Caldari capsuleer Otro Gariushi (September 23, YC74 - May 15, YC110) was CEO of Ishukone Corporation from YC100 until his death in YC110. Unbeknownst to the general public, Otro was a former Guristas pirate with a twenty-five million ISK bounty on his head whose actions led to the private disgrace of preceding CEO Les Akkilen as well as the field testing of the first prototype Raven-class battleship.
Early Years
When Otro Gariushi was still a child, his father, Vilamo, moved the family to the underdeveloped mining world of Drenali Seven to partake in Ishukone's latest industrial-scale mining operations. The family settled in the town of Kaurikou Junction.
Otro's life on Drenali Seven was tumultuous. This had the benefit of conditioning him to be prepared to handle the worst possible outcome of any situation. Following their mother's tragic death in an industrial accident, Otro's older sister Mila could not reconcile her personal conflicts with Vilamo and chose to leave the family, becoming estranged from both Otro and their father. Otro was five when Mila left.
By YC90, Ishukone's operations in Drenali Seven had been largely abandoned, creating difficult living conditions on the planet. Unbeknownst to then sixteen-year-old Otro, this forced his father to deal drugs for the Guristas to earn enough money to pay rent and help his son attain his life goals. At the time, Otro aspired to join the Caldari Navy. Being intellectually gifted as well as ambitious, he stood a good chance of being accepted to the School of Applied Knowledge.
Otro's relationship with Vilamo was, at times, contentious, but despite this Otro viewed his father as a rock upon which his own comprehension of the world was built. Vilamo taught him to be resilient in the face of adversity, which was the key to surviving in harsh conditions such as those on Drenali Seven. As Otro grew into a teenager their relationship became a strong, interdependent bond.
After Vilamo was murdered by an Ishukone executive, Otro briefly considered taking his own life. However, his father's Guristas contact, a man known as Gavriel, convinced him otherwise and took Otro in. Subsequently, Otro never applied to the Caldari Navy.
Pirate Career
In the years following his departure from Drenali Seven, Otro formed a close brother-like bond with Gavriel and remained with the Guristas, at first proving himself to be a capable addition to their ranks and eventually earning a position where Gavriel served under him. Otro survived numerous altercations in which he suffered various injuries to his face and body, most notably a broken jaw which never healed properly and left him with what others termed "spectacularly ugly" features. Otro also adopted a recognizable skull and crossbones tattoo across his right cheek. In return for his loyalty, the Guristas provided implants and the necessary training to make Otro a capsuleer.
By YC100, Otro's pirate activities had taken a turn, leading him and his followers to be seen as traitors by Jirai "Fatal" Laitanen and more specifically Bane, who had long mentored both Otro and Gavriel. The pair had become renegades who Fatal wanted eliminated for threatening the extremely profitable relationship the Guristas shared with Ishukone. Otro had been selectively targeting Ishukone vessels across all of its shipping operations, causing its casualties to skyrocket.
This led Otro and Gavriel to Ishukone Watch vessel IWV-35G15 "Trevani." Otro destroyed the ship as well as the pod of its captain after capturing the ship's passengers, reportedly taking them to Guristas deep space observation platform Forward-Six for interrogation. Gavriel subsequently discovered one of the passengers was Mila, who had been living under an assumed name, and reunited Otro with her.
When Mila accused Otro of "wanton, indiscriminate abduction and torture", Otro explained his actions had been aimed only at Ishukone personnel and their business associates while the "indiscriminate killing is up to the rest of the Guristas organization". Furthermore:
You don’t have to shoot a man to take away his life, Mila. You can kill without ever striking your victim or firing a weapon. All you have to do is take away his hope. Take away a man's sense of purpose in life—the rock that his ego rests upon—and that man becomes the living dead. Ishukone killed hundreds of thousands of people by doing exactly that, and they're still doing it as we speak: By drawing them out to the deep, where they don't have to answer to the State or anyone else, luring them there with promises of prosperity and success and then snatching it all away."
Committed to his cause, Otro had by this time collected hundreds of others to support him, including Mila.
Part of Otro's plan to bring down Ishukone involved making use of the Guristas "Forwards" bases in the Pure Blind region: small, unmanned stations hidden along the border with the Caldari State which, among other things, served as listening posts to intercept cross-border communications traffic. Terabytes of data were intercepted each day and relayed to processing stations for storage and, if possible, decryption. Using wealth he'd gathered as a pirate and capsuleer, Otro was able to employ some of the best cryptologists in empire space (even recruiting some away from the Guristas) to sift through the intercepted data and catalog anything that had to do with Ishukone Corporation.
