Yornis Halton

Admiral Lord Yornis Halton was born the heir to the Lord of Talsi and was widely expected to follow his father into politics and eventually to the Imperial Senate. However, young Yornis was fascinated by the sea. He courted his father's ire by enrolling in the Imperial Naval Academy in New Boston and accepting a commission as an Ensign.

Halton quickly worked his way up the chain of command. In 1985, he assumed command of the Command Ship INV Joshua, at the time the flagship of the Imperial Navy. It was during this tour that Captain Halton realized how underfunded and underdeveloped the Excalbian navy was compared with neighboring states, particularly Upper Virginia. Moving to the Admiralty in 1989, Halton became the loudest voice for reform of the navy and an expansion of its capabilities.

When Emperor David IV ascended the throne in 1998, Vice Admiral Halton, then the Chief of Sea Systems command, found an attentive ear in the new emperor, himself a the former naval commander. When Lady Christina Freedman was named Imperial Chancellor in 1999, Lord Halton found another key ally.

In 2000, Lord Admiral Peter Skele retired and the Emperor immediately named Lord Halton as the new Chief of Imperial Naval Operations and Chief of the Imperial General Staff. With the Emperor's and the Chancellor's support, Halton embarked on a crash modernization program. The Mark V program utilized a number of new technologies - foamed alloy construction, modular electric propulsion, catamaran and trimaran hulls and stealth features - to catapult the Imperial Navy ahead of its rivals. The navy's current fleet consists of massive stealth trimaran aircraft carriers, trimaran command cruisers, stealth missile cruisers - capable of carrying several hundred vertical launch missiles, and catamaran stealth assault ships - popularly known among rival navies as 'ghost ships.'

The "new Imperial Navy" is often cited as the lasting legacy of Lord Halton.