The de facto leader of the Dissident Technocrats operating in NYC
Name: Agent Thaddeus Soon Finch
Sect: NWO Operative (Former)
Faction: Technocracy/Disparates
Apparent Age: 35
Demeanor: Crusader
Role in NYC: Dissident Operations Director
Vital Information
Agent Finch was here when the Indian Point disaster began. He'd been here before that, of course. An upstanding Citizen and a well-practiced expert in the Enlightened sciences of social conditioning and information control, Finch is and was a strategist first and a field agent second. He was one of the best. Conditioned, trained, ready, he was one of the few, the proud, the deceived. His family connections are long since severed, and whatever brought him into the fold, he made the cause his life.
While attending to the business of information suppression and RD termination, he made his mark on the world, following orders and believing the party line... Until he received a word 'go' that he couldn't accept. An order to do something he knew was unacceptable. Conditioning won. But the nightmares never stopped, the guilt was real, and his Eidolon and subconscious had begun to reject what he thought he knew and believed, in favor of something brighter. Agent Finch began to do what he would have told his unfortunate targets was impossible: he began to remake his own mind.
And he began to doubt. He began to display unmutual behavior, using his own deviations as cover for other moves. Targets were spared, orders deviated from. He hit Degree 6 and had spent some time being 'rehabilitated' by the time his unit was sent out to fight Truant Redbook and the Hollow Ones on the streets. The story of that is better told elsewhere, but by the end of it... He'd decided what he had to do.
The Cassandra Complex had been in touch since the former star operative had begun to make his own decisions. He'd tried to ignore them before, but now... He would organize. The Harbingers came into the fold, and he's making progress with the Friends of Courage (where he can find them at all).
The Brooklyn Navy Yard's Dissidents are his operation, and he takes that seriously. He's kept hostilities to a minimum between the Traditions and the Technocracy, despite continuous and intensive efforts to spark off hot conflicts both from without and from within, and he was on the front lines when the Greenpoint Bridge was taken.
He's not fond of Traditionalists, anymore than he has a great love for his former Convention, but he tries to work with Technocrats and Disparates alike, and whispers of New Avalon can sometimes be heard from his allies, or more mockingly, from his detractors.
As far as he's concerned, he's still fighting to keep the lights on. He's just finally figured out where to direct his fire.
Physical Description
Finch is handsome, 6' even, of Korean American extraction, and always dresses like a pro. It's rare to see him looking anything but calm and collected, even when facing down things that should not be, heavily outnumbered, or both. He's been biomodded to some degree, and the pain it causes him is usually apparent, even though there's no sign of it slowing him down.
Careful observers will note the scars and marks of intensive 'correction' by his former keepers, as well as more impressive potholes from bullets and battle magic that were never quite healed. He dresses to conceal this, of course, but there is a reason he delegates field work now, and it's not because he doesn't want to face the enemies of human dignity and justice head on.
Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth -- more than ruin, more even than death. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habits; thought is anarchic and lawless, indifferent to authority, careless of the well-tried wisdom of the ages. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid ... Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man.
— Bertrand Russell