| Arven Ruun | |
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Gender |
Male |
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Height |
6‘2“ |
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Weight |
140 lbs |
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Skin color |
Gray |
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Eye color |
Black |
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Affiliation |
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Rank |
Detective |
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Arven Ruun (full name Sur'Kesh Qivue Yana Hob Ruun Arven) was a salarian officer originally with the Citadel Fleet, and later a veteran detective attached to C-Sec's Investigation Division. As the head of a decorated unit charged with investigating unsolved or incomplete crimes, Arven specialized in the deduction of cold cases.
Biography[]
Early Life[]
Born on the salarian homeworld of Sur'Kesh around 2150, Arven was a descendent of the dalatrass of the Ruun clan, a powerful bloodline that had powerful connections within the Salarian Union. Despite being very intelligent and observant for his age, Arven was often looked down upon by his brothers and sisters, primarily because of his relatively low prospects for breeding. At some point during his early youth, however, Arven got into an argument with the clan dalatrass over his chances at securing a breeding contract. This then escalated into a political dispute between his parents' clans, as the family on his father's side, the Wilbor clan, felt he was suitable for breeding. The debate eventually motivated Dalatrass Ruun to unofficially ostracize Arven from the family, leaving him to be raised by his father, Narl Wilbor, a middle-ranking administrator who worked for Binary Helix. As such, the Ruun clan played a relatively minor part in the remainder of his upbringing. Arven himself never revealed the reasons behind his disconnection from his bloodline to others.
Arven would then go on to spend the majority of his early life on Erinle, a salarian colony world located in the Osun system of the Hourglass Nebula. This was because his father had been posted there alongside a division of Binary Helix. Upon reaching maturity around the age of 14, Arven traveled offworld to attend university, managing to secure a scholarship at a prestigious multi-racial university. Throughout his education, Arven showed outstanding deductive and analytical skills – even by salarian standards. Many of Arven's tutors recommended he become a pathologist, due to his talent in the subject, though he instead expressed a stronger interest in joining the salarian military. This interest was not approved of by Dalatrass Ruun, who personally attempted to intervene with this decision in order to prevent her clan from being associated with the lower ranks of the military.
Despite this, Arven was able to successfully convince his tutors otherwise, who subsequently recommended him for a military enrollment. After much consideration and pressure from the Wilbor clan, Dalatrass Ruun very reluctantly agreed to back off. Following his graduation from university, Arven returned to his homeworld of Sur'Kesh. There, he enlisted into the Salarian Third Fleet, though after five years of active service, Arven left the military and journeyed into Citadel space. Prior to his departure, Arven was personally offered a "desk job" in the Special Tasks Group due to his notable talents in forensic pathology, though he turned down the offer because of his views on groups that chose to operate above the law. Captain Kirrahe would later remark that Arven's refusal had been particularly disappointing. Whilst Arven would come to somewhat regret his refusal to join the STG due to the opportunities it would have presented, he remained firm in his final decision.
Citadel Fleet[]
After moving onto the Citadel and purchasing his own residency in the Zakera Ward, Arven decided to join the Citadel Fleet. Eventually, he received a promotion that made him a captain, and he participated in a number of military tours that took him as far as the borders of the Terminus Systems. Although the Citadel Fleet was primarily concerned with safeguarding Citadel space, Arven's assignments usually functioned as scouting missions, whereby he would venture out to alert the Fleet of threats that could potentially endanger the Citadel in the future.
Arven during his time in the Citadel Fleet
A year after his recruitment, Arven's father passed away, which had a profound impact on the salarian. The fact that he did not visit his father in the last few years of his life did little to ease his grief. However, his death did motivate Arven to fully commit to his role in the fleet so as to honor his deceased parent. He soon gained an impressive service record, though never received any promotions above the rank of captain. Despite this, Arven still served the Fleet to the best of his ability. During one operation, Arven was assigned to track down the murderer of a high-ranking turian officer, who had apparently been partaking in some particularly shifty dealings.
After months of investigation, Arven's assignment brought him to crime-ridden space station of Omega. Since the Citadel Fleet had no authority in the Terminus Systems, Arven was forced to carry out his investigation mostly independently. Not long after arriving, Arven turned to Omega's "de facto" ruler, Aria T'Loak, for information on the turian's activities. Though she had the details Arven wanted, Aria forced Arven to pay a considerable fee in exchange for the information. Satisfied, Aria told Arven that the galaxy's most powerful and enigmatic informant, the Shadow Broker, had been involved in the turian officer's death. Using her intelligence, Arven managed to get a lead on an elusive information trafficker known only as "Watcher", whom Aria suggested was actually a Shadow Broker agent. Aware that his allegiances had now been discovered, Watcher hired a pair of Eclipse mercenaries to take out Arven, though to no avail. After a three week chase, Arven was able to capture Watcher, though at the cost of seven hostages' lives.
