Veniczar B. Fontana is one of the major antagonists in Sunrider.
Dark and secretive, Fontana serves as the director of PACT’s secret weapons research division. While ambitious in regards to climbing the ranks of PACT, Fontana has proven himself loyal to Veniczar S. Arcadius. Fontana may very well be considered the second most powerful man in PACT, and is widely viewed as Arcadius’ right hand man. Commanding a fleet of PACT’s most technologically advanced ships, he is regarded as a ruthless villain who cannot be underestimated, and is one of the most prolific of PACT's leaders next to Arcadius himself and Veniczar B. Cullen. However, in spite of this reputation, Fontata in person appears to actually be a good man at heart, albeit one that believes wholeheartedly in the cause of PACT.
Appearance
Fontana is a tall, lean and handsome young man who appears to be in his early-to-mid twenties, with even Asaga commenting that she found him attractive "for a Red." He has long purple hair that stops short of going past his shoulders, fair skin and sky-blue eyes. He typically wears a black gentlemen's long dress coat with gold trim and a maroon-red interior lining, accompanied by a red undercoat with ruffled sleeves that show from under the cuffs of his coat and a gold ascot with a ruby-inlaid fastener. Beneath this he seems to wear a high-band set of trousers with dress shoes. His expression is generally serious yet courteous, but it can at times be replaced with seemingly malevolent bemusement such as during the Second Battle of Ongess when fighting Kayto Shields.
Bio
NOTE: (WARNING - Spoilers ahead for Sunrider: First Arrival & Sunrider: Mask of Arcadius. Read at your own risk!!)
Little is known about Fontana's past prior to his joining PACT and becoming a Veniczar aside from the fact that he was a slave boy when young, and sometime around this point he first met the being that would be known as Arcadius. it seems he knew, or was at least briefly acquainted with the original Arcadius, prior to serving under the current Veniczar Arcadius. He apparently served at a young age with PACT's forces after being freed from slavery, quickly climbing the ranks to become one of Arcadius' most trusted lieutenants. His dedication to the cause of PACT may likely stem from them having saved him from some unfortunate circumstance in his life, but this is only speculation.
First Arrival
Escorting the Princess
Fontana was serving as the acting commander of the PACT super-dreadnought Legion when Veniczar B. Cullen arrived with the captured Ryuvian princess and Arcadius' pre-arranged betrothed - Asaga di Ryuvia. When going to meet them, Fontana discovered Cullen in the process of trying to molest Asaga and, disgusted by Cullen's actions, sarcastically remarked on Cullen "enjoying" himself before informing the two that Arcadius would be taking direct control of the fleet once they reached Ryuvia. He also takes the time to warn Cullen about trying to touch things that are not his, sending the disgruntled Cullen off on his way and commenting under his breath about Cullen's Imperialist nature being unchanged before politely excusing himself from Asaga's presence. However, he stops to reply to Asaga's acknowledgement of him once she recognizes him by name, with Fontana replying that he is sure they will be seeing each-other more often in the coming days.
After arriving at the Star Palace in orbit over Ryuvia Prime, Fontana personally welcomed Arcadus to Ryuvia and escorted him to the wedding hall alongside Cullen. Upon Cullen updating Arcadius on the neutral rim's conquest being almost completed and that five of PACT's best fleets are at the ready to invade the Alliance gateway world of Far Port, Fontana warns Cullen to be cautious, as the Alliance will be a more formidable enemy then the disorganized or understaffed militia forces of the rim worlds. Cullen however brushes this off as apparent incompetence or lack of formidable warships on Fontana's part, and Arcadius opts to humor Cullen by allowing the latter to lead the attack on Far Port. Fontana then escorts Arcadius to his private chambers, where Asaga is being kept.
