The Big Show: Background Information

Iskinder Kelile

Ethiopians began immigrating to Olympus in the spring of 1934 when Italian aggression was building toward East Africa. The new immigrants integrated quickly into the daily life on Olympus serving in mining and merchant operations, as well as the manual labor required for any isolated hard-scrabble colony. What changed was the flood of Ras or “head men” as Italian forces rolled across Ethiopia in 1935. These men, many of them accustomed to their high positions, integrated into the criminal and smuggling operations that burgeoned on Olympus. In a little over a year, one of these Ras rose to the top, Iskinder Kelile. Though small, Kelile’s organization is quite powerful, controlling smuggler access to and from Olympus (through Acarnan) and providing enforcers for several off-world operations.

Kelile, once a Grazmach or general in the Ethiopian army, came to Olympus in 1935 after defeat of his army at Adagamos. His commander, Haile Selassie Gugsa, attempted to surrender to the Italians, but only a tenth of his army followed suit. Kelile led the remainder of the army in a guerrilla action that was quickly dispersed, as the Ethiopians were poorly armed and supplied and encircled. Kelile escaped first to Greece and then Olympus. To this day, he is still wanted for “treason” by the new Italian East Africa government and by Roma herself.

Now in 1936, Kelile is quite comfortable as the Ras of a growing Ethiopian mafia and has designs of a full out guerrilla war on Roma’s holdings, personnel, and outposts in space. He is, however, distracted by his fanciful hobbies, most notably (and unexpectedly) performance art.

When Kelile fled Ethiopia to Greece, he met a Russian artist named Afanasiia. The two hit it off, fell in love and were married. For several months, the couple gathered a motley collection of characters around them, from hack artists and spacecraft engineers, to hustlers and mercenaries. It was here that Kelile met the Traveling Villanova Brothers, a troupe of wrestling “brothers” with a strange knack for the melodramatic. Some said their shows were like the worst of Shakespeare smashed into the best of professional fighting and then wrung through inscrutable performance art. For whatever reason, Kelile was obsessed with them. He learned various martial arts from the three and subjected his entourage to their quirky performances.

Kelile is a small man, but wiry and strong. Though he often seems bored and languid, his mind is quick and his observations astute. Finally, the man is ruthless when his "family" or business is involved, and it is rather difficult to get into the family.

The Traveling Villanova Brothers

The Villanova brothers are three men, ironically unrelated, that travel to various starports putting on “professional” wrestling shows. They travel in a slick starship about the size of a 1972 Buick Centurion, though it does possess spotty interstellar travel.

Simples (pronounced Sim’ ples) is the middle “brother”, a lean-muscular Romany that specializes in a sweeping, misdirection-style of martial arts he calls Homem estúpido, from the way it makes his opponents look while fighting him. Simples arranges the shows, handles the money, and generally drives the getaway car.

Mikpokotikos, or Mik, is a giant of a man, grossly fat but also heavily muscled. He has swarthy olive skin and is completely devoid of body hair. Mik fights, predictably, in a sumotori style, ramming and pummeling his opponent, though he is also rather agile.

The third “brother” is Malvagita, a small, dark-skinned man of unclear heritage. In the ring and even in town after a bout, Mal wears a lurid black and red costume and a demonically leering mask. Mal’s style is one of strength, striking at the joints and vulnerable places to devastating effect.

What no one knows is that the three brothers are spies ostensibly for the Soviet government, but there’s an even deeper game. The brothers’ handler is Hede Massing, an NKVD operative, who is also a mole for a far more insidious operation known as Eisenfaust.

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