Richter Bragas

"This is it. This is how I make the world make sense."

- Richter Bragas Richter Bragas, also known as "Chalkie" to his friends and later "The Bleeding Comet", is an operative assigned to the elite Martian Special Forces Unit known as "''Lance Command". As the pilot of the Stark Dragoon Gundam, he acts as one of the central protagonists of the first season of Mobile Suit Stark Gundam'' and the main protagonist of the second.

Appearance & Personality
Richter Bragas is distinguished by his head of wild, blonde hair so pale it's almost white, framing a pair of ruby red eyes and the chalk-white pallor of his skin that earned him his nickname amongst his fellows in Lance Command. Multiple scars criss-cross his face from his days as a member in one of the many cutthroat block-gangs that roam the streets of Mars' surface colonies. Finally, he can often be seen wearing a pair of special sunglasses he uses to correct the vision in his right eye. Standing at only 160 centimetres he is the shortest of his comrades, a fact for which he is constantly teased.

Initially quite reserved, taciturn and introverted, Richter is a born soldier, who took to life in the military with gusto despite his reluctant conscription at the age of thirteen. At first, he is immensely cynical, brought on by a life full of poverty and gang-violence. He expects the worst in people and often finds it, not least because his dry and sarcastic sense of humour serves as a constant annoyance for those not accustomed to him. While he can come across as mocking and rude, it's rarely deliberate, although that's never stopped fellow Gundam Pilot Trafalgar Reed from picking a fight with him when it gets too much. Over the course of the first season, however, Richter mellows and matures, finding enduring friendship in another Gundam Pilot, Iber Valtiade. Despite their differences, the two rub off on each other, and Richter begins to see the world and those around him in a much more optimistic light. He becomes more willing to assert himself and his new bold confidence serves to inspire those around him as the second season begins.

At the beginning of the first season, Richter's life has been almost wholly defined by the hardships of his youth. He has never really recovered from the deaths of his parents at an early age in the same accident that blinded him in his right eye, and at the beginning of the show he is defined by a constant need to "make the world make sense." The almost random and accidental nature of his parent's deaths and by extension, his own survival are something he's never been able to deal with himself. As a result, he has a strong sense of destiny, since the only way the world can make sense to him is if his parents died so that he could become a Gundam Pilot. Growing up in one of Mars' many block-gangs, his early life after the accident was defined by a constant fight for survival, until his conscription into the Martian State Armed Forces at the age of thirteen. This near constant hardship engendered a sense of bitterness and resentment towards the Alliance that as a soldier, he is supposed to serve.

Despite everything he was told during his training, he never once saw anything about the Alliance that was worth fighting for. As far as he understood it, he saw no point in defending a system that created more and more broken kids like him every day. This changes upon his time at the Extra-Lunar Holmes Colony with fellow Gundam Pilot Iber Valtiade. For the first time, he sees a world outside of the streets of Mars, and he is struck by how good the people of the Extra-Lunar colonies live. The oppression of the Earth Alliance isn't as keenly felt here as it is on Mars, and many people are able to live carefree and happy lives despite all of the political and civil strife.

This leaves a lasting impression on Richter for the rest of the series, and he resolves to use his Gundam to protect people's right to a carefree and happy life. This, unfortunately, brings him into bitter conflict with the rebels fighting for independence and his fellow Gundam Pilots during the second season.

Skills & Abilities
As a six-year veteran of the Martian Armed Forces, and a three-year veteran of Martian Special Forces, Richter Bragas is the most experienced soldier of the four Gundam Pilots. As one of Lance Command's Intelligence and Reconnaissance specialists, Richter's talents lie primarily in scouting and intelligence gathering, and his cunning and resourceful nature make him an excellent tactician. Like all Lance Command operatives, he is a skilled mobile suit pilot and an excellent marksman with accuracy scores both inside and outside mobile suits sitting at the top of Lance Command's best shooters. However, his hand-to-hand combat skills, while entirely adequate, leave much to be desired, not least because of his short and slender frame.

As one of Martian Special Forces' Intelligence & Reconnaissance specialists, he most often pilots a special variant of the Special Forces issue LCMW-089 Consul with an expanded Command & Control suite and armed with a variation on its standard loadout which includes a Long Beam Rifle for accurate long-range shooting.

As the Gundam Pilot of the MS-GDM012 Stark Dragoon Gundam, his talents and skills are perfectly suited to the Gundam assigned to him.