Disciples of Anu

The Disciples of Anu were a mystery.

Where others saw the devastation, they saw hope. Where others saw the end of the world, they saw a new beginning.

Their leader called herself the Exalted, and she claimed to believe in humanity. She preached that the human soul was perfect, that the root of our problems was our insufficient evolution. The Pandoravirus was a threat, but it was also an opportunity to change ourselves. To become better humans. To mutate.

We knew that humanity needed to adapt. There was no other way to survive. The Disciples offered a solution... but what was their endgame? There was something beyond their hierarchies and their rituals.

The Exalted had a secret.

Keeper of the Threshold

The Keeper of the Threshold, while relatively low in the Disciples of Anu church hierarchy, serves an important function.

He will engage with any organization that has aroused the interest of the Synod of Yearning or the Exalted, to evaluate whether the said organization is worth building a relationship with.

It is unclear whether this is just one individual, or whether there are multiple Keepers of the Threshold.

Captain J. P. Richter

A wayward assault trooper, Richter was always heading for trouble. His hunger for combat made him an eager recruit to the newly-formed New Jericho military after the fall of the United States and the end of the Third World War. Richter always felt he'd been born a decade too late and his early career as a strike team member at Fort Freiheit was all about him making up for the lost time.

A classified incident on the base where he ended up disciplined and placed in quarantine by Colonel Jack Harlson changed Richter's outlook. He was one of four soldiers left behind to defend Fort Freiheit whilst the rest of the populace were evacuated. Richter was the only one of the four to make it back to a New Jericho settlement, although rumors of the others surviving as well continue to circulate. Richter, for his part, will say nothing when asked.

Promoted to Captain, Richter now works with the Reclamation and Weapons Division under the command of Colonel Joshua Falken. He is known to bear a grudge against his former base commander Colonel Harlson.

Colonel Jack Harlson

Colonel Jack Harlson has been with New Jericho since before it was New Jericho. He was recruited to Vanadium Inc by Albert Siennes in Clinton after being invalided out of the army when he lost his left arm in combat. Harlson acted as liaison to the militaries Vanadium worked with, often selling weapons to both sides of a conflict.

After the fall of nations and the end of the war, Harlson assisted West in restructuring Vanadium into New Jericho. He became head of research in this new structure and the haven leader of Fort Freiheit, one of the main New Jericho bases in the 2040s.

After the destruction of Fort Freiheit, Harlson has been struggling to re-organize his teams. He has been recruiting soldiers and scientists to assist with these projects, many of which are classified.

Sophia Villanova

Sophia Villanova is a physics expert and military weapons engineer. A Phoenix Project operative who was never activated, she joined New Jericho as a refugee after the collapse of the New Europe faction at the end of the Third World War.

Villanova strongly believes in a military solution to the Pandoravirus problem and is deeply suspicious of Synedrion. Her views and opinions align with those of her new benefactor, Tobias West. It is believed that the two are close, although she is considered a newcomer by others in the upper echelons of the organization.

Abongameli Smith

A Nigerian research scientist who completed his PhD at Harvard in 2025 aged just 20, Abongameli Smith is a quietly-spoken biochemist of considerable ability.

Smith's Ph.D. research had been into creating medical treatments for Ebola, but when the Pandoravirus was first discovered, he was persuaded to abandon his research by Tobias West, who began funding his clinic and his experiments throughout the 2030s. When Smith's facility was compromised, West ordered Vanadium security forces to conduct an elaborate and dangerous operation to airlift him out.

Since then, Smith has been working quietly and diligently under the supervision of Colonel Jack Harlson. He is also responsible for leading the New Jericho scientists in their dissection and autopsy examinations of captured aliens.