NAME: Stanislav Zakharchenko Volkov
AGE: 72
SEX: M
NICKNAME: Grandpa, Stan
DESCRIPTION: While Stanislav has maintained his physique to the best of his ability, the lack of muscle below the upper part of his torso makes it clear that he has been stuck in a wheelchair for fourteen years, it is still just as evident though that he is fairly tall, his standing height being 6' 03”. Age has not taken too much of a toll on him though, his brilliantly colored eyes, one green and one blue, remain as bright as ever, always open wide and attentive, taking in everything. While he is starting to look a little jowly, he is not too wrinkled, which would be hard to tell anyway because of the thick, well kept beard that brushes against his chest and covers most of his face, a beard that matches the steely grey color of his wavy hair, which he keeps parted to the left and swept back, out of his face. One thing that the beard does not hide is the smile that constantly turns up the edge of his mouth, a wide, bright affair that almost never leaves his face. The part of his body that really distinguishes him as the elderly gentleman he is are his hands, well worn from years of hard use and slightly arthritic.
PERSONALITY: Stanislav is the happiest anyone ever ought to be, except he's that happy all the time. There's just something about life, something he has never quite been able to place that he very much enjoys despite the events therein and the fact that he's in a wheelchair, and this jovial nature has earned him the unofficial position of grandpa for the Dreadnaughts. There is very little that upsets or angers Stanislav, though he does become incredibly annoyed when people tamper with his equipment. The aforementioned annoyance is a result of Stanislav's very orderly lifestyle. He enjoys routine above all else, taking his meals at exactly the same time everyday, going to bed and waking up at the same time every day, so on so forth, even interruptions to his routine are unlikely to upset Stanislav though. It would even be fair to go so far as to say that Stanislav is a bit compulsive, a fact he considers one of his strongest attributes, as it has yet to fail him. Despite having spent most of his life in the former Soviet Union, a state that did not have a particularly keen view on religion, he is a devout Orthodox Christian.
ATTIRE: Stanislav, as expected, doesn't do a lot of field work. He's comfortable near combat, and as such is a valuable asset at field command positions, but doesn't do any fighting for himself. As such he generally sticks to a olive drab or dark brown button down shirt tucked into BDU pants, with the cuffs of the pants tucked into his boots. Oftentimes though he doesn't even go that far if he doesn't have to. Though he does like to dress to impress so his notion of leisure clothes is a button down shirt tucked into slacks, his personal favourite combination being a dark red shirt and charcoal grey slacks, and shoes, usually black, polished to a mirror shine, to match his belt. He will also often wear suspenders or a tie, sometimes both, if he's feeling up to putting them on in the morning, but he never leaves without his brass coin cufflinks bearing the state emblem of the Soviet Union. On formal occasions he has been known to wear the dress uniform of his former position in the KGB. Despite his knack for dressing well however, Stanislav very rarely ever takes the grey fleece blanket off his lap as it hides his legs, and his is often cold, something he attributes to his age.
WEAPON OF CHOICE: Upon completing his basic training as KGB agent shortly after completing school Stanislav was issued a Makarov pistol that he has maintained and used to this day. He has had formal training with a multitude of types of firearms including rifles, but it has been a while since he has actually used anything besides the Makarov, which he takes to the range every so often to make sure it is still in working condition and keep himself sharp.
MUGGING: He would launch into a lengthy diatribe about the state of modern society while discretely getting his Makarov at the ready from a specially concealed holster on the wheelchair at which point he would use it to discourage his attacker while he contacted authorities. If the mugger pressed the attack, he would shoot to kill, if the mugger ran he would shoot to incapacitate.
BIOGRAPHY: Born in 1943, Stanislav was born into the somewhat peaceful countryside of the Soviet Union beginning its recovery from the German invasion as Soviet troops pushed them back. Postwar collectivization meant that his family remained on a collective farm or moved to one of the massive industrial centers popping up around Russia as a result of the Five Year Plans, of which they chose the latter, though they did not move to a new center of industry, they moved to an old one, Moscow. It was in Moscow that Stanislav was educated and also where he began his career.
All throughout school his intelligence was praised and encouraged by his teachers, though discretely due to the standards of the Soviet education system. Several times throughout his years in school party members would often come to the schools, looking for potential future recruits to the various bodies of the Soviet government and Stanislav was often mentioned to such officials in the form of recommendations to these officials, recommendations which finally held some weight in his last year of school when he was asked to take an entrance examination for the KGB, which he passed with flying colors, but his intelligence shined particularly brightly in the area of computers and technology, an area of study he had dedicated as much time as he could to throughout his formative years as the workings of electronics and machinery fascinated him.
