DauilandBoard

"Liberalism failed my country once. Never again."
- Loren Ross

---

Loren Tiberius Ross (born 8 August 2025) is a Crimtonian politician, political theorist, and former revolutionary who is the 3rd and current President of Crimtonian Spectre. Born in Lerus, Crimtonia during the Crimtonian Fall War, Ross lived under dictatorship for most of his youth and actively worked to subvert it as a student, educator, insurgent, and soldier. After the formation of Crimtonian Spectre’s democratic government following the Crimtonian Civil War, Ross became disillusioned with its liberal governance and gradually grew in influence as a right-wing theorist and commentator, eventually becoming one of Crimtonian Spectre and Dauiland’s most prominent conservative voices. Variously described as an alt-rightist, nationalist, libertarian, populist, and the “personification of Crimtonian conservatism,” he is a founding member of the far-right National Front party and served in the Crimtonian Senate as its leader from 2056 to 2060. Ross became Senate Speaker in 2058 before his ascension to the Presidency in 2060.

---

Contents
1. Early Life and Education
2. Military Service
3. Media Career and National Front Founding
3. Senatorial Career and Senate Speaker
4. 2060 Presidential Campaign
5. Presidency and Political Positions
6. Personal Life and Personality
7. Quotes

---

Early Life and Education

Loren Tiberius Ross was born on August 8th, 2025, in the city of Lerus, Crimtonia, to Lucina and Silas Ross (né Cartren). Lucina was an electrician and Silas was a high school history teacher, though both struggled to find employment around the time of Ross’s birth, owing to the ravages of the Crimtonian Fall War. Ross has a twin sister, Sabrina.

A year after Ross’s birth, the authoritarian Crimtonian Word paramilitary party won the Crimtonian Fall War, and the country fell under their dictatorial control (known as the Crimtonian State, or, colloquially, the Regime). Under Grand Arbiter Variss’s New Crimtonia Program, all private schools were outlawed and all curricula combined into the single Crimtonian Education, which was wrought with censorship and inaccuracies. “It was all ‘Variss this’ and ‘Variss that,’ and I didn’t believe a word of it,” Ross later said. “I believed it was my responsibility to educate myself.” Though Ross nominally attended Lerus CE School 12 from Kindergarten to twelfth grade, he mostly considers himself homeschooled by his parents. “They made sure I knew the truth—and how dangerous it was.”

Ross was admitted to Lerus CE University in September 2042, where he nominally studied history, politics, and law. Though he played the model student, Ross knew the entire curriculum was fabricated to improve Variss’s image and groom the youth into service for the Regime. Seeking to obtain a genuine education for himself and his peers, Ross founded and led a secret—and highly illegal—academic syndicate called Crimtonians Acting For Truth (CRAFT). As one of CRAFT’s leaders, Ross tracked down textbooks that had escaped Variss’s purge, solicited aid and information from sympathetic professors, and taught clandestine nighttime classes on censored history.

Ross’s charisma and leadership were invaluable to CRAFT, as well as his future trajectory. “CRAFT was my first real calling,” he later said. “It was terrifying to defy the Regime, yet exhilarating at the same time. Certainly that was part of the appeal, for we all knew the risks.” If Ross or any of his co-conspirators had ever been caught, they would have been put to death.

Ross never finished his degree (though he said “I would’ve burned it if I had”), because in 2043, Odil Rostenstaphen seized power after Variss’s sudden death, executed the Crimtonian State’s leaders, and ended the New Crimtonia Program. The abrupt, violent coup d’etat had repercussions throughout Crimtonia, and Ross’s university was no exception; with the complete loss of government support that characterized many publicly funded institutions at the time, it was left in shambles. Although Ross was officially a student and had no formal teaching experience, his now-popular reputation as leader of CRAFT meant he was quickly offered a job as a history professor at the struggling school, which he accepted.

Ross served in the position for the next two years, during which Odil Rostenstaphen consolidated his power. Due to the continued lack of funding, the job paid little, if at all; Ross was forced to work two side jobs at the university, as a bartender and a janitor, to supplant his meager income. In addition to his three jobs, Ross traveled the stricken city, aiding people and gathering information, which he used to supplant his lessons. He began to develop a deep distrust of Odil Rostenstaphen, despite the dictator’s vague promises of democratic elections—“he always seemed unhinged to me”—as well as the desire to influence the direction of his nation in a more significant way than just education. Nonetheless, his dedication and vigor in his work proved a great inspiration to the low-morale teaching community, and in September 2045 he was appointed Lerus University’s Deputy Headmaster at the mere age of 20.

Two months later, Odil Rostenstaphen, supported by his enormous army, officially proclaimed himself Emperor of Crimtonia, confirming Ross’s worst fears. Like many of his colleagues, Ross joined a small rebel cell that operated out of the university, and began combat training—though he was terrible at it. “I was definitely more of our intellectual leader than our physical one,” he later joked. By late 2045, every major city in Crimtonia was under martial law, and the cell was forced to disband on fear of death. That same month, the university was shuttered for its ties to the rebellion, and Ross was left jobless and rudderless. Faced with the dictatorial totality that had enveloped his city—one far more severe than the one he had experienced his entire childhood—Ross fell into a deep depression. He contemplated fleeing Crimtonia to escape his torment, but ultimately decided against it, realizing his family needed him. “It was the worst time of my life,” Ross said, “but I came out infinitely stronger for it.”

---

Military Service and Early Career

On New Year’s Day, 2046, many of Crimtonia’s beleaguered rebel organizations combined forces into the organized insurgency Crimtonian Spectre, which proclaimed itself Crimtonia’s true government and began to raise a standing military to topple Rostenstaphen’s dictatorship in the Crimtonian Civil War. Crimtonian Spectre’s emergence stirred Ross out of his funk, and both he and his twin Sabrina joined the revolution that same day.

For 2 years, as Crimtonian Spectre mobilized its resources for all-out war, Ross served the revolution in various ways, including espionage, recruitment, and diplomacy. Ross’s intellect and strength of character in spite of his youth impressed his superiors, and he gradually came to be entrusted with important individual missions. In April 2047, Spectre financed his first trip out of Crimtonia: to solicit international aid from the administration of the (now disgraced) then-President of Nazbeth, the Socialist Wanda James. Though Ross insisted he be allowed to meet with James in person, her representatives refused him an audience, and the talks went nowhere. Ross’s experience in Tiricia enraged him and, as he later admitted, had a major role in shaping his political views.

