Marc Caton

Marc Pierre Caton is the current governor and the first Catholic governor of the Olympia sector. Elected in 252 on a platform to protect the Catholic faith on worlds like Mont Imperial, Caton is also an advocate for Fourth Positionism, an ideology based on a spiritual national mythos and organic autocratic or semi-democratic government, presenting itself as an alternative to the materialism of Mechyrdian capitalism, Ilkhan/Ferthlonan socialism, and Fulkreyksk genetic chauvinism. Caton's variant of Fourth Positionism, National Autonomism, is based on the idea of ending enmity between cultures through state autonomy.

Life

Marc Caton was born in 204 to his parents Maximilien and Jeannie Caton, on the planet Mont Imperial. Devoutly Catholic, the Caton family was, like most Catholics in Olympia, kept impoverished by discriminatory laws passed by the pagan Senate. Marc's father, Maximilien, was a veteran of the First Crusader Revolt, which started and ended in 197. Marc himself would still be too young to fight in the Second Crusader Revolt, but he did help prepare it by disabling the Mont Imperial enforcement district's power grid with a computer virus of his design. During the revolt, Caton took advantage of the chaos to loot for himself a new computer to play video games on.

While his mother was radicalized into following communist ideology due to the Olympian persecution of Catholics, Marc went the opposite way and formed his own ideology that was initially known as Revolutionary Legionarism. Having changed its name to National Autonomism before the 248 senatorial elections, Marc's ideology has often recently been described as "Catholic Ba'athism", even though such description is a misnomer, as firstly, his Autonomism merely seeks equality within Olympia, not the unification of Christendom, and secondly, the ideology promotes its Catholic religion, instead of maintaining pan-nationalist quasi-secularism like Ba'athism did in its native Mesopotamia and Levant.

Rise to Power

Caton founded the Front Catholique as a political party in the Olympian Senate in 236, and surrounded himself with a cadre of Catholic intellectuals. He formed a sort of state-within-a-state, organizing his own paramilitary, partisan police force (officially registered as private security), and private court system. These actions were opposed by Caton's rival for power within the party, Augustin Riquillean, whose position was that power and change would come from legal political action, not from revolutionary violence. A struggle for power broke out, and Caton won. Despite the victory of his ideas, however, Caton turned against violence in 248, when the Front became the second largest party in the Olympian Senate.

The Front would have many clashes with the communist faction known as the Christo-Spartacists (the third largest party in the Olympian Senate), as well as with the police forces and Frumentarii of the Olympian pagan establishment. In 249, Caton would approach the leader of the Christo-Spartacists, Jacques Dêtheau, and form a coalition to win the next gubernatorial election. And in 252, they did. Caton used his gubernatorial authority to remove the former pagan elite from power. He made the Front Catholique the only legal party in Olympian government, which was against Mechyrdian law, but the Imperial government didn't intervene because it was feared that there would be backlash, due to the legacy of the Catholic Civil Rights Movement a few decades prior. However, politicians in the other parties were granted mercy, and allowed to join the Front without being punished. Those who refused were merely banned from public politics.

Gubernatorial Career

Since his rise to power, Caton has focused on ensuring equal, yet not superior, rights for Catholics. The pagan opposition to his rule is waning, as they lose faith in the Olympian media and its opposition to Caton; meanwhile, however, he is starting to face opposition from the radical members of the Front, as the radicals want to take revenge against paganism, which Caton refuses to do. In a move of pragmatism, Caton allows popular elections for politicians within the party, and has widened suffrage from merely citizens who own private property to all citizens who are net tax payers, allowing those who merely rent property to vote so long as they pay more to the government than they receive.

Breton Policy

Caton has also passed policy to reverse the decline of the Breton language and Celtic religion on the planet Roazhon Nevez. This decline was accelerated by the previous pagan governors of Olympia, who felt that it was their duty to "civilize" the native Breton Celts. Caton, however, feels that the destruction of a nation, even through cultural conversion, is always wrong. On several occasions prior to his election, Caton has proposed the idea of prosecuting those responsible for the Bretons' decline, using the Mechyrdian All-Heritage Protection Act of 154. In 253, having handpicked the three tribunes, Caton began the trials. However, many outside Olympia denounce the trials of crimes against heritage as being held in little more than a kangaroo court.

Personality

In his childhood, Marc was easily resentful of the Olympian pagan elites, and had often dreamt of overthrowing them by force in a Final Crusader Revolt and establishing a Catholic monarchy. He was also more concerned with personal gain than he was with the freedom of his people, as demonstrated when Caton looted a gaming computer during the Second Crusader Revolt. During his adolescence, Marc started reading theory; initially an attempt to impress his peers with his knowledge, the political theory that Caton read convinced the future governor to abandon his selfishness and vengefulness.

During his adulthood, Caton was known among both his political allies and his rivals for balancing mercy and justice; he created unity where both radical Catholics and pagan elites sought division. He never sought supremacy for his people, merely equal rights and responsibilities for all citizens of Olympia, whether they be pagan, Catholic, or something else entirely.

Despite the mercy shown to his former enemies, and despite the justice shown to those who had abused the people of Olympia, Caton is still a fair bit autocratic in his mindset, at least with regards to internal party politics. He will discover a problem within Olympia, and invent a solution for it on his own, refusing to listen to the suggestions or criticisms of his inner circle. However, he is still willing to compromise with those who hold the power to prevent Caton from implementing policy, and he specifically makes note of potential compromises in his plans to solve issues.

Caton stands at 184 centimeters, or 6 feet and 0.4 inches, tall.

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