Vince Finton (Cataclysmic Gerosha)

Vince Finton / Navyrope is...[description here].

Powers

 * Chron's immunity: Felick's HIV weapons have no effect on Vince.

Weaknesses

 * Kidney cancer

Character bio
Vincent Liam Finton / Navyrope is a fictional freedom fighter in the Gerosha multiverse of Dozerfleet Comics. He is the archnemesis of the diabolical FPB, a corrupt government bureau forged in the United States in secret in 2011, whose mission is to spearhead eugenics and population control projects while bypassing the democratic process. Vince assumes the identity "Navyrope" to thwart the FPB's antics. He features in two stories of his own, and later returns for the fourth season of the Cataclysmic Gerosha series Sodality.

Navyrope appears in the video game premise Sodality: Battle for Metheel, as one of many heroes called to Metheel to overthrow King Morzhuk and end the Phaelon-Metheel War. He also also appears briefly in the Marvel: Avengers Alliance fanfic crossover story Percolation.

Abilities and equipment
Vince demonstrates himself, both with Tiffany and without her help, of being fairly intelligent both in combat and in argument. However, he is prone to sometimes giving the other side in an argument too much credit, not realizing when they are not rational enough to absorb the true meaning of what he is saying until they turn to violence or begin twisting his words. He has all the same humiliated several of his would-be debaters. For times when that does not come in handy, he has combat and martial arts skills. He is also very effective in the use of multiple types of guns and non-lethal weapons, and a stealthy infiltrator. He can write information down fairly quickly when the situation calls for it. Utilizing various gadgets that his liaison with Lambrelli Labs has supplied to him, he is able to operate out of a van. (Making him similar to Batman and the Punisher.)

The closest thing Vince has to an actual superpower is the Delta 32 mutation that affects the CCR5 proteins of his immune system, essentially granting him the same immunity to HIV as the deceased Stephen Crohn. This comes in handy for him when battling Clarence Felick, who uses his HIV+ diagnosis as a tool to terrorize his victims with.

Early life
Vince was born in Ireland in 1979 to a family running an underground church, one that came under fire by the government for its strong creationist views. At the age of 18, his parents were caught in a crossfire between rival groups of British hooligans and were gunned down. This, plus other factors, convinced him to emigrate to Oklahoma City.

He spent several years educating himself on numerous subjects, mostly remaining a social recluse. He became interested in issues pertaining to rights of the unborn, philosophy, economics, law, and more. In 2006, he befriended a woman named Tabitha Hominy. He became romantically interested in her in only a short while. However, he was initially unaware that she was pregnant due to being raped by her previous boyfriend, the fugitive George Vantin.

George decided, out of sheer spitefulness, to hunt Tabby down for refusing to have an abortion. He discovered her talking to Vince aboard a cruise ship. He waited until the two were alone near the front of the ship, and then attacked both of them viciously. Vince learned quickly the motivation behind George's assault. A very muscular George easily overpowered the inexperienced Vince, whose life was saved when George failed to notice that Vince had his leg inadvertently entangled in a rope that had been painted a navy blue color. As Vince dangled from the rope, a distracted George threw Tabby overboard. She was soon sucked into the blades of the ship's turbines. Her scream during the fall caught attention, and George was soon apprehended by ship security with tasers. Vince, however, was completely forgotten and left to dangle.

The blue rope he was hanging from inspired him to believe that it's noose-like knot around his ankle was a "hanger" of sorts, but one which chose to save lives rather than kill the unborn. He vowed that he would one day save the lives of the unborn through any means necessary, shy of killing other innocents. He would become "the hanger that refuses to shed the blood of the innocent unborn, but that save lives." The Navy Rope.

Becoming Navyrope


Vince was driven into deeper social isolation than usual by Tabitha's death, even adopting a secret hideout and vanishing from the public eye for years. He trained himself to be skilled in jujitsu and smoke bombs when able. He also acquired SWAT gear and made a makeshift costume to protect himself. His early campaign work consisted of sabotage of Planned Parenthood advertising trucks, resulting in the destruction of papers and flyers intended for circulation. Navyrope also resorted to the use of espionage to track cell phone calls.

Women being pressured over the phone by friends or family into going to clinics were offered alternatives from pay phones by Navyrope himself or from individuals he would bribe to do his work for him. The promise the women would receive consisted usually of:

"If they become a problem for you when doing the right thing; then I will become their problem. So no worries."

Later, an angry pro-abortion group in the city plotted an organized assault against peaceful pro-life demonstrators. Knowing those most likely to be in the pro-life demonstration, Navyrope secretly supplied each of them with pepper spray so they could defend themselves. The pro-abortion assailants were befuddled that the pro-life demonstrators were able to predict the attack, and immediately suspected a spy was loose in the city.

