ENTERTAIN MEDIA
Different Dialogue in “Polite Society, Valentine Style”
updated
RICO DELGADO
Rico Delgado grew up with his younger brother Hèctor in the volatile cartel business during the early 90's. Rico was quickly chosen to be the successor of his father, though he had to postpone that plan when the Colombian government cracked down hard on the cartels. Rico had to flee the family estate with his mother and younger brother when the military started bombing the compound and just days later, he would see pictures of his dead father in the newspapers and the hurt on his mother's face.
Living with his mother's relatives in Santiago and spending summers with his uncle Fernando, who ran the infamous Delgado Cartel out of his old vineyard, Rico eventually decided he needed to go back home to Colombia to rebuild his father's empire. What met him was a ruin but the people in the nearby village all remembered the good Don Delgado and what he had done for the villagers. The locals helped Rico rebuild parts of the Delgado mansion grounds, and he also discovered that the locals had kept on growing the local coca fields. With things in progress, Rico started on a plan to rebuild the Delgado empire. Determined to bring the Delgado name back to its glory days, Rico saw the rebuilding of his family empire as his primary objective in life.
With the occasional assistance of his younger brother Hector, and the full-time support of his uncle Fernando's adopted daughter Andrea Martinez, Rico Delgado quickly liaised with the Delgado family's connections and old smugglers, rebuilding the network from the ground up. To begin with, the trio focused on various types of contraband to keep under the radar and to build up a solid logistics network, but he soon got back into drugs as well. In 2009, Rico Delgado got in touch with his uncle's old chemist and brought him to Colombia and together they started a new production line, hidden away in the nearby jungles.
ANDREA MARTINEZ
The youngest daughter of the head of a Chilean cocaine cartel, Andrea Martínez grew up playing in the vast coca fields of her family's rural estate. When Andrea was 14, it was determined that she was to be sent abroad to study, while her older brothers were to take over the family business. Her father wanted her as far away from his dangerous trade as possible. However, only a week before her planned departure to the United States, the government cracked down on the Martinez estate and slaughtered everyone there while Andrea was visiting her uncle, Fernando Delgado. Now orphaned, Andrea was taken in by Don Fernando and treated as his own daughter.
Fernando Delgado honored his friend's wishes and sent Andrea to America to get an education. She returned to Chile in 2002, living at the Delgado villa for a few months before moving to Santiago where she met up with Rico Delgado and formed a friendship with him. Determined to honor her father's wish and her uncle's expectations, she got a job in the advertising industry and worked there for a couple of years as a marketing executive. But, tragedy struck as Fernando Delgado and his son were killed in an apparent accident in 2004. The effective dismantling of the cartel following their deaths, however, brought back the specter of the past and Martinez realized that some hidden hand was behind the deaths. Worried for her life, she fled Chile and ended up in Colombia with Rico Delgado and his brother Hector.
Together, the trio started what would eventually become the reformed Delgado Cartel - quickly starting a new business and getting Martinez's hands dirty by creating a series of legal fronts for what would quickly grow into a substantial criminal empire.
A vital part of Delgado's organization, Andrea Martínez travels the world under a range of assumed identities, expanding the business and making sure everything runs smoothly. Where Rico Delgado is responsible for the trafficking side of the business, Martinez is responsible for the business side of things. She engages in the bribing of officials, extortion and information gathering that ensures the other cartels are kept in check, and she keeps the public eye away from Rico Delgado, through her magnificent skilled at spinning stories and extorting people based on the information she gathers through networks like IAGO.
ROBERT KNOX
Robert started out small, spending his father’s money on several small startups but failing them all due to his inherent interest in product rather than business development.
At age 21, his family finally pulls a few strings and gets him a PhD stipend at Caltech, where he starts developing robotics and artificial intelligence. Here, Knox also meets a young post-doc, Florence Underwood, with whom he gets romantically involved.Florence unexpectedly becomes pregnant and gives birth to a beautiful baby girl. Sadly, Florence dies from sepsis following the birth, leaving Robert Knox alone to raise a child and pursue his career at the same time.