Vanguard of the State Wedding
Fontana is present when King Jaylor begins the ceremony to wed his daughter to Arcadius, standing quietly from the sidelines as Arcadius ultimately betrays the agreement he made to spare Ryuvia from invasion and orders his men to seize all present. He does not act as Arcadius shoots and murders King Jaylor in cold blood, though it is unlikely he personally approved of the action. However, when the Sunrider suddenly warps in directly above the Star Palace and lets loose its combat drones, Fontana takes cover with Arcadius to try and defend him, while Arcadius himself becomes angered by the interference one ship is causing him. During the chaos, Asaga manages to escape from Cullen by stomping on his foot, being taken out of the wedding hall and back to the Sunrider personally by it's Captain, Kayto Shields. Arcadius, increasingly infuriated by the events, demands that Asaga be recaptured, only to be sniped with a rifle by the Sunrider's newest Ryder pilot - the long-lost Princess Sola vi Ryuvia, awoken from cryogenic sleep from a Ryuvian dreadnought two-thousand years after her supposed death. However, Arcadius' form only flickers and re-solidifies, revealing that it was only an advanced hologram - Arcadius was never in the wedding hall himself.
In the wake of the Sunrider's raid, Fontana reconvenes with Arcadius and informs him that the ship is breaking for Ryuvia's first moon with PACT's forces already pursuing them. Arcadius, refusing to allow the humiliation of having Asaga taken from the alter of his own wedding to stand, orders Fontana to destroy the ship by bring Asaga back alive. However, in spite of the PACT fleet's best efforts, the Sunrider manages to succeed in escaping Ryuvia with Asaga, even managing to narrowly avoid the Legion's own destructive power on the way out.
Observing the First Battle
During the Battle of Far Port, Fontana was aboard the Legion along with Arcadius, observing the conflict at a distance while Cullen commanded the actual fleets and Arcadius gave an address to the ship crews to motivate them. However, during the course of the battle, Fontana watches as Cullen's command group is directly attacked by the Sunrider's forces, as Cullen, too focused on pressing his attack, has caused his two leading fleets to overshoot the Alliance forces and left himself wide open - a move that Arcadius admonishes, denoting he'd long suspected Cullen's incompitence. Fontana, in spite of his dislike for Cullen, requests permission to have the Legion assist them in order to save the crewmen serving with Cullen from presumably dying alongside him, which Arcadius allows - albeit by ordering that Fontana fire the Legion's main cannon at them, which would risk several of PACT's own ships being caught in the attack. Fontana hesitates at this, asking if Arcadius is sure, but Arcadius brushes off Fontana's concerns for their ships as irrelevant and orders the attack anyway, which Fontana dutifully follows, resulting in two of PACT's own vessels being destroyed by the Legion's cannon alongside multiple Alliance ships.
But in spite of the Legion's attack, they are unsuccessful in preventing Kayto from breaking the back of the PACT fleet's chain of command as Asaga is able to remove the limiters on her Ryder's energy output and successfully control the power surge, vaporizing Cullen and sending the PACT ships in disarray as they are left leaderless. Stymied and unable to proceed with a coordinated invasion of the Alliance without their commander, the PACT ships are left lost and confused without orders as shortly after, Admiral Harold Grey arrives with the two-hundred vessels of the First Fleet, proceeding to decimate the disorganized PACT fleet in a resounding rout. Fontana, seeing the chaos, asks Arcadius if they should commit the Legion, but Arcadius turns down the suggestion as the battle has clearly turned against them, ordering that Fontana have all PACT forces retreat.
Mask of Arcadius
Fontana returns as a main antagonist in Sunrider: Mask of Arcadius, playing a far more central role in the story compared to the previous game.
Standing in the Veniczar's Shadow
Aboard the Legion, Fontana addresses Arcadius via hologram communication, informing him that the Alliance has been steadily pushing back PACT's forces since the loss at Far Port, explaining that their most powerful fleets are still in holding over Cera and Ryuvia, but that the rest are being attacked and driven out. He then asks Arcadius if it was a good idea to abandon Ongess to the Alliance, denoting that he doesn't like the idea of the Alliance setting up a permanent occupation and exploitation of the planet's resources and enforcing its laws on the long-oppressed population. However, Arcadius denotes that it is a necessary sacrifice, claiming that the Alliance will become divided by infighting born of greed and that they will attack when their enemies are fighting amongst themselves. Arcadius then remarks on how Fontana was just a slave when they first met, but that now he is the trusted chief lieutenant of PACT. Arcadius then gives Fontana a personal mission - the destruction of the Sunrider and the recovery of Asaga di Ryuvia, citing that he felt the Sunrider was becoming a potential threat and that he was to draw it out at Ongess. However, Fontana privately remains skeptical of Arcadius' plan, questioning as to whether the original Arcadius would have sat back and done nothing while innocent people were forced to conform to a doctrine of living they did not choose nor agree with.