Blood Over Water
See also: Blood Over Water (novel)

Early on in Navyrope's career, he became aware of the Gleeful-N'-Young business that Clyde Spendelworth was operating, as well as its involvement in child sex slave trafficking. He vowed to do his part to undermine Clyde's criminal enterprise anyway he could. He manages to rescue a child from some of Clyde's most dangerous men in Oklahoma; but not without incident. He tried to light some flares with a pyrophoric chemical composition as a warning for the men to stay away. In their mad desperation to keep the fleeing children from escaping and testifying in court, they charged right into Navyrope's warning flares and got the pyrophoric powder on themselves. Their bodies instantly burst into flame, and allowed Navyrope to finish his mission. He vowed afterward to be more careful, as he preferred not to accrue a large body count when carrying his missions out.

It is immediately reported to Clyde that same evening that Navyrope was spotted sabotaging some of Clyde's operation. Clyde treats the attack on his operation with dismissal, since it is by no means the most important of his assets. Due to the FPB and other issues, Navyrope becomes ineffectual at taking out Gleeful-N'-Young rings. The task of doing that later falls to a certain Chris "the Purge-Flare" Kennal.

Navyrope
Main article: Navyrope (story)

Navyrope's job grew increasingly complicated when a handful of pedophiles and eugenics fanatics teamed up to forge an organization that would achieve their personal goals. Deliberately using words from an Ann Coulter book out of context, they claimed that the rate of unwed mothers in America had grown to epidemic rates. They also argued that overpopulation was becoming a serious problem as a result. It didn't take long after the inauguration of Obama as president before this group set out to mislead the Democrat-run Congress to endorse the formation of a new bureau that would authorize the group's activities.

The result was the Agency For Public "Betterment", or the FPB. In little time after being authorized as a government agency, the FPB allowed its crooked members unprecedented ability to do whatever was deemed necessary to fulfill the organization's agenda. One of the first experiments in power was the creation of the "Problematic" designation for families who were having children and were deemed unwilling or unfit to raise those children - in keeping with the FPB's Minimum Standards list.

Unwed mothers unwilling to have abortions, that had no intentions of appeasing FPB agents' desires, were often apprehended and would vanish. Many of them were forced to have abortions. If they sought to complain, they and their families would disappear from government records in several agencies. Bribery of key Democrats in power was carried out to keep the FBI from getting overly interested in the FPB's activities, which would expose its human rights violations. One member of the FPB with ties to a Caribbean guerrilla group, Agent Clarence Felick, even believed that it was necessary to hire the guerrilla group to covertly exterminate several pregnant women all across Oklahoma City, whether married or otherwise, as part of an experiment. If the women resisted the guerrillas' attempts to force an abortion, then said women would be shot. Felick realized that extremely careful planning was required to force such an insane agenda to happen. He kept most of the details hidden even from his own organization, and centered his focus on Oklahoma City.

He believed that all he needed to convince the agency to back him up on his sinister "Project: Revisited Bethlehem" was a sufficient antagonist the FPB could demonize. He could then aid in covering up his evil scheme by assuring the public that the families being targeted were not targeted for their religious beliefs (or for their child-bearing status.) Rather, he could claim that they are suspected to be linked to "the terrorist." After learning of Navyrope, the FPB determined that it had the appropriate scapegoat.

Navyrope's adventures lead to him tracking a certain high school girl named Tiffany Sterlie in 2014. It is discovered that she was poisoned at a party, and raped. When she discovers that she is pregnant, it doesn't take long before rumors fly around school that Garret Whaling is the father. Garret tries to use his ties to the Hebbleskin Gang to intimidate Tiffany into not reporting him. He also tries to pressure her to have an abortion. However, she refuses. Garret grows increasingly hostile and violent.

At one point, Garret chases down Tiffany through the streets, finally catching up to her near an office complex when she stops to catch her breath. Navyrope intervenes and rescues her right as Garret is about to shoot her dead. Vince and Tiffany soon become teammates, and begin forming a grassroots resistance to thwart the efforts of predators similar to Garret. They manage to foil a clinic bombing while still sabotaging the clinic's equipment.

Three years later, they uncover a diabolical scheme involving the FPB and the Hebbleskin Gang harvesting the organs of political dissidents on the black market and giving kickbacks to Democrat politicians who protect Hebbleskin interests. They sabotage that campaign.

However, sabotaging the biggest underground money-making scheme of the FPB's to date results in a full-on manhunt to bring down Navyrope. Vince and Tiffany get some assistance from a teenage girl named Mandy, to help Vince get treatment for kidney stones, and also to take down Felick once and for all. However, they are unable to stop Oklahoma City from descending into anarchy when the FPB and several foreign mercenaries launch an all-out terrorist attack on the town.

