BLA: Professor Poireau

The driving force behind the Belgian Liberation Army is Professor Maximilian Poireau. 

Maximilian Poireau was born in 1880 in Brussels, Belgium.  

His Father, Philippe Poireau, a French-speaker and clock-maker, and mother, Denys Poireau, a Flemmish woman, raised their only son in a comfortable home and provided the boy with as good of an education as they could provide, seeing how even from a young age he proved to be remarkably clever.  

In 1897 Maximilian left for America and settled in New York City.  It is here he saw a demonstration of a radio-controlled boat, in Madison Square Gardens by Nikola Tesla.  He resolved to work for the man and learn everything he could. Tesla soon relocated to Colorado, to establish a lab for even more esoteric research .  Maximilian, due to his tenacity and willingness to work for room & board was brought on as an assistant.  In the short year of the Colorado Springs laboratory, Maximilian learned a great deal.  

He saw the potential for unfettered energy transmission and its application for devices to better mankind. 

He also had the good fortune of meeting the author, Mark Twain, a friend of Tesla's.  Perhaps here more than anywhere else lay the seeds of change for Poireau, when over a cigar Twain remarked on Maximilian's theorizing of machines and their great potential, "Undoubtedly man can change anything he wishes, except himself."  Not knowing what to make of this at first, Maximilian remained silent, but it is an idea he would revisit many times in the coming decades. 

When Colorado Springs shut down in 1900, Maximilian traveled around America, working as an engineer, designer and minor inventor.  When the Great War broke out he returned to Belgium and worked as a military engineer.  Seeing devastation close up he wondered about Twain's remark again, and vowed to find a way to change mankind. At the close of the war he entered the University of Leuven, but as so much had been damaged in the war, he soon transferred to Paris where he studied biology.   

Becoming increasingly frustrated with the preconceptions of the professors, Poireau left for the Belgian Congo in 1923.  With his parents now dead, he sold his family home and the shop, took what loans he could and created a laboratory in the Congo, studying monkeys and apes.  His theory was that by selective breeding and exposure to X-rays he could elevate the lower primate species. If he could master this, then it only followed that the same could be done for humanity.  Mankind's race to technological perfection had only lead to more destructive weapons. He had seen this first hand.  Technology did not improve life: it only allowed man to be more powerful, more of what he is: flawed.  Mark twain was correct, but Poireau set about changing that. 

Over the next 15 years Poireau has got very close to succeeding.  But he has been racing against the rest of humanity bent on ever greater destruction. A new war is rising in Europe, one with ever greater machines of destruction, and in dark chambers, far more foul pursuits both technological and arcane.  The grim reality must be faced: perhaps in another five years, ten? Perhaps if he had more time.  But the time is out. If he does not come to the aid of Europe, the destruction and shadow that is released will leave nothing for him to save.  

With meager resources at his disposal, and with the aid of his assistants, the uplifted chimpanzee Octavian, and gorilla Agrippa, he begins modifying and training monkey soldiers and gorilla shock troupers.  

An alliance of Man, Ape and Monkey to save Europe, and save the world, for all of our species. 

I've done a minor conversion on the Warmachine Cygnar Neemo, to give him a Tesla-inspired rifle. 

Kept the paint job simple to make it fit in better with the more modern looking Belgian soldiers,

but it is Weird WWII after all, so a bit of strange devices is a good thing.  

Here is the professor with his assistant Octavian and field researcher Beatrix. 

Up Next: The Monkeys!