After an intensive interrogation, Arven learned that the murdered turian officer had actually been a Shadow Broker agent himself, though was eliminated once it became clear that he planned to expose his allegiance and turn all his information over to the Citadel Council. This decision occurred when the turian began feeling guilt for double-crossing his superiors, resulting in Watcher being assigned to organize his assassination. Little else is known about what Arven did to Watcher, though it is known that after learning all he could from the informant, he was forced to hand him over to the Blue Suns as he was leaving Omega. The Blue Suns subsequently interrogated Watcher and handed him over to Warden Kuril and had him imprisoned in their security ship, Purgatory. Following this particular assignment, Arven retired from service in the Citadel Fleet after the Shadow Broker retaliated by organizing a series of events that forced him to leave the Fleet. Despite all the trouble he had caused for the Broker's operations, Arven was not assassinated by the informant's operatives, as it was felt killing him would attract too much unwanted attention.
C-Sec Career[]
Upon returning to his home on the Citadel, Arven was unable to find any work that either engaged or challenged him, causing him to have serious thoughts of leaving the station to return to his homeworld of Erinle. In the end though, Arven instead chose to join C-Sec, the Citadel's voluntary police service. Because of his previous military service, Arven was able to swiftly pass through recruitment. Although he initially attempted to join the Special Response Division, Arven felt that his earlier handling of Watcher's hostage situation made him ill-suited for the job, so he instead applied for C-Sec's Investigation Division.
Not long after being recruited, Arven found himself appalled by the percieved flaws he found in C-Sec's systems and policies. In response to this, he attempted to change the foundations of C-Sec from the inside, though his revolutionary ideas were met with criticism and distaste. After a year of pushing for change, Arven gave up, though still made a conscious effort to ensure C-Sec's services could not be exploited so easily. Despite his opinions, he enjoyed a strong working relationship with Executor Pallin, who often gave positive accounts of Arven's work, yet was also quick to disagree with his controversial views.
Although he was popular with those he worked with, opinions on him within C-Sec were deeply divided and his viewpoints were often met with a mixed reaction. Whilst some agreed with his way of thinking, others (such as Garrus Vakarian) accused him of being a hypocrite, criticizing his willingness to adhere to the rules, despite his demands for change in C-Sec's policies. Arven himself countered such criticisms by claiming that he wanted to create change without breaking regulations and resorting to radicalism.
Arven after becoming the head of C-Sec's new cold case unit
As time passed, Arven began to take an interest in the 'cold cases' that his department were presented with; cases or crimes that had not yet been completely solved by C-Sec detectives. Through his keen analytical abilities, Arven solved a large number of these cold cases, which eventually resulted in him being placed in charge of specialized team intent on investigating these specific crimes. Most of the assignments that were given to them were solved in great detail, resulting in Arven's team gaining recognition and respect from the rest of C-Sec. Despite his radical views, Arven at some point became a friend of Garrus Vakarian's father, a respected C-Sec officer who shared his "by-the-book" outlook.
One of his most notable cases was in 2175, when he was tasked with investigating the death of an influential volus banker who had been killed seven years prior. Although a law-abiding official, the volus was notable for his extreme prejudice against humans, which instantly pointed suspicion towards extreme Systems Alliance supporters. Through extensive use of forensics, C-Sec resources, incomplete evidence and psychological profiling, Arven and his team was able to deduce that the volus had actually been killed by a human assassin, though they were unable to determine his exact identity or allegiance. Despite this, the team were able to discover that the assassin had actually been an operative of the human-supremacist organization Cerberus. Apart from the volus' anti-human attitude, Cerberus' political reasoning for killing the banker were never determined. Despite this, Arven's unit was still praised for solving the murder.
Another noteworthy case was when he stopped a small red sand drug cartel from expanding within the Zakera Ward, an encounter made famous by the fact that he had to single-handedly kill two Blood Pack bodyguards to arrest the ringleader. A popular rumor amongst C-Sec officers was that after shutting down the cartel, Arven celebrated by drinking two glasses of Noverian Rum, a shot of uncut batarian ale and a pint of Ryncol. Whether there was any element of truth in the tale was neither confirmed nor denied by high-ranking C-Sec officials and even Ruun himself. In his limited free time, Arven was occasionally spotted drinking at the nightclub Flux. Despite this, Arven was able to control his drinking issue enough to prevent it from interfering with his work.
