Profile
Basic Information
Name: Taran
Birthplace: Drifter Camp
Affiliation: Rustfire
Gender: Male
Background
Taran is an elite member of Rustfire. He is fanatical and devoted in his defense of Drifter Camp, willing to throw his life away in order to keep it safe. Despite this, Taran is still young and naive, inflexible in his worldview and not accustomed to compromise or adjusting his opinions. Taran has little interest in negotiation or patience, and is eager for conflict to break out.
Role
Main Story
Drifter Camp
Taran accompanies Julien to Keylan Square in order find out whether the Chief is a friend or foe to Drifter Camp. Disguising his identity, he is detained by the FAC for attempting to take Hypercube fragments from the Ring site, but the Chief directs the FAC not to punish him or the other civilians for this crime. When the Chief later arrives in Drifter Camp, Taran uses a conflict with gangsters as a pretense to attack their car, assassinating the Executive Officer accompanying them and luring the Chief into a trap.
Taran confronts Donald in the Grand Stall when he declares the Reconstruction Executive Committee's intent to investigate Drifter Camp on trumped-up charges of harboring Mania forces. Donald easily goads him into attacking, and a firefight breaks out between the Executive Officers and Rustfire. After the battle, Taran admits his failure at negotiating to Julien and promises to clean up his mess. Donald gives a half-hour ultimatum to evacuate Drifter Camp before it is destroyed, and Taran responds by holding the Chief hostage, banking on the fact that the authorities need them to clean up Black Rings, but Donald counters that Taran has already testified that the Chief was killed by gangsters, and so their death will hold no repercussions for him. Julien orders Taran to release the Chief, to his anger. When the Chief and their Sinners are successful in defeating Donald, he and the rest of Rustfire are stunned by the magnitude of their power.
When the Mania crisis breaks out and Julien orders the evacuation of the Camp, Taran refuses to leave without him. Julien does not budge, and tells Taran that his willfulness in opposing the Chief is to blame for the deaths of everyone there. He demands that Taran take responsibility for those lives, and learn to control his anger because he is the only one left who can lead Rustfire in the future. Julien then gives his final order, for Taran to meet Raven and learn everything from her. After this, he stops the Mania-afflicted populace from attacking the Chief when they begin broadcasting to all of Drifter Camp. He is present after the final battle, when Julien hails the Chief as the new Zoya who can lead Syndicate to the battlefield.
Oblivion Depth
After witnessing the Chief's victory, Taran becomes unusually polite and respectful to them and the MBCC Sinners. Later, Taran reports to Julien that Raven's propaganda has brought many new recruits to Rustfire's side, and that the Chief's plans have successfully made the Executive Committee let up in their assault on Drifter Camp. Worried by the fact that the Chief is working with the Committee to track the Corpus 002, Taran requests permission to take a team and make sure that the Chief isn't taken away either by the Committee or the monster.
Inside the Executive Committee's secret detention center, his team finds evidence that captured Rustfire elites were tortured with Mania. A trap is sprung, locking them in a cell. X offers them the chance to surrender, and says that the elites detained there all did so. Taran tells her that the more people they kill, the more will turn against them, and X rebuts that actually she could issue an "extermination order", but that it is less costly to have the Chief join them instead. And regardless of whether the Chief does or not, as long as they are brought back to Nirvana, she can make people believe whatever she wants about them. She reveals that the betrayal of Rustfire's leader 8 years prior was similarly fabricated. X gives up on persuading him to surrender, and selects his file from a list of the Rustfire members present, instructing her subordinates to open the cell door when he's the only one left.
What happens next is unclear. Whether the rest of his squad is massacred by Executive Officers or Taran is driven to madness and kills them himself, he later appears, badly wounded and covered in his teammates' blood, to rescue the Chief after their battle with the Corpseborne. He tries to bring them back to Drifter Camp, but a battle suddenly erupts between him the Executive Officers, all fighting to take the Chief away. During the chaos, Taran possibly becomes the first Rustfire Sinner, and with this strength the Chief is successfully brought back to Rustfire's control.
Taran urges Julien to declare open rebellion against DisCity, and Julien agrees.
Towering Black
Taran, like much of Rustfire's fighting force, is instantly transformed into a Corruptor at the end of the Ten Days of Rustfire when BR-002 erupts in Drifter Camp. Eight months later, Taran finds the Chief unconscious inside the Black Ring. Still driven by his old desire to bring them back after their previous battle with the Corpseborne, Taran's last act is to carry the Chief to Julien again.