Romy Pyrius was a member of the War Pigs.[1]
Pyrius acted as the War Pigs' medic[2] and sometimes controlled the General Lee. He had a very bad stims habit which left him with needle tracks over much of his body[1] and liked to collect things[3] such as alien crystals.[4] His grasp of biology and medicine was unparalleled among the War Pigs. His history of disloyalty to past comrades suggested emotional attachments wouldn't affect his ability to do his job. However, he has demonstrated strong loyalty to the War Pigs. Indeed, Pyrius saw the universe as split between the War Pigs and the rest of the universe, and considered the death of one War Pig more significant than 242 other people.[5]
Pyrius sometimes wore a white CMC-400 Powered Combat Suit.[6]
Biography
Romy Pyrius used to be a drug dealer (his "day job") based on Tarsonis and a member of an unidentified secretive Confederate military unit (his "night job"), along with Gustav Lorca, Gregg Moonstone, Kon Rennie, Jupiter Ross and Banta West. The Confederacy ignored his drug dealing as long as he participated in the unit. In 2483 the team was assigned to terminate a high-level meeting, but Pyrius hatched a side deal in which he would pick up bog (an illegal drug). Doing so compromised the mission. Pyrius and the rest were captured or killed, but his captors seemed less interested in the assassinations and more interested in which high-ranking Confederates he sold drugs to. They demonstrated their technique – "cutting" drugs with toxic substances and testing it on the other members of his unit such as Moonstone.
Pyrius was allowed to escape with a mild wound and began selling drugs again. Pyrius felt bad about selling out his unit, and had trouble rationalizing it to himself. However, he felt he couldn't change.[7]
He was later charged with manufacture of controlled substances, manufacture, possession and distribution of toxins with the intent to kill or injure, possession of a controlled substance, sale or distribution of drug paraphernalia, and sale or transfer of controlled substances. He was sentenced to life in prison.[5]
A War Pig
Pyrius c. 2500
Pyrius was delighted to be made a member of the War Pigs, a team of expendable outlaws culled from the prison herd used by the Terran Confederacy (in lieu of neurally resocialized troops). Pyrius believed that if he wasn't a War Pig, he was nothing.[1]
In March 2499 Pyrius and the other War Pigs were at Camp Connelly, Tarsonis, when they were summoned to the Center for State Security for a meeting with their boss, bureaucrat Tamsen Cauley. They were ordered to locate and destroy the Hephaestus, a battlecruiser carrying secret data in physical format, along with something else. During the briefing, Pyrius revealed how upset he was with the job, only to be verbally slapped down by Cauley. The War Pigs took their "new" ship, the General Lee, to the Hephaestus.
Pyrius and Iggins were sent to recover the project data. Along the way, they encountered an infested terran. Iggins froze up, but Pyrius swiftly eliminated it. Upon reaching the computer, Iggins began extracting the data, causing Pyrius to get impatient. A Confederate marine caught Iggins by surprise, but a stimulants-crazed Pyrius stabbed him to death. He told Iggins that killing the marine didn't matter, as he wasn't a War Pig. The War Pigs made it off the Hephaestus, except Chakra Fen. Brock Valevoss was greatly affected by her death, and Pyrius pointed out that the death of a War Pig was considered important to at least some people.[5]
The Great War
Pyrius took part in the failed attempt to assassinate Arcturus Mengsk at the behest of his handler, Tamsen Cauley. The team escaped, but had to bypass a Confederate blockade to do so.
Tamsen Cauley and team mate Brock Valevoss betrayed the War Pigs, luring them to Tyrador VIII and into a Cerberus ambush. Pyrius survived, and afterward the team scattered, promising not to contact each other.[1]
The New War Pigs
However, two years later, Cauley, now a Terran Dominion official, talked Cole Hickson into recruiting the team for a new job – the assassination of Jim Raynor.[1]
The team traveled to Moria, having bought information suggesting Raynor was there. While the General Lee's usual pilot, Nuura Joss, and other War Pigs were collecting information Pyrius remained in the ship. The War Pigs were attacked by the Kel-Morian Combine, which sent Banshees to attack the grounded vessel. Pyrius was unable to deal with the attacks until Joss boarded and fired the ship's weapons, destroying the Banshees. The General Lee had been damaged during the conflict, and suffered a coolant leak preventing it from safely jumping into warp space.
