Anjor was born in 2784 CE in Techiix, the largest surviving angaran daar on Voeld. Like many angara living in Techiix, his family was one of refugees (his family's original daar having been destroyed by the kett roughly five years prior to Anjor's birth). His parents were of minimal renown his father Ahnon a hydraulics engineer, and his mother Ansa an archaeologist who spent most of her days studying what she could of the pre-Scourge ruins trapped beneath the ice. Though child raising wasn't limited to his parents, but extend to his uncles, aunts, and grandparents as well as was typical for his people. As a result things were never quiet around the house, Anjor learning to cherish the small moments of peace and quiet he could steal away.
Anjor was the youngest product of his parent's union. While his extended family was ever constant and around in his life, it would be the members of his blood family that would shape him the most in the years to come. From youngest to oldest his direct siblings consisted of Tevfras, Jershid, Yavfre, and Ihfala. Tevfras and Jershid, his older brother were twins four years older than Anjor and would drag the young angaran on many an adventure, much to the chagrin of his family. Yavfre and Ihfala, his two sisters were six and nine years older respectively. Yavfre despite only being the second oldest was always the "mother" of the siblings trying to maintain order and make sure nobody got into too much trouble. Ihfala was a little bit more distant and serious, having lived in their old daar the longest before the kett forced them out. Despite this Anjor always looked up to her the most being the oldest "coolest" sibling and all.
Tragedy would strike just past Anjor's fifteenth year in 2799 CE. Ansa would be killed by a kett raid on her most recent excavation, dying trying to defend her other compatriots as they escaped. After her death, the family was never really the same again. Of course there was tavetara and the comfort that such beliefs of reincarnation could bring. But even then such comfort seems small in comparison to a life taken too early. Ahnon would fall into a deep depression that he never truly recovered from, and as a result Jershid soon began going to work with him to help pick up the slack. Yavfre would soon after fall hard for a boy and slowly, but surely began the process of reincorporating herself into his own family. Tevfras and Ihfala would harness their anger against the kett and put it to work joining the Voeld Resistance. One of the many small resistance movements that operated in Heleus following first contact with the kett, but prior to the reorganization beneath Evfra de Tershaav some years later.
Anjor for his part tried his best to keep his head up but it was hard doings. His studies in school seemed to be of little importance to him now that Tevfras and Ihfala were out their putting their lives on the line against the kett. His school like any other was the ever-efficient rumor mill, so when his father didn't bounce back on his feet, the other kids began to talk, and more often than not Anjor was starting to get into fights over otherwise innocent comments. Only a slightly above average student, his grades slowly began to deteriorate. But he stuck to it pushing along and doing his best, if only to do good by his lineage.
The day after he finished school in 2802 CE, he signed up with the Resistance. He didn't even need to reconsider for a second, it was the only possible plan ever since his mother died. The only one that made sense at least. Much to his dismay, at least initially signing up with the Resistance meant more schooling. Though this was a different kind of schooling than the one he was used to. This was a school of combat, a school of war. Here Anjor began to excel, always a doer never a thinker, the adrenaline filled moments of action rewarding those that could think on their feet. Many things Anjor was not, but as it turned out a natural warrior he was.
Or well at least he "thought" he was a natural warrior, if he could walk the walk along with talking the talk was yet to be seen. He certainly had promise but any experienced soldier can tell you "promise" meant right shit when it came to an actual firefight. Whatever the case once the higher ups were confident he wouldn't embarrass them too much he placed into the Second Techiix Strike Team, coincidently the same team that Tevfras was serving in as a combat engineer. Tevfras was of course overjoyed of being able to fight alongside his brother, but the years of combat had changed him. He wasn't the easy-going jokester that Anjor had grown up with. Conflict had hardened him, the jokes still came but they had a more cynical edge to them, the edge of a soldier who knew all too well he was living on borrowed time. But he tried to put that beside him, for at least now Anjor would provide a warmth he hadn't exactly felt for some time.
Anjor's first operation came about one month after his joining up with the STST. They were to attack a kett outpost not far from Techiix. It was a small contingent mostly Chosen with a few Anointed and a Destined who was running the joint. About twenty or so in total for the strike team's eight members to deal with. It certainly wasn't an easy task, but when Anjor asked, Tevfras he told him they've dealt with worse odds and come out swinging. Was it just plain nervousness that he had experienced the night before? Or was it a warning of things to come? Whatever it was by the time he had just fallen asleep, Tevfras was shaking him awake so they could move out.