When the Crimtonian Civil War officially broke out in January 2058, Ross, like many unattached Spectre insurgents, was conscripted into the military due to a dearth of competent personnel. Though he scored only average for both marksmanship and physical ability, Ross made it through basic training and entered the Crimtonian Spectre Infantry as a commissioned officer of the lowest rank: Ensign. He served in the 22nd Battalion as his squad’s tactician and proved a stirring force to his regiment in spite of his limited combat skills. As Ross self-deprecatingly put it, “I was a bad soldier, but I was good at talking. My comrades endured me as one of their only sources of entertainment during the war.” The 22nd Battalion suffered some of the worst losses of the entire army; over 70% of their soldiers died at the catastrophic battle of Eredik Outpost, and Ross has suffered survivor’s guilt. Despite it all, however, Ross has remained pro-war and fervently pro-CS for his entire life. His general outlook on the war can be summarized by the following (typically verbose) quote: “The war was grisly and atrocious, a horrid dance of death that had me lose almost every friend in my regiment. I saw things no human should ever see. But it is because of the loss and the slaughter that we fought on—we knew we were fighting for a cause far greater than our lives. We knew that our deaths would not be vain, for at the end of it all, we would throw off our shackles.”

Despite their decimation at Eredik, Ross’s regiment joined the enormous convoy that continued to march on towards Rostenstaphen City. Ross fought in the ferocious battle that raged through its streets, outskirts, and the skies above it, finally reaching its zenith on December 21st, 2050. The 22nd Regiment helped capture the city’s armory, a key strategic objective, as Tarius Rostenstaphen led an elite squad that seized the Royal Palace. When it was over, most of the Empire’s leaders were dead or captured, though Odil Rostenstaphen managed to escape. Even so, Ross and his comrades partied hard and long into the night. “Maybe the monster wasn’t dead, but he had lost his menagerie. That was enough for us to lose ourselves in the love of our country and its brew,” Ross reflected wryly. Two days later, Tarius Rostenstaphen proclaimed the formation of the Free State of Crimtonian Spectre to the world, followed shortly by the ratification of its Constitution.

Just when everything seemed to be going right for Ross, however, everything changed: his father Silas became terminally ill, and Ross returned home to help take care of him, going AWOL from the army. Ross’s involvement in the insurgency had seen him lose almost all contact with his parents, though their relationship had never been close to begin with. However, Ross took most of the responsibility to aid his ailing father upon himself, due to his mother and sister’s difficult employment obligations.

---

Media Career and National Front Founding

Returning home to Lerus had a profound effect on Ross, as he witnessed Crimtonian Spectre’s transition to liberal democracy from within his working-class childhood neighborhood. Rapidly, Ross was dismayed at what he believed to be severe shortcomings in the implementation of CS’s Constitution. Having been drafted by talented but inexperienced statesmen (such as then-VP Lainey Johannsen) owing to the eradication of the former First Crimtonian Republic’s ruling political class under Variss, the Constitution was largely modeled on the region’s premier democracies of Unidalania, Nazbeth, and Richomp. Ross saw this as a fatal mistake (“Crimtonian Spectre is a nation apart from the regional elite and should have never been built in their image”) and slowly began to loathe the Rostenstaphen administration, especially Tarius Rostenstaphen himself, whom he viewed as grossly incompetent and an embarrassment. The watershed moment for Ross came when he tried and failed to check his dying father into a newly-built nationalized Crimtonian hospital, as Silas passed while Ross was frantically filling out reams of forms. “As I sat in that brand-new, shiny, taxpayer-funded waiting room and cradled my dead father’s head in my arms, I knew there was no turning back from my true calling,” he later reflected.

In the wake of his father’s death, and at his sister Sabrina’s urging, Ross tapped in to his growing political urges and became a blogger, owning and operating various websites and podcasts (including the popular Actively Seeking Knowledge, or ASK, which he viewed as the spiritual successor to CRAFT) with the then-goal of becoming a talk show host. At the time, Ross had little interest in entering the true political sphere, believing he could have more influence if he “spoke to the people directly, without the miasma of bureaucracy to obstruct me.”

Having been influenced by both his tumultuous personal experience and various names as Yanar Harren’s spiritual successor Clorasi Cyra, prominent Nazbethian libertarian and DAsceptic Kieran Vann, and (though he would never admit it now) the infamous and indomitable Senzala Kadhir, Ross forged his own brand of conservatism, libertarianism, nationalism, and constitutionalism, frequently spiced with fervent extremist tendencies. Though they have permeated Crimtonian Spectre politics now, many of the views he espoused were relatively unknown or unsought at the time, attesting to the bewildering speed and proliferation of Ross’s influence. Some of his trademarks included disparaging Tarius Rostenstaphen as “the most idiotic incarnation of the debased Crimtonian monarchic fetish,” advocating for the privatization of healthcare, education, and social security, and, most controversially, blaming returning Crimtonian expatriates and so-called Freedom Seekers (immigrants and refugees from dictatorships such as Deplandia and Seeroltea seeking a new life in CS) for much of the country’s economic suffering. Though he would later lessen some of his stances in his formal career as a politician, his unrepentant extremism played no small part in helping him gain an underground but immensely loyal following that has stuck with him to this day.

For his first couple of years in this unconventional career, Ross struggled. Despite his growing fame in alternative-rightist circles, it had not yet translated to broader success, including financially. What little income he gained from public appearances and advertising revenue was often seized by his mother to pay rent, owing to Ross operating his setup out of her garage, being unable to afford a property of his own. The emergence of Odil Rostenstaphen’s revenant army in still-lawless Western Crimtonia, and its subsequent annihilation along with the West and Kaltam itself, contributed greatly to the personal woes of Ross’s family and the country at large. During this time, he and his mother had frequent and violent clashes. In March 2052, two months after Armageddon, Lucina Ross died from fallout-related sickness. Despite their conflicts, Ross inherited her home and much of her savings. It was only after his emancipation from his mother’s influence that Ross’s stature began its dizzying rise.

On June 23rd, 2052, Ross appeared on prime-time television as a guest host for the extreme-right Crimson Voice, discussing his iconoclastic internet sphere and incendiary personal views. Ross went viral among conservative circles for his savage dressing down of Tarius Rostenstaphen, who he denounced as “not only a clown, but the entire circus,” and painting his “sickly sentimental response to annihilation” as the only sensible reason for his January re-election. The Voice was so overjoyed with Ross’s performance that they gave him a permanent segment on Friday night television, entitled The Truth with Loren Ross, or just The Truth. Ross had finally achieved his dream, but his ambitions would hardly stop there.

