We live in the age of a legend. Most of us on Terriel have heard at least one of the million renditions of his story that float around the Stratus and still litter about the journalistic market. When the fate of Terriel looked its darkest and when hope was lost to merely grim acceptance of an inevitable bleak future at the hand of any number of irresponsible sins, he took a stand where the rest of humanity and alike could or would not. Leading the small squad of vagabonds and vagrants dubbed The Mongrel's Stand, he churned the fires of their hearts and spurred all of them to greatness. They say he was a towering man with broad shoulders and a grizzled face. His mechanical leg thundered with mighty marches, hissed loudly with steam, and crackled with fire. Amongst the civil unrest and repeated coups, the rising criminal activity and organizations, the absence of military protection, and the sufferings of insufficient law enforcement, he took up what they say were his instruments of justice to be society's and rationality's last grasp on our environ placed high in the atmosphere over the planet. A ballistic shield was hoisted in his left hand, with which he tried to safeguard the rights of those unsuited for the rages of war. His right held a scatter-gun, of which all those who sought to encroach upon the vulnerabilities of common folk found themselves at the deadly end of.

The most notable of these antagonists was the infamous Agent Omega and his fanatical cult operations of the Wildern Evangelists. Left with the inevitable choice at hand of sacrificing all of our technology and centuries of developed culture to serve under his mad, zealous rule, the answer Omega received was brought to him by Markus Prodder, leader of the Mongrel's Stand. Using the would-be-confidential JWL Spatial Displacer prototype, the squad commander overcame impossible odds to throw both himself and Agent Omega from Terriel. It is believed that neither survived the plummet back to the planet below. That's what's true amongst all of the stories we here on Terriel may have heard, despite what other information there has been leaked of his involvements, dealings, and personal life.

All legends must start somewhere. Before he became a hero, he was just a man. Somewhere between being a man and becoming a legend, he was a father.

My name is Benjamen -- Benjamen Prodder. That legend is about someone that I have wanted to meet for so long -- my father. I did not know him well; the last I knew of him, I was only four years old. My mother told me that dad had gone to be a cowboy and fight some savages. That story had made me happy. I was obsessed with those kinds of stories at that age, always shooting my cap-gun revolver around the house and calling all of my stuffed toys "Pardner". Two years later, at the age of six, my mother struggled to inform me that he was never coming home. I had a new dad, a Neurosurgeon, and we were going to go live in a big house in a new city. We were moving to the city of Keycrescents, Judicial District 7, and I can now only surmise this was to save me from growing up in the depreciated and restless future war zone of Idollions.

I could not understand what happened, but in time I came to accept that statement as truth. That was until my 14th birthday, when the schools were given a day off due to something displayed on the news. Sometimes when an elected official died, or when something terrible happened they would let us out of class for the purpose of mourning or in remembrance, but this day was different. All of the adults were overjoyed instead of solemn and tense. That was all except for mom, who could not stop sobbing as she watched the news and his face was shown over and over again. The face of a martyred hero -- the face of Markus Prodder.

That was the day I promised myself that it was not yet goodbye and I would see him on something other than a screen at least one more time.

It has been three years since I learned of the news that was hidden from me for so long, and I have completed my required schooling a little earlier than my peers. Seeing as I am still labeled as a minor within the legislation of Judicial District 7, I am unable to register to be a part of the military's planetary reclamation project. The terrible rumors of what happens to the men that are sent there are used by mothers with difficult children to threaten them in the same way grandmothers will tell stories of boogeymen and warn of hairy palms and supposed blindness. If my father did indeed plummet to the planet below three years ago, then the only chance of me finding anything of him will be on the planet's surface. It was expected for me to attend my first university courses in the upcoming summer, but I cannot. There would be no time during that rigorous education or immediately after when I should begin my employment and career to take this excursion. That means that if I am ever to keep my promise, now is the time to do so. It is the only chance I have despite my age disqualifying me from the only chance I have of getting safely to the planet's surface. The law, my parents, and my friends will just have to forgive me. I will not live in regret of never taking the leap to find what I need to see with my own eyes.

I just don't think I can look forward to my future before I stop to finally see my past for what it truly was.

I do not know exactly what I am looking for in this quest. Will I find a man? Will I discover a hero? Will I unearth nothing more than a corpse? So many questions fill my head that I find it difficult to write through the contemplation.

Does he really look like the monstrous, grizzled veteran in the pictures?

Why did he never come find me?

Did he even bother to remember me?

I will find you, dad. Dead or alive, I will find you, and hopefully some answers.