Igni Irae
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
Intent: Codify an NPC used in rp.
Image Credit: Here.
Role: Antagonist for Kyriaki. Menkales is a mid-level officer in the KEC and the chief camp physician of Camp Progress, where he performs deadly experiments on prisoners and is responsible for selecting which of them will be used as slave labour or murdered upon arrival. Essentially, an utterly horrible person meant to die in a suitably brutal manner.
Permissions: N/A.
Links: The Valkyrie's Diary, Kyriaki, Dominion of Light, Republican Guard, Into Darkness, After Darkness, Glorious Conflict, Firemane, Amidala Corps, Adlerberg, Hope Falls, Caution and Control, Castle Maysaf, Academy of the Scions of the Vader, Sentinel's Rest, Palmyra's Wail, Elpsis Kerrigan-Alcori, Humanity's Blade, Twi'lek, Vortanstad, Togruta, KEC Stormtrooper Corps, Camp Progress.
PHYSICAL INFORMATION
Age: Early thirties.
Force Sensitivity: Untrained Force Sensitive.
Species: Human.
Appearance: Menkales is a human male who stands about 1.74 metres tall and has brown hair and brown eyes. His short hair is well-groomed and his skin is tanned. He is in his thirties, with boyish looks and a gap-toothed smile. Menkales is clean-shaven. His KEC uniform is always immaculate and his boots are pristine. He takes great pride in his appearance.
SOCIAL INFORMATION
Name: Doctor Jonas Menkales. Nicknamed the Angel of Death by Camp Progress inmates. Holds the rank of KEC Cavalier. This is the equivalent of an army major.
Loyalties: KEC Stormtrooper Corps, Humanist People's Party, Darth Lachesis, Tephrike, KEC, Darth Eisen, Disciples of the Vader, Humanity's Blade.
Wealth: Tephrike is a war-torn, poor planet; corruption, irresponsible fiscal policies and mismanagement are endemic, especially in the Imperium. The planet is cut off from the galactic markets. Menkales is a mid-level officer in the KEC and a camp doctor. He gives guest lectures at the university in Adlerberg and works as a consultant for the Wilhuff Tarkin Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics. As a result, he is well-off by Tephriki standards, though not rich. A small amount of his payment is in specie. This is helpful since gold or silver has actual value. The rest is in coupons and vouchers for food and clothes at the special shops and paper money not worth what it is printed on. This is typical for Imperial officials. His position in the Imperium's praetorian guard corps and his connections to a powerful Sith Lord do give him a certain ability to requisition resources he requires though.
Notable Possessions: Medals awarded to him by the KEC for bravery in the field, his doctoral thesis, research notes and subscription to medical journals in the Imperium. He and his family live in a cottage in the KEC settlement in Camp Progress. He has been awarded a medal for his 'advancement of humanist medical theory'. Owns a lampshade made from Twi'lek skin.
Skills: Menkales has studied genetics, medicine and anthropology. He holds a doctorate in anthropology, and is trained as a researcher and surgeon. He has received basic combat training and served in a Stormtrooper unit as a medic. He is a competent medical practitioner...when treating humans. He is considered a specialist in 'racial science', 'racial hygiene' and eugenics. He has published extensively on these subjects. This is, of course, pseudo-scientific nonsense. The articles give the impression that his experiments were performed on non-sentient animals, not people. Aside from conducting sadistic experiments and deciding which of the inmates shall live or die upon arrival, he also has a 'normal' day-job at Camp Progress. This includes being responsible for the health of KEC members and camp inmates, and preventing the spread of diseases.
He has an interest in music and art. Menkales is no warrior, but has decent self-defence skills and is a good shot with a pistol. But his job is not to fight on the frontlines. He is a good swimmer and enjoys long walks and mountain climbing. Menkales is minorly Force-Sensitive, but his Force affinity is too weak to merit proper training at the Sith Academy. This has been a cause of frustration and jealousy for him. Basically, he has improved senses and reflexes compared to a Non-Force-User, but his use of the Force is instinctual and unconscious rather than conscious. However, he is very strong-willed and remarkably difficult for a Force-User to mentally dominate. He has read voraciously about the more mystical applications of the Force. Basically, he knows a lot about alchemy from a theoretical perspective, but while he can explain how it should be used, he cannot really put into practice himself. He has a good understanding of microbiological warfare.
