NIKOLAI DANTE

TSAR WARS: Series Overview

[Note: Unlike the previous story summaries presented here, this one is taken directly from Robbie Morrisons initial story proposal. As a result it may have some slight divergences from the story as it eventually appeared. Hopefully you will find the slightly higher viewpoint on the events as they were presented , interesting.]

Imperial Russia is being torn apart by war as Tsar Vladimir The Conqueror and the House Of Romanov battle for supremacy. Battle fronts have sprung up all across Imperial Earth. For the moment, neither side is winning, though the human cost of maintaining this stalemate is abhorrent in its magnitude. The stench of death pollutes the entire world...

The Family Romanov head the various divisions of their army. Dmitri Romanov remains Supreme Commander, and the world is unlikely to see a more brutal military entrepreneur. The Imperial Army is led by a combination of previously unseen members of the Family Makarov, career soldiers and alien warriors recruited from worlds under the Tsar's rule. Jena Makarov, sworn& to avenge the murder of her sister, is proving the most able of her father's generals, winning battle after battle. On the Romanov side, her success is matched by Nikolai Dante...

Dante seems a very different man from when we last saw him, driven and battle-hardened. No one, they say, is doing more to promote a Romanov victory than Dante. No one, they say, has spilled more blood. He has, it seems, finally become - as Eloise Di Janissaire warned - everything he always hated.

The truth of the matter is, Dante's determined to win the war, to destroy the Tsar and everything he stands for - but not for the Romanovs, for himself. Whether this is an attempt to win Jena back, or an act of vengeance for her destroying their blossoming relationship won't become apparent until they confront each other once again. Dante himself doesn't even know...

Despite this new 'love' of war, Dante remains a working class hero to the Empire at large. No one is mentioned more in dispatches than the dashing Captain Dante. His exploits thrill the masses and inspire loyalty in the men of his conscript regiment, the Rudinshtein Irregulars, whom he has turned into one of the best fighting divisions in the Romanov Army.

Responsibility for the lives and deaths of the men and women under his command weighs heavily on Dante. The other struggle he faces is to stay true to himself, to stop himself being destroyed by the horrors of war. He must control 'the killing' - as Dmitri calls it - inside him, stop it from consuming him. In other words, Dante must battle himself and his darker instincts to remain a hero...

The war unfolds in 8-Episode 'Books', which, while standing on their own as separate narratives also drive the conflict to its conclusion with inescap,able momentum. From the stalemate of the opening Episodes, the Romanovs slowly but surely gain the upper hand, until, as they march on St. Petersburg itself, victory seems assured. A number of battles, missions, stories and plot developments move us to this point :

BOOK 1 - THE RUDINSHTEIN IRREGULARS

8 EPISODES

Following the loss of half his command (Episodes 1 & 2), Dante, his heroic reputation tarnished, is dispatched to collect the recruits who will bring the Rudinshtein Irregulars back up to strength - recruits ominously described by Dmitri Romanov as being 'especially suited to his particular brand of man-management'.

We open with a horrific image, Dante travelling on the Death Barge, an automated vehicle which transports Romanov dead back from the Front. The barge is piled with corpses, Dante standing or sitting upon them, reinforcing the effect the war is having on him. He arrives in the seaport town - recently captured from the Imperials - where his new forces are billeted, and finds them living up to their fearsome reputations...

The new Irregulars are hardened criminals released from prisons and promised a pardon if they channel their brutal skills into fighting for the Romanov cause. The convicts have run amok in the town, raping and pillaging to their hearts content. They have murdered their previous commanding officer, his crucified corpse - still addressed as 'Sir' by passing soldiers - left to rot at dockside. The young women of the town have been rounded up and forced into a makeshift brothel/rape camp (suggested rather than portrayed graphically).

Dante, outraged, confronts the convicts, trying to impose his authority on them. He calls them scumbags, animals, tells them it'll be a pleasure to send them to their deaths, to march them into the Tsar's guns. The belligerent convicts refuse to obey his orders. Dante engages the hardest members of the group in a brutal fistfight, beating the shit out of them to prove his point. They'll march into the Tsar's guns, alright. If they don't, they'll have to deal with him...

