My Top 10 Science Fiction and Fantasy Characters: #3

3. Mertens

“My name Mertens…” This is the very first line of dialogue of my favorite outright video game, Colony Wars: Vengeance. Never heard of the game? That’s not surprising given the obscurity of the game and the all but dead space simulator genre. Colony Wars: Vengeance is the sequel to the outstanding space simulator, Colony Wars, which came out in 1997. The first game of the series holds a special place in my heart as it was the first time in Science Fiction I had seen Earth and its forces as the villains. In Colony Wars, it is the 5^th millennia AD and you take on the role of a nameless pilot enlisted into the League of Free Worlds in the fight against the greedy Earth Empire thirsty for resources. 

This view of Earth was very shocking to the young teenage mind of mine as it went against the optimistic view of shows like Star Trek: The Next Generation and movies like The Fifth Element and Independence Day. While Colony Wars was a great game it did tend to be a little long and its narrator was a random guy who sounded somewhat like James Earl Jones (most likely intentional), Colony Wars: Vengeance was a better game in every respect. The first game was impossible to beat and Vengeance, while extremely difficult in its own right, was easy enough to get to the end boss. What really set the second game apart were the story and the new narrator, Mertens. 

Vengeance takes place 100 years after the first game. After the League of Free Worlds makes it to the Sol System, they are unable to defeat Earth’s Navy outright and decide to escape and seal up the warp hole to the outer colonies trapping the Sol System which reverts to civil war. Here’s the awesome part of the story, you take over as Mertens, a pilot in Earth’s Colonial Navy, set on revenge against the League. Unlike the first narrator who was just there to move the story along, Mertens is someone who you really endure yourself to throughout the game. Quint Boa, the voice actor who portrayed Mertens, does a great job of exuding the character’s sadness and cautious optimism throughout the game. My only gripe is that they did not continue Mertens’ story into Colony Wars: Red Sun. Instead we get the generic miner, Valdemar. 

Best portrayal: Colony Wars: Vengeance

Favorite moment(s): Mertens defeats the Widowmaker who  killed his friend Klein in an earlier mission.