Languages: Basic is the lingua franca of the Imperium. Learning the language of 'primitives' is not seen as desirable. However, Menkales has picked up some Twi'leki from interacting with Twi'lek prisoners. He can even understand their sign language to an extent, having coerced a prisoner into teaching him.
Personality: As a younger man, Menkales went to Chios with a group of young graduate doctors and nurses. The genocide perpetrated by the Vaderites against the native, non-human population affected them in different ways. Some of his friends were reassigned or even dismissed because they were shown to have 'inferior willpower' to deal with the dreadful work. But not Menkales. He came out of the horror even more devoted to the cause.
When dealing with humans citizens of the Imperium, Menkales is polite and courteous. Indeed, he often appears jovial. He maintains friendships with several grunts in the Stormtrooper unit he used to serve in. Colleagues describe him as affable. While a support player, Menkales is not a coward who shirks from exposing himself to danger. His Stormtrooper comrades respect him for that. His family life is 'proper'. He has a wife he is devoted to and a son he dotes on. He has no affairs or corruption scandals. He maintains a close friendship with KEC Banneret Hasapis, a NCO who served in the same unit. Years ago, Menkales saved his life when he rescued him from a burning vehicle during a battle.
But when dealing with aliens, especially Twi'leks, his mannerisms change completely. He does not view them as people. He objectifies them. He carries out cruel, sadistic experiments to prove absurd theories such as Twi'lek blood libel. When he encountered a red-skinned Twi'lek slave girl in Hope Falls, he grabbed her lekku and monologued about how she would make a great test subject to prove the theory that Twi'leks devour human flesh and blood to change their colour. He is a true believer in Humanist ideology, but it is not enough for him to accept its tenets as fact; he wants to 'prove' the validity of 'scientific racism' through - often inhumane and barbaric - research.
As camp doctor, he and his colleagues carry out 'selections' to determine which newly-arrived prisoners are supposed to be murdered on arrival and which could first be exploited for their labour. With a small flick of his finger or riding crop, a person will either be sent to the left or to the right, to the execution sites or to a life as a slave labourer until they collapse from exhaustion, unsanitary conditions and malnourishment. Moreover, he conducts a deadly array of experiments. He tests new weapons on prisoners; he injects them with diseases and dangerous chemical substances; he exposes them to radiation.
Menkales sees no contradiction between being a physician and a murderer. Humanist ideology allows him to reconcile this. To him, a physician's primary responsibility is to the nation, not individual patients. 'Racially pure' patients deserve care, but caring for 'inferiors' is harmful. He is a 'biological soldier' who plays a vital role in protecting Tephrike's human civilisation by 'cleansing' the population of 'inferior' genetic stock. It allows him to feel strong, powerful and important. The power he wields over 'lesser beings' exhilarates him.
In Menkales' twisted world view, he is a hero. This allows him to decide who should live or die, to demean, torture and experiment on 'lesser beings', to intentionally infect them with diseases to study the contagion rate and disease course or administer lethal injections, and then enjoy a night at the pub with his friends, have dinner with his wife and play with his kid on the living room floor with the toy train. He sleeps soundly with no trace of regret. He is untroubled by his work and unhampered by medical ethics or basic humanity. His demeanour is cheerful, but he has a temper when thwarted or not treated seriously. He is very prideful.
Menkales has set up a laboratory in Camp Progress, with inmate physicians as scientists or staff. He literally treats the concentration camp as his personal research facility to attain a post-doctoral qualification in order to further his academic career. Far from being considered abnormal, he is a respected member of the Imperium's medical community. Unlike certain evil scientists, Menkales keeps detailed notes, plans, backup copies and schematics.