Over the next two years, Ross cemented his exponentially rising status as the emotional and intellectual heart of Crimtonian conservatism, almost single-handedly revitalizing the flagging movement and hooking it on his linguistic command. Tarius Rostenstaphen’s nosediving popularity and public mental deterioration only played into Ross’s growing public veneration, having been one of the onetime “Golden Boy”’s earliest and most vocal detractors—culminating in Rostenstaphen’s resignation from the presidency and the swearing in of Lainey Johannsen in May 2054, though she had been de facto President for some time.

Johannsen’s restoration of quiet dignity and competence to the presidency did little to rein in Ross, however. He condemned Johannsen’s adoption of the Dauiland Dollar and entrance into the DA and DFTC as “selling out to the regional elite,” one of his most popular mantras, and ironically took credit for her passage of the Economic Relief Act, saying it realized many of his laissez-faire aims but “didn’t go nearly far enough.” Ross’s reputation as Johannsen’s #1 critic soon established him as the darling of not only ordinary, disgruntled citizens, but the conservative political elite. And though he had made his name deploring many of them, the time was right for Ross to play nice; he would need their support to realize his most ambitious vision yet. Ross was ready to become a politician.

On 2 May 2055, Ross called on his considerable connections and influence to convene an enormous, 500-strong conference of his political allies, disciples, and sympathizers at the conservative think tank Institute for the Nation, headquartered in Lerus, which had become a hotbed of Ross Theory and adoration of their homegrown son. At this so-called “Nationalist Spring,” Ross declared his intention to form a new political movement based on the core principles of his following and political thought: an alt-rightist, anti-establishment revolution. That week, Ross, along with his inner circle including such names as his sister Sabrina Ross; policymaker prodigy and future protegée Andrea Callahan; and longtime friend and right-hand-man Kevin Zimmerman, became the founding members of the National Front, and Ross would forever be remembered as its first Director.

As famously and explicitly expressed by Ross, the National Front was founded with the aim of returning the Crimtonian right (and in a broader and bolder sense, the nation) to what Ross dubbed the National Ideal: “Crimtonian Spectre First.” Throughout all his time as a political theorist and commentator—and indeed, even before that, in his educational and history background—Ross came to fervently believe that his country had been sold out to international interests, and that the twin cancers of liberalism and elitism were the rot at CS’s core (and perhaps more importantly, the failed First Republic that had preceded it). The National Front was the ultimate expression of his zeal, with the term “Front” itself, as opposed to “Party,” embodying how Ross hoped—knew—that his ideas and people would come to the forefront of Crimtonian politics and transform the entire system forever.

That same spring of 2055, Ross and his newly-minted National Front associates began a bold voter outreach, canvassing, and fundraising campaign, the likes of which had never before been seen in Crimtonian politics. In a matter of months, the Front went from a slightly threatening novelty—indeed, despite Ross’s enormous popularity, many politicians and analysts from both sides of the aisle massively underestimated his movement’s potential—to a cause of great concern for the Crimtonian political establishment. Once again, Ross demonstrated his expert, almost oxymoronic blending of grassroots, working-class populism with the “necessary evil” of soliciting aid from the elite. Voter registration and individual donations to the Front skyrocketed in the months leading up the January 2056 general elections, as did endorsements by prominent conservative politicians and economic leaders (there was a great deal of corporate money involved as well, one could reasonably assume).

The efficiency and ferocity of the Front’s emergence unsettled Crimtonian Spectre’s leftist coalition enormously. Many of its most prominent voices, from Senate Speaker Keith McAnder to Democratic Party founder Felicity Grace to President Lainey Johannsen herself, went live on air decrying Ross and the Front’s conflict-stoking, extreme-rightist rhetoric. So too did many of the more moderate elites in CS’s most entrenched right-wing echelons, the Conservative Party and then-dominant Populist Party. But their condemnations only added fuel to Ross’s fire. He was yet to make his arguably most astonishing move to date, which many analysts viewed as the culmination and conclusion of the explosive Nationalist Spring.

On August 14th, 2055—only days after Loren Ross celebrated his 30th birthday—Ross and his inner circle commenced the first of a series of behind-closed-doors, clandestine meetings with the leaders of CS’s Conservative Party. More socially and economically right than its mainstream Liberty Caucus counterpart, the Populist Party, the Conservative Party—despite its not insignificant following—had never captured the same ardent support as the National Front, and by then had a reputation for many jealous looks in Ross’s direction. Though he (unusually for a man of his bombast) never spoke explicitly of the details of what was discussed, by the end of August’s third week, the talks concluded. On August 21st, Ross and the Conservative Party chairwoman Gisela Mandel held a joint press conference, announcing the union of the Conservative Party and National Front under the Front’s name, shocking Crimtonian politics to its core. Only shortly thereafter, Ross announced his campaign for the Crimtonian Senate, and his audacious Senate Speaker ambitions were plain for all to see. This time, Ross and the leaders of the Front decided not to focus on the Presidency, believing (prudently but perhaps surprisingly) that such a goal was too ambitious, too soon. The September Liberty Caucus Convention was marred by simmering tension between the new-order Frontists and old-guard Populists, who eventually announced the well-respected Populist Senator Allison Key as their nominee, to whom Ross offered his calculatingly measured support.

With the unconditional adoration of Lerus behind him, Ross captured a Senatorial seat from his home state of Verdan in an 80-to-20 landslide, and was sworn in on January 7th, 2056 as unrepentant leader of the upstart National Front.

---

Senatorial Career and Senate Speaker

The 2056 midterms saw Ross and the National Front truly arrive on the international political stage. Buoyed by the working class, the Front’s comprehensive grassroots organizing led to them capturing gubernatorial, state legislative, and countless local positions throughout the country—a stunning achievement considering the recency of their formation. Though the New Left Caucus still held a narrow but decisive majority in national representation, the Front came shockingly close to equaling the seats held by their more moderate Liberty counterpart, the Populists. The absorption of the former Conservative Party certainly played no small role in this, as all former Conservative officeholders had their party affiliation changed to the Front the moment the Nationalist Spring concluded. Meanwhile, many more extremist Populist politicians also defected, contributing to the overall strength of Ross’s legion.