This is Dante's first encounter with the individuals who will become his friends and/or enemies during the course of the war. They are :

Elena Kurakin. A tough, half-mongol warrior-woman who becomes his most trusted Lieutenant and close friend, though for once (another sign of Dante's growing maturity), there's nothing sexual in it. On realising that she was the one who killed the previous commanding officer, Dante, testing her loyalty, offers her the chance to do the same to him. 'You don't need me for that,' she says, 'you're more than capable of getting yourself killed.'
Lord Peter Flintlock. A handsome English aristocrat in the Flashman mould, whom everyone believes is a true hero, the perfect gentleman, but is in reality a coward who emerges from every battle unscathed and smelling of roses.
Spatchcock. The most untrustworthy man in the Empire, a skinny, sleazy, Iago-type with no redeeming qualities and even less idea of personal hygiene. The Irregulars' cook, though, believe me, you don't want to know what he uses to 'thicken the stew'.

The Grozny Gang. A Russian Angel Gang (for want of a simple description) of unsavoury, larger-than-life villains, one of whom Dante kills in Ep. 3, thus earning their murderous< enmity.

Following this, Dante is dispatched on a Dirty Dozen-style suicide mission to destroy the Conqueror Cannons, one of the Tsar's most powerful weapons (loosely based upon the massive cannons with which Ivan The Terrible terrorised his enemies). The Cannons are housed in Castle Skuratov , deep behind enemy lines, and possess enough firepower to devastate a small country. Sabotaging the cannons is a matter of some urgency, for in 48 hours the Romanov forces on 3 battlefronts will come within the guns range of bombardment.

Skuratov, the Commander of the Cannons, is a member of the Family Makarov, a cousin or son of the Tsar. A sadistic weapons fetishist, he has been something of a liability until now; gleeful brutality is often a useful talent in wartime. Under his rule, the castle that houses the Cannons has become known as the Fortress of Hell. Screams from its torture chambers are said to echo across the land, for Romanov prisoners are held as human shields in its dungeons, many subject to Skuratov's special attention. The mission holds personal significance for Dante, for one of these prisoners is Ingrid Wagner, the Romanov spy who was forced into betraying Julianna Makarov...

Dante and his 'commando squad' undergo a perilous journey into enemy territory, facing dangers such as SerpentWire - 'living' razor-wire - and the Fortress's advance guard. Flintlock and another Irregular are captured, Flintlock quickly betrays the mission ,under the threat of torture, and reveals Dante's plans to Skuratov.

Dante and the Irregulars are taken by surprise by Skuratovs forces and under the pressure of the seige, the Irregulars rebel against Dantes leadership. Dante delivers a mocking speech but ihis former troops seem unswayed. They force Dante to surrender in return for whatever rewards they can recieve.

Skuratov takes the 'EMP-Electromagneteic Pulse Weapon' that Dante was going to use to disable the guns security system, opening a hole in the castles defenses which would enable the Potemkin to attack from orbit. Dante refuses to surrender the EMP weapons activator, an act of defiance that ensures him a beating by Skuratovs troops. Meanwhile the Iregulars, make short work of the escort that was taking them away to be killed as their 'reward' for betraying Dante. Dante himself manages to escape from Skuratovs transport and meets up with his men..

The Irregulars find themselves battling against overwhelming odds when they infiltrate the Fortress. Dante recklessly jeopardises their lives further, not to mention the success of the mission, by abandoning them in an attempt to rescue Ingrid. Dante finds Ingrid with Skuratov pointing a gun to her head and offering an exchange, the girl for the EMP activator. Dante smiles sardonically as the activator is in fact his own Weapons Crest which is set to trigger the blast on his command or in the event of his death. Dante triggers the crest, shielding Wagner with his own body as the blast consumes Skuratov.

Dante, Ingrid and the Irregulars escape, the Fortress spectacularly destroyed behind them.

Dante gains no forgiveness or redemption for saving Ingrid; wracked with guilt over Julianna's death, she hangs herself. We end with Dante staring up at her suspended corpse in anguish...