However, Menkales is troubled by the constant power struggles in the Imperium and its failure to achieve its destiny and conquer Tephrike. Privately, he has come to the heretical conclusion that the modern-day human species is insufficiently pure. Why has humanity lost the divine spark that supposedly once enabled all its people to touch the Force? The human genome has been corrupted by alien genes, and only harsh measures will bring its evolution back on track. And he is the perfect physician to invent and administer a 'cure'. He has become obsessed with the idea of recreating the primordial 'god-men'.
Menkales maintains a friendship with Sibylla Laskaris, the Sith apprentice of Darth Lachesis. The two genuinely get on. He happened to be in the hospital when she was getting fitted with her 'box' and prosthetics. Menkales noticed that the doctor was not handling the procedure properly and took action that saved her life. Sibylla is a guest at his house sometimes. His son calls her Auntie Sibie. She saved Menkales' life from a 'Light Sith' assassination attempt.
COMBAT INFORMATION
Weapon of Choice: Slugthrower or blaster pistol/carbine/rifle, dagger. Menkales has received military training and served on the frontlines, but he is a physician, not a soldier. He will usually have Stormtroopers to protect him though.
Combat Function: Menkales is not a fighter, but has received military training. That was many years ago though. He is trained as a medic, and is quite brave. Training and demeanour qualifies him to provide aid to wounded even under fire. He is trained in the use of standard weapons such as pistols, rifles and carbines and is a good pistol shot, though he lacks experience in the use of heavy weapons. Menkales is fit, but his exercise regimen is that of a man who wants to stay fit, rather than a bodybuilder or a soldier who can expect to regularly see heavy combat. Should he be forced into combat, he will be a support player.
Force Abilities (Force Users Only): Menkales is Force-Sensitive, but only minorly so. His level of Force affinity is too weak to merit training as say a Jedi or Sith. Compared to a Non-Force-User, he has improved senses and reflexes and limited precognition that can allow him to sense danger, though in a general rather than targeted way. He is very resistant to mental domination. However, his use of the Force is instinctual rather than conscious. He understands alchemy well from a theoretical perspective, but is limited when it comes to practical application since he cannot actually use sorcery.
Strengths:
- Good shot with small arms and competent medic.
- While his Force affinity is too weak to warrant Sith training, he benefits from improved senses and reflexes and occasional flashes of precognition. Very strong-willed.
- Ability to use the Force is very limited. He cannot shoot lightning from his fingertips, summon force fields or chuck rocks through the power of his mind etc.
- Not experienced in the use of heavy weapons. Menkales is a support player, not a frontline fighter who sees regular combat. This has implications for combat performance and experience. He has never left Tephrike and does not have the training to pilot starships or aircraft.
Menkales grew up on Tephrike, a war-torn, devastated world where the Dark Age never ended. He was born in the Imperium, a state built upon the bedrock of human supremacism, genocide and enslavement of non-humans and persecution of 'racial enemies'. It was governed by the Disciples of the Vader, a Sith cult that worshipped the ancient Dark Lord. As a grown man, Menkales would be deeply involved in some of this regime's most horrible crimes. But there was little about his background to suggest a predilection for murder.
His father was a country doctor. He graduated from medical school, but worked in a country town rather than a big city or having a big speciality. Menkales' mothere was a nurse. The couple met at the local country hospital. The outbreak of the Gulag Virus had cut Tephrike off from the rest of the galaxy, causing technology to regress. With no access to bacta or kolto, hospitals had to rely on more conventional medical remedies. The Menkales family as respected in the local community.
As a boy, young Jonas Menkales joined the Imperial Youth Corps of the Noble Vader, the official youth movement of the Imperium. Indeed, it was the only legal one. It was organised along paramilitary lines. The young boys participated in typical scouting activities such as singing, camping, crafts and hiking. They also carried out charity drives for the needy. However, not everything was so innocuous. For starters, only 'pure humans' were allowed to join.
