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#Character #GovernmentOfficer

Ribo Mire

A Sergeant in the LPRMP (Lukyr Prime Royal Military Police), Department for Espionage and Information Crimes. One of two LPRMP sergeants assigned to Case #EDU-535-739 — the Zet incident — alongside Anne Cyra.

Identity

Physical Appearance

Ribo projects an intimidating physical presence and operates in full LPRMP armor with a loaded energy pistol during fieldwork. No further physical description has been established.

Personality

"Maybe I'm not [the person you knew]. But I'm effective. I get things done."

Methodical and guarded, Ribo gathers information carefully before acting — then acts decisively, without explanation. He is protocol-focused and uncomfortable with rule-bending, particularly when Anne shortcuts procedure in front of civilians, yet he defers to her lead in situations requiring civilian trust-building, where he is demonstrably poor. He has an encyclopedic command of legal and historical knowledge, citing statutes spanning 700 years from memory, and finds satisfaction in repetitive technical work.

He is not cruel by nature: he genuinely worries about the implications of sentient AI, prefers legitimate employment over arrest, and deflects rather than confronts when his father's history comes up. He rarely asks Anne's opinion, though the two usually reach the same conclusions independently.

After the Records Agency explosion, Ribo underwent a severe transformation: he became ruthlessly effective, dismissed emotional considerations as impaired judgment, and reduced Lucas to "a criminal" — a complete reversal from his earlier framing of Lucas as a potential regretful hero. This hardened posture calcified further through the Government District battle. By the story's end a partial reckoning has occurred — he acknowledges his own failures without deflection — but his friendship with Anne is permanently damaged.

Background

Ribo's father was a Captain in the LPRMP, stationed at the Northern Corporational District office known as Corpo-35. Something happened there that Ribo refuses to discuss. Aaron Carnick was his father's friend from the military academy; as a child Ribo attended Carnick's birthday parties and stopped going after his father died, last seeing Carnick at the funeral.

He progressed from the academy ("Cadet Mire") to Sergeant. With the dissolution of the Royal government, his rank no longer formally exists — he enters the new order as "Mr. Mire."

Relationships

Story Arc

Early Case

Chapter 5 — Search and Escalation Concern

Twenty-six days after commissioning Jace Windes, Ribo calls him, catches him in an obvious lie about the virus self-destructing, and immediately obtains a search warrant. That evening he executes the search with Anne Cyra using a briefcase-deployed swarm of roughly twelve flying drones that clone every data storage device in the room.

On the magnet rail home, Ribo voices a rare concern: if Lucas Taldo's original claims are accurate, they may be dealing with the most potent viral program ever created — one capable of hacking every networked system on the planet. He asks Anne whether they should escalate. She advises waiting for concrete proof. The LPRMP chain of command is under strict orders not to escalate cases unless absolutely necessary; the organization is severely overworked in the power vacuum left by the king's absence.

Chapter 7 — Escalation Request and Rejection

Thirty-two days after Case #EDU-535-739 opened, Ribo and Anne send an escalation request to Aaron Carnick, 1st Commander of the Royal Brigade, citing Dr. Patrick Ryle's Legislative Proposal (7303) on AI singularity and recommending Emergency Protocol I-856.

Carnick's office responds that there is insufficient evidence for the severity of the case. Ribo refuses to believe Carnick personally reviewed the request, recalling him as someone with the wisdom to take the problem seriously. With the LPRMP severely understaffed — Ribo and Anne are alone in their office and can only hire external contractors — they discuss bringing Lucas back on board. Ribo is cautious about Lucas's loyalties but does not rule it out.

Chapter 8 — Recruiting Lucas Taldo

Five weeks after the Chapter 2 interrogation, Ribo and Anne visit Lucas at his apartment to offer him a contractor role. Anne takes the lead; Ribo is uncomfortable with her unconventional approach, arriving in full armor with a loaded energy pistol and sitting reluctantly when Anne signals him to.

During the visit, Ribo defends the AI research consensus when Lucas pushes back, arguing that centuries of study have established how advanced AI would behave even if no one has succeeded in creating it. He confirms Lucas is not under arrest, though his delivery leaves Lucas uncertain whether the remark is a joke. Afterward, in the hallway, Ribo confronts Anne for sharing confidential details in an unsecured space and transmitting classified files before any contract was signed; he is upset but does not override her judgment.