The weather was piss-poor when they set out from Techiix. Big old blizzard had rolled in the night before, snow was coming down hard, and visibility wasn't too hot. Command pushed them through anyway. How they figured it the bad conditions would work in their favor, give them the element of surprise. It took them about twice as much time as they expected to get the outpost, but they got there. The storm had started to wane at that point, but the visibility was still pretty poor; couldn't see more than a couple feet in front of you at most. On a better day they probably would of seen the surprise that was waiting for them. The kett had brought in a pack of Wraiths to back them up. Instead they heard them first and by then... it was all too late.
The beasts were upon them quicker than you could blink. One of their guys, Qaf, a newbie just like Anjor was hit first. Barely had time to react before the beasties fangs were ripping at his throat. The fateful seven now began putting down suppressing fire into the snow at the shadows moving around them. Their bullets kept the Wraiths away, but had the nasty side-effect of broadcasting directly to the kett where they were. Soon enough a barrage of response fire was coming back to meet them. And that's how seven became six.
The Strike Team's leader, Fastel, the type that was born with an assault rifle in her hands quickly pulled the survivors into an entrenchment position behind a snowbank. With their only advantage the element of surprise being no longer an option, the only option they did have was to hunker down and try and hold out. As they ended up Anjor and Tevfras were holding down the left flank. Anjor doing all he could with his assault rifle and Tevfras and his combat drone.
One of the Wraith's charged the position. Anjor dealt with it easily enough, but with his attention drawn on the beast he didn't notice that something else was sneaking up on him tell he heard the blast of the shotgun. The Destined's shotgun would of killed him there and then if it wasn't for Tevfras. His older brother had tackled the kett leader at the last second and knocked his aim off resulting in him only clipping Anjor instead of hitting him with a direct hit. Anjor doesn't remember much from that day after that save for snow and screams. It comes and goes as fragments mostly in his nightmares. The official after-action report described Anjor as a hero, single handedly dealing with the Destined and then without hesitation charging the kett line and forcing them to break. All in all the mission was considered a success.
When they got back to Techixx, the medics reassured him that Tevfras hadn't felt a thing. Even though Jershid couldn't look him in the eye, he said he didn't blame him. Once Fastel and the others had spread tales of the mission, it wasn't long before he was a minor celebrity for a few weeks. They called him kett killer, they called him a hero. He didn't feel like a hero.
Ihfala was the one that finally dragged him out of it. By this point in time Ihfala was making her way up the ranks of the Voeld Resistance already having been placed in charge of the First Strike Team. Because of her position if she was oddly distance during their childhood, she was almost on an entire other planet by the time they were adults. But combat had done something it had given the two of them a shared experience that nobody else could really understand. A point of connection, of empathy.
It was through that point that Ihfala and Anjor began talking to one another again. And through her Anjor was able to remember the whole reason he was fighting again: family. In exchange, for the first time in years people saw Ihfala began to smile again, almost loosening up, if only for small periods at time. At first her own squad could of swore that she was an entirely different person. And so like always life would go on.
Following his brave acts of valor Anjor was placed as Fastel’s second. The two were something of a perfect match for one another. Fastel was a soldier through and through and carried everything such a term presented with pride. She was strict, possessed great self-control, kept her cool in the heat of battle, and lead her men by example and sheer charisma alone. Anjor for his part was something of a non-conformist, willing to try new things, brave almost to a fault, quick on his feet, and maybe most importantly of all ready and willing to get into arguments with Fastel if he felt there was a better option.
In his fifth year of service in late 2807 things would change again. Kett attacks in the passing months had begun to escalate. More and more outlying daars were being assaulted and outright eradicated. Resistance efforts up to this point had been to little effect losing more lives than damaged done. The people’s resolve was in danger of breaking and they needed some sort of victory to bring morale up from the breaking point. So the Second Strike Team was sent to task. Intel was learned on a kett convoy transporting a small daar’s worth of angaran prisoners. They were to intercept the convoy before it made it to its destination.