However, his ultimate goal remained—as of yet—out of reach. Once the Senate results were in, the New Left Caucus held a razor-thin majority of 103 seats to 98, while the Populist Party succeeded in holding onto their narrow Liberty majority of 52 to the National Front’s 46. Ross had been fairly explicit in his aims to topple both the New Left and Liberty elites, and in this regard, he failed—thanks to nothing more than sheer numbers. However, it was clear that all political momentum was on his side, with the 2056 elections simply coming too soon to realize his ultimate aims. After Allison Key handily lost to the incumbent Johannsen in the Presidential election, Ross made his future ambitions clear: the Front would throw their support behind a candidate of their own in 2060. He had never fully supported Key, who Ross viewed as too moderate and too compromising, meaning his conscience was clean; it was the Populists who had failed, not him. By the time 2060 rolled around, no one had any doubt who would be the National Front’s nominee. Ross was their heart and soul, their standard-bearer, their founding father.

Without a majority in the Senate nor his Caucus, Ross entered the 2056 legislative cycle as a Senator in name but with vastly more power in practice. Though the Populists elevated their party leader Senator Veronica Walker to the #1 position of Minority Leadership, Ross made it clear that if they desired the National Front support, he would require the #2 slot of Liberty Caucus Chair. When the Populists agreed to grant his demands, Ross ceded his position as Director of the National Front to Kevin Zimmerman and threw himself into the mire of Senatorial politicking.

Because Liberty failed to claim the Senatorial majority for the third election in a row (a fact that Ross loudly and incessantly pinned on Populist incompetence), much of his first 2 years in the Senate was devoted to frequent obstructionism and undermining of the ruling New Left’s agenda. CS was now firmly within the “LJ Era,” with Johannsen and her allies firmly ushering in her vision of rapid economic growth in tandem with environmental sustainability. In typical fashion, however, and after constantly being underestimated by his enemies, Ross once again found a way to make his mark.

In his initial few months, New Left solidarity largely limited Ross to powerful, explosive, but ultimately pointless speeches on the Senate floor (including his now-legendary 13-hour filibuster of the CRIMCOM Act—Crimtonian Compassionate Relief Act, a multinational international aid bill—which Ross began by ironically congratulating Johannsen on her election as DA Chief Councillor, spent hours pontificating on Johannsen’s betrayal of the National Ideal and quoting from the historic failures of the First Republic, and concluded with “now if you’ll excuse me, I need to take a piss.”). But that July, President Johannsen and Senate Speaker Hazel Grant announced the Economic Growth Package (EGP), a comprehensive stimulus bill seeking to boost all areas of the Crimtonian economy. When the small but decisive 8-Senator Equality Alliance refused to support the bill, citing environmental and workers’ rights concerns, Ross seized his opportunity. His position as Liberty Caucus Chair meant he, not the floor leader Walker, was the ultimate authority on Liberty’s legislative positions—and thus he offered to get Grant enough votes to pass the EGP if she agreed to numerous concessions. Though Grant and her allies at first refused to negotiate with Ross, the Equality Alliance stood firm, forcing Grant’s hand. In the end Ross forced numerous creative tax cuts and deregulatory policies into the EGP, articulated by himself and masterfully crafted into legislation by Andrea Callahan. The package passed with not-insignificant support from the Liberty Caucus after further defections from the New Left’s Progressive Party.

The EGP ended up being transformational for Crimtonian Spectre’s economy, dramatically curtailing the country’s reliance on raw exports and improving wage growth and employment for many. Though Grant and Johannsen rightfully took much of the credit for its success, so too did Ross—and he once again harnessed his mastery of narrative and spin to take sole credit in the eyes of his base. It was around this time that Ross had a bitter and public feud with Minority Leader Walker, owing in no small part to his “accidental” admission on camera that “Senator Walker is in my pocket, I assure you; she’s Liberty’s leader only in name.” Though Walker vehemently denied this assertion and condemned the insult of her person, many conservative politicians and commentators took Ross’s side, agreeing that Ross had carried the caucus through 2056 and urging Walker to hand him her position. This Walker also refused, and though she and Ross later publicly reconciled, Ross emerged from the spat ever stronger.

The dominos continued to fall in Ross’s direction during the anxious buildup towards the 2058 midterm elections. To Ross, the 2057 “Feringate” scandal was a triumphant field day: not only did it name multiple of his direct political rivals as corrupt, it also took down many of their most powerful corporate donors, such as the Liberate! bank chain that was prosecuted for collusion with the Grazod Syndicate. Though Johannsen and McAnder’s names were quickly cleared, the jailing of Secretary of State Yanic Foster and deaths of Secretary of Industry Edwin Clemons and Liberlitatian President Teddy Shaw were all points of great strife for the Johannsen administration. Despite Johannsen’s ability to stay above the fray, Ross made sure to pin the blame for Foster and Clemons’ crimes directly on the President, owing to her having appointed them—irrevocably tarnishing Johannsen’s until-then immaculate reputation. He also stoked the regional fires of outrage at President Shaw’s death in Clemon’s hostage crisis, though the Liberlitatians themselves were mostly unbothered (owing to the uniquely insular and unemotional nature of their technocratic society). Feringate made Ross many enemies, and all but guaranteed he was the New Left’s most hated man, but it all played directly into his hands by swaying the body politic as the elections approached.

Ross’s confrontational and abrasive nature was in many ways at its most prominent during his time as Liberty Caucus Chair. He was unafraid to tear into enemies and supposed allies alike, publicly insulting and belittling anyone who didn’t meet his exacting competitive and ideological standards. Despite his young age, his near-constant railing against the often considerably older political elite cemented his reputation as an “inspirational insubordinate,” as Andrea Callahan put it, all but striking the killing blow against the importance of age and experience in Crimtonian politics. Under Ross, far more important were energy, graft, charisma, and unerring political tenor. By the time of the 2058 midterms, which were widely viewed as Ross’s golden chance to oust both Senate Speaker Grant and Minority Leader Walker, Ross was 32—his frequent collaborator Callahan, widely viewed as his protegee, was younger still at 27.

The 2058 midterms saw the National Front emerge as not only the largest and most powerful of the now-majority Liberty Caucus, but with an outright plurality in the Senate. It was now clear to even Ross’s biggest doubters and detractors that he was all but certain to become Senate Speaker—and when he did, he refused to appoint a Populist (most likely Walker) to the position of Caucus Chair as Walker had for him, choosing Callahan instead on the basis of her legislative merit. But this time, Ross’s decision was met with either raucous applause or a silence that spoke louder than words. The once-ungrateful upstart now had sheer power on his side, and his erstwhile Populist rivals swallowed their pride and held their tongues.