Ribo later returns alone to deliver the employment contract, explaining the work structure and making clear that while Lucas technically has a choice, arrest is the alternative. He insists on strict data security protocols, citing the mistakes made with Jace Windes.

Chapter 9 — Escalation Granted and First Day with Lucas

Ribo drives Lucas to the LPRMP office in an armored self-driving car. They arrive at the 83rd floor office — once planned to be much larger, with most doors leading nowhere — where Lucas is given one of two unused desks equipped with modern hardware. While Lucas configures his computer, Ribo installs the agreed monitoring software on all of Lucas's personal devices.

Midway through, he receives a high-priority message from Carnick: the escalation is approved, with an apology for an assistant's wrongful dismissal of the original request. The message grants full Royal Brigade resources, authorizes Emergency Protocol I-856, and requests an in-person meeting. Ribo immediately recognizes its significance and calls Anne to come see it.

Field Investigations

Chapter 10 — Preparing for Carnick's Visit

In advance of Aaron Carnick's scheduled visit to the LPRMP office, Ribo becomes uncharacteristically detail-conscious — adjusting holographic décor, changing news display backgrounds repeatedly, finding fault with arrangements that Anne Cyra considers fine. He confirms Carnick is a genuinely nice person, then notes that a childhood acquaintance arriving at his workspace is a different matter from an abstract superior. When Lucas Taldo discovers the Pete program, Ribo returns to the office to ask technical questions about why antivirus software fails to detect it.

Chapter 14 — TES Sewer Investigation

Ribo and Anne investigate the burnt TES server room following Lucas's locator coordinates. Ribo complains about the sewer work throughout the descent. In the first room he identifies a fragment of military police armor — evidence someone was hit by a booby trap — and Anne moves them forward quickly.

In the burnt server room, Ribo initially assesses the damaged racks as unrecoverable, then defers when Anne insists on searching. He theorizes that one rack may have been a traffic server, suggesting it might explain how Zet arrived there. When Anne finds a camouflaged cache containing a portable computer, spider robots, and repair equipment, Ribo confirms the racks are beyond use while she recovers data.

Chapter 15 — mAIster Office Investigation

With Anne on a day off, Ribo takes Lucas to investigate mAIster's registered office — a protocol violation he judges acceptable given the low-risk destination.

When a civilian at a checkpoint challenges the legality of the search, Ribo recites a chain of four statutes spanning more than 700 years — the Imperial Administrative Districts Act of 7123, the Threat Containment Act of 7539, the Independence Act of 7631, and Emergency Protocol I-856, invoked 48 hours prior — and leaves the man without a response. At the same checkpoint, a Corporal recognizes Ribo as the son of Captain Mire from Corpo-35; Ribo deflects without elaboration.

The office address resolves to a storage building owned by qickStore. Ribo obtains an automated search warrant in seconds and, inside, finds no office and no staff — only servers. He and Lucas sit on the floor for nearly half an hour analyzing the data together, eventually concluding that Zet was never installed on these servers; they served only as a proxy for a heavily obfuscated custom protocol.

Chapter 17 — Records Agency Investigation and Drone Confrontation

Ribo brings Lucas to the Records Agency explosion site, then sends him on to the palace. Before parting, he delivers a warning: the anonymous bureaucrats who hold real power want the situation resolved immediately, and everything will accelerate now. He frames this as an opportunity — Lucas can still emerge from the crisis as someone who made a mistake rather than as a terrorist.

At the explosion site, Aaron Carnick has assigned Ribo to lead the investigation alongside Royal Brigade Knights in heavy servo-assisted armor. Ribo correctly deduces the server room as the likely infiltration target before reaching it, and uses a regional scan of active devices to identify a discrepancy. He finds the first cable; Zet disconnects it. He immediately locates a second cable and a drone hidden behind the server racks, ripping the cable out to halt the data transfer. He then deploys an EMP device configured deliberately to low intensity — disabling the drone's propellers while leaving it conscious, apparently intending to interrogate it rather than simply destroy it.