After Kayto Shields and Lieutenant Kryska Stares escaped from Cosette Cosmos on Ongess, Fontana contacted her and gave her a plan of attack to follow, brushing off her remarks that PACT had abandoned them by citing this was a "personal mission," impressing Cosette with how unusually independent from the chain of command a PACT Veniczar was acting. When Cosette asks why she should help Fontana, he replies that he will give her exactly what she's been fighting for - Ongess' lasting freedom from the Alliance. Thoroughly enticed by the proposal, Cosette agrees to help Fontana, who sends out multiple scouting ships to keep the Alliance focused on Ongess borders instead of the colony to allow Cosette the time and opportunity to prepare.
Facing the Sunrider
After a week of sending scout ships to place the location of every Alliance vessel over Ongess, Fontana makes his move along with Cosette's assembled pirate armada, facing off against the Sunrider itself. Contacting the ship, Fontana personally introduces himself to Captian Kayto Shields and states his intention to retake Ongess and reclaim Asaga. However, Kayto refuses to cooperate with Fontana's goal, with Fontana citing that he will unfortunately have to force the issue. Kayto cites that Fontana has little chance of defeating them since Cullen couldn't do so in spite of the latter having twice the number of ships, but Fontana admonishes Kayto by denoting that Cullen was a coward and a fool, and reminding Kayto that tactics are what make or break a battle, not numbers. Expressing excitement at facing the famed "Vanguard of Far Port," Fontana engages Kayto in battle, launching a pincer attach with the pirate and PACT fleets toward a single point in the Alliance perimeter in order to draw them all in to a single point.
When the Sunrider decimates the two fleets, Kayto contacts Fontana again, advising him to retreat, but Fontana simply states that Kayto is overestimating himself before commenting on how the Sunrider's flexible design - an assault carrier that has the speed of a battlecruiser and the Ryder deployment capabilities of a carrier, capable of both quick attack raids and large-scale battles. Fontana then reveals that he has taken this novel concept and adapted it in full, revealing the new breed of ship that makes up the core of his actual fleet - the PACT Assault Carrier, each one carrying over thirty elite Ryders and support Ryders into battle against their forces. This in turn reveals that Fontana used the two initial fleets as bait to draw all the Alliance's focus onto one point, so that the Assault Carriers could effectively engage and occupy the entirety of the Alliance fleet in a single area rather then spreading them out, setting up the board for the next phase of his plan, working toward keeping Kayto on the defensive and not giving him any time to do more then respond.
The Sunrider manages to defeat the ships in its immediate area, but the majority of the Alliance defense force is still occupied by the rest of Fontana's fleet. Kayto then moves the Sunrider to engage Fontana's command ships, telling him that the battle is over and he should accept his loss. However, Fontana instead claims that the loss is Kayto's, before revealing his trump card - Cosette's pirate forces, having consolidated their forces together in bomber units inside the space habitats while the Alliance forces were distracted throughout the week by the PACT scouts and by the immense battle, with Fontana's fleets to keep the Alliance ships occupied and clear the way for Cosette to attack the Alliance docks. Using his own command ships to keep the Sunrider occupied, Kayto is unable to return to the docks in time, and Cosette begins bombing the Ongessite docks and Alliance ports, destroying ship after ship. Fontana then begins to laugh as he gloats over having completely outmaneuvered Kayto, telling the Sunrider's captain that Cosette's bombers will destroy the entirety of the Alliance's fleets by detonating the very stores of Ongessite they took the planet for, and that he's disappointed in Kayto's ability to command. Fontana then begins to list the terms of surrender he wishes Kayto to acknowledge, denoting he intends to put Kayto on trial for his role in the civilian deaths caused on Ongess during Kayto's rescue from Cosette by the Alliance.