Moreover, the youths were fed hefty doses of propaganda to teach them to embrace the Humanist world view and vilify all who opposed it. The Gulag Virus, they were told, had been unleashed by a conspiracy of alien bankers and Jedi to destroy mankind. An unholy alliance of Jedi, Twi'leks, Mon Calamari and Yuuzhan Vong had been conspiring against humanity for millennia. The Supreme Leader was a messianic figure who could do no wrong. The Disciples were heroes protecting mankind from the evil xenos menace. Veteran NCOs taught them how to handle weapons. He and other boys in his squadron manned anti-aircraft guns during a Dominion air raid. He was shaken and vengeful when one of his childhood friends died during it.
Young Menkales was successful at school and developed an interest in music, art and hiking. When a standard test revealed that he was Force-Sensitive, Menkales was enthusiastic. However, dreams of being a 'superhero' were dashed when a series of gruelling exercises he was put through revealed that his Force affinity was too minor to merit training. It did not help his that the instructor who gave him the bad news treated him patronisingly and dismissively. He managed to get a place at the university in Adlerberg, the same city where the Humanist People's Party had its headquarters. It was called the capital of the movement. His father had served for a while as a doctor at the front, and an officer he helped save got Menkales a place.
At university he studied medicine, genetics and anthropology. Menkales was a studious fellow. Well-mannered but not a humourless sourpuss, he was quite well-liked. In his early days as a student, he joined the KEC as a candidate member, becoming a part-time volunteer of the Universal KEC. The KEC had started out as a bodyguard unit and shock troops for the Supreme Leader, but by now expanded into virtually every sphere of society. It had cultivated a reputation for being the 'elite' and the racial vanguard of Humanism. Menkales assisted with lectures on eugenics. Soon he was giving his own talks, which got his superiors' attention.
He found a patron at the Wilhuff Tarkin Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics called Professor Silas Apostolas. The professor was a biologist, geneticist and enthusiastic proponent of eugenics, advocating compulsory sterilisation and 'mercy-killing' of 'inferior life'. Menkales was a devoted believer in Humanist eugenics and devoured every book on the subject. But he was not content with simply believing, he wanted to 'prove' it was true and provide a 'scientific' foundation. Menkales interrupted his studies to volunteer for military service. He volunteered for medical service in the Stormtrooper Corps, the military branch of the KEC. He joined the Humanity's Blade division, a relatively new unit of mechanised infantry that had been founded by Darth Lachesis. At the time he was a fairly junior medic. Many fellow medical students and even his professor has answered the call.
They were sent to an island called Chios. It was primarily inhabited by a population of Nautolans, Gungans, Togruta and other alien beings who had been subjugated by the humans. Many toiled on plantations in inhumane conditions, being used for forced labour. The Togruta had been used as enforcers, but cruel treatment caused rebellion. Lachesis had decided subjugation did not suffice. The island would be colonised by human settlers, especially veterans and poor humans. For that...the natives had to go. Elsewise they would always be a 'fifth column'. It was a brutal genocide implemented through mass shootings, starvation policies, chemical warfare and extermination through labour.
The genocide perpetrated by the Vaderites against the native, non-human population affected him and his friends from medical school in different ways. Some of his friends were reassigned or even dismissed because they were shown to have 'inferior willpower' to deal with the dreadful work. But not Menkales. He came out of the horror even more devoted to the cause. Menkales witnessed mass executions of native civilians and prisoners of war. He also carried out medical tests to determine more efficient ways to murder them and took responsibility for ensuring the conditions the soldiers lived in were hygienic. Some of his friends were broken by the experience. But Menkales' sympathy lay not with the victims, but with the executioners. Though seen as a bit of a 'nerd', Menkales was liked by the soldiers. As a medic, he was firm but empathic, working overhours to tend to injured comrades.
During an engagement with Republican Guard-backed Togruta partisans, Menkales saved the life of a KEC Errant called Hasapis. He rescued him and another soldier from a burning armoured personnel carrier while under enemy fire. His bravery was noted and he was awarded a medal. Seriously wounded in action, he was given a position in the rear. Hasapis never forget his aid, which forged a strong friendship between the 'nerdy whiz kid' and the gruff, older corporal. While convalescing, Menkales was posted to the ironically named Camp Freedom, a death camp that had been built on top of the ruins of a Togruta town. The town's former inhabitants, as well as aliens civilians and prisoners of war from elsewhere on the island, were sent here to die.