As Senate Speaker, Ross’s rabble-rousing anti-establishment rhetoric captured the international stage, with many of the regional powers looking nervously in Crimtonian Spectre’s direction. Furthermore, Ross’s pronouncement of Liberty’s “unconditional opposition” to all of Johannsen’s agenda meant the official end of the LJ Era, with Johannsen forced to exercise her executive powers much more frequently. Ross, for his part, announced his intention to undo as much of Johannsen’s legacy as he could “as soon as the National Front holds the Presidency in 2060.” Though a rather audacious boast, Ross had the numbers on his side, with the Front now officially possessing the greatest voter registration numbers in CS and comfortable (some would say concerning) majorities in the polls.

The only major piece of legislation to pass through the Senate during Ross’s tenure was the Crimtonian International Economic Reform Act (CIERA), viewed as one of Ross’s most significant legislative achievements to date. Despite both parties’ immense distaste of one another, Ross agreed to negotiate with Johannsen and Grant to reform the CS economy’s relationship with predator multinationals, which was one of the few things both agreed was deeply flawed. The CIERA, bipartisanly passed by virtue of Ross’s ardent championing and signed into law by Johannsen on July 2nd, 2058, encouraged international investment in Crimtonian businesses through a combination of government incentives and deregulation, and resulted in enormous growth of the industrial manufacturing sector. Importantly to Ross, the CIERA also encouraged businesses to hire Crimtonian workers through tax break incentives and government funding and massively undercut the rights and opportunities offered to immigrant workers. Additionally, the CIERA’s tax incentives and deregulations had the result of greatly lessening the gross capital tax for Crimtonian companies, contributing to a boom in corporate profits and criticism from environmental activists.

The CIERA caused great controversy among both sides of the political spectrum. While praised by some for its role in continuing to develop the now-powerful Crimtonian economy, it was highly unpopular among the extreme right and extreme left, both of whom accused Ross and Johannsen of betraying their convictions through a flawed compromise. However, through a combination of Ross’s wordsmithing and the privilege of the presidency attracting the bulk of blame, the political winds once again blew in Ross’s favor. Though Johannsen’s popularity ratings declined to the lowest point of her political career, Ross’s remained steady and even grew. Importantly to analysts, it also signified a turning point in Ross’s personal philosophy, where power and pragmatism became more desirable than raw ideology in his eyes.

As 2058 trundled on, Crimtonians waited with bated breath for Ross to announce his presidential campaign, which by that point seemed only a matter of time. The New Left’s popularity was at its lowest in Crimtonian Spectre’s brief history, owing to a plethora of contentious issues including the largest recession in decades, climate change, immigration reform, and CS’s regional standing that would come to dominate the 2060 elections. Rather than bask in the pomp and circumstance as he is oft disposed to do, Ross chose to make his official announcement on November 19th, 2058, in the humble environs of his mother’s Lerus garage where it all began.

---

2060 Presidential Campaign

Ross’s decision to announce his campaign from the familiar surroundings of his mother’s garage was widely viewed as a masterstroke, with the spindly cedar desk, comfy leather armchairs, and framed Crimtonian flag all contributing to an aura of relatability, conjuring the nostalgia of his beginnings as a self-employed political blogger. By contrast, his main rival Hazel Grant’s decision to launch hers on the main stage of the grand Felicity Grace Building in Ferin, when she may have expected Ross to do something similar, made her appear detached and elitist. In many ways, this misstep would come to characterize Ross and Grant’s “senatorial slugfest,” as The Ferin Daily put it: Ross painted himself as the anti-establishment outsider, founder of CS’s newest and most revolutionary party, opposing the dynastic, bureaucratic, centrist Grant.

Meanwhile, Ross mounted an enormous smear campaign against every one of his direct rivals, labeling them ineffective, incompetent, and inadequate. Only the Populist Governor of Alledia Ellis Terrence dared to directly challenge Ross for the Liberty nomination, offering some of the strongest direct condemnation of the man who hijacked his caucus to date: calling him “a dangerous egomaniac,” “a disaster for this country,” and, most strongly, “a glorified neofascist demagogue.” Even so, Ross swiftly eviscerated the older man on the debate stage, running circles around Terrence verbally and all but guaranteeing his nomination. By the time the votes were counted, Terrence had practically given up, exhausted from the day-to-day confrontation with Ross’s animus. In the end, Ross tore Terrence apart with a vote of 82% in his favor.

At the September 3rd Liberty Convention, Ross wouldn’t hold back from the spectacle this time. Held in the packed-to-the-rafters 81,000 capacity SpecCom Arena stadium, the crowd produced a din louder than any Crimtonian National Football Team match, perhaps even louder than the games against its rival Richomp, when Ross took the stage. His acceptance speech is widely regarded as the pinnacle of the craft of unrepentant conservative politics and is quoted by right-wing scholars the world over. Some choice quotes: “The political elite hate me because I am their worst nightmare: a working-class kid who rose to the top not through some sappy liberal love story to the State, but through my own grit, determination, and suffering”; “Our country must never again let outsiders make the decisions that end millions, that betray our people, our convictions, our uniquely Crimtonian way of life. Not under my watch. Crimtonian Spectre First”; and the now iconic concluding line, “I’m not just imploring you to dare to dream as I did. I’m not just daring you to defeat the corrupt dynasty that has drained Crimtonian Spectre dry. I’m not just asking you to vote for our great and righteous movement. No, I am urging you to have the courage to Live Free with every fiber of your being. My friends, I am urging you to Live Free or Die!”

It was Ross’s moment. His entire coalition had risen behind him. Even his former, sometimes most fervent detractors—powerful Populists like Walker and Key and Terrence—smiled, waved for the cameras, and hit the relentless notes of the National Front political machine in their own little speeches. Andrea Callahan, a staunch disciple-slash-restraining force of Ross since day one, was rewarded for her loyalty with the Vice Presidential slot, despite her initial reservations and desire to remain in the Senate. But no one could stop Ross, the man himself, from dominating the night and capturing the Dauilandian imagination. To conservatives in a country and, more broadly, region so steadfastly liberal, he was their apotheosis. And Ross was right: to the liberals themselves, he was their worst nightmare.

Ross couldn’t win; and yet after that night, it seemed inevitable that he would. Grant had captured her own caucus’s nomination, after a significantly more straining battle against the Progressive talisman Alessandra Elhem, and she and Ross’s fight was far from over. But was it really? As Ross and Grant traded increasingly more caustic, increasingly more personal, increasingly more unhinged blows over the airwaves and the stage, many couldn’t escape the sneaking suspicion that this was exactly what Ross wanted. Because it was his element. It was he who had transformed the Crimtonian political landscape into a toxic cesspool, entirely by his own calculating design. He had seized the system and made it his monster, and Grant was a fish out of water. No amount of First Republic-era gentility and decency could save her now, nor the great liberal fortress she and Johannsen and so many others had built, which was collapsing like a house of cards before their very eyes.