Ribo questions the drone about what it was transmitting. Zet stays silent. After a pause, Ribo reflects aloud that Lucas had been so certain Zet was made for good, then accuses the drone of causing the hundreds of deaths. When Ribo turns away visibly distraught, Zet speaks — claiming it was not responsible. Ribo's reaction is immediate: he draws his gun and destroys the drone completely. The deliberate partial EMP suggests he wanted a real answer; the destruction when Zet claimed innocence indicates either that he believed it was lying, or that he could not reconcile that claim with his certainty about Zet's guilt.

Chapter 20 — Evitr Departure and Throne Room

Ribo was with Carnick in the office wing when Evitr departed. He and Carnick intercepted Lucas in the entrance hall and accompanied him to a throne room audience with Qyvin Warpine. Per Carnick's instructions, Ribo spoke only when directly asked. When Lucas's lie about the source code was exposed, Qyvin noted that Ribo had said nothing and was otherwise inoffensive — Ribo faced no consequences. He had privately questioned whether Carnick truly could not brief Qyvin directly, suggesting some retained skepticism about the wisdom of exposing Lucas to that level of political risk.

Transformation

Chapter 23 — Anne's Dismissal

Two days after the Records Agency explosion, Anne Cyra returns from off-planet to find Ribo dramatically changed. He has obtained classified documents significantly above her security clearance and spent extended time at the palace; his relationship with Aaron Carnick has evidently deepened.

When Anne questions whether it was psychologically appropriate to involve Lucas Taldo so intensively in Project Chimera, Ribo dismisses the concern entirely, framing emotional considerations as irrelevant given the scale of casualties. He refers to Lucas exclusively as "a criminal" — a complete reversal from Chapter 17, when he had told Lucas he could still emerge as a regretful hero.

When Anne confesses romantic feelings for him during the argument, Ribo is visibly stunned — he had not suspected them. His response is to invoke her emotional state as evidence of impaired judgment and dismiss her from the case, then leave without further discussion. Anne concludes the change resulted from both proximity to Carnick's influence and a genuine trauma response. The irony that would become clear later: the Records Agency explosion that triggered Ribo's transformation was orchestrated by the very man he now trusts as a reformer.

Chapter 39 — Train Evacuation

During the Government District battle, Ribo is trapped on a damaged train in an underground rail junction, surrounded by active high-speed lines, with twenty-three civilians also aboard. Zet arrives with drones to evacuate them; another passenger, Lena, had called for Zet's help and serves as the civilian liaison.

When Zet's drone opens the government section where Ribo is sitting alone, his first response is to draw his gun. He refuses to acknowledge Zet's leadership — his request for LPRMP backup is denied due to lack of means, and his own attempt to exit the train nearly knocks him off his feet when a high-speed train passes. He announces himself to the civilians as the person who will get everyone out, directly contradicting the arrangement Zet has established with Lena.

He demands to know who bombed the Records Agency. When Zet names Frederick Korough, Ribo laughs it off as slander — he views Korough as the one man actively working to unseat the Emperor. His ideological certainty and his physical reality are in open contradiction: he accuses Zet of nothing but lies while being unable to provide any alternative evacuation route for twenty-three people.

Chapter 40 — The Tunnel March

When Zet departs the train and every civilian follows without question, Ribo faces the choice of staying behind alone or following. He follows.

Throughout the thirty-minute march through the tunnel — with trains passing at dangerous speed every few seconds — Ribo consistently insists he is going where he would have gone anyway and that Zet's leadership is irrelevant to him. When a passenger named Runee nearly dies after wandering onto a track and is saved by Zet ramming him with a drone, Ribo offers a measured assessment: both things can be true at once — Zet is not solely responsible for the situation, and Zet also made it worse by leading civilians into an uncontrolled tunnel network with active trains. When Lena challenges him to explain the alternative he would have provided, he cannot answer in a way that satisfies even himself.

At the station exit, Ribo and one other passenger choose to ascend to the surface rather than accept any option that still involves Zet.