Officially recruited and trained, Stanislav was assigned to the Eighth Chief Directorate of the KGB though it was soon realized that his skills could be elsewhere as well and he was often invited to consult in the Sixteenth Chief Directorate. Through his work in both these departments Stanislav applied his knowledge of computers and became an excellent cryptographer as well, cracking codes even seasoned veterans struggled with, and with cryptography came an expertise in language as well, which he took to just as easily as cryptography, quickly becoming fluent in the languages of the alleged enemies of communism as well as the language of its allies. The skill and quickness with which Stanislav adapted and learned impressed his superiors and he rose quickly through the ranks of the Eighth Chief Directorate, rising in just four years to be the director of the Eighth Chief Directorate (a process sped along greatly by the rather quick turnover rate of administrative staff that the Soviet Union is famous for), but when he got there he stuck. Stanislav remained directorate chief for 26 years until 1991 when it all came to a screeching halt.
Stanislav, more out of self interest than for love of communism, took part in the August Putsch, which ultimately failed, and in the process cost him, not only his career, but his livelihood. In what little fighting occurred on August 21, Stanislav received an injury that permanently paralyzed him from the waist down. Shortly thereafter, knowing he would likely be punished by the Soviet government for participating in the Putsch or by the new government for being a KGB official, Stanislav defected to the United States in exchange for various state secrets and a job with the NSA, which was short lived because his skills being with Soviet computer systems and his disability did not make him a valuable asset. So he resigned to updating his skill set, which he did quickly, efficiently, and continuously throughout the rapidly advancing technological era that had dawned, and eventually signed on with the Dreadnaughts as an intelligence analysts.
TALENTS: Stanislav is highly skilled with any kind of electronic device, both repairing and using them. After his defection technology began advancing much more quickly than he was accustomed to in the Soviet Union, but he kept up regardless. He is highly knowledgeable in any programming language created after 1961, and to a lesser degree those created before it, both reading them and programming in them. He is also skilled with making and maintaining computer and electronic equipment hardware, with the right materials and equipment Stanislav could essentially build a computer from scratch, and on more than one occasion, has. One of the specific applications of his technological aptitude is cryptography, which Stanislav is also very good at. During the Cold War, Soviet systems were often far behind those of America and her allies, which resulted in many codes having to be decoded through brainpower alone, without the assistance of up-to-date cryptography software, this experience coupled with his programming knowledge and skill makes Stanislav a force to be reckoned with as far as code breaking and making are concerned. And by proxy of his cryptography skills, Stanislav became an adept linguist as well, receiving encoded communications from allies and intercepting them from enemies was the name of the game and as a result, Stanislav had to learn numerous languages to become as competent as he was. There was, of course, and entire linguistics department of the Eighth Chief Directorate, but that didn't stop him. He soon became fluent in English, French, German, Hungarian, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Ukrainian, Polish, Latvian, Estonian, Lithuanian, Uzbek, Kazakh, Hebrew, and Arabic and while his fading memory makes it difficult for him to remember them all as well as he once did, he is still fluent to a degree in all of them.
ROLE: Stanislav heads up the teams that handle the Dreadnaughts vast computer network and communications array as well as their electronic intelligence gathering and cryptography teams
(The Screen Squatters as he likes to call them), he is a very busy man, but he likes to stay that way, he often says that keeping busy is what keeps him alive.
OTHER: While they do not actively hunt him, the current Russian administration as well as some old comrades from the KGB have a bit of a grudge against Stanislav for the information he sold to the Americans in exchange for asylum. He has also retained the habit of calling many people comrade.
I LIKE: Like many Soviet officials of his time, Stanislav enjoys a good cigar and a strong beverage.
I DISLIKE: Gorbachev, he was a coward.
ATTRIBUTES:
Strength: 2 (He has a fairly strong upper body, but cannot use the lower half of his body)
Dexterity: 2 (His dexterity ends at the edges of a keyboard)
Constitution: 2 (He's kind of a frail old man)
Wisdom: 5 (He's old)
Intelligence: 5 (He's smart and old)
Charisma: 3
SKILLS:
Melee Combat, Finesse
Melee Combat, Brute
Unarmed Combat, Finesse
Unarmed Combat, Brute
Marksmanship
Explosives
Tactics
Operating
Medicine
Sneaking
Mechanics
Camouflage
Survival
Persuasion
Intimidation
Regulation
Lying
Leadership
Willpower
Morale
Stamina
Health
SPECIALIZATION: Technological Aptitude: Computers