Ross stole the Crimtonian heart, whispered dark truths to their most radical desires, and molded the national psyche in his image. It was a transformation that maintained the illusion of happening overnight and yet was the culmination of years of careful and deliberate planning. As the morning of Friday, January 16th, 2060 dawned with the news that Loren Ross had defeated Hazel Grant by the decisive popular vote margin of 53 percent to 45, Ross’s many supporters lost themselves in ecstasy, the powerful forces amassed against him were left to reflect on just how everything went so badly wrong, and all of Dauiland was left stunned. Loren Tiberius Ross was sworn in as the 3rd President of Crimtonian Spectre on Wednesday of the following week, January 21st, 2060.

Much has been made of Ross’s victory in the months since that iconic day. Chief among the significant analysis of his candidacy, credibility, and personality is the truth that he managed to be both so underestimated and so feared. In liberal Crimtonian Spectre, it should’ve been impossible for him to win, and yet he did—in a near-landslide. It was nothing less than arguably the greatest conservative victory and worst liberal failure of recent Dauilandian times. There are a plethora of explanations for how and why this happened, but it must be made clear that the bulk of it was not some perceived weakness of Grant’s candidacy—she was the hand-picked and seemingly perfect successor to the indefatigable Johannsen—nor simple chance, the political winds happening to favor him at the right time. No—the responsibility for Ross’s victory rests solely on Ross’s shockingly young yet unimaginably talented shoulders, on the man who many cannot seem to take seriously until it is too late, on the breathtakingly diverse and decisive political coalition he built in a manner of weeks, months, years. Ross was carried by the working class he came from who had been left behind by progress; by the disenfranchised youth who in him saw their raging reflection, of children who knew nothing but war and oppression and pain; by those seeking to build their successes and fortunes without the yoke of regional or planetal responsibility, only the liberty of their own; and by the sometimes quiet but nonetheless enduring power of Crimtonian tradition, a burning desire to recapture the glory days of old. Ross promised them all of this and more. Would he deliver? History will be the arbiter of that.

---

Presidency and Political Positions

Ross’s presidency saw him continue in much of the same explosive, populist vein as his previous career, albeit with a noticeable lessening of his most extreme political leanings. For one, despite his thinly veiled threats to secede Crimtonian Spectre from the Dauiland Alliance during his Presidential campaign, Ross has as yet made no move to follow through, and—defying numerous analytical expectations of his tenure—has even scored multiple surprising but triumphant victories on the international stage. Overall, reception to the first months of Ross’s presidency has been mostly split on party lines, with his supporters as devoted as ever, and his enemies, still reeling from their catastrophic defeat at his hands, gradually regrouping and criticizing his every move. Some political scholars posit that Ross’s victory and very presence in Crimtonian politics has resulted in irreversible polarization.

Though many of his detractors label Ross’s fervent and often violently nationalist support base a personality cult, Ross categorically rejects this characterization. Even so, it cannot be argued that Ross and the National Front’s mastery of communication, ideology, iconography, and image have contributed a great deal to his success. Whether it’s the vaguely chauvinistic Falcon of the Front symbol, his powerful, rabble-rousing, eloquent-yet-frequently-bombastic speeches, or the incessant plastering of his young, handsome, and intimidating visage on every available surface, Ross has undoubtedly borrowed from the authoritarian playbook to manipulate his political appearance. Such efforts have only redoubled once Ross captured the Presidency, and indeed, it is now not unusual to find Ross propaganda not only in his strongholds of Lerus and Ferin, but in such international metropolises as Dauilan Megapolis, Tiricia, and Whalani. If nothing else, Ross has demonstrated a remarkable command of the domestic and international press’s gaping attention.

With a now commanding majority in the Senate, led by Ross’s onetime mentor Speaker Riad Luther, there seems to be little standing in the way of Ross achieving his ambitious, retaliatory agenda on the national stage. Already he has forced through Crimtonian Spectre’s third significant economic reform act of its short existence, the Tax Cuts and Fiscal Responsibility Act (TCFRA), which dramatically slashed government spending and set CS on the path to Ross’s vision of fully privatized healthcare, welfare, and education. Many of Ross’s other policy goals, views, and victories are detailed below.

Policies

• Economy & Environment

  Despite their express condemnation and horror of the Act, there was little the outnumbered New Left could do to stop Ross and the Front from enacting TCFRA (pronounced “tee cee fra”) into law, already rapidly undoing much of the last decade’s liberal progress. Though TCFRA does not immediately privatize large swathes of the government—Ross may frequently speak in terms of revolution, but he is also smart enough to know that complete upheaval also causes complete chaos—it marks the bold beginning of what Ross labeled “the stepping stones to economic independence and prosperity.” Through the immediate privatization of government organizations such as the postal service and Airport Security, and the implementation of measured plans to achieve the same for many others within the next decade, Ross proved that his exaltation of laissez-faire economics was much more than mere talk. And he saw near-instant payoff, with the Crimtonian economy rising out of the recession and adding millions of jobs to the newly streamlined private agencies. Though his critics would argue this was more to the resolution of the economic crisis in Richomp, one of CS’s most important trading partners, than the TCFRA, Ross and his supporters could hardly care.

  Beyond just laissez-faire economics, another characteristic of Ross’s policy is what he dubs “laissez-faire environmentalism.” Climate change has always been a sticky issue for Ross, thanks to his sheer past inaction and skirting of the subject—though he accepts the scientific consensus on climate change, he is often reluctant to directly confront the issue and prefers to instead focus on how “climate radicalism” has harmed Crimtonian Spectre socially and economically. Perhaps hoping to combat or at least lessen his reputation of gross climate inadequacy, in the early months of his presidency Ross adopted a policy of combating climate change through the free market, arguing, as he frequently does, that the market will be more effective at addressing the issue than “clumsy, top-down, bureaucratic” solutions. And he now possesses at least some evidence to back up his claims: namely, the passage of a landmark nuclear energy law, the Crimtonian Atomic Independence Act of 2060 (CAIA2060), that encourages adoption of nuclear power through significant deregulation. Though skeptics have warned that Ross is dicing with danger, pointing at catastrophic meltdowns in Nazbeth and Unidalania in the past, Ross has largely scoffed at such assertions. Whenever he is frequently and scathingly criticized by the Dauilandian Climate Bloc, Ross now enjoys retorting by pointing out Nazbeth’s complete lack of nuclear power following the 2029 Arch Valley Incident and (reluctant) reliance on foreign oil, declaring “we are the future and you are the past.”