Menkales was disturbed by what he saw, but not because it was morally wrong. Instead he regarded conditions in the camp as disorderly. When he inspected the killing facilities, he determined that the wooden walls had absorbed too much sweat, blood, urine and excrement to be cleanable. Thus he wrote a report that resulted in the chambers being demolished. New ones were built out of brick. Menkales displayed obvious pleasure while working at the camp. Well-dressed, he seemed to have a perpetual smile on his face.
Menkales was able to have a small group of prisoners isolated for experiments. He tried submerging aquatic beings such as Gungans and Nautolans in various liquids to see what they could breathe in, all as a measure to try and find if a better rebreather could be applied for human use. He started with regular and sea water, but swiftly moved up to high salt water, oil and acid. For Togruta he performsedexperiments on their montrals to 'prove' they were related to Twi'leks. He studied the effects prolonged exposure to heat had on Nautolans and Gungans while they were denied immersion in water. He also infected prisoners with plague bacteria.
He was troubled when he saw many auxiliaries and even KEC soldiers succumb to an excessive amount of alcohol consumption. Thus he dedicated his intellect to finding ways to murder large numbers of people that would be less distressing for the murderers. Among other things, he tweaked a gas formula for 'rooting out partisans'. That is, murdering civilians. His supervisor from medical school was one of those who 'lost his nerve'. One night he got drunk and ranted about what they were doing was cruel and they would have to answer for in the next world. Menkales witnessed this and got a hold of him before his boss could expose himself further. He persuaded him to request reassignmet and go to a regular hospital. At the same time, he kept a recording of the declaration, just in case. And while some of his colleagues were troubled by the slaughter, many coped. It was not uncommon for the killers to come together in the evening for fellowship meetings. They played music, sang songs and drank alcohol together. For some killing became sport, and they celebrated their 'scores'. They bonded through violence.
Menkales worked briefly in the local branch of the KEC's Race and Settlement Head Office, where he was tasked with evaluating the 'genetic purity' of Chios humans who had lived alongside aliens prior to the genocide. Menkales was disappointed by the 'genetic stock', regarding much of it as 'tainted'. Several of the human Chiosians did not even speak 'proper' Basic, but a pidgin language with many alien loanwords. The work gave him time to complete his dissertation. The subject of his thesis was related to the breeding and mixing of Force-Users and Non-Force-Users for the maximum impact of producing 'perfect lines' of future humans.
His fervour and discretion did not go unnoticed. When open conflict with the Dominion of Light resumed, he once again saw frontline action. Menkales came to Lachesis' attention during the battle to take Chazowa, a strategically important city. The Vaderite troops were able to outflank the enemy and take the city, but the house-to-house fighting was brutal. The situation turned critical when a Dominion counter-offensive threatened cut them off. The Dominion sought to envelope the city, with the ultimate objective of pinning the Vaderite troops against the sea. Supreme Leader Hyperion ordered the city to be held at all costs.
As a senior medic, Menkales found himself facing a daunting task. Food and medical supplies were stretched thin, but the soldiers had to deal with combat injuries and increasingly disease and malnutrition. Though he lacked the experience to operate, he assisted in major surgical operations. A senior doctor assisted him, but was greatly weakened by illness, and often had to lie down while giving verbal advice. Dominion saboteurs targeted infrastructure, and slipped poison into food and water. The medical stations were overflowing. When Lachesis happened to be visiting a field hospital he worked at, he gave her an honest assessment in defiance of a superior who had given her an overly optimistic report. The Sith Lord did not forget this.