Navyrope 2
Main article: Navyrope 2

Some time passes after things have quieted down in Oklahoma City. However, the decommissioning of the FPB has not resulted in it going away. Former FPB agents begin going rogue, forming a sort of domestic terror front. One of their operatives decides to get involved with the Kerpher Gang, which has taken over the Gleeful-N-Young agency's trafficking of youth after the Hebbleskin Gang bought out Gleeful-N-Young. That operative puts plants in local CPS offices, and begins looking for opportunities to frame parents for "child abuse." However, the children begin popping up in brothels after being removed from their proper homes. Navyrope vows to bring down the racket, but has to cope with Tiffany giving birth to her son Jordan.

Sodality
Main article: Sodality (series)

Navyrope is first introduced in the Sodality timeline as checking up on border patrol agents to weed out corrupt ones that may be working for the Hebbleskin Gang. It is in this that he finds and rescues Candi and Dolly from Bret Georgan. He teams up with the Sodality and Strawberry later on to help in bringing down Captain Aardwulf.

After Tiffany and Jordan are captured by Judge Terry Beliah's men, Vince vows to find them. He manages to do enough scouting to figure out that they were taken to the same facility as Hea and Tabitha Pang. However, he realizes he cannot rescue them all by himself. He is eventually able to network with the Sodality of Gerosha to secure the rescue of his friends. He joins the Sodality officially, and is able to share his vast knowledge to enhance other members. He even gets involved in helping Candi and Donte ward off Beliah's men when they attack Candi's home.

After Beliah's defeat, Vince meets a divorced mother of one named Charlene. The two get married, and Vince is finally able to settle down. However, he refuses to completely retire the Navyrope persona. He knows that he could need it again at any time. He does discover that while in captivity, some of Jordan's DNA was used by the Phaletori for an experiment. The child created was then made a Marlquaanite able to assume a doll-like creature form. Jordan accompanies Navyrope to recover his "daughter," whom he names Samantha. Eventually, Vince and Charlene become godparents for Samantha. Hea marries and the new husband adopts Jordan, resulting in both Jordan and Samantha gaining the last name "Steel." Jordan, when old enough, marries Tabitha Pang. Tabitha eagerly adopts Samantha, who becomes part of the Sodality's "Second-Generation Navyrope Wing." Vince and Charlene eventually have a child of their own, and Vince semi-retires from being Navyrope. He takes the unwitting advice of long-dead Clarence Felick, and lets "Navyrope" become the name of an official organization. It was unofficial by Navyrope 2, but goes official at this point in time.

Battle for Metheel
Main article: Sodality: Battle for Metheel

Navyrope is captured by King Morzhuk's forces based on his "Legend" status alone. He was able to get Tiffany and Jordan out of harm's way before his capture, however. Therefore, they don't appear at all in the game Battle for Metheel. He and his group of Sodalists are rescued by Yemodan, and are soon stranded on Phaelon with the scientist Desulon. It becomes Navyrope's job to lead the Gray Champion, Tabitha Pang, and Hea Pang safely to Desulon's lab.

This is so they can go back in time and get assistance from Kicked Deer and Hester Prynne to destroy the Grand Ultimate's Ruby - which is essential to Morzhuk's plans. After Navyrope leads the others there, he helps Gray defend the lab against enemy troops. Gray battles Bosom-Serpent all the while. Later, Navyrope joins the others on Metheel to end the war. He returns home a short time later. Events of this story are considered more-or-less canon to Cataclysmic Gerosha; but happen strictly-speaking in its spin-off Earth-G7.2.0 narrative, dubbed the "Gerosha Gaming Universe."

Personality
Vince is often very intelligent, but can seem emotionally distant. He can go from very tender, to almost robotic, depending on the situation. He is willing to trust Tiffany due to her strong convictions. Even so, he is generally slow to trust anyone else. He takes his first girlfriend's death especially hard. Vince tends to be extremely hard-working, and is very passionate about his beliefs. In spite common public belief that he's a "terrorist," he rarely ever kills anyone. He is more concerned with saving lives, and with exposing the real killers. His methods are nowhere near as extreme as those of Extirpon, though the federal government often views him as being no different. Stephanie Barrin comments at one point that Vince would have gotten along great with Seth Lambrelli, or maybe even been able to take a job from him, if only Seth had lived long enough for the two men to meet.

His fighting style is most comparable to that of V, his primary inspiration. Unlike V, Navyrope does not wax as much philosophically, nor does he talk in riddles to the same extent. He is also more careful to avoid being shot. However, he considers his kidney health his "single greatest health-related cross to bear." He is also similar to V in that is primary targets are corrupt government officials. However, he differs in that he targets those pushing and defending social policies that lead to innocents being killed, whereas V targets an allegedly "right-wing" government for the crime of creating him - and "oppressing" those V has sympathies for.