Pyrius abusing stimulants
The War Pigs traveled to the Apollo Shipyard, Grissom IV to get repairs. Pyrius remained aboard the General Lee to indulge his stimulants habit. The other War Pigs were captured by the Screaming Skulls, who had secretly taken over the station and deliberately lured the General Lee in, hoping to steal the vessel and recruit its crew. Three pirates boarded the General Lee only to be quickly and violently killed by a stim-crazed Pyrius, who then turned the ship's weapons on Apollo Shipyard, providing enough chaos for the War Pigs to escape and kill the pirates.[3]
While the General Lee underwent repairs, Pyrius boarded the now-empty pirate ship, the Cutlass, finding an alien artifact.[3] Unknown to him, the artifact had a "soul" which exposed the darkness within human minds. The War Pigs, especially Iggins and Turfa Dei, were affected by it.[4]
Fixer Denny Houston boarded the General Lee. He intended to trade the location of Jim Raynor for the kidnapping of his wife, sparking a violent outburst from Turfa Dei. Meanwhile, Houston struck a private deal with Pyrius, buying the artifact from him for an unspecified sum.
The War Pigs kidnapped Houston's wife, but were hampered by the artifact's effects. Pyrius was at times passive (failing to kill a guard) and careless (firing a large weapon which nearly killed Iggins and Cole Hickson). He pointed out the unusual behavior when he had to break up a fight between an angry Turfa Dei and Hickson. Iggins seemed to go crazy on the mission, but when Hickson asked Pyrius to check it out, Pyrius pointed out he was a medic, not a psychologist. The War Pigs' troubles continued when a trio of Dark Templar boarded the General Lee, taking away the artifact after revealing its effects. Since the artifact was removed from Houston's possessions, Pyrius dodged responsibility for bringing it aboard the ship in the first place.[4]
Pyrius, along with Hickson, Dei and Iggins, descended upon Urona Sigma in search of Jim Raynor. They were trapped by the zerg and forced to jump off a cliff into water. Through this means they located the secret Raynor's Raiders base. However, a forewarned Raynor captured them.[6]
The War Pigs were confused by the relationship between Hickson and Raynor, and even more confused when Hickson tried to kill Raynor anyway. Pyrius was in favor of letting Hickson finish Raynor off, as without the deal, the War Pigs would be in trouble. Upon learning of Cauley's betrayal, Pyrius' confusion was relieved. A zerg invasion interrupted Hickson's assassination attempt, but enabled Hickson to escape. The Raiders and War Pigs fled to the surface, with Pyrius holding back the zerg with gunfire while Turfa Dei sealed the tunnel with explosives. Upon the surface, Hickson ambushed Raynor again, but Raynor talked him out of killing him. Overwhelmed by mental stress, Hickson fell unconscious. Pyrius examined him, but Raynor pointed out this was probably a pointless action, as a protoss fleet had begun a purification operation against the planet.[8]
As the world seemed to come to an end, Pyrius took his "best" drugs and began to act chaotically. Meanwhile Lars Trakken, unable to contain his rage, descended to the surface in a dropship with a squad of Cerberus heavies. He demanded the surrender of Cole Hickson but would let the other War Pigs live. Raynor, noting Trakken's unusual behavior, counseled a surrender, although this was a ruse to steal the dropship and escape. When Trakken met Hickson, who was still unconscious, he began screaming about Hickson's betrayal to him. Hickson awoke and began to grapple with him as a nydus worm erupted, unleashing a number of zerglings. Trakken had read Pyrius' file and offered him freedom from his criminal record if he would shoot Hickson, noting ominously that Pyrius had sold out his friends before. However, Pyrius intended to redeem himself; he shot Trakken in the shoulder and pulled Hickson away from the zerg. However, a Cerberus heavy shot him through the torso as he fled, killing him.
After the War Pigs overcame the Cerberus squad and escaped, Hickson swore revenge on Tamsen Cauley, noting that his neural resocialization was indirectly responsible for Pyrius' death. Hickson and the others agreed on a "suicidal" attack on Cauley as a result.[7]
Previews and Notes
The following section contains information from a previous version of StarCraft (comic) which is no longer valid.
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According to preview information, Romy Pyrius attended medical college, having a "cupboard full of skeletons" by the end of it.[2]
References
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