Nicodemo Ranalte

Major General Nicodemo Ranalte is the President of Iansisle. Before the elections of 1959, he was merely the country's most promising military leader, rising out of the obscurity of a middle-class Sentrian background to lead the armies of the Republic to victory over enemies both foreign and domestic. However, when the National Assembly threatened to suspend the elections of 1959 due to an economic crisis, Ranalte took over Jameston Place and forced the Assembly to vote itself out of power. He proposed a new constitution which gave most of the country's power to a single President. The Constitution was quickly approved in a national referendum, quickly enough for Ranalte himself to be elected as the first President of the Republic.

Early Life

Ranalte was born into the house of a Sentrian clerk living in MacMillan, on the southern tip of the island. He had a comfortable, if not extravagant, childhood. When he was twelve, the East Gallaga Company’s decision to close its MacMillan-based offices uprooted the family. His father, unable to find work elsewhere on Sentry Island, moved the family to the Ianapalis, where he found another clerical job with the main offices of the Company.

At the age of eighteen, Ranalte was enrolled in the Troobodian Martial Academy by his father, who thought that officer training would help his son, who was growing bored with working for the Company. However, as the family could not afford a naval commission, Ranalte was entered into the Army. Ranalte soon gained the reputation as a scoundrel and a trouble-maker, just barely scrapping through the Academy with a ‘C’ average. However, as the German-Chaingese War depleted Iansisle’s reserves of trained officers, Ranalte found himself with an instant commission as lieutenant in the 2nd Sentrian Rifles and shipped to the colonies.

Pre-Revolutionary Career

The 2nd Rifles were stationed for the entirety of the war in Iansisle’s Sarawak colony which, while occasionally raided by Chaingese aeroflyers, was never in serious danger of invasion because of the brilliant campaign of Admiral Lord Westergate.

Ranalte took some part in the siege of Manila during the Walmy War, mostly in laying artillery for the bombardment, before the 2nd Rifles were rotated back to Iansisle following a five-year deployment. He spent the next three years slowly working up the ranks, achieving Captain shortly before news of the Corporate Yoke broke.

Ranalte and the Revolution

Like most non-aristocratic army officers, Ranalte immediately sided with his men on the side of the Revolution. He had earned the trust of his new unit, the 7th Vesshampton Regiment of Foot, despite his non-Shieldian ethnicity. After the Revolution had calmed and the Army was being reorganized by the new interim government, Ranalte was elected by his men to be colonel of the regiment.

After Thortraia refused to repatriate certain corporate criminals who had fled Ianapalis in the waning hours of the Yoke, the 7th Vesshampton was among the regiments formed into the Republic’s Army of the Daldon, under the overall command of Field Marshal Sir George Pennyman. The 7th was among the best-performing regiments during Pennyman’s brilliant campaign against the foothills kingdom, holding a key bridge during the Battle of the Sundral which allowed Pennyman to better position his artillery. In the subsequent campaign against Weshield, the 7th again distinguished itself by routing an entire wing of the Weshieldian army.

The War with Effit

When the Republic annexed Gadsan in response to growing Effitian pressure on the Jaizar river valley, it looked like Ranalte would be sitting out the war. The 7th Vesshampton, which had been amongst the most heavily engaged units in the campaigns against Thortraia and Wesheild, was to take a time rotating out and recruiting replacements while Pennyman formed the new Army of the Jaizar to deal with the Effitian threat.

However, the flight of King James from Ian’s Island upset these plans, forcing several newly-formed or battle-worn regiments to be formed into a new Army of the Daldon to deal with the royalist threat. Ranalte, as the most senior regimental commander, was elevated to the rank of Brigadier and given command of the new unit. After the sharp Battle of the Wonwhich Gap and the ensuing pursuit of the shattered royalists to their destruction at Duckbury, Ranalte was showered with laurels, declared a ‘savior of the Republic’, allowed to give testimony at the regicidal trial of King James, and promoted again, this time to Major General.

The Army of the Daldon was again disbanded and its regiments were formed into IX Corps of the Army of the Jaizar. Ranalte was offered and accepted command. IX Corps was placed as a reserve formation on the left wing of the Army, under the Command of Field Marshal Christopher Chapman, which stretched across the entire Jaizar basin.

IX Corps was the reserve when VI Corps achieved its breakthrough at the Battle of Greater Wimmers. Ordered to support VI Corps in its ‘rolling up’ of the Effitian line, Ranalte instead marched at double time towards the prepared Effitian lines of retreat. In a stroke, he cut them off from their safety and the entire Effitian left wing crumbled. Outflanked by IX Corps, the front dissolved into a rout. Ranalte’s flagrant disregard for orders severely annoyed Marshal Chapman, though he could not move against his insubordinate Corps commander because of the immense popular acclaim Ranalte had won in the press and the National Assembly.

After the War

Although IX Corps was assigned to reinforce the crumbling Iansislean military presence in the Philippines after peace with Effit, Lawrence Madders diverted Ranalte to Ianapalis, where violent food riots with disturbing anti-revolutionary undertones were crippling the city. His battle-hardened troops quickly and efficiently restored order and saved the National Assembly, which gained him the trust and respect of the Director of War.

The Reaction

When Madders planned to arrest Premier Interim Benjamin Rinehart and end the dissension in the National Assembly, Ranalte was to be the muscle of the coup d'état. However, at the critical moment, Ranalte decided that his loyalty was to the revolution, not Madders and instead arrested the Director of War and his conspirators. Ranalte then forced the remaining members of the Assembly to submit a new Constitution to a public referendum. When passed, it created a powerful new office -- that of the President of the Republic -- to which Ranalte himself was promptly elected.