Learning of War
However, just as Fontata makes his statement to have Kayto tried for "crimes against humanity," Admiral Grey interjects and contacts Fontana as well. Fontana rather confidently asks if Grey has come to discuss the terms of his surrender, but Grey defiantly retorts that Fontana is still very young in the art of war, and offers to show the latter how a real war is fought. Shortly after, radiation charges are detected from the Alliance fleet, and Grey then finally knocks Fontana off balance by revealing he's ordered his ships to arm nuclear warheads at Ongess, threatening to blow the entire planet's stores of Ongessite and render the world useless to both sides - which would in turn kill the forty billion people both on the ground and in the orbital habitats. Fontana is disbelieving that the Admiral would sacrifice the planet's entire population, but Grey pressures him on whether he's so sure of that, and Fontana's confidence fractures as he remembers how many civilians were killed in the crossfire during the Alliance's rescue of Kayto, finding that he cannot trust the Admiral's character enough to be sure he wouldn't actually do it.
Grey gives Fontana until the count of three to withdraw both his forces and Cosette's before he gives the order to drop the nukes. Cosette argues that Grey is bluffing and points out that they will never have another chance to take out the entirety of the Alliance's attack fleets, protesting that everyone on Ongess would rather die then live under the Alliance. However, Fontana ultimately cannot risk dooming the people of Ongess simply to defeat the Alliance, and, realizing that his own overconfidence in taking on the Alliance has ensured his loss just as it did for Kayto against him, Fontana finally concedes defeat and orders his own forces to pull back, telling Cosette to do the same as there is no point to victory if everyone he was fighting to free is killed. Livid as Fontana's fleets break away and rob her own forces of their cover screen so that the Alliance can re-converge and defend the docked ships, Cosette berates Fontana for throwing away their only chance to win the war here and now, but Fontana then question's Cosette's dedication to her people, rebuking that if she actually does care about Ongess' populace and was ever serious about freeing them instead of just hurting her enemies, then she will retreat.
Furious, Cosette curses Fontana and rages at Kayto on the comm before finally puling her forces out. All in all, the Alliance loses a hundred and twenty ships - almost 30% of the Combined Fleet - but ultimately retains control of Ongess. With much of his fleet either destroyed or damaged, Cosette's own immediate all but scrapped, Cosette herself being driven from Ongess and the people of Ongess ultimately abandoned by their only remaining defenders and likely morally broken as a result, Fontana is left licking his wounds after having failed in both his assigned objectives of destroying the Sunrider and recapturing Asaga, and in his personal objectives of crushing the Alliance's massed war fleets and retaking Ongess.
The Veniczar's Secret
Returning to the Legion in the wake of his loss to Admiral Grey, Fontana contacts Arcadius and apologizes for his failure, citing that if not for the Admiral's treacherous move, they could have won the entire war in a single stroke. Arcadius however is forgiving of Fontana's actions, denoting that Fontana is still young and idealistic and thus does not yet know just how far a depth people can sink in the pursuit of victory and profit. Ultimately, Fontana was simply following PACT's creed, and Arcadius resolves not to punish Fontana simply for wishing to see that creed fulfilled of for his idealism in doing so when it has carried him so far.
Arcadius then reveals that he wishes Fontana to oversee the completion of a secret project he has been working on alongside him, surprising Fontana with the news that he has left the PACT capital of New Eden four days ago to meet him there as Arcadius has rarely ever left to oversee something personally. Arcadius then questions if Fontana knows of the Paradox Project, to which Fontana correctly remembers that it was a project to create a black hole that failed and ultimately backfired, the spawned black hole destroying the planet of Diode in what is now remembered as the Diode Catastrophe. However, Arcadius rebukes that the project wasn't a failure, but rather one of the greatest accidental discoveries ever made - the key to a superweapon that will all but guarantee their victory and make the Alliance submit to them.
