Mace Merthor
| Biological | |
| Full name: | Mace Merthor |
|---|---|
| Born: | 2247 AD |
| Birthplace: | Coast Town, Medina |
| Sex: | Male |
| Race: | Hench |
| Hair: | None |
| Eyes: | Black |
| Height: | 6'4" |
| Weight: | |
| Personal | |
| Marital Status: | |
| Family/Relationships: | {{{family}}} |
| Religion: | |
| Title: | CEO of MerthCorp |
| Nicknames: | |
| Hobbies: | |
| Known skills: | |
| Favorite color: | |
| Inspiration: | |
| Motto: | |
Mace Merthor is the founder and CEO of MerthCorp Industries. He is one of the most successful, if not most prominent, corporate leaders in the modern Web of Worlds. Merthor is a creature not seen in Gate since the fall of the Syndicates: a ruthless businessman with the ability, the know-how and the ambition to get what he wants, even and especially when others want it as well.
He is also very near to being a hundred years old, but like Damien Gavalian, Merthor shows no outward signs of his advanced age.
History
Born and raised in Southern Medina, Merthor got his start making weapons for the regime of the Medinan dictator Ozziemodo. Together with Gorgon Wells' father, Merthor served as one of Ozziemodo's staunchest supporters until the ill-fated Medinan invasion of Guardia in the year 2260. When the humiliated Ozziemodo returned to Medina with his forces, he found his son Ozzie XI -- and Mace Merthor -- greeting him at gunpoint with a mob of rebels behind them. Thus did Mace Merthor ensure his own place as the more favored of the two major Medinan corporate moguls, instigating a feud between the Merthors and the Wells that is kept alive and well by Gorgon to this day. Ozziemodo was subsequently locked away in a dungeon somewhere in the bowels of Mount Heckran.
As the Syndicate era ended, Mace Merthor reinvented his corporation, adopting a new style that would less remind the belligerent Guardians of the hated technology Syndicates that were crumbling under the weight of Doan's restored Crown. For a time, things were idyllic for Merthor. Business was good, and he had little competition except from Gorgon Wells' OmegaTech.
With the introduction of Gate into the Web of Worlds, Ozzie saw an opportunity. He vowed to succeed where his father had failed and attempted another invasion of Guardia -- the help of the largest national military (Ticondera) and the predominantly Mooglish Kuvalla would surely see Medina through to success. Unfortunately for Ozzie, he had drawn the short end of the international alliances stick. Within days of Ozzie's occupation of Geno and Chorras, the Grand Army was in Gate and pounding Medina's cities into rubble.
In a rare instance of cooperation between the two men, Merhor and Wells turned against Ozzie and gave aid to the GA and the Medinan rebels who were fighting in the southern parts of the country. With the war won, Ozzie deposed and Skull's new Republic rebuilding the nation, Merthor encountered new nemeses in the form of the Tasnican AAA Corporations. They flooded into Gate's new markets, with the aid of the Tasnican Extraterritoriality Act, and began to wage open war on Gate's native corporations. Merthor proved his guile in this period by reversing a buyout attempt and swallowing Tasnicology Computing whole. Intrigued by these new adversaries, Merthor left Medina, and he and MerthCorp became Tasnican. He cavorted among the likes of Damien Gavalian, Ted Tuna and Lofwyr for a time, learning their ways, indulging in villainous laughter alongside them, and generally revelling in the pro-corporate air of Tasnica's political climate.
But times would change once again, and Merthor recognized that he would have to leave Tasnica soon. The Archbishop Meres began to rally Guardians into an anti-Tasnican frenzy, and in response Rhodes repealed the Extraterritoriality Act. Sensing that the party was soon to end for the AAA Corps, Merthor packed his bags, and he and MerthCorp became Guardian -- a deal brokered with Meres to fill manufacturing contracts for the Guardian military certainly didn't hurt this decision. Moreover, Merthor's defection from Tasnica offered him special status in Meres' Guardia, and for a time MerthCorp was the only corporation in the Kingdom that was not owned by the government. If Meres ruled the Kingdom, Mace Merthor could have been said, at that point in time, to be ruling the Kingdom's markets. He could do things the other corporations couldn't, and compete in ways the other corporations couldn't -- and all without the hindrances of tarriffs that foreign corporations had to put up with. He also made a hefty profit dealing in Gatian parts and technologies back home in Tasnica, cementing old alliances with Tasnican tech firms like Kuat, Saeder-Krupp and Forge Mechanicals.
The Cleansing Wars temporarily interrupted Mace Merthor's boundless success, and Derik's return to Guardia ended it wholesale, as the government-owned corporations were set upon a level playing field with the already-independent MerthCorp. But Merthor didn't see the need to change his citizenship yet a third time; in fact, he saw great reason to remain in Guardia, as a prominent position in the Deliberative Council was ripe for his taking. And so it was that Mace Merthor became the chairman of the CCC, and its representative in the Council.
Merthor is obviously old for a Hench; he was in his prime during the Syndicate Era, during the days of Doan and Ozziemodo. However, he has worked hard to maintain his vigor (and invested in technologies [and, some say, Malcovian witchcraft] that slow the aging process), and appears to be at best middle-aged.