At some point during his career, Arven was briefly considered as a potential recruit for the Citadel's Spectre branch. However, despite his previous military record and his excellent C-Sec record, the Council chose to reject his candidacy. Though he officially maintained that they did not find a C-Sec officer like himself suited to the high demands of the Spectres, records held by the Citadel Council indicated that some doubts were beginning to arise over Arven's physical capabilities due to his age. Privately, however, Arven had also advised the Council's to turn him down, citing that the Spectre's extralegal powers went against everything he believed in. It was also around this time that C-Sec and the Council had become aware of his drinking issue, which allegedly had an effect on their hesitancy to instate him.
Battle of the Citadel[]
Much later in 2183, Arven was present on the Citadel when the Reaper vanguard Sovereign attacked with a small army of geth, which quickly overwhelmed the station's defenses by assuming control from within. Through the rouge Spectre Saren Arterius, Sovereign closed the Wards of the Citadel while it began using the Citadel Tower to override the station's controls and manually open the relay to dark space.
During this time, Arven found himself pinned down in the Tayseri Ward, where he and his team were forced to hold off on their own against a number of geth troopers. As the fighting progressed, however, the geth overwhelmed the rest of Arven's team and kill them. Though he was able to hold out and survive on his own, Arven was badly wounded. When Commander Shepard and his squad successfully killed Saren and destroyed Sovereign, Arven was nearly killed when the debris of the Reaper caused extensive damage to the Ward. Fortunately, he was salvaged from the ruins and nursed back to health at the Huerta Memorial Hospital before he could die.
Aftermath[]
Whilst his wounds were attended to relatively quickly, Arven was forced to take a short period of leave from C-Sec to fully recuperate. In this time, he was seen frequenting the Dark Star Lounge. After fully recovering and returning to work, Arven was among the chief supporters for change in C-Sec's infrastructure, and the service subsequently underwent a radical reorganization. This also resulted in C-Sec tightening its security to reduce the possibility of geth infiltration. Since a vast number of C-Sec operatives had been killed during Sovereign's attack, Arven was given a new investigation team of mostly human officers. Though he was initially very reluctant to work with this new unit, Arven eventually came to respect his co-workers.
At some point following Sovereign's destruction, Arven was tasked with identifying the specific causes of death of the many citizens who had been killed in the lower Wards of the Citadel, though most of these unaccounted people turned out to be dead victims of the geth attack. Arven found the work particularly confronting, causing him to ponder what would have happened if the Council had been more prepared for the attack.
Shortly afterwards, Arven and his unit was stationed in a C-Sec outpost in the Bachjret Ward. In 2185, two years after the Battle of the Citadel, Arven was part of a C-Sec team investigating the alleged criminal network controlled by a racketeer under the alias "Fade". Unknown to him, this dealer was actually a former human C-Sec officer named Harkin. After Harkin's criminal identity was uncovered by Commander Shepard and Garrus Vakarian, Arven was sent to track him down and take him into custody, tasks which he carried out successfully.
Reaper Invasion[]
When the Reapers initiated their invasion of the galaxy in 2186, Arven Ruun attempted to retire from C-Sec so as to transfer back into the Citadel Fleet. This decision was made after reports of the Reapers' offensive attacks reached the Citadel, causing Arven to feel he would better serve the Citadel in its defense fleet. Despite this, however, his transfer request was denied by Commander Bailey, who cited that with the massive waves of refugees inbound, he was needed to help maintain law and order on the station. Though reluctant, Arven accepted Bailey's reasoning and remained in C-Sec.
Not long after, Arven's cold case unit was closed down so as to better focus his squad's attention on the more pressing matters on the Citadel. After finding a well-needed gap in his duties, Arven discovered that Aria T'Loak had illegally arrived on the Citadel without being properly cleared, the nature of her arrival having gone unnoticed for three weeks after she had established herself. After learning this, Arven sent two officers down to the dance club Purgatory to confront her and submit her to the Citadel's official immigration processing. However, C-Sec's efforts to submit Aria to processing were hindered by the intervention of the asari councilor, who personally shortcut Aria through the procedure and legalized her residency on the Citadel.
Around the time Commander Shepard was attempting to gain the support of the krogan on their homeworld of Tuchanka, Arven was reassigned to the salarian councilor's personal security detail. When Cerberus launched an unexpected assault on the Citadel, Arven remained with the councilor's bodyguards whilst the salarian representative hid away in the Executor's office. As the guards sealed themselves up in the office, Arven split off from them to provide cover fire, tracking down nearby Cerberus troopers and eliminating them.
During his scouting, Arven unwittingly stumbled across Kai Leng, a Cerberus assassin sent to kill the councilor. Despite Ruun's military experience, Kai Leng proved far too powerful an adversary to match, and after a brief firefight, was dealt a mortal injury from Leng's sword and subsequently left to die. Too weak to pursue, Arven bled to death shortly after Shepard and his squad arrived on the Citadel to deal with the threat, yet his confrontation gave the commander time to catch up with Leng.
