Tokhtamysh Firkovich

Tokhtamysh Firkovich
Firkovich, in his police uniform
Character
Date of birth:	5th September 3427
Date of death:	22th July 3501 (aged 74)
Nationality:	Mariner Valley, Mars
Language(s):	Commonwealth English, Karaim, Martian English, Russian
Gender:	Male
Height:	6'1"
Occupation History
Religion:	Karaite Judaism
Occupation(s):	MFP Policeman
Service history
Rank:	Detective, Commissioner
Awards:	Medal of Valour (3468)
[Source]

Tokhtamysh Firkovich (born 5th September 3427, death 22th July 3501) was a famous police detective and later commissioner who was instrumental in bringing stability to the Martian Federation in the dangerous times after the Commonwealth-Martian War and bringing the state gangs to heel. He is currently held up by liberal Martians and integrated immigrants as the quintessential "good" immigrant to Mars.

History

Tokhtamysh Firkovich was born in 5th of September 3427 in a dilapidated Crimean dome city under the sway of Pyotr I. Born into a large family of Crimean Karaites, Tokhtamysh was born into an already fallen world. Earth was in a state of upheaval as elements in multiple arcos agitated against the bloated IGSA and the environment stood ravaged by the Climate Crisis. The Firkovichs wanted to get off Earth before any wars started, either between the arcos or with IGSA. So, the family worked hard to get off-world.

Little "Tok" as he was called grew up within the highly insular Karaite community, and he rarely interacted with those outside his family's small knot of friends in his childhood. However, things changed when the local Karaite school was shut down due to low attendance. So, Tok was forced to go to public school with the local Russians and Tartars at the age of thirteen. It was there that he first became aware of his Jewishness when confronted by bullies, who mocked him for his glasses and "big Jew nose". Tok did not respond well to this and fought his bullies. This would win the respect of several others in Tok's school, and he would slowly gain friends. While in school, Tok would excel in his studies and learned Commonwealth English and Russian in addition to his first language, Karaim.

Before Tok could become truly settled in however, his parents decided to make the tough decision of immigrating away from Earth. At that point, the boy had not even had his eighteenth birthday. Wrenched from his childhood home and friends, Tok went along with his parents, siblings, and assorted relations on a ship from Earth to his new home: Mars.

Mars in 3445 was still very prosperous and an economic powerhouse rivaling Earth. Even better, its terraformed environment was a verdant paradise compared to the poisoned sewer that was now Earth. Tok himself marveled at the state of Mars compared to the rest of his family, who seemed less concerned with the scenery than getting a steady job.

Settling down in Mariner Valley City, the Firkovichs integrated themselves into the local Jewish community but met difficulties, as Karaites were not even regarded as Jews by many of their Jewish neighbors. Tok was annoyed to find hostility from other boys his age for his family's religion and his Russian origins. As a result, Tok connected more with non-Jewish Earthers and Martians around his age. This helped Tok, in time, learn Martian English.

After turning twenty, Tok left home and became a security guard at a local laundromat business in Mariner Valley City. He moved out of his parent's house in 3447 and lived outside the Jewish neighborhood of the city to be closer to his job. The young man became more distant from his origins, and he made new friends outside his former social group.

A specific incident changed Tok's life. He was doing the night shift at his job when the laundromat was robbed by some Earther gangers. He was held captive by the gangers as the police handled the hostage situation. Tok was at the mercy of the gangers but was awed when the police managed to resolve the situation without any casualties. It was at that moment that he resolved to become a cop.

The journey to becoming Officer Firkovich would be a long one, but the young man had the determination and the drive to achieve his goals. It took years to even get close to what he wanted, worsened by the fact he was a foreigner and mistrusted by many Martians. It took Firkovich a few years just to get his Martian citizenship. During that time, the Martian Federation was declared and war broke out between the Federation and the Commonwealth of Earth. Firkovich considered whether he wanted to perhaps volunteer for the army or continue his attempts to join the police force. He decided to continue for his dream, even if it was a bit selfish.

Firkovich finally managed to join the police force in 3459 and was quickly put to work keeping the peace in a city where rule of law was falling apart. With the loss of FRIEND to the Commonwealth occupiers, public services and administration were in shambles. The population was struggling to get by, and crime was on the rise everywhere it seemed. Blood flowed in streets, and Officer Firkovich was on the beat trying to stem the flood along with many other policemen.

All this came to a head with the emergence of the Vagabond. A social pariah who preached against the Martian elite, the Vagabond urged the average Martian to reject society and kill the rich. That obviously led to a clash with Mariner Valley's security and police force. Officer Firkovich was on the front lines fighting Vagabonds, gangers, and other assorted criminals, and he was injured several times in the line of duty. This earned Firkovich the respect of many others on the police force who resented Earthers.