Coming out of Caltech with a handful of patents, Knox starts Kronstadt Industries. His skill as a businessman has not improved though and over the next years, Knox' skill at manipulating people through threats, lawsuits and straight bribes keeps the company afloat. His technical skills and reputation catch the attention of a powerful group of people and one morning, after having shaken hands with a strange, non-descript man, Kronstadt wins an incredibly lucrative contract with the US army to develop robotic soldiers. Three years later, Kronstadt Industries goes public and the stock market explodes. Suddenly, everyone in tech and money know who Robert Knox is. His bold personality finds that the public eye is one that pleases him immensely.
Over the next decade, Knox carefully crafts an image as a maverick CEO, willing to not only risk things to get his company (and critically its shareholders) a big chunk of the exploding medical and robotics tech share, but also willing to go along with whatever publicity stunt his PR Director comes up with. Knox, a charming eccentric, starts dating Hollywood actresses and soon finds himself on regular covers of tabloids and enthusiast magazines. He finds an interest in race car driving and quickly forms a team of his own, using Kronstadt patents to boost the performance of the cars. One day, while experimenting with a new nitrogen boost applicator while driving his prototype car, something goes wrong. Knox is horribly burned and despite the best efforts of GAMA surgeons, he carries the scars from the accident to this day. Another race driver, Maxwell Rutter, who was involved in the accident, sued Knox for damages but lost the trial. Rutter now works for the Global Innovation Race and is known to hold a grudge against the Knox family.
With the recent CEO killings, Knox feels the ground burning beneath his feet and so makes another bold life decision. He contacts the terrorists through a dark web connection and offers them a deal. Spare him and get the digital keys to the kingdom - backdoor access to everything Kronstadt has a finger in, including a lot of security systems used by big companies. Knox is betting on the deal to go through any day now.
SIERRA KNOX
Growing up with a father who always worked, Sierra developed a somewhat reckless personality, always trying to out-do everyone else - including her old man. At the age of 17, she was deeply involved with competitive short distance running and worried that she might lose to her high school competitor, paid a man to ensure the competitor didn't run that afternoon. The competitor was chained to a wheelchair for the rest of her life while Sierra won the race easily. The tactic is one she would use again and again to get the upper hand in both athletic and life in general.
Sierra Knox graduated from Harvard business school and, without telling her father, secured a job with Kronstadt Industries, diligently working her way to the top of the financial department, finally interviewing for the position of CFO with her somewhat surprised father.
Sierra Knox has been instrumental in developing the money-earning side of the family business, and she has secured many deals with foreign nationals, including a very controversial decision to field test robot material in the field in several rogue nations. While the loss of civilian life was never formally assigned as collateral damage following those tests, leaked internal reports suggest as much.
Sierra suffers from a serious inferiority complex in relation to her father. Always trying to prove herself to him, but often coming up short, she is uncertain about whether he truly cares for her or not. Her insecurity causes her to act out, often irrationally or violently, and she is known for her lifestyle of working hard and partying even harder.
Sierra Knox is currently highly invested in the Kronstadt racing team and is the company's lead driver in the Innovation Race. She's won the race multiple times and is expected to bring home the trophy again.
ALMA REYNARD
Alma Reynard is a field infiltrator and intelligence officer, wanted for several counts of eco-terrorism. She is an active agent in the Shadow Client's militia. Born into a family of Basque nationalists, Reynard grew up with a solid hatred for the establishment. When both her parents went to jail for bombing a shopping mall in Barcelona, Reynard went to live with relatives in the Midwest. Here she got involved with the Pristine Army; a now defunct anarcho-primitivist militant group, raging against globalization and the technologizing of modern society. Reynard, however, soon found their agenda too starry-eyed. She was never a reactionary, merely anti-corporate and in her view, the true enemies are multinational corporations and their government proxies, who endanger the climate by keeping the status quo. And she is more than willing to spill blood for her cause, even innocent bystanders.