The toll of the conflict had shaped and reshaped the team as casualties became an unavoidable and unfortunate reality. The only original members from his first mission with Tevfras was Fastel and himself. The others were relatively new faces: Xaj, heavy weapons specialist, big bloke even for an angara, Sarred, marksmen from a big and rather influential family back in Techiix, Ahri, medic a sweet girl that reminded Syid a lot of Yavfre in their youth, and of course Hahra, their new combat engineer ever since Tevfras passed, girl after Anjor’s own heart, terribly smart with a dry wit that could cut the harshest of egos.
Contact came a few miles outside of what used to be Eroesk. They got the drop on the kett, the front of the convoy getting caught in preset trip mines. The team then layed down fire from a overlayingridge line covering Hahra and Fastel as they came around the flank to free the prisoners while the kett were preoccupied. Things were going well until the kett reinforcements arrived.
As it turned out, Hahra had more trouble than she would of liked undoing the electronic locks that the kett were using to restrain the prisoners. The delays in turn giving kett at a nearby outpost enough time to come and reinforce the assaulted convoy. The element of surprise long gone they were now under overwhelming firepower, Anjor and the ridge team were forced to start to pull back. As a result more of the kett were able to divert their attention towards Fastel, Hahra, and the escaping prisoners.
Fastel lost a leg during the retreat. From what Anjor would gather later from Hahra was that an Anointed had done it. The Soned tearing through flesh and bone like it was paper. They got her a replacement of course, but she’d never be as quick on her feet as she used to be. Anjor blamed himself of course, replaying the battle again and again in his head, trying to figure out a scenario that could of prevented it. Fastel, of course told him that it was nonsense, that if he didn't tell the squad to fall back then they would've gotten annihilated as well.
Fastle would end up being promoted up into the upper hierarchy of the Resistance, pushing papers and making the hard decisions. Anjor saw it for what it was - a forced retirement, but one that the older angara accepted, she above all others knew that everyone needed to be at 110% for a mission to even have a chance of succeeding, and well she just wasn't there anymore. And so that was however reluctantly that Anjor would become promoted to strike team leader.
He had drinks with Ihfala after his promotion. He confided in his own personal doubts and worries in his older sister. She of course having lead her own team for some eight years at this point being one of the most senior guerrilla fighters that they had. He asked if it got easier. She looked away for a moment before shaking her head. That was okay... he already knew that.
The next seven years would pass in a relative blur, days and nights fading into one collective haze. Jershid found a mate and soon enough Anjor was surrounded by his and Yavfre’s children. He bought them toys, played with them when he was around, and tried his best to shield them from the violence that consumed his life, the violence he partook in to protect them, to allow them to grow up and be happy. In the end though the only constant the surrounded him was death.
Ahri died first. The superheated plasma of a naladen catching her in the side of the head when she was assisting Xaj. Xaj himself would die soon after driven by anger and remorse charging at an entire squad by himself. A Destined got Sarred sneaking up on his overwatch position and stabbing him through the chest with its vakarsh. All of them left Anjor with remorse and pain, always wondering why it had to be them and not him. Always wondering how many more friends would he have to lose before it was all over. And then there was Hahra.
Hahra had survived the longest. She was smart. She didn't take his shit, evidently ending up taking up his role as second in command after Fastel’s departure. There are old saying about love blooming on the battlefield, Anjor didn't like putting too much stake in them, but things happened. It was soon after Ahri and Xaj died, whatever romantic tension that had been boiling between the two overflowed as their own creeping mortality began to set in. The angara oscillated between extremes with their emotions and of course affairs of love were no different. Sometimes when they were alone and looking up at the night sky, when for a brief moment Voeld was cast in a lie of peace, they talked about children, about settling down. But they were idle fantasies of course, both knowing that at the moment they had a job to do.
She would die in his arms in 2813, the whipping winds of a blizzard unable to mute his sorrow.
When Evfra de Tershaav first came to Voeld in 2814, Anjor was tired. Having grown more withdrawn since Hahra’s death, barely even committing to learn the names of his recruits, for he knew most of them would die within the month. His dreams were broken, the Resistance on Voeld was stagnant and failing having not completed a successful operation in months. Doubts which he expressed to none save for his ever constant confident Ihfala who was feeling much of the same fatigue as he. For everyday the kett forces were pushing closer on Techiix and there was little they could do to stop it.