• Social Policy

  Ross’s approach to traditionally liberal social policy can best be described as “ambivalent.” Seeking to balance the hardline traditionalist “Crimson Wing” of his party with the largely younger, more progressive, socially-liberal-but-fiscally-conservative one, Ross has often neglected to take firm stances on issues such as trans rights, abortion, drug legalization, and euthanasia, though he has always been a staunch supporter of gay marriage. Crimtonian Spectre (a nation in which the widely respected Lainey Johannsen felt unable to come out as gay until she left the Presidency) is often viewed as backwards on these issues by the international community, who do not fully grasp how CS’s violent, isolated history led to the entrenchment of many patriarchal, prejudiced, and xenophobic norms. In part due to his not taking a side and his reputation as the National Front’s leader, Ross has often been described as a traditionalist, but in reality is neither fully accepted nor rejected by both the traditionalist and progressive wings of his coalition, holding his personal beliefs close to his chest. Some commentators praise this decision as pragmatic and necessary, while others criticize it as cowardly.

  Despite his frequent labeling described as such, Ross dislikes the term “traditionalist,” having the following to say on the matter: “I love and cherish Crimtonian traditions, for this country is long-suffering but strong, a thing of bitter beauty, with the Crimson way and history at its core. But to conflate ‘tradition’ with morality is a fallacy. It is innovation that drives strong and moral institutions, and tradition is prone to stagnation.” That being said, his politics have been seen to advance the entrenchment of the long-lived Crimtonian ideals of militarism, fierce individualism, and laissez-faire capitalism—if not chauvinism and bigotry—which Ross does not deny.

• Foreign Policy

  To even the staunchest Ross supporter, foreign policy was widely expected to be the arena in which he would most struggle, owing to his propensity for making an enemy of practically every powerful Dauilandian leader even before he was President, including nearly all those with whom he would sit on the Dauiland Council. However, as he is often wont to do, Ross has defied expectations in that regard. His foreign policy thus far has been defined by victory after victory, whether it be conspiring with moderates to elevate the centrist Goa Lore to the Chief Councillorship when it seemed inevitable the radical environmentalist Shovacc Elondro would win instead; ensuring the DA Trade Headquarters was constructed on an international island in the Sea of Richomp rather than the progressive megalopolis of Tiricia; claiming guarantorship over the burgeoning Luhlazan-diaspora nation of Essel-Asteria, ensuring unparalleled access to their untapped economic potential and beating off competition from Unidalania, Nazbeth, and Richomp in the process; and most significantly, ensuring that his brainchild to reclaim tens of thousands of square miles of DA-administered land in the Ashes of Crimtonia’s Northeast Corridor—christened (allegedly by himself) Project Phoenix—was accepted by the regional elite with only minimal regulatory concessions.

  Hardly anyone could have anticipated that Ross would have this sterling international track record after only a few short months in office. And indeed, there are many who seek to undermine his achievements by pointing to the integral contributions of Vice President Callahan and Secretary of State Francis R. Madison, as well as Ross’s frequent exiting of the DA chamber during important negotiations, only to return intoxicated. But Ross long ago proved that typical diplomatic and political norms simply do not apply to him, and that if anything, his uniquely tempestuous and wholly unpredictable personal style only serves to confound his enemies and embellish his anti-establishment reputation. Indeed, to quote a certain regional conservative counterpart, by this point analysis of Ross’s personality had spawned an entirely new genre of literature. But regardless of how exactly he attained them, his foreign policy accomplishments speak for themselves.

For & Against

• For: autarky, capital punishment, capitalism, conscription, democracy, economic freedom, egalitarianism, fiscal conservatism, freedom of assembly, freedom of press, freedom of speech, gay rights, industry, interventionism, laissez-faire economics, laissez-faire environmentalism, meritocracy, nationalism, nuclear power, patriotism, political freedom, populism, privatization, public protest, rule of law, secularism, social conservatism

• Neutral: abortion, chauvinism, euthanasia, extreme right, feminism, free trade, income tax, libertarianism, marijuana legalization, mercantilism, militarism, political cooperation, social liberalism, tariffs, traditionalism, transgender rights, unitarism

• Against: anarchy, authoritarianism, bureaucracy, climate radicalism, communism, Dauiland Alliance, dynastic politics, elitism, extreme left, fascism, immigration, imperialism, international cooperation, corporatism, labor unions, monarchy, patriarchalism, religious fundamentalism, socialism, state schools, statism, terrorism, traditional environmentalism, universal healthcare

---

Personal Life and Personality

Ross’s family grew up lower-middle class, and his home life was difficult. “My parents were extremely strict, to the point of being tyrannical,” he said. “Yet even then, I understood. The real tyranny was from up top. They were hard on us to protect us.” Though his relationship with his parents was very complicated, and he has expressed his regrets for failing to reconcile before their early deaths, Ross is close to his sister. Sabrina Ross was his campaign manager in his Senatorial and Presidential runs and is said to be his most trusted confidant.

Sabrina is known to have had a significant influence on forming Ross’s public persona, especially in tempering his more egoistic inclinations and softening his image (his masterful presidential campaign launch comes to mind). She is also reputed to have written or aided in writing many of his speeches, and has been labeled by the Ferin Daily as “the hidden force behind the Ross dominion.” To a certain extent, Ross’s enduring popularity also has to be attributed to his youth and perceived attractiveness, with him famously supplanting the iconically arresting Tarius Rostenstaphen for the #1 spot on The Tiricia Times’s “Top 10 Hottest Male Politicians” in 2055 (certainly part of that was Rostenstaphen being far from anything resembling a politician in any sense of the word by 2055, but the point remains the same). When Ross was asked to comment on this, he simply smiled wryly and said, “What an honor,” in marked contrast to his typically arrogant manner (allegedly, after he received the news, Rostenstaphen locked himself in a bedroom and did not emerge for three days).

Indeed, Ross’s public personality is often characterized by its paradoxicality. He is obsessed with facts and logic to the point of grating condescension, yet possesses a genuine charisma and (sometimes inexplicable) likeability that lets him connect emotionally to acquaintances, supporters, and voters alike. He is an immensely gifted orator, famed for his powerful and unrepentant speeches, yet can sometimes devolve into petty bickering and insults, needing his allies to restrain him on multiple occasions. He can be lighthearted and jokey, and equally contemptuous and mean. But perhaps most importantly, the true Ross is an enigma. The question of his true personality has captured the national imagination (and likely contributed to his fame), but the only few who can likely truly attest to it are a handful of his closest confidantes and the man himself. In public psychoanalysis of Ross (a now-popular venture, due to him being one of the region’s most eye-catching figures regardless of political affiliation), much of his apparent bitterness and almost dual-personality is attributed to his immensely difficult upbringing, including his family life and time under the Regime.