Arven shortly after being killed by Kai Leng
After the Cerberus coup was thwarted, Arven's bravery was acknowledged by both C-Sec and the general Citadel public, and he was posthumously decorated for his sacrifice. A private memorial service was held by his close friends and work colleagues in memory of his commitment to Citadel security. A picture of Ruun was later added to the memorial wall in the refugee sector of the Citadel. Although his will demanded that Arven's body be returned to his adopted homeworld of Erinle for burial, C-Sec were unable to comply with his request due to the pressure of the Reaper invasion. His death also had a mild demoralizing effect on the members of the Citadel Defense Force who had previously worked with him in the past.
Personality[]
Like many salarians, Arven had an extremely analytical mind and a photographic memory, traits which served him extremely well in his role as a detective. He was also very intelligent and skilled at making logical deductions. Arven was also an expert forensic pathologist, which was reflected in his ability to determine the exact causes of a death in a victim from a quick examination. His skills in pathology was what originally attracted the attention of the Special Tasks Group, and was also their key motivator during their attempt to recruit him. Although aware of his potential as a scientist, Arven favored the role of a detective, feeling that his skills could be put to better use in more constructive areas, such as public services.
As a person, however, Arven was skeptical, somewhat removed and occasionally sarcastic, and it would take others a long time to earn his trust, let alone his friendship. However, he was an extremely driven individual who never allowed his personal opinions and feelings get in the way of his job. Unfortunately, he was sometimes noted for pushing himself and others too far during investigations, which made him difficult to work with sometimes. Though it was not outwardly noticeable, Arven had a very strong sense of duty and honor, and would not employ rough or violent tactics in his work.
Because of his morals, he developed a very strong "by the book" viewpoint, which was believed to be the reason why he did not join extralegal teams such as STG or the Spectres. In addition, Arven was a firm believer in discipline and organization, and when he initially joined C-Sec, he was disheartened by the flaws he noticed in the service's structure. This led him to campaign for change in the group's foundations, though his efforts were met with limited success. It is also noteworthy that Arven suffered from a mild alcoholic problem, a problem which he battled for many years of his life. Fortunately, he had enough control over the problem to ensure that it did not affect his work.
Like all salarians, Arven possessed a high-speed metabolism, which allowed him to function on just one hour of sleep a day. His mind and body also worked faster as a result of this, though he later trained himself to consciously slow down his naturally hyperactive speech so he could be understood. Since most salarians live for only 40 human years, Arven was fairly old by his race's standards by the time of his death, being around 36 years old.
Equipment[]
Due to his training in the military, Arven was skilled in the use of various pistols and assault rifles, making him more than capable of holding his own in combat. When forced into firefights, Arven usually carried a M-7 Lancer, a standard military-grade assault rifle. Following the widespread adoption of thermal clips by the galactic community, Arven took to using an expensive M-77 Paladin pistol in investigations that brought him into potential shootouts. However, for more violent encounters, he used the M-55 Argus rifle, favouring it for its higher power. Despite this, he still kept his old Lancer rifle as a souvenir.
Arven also made use of a custom-made omni-tool, which was based off of the schematics of the Nexus model. Whilst the extent of his personal modifications are unknown, Arven's omni-tool was noted for having infrared scanners, an advanced cryptographic sequencer and a signal interceptor. Though some of these programs were designed by Arven himself, a number of others were unique prototypes commissioned by high-ranking officers in Citadel Fleet to suit his role as a scout. A unique DNA scanning module was allegedly given to him by a quarian engineer whom he had helped out during his C-Sec career. His omni-tool was also reconfigured to suit him as a left-hander.
Behind the Scenes[]
In earlier drafts of the character, Arven Ruun was intended to be a Special Tasks Group operative, though this idea was later dropped so as to explore more unique ideas for the character. Other ideas included making him a Eclipse mercenary or a Shadow Broker agent, though both these ideas were also dropped. He was later envisioned as a C-Sec detective, as his creator felt interested in exploring the potential of a police-based character. A later concept that was briefly incorporated into Arven's history was the idea that he had worked for the Ilium Law Enforcement for a short time, though it was quickly decided that this was diversifying the character's backstory a little too much.
Areven's drinking problem and specialty as a "cold case" detective were inspired by aspects of two longrunning British police television dramas. His alcoholism was based off a defining flaw in Superintendant Jane Tennison from Prime Suspect, whilst his work as the head of a cold case police team was inspired by Detective Superintendent Peter Boyd, who leads a cold case unit in Waking the Dead. A much minor (but still notable) influence on Arven was Sherlock Holmes, the bohemian consulting detective created by by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Trivia[]
- Prior to his death, the Shadow Broker kept several files on Arven onboard his ship.