Ray Firkis

Raymond Firkis is a career naval officer whose reputation was forged long before his association with the UPMF. A decorated fleet admiral of the Cophuranee Navy, Firkis earned a reputation for unorthodox yet consistently successful command doctrine. Unlike most Cophuranee officers, Firkis did not equate withdrawal with weakness. He willingly accepted tactical pushbacks—or ordered proactive retreats—when such actions served a broader strategic objective. This philosophy would later define both his legacy and his infamy.

Early Career - The Cophura Crisis

At the time of the Dhilani assault on Cophuran, Firkis held the rank of captain and had just been assigned command of the ICR Inferno. While en route returning from his successful campaign against the Riquanee Pirate organisation, the invasion began. The Cophuranee flagship, ICR Champion, carrying the sitting Supreme Commander of the Cophuranee Navy, engaged the Dhilani attackers immediately and without sufficient reconnaissance. The flagship was destroyed early in the engagement, killing the Supreme Commander and throwing the fleet into disarray.

As the highest-ranking surviving officer present, Firkis assumed command. Assessing the situation as strategically untenable, he issued an order without precedent in Cophuranee history: a full fleet retreat. Though widely condemned at the time, the decision preserved the remaining fleet and a significant portion of Cophuranee naval power.

Instead of another blunt force attempt to confront the Invaers head-on he devised a plan to send out a small covert strike team to infiltrate and sabotage the enemy flagship, before the fleet would reengage. The strategy succeeded and the invaders would withdraw from Cophuran. Once again Firkis kept a level head and instead of chasing after them convinced Cophuranee leadership to focus on rebuilding and bolstering their defenses.

Name: Ray Firkis

Species: Male Cophuranee

Born: 2428 UST, Cophuran

Height: 179 cm
Skin color: Blue
Hair color: White
Eye color: Ice-Blue

UPMF Supreme Circle

Rise within the United Planets

Years later, Firkis was appointed as one of three UPMF Supreme Commanders, a testament to the long-term reevaluation of his actions at Cophuran. During the Dhilani Empire’s invasion attempt, he commanded Cophuranee forces in the Battle of Bricera, where his measured coordination proved decisive in preventing a total collapse of the front.

Although Cophuran declined to participate in the subsequent Briceran crusade against Dhilon, Firkis privately assured Vince Trageton of his support, feeling indebted after the Cophuranee government’s earlier political failures. That support was called upon sooner than expected.

When the Briceran Overlord descended into instability and openly turned against Trageton, Firkis sided with his former ally. Together they brought down the Overlord—an act that would soon prove catastrophic. Exploiting the power vacuum, Phlic Aelhoc, Vaylon’s most ambitious rival, seized control of the United Planets. He branded Firkis and Trageton conspirators and traitors, ordering their exile alongside the entire Cophuranee people.

Exile, Defeat, and Rebellion

While Trageton was imprisoned on Bricera, Firkis mounted a desperate defense of Cophuran against a UPMF blockade. Despite support from a renegade SBCR Warrior, the engagement turned decisively against him. Recognizing the battle as lost, Firkis ordered a strategic withdrawal—choosing survival over symbolic martyrdom once again.

Over the following year, Firkis and Trageton organized a coordinated rebellion against Aelhoc’s dictatorship. Drawing on intimate knowledge of UPMF command structures, they devised a campaign of misdirection, attrition, and fragmentation, systematically crippling the very forces they had commanded only months earlier.

Their strategy culminated in the Battle of Khetaris, where Trageton’s swift, ferocious strikes combined with Firkis’ precise and understated maneuvers to inflict a devastating defeat on the UPMF loyalists.

Diverging Paths

Victory marked another parting of ways for Firkis and Trageton. Disillusioned beyond repair, Trageton and the widowed First Lady Shiromy Gitann departed UPA territory. Firkis remained behind, resolved to oversee the rebuilding of the alliance he had once served with pride.

Despite his efforts, the United Planets never recovered the unity it had known under Vaylon’s rule. Corruption, greed, and political decay hollowed the alliance from within. Through decades of stagnation, it was Firkis’ belief in eventual renewal that sustained him.

The Phoenix Decision

Approximately fifteen years after Khetaris, Firkis was contacted by Vince Trageton—now Emperor of the Phoenix Empire. Trageton requested Firkis’ support against a new galactic-scale threat known as the Keepers.

Though initially skeptical of Trageton’s motives, Firkis agreed to visit the Phoenix Empire alongside a delegation of UPA ambassadors. What he witnessed profoundly altered his outlook. The empire Trageton had forged from near nothing rekindled Firkis’ faith—not only in Trageton, but in the possibility of salvaging the United Planets themselves.

To Firkis, Trageton had become more than a ruler, in him Firkis saw a symbol and the future of he had hoped to build. Determined to do whatever was necessary to save the alliance, Firkis swore his allegiance—and that of the entire UPMF—to his new Emperor.