Cyrus McCabe

"'I'm a simple man.'"Cyrus McCabe is a character associated with the Alternate party during the Traveler arc.

Cyrus is a recently discharged marine turned wanderer/criminal in association with Baron Montgomery.

Early Life
Cyrus was born and raised on an asteroid belt in the Polaris system as an only child. His father was a disgraced soldier, and his mother was a university drop-out. Both his parents worked around the clock, and were very cold with rigid expectations, something that Cyrus adopted.

Cyrus went on to immediately join the Military academy, where he flourished in graduating with honors.

Artifact Findings
During his Military Academy career Cyrus was given an assignment to train him on survival skills. He was dropped on an uninhabited moon alone and was instructed to simply survive on his own for 3 days. While looking for a source of water, Cyrus stumbled upon a caved in tomb, and inside was a small cylindrical object which was clearly of alien origin. Cyrus cautiously investigated the object, but immediately after picking it up Cyrus slammed into the roof of the tomb. After realizing the power of this artifact, Cyrus took it for himself.

The artifact gives the user the ability to create his or her own gravity in any direction. To this day it is one of his closest-guarded secrets, and something he only uses in emergencies.

UEF Service
Cyrus was immediately enlisted in the UEF after graduation, and received a promotion as well upon acceptance due to his academic achievements. He was brought into Red-Division, a group dedicated to boarding enemy freighters, and dealing with space-bound threats. He once again flourished in this environment. Receiving multiple promotions, and acquiring himself a decent fortune from his service.

Meeting Montgomery
During a boarding mission on a spacecraft, Cyrus became acquainted with Baron Montgomery. The ship was carrying highly illegal explosives, and weapons under the disguise of a nobleman's luxury liner. The nobles there were mostly unaware of the situation so Cyrus' squad was instructed to guard the nobles while an investigation was conducted. This investigation took several weeks with the Marines acting as witness protection as the entirety of the case was solved.

Cyrus was instructed to protect Baron Montgomery who he quickly suspected was one of the men behind the smuggling operation. Cyrus questioned Montgomery who revealed that he wasn't one of the men behind this operation, but instead revealed the fraudulent nature of his status. Upon hearing this Cyrus made Montgomery a deal. Cyrus promised to keep his mouth shut and deflect suspicions, in exchange for a blank "I.O.U." A deal which Montgomery accepted, and one that Cyrus redeemed much later, reuniting the two.

While the nature of their meeting is unorthodox, and could have resulted in much bitterness, Baron Montgomery and Cyrus developed a solid friendship as both found interest in each others occupation, life-story, and general personality. The two are still friends to this day.

Operation Blackwell
During his time in Red Division, Cyrus was assigned to many missions. A lot of these were black-op and were highly classified. One mission code-named "Operation Blackwell" involved illegal super soldier experimentation that was underway by rogue scientists. Cyrus and his squad were ordered to storm the facility and neutralize the scientists. However there were miscommunications and the squadron misheard orders and killed on sight. Cyrus' fireteam approached the testing labs with rows and rows of subjects in vat tubes. When the squadron leader questioned what to do with all the subjects, Cyrus was given a final order to light up the room and kill them all as a means to guarantee there would be no more creation of super-soldiers. It was later discovered that they were not exposed to the mutagens and were simply subjects that were unlawfully kept in their custody -- abducted even. All that participated attempted to keep silent. However, the company hired mercenaries and caught up and tried their best to round all of the marines up. But with a stroke of tact and luck, Cyrus and a handful of the marines few managed to escape.

Dismissal
In the events of the aftermath of Operation Blackwell during the capture and subsequent escape many of the marines received injuries ranging from light to near-life threatening. Cyrus was one of those people, and due to those injuries he was deemed "unfit for service" and was discharged.

Appearance
Cyrus is a Caucasian male standing at 5'11 and weighing 185 lbs. He has brown eyes, and a unkempt, dirty-blonde hair cut that parts down right over his left eye. He has a skinny Ectomorphic build, that makes him appear much weaker than he actually is.

Cyrus usually wears a light-polycarpace armor, that fits much like a stealth-suit with strong protective plates over top of it. He often wears a weather-proof poncho over-top this suit. When not in the field, Cyrus removes the plates, and top half of suit, wearing a basic t-shirt accompanied by the lower half of the suit, and boots.

Personality
Cyrus has a bitter disposition, which is the controlling force of most of his personality. He can often be described as unfriendly, and overly blunt. He simply sees it as a waste of energy to be agreeable and nice as in his mind most people would be unwilling to do the same for him. Cyrus is a natural skeptic and is very quick to judge, and distrust. He looks for people's weak points even if he doesn't want to exploit them causing him to be unreasonable from time to time.

However, Cyrus does not necessarily enjoy confrontation and has few aggressive tenancies. He speaks in a soft-tone, and doesn't like to lash out. Preferring to have his words to the talking, and not his tone.

Trivia

 * Cyrus was raised Irish-Catholic, which is where the last name McCabe was derived from. Ironically, he wears a crucifixion necklace under his suit even though he doesn't actively practice the religion.
 * Cyrus has a poor short-term memory due to the injuries sustained during the incidents post-operation Blackwell, causing him to compulsively take notes, and create copies of documents, and debriefs.
 * Cyrus' name was taken from the villain of Pokémon: Diamond/Pearl/Platinum, Team Galactic Boss Cyrus. Many of his philosophies, and mannerisms were also inspired by this character.
 * When needing a false identity, Cyrus took the name of "Mars" which is another character from the same game.
 * Cyrus has a soft-spoken voice which was inspired by the late-painter Bob Ross who famously quit his job as a Drill Sergeant and quoted that he was "Fed up" with being a mean-tough person. Going onto create his show titled "The Joy of Painting." in which he blissfully leads the viewer through the process of painting.
 * Cyrus' favorite band is Green Day.