Shortly after arriving at the Paradox Core's secured location in the remote Helion system, Fontana personally greets Arcadius himself, reporting that the weapon is nearly completed and will soon grant them a weapon with power that rivals even the Ryuvian Emperors of old. Arcadius then exposits on how he had felt when first seeing the Paradox Project at Diode, denoting that the weapon will terrify all in the galaxy into complete submission, ending all wars forever and uniting the galaxy under PACT. However, Arcadius then states that in spite of this, their victory isn't yet an assurance, revealing that the Sunrider has discovered them and is in the system, confusing and surprising Fontana as they have not detected anything. However, Arcadius is certain of it and orders Fontana to defeat the ship and claim Asaga from it, promising Fontana that he will make the young Veniczar the successor to Arcadius as the future leader of PACT. Working with Cosette once again, Fontana's forces nearly succeed in ending the Sunrider by way of the Legion firing and heavily damaging the ship, but the vessel is once again able to elude both the PACT second-in-command and the pirate leader and regain warp capability just in time to escape Helion.
Taking the Crimson Banner
Not long after the Sunrider's escape, an Alliance fleet bears down on Helion in a massive operation to take down the Paradox Core before it can be completed and sink the Legion. After an immense battle between their forces, the fleets are left gridlocked as the Sunrider and the Legion face off. As the Sunrider's forces approach the Paradox core, Fontana warns Arcadius that they need to evacuate him, but Arcadius, fed up with the Sunrider's continued interference in his plans, leaves to engage it and Asaga himself in combat, revealing himself to be a collective consciousness made up of multiple identical individuals. But during the fight, Asaga's latent powers, passed down her bloodline as Ryuvian royalty, activate in the battle and allow her and her comrades to overcome all of Arcadius' Ryders, forcing the Veniscar into a corner, where Arcadius reveals he has already armed the Paradox Core to detonate.
But this time, he is stopped from within as, seeing Arcadius arm the Core with the intent of wiping out the system - including the amassed PACT and pirate fleets fighting to protect him from the Alliance - finally forces Fontana to acknowledge his past fears as true; the current Arcadius is indeed nothing like the original, as the true Arcadius would never have sacrificed his people so callously. Fontana then betrays Arcadius, shutting down the Paradox Core and publicly exposing to all - both Alliance and PACT - that the masked being before them is not the real Arcadius, referring to him now as "Prototype." Shocked and enraged at the betrayal of his most trusted lieutenant, "Prototype" rages at Fontana, only for Fontana to coldly retort that "Prototype" is the real traitor, undeserving of the name "Arcadius" and having spat on everything that PACT has stood for, citing that the only mistake the original Arcadius ever made was allowing "Prototype" to join them.
Fontana then declares that he will be the one carrying on Arcadius' legacy, instigating a swift coup and taking control of PACT for himself, claiming that he will return PACT to the ideals it was founded on, and not the genocidal slaughter and mass enslavement that "Prototype" is after. Calling him a "twisted monstrosity of science," Fontana tears off the mask that "Arcadius" was wearing, revealing a young blue-haired humanoid that bears a disturbing resemblance to the only known survivor of the Diode Catastrophe - Chigara Lynn Ashada - and explaining that "Prototype" is actually the given title for a race of artificially-created superhumans that share a collective consciousness that usurped their makers. This race of Prototypes betrayed their creators at Diode and were the cause of the Diode Catastrophe themselves, and many of the Prototypes are actually embedded throughout the galaxy as sleeper agents and covert rulers, bent on dominating and enslaving the human race as their self-appointed "rightful rulers." "Prototype" claims its too late to stop them and that they already own everything, but Fontana denies this, declaring that they do not own PACT as he executes the former Veniczar S. Arcadius, shooting him in the head point-blank
Liberation Day
It is currently unknown if Fontana will appear in the upcoming Sunrider: Liberation Day, but given that he is now seemingly the de-facto leader of PACT, it seems unlikely he would not be seen or at least mentioned at some point. It is also likely that, with Veniczar Arcadius unmasked as a fake and as part of a race that is trying to enslave all humanity, Fontana may potentially have his hands full dealing with resolidfying PACT under his command, as the faction will have likely begun to splinter and crumble in the wake of the chaos behind its leader's true identity and Fontana's coup.