Yet Evfra de Tershaav had brought something that Anjor seemed to have lost years ago hope. He spoke of a new united front against the kett, across all of jave jarevaon. That it wasn’t time to despair, but to regroup, restructure, and attack. Something about the resistance leader's word inspired him. Of course he'd heard the rumors about how he singlehandedly lead a raid to free a labor camp, how he fought back hundreds of kett by himself. Even then he didn't think anything of it, those were rumors and whispers, and Anjor had a war to fight, but Evfra seemed so sure of himself and of his cause, that it was hard not to believe again. As part of this new initiative and to help work out the frame of the work of the new united Angara Resistance, it was decided to bring members of each of the separate planetary resistances together on Aya to talk, discuss, and plan. While Ihfala would stay on Voeld and continue to help resistance efforts there, it was decided that Anjor would be part of the delegation sent to Aya representing Voeld. Anjor of course didn't complain about it while Voeld was home and would always be home, it had too many ghosts there, he needed time away, time to think.
After the formal establishment of the unified Angaran Resistance, Anjor would get back to work. It was strange at first for him, as even though the other angara looked like him they all had their own culture and language, their own mysterious gods and ways of worship. The only true forces unifying them at first being the old trading tongue of Shelesh, their hatred of the kett, and the charismatic passion of Evfra. In time though they would learn to work and fight together, they were unified and they now had a purpose.
At first Anjor would be placed in more combat heavy roles. His plentiful years of combat experience fighting the kett, allowing him to progress up the ranks with relative ease. His first true test came in early 2815; he was sent to Kadara to help a small daar protect themselves from incursion from the kett controlled Kadara Port. They armed and trained a local militia so that the kett were at least discouraged from attempting any more raids on the settlement. In the end the mission was considered a success on all fronts with most of his team crediting Anjor's delegation and leadership skills that lead the way. Following the missions success, his higher ups saw Anjor’s potential, and he was quickly moved into a role that they thought would more suit his skills. His new job consisted primarily of training a combination of new recruits and local militias from planet to planet. (Much in the same way that he had done on Kadara.) He would teach them proper guerrilla tactics and self-defense; giving the Resistance new footholds on planets where they could gather supplies, information, and more troops for the effort.
Somewhere deep down Anjor was still broken from Hahra’s death and everything else. But he excelled in the new work, if only committing himself further and further into it to help dull the pain. The hardest part was arguably the distance from home and his family, but he kept in touch through messages when he could and while those letters to Jershid and Yavfre would continue, his communications with Ihfala would slowly began to dwindle.
At first he figured it was just exhaustion, but her words in retrospect painted an all too clear picture. As he traveled across the stars, protecting people, feeling for the first time almost like a hero. Ihfala was still planet bound on Voeld, fighting the same war that begun all those years ago when her mother died, a war that never changed and whose casualties grew longer by the day, all despite their new “unified effort.” And right before the messages stop in their entirety they spoke of the one called Akksul, how it seemed he was the only one speaking the truth anymore, that if they were to finish the kett that they needed to be strong like him. He found out later from Jershid that Ihfala had vanished on patrol one day, never seen again in Techixx. Anjor knew where she went, whose cause she joined. He tried his best not to think about it though, tried his best to not wonder what would happen if they met on different sides of the battlefield.
It was around the same time that the strangers from Jarevaon Imasaf arrived. While new strangers coming brought with it the sense of dread and uneasiness with it, yet it became apparent rather early that these new travelers were not the same as the kett.
Anjor was on duty on Kadara when he first saw them. Observing from a distance he watched as Sloane Kelly and her exiles who while brutal in their methods were easily able to repulse the kett forces holding Kadara Port. Something that the Resistance never accomplished despite their many efforts. From then on Anjor became fascinated with these new travelers, seeing them as the edge that his people needed to finally push back the kett.
And soon enough the Resistance became more interested in potentially allying with the strangers from Jarevaon Imasaf in their battle against both the kett and potentially the Roekaar. An interest that only began to heightened as the Resistance began to hear of strange things happening on the planet of Eos. That one of the strangers was able to heal the broken planet, that the travelers had even begun a new colonization effort. With such rumors needed conformation and the steadily growing power of the travelers it was decided that at least contact and potential cooperation should be attempted.