Also, Navyrope considers his blue noose symbol, "The Hanger that Saved a Life," to be a symbol worthy of an entire organization, not just a symbol for his superhero persona. He is not willing to completely surrender his identity as Vince Finton for the sake of the Navyrope symbol either, trusting that Tiffany could be trusted with respecting him as a human being fighting for an idea - without being the incarnation of said idea. His methods to recruit Tiffany as a confidant are also different. Vince allows Tiffany to eventually become a domestic housewife and mother for her new family and a moral guardian, rather than brainwashing her into becoming a violent anarchist like what becomes of Evey Hammond in the V for Vendetta graphic novels. He doesn't "fall in love" with Tiffany in the sense that V does Evey. Rather, Vince views himself as "an unofficial uncle" to Tiffany. He views Jordan as an unofficial "grand-nephew."

Inspiration
Ideas for a character like Navyrope began flying around in the Dozerfleet founder's head after he and his brother watched the 2006 film version of V for Vendetta. The idea began as a conservative version of what V was; reversing the morality roles present in the Wachowski brothers' film, while keeping the government as the main villain. It was considered an interesting challenge of how to get a character of that kind to work within the framework of The Gerosha Chronicles, given that the active universe at that time generally assumed government outside of Indiana as mostly benign. Some ideas came out for there to be a hero a bit darker than Ciem, but nothing materialized until January of 2009. It was in that month that the Dozerfleet founder was in San Antonio for the 2009 San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival. Navyrope himself, including his motivations, didn't truly materialize until after the Dozerfleet founder saw a screening of The Meaning of Choice. Much of the first Navyrope story revolved around ways to rewrite the plot of that movie - to make it more in-tune with the sensibilities of a comic book movie audience.

Mandy isn't entirely alone in the house when her ex-boyfriend arrives to threaten her if she won't abort. Tiffany is there, and arms Mandy so the two of them can fight back, using Vince's Navyrope equipment. The ex is then forced to flee, vowing to sell the girls out to the FPB and take his revenge for having been initially out-gambitted. That Tiffany survived Garret's abuse means she empathizes with Mandy's predicament, and is determined to fight back against any similar scumbag. This was seen as an ideal way to add some action sequences, as well as give the two Angela O'Connor counterparts more to do than be helpless damsels.

Other ideas for Navyrope's costume and city-wide espionage were inspired by The Dark Knight. Vince's origin story in Ireland was inspired by Green Street Hooligans. However, the two prime inspirations were V for Vendetta and The Meaning of "Choice". Other inspirations behind Navyrope's symbol involved the abortion-related discussion that The Meaning of "Choice" generated. The mythical "hanger of death" propaganda was addressed by having a noose, a different sense of "hanger," become a way to mock the popular liberal concept. From there, the idea came that Vince's life was saved when being tossed overboard a ship because his foot got caught in a noose. Additional inspiration for his interactions in his origin story came from watching episodes of CSI, which also became an inspiration for Extirpon when he was envisioned around the same exact time.

Further development of Navyrope mythos was put on hold from 2009-2012, to focus more on Ciem mythos. However, some work envisioning Vince happened beforehand. A quick render of Vince in The Sims 2 was made in early 2009, around the time that Ciem 2 was first being mapped out. A Sims 3 render of the Navyrope cast wouldn't be made until late 2012, however. In 2013, supporting characters Garret Whaling and Clarence Felick were first envisioned. Tiffany Sterlie and her son Jordan Sterlie were first rendered around that same time, to ensure that the cast surviving into the 2020s could be made ready for Sodality.

Percolation
Main article: Percolation (Gerosha Chronicles), See also: Extirpon other media appearances

Percolation marks the first appearance of Navyrope in a form of media not canon to the Classic-Comprehensive-Cataclysmic family of Gerosha continuities. The fanfic for Marvel: Avengers Alliance explains how it would be possible for Extirpon to be temporarily exported to the game's version of the Marvel universe, where he'd partially lose his powers and be forced to become a SHIELD agent operating under the moniker of "Agent Opendi."

Jubilee and the Danny Ketch version of Ghost Rider find themselves switching universes with Extirpon and Anarteq III temporarily. SHIELD and SCALLOP would eventually find a way to establish contact with each other, and negotiate how to get Extirpon and Anarteq III home. This is, in turn, a justification for Extirpon's inclusion by the Dozerfleet founder into Avengers Alliance.

Along the way, Ghost Rider would team up on a mission with Navyrope. Here, Navyrope is seen operating under the table with both Darius Philippine and Seth Lambrelli. This is because due to the Obama administration and FPB's distrust of Navyrope, open association between him and either of the other two could jeopardize all of their careers. Since this story happens before Navyrope meets Tiffany Sterlie, she doesn't make an appearance.