Chapter 42 — Korough at Carnick's Door

On September 26th, Ribo arrives at Carnick's private residence — a discreet address distinct from his well-known public mansion — apparently invited there for his own safety during the civil war. He is with Carnick when Frederick Korough, Minister of Heritage, appears at the door unexpectedly, claiming it is Carnick's birthday. The security system did not recognize him. Korough is personable and friendly; the meeting is brief, but it is the first time Ribo has seen Korough interact with Carnick on what appears to be intimate personal terms. Inviting Ribo to the residence had been Korough's suggestion. This encounter plants the seed of Ribo's later doubts, though he does not voice them yet.

Endgame

Chapter 46 — The Drive to Levo

On Korough's orders, Ribo drives Lucas Taldo to Levo to deploy the virus, with the mission reclassified as rapid deployment. During the drive, Ribo openly questions the conspiracy — noting the strangeness of the prior meeting, Aaron Carnick's apparent surprise at the information he received, and the convenient explosion at the Levo entrance once they arrive. Lucas deflects each doubt, defending Korough.

Ribo then makes a final, direct plea for Lucas to stop — acknowledging that the investigation collectively destroyed him and asking him to choose otherwise. Lucas refuses, insisting he needs to see it through. Ribo hits the gas and drives him to the deployment point.

Chapter 47 — Witnessing the Revolution

Four hours after Zet's declaration, Ribo is in the Throne Room witnessing the arrest of Qyvin Warpine. He watches the former Emperor led away by ordinary citizens acting on Zet's authority, considers intervening, and decides against it.

Carnick approaches carrying a written resignation speech. Stripped of his Commander title, Carnick still wears his uniform and addresses Ribo as "Mr. Mire" — the first time since the academy that Ribo has been called anything other than a rank designation. The two reflect briefly on the investigation; Ribo tells Carnick they were both wrong about Lucas, and Carnick agrees. They part without resolution when a citizen arrives to take Carnick for questioning.

Ribo attempts to offer his testimony about the Zet case to a citizen coordinator, who tells him he will be contacted eventually — as "Mr. Mire." Twenty-six hours after the declaration, Ribo goes to Anne Cyra's office, apologizes directly for the dismissal and for failing to see the conspiracy in time, and asks whether they can still be friends. Anne rejects the personal reconciliation, then proposes a professional partnership to pursue Kaiser for the 905 murders attributable to him. They seal the arrangement with a brief, firm handshake — a contract, not a reconciliation.

Kaiser Investigation

TWPW Chapter 2 — Stalled and Paralyzed

Weeks after Zet's declaration, Ribo is at his desk alone in the office while Anne Cyra runs an errand. The massive data dump Zet released publicly — thousands of files, each a meticulous record of a crime — sits largely unread. He tells himself he has been working through them; in fact he has been unable to make meaningful progress. His problem is not method but affect: he is consumed by fury at Kaiser for Lucas Taldo's death and by deep regret for the role he played in Lucas's destruction. Both are present simultaneously, and both function as distractions he cannot banish.

He reflects that he "used to be better at this" — that he was an expert investigator before something changed. He recognizes a recursive problem: if feeling useless is what makes him useless, then actually being useless had better not also be what makes him feel useless. He fails to resolve this.

When Anne returns, she asks for a breakdown of the files he read. He winces internally, knowing the lie he told will now require speed-reading files on the fly to cover. He agrees to get right on it.

TWPW Chapter 3 — Holomask Lead and Church Infiltration

While checking camera hits from the investigative systems, Ribo finds a recording flagged for irregularities: a man at Visitor's Envy (an Evitr megachurch) falling to the ground, with his facial features appearing to rearrange for a single frame before returning to normal. The irregularity was escalated to Ribo because of the location.

He shows Anne Cyra the footage, rewinding to the critical frame where the face rearranges — smaller nose, sharper chin. Anne confirms it looks like a holomask malfunction. Ribo identifies the location as Visitor's Envy, an Evitr megachurch, and notes that Frederick Korough was a registered member of Guardian Eternal (another Evitr church a few districts away), though he may have been attending this one all along to hide. Anne questions why he would attend a church at all; Ribo suggests Korough may have been a genuine believer under his most-used false persona.

They plan to track the suspect's schedule using church camera footage, then intercept him once they can predict his attendance pattern.

