Fagin

Julius Antoine "Fagin" Dale was the chief crime lord of "the Gutter", the desperately poor southern section of Tarsonis City, Tarsonis. He appears in the novel StarCraft Ghost: Nova.

Fagin was muscular, shaved his head and wore a full beard. He wasn't tall, but seemed to have a presence that made him seem the tallest person in the room. He had two large "no-necked" bodyguards follow him around, more as a status symbol than anything else.

Fagin used to make a living as a "pavement wrestler", which is when he started shaving his head and filed his teeth. He used to serve as a "speed loader" for a crime lord known as "the Grin" (because he never smiled) but quickly made a reputation as the brains behind the Grin's "muscle". Fagin replaced the Grin as a local crime lord by murdering him. He eventually defeated the other crime lords and became the undisputed leader of criminal activity in "the Gutter".

Before the destruction of Korhal, Fagin had a contact there who could provide him with very new drugs. After the Terran Confederacy destroyed Korhal, Fagin made a donation to the Sons of Korhal simply because he was so angry.

Fagin had other contacts, including even among the Tarsonis Police Force (whom he frequently bribed) and the Confederate military.

Fagin was intelligent, charismatic, a skilled crime lord and manipulator, and soemthing of a student of human behavior. According to the telepathic November Terra, he was sane. He kept twelve people (he never bothered to name them), male and female, as sex slaves. He also never bothered to remember the names of his bodyguards.

Fagin was very careful about his personal security, always keeping a well-designed gun on-hand. Behind the strong doors of his hideout (which he didn't keep a secret) was a force-field generator, controlled by a device he always wore on him.

A Secret Acquisition
Fagin's life changed when he received a report of a tall young woman appearing in the Gutter who attacked two of his hoodlums with what seemed to be telekinetic powers. He pretended not to believe she could use telekinesis. He ordered Markus Ralian to abduct her while he pondered what to do about this development.

When he was ready, he had her brought in front of him. She identified herself as Nova. He immediately noticed that she was richly dressed, causing him to believe she might be worth a good ransom. However, she told him that her family was dead and so she couldn't be ransomed. He told her that she would become his personal intelligence agent and assassin, but she said she'd rather die first - she had undergone a horrible event and was suffering from mental trauma. He couldn't threaten her with death, so instead he ordered her out. He believed she could be starved into submission (so he ordered the shopkeepers not to allow her any food). Before leaving, she taunted him by telling him that his twelve lovers didn't love him (but were afraid) and that one of his trusted lieutenants would kill him, but even that didn't frighten Fagin. He believed that would happen since that's how he came to power in the first place.

Five days later, he discovered startling information about her - one of her family members (her sister, Clara Terra) was alive. Unfortunately, the Terras were one of the Confederate Old Families, a powerful aristrocratic group. Attempting to ransom Nova would be suicidal, as the Old Families would simply destroy him rather than negotiate. He also noticed her stealing food.

He hired his top hitman, the drug-addled "Pitcher" to kill her, but Nova simply destroyed the Pitcher's mind. While waiting for a successful report from the Pitcher, he contacted a Supply Sergeant Morwood of the Confederate military and received a psi-screen from him in a package. The psi-screen would make him immune to Nova's telepathy. Furthermore, he arranged for an ambush of Nova, and used children as a screen of hostages.

Fagin's psi-screen was manually activated and could inflict terrible pain on a telepath; between the torture and the hostages he made Nova into his slave.

Followers
As the leader of a fairly large criminal organization, Fagin has many minions who report to him. His most important minions include the following.

Nova

 * Main article: Nova

Fagin's intelligence agent and enforcer, but not by choice.

The Pitcher
Fagin's chief drug tester and his best hitman. The Pitcher has an abnormally strong metahbolism; any drug that makes him sick would kill someone else, which is why Fagin uses him a drug tester (if it makes the Pitcher sick, Fagin won't sell it). The Pitcher became so tolerant to drugs that only Fagin's newest drugs give him any "satisfaction". The Pitcher got his nickname from drinking a full pitcher of grain alcohol "to no effect" and killed the woman who gave him the nickname. The Pitcher's mind has been so damaged by drugs he can't even recall his own name (and always calls Fagin "the Bald Man" because he can't remember that, either).

The Pitcher hates everyone except "the Bald Man" and his grandmother. The former grants him drugs so new they haven't been made illegal yet, while latter is the only person who knew his real name, leading the Pitcher to believe that killing her might not have been a smart move.

The Pitcher is such an efficient hitman that no one has escaped his grasp for years.

The Pitcher's catch phrase is "brutal!" used in the way a 21st century person might say "cool!". He is covered in piercings and holo-tattoos of a large person (eg himself) committing acts of violence on a small person (eg his victims).

Without a full understanding of Nova's psychic abilities, Fagin dispatched the Pitcher to kill Nova. The simple task of walking from the mouth of the alley she was living in to her was hampered by his constant drug use, augmented by multiple dispensers of different drug types - he literally forgot his mission halfway through, and went through fantasy sequences of how she would die. He was surprised that she could scream without a throat, until he realized he hadn't killed her yet; he was getting careless. His plan was to literally rip off her arms and then kill her by beating her with her own arms. Nova realized he was insane and promptly killed him using her mental powers.

Markus Ralian
Markus Ralian grew up in the Gutter, with his parents, a brother named Gary and a sister named Geena. His father, a drug-addled musician, killed his mother, which Ralian could not prevent. His sister became a drug-addicted prostitute.

Ralian learned to at least appear loyal to criminals in positions of power above him. An intelligent fellow, he became Fagin's right-hand man and gained a considerable amount of power. He liked ordering people like Tyrus around. With his new-found power and wealth, he was able to break Geena's drug habit. She became his chief lieutenant.

Unfortunately, Ralian could not enjoy being Fagin's lieutenant; Fagin had a habit of threatening him, not explaining the reasoning behind seemingly crazy orders and generally made his life miserable. When Nova first met him, the thoughts of him wanting to kill Fagin were clear in his mind.

Ralian was slender and much smaller than Tyrus.

After Fagin started going crazy, Ralian tracked down information on the psi-screen that Fagin constantly wore. He discovered that wearing it for more than twelve hours caused memory loss, and Fagin had been wearing it for six months straight. He resolved to separate Fagin from his device, a difficult proposition at best. He discovered that Fagin really was suffering from memory loss, but could not convince Fagin of this.

When Malcolm Kelerchian and the Annihilators visited Fagin's headquarters, Nova used her powers to force Ralian to shoot Fagin several times in the back, killing him. Nova knew that he could never kill Fagin on his own. Unfortunately, the Annihilators stormed the compound, causing it to collapse on Ralian and kill him.

Tyrus
Tyrus is a large man subordinate to Markus Ralian (who loves being able to lord it over the much bigger Tyrus).

When Fagin captured Nova for the second time, he ordered Tyrus to kill a child; that, along with Fagin's psi-screen, forced Nova's surrender.

Wolfgang
Wolfgang and his "girls" were Fagin's corpse disposal unit.