Officer Firkovich would take part in the massive operation in 3462 to clear the Vagabonds out of Mariner Valley City. That operation and following cleanup operation would earn Firkovich the position of detective. However around this time, Firkovich was already becoming jaded to the experience due to the extreme violence he witnessed on a daily basis. However, Firkovich still firmly believed in the ideals of justice and the rule of law, so he slogged on. As the Vagabonds continued their reign of terror across Mars, Firkovich became increasingly determined to bring them to heel through any means within his power.

Chief among his obsession was the Vagabond himself, an elusive figure who seemed to avoid any sort of profile the authorities attempted to construct of him. He seemed almost like a vengeful spirit of Mars that had arisen to punish the Martian elite for their hubris. Still, Detective Firkovich was determined. In time, with the assistance of several officers, and after taking down several other "false Vagabonds" hijacking his alias, Firkovich managed to corner the man in a train going between Mariner Valley and Xanthe Terra, gunning him down personally.

The Vagabond's death was celebrated across Mars by the media and state, and Firkovich was heralded as a hero and a model immigrant by the Federation. He was awarded the Medal of Valour for his efforts. The young government was sorely in need of a win, and it was happy to take what it could as officials scrambled to repair infrastructure and maintain the fragile diplomatic situation. With this anti-citizen one out of the way, the Federation decided to pit its best officer against the next most wanted man on Mars: Artur Olkowski, a search that would take years off the detective's life.

Unlike the Vagabond, Artur Olkowski's history was fairly well-known by the Federation. An Earther from Pillar of Hope who had been brought by his parents to Mars at a young age, Artur's parents split while he was still only a boy, and the young man had to grow up witnessing his father's rejection and mother's spiral into addiction amongst the backdrop of the general urban decay in Olympus Mons Metro. It was on this canvas of moral debauchery that Artur's uncompromising brand of moral absolutism crystalized, with his later involvement in the Martian student activist movement providing him with the political education necessary to actualize it, continuing up until the Commonwealth's invasion. With the coming of war and the descent of his home city into chaos, Olkowski's activist laurels saw him champion a popular movement against this social sickness. Thanks in part to his natural social and organisational tact and sincere confidence in the masses, he and his followers were one of the few that managed to survive the street violence and crackdowns by Commonwealth occupiers, with his organisation's reliance on decentralisation, internal democracy and its culture of educating all members rendering it difficult to crush through conventional means, e.g. through executing ringleaders or heavy infiltration. Olkowski's relentless building work allowed the Dualists to become entirely self-governing, providing him with the precious time to continue his work away from direct leadership, much of which he spent writing theory, public speaking, and aiding in the establishment of new cells in rival districts. It wasn't long before he became a folk hero to the people of Olympus Mons Metro, with his organisation growing to control nearly a fourth of the city. Olkowski was a harsh man, one who donned a plethora of behavioural masks to suit any situation while hiding any semblance of true emotion, and reviled in making a show out of the public punishment of traitors and social parasites. But despite this, and his attempts to promote the self-activity of his organisation, it - and the wider populace of Olympus Mons Metro - idolized him as the personification of the Dualists and as a torchbearer of good in the face of evils such as the Commonwealth, the Matterists, and the Vagabonds.

With Federation-led rebuilding efforts proving to be mixed and morally blurred in the wake of the war, many Dualists, including Olkowski, were still skeptical of the state's ability to protect the impoverished and oppressed. However, relations between the Dualists and the government remained relatively peaceful only until Olkowski was declared an enemy of the state in 3466, with the announcement resulting in mass, violent crackdowns on Dualist activity throughout Olympus Mons. Olkowski quickly went into hiding, however still managed to publish, by way of smuggled data pads, his career-defining pamphlet on AI, "The Future of FRIEND: A Catastrophe in Waiting", which argued that AI integration was ultimately detrimental to humanity. In response, countless Dualists began work on hampering the implementation of the Second FRIEND programmes.

Detective Firkovich arrived in Olympus Mons Metro in 3468, and found a city that still bore the scars of war. Firkovich observed the squalor that many of the residents still lived, with loyalty towards Olkowski and his state gang remaining in spite of the security force crackdowns. It quickly became clear to Firkovich that the Dualists were no ordinary gang, and that the situation would have to be approached in a more unorthodox manner, demanding backbreaking amount of stealth and subterfuge, with Olkowski's popularity and the rampant and widely-known corruption within the Olympian Police earning him little trust from citizen and officer alike. Martian media also became an increasing hindrance to Firkovich's work as they pestered him for the latest scoop on the case, which consistently alerted the public to his intentions and whereabouts. This cluster of problems frustrated Detective Firkovich to no end as he relentlessly searched for his target in numerous slums and compounds, even exchanging fire on occasion. However, Olkowski always seemed to be one step ahead of him. After a year, the police department had become impatient, and Firkovich was becoming increasingly despondent.