The emergency station was desperately short of medical supplies. At one stage, he personally drove out in a truck to secure and deliver them personally. But the truck was ambushed. Supplies were acquired by stealing them from the suffering civilians. The result was that many civilians starved. Roving killing squads murdered alleged dissidents and partisans - most of them civilians. Naturally Menkales knew all about that. While aware of the grim situation, he tried to maintain a 'positive atmosphere' in the infirmary, singing songs with the patients and nurses to keep up their spirits. It helped maintain morale.
Lachesis decided to stage an unauthorised withdrawal, having concluded that her troops would be trapped in a cauldron otherwise. She had no qualms about butchering the 'impure' and 'undesirables' without mercy, but saw little purpose in pointlessly sacrificing 'pure' human blood. Menkales did not see her often, but came to strongly respect the Sith, who ate the same meagre rations as the common soldiers and sometimes went without sustenance entirely. There was a heavy fog during the breakout and the Dominion shelled the streets, but she used her powers to guide lost soldiers to safety and took charge of the rearguard.
Menkales played a role during the retreat. He had observed starvation and cases of cannibalism among the starving population rather closely. He decided to use rabies as a vector for a virus that would cause the victim to attack and eat the flesh of the uninfected. Menkales was able to get one of Lachesis' adjutants to submit the plan to her. He had the bioweapon set as a cover for her troops to withdraw. Menkales personally took charge of its deployment. Bound and gagged prisoners were infected, then released behind enemy lines. Their deployment caused chaos, though they also attacked Vaderite soldiers. Hasapis had the chance to return the favour and saved his friend's life during an ambush when Menkales got lost in the heavy fog. His war crimes earned Menkales not just a patron, but respect and admiration among the soldiers. The city was eventually retaken, but the subsequent Operation Citadel ended in a major Vaderite defeat.
The Netherworld Crisis threw his life into turmoil. The discovery of a tome that told the true story of Vader's redemption caused civil war, which was soon followed by a slave revolt. Menkales was among those not raptured and was forced into panic stations as a schismatic group of Light Sith and other enemies ran wild, bringing the Imperium to the brink. One of the patients Menkales tended to was a young Sith called Sibylla Laskaris. She had suffered severe injuries during a bombing that left her mutilated. Menkales noticed that the doctor handling her surgery was botching the job and took over. Sibylla survived, but required a sort of proto-Vader assemblabe to enable her to breathe. The two struck up a friendship. She was a Sith who treated him as an intellectual equal, and in turn appreciated that he did not try to crudely hit on her.
For a while the Light Sith's leader Darth Salus laid claim to most of the Imperium, though his rule was contested and he was toppled after becoming embroiled in a war with the Dominion. After Darth Furcht 'restored order', Menkales was commended for his actions and requested a transfer to Camp Progress afterwards. He was made a camp doctor. Located in close proximity to Adlerberg, Progress was considered a 'model camp'. Far from being shunned, the bureaucrats who ran the death camp were considered respectable members of the community. They enjoyed an affluent life style. Menkales set to work right away. He was so eager to perform this role that he volunteered. The power over life and death exhilarated him. Menkales did not personally provide treatment to inmates, but he oversaw inmate doctors. He visited hospital barracks on a weekly basis. Prisoners who had not recovered after two weeks in bed were taken away to be murdered.
Menkales volunteered to carry out selections even when not assigned to do so. Many of his colleagues saw this part of their job as stressful and unglamorous, but he undertook it with gusto, smiling or whistling a tune. One reason was to procure test subjects for his research, taking advantage of the fact that the camp would never run out of 'guinea pigs'. He was particularly interested in studying Twi'leks. They looked so close to human, but were not. Two Twi'lek siblings had their lekku gradually removed by him. He made careful notes of the effects of each cut. When the screaming became too much he had their mouths taped shut as it was disturbing his notes. He also injected Twi'leks with dangerous chemical substances to examine their effects and subjected them to vicious experiments to 'prove' the Twi'lek blood libel theory.
