched and the overwhelming majority of the planet's population unharmed.

Ritter, however, did not see things this way. He saw the approach of the Lem'ing fleet as just one more challenge to his already questionable rule of La Terre, and he viewed it as further evidence that someone, somewhere, was out to get him, personally. He believed the Lem'ing were coming for him, and him alone, to take his world away from him. He lost whatever grip on reality he still possessed, and ordered that if he could not have La Terre, no one could. He initiated the countdown to detonation for his hidden plasma bombs.

When they exploded, they caused a harmonic cascade through the planet's polydenum deposits. These deposits carried and magnified the energy of the explosion throughout the planet's crust and mantel, and then the polydenum itself, all through the planet, exploded, shattering La Terre. The planet was completely destroyed.

Millions were murdered by Ritter's actions. Ritter himself was killed as well.

Ever since, he has been remembered as a tyrant, butcher and madman.

The Lem'ing Fleet, mystified by this bizarre reaction to their assault, moved on to attack other worlds in an effort to destroy their spacefaring capabilities. And the planet La Terre would later be ressurrected by the Hivers, along with nearly all of its population. Notably absent from this ressurection was the Tyrant Ritter.

SBI, Ritter's company, was devastated by the destruction of La Terre. Many of its key assets were destroyed and its leadership was gone. Its stock value plummetted, and it soon folded as a company, with its surviving assets being sold off to other companies.

OOC Story
When Ritter declared himself Sovereign of La Terre without any effort at RPing this radical shift in the planet's government, by securing the OOC support of a few key members of the LTDF, the OS Staff and administration questioned the action, and forced Ritter to perform several taskrolls involving political and leadership skills. He failed these badly, so they ruled that as a result, Ritter could declare himself Sovereign, but the population of La Terre would resist him, and this would create a situation of unrest on the planet.

Several staffer-controlled characters formed the basis of some rebel and protest movements on La Terre, and a fair amount of RP was generated by the whole affair. Ritter, however, came to believe that the staff of OS was out to get him, personally, and force him from power on La Terre. In reality, they were just trying to keep the situation realistic, and use his questionable act to generate RP, the outcome of which remained open-ended.

It just so happened, however, that at the same time, the Lem'ing Arc was beginning, and La Terre, for reasons which made sense to that storyline was the first place they chose to attack. Ritter, however, viewed this through the prism of his own IC and OOC paranoia. He had been convinced, ever since the staff had challenged his unprecedented move to declare himself the monarch of a previously democratic government, that they simply did not want him to rule La Terre and were looking for an IC excuse to depose him. When the Lem'ing Fleet attacked, he assumed this was a staffer-led attempt to remove him from power. This was not the case.

In any event, Ritter, embittered by what he viewed as a staff conspiracy against him, acted on his own to destroy the planet rather than have it forcibly taken from him. Ritter did not inform the staff of his intentions, but he did have several members of his inner circle, the players closest to him, with him when he destroyed the planet.

Brody, in a decision he would later publicly regret, let the destruction of La Terre stand. He and the rest of the staff decided that since a number of La Terre PCs, including top-ranking members of the LTDF, could have stopped Ritter but did not, and since the whole thing was thoroughly RPed, it was a feasible, if very disturbing, IC action that had no grounds for retconning. It was also motivated by the thought that retconning the event would have given Ritter, who at that point was claiming that the staff secretly opposed any player-driven event, entirely too much time in the spotlight.

As a result of Ritter's actions, dozens of OS characters were killed. La Terre had been a popular RP destination, and there were a large number of PCs currently located there. Most had little or nothing to do with Ritter, and were ignorant of his actions. The destruction of La Terre was the single largest loss of characters in OS history, and was a traumatic event for the whole game. A number of players left over the loss of their characters, and many others remained but were embittered.

Brody later relented of his decision to let Ritter's mad action stand, and arranged the ressurrection of La Terre. Any players who had a character on La Terre who had been killed in the explosion were allowed to fully restore that character.