Hearing of this Anjor volunteered himself as a potential liaison. He wanted to confirm his growing questions about the potential of the strangers himself, feeling that his current work, while important was only serving to prolong the conflict, not finding a way to potentially end it. Something that these strangers as demonstrated on Kadara, may actually be able to provide. As Anjor was a career officer with many years of service under his belt and an unquestionable loyalty to the cause, it was decided that he would be a satisfactory choice in pursuing such a mission.
And that is how Anjor found himself traveling to go meet the Initiative and offer his services.
Anjor to those from Jarevaon Imasaf fits the stereotypical profile of his people. He’s free and open with his emotions all of which seem larger than life. To a degree that makes him very easy to work with for you know exactly how you stand with him at any given time. If he dislikes you or thinks you are wrong he will make his word known usually with a display of force or a thrown punch. If he likes you and thinks you as a comrade he will sing your praises to the heavens and call you sholaon. But at the same time, such powerful emotions seem almost as a detriment to his allies especially those non-angara who may not be used to such up front and open emotions and challenges of authority. In the same vein he is very prideful of his people and will stand no insult against them, still holding their customs and cultures close to his heart.
Yet one of his kind could tell you, even though it didn't look like it to outsiders, Anjor is a decidedly reserved character. (Keep in mind he is an angaran we are talking about so instead of being at like 200% all the time, he's only at like 130%ish.) He is a soldier shaped by a conflict over the very survival of his entire species, a war that until recently has been only one of minor victories and major defeats. He has served almost constantly in some sort of combat capacity for the past seventeen years. And in such manners of war and conflict he is blunt and straightforward, almost cold in the way he acknowledges potential casualties and losses. A skill he has had to learn the hard way over the years. It would be inaccurate to call him bloodthirsty or callous, but he has learned the cost of conflict and knows too well if his family, no if his entire race is to be safe they must be able to accept such realities. Or at least that’s what he tells himself when he jolts awake from his nightmares.
He’s also been shaped by three separate woman, at three separate times in his life. The first of course was Ansa. The loss of his mother was hard, but it also was important for it taught him that such emotional wounds can eventually heal, and how to direct those feelings of sorrow and rage into something malleable and workable, a power all in its own. Hahra’s death almost broke him, but it taught him as well. In life she showed him how to embrace everything with his heart. In death she showed him how to embrace sorrow even more. He has never loved anyone the same way again. And her death and the events leading up to it still occasionally dance into his dreams. Ihfala isn't dead of course, but lost still the same. She had always been his proper role model growing up of a hero, of who he had to be if he was going to become strong. And as they both became adults she became a surprising voice of compassion and reason, a hand that knew the sorrows the he felt, that had experienced the same pain. And in a way her turn to the Roekaar makes him more uneasy than he could of ever imagined. For he felt the same hatred and rage at times that was beginning to filter through her messages, the anger at the system, at the senseless sacrifice all for nothing. That maybe if things were different and he had stayed on Voeld instead of her, that he would of ended up the same.
Ultimately though when you have been fighting for as long as he has, you learn to put your own fears and doubts to side and deal with the problem at hand. Everyone has their baggage it’s just how you learn to deal with it.
Anjor deals with it in his own way. He keeps in touch always with his family sending messages to Jershid and Yavfre, and will show all who care to look the pictures of his nieces and nephews speaking proudly of their accomplishments. It’s family that keeps him anchored and reminds him of why he fights, of why he just hasn't quit. Doing what he does for them, so that maybe the next generation can grow up in simpler time, and not know the pains that he has suffered. Beside that he takes the load off with his two other hobbies: cooking and drawing. His cooking skills being self-taught mostly learning to produce something at least pleasing to the tastebuds from whatever supplies he could gather while out in the field. Though admittedly such meals would be let us say rather unsavory for any non-angara that wishes to try a sample. The drawing was something he always did, starting young when he was in class and decidedly not paying attention to whatever his teacher was trying to say. These days with his newfound fascination of the strangers, he’s been drawing them mostly.
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