After Mila joined his cause she added her talents to this effort, quickly reconstructing the financial history of Ishukone—both the publicly released version and reality—with astonishing detail, finally revealing CEO Les Akkilen's gross corruption. Akkilen provided stolen competitor shipping itineraries to the Guristas in return for the pirates leaving Ishukone vessels alone. Additionally, Ishukone purchased cargo recovered from ships the Guristas ransomed or salvaged at cost, effectively breaking open Ishukone's profit margin. Mila's assistance also revealed the existence of Ishukone's new Raven-class battleship prototype, secretly created by Ishukone's Chief Financial Officer, Ralirashi Okimo. Recognizing the potential of this ship combined with what they learned about the corporation, Otro transformed the scope of his crusade from one of a guerrilla war to one of surgical strikes with anticipated, quantifiable long-term consequences.
On the eve of launching his plan to take down Ishukone, Otro's forces were ambushed at Forward-Nine by a Guristas fleet commanded by Bane. Otro managed to escape in his pod and was able to convince Ralirashi Okimo to see his point of view regarding Ishukone. In return, Okimo agreed to let Otro pilot the Raven in a "test" demonstration before the Caldari Navy and Ishukone Board of Directors that would simultaneously allow Otro to engage Bane's forces directly in order to free Gavriel, Mila, and the rest of the people trapped on Forward-Nine.
While advancing on (and subsequently defeating) Bane's forces, Otro handled delicate and tense sessions of bartering with Fatal, the Ishukone board and Admiral Iella of the Caldari Navy which culminated with the exposure of Akkilen's treachery. All knowledge of this disgrace and the events pertaining to it were kept private and declared a highly classified State secret. In view of his actions and the information he'd revealed, Ishukone's directors then voted unanimously to name Otro as the next CEO of Ishukone while Mila became the corporation's CFO under the assumed name of Kinachi Hepimeki.
Corporate Career and Death
In the weeks following the public introduction of the Raven, Otro quickly earned himself a reputation as a "Caldari First" leader, winning the respect of rival corporations and mending the bitterness caused by his predecessor. His remarkable work ethic and humane treatment of citizens under his corporation's employ (including unprecedented reparations paid to individuals affected by the mishandled mining operations in the Fade region) impressed the Caldari elite, earning Otro near-celebrity status in the State. The prominent skull-and-crossbones tattoo on his cheekbone and spectacularly ugly features ensured he cut an unusual figure at business meetings—a fact he played to his advantage. He also helped create the Crielere Research Laboratories.
Shortly after the Caldari Constructions Armor Forge riots in YC110, and the sudden rise to prominence of Tibus Heth, Otro made a national appeal for calm and restraint to the whole State, telling them, "We are united in purpose, but we must never, ever be united in hate." This call for peace was well received, and prompted the Gallente president, Souro Foiritan, to organize a diplomatic summit with Otro to be held aboard the corporation's headquarters station in the Malkalen system.
The peace summit went horribly wrong, however, when the Broker, having assumed the cloned appearance of respected Gallente admiral Alexander Noir, used the Federation delegation's flagship—the Nyx-class "FNS Wandering Saint"—to ram the Ishukone Corporation's headquarters station in Malkalen. The resulting explosion killed in excess of 600,000 other people, including Otro Gariushi.
The Broker's motive for this act was unknown even to Otro himself, who had for some time been in negotiation with Sanmatar Maleatu Shakor over Insorum, the antidote for Vitoc developed by Ishukone as their next big pipeline product. The Broker had also been bidding on Insorum, massively outbidding the Minmatar. Otro refused the Broker's offer, however, and ultimately turned the antidote over to Shakor and the Elders for free.
The Broker, denied access to the only compound that could reverse a terminal condition affecting all of his clones and their master template, vowed to destroy Otro and all his works, hijacking Noir's body and the "Wandering Saint" to achieve that end.
Legacy
Tibus Heth was quick to pounce upon Otro's death to mobilize the Caldari. Candlelight vigils were held across the State, and Heth's Provists made very sure that reminders of the Malkalen catastrophe and the Armor Forge riots were close at hand. Shortly afterward, the State was motivated and ready for the assault on Caldari Prime.
Mila Gariushi survived the incident and is currently in hiding at the undisclosed location of the Insorum production facility.
Otro's final wish—that the Insorum antidote be given to Maleatu Shakor at no charge—was honored, and with it the Elders launched their invasion of the Amarr Empire.