Said theory postulated that Twi'leks devoured the blood and flesh of humans. The more they consumed, the redder they became. To 'prove' it he conducted barbaric tests to see if he could change a Twi'lek's skin colour. When this did not produce the desired results, he faked the them. Many Twi'leks died during the tests. He conducted vivisections and tested infectious diseases and pathogen-releasing bombs on prisoners under the guise of creating 'cures'. When an actual epidemic broke out in Camp Progress' women's camp, Menkales responded promptly. An entire block was cleared of prisoners, who were immediately murdered. The building they had occupied was cleaned and disinfected. Then female prisoners from a neighbouring block were moved to the clean block after being cleaned and deloused. Menkales was awarded a medal for his 'quick thinking'.
At the same time, Menkales became increasingly interested in biological modification. Humans were obviously superior to 'xenos filth', but there were far more xenos and the bloodletting of the last few years had 'decimated some of the best and brightest'. Natalistic policies could only accomplish so much to replenish these losses, so Menkales became interested in pushing the human body beyond its natural limits to produce stronger and more resilient humans. He also ran tests on alien prisoners to render them more docile. Meanwhile, he found the time to engage in rivalries.
His immediate superior had the ludicrous theory that xenos brains all started the same, so he tried raising a Twi'lek baby among Rodians for instance to 'prove' they were all of a brutish base lesser. This waste of resources and logic caused Menkales to leak a report to his patron which got his superior removed and investigated. A colleague in his new rank was patronising and kept stealing his ideas and papers and lying about them. Menkales was eventually able to let her steal a paper which had nonsense information to discredit the rival. While employed at the camp, Menkales maintained a regular correspondence with Professor Apostolas, who used some of the research materials obtained at the camp. Apostalas was proud of his former student's accomplishments and made a point of introducing him to other academics. Menkales' lekku research was considered a landmark and lauded in medical journals. The 'scientific materials' sent to the Institute included the bodies of murdered Cathar, including children, and the skeletons and lekku of murdered Twi'leks, as well as blood samples. Finally, he became the head physician of the camp.
Menkales essentially started to use Camp Progress as his personal laboratory. His aim was to use his research as basis for a post-doctoral dissertation so that the university would grant him a professor title. He forged a close relationship with KEC Paladin Rhesus Halkias. The commandant was married and about a decade older than Menkales, who was often a guest at the Halkias family's villa in the Bastion of the Valiant. This was a KEC settlement where the camp officers and administrators lived. The Bastion had beautiful cottages, and various amenities such as a bathhouse, bakery, laundry service, pub and a bowling alley. It was like a normal village, except in a death camp. When Menkales got married to a nurse, the wedding ceremony was held in the local chapel. Hasapis was best man. Like his boss, Menkales got a house in the KEC settlement. It was small, but cosy and well-furnished. As a KEC officer, Menkales was able to procure a female prisoner to work as a maiden and help his wife out in the household. Halkias considered his minions to be part of his extended family, and treated Menkales and others accordingly. The camp managers and doctors liked to go carousing after a 'successful day at work'.
Menkales' laboratory was disguised as an Epidemic Prevention Centre, located in the camp's Special Administration Zone 1. When prisoners entered, technicians took a sample of their blood and stool, and collected physical data. Prisoners who were deemd healthy enough for medical tests lost their names, and were given a number. Menkales prided himself on how orderly his operation was. Whenever a prisoner died, one of his clerks struck their number off an index card. The dead prisoner was disposed of and their manacles were put on a new arrival. Prisoners were initially well-fed in order to recover their normal state of health. Some of the children started calling him Uncle Menkales, for he gave them sweats. Then over the course of several days, they were gradually drained of blood and deprived of nourishment and water. He recorded their deteriorating health in detail. Some were also vivisected. He also took ultimate responsibility for verifying that the prisoner dentists removed all gold from the mouths of the murdered before they were incinerated and oversaw the covert execution of prisoners who had been sentenced to death for political reasons via lethal injection. Many of these routine tasks were delegated to camp doctors beneath him, but he supervised their work.