Personality & Traits
Fontana on the battlefield is widely regardless as being as ruthless as he is brilliant in defeating and dispatching his enemies. His tactics are flexible and adaptive, and he rarely ever conforms to the conventional standards of combat, as proven when he spearheaded the design of the PACT Assault Carrier as the mainstay for his fleet. He is also known to mock his enemies when they are on the cusp of defeat - though whether from arrogance or psychological warfare in order to destabilize them is not known, though it could be a mix of the two. Fontana also seems to have something of a malevolent side to his personality when facing down his opponents, as he was not above chastising Kayto Shields at Ongess and also has displayed some degree of arrogance in his character with how he proclaimed he would put Kayto on trial for "crimes against humanity" - though this last bit could also stem from a zealous faith in PACT's causes as much as it could stem from potentially being arrogant. Finally, Fontana was also not above more practical thinking, as he was willing to work alongside Cosette Cosmos in order to try and take Ongess from the Alliance. He is calculating and meticulous, able to even predict the unorthodox stratagems of Kayto Shields after studying his moves from a distance at Far Port, and he is also a very cautious sort, opting to strike only when he feels sure he can win.
However, despite his ruthless and at least partly self-superior nature toward his enemies on the battlefield, Fontana in person appears to be an affable, even-tempered and surprisingly good-natured young man. He stopped Veniczar B. Cullen when he was trying to molest the Ryuvian princess Asaga di Ryuvia, and later tried to advise him to not underestimate the Alliance, despite despising him (and having no problems abandoning him to suffer at the hands of his own incompetence when he ignored his advice at the Battle of Far Port). He was courteous to Asaga and offered her the respect befitting her standing of a princess of Ryuvia. In spite of his dislike of Cullen, he requested permission to try and assist Cullen's vessels at Far Port after the battle turned against them. He was sympathetic to the cause of freeing the Ongess populace from the Alliance and did not approve of abandoning them to be occupied by the foreign power, and then went out of the way to launch an attack on the Alliance's holdings on Ongess himself to try and retake the planet when the only thing required of his mission was the elimination of the Sunrider.
Fontana is also willing to sacrifice in order to save others as he does not believe in senseless violence. During the Second Battle of Ongess, Fontana went so far as to abandon his week's worth of meticulous and coordinated planning with Cosette to wipe out the Alliance fleets after Admiral Grey threatened to nuke the entire planet, unwilling to sacrifice innocent lives uninvolved with the conflict at hand to achieve his goals. He even called Cosette's own cause for fighting into question, citing that she couldn't let the planet's inhabitants be slain if she really cared about what happened to Ongess' populace as she claimed she did. Finally, at Helion, when Arcadius attempted to detonate the Paradox Core and wipe out everyone in the system - including the many PACT and pirate ships still defending the structure from oncoming Alliance forces - Fontana finally had enough with Arcadius' senseless bloodlust and turned against him, claiming leadership of PACT for himself. He even went as far as to publicly unmask Arcadius as a fake who had taken the original's place, unwilling to allow PACT to continue with its current corrupted versions of the original ideas behind it, even at the cost of potentially shattering the entirety of PACT's moral and unity, determined to have PACT fight for the actual cause it was created for - regardless of how painful it would be to restructure and revitalize in the wake of its leader's public lynching.
Due to this, it can be inferred that, while ruthless to his enemies and ambitious in his goals, Fontana is truthfully an intelligent, grounded, fair and sensible man who dislikes death and cruelty for only their own sake, and will not allow innocents or those who are not directly involved in the conflict to suffer on his watch, even if it costs him - if there is a good chance that people not involved in his war with the Alliance military will be harmed, he will not chance their lives. In some ways, Fontana can be compared to Lieutenant Kryska Stares, as like her, Fontana believes wholeheartedly in his faction's cause to the possible point of naïveté, having been effectively rescued and given a purpose by those that recruited him. Another similarity is that like Kryska, Fontana is arguably a good person at his center but also believes that his cause is truly the right thing for everyone in the galaxy, even to the point that he may not be able to see the flaws in his faction's goals; something that may very well have contributed in why he tolerated the bloodthirsty actions of the Prototypes who claimed Arcadius' identity for so long before he finally turned on "Arcadius" at Helion.