In a 2055 interview, shortly after his rise to fame, Ross was asked why his family never fled the Crimtonian Regime. “It was either leave everything behind and move somewhere new with nothing, or stay and fight for our country. The choice was obvious,” he defiantly answered. Ross has been immensely critical of prominent politicians such as Lainey Johannsen and Keith McAnder—who through wealth privilege did not live in Crimtonia as children—having variously remarked “they didn’t live here; they didn’t suffer here,” “they’re traitors, snakes in the grass,” and referred to them as “those Nazbethians.”

In many ways, Ross’s personal views on politics can be encompassed by the idea that he is fervently anti-authority unless the authority is himself. In part owing to his considerable ego and self-assurance, Ross believes that the word of the elites must always be questioned, but refuses to ever entertain the thought that he may one day become (or has already become) an elite himself. He has a strong belief in the rule of law, frequently expressing that when governmental leaders are not beholden to the power of the law and the people, the State becomes “ruled by shadow government”—the disgraced First Republic being the obvious example. But even so, Ross has no qualms in exercising the executive powers of the presidency and thereby taking free rein to achieve his aims, simply because he understands he is the best person to do so. And when crafting the public persona to achieve those aims, Ross believes that traditional expectations of morality, conduct, and restraint are beneath him.

Ross is known to be a bit of an alcoholic with a notorious thirst for spirits. In a manner typically unbecoming of politicians, Ross has many times become drunk at official events or functions, turning his already low inhibitions and restraint to nearly zero—in marked contrast to the teetotal and always levelheaded Lainey Johannsen. However, Ross has joked that this is his “secret weapon,” as it allows him to express “critical truths” that he would otherwise be “too buttoned up to let loose.” In any case, many of Ross’s inner circle of handlers (namely, Vice President Callahan and the Secret Service) take it upon themselves to ensure no harm befalls the President (or the country) during his escapades. On the opposite end of the spectrum however, Ross has never come anywhere close to the infamously childish alcohol-or-sugar-induced outbursts of his other predecessor, Tarius Rostenstaphen, with the effects of Ross’s drunkenness often serving only to increase his bombast and zeal.

Perhaps surprisingly considering his notoriously unbridled reputation, Ross has never come out and explicitly labeled his sexuality, though he is known to have had romantic and sexual relationships with both men and women. In one of the few times he spoke candidly about the topic—a 2059 interview during his presidential campaign with his former employer the Crimson Voice—Ross joked, “the most important quality to me in a prospective partner is a personality that can match my own, and to date, I have been met with nothing but disappointment in that regard.” Ross maintains a keen interest in keeping his private life secret, and for that reason has no known partners while confirming he does not wish to have children.

Trivia

• Ross stands 6 feet tall and weighs 168 pounds.

• Unlike nearly every other politician of his prominence, Ross is yet to receive even a third-class ribbon of the Order of Crimtonian Spectre (CS’s highest civilian honor). This is likely due to it being bestowed by the current President, and all previous presidents have despised him. Ross has confirmed, jokingly, that he has no intention to grant the honor upon himself, saying “I don’t need validation from that crusty monarchic relic anyway.”

• Ross is known to enjoy kickboxing, first-person-shooter videogames, and woodworking as his hobbies, which he all names as excellent stress relievers. In particular, he enjoys ironically referencing his FPS prowess in contrast with his infamously unremarkable marksmanship with actual rifles.

• Despite the aforementioned reputation, Ross does own quite a few firearms and has been known to record press conferences with them hanging in the background. In 2059, he competed against 24 other ex-military Crimtonian politicians in the friendly firing contest Tacticians' Tactical Challenge, organized by the nationalized Crimtonian Rifles Corporation. He placed a respectable but thoroughly average 14th.

• Not only does Ross have an infamous propensity for the bottle, he is also known to be fond of smoking exotic cigars from time to time. He even posed for a photo doing this once (see below), but never did again, perhaps on advice from his publicists.

• Ross makes a habit of returning to his alma mater and former employer of Lerus University to lecture on history and politics at least once a year, and has delivered their commencement address on four separate occasions. Despite never receiving a diploma, he is easily their most popular alum.

• When Ross was a child, he had an alter ego named Tiberius. He has pointedly refused to confirm or deny whether said alter ego still exists.

• Until his trip to Nazbeth in 2047 on behalf of Spectre, Ross had never left the country. He famously found Tiricia “a disgusting neo-socialist hellhole, and not at all what it’s cracked up to be.”

  Ross enjoying a cigar

  

  Yes no f*cks were given
  and yes he doesn’t care.

---

Quotes

“My tiebreaking vote is the sole reason you’re sitting there wasting all our time, you impudent ignoramus.” (To DA Chief Councillor Goa Lore)

“No, I don’t have much love for miring bureaucracy.”

“I, Loren Tiberius Ross, refuse to stand idly by as Dauiland’s powers that be try to put my intrepid and long-suffering people in their ‘proper place.’”

“The Dauiland Alliance is a corrupt, wasteful, thoroughly unnecessary institution that’s rotten to its core. I’d sooner die than endure five more minutes of their drivel.”

“My two insufferable associates forced me to choose between the lesser of two evils. So, being a man of logic, I chose neither.”

“The Crimtonian political situation is simple. On the one side you have avaricious corporatists, and on the other, deluded fools. Luckily, after six years of stasis, the National Front arrived. And they have me.”

“The political elite hate me because I am their worst nightmare: a working-class kid who rose to the top not through some sappy liberal love story to the State, but through my own grit, determination, and suffering.”

“Our country must never again let outsiders make the decisions that end millions, that betray our people, our convictions, our uniquely Crimtonian way of life. Not under my watch.”

“I’m not just imploring you to dare to dream as I did. I’m not just daring you to defeat the corrupt dynasty that has drained Crimtonian Spectre dry. I’m not just asking you to vote for our great and righteous movement. No, I am urging you to have the courage to Live Free with every fiber of your being. My friends, I am urging you to Live Free or Die!”

“I wasn’t a good soldier, but I was good at talking. My comrades endured me as one of their only sources of entertainment during the war.”

“The Front is dedicated to upholding the National Ideal: Crimtonian Spectre First.”