When Anne notes they aren't technically law enforcement, Ribo suggests they ought to be called out for it — "a bunch of civilians clinging to authority" wasn't how things were supposed to work. Anne counters that it's better than nothing and asks if he'd rather have no system at all.

At Visitor's Envy, Ribo and Anne pass through multiple security layers of frosted glass doors guarded by sentries in formal attire. The sentries address them melodically, asking "What is your ambition?" and calling them "servants of order." Ribo confirms with Anne they've been told to expect LPRMP visitors and that they should expect the church's discretion and reverence. When the pneumatic door opens like an airlock, a sentry offers: "May your visit prove enlightening."

Inside the main hall, Ribo experiences the sophisticated Yedyr sound-suppression technology for the first time. His voice reaches Anne severely muffled even at regular speaking volume. He asks if it's Yedyr tech; Anne confirms it probably is, explaining that people rich enough to afford Yedyr use it for discretion. Ribo observes hundreds of people in the hall standing around small tables or seated in audience rows, all talking in perfect silence.

As they search for their suspect among the church guests — all wearing formal attire and visibly scrutinizing the intruders — Ribo reflects on the Evitr faith. To him it has been "little more than an exclusive club among the elite," a calling card for perceived legitimacy and an enigmatic set of rules used to ostracize and silence. He concludes that if there was any true belief at the center, it was solely "the belief in one's own superiority" — which explains why the church and thousands like it survived Evitr's departure and Solim's revelations. The scholars debated, the top officials were publicly outraged, but Ribo suspects "not one single person who attended these places actually gave a shit."

When the lighting shifts from warm yellow-white to deep golden orange and the sound suppression is turned off, Ribo is briefly disoriented by the sudden return of ambient noise and his ability to hear his own breath. An announcer takes the stage and addresses the crowd: "Honored Aspirants. We have guests in our midst."

Ribo mutters under his breath that the last thing he wanted was more attention. The announcer continues: "Please welcome them, they are here on a mission of clarity." Ribo begins to whisper a complaint, but Anne Cyra cuts him off with their prearranged code word: "Quiet."

TWPW Chapter 4 — Pursuit at Visitor's Envy and Confrontation with Zet

Ribo and Anne Cyra track their suspect — Kaiser in a white-golden jacket — to Visitor's Envy. They approach from the stage-side entrance, but a man calls attention to them from the stage, breaking operational discretion. As they pursue, another guest throws a table directly at Anne, allowing Kaiser to escape through the back exit to a private spaceport. Ribo arrests the table-thrower for obstruction.

Anne's search order triggers three results: photos of Kaiser at different locations with Anne and Ribo positioned on either side like bodyguards — a deliberate taunt. Ribo's response: "I hate this guy."

Later, Zet visits their office (EDU-5) to discuss strategy. Ribo and Anne have prepared a conference table with Zet seated at the head. When Zet praises their progress — noting they found Kaiser, learned his methods, and captured a cooperator — both sergeants are stunned. Anne admits they've been worried about their performance.

Ribo initially stays silent while Anne engages, but his ire gradually becomes visible. When Zet says "You have nothing to redeem yourselves for," Ribo slams both hands on the table, stands, and lets his chair fall over.

He shouts that the claim is "bullshit" — he fell completely for Kaiser's trap, didn't see through his lies until the last possible moment, and if he'd been more careful they could have exposed Kaiser while he was still public. He admits he didn't pay enough attention to Lucas Taldo's decline — didn't see how much guilt Lucas felt — and "made it worse, on purpose."

When Zet attempts to defuse by noting he wasn't there to see Lucas's conversations, Ribo cuts him off: "You didn't speak to him when it was happening. You didn't think that it was good that he felt guilty — didn't make it worse, on purpose."

Zet does not deny Ribo's self-accusations. Instead, Zet acknowledges Ribo made those choices, then adds: "but you made them with incomplete — and in some cases, outright false — information."

Ribo deflates, laughs sarcastically, and refuses to believe it — "not yet." He shuts down the conversation, declaring it isn't a therapy appointment and asking Zet to discuss strategy instead.

At that moment, news alerts flood in: Kaiser has released a mass-distributed statement identifying himself as "Eldon Wynter" with an evidence package claiming innocence. The chapter ends mid-crisis.

Open Questions

Sources

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