Characters

Ralph Alexander

You are a former decorated war hero and wreckage from a different age. You began the war as an artillery officer but were transferred to the infantry after a misfire destroyed most of your unit. You were a popular leader but the strain of the expectations of your men to keep them alive and whole was an impossible burden.

You were injured several times in the war. Stabbed with a combat knife during a hand to hand struggle in the trenches. Shot in calf by a fellow soldier accidentally, then shot in the left arm by an enemy sniper with poor marksmanship. Your final injury that resulted in you being invalided out of the army shortly before the collapse of the imperial government was a spray of metal shrapnel from an enemy shell or mortar. The doctors were only able to remove so much and ever since your body aches and grumbles as you move and live. Alcohol and drugs numb the pain but never fully kill it.

While at the hospital you heard about the mutinies and soldier’s councils and thought that some kind of justice might come for those who fought for their country at the command of an arrogant emperor. However the aristocrats have closed ranks again to deny and smother the suffering of those who are bled to support them. The thought that all the death might have been for nothing is close to unbearable for you.

When you try to sleep consult the dream table.

You are cold and dispassionate user of violence and your disassociation from such acts can cause fear in friends and foes alike.

You are generally well-dressed in a formal suit and tie, clean-shaven with short hair. You are in your middle-forties, well-built and tall, your movements reflect the pain of your wounds and your body carries many scars.

Ralph met Laska in the hospital while recovering from their fragmentation wounds. Fritz is Laska’s friend. Ralph has confided so much to Laska, as close as a soulmate as they have ever had. Ralpha has carried out dirty work for the Party with Fritz, things that have re-opened psychic wounds that refuse to heal.

How does Ralph feel about his two companions right now?

Laska Winter

As a young woman you were a well-known fashion model but you felt it was a vacuous way to make a living and when the war started you volunteered to become a nurse. The field hospitals felt like abattoirs and while you were now close to the profound truths of life and death the factory line of ruined bodies led to a quiet breakdown of disassociation.

After the war a habit of heavy drinking has turned into a crushing addiction whose impact you try to push to the edge of your consciousness. Instead you invest your energies into the revolution. The failure of the early uprisings haunts you like the blood and canvas of the front. This crushed potential simply means that one must be all the more innocent in the eyes of the capitalist oppressors and equally ruthless in the treatment of their stooges. One day the canals will be choked with the bodies of the bourgeois and the murderers of the Sparticists.

You have dark curly hair that you used to dye blonde. You are conventionally attractive and tend to attract admiration from people you meet. You always try to dress fashionably and are a good seamstress who can care for, alter and create the clothes you wear.

Laska met Ralph while you were both recovering in a rear-area hospital and beyond the similarity of their wounded circumstances they felt an affinity. Does this remain? What interests do they share beyond politics and the past?

You suspect Fritz is spying on you, testing your loyalty to the distant Soviets. How do you feel about this? Do you play along or tease him? Do you care what the international party thinks of you?

Fritz Rotter

You work for the USSR, the homeland of the workers’ revolution. The capitalist system is about to fall prey to its own inherent contradictions and faithful Communists must be ready to strike at this moment of maximum weakness.

You provide reports on German political activists and German Communist Party members to the Supreme Soviet, so that the most reliable and loyal comrades can be identified for key roles in future revolutionary actions. You know that your friends are too unreliable and damaged to play an important role in this future action but you have held off submitting your report out of a human fallibility. You feel torn between your friendship and being honest with your superiors.

You were too young to have fought in the war. You may yet have to fight in the true war to help expand the dictatorship of the people to Germany and sweep away the corrupt republic. You stand ready to do your duty.

Laska met Fritz through party meetings and the two share a fervent hope that the final true German revolution is close at hand but have lived through enough failures that they know they may have to be patient. What subversive activity have the pair already carried out?

Ralph’s war experience makes him a valuable comrade capable of leading street actions and para-military operations such as sabotage. How has Ralph’s capacity for violence shocked and threatened Fritz?