However in 3468, Firkovich finally got a lead in the form of someone who was willing to talk about Olkowski‘s movements. The contact was a former girlfriend who had been pushed away due to the latter's extreme personality, with Firkovich's very public fight against against police corruption earning him something in the way of her trust. She offered to talk with the understanding that he was seeking to arrest Olkowski, and not kill him outright like the Vagabond, and with an agreement reached, told him that Olkowski could be found in an abandoned warehouse that night only. Her parting words were a warning that no mass operation could ever crust the Dualists, who had eyes all over the city, and that she never wanted to see Firkovich again.

That night, Firkovich was faced with a crossroads: conduct a large-scale operation against the ex-girlfriend’s warning, go at it alone, or take her in for further questioning and to get Olkowski‘s attention. After a few agonizing hours, Firkovich decided to take what he saw as the safest option: further questioning. This time however, Olkowski responded quickly in kind, and several Dualists died attempting to rescue his ex-girlfriend with the help of a number of corrupt police officers.

The investigation would drag on for another month before Firkovich got another lead: the Dualist leader was sighted in a diner, and Firkovich was informed of it on the street only a few blocks away. Thunderstruck, the detective moved quickly towards the restaurant and notified the police department of the lead.

As Detective Firkovich approached Olkowski, threats of arrest were quickly superseded by a far more diplomatic discussion, with Firkovich drawn in by Olkowski's authoritative, unassuming and frank demeanour, as well as the fear of losing the man he sacrificed so much to find.

Olkowski said to Firkovich that he started the Dualists as a means of protecting people from predatory forces, whether that be gangs or the government. He then went on to talk about how over the last couple of years, his own organization had been corrupted from the inside with drug dealers, prostitutes, and smugglers proliferating within Dualist ranks. Olkowski had at first tried to deal with this rot but had given up after a while due to being in hiding. The stress of constantly being on the run began to get to Olkowski, and his world of moral absolutes was unable to prevent him from slipping into despair. What broke him, he explained, was seeing the new Martian automated security forces at work on an increasingly large scale. Witnessing the populace utterly submitting to machines had conjured up unpleasant images in Olkowski’s mind. He spoke a future where humanity was bereft of meaning, where cold robots would “care” for them like the cattle of ages past, neutered and docile. As he ranted, Olkowski recalled a quote from a old book he had read, originally from old Earth: "the machine masturbated and we had to take it or die." That was the future he saw under a restored FRIEND.

Firkovich, as it turned out, was independently followed by the Olympian Police, who tracked the two of them down to the diner. As they emerged, announcing their presence over loudspeakers, Olkowski went for his sidearm, only to be hailed in a shower of the glass and bullets from the outside, killing him. The leader of the Dualists was finally dead.

Although Firkovich did not kill Olkowski, he was still credited for his contributions to the case and held up as an exemplar officer. Firkovich did not feel the same. He felt empty after Olkowski case, both because of his conflicted feelings about the man and the corruption of Olympus Mons Metro’s police department. Firkovich would then return to Mariner Valley City, quitting the force after a brief three years as Commissioner to live out a quiet existence in Mariner Valley’s pastoral region, eventually making peace with his demons through renewed faith. Firkovich would live alone peacefully in a small home in the country for nearly twenty years before dying a natural death in 3501. His autobiography, A Uninspired Story, would published posthumously but is currently out of print due to censorship from the current Martian government.

Personality

Firkovich was a very versatile and scrappy individual, which made him a good cop. A polyglot who learned four languages, Firkovich was able to learn a lot wherever he was. He was also just and fair, one of the things that made him so popular in his time. However, Firkovich was highly strung and slightly neurotic, which eventually led to him quitting the police force early. During his life, Firkovich's perspective on religion shifted from faithful to agnostic to devout later in life. His uncertainty about religion was partially because of his experiences on the street shaking his belief in God.

A loner throughout his life, Firkovich never really had time for marriage or women in general. Although he had passing flings with women, he never really thought about establishing his own family. He therefore has no direct descendants, only having relations through his siblings' descendants.

Appearance

Firkovich's appearance was that of a rather unassuming man, a gray mousy looking man. A fit man, Firkovich was quite able to act as a competent officer in the Martian Federal Police. He loved his police uniform and kept it even after his retirement, keeping it nicely pressed for special occasions.