He forced a Bothan prisoner called Arrofk Narvoro, one of the senior overseers among the prisoners, to cooperate with him. The Bothan was a doctor by trade and had once been an underground activist. Now he had to enforce the Vaderites' rules - or people would die. But if he enforced them, people would die, too. Menkales knew that Affork tried to use his connections to protect prisoners, and tolerated it...because he knew the overseer would sacrifice others for it. Indeed, he involved the Bothan in organising selections to decide who would receive medical care and who would die. In doing so, Menkales turned him into his enforcer. Arrofk's knowledge of what happened inside the Sith laboratories was limited, but he was observant and sometimes Menkales let things slip, as he liked to boast.
Menkales was obsessed with heredity. This manifested in getting fixated on carrying out research to genetically improve humans to return them to the 'purity of the primordial god-men'. Glorious Conflict, which the Vaderites viewed as gospel, postulated that the primordial humans had all been Force-Users, but that their 'pure blood' had been diluted by racial mixing. Menkales' personal issues tied into this. He resented being a 'weak' Force User, but at the same time was scornful of the way many Sith trained - and often wasted - their apprentices. He'd been both proud and jealous when his younger brother was chosen to be an acolyte, and was struck with grief when his sibling died during training.
Menkales came to suspect that the headmaster had set him up, but could not prove it. Due to his contributions to Humanist science, he was brought in to assist with the second phase of the so-called Bloodhand project to create 'supermen'. He worked on pairing up 'perfect' mothers and fathers and then 'scientifically' decide the best times for the 'breeding' to occur. He also helped perform experiments on mixing Force-Users and Non-Force-Users, seeing the instance of both of them. All in the interest of creating future Sith. Menkales formulated the theory that since all humans had once been Force-Users, even mundane humans had to still possess the spark, but it just needed to be unlocked. This theory was unpopular though.
Sometimes his work intersected with that of Sibylla, who had a strong interest in the paranormal. The two often compared notes. He helped provide her with test subjects so she could test out her concept for using the life force of sentient beings to power machinery, while she provided him with alchemical texts he would normally have no access to. Menkales stayed out of the power struggle that ensued after Firemane bombed Castle Maysaf and killed Furcht and most of his council. Like Lachesis, he swore fealty to Darth Eisen, though he didn't respect the new Supreme Leader, regarding him as a corrupt sybarite.
Recently, Menkales accompanied Sibylla and Lachesis to Hope Falls. Officially, it was an autonomous alien 'reservation' where the 'xenos would live according to their customs under human oversight'. In truth, it was a slave state where the residents were exploited as poorly fed agricultural labourers. The settlement had fallen behind on meeting its agricultural quotas and the Vaderites carried out a brutal purge, while increasing the already unrealistic quotas. Lachesis used the situation for political manoeuvres against rival bigwigs in the Party and military who had been profiting from smuggling networks that stole grain to sell it on the black market. She used a young Disciple called Kyriaki as her agent to carry out an investigation.
Menkales crossed paths with the neophyte, who was rumoured to be a clone of a 'space woman' and had access to the Supreme Leader. Sadly, Kyriaki resolutely refused to sell him her Twi'lek slave for the cause of science. This was disappointing since she had a magnificient red colouring. However, the two had the opportunity to work together when Lachesis ordered that the local hospital be cleared of 'useless eaters' so that only the productive would receive rations. The condemned would be murdered. In order to divide the aliens, certain species such as Duros or Zabrak were given guarantees that most of their patients would be spared. Twi'leks, Mon Calamari and other undesirables would pay the lion's share. Officially, the operation would be carried out by the local council and the alien police force, with Menkales only 'advising'.
In practice, he used the chance to secure test subjects - especially female Twi'leks - for his research. Kyriaki made a Faustian bargain with him, condemning the most sick to death or the horror of the camps in order to secure some of the least sick and children who could be put to work for an industrial project - a sweatshop. Secretly, she wanted to save people by giving them less strenuous work under fairer conditions. But even mitigating evil in the Imperium required making deals with evil. There was unrest at the hospital as locals realised what was happening, but on the whole Menkales was pleased. He has elected to watch young Kyriaki.
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