Andy Baret (Cataclysmic Gerosha)

Andrew "Andy" Lionel Baret (who later adopts the moniker of Pitohui) is a nighttime biker vigilante in the Gerosha universe of Dozerfleet Comics. He is the son of Matthew and Marina Baret, and the cousin of Dana McArthur. He is a member of the Sodality of Gerosha, being one of very few Second-Generation members to not possess some form of superpower. He was originally to feature in Ciem Tomorrow, and is implied to be going on a similar course of action in the aftermath narrative to the game premise Centipede + 49.

Early life
Little is known of Andy's life growing up. However, all versions of Gerosha continuity agree that he is Matt and Marina's son. In Prime-Comprehensive Geroshas, he was the result of Marina being surprised to learn she was pregnant with Matt's child. The discovery led to Marina being kicked out of Erin's house, as Erin was raising Marina and her two other triplet sisters and had strict rules about the girls not being sexually active. Marina quickly marries Matt.

In most versions, Matt takes his new family and begins running a business. That business in one version was a Christmas tree farm. But in most, he takes over Baret Auto Sales. In spite having the money to live upscale lives, Matt and Marina choose to live in a trailer park and raise Andy to learn the Flippo family value of "always live beneath your means." In Comprehensive and Cataclysmic Geroshas, Marina joins a band called Turkeybreath Skyline. The additional income from all of the Baret family's choices results in Andy being able to save up enough allowance to buy his own motorcycle as soon as he comes of age in 2036. He grows a lifelong passion for his motorcycles, and joins a biker club. However, his biker club comes under attack. As a breakdown of law and order occurs in his part of town, he looks for ways to defend the defenseless. His life as a masked biker vigilante called the "Cycler-Hawk" continues until 2045, when his new hairstyle choice leads to him becoming known as the "Pitohui." Deciding that the new name is more original for him, he adopts it. His skill at doing what he does results in police never deducing who he is up until he adopts the Pitohui alias. However, he is never charged with any crimes officially.

His heroic feats result in him saving a family in Reno from a Phaletori Centhuen warrior, putting him on SCALLOP's radar. He is recruited as an agent of SCALLOP soon afterward, where he is deputized and soon pressured to abandon his mask for a public identity. He agrees to do so.

Ciem Tomorrow
Main article: Ciem Tomorrow

Geroshas Prime-Comprehensive have a Ciem Tomorrow timeline. In the 2050s, Marina is murdered by what remains of the Hebbleskin Gang those same Hebbleskins manage to hunt down and behead Miriam McLaine and Candi McArthur. Matt's fate is unknown, but it is presumed he too is dead. An outraged Andy goes out in search of revenge, but fails.

He returns to Gerosha on urgent request from Lex Philippine, who has relocated his SCALLOP operations to a base underneath the Gerosha Cemetery. When Lex and Andy fear things can't get any worse, the Phaletori trap the city in a dome similar to the one used on Gerosha by the Hebbleskins in the 1990s. Only, this one traps the city in endless nightfall. With both her parents dead, Dana McArthur has moved in with Lex and Andy; and has adopted the Ciem moniker for herself. The three of them become Team Ciem, and work toward the goal of eventually liberating Gerosha from Phaletori control. Andy's lack of superpowers proves to be of little hindrance in his dedication to helping Dana fight her personal crusade.

Centipede + 49
Main article: The Gerosha Chronicles: Centipede + 49

The aftermath of Centipede + 49 has SCALLOP and the Sodality of Gerosha moving a lot of their operations to southern Indiana and Kentucky. SCALLOP relocates to Louisville and Evansville, and the Sodality main headquarters also moves to Evansville. Andy's cousin John "Verdecent" McArthur moves to the city with his brother Frank to ensure the city's protection while it is being rebuilt. Andy elects to join Dana in protecting Gerosha during its similar reconstruction. Both of Andy's parents are implied to be alive and well. Since this happens for certain in Earth-G7.2, it remains open-ended if this happens in Earth-G7.0 proper or not.

Personality
Andy will not hesitate to use violence to achieve his ends if he feels it is necessary, but likes to cultivate an intimidating image so he doesn't have to. He is reluctant to actually kill his targets, though he is not afraid to come dangerously close to killing them if he feels they have left him no constructive alternative. In normal discourse, he prefers to be strong-but-silent. He seldom speaks, but makes his words count when they have to. In spite of this, he knows when to take orders and when to ignore them. He will follow them unless given a very good reason not to. He may appear a biker rebel, but is more rule-abiding than one might guess.

Concept
Andy is implied to exist in Gerosha Prime, though little was done to actually pursue his development as a character. The first mention of a Ciem Tomorrow timeline for him was in the late 2005 webcomic Ciem 3: Curse of the Millipede. Plans to explore Andy's life were first considered in 2006 with the Despair Gerosha timeline, as experiments were being done with Marina's dating life and with those of her sisters. Marina at one point invited nine different men over to date her, which was soon rewritten to be "16 one night stands." Matt became her first true boyfriend. It was later rewritten that Marina's first time was a rape by a classmate, and that she had 15 one night stands afterward after becoming twisted by the failed education system. Matt arriving in her life effectively saved her from a self-destructive downward spiral.

One of the men in the test run that came over for Marina wound up favoring Miriam, that Tombstone of Life and Death-generated character being named Phil Couric. Therefore, Miriam's history was revised to make Phil an essential component of it. The only boy that showed interest in Candi in The Sims 2: Nightlife prior to Donte was Don Mendoza, who was quickly rewritten as Don the Psycho and made part of her backstory.

Andy was named after Andrew D. Kaboom, a character in Red vs. Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles. This is in spite having a slightly different personality (and not being a literal bomb like his namesake is.) The decision to give him the name "Pitohui" came from the Dozerfleet founder's fascination with an article from a 1990s issue of Creation ex nihlo magazine about the hooded pitohui. His hairstyle in The Sims 3 was modified so that is Comprehensive Gerosha appearance would suggest more to this end. Further inspiration came from the Dozerfleet founder's brother admitting to having once had a nightmare about being attacked by a pitohui. This often led to changing the lyrics to Lila McCann's 1997-featured song "Down Came a Blackbird" to "down came a pitohui," as a way of joking about the whole thing.

Design
Little was known for many years about what exactly Andy would look like when the time came to publish a work featuring him. Some early models for him depicted him in a biker jacket with Indian war paint. However, this version didn't survive the transition of visual standards for Gerosha characters from Sims 2 to Sims 3 as a base. The war paint may have been removed, but Andy still began wearing dye in his hair that gave him the distinct orange highlights with his natural black that justified the "Pitohui" alias. A tall, almost Frankstein-built physique and a generic "biker rebel" archetype were all the development in appearance Andy has had for many years. His adult form is to stand in stark contrast to the helpless, innocent infant he once was under Marina's care.