Born in the 50's to Markus and Helen Ryans. His daddy had been a Navy man, worked on the boats and was gone all the time. So, there was no real father figure at home, most of the time. Ryans was not the easiest child to deal with. He was rowdy, rough, and often got into fights. It was frustrating for his mom when he would come home beaten and bruised and rather proud of it.
By time he reached adolescence, he was a hellion. Even rode an old 50's military Harley Davidson motorcycle. When he decided to join the Army at the young age of 16 in '68, his mother did not hesitate to sign the paperwork that would let him in early. Her hope was that the strict discipline of the military would help him.
At such a young and tender age, Ryans was thrust into the Vietnam War. He was so young and what he experienced there affected him enough that he naively thought that changing branches would keep him away from the danger.
However, after he got out of his naval academy, he spent a portion of Vietnam on a boat. At least, it was well away from the jungles. But as the war progressed, he decided he wanted to face some of the experiences from his short-lived Army days. This in mind, he signed up to be a member of the SEALs. He was accepted, but it was a rough road. BUDs training is said to be one of the most strenuous and he almost didn't make it through. After a disastrous exercise where they were taken away from the coast and dumped into the ocean at night, with the task to navigate back by a map, he was ready to give it up. He had been so off course from his target, that they had really laid into him and humiliated him to a point he just wanted it done. When He walked up to the little bell, he saw the row of Kevlar helmets that are a symbol of those that had quit before him. Something about seeing that line, made him decide to keep going. He didn't want to be labeled a quitter, especially, since some of his actions in the Army had him looked at as a coward.
Determined, he endured the torment, managed to make it through Hell Week and started on his road to be a SEAL. Which landed him back in Vietnam and in the thick of all the action.
While he was in the Navy, he met a pretty little thing, September. She was Ryans' sweetheart during Vietnam. He wrote her while he was over there and all. When he returned to the states, they continued to see each other. It even reached the point where they were engaged, about the time Ryans joined the Company. This is probably part of the reason he couldn't go to college as he had hoped. However, his position within the Company was very work heavy and he ended up a very busy man, traveling a lot. It ended up breaking them apart and they went their own separate ways. Russo's mom found out she was pregnant afterward and decided not to tell Ben… or their son.
He was a part of SEAL Team 4 when he spent the last year of the Vietnam War on the river of the dense jungles. While he was there he was always walking a fine line that could have ended with him as court martialed, but for reasons that were important to him. The LT that oversaw their group was a fresh-faced college kid who had not seen action, unlike the men under his command. He was also, in Ryans' opinion, an idiot. Doing stupid stuff, that if Ryans did not talk him out of, that would have killed them all. He spent a lot of his time giving the man other options and talking him into other courses of action. When Ryans was finally sent back to the states, those he left behind were killed when the same LT made a bad decision. It was not long after that incident that the war officially ended. The guilt has stuck with him every day since. Always wondering, if he had been there to discourage those orders, maybe they might have all lived. It is a time in his life he barely ever talks about.
Reaching the rank of Master Chief, he turned to the task of training the next generation of SEALs. This only lasted until they decided, in 1977, to push him take the officers exam. That was when Ryans knew it was time to get out. He did not spend enough time in to retirement, but he personally felt once you became an officer your intelligence was sucked out.
When he left the military, he had a lot of plans set in his mind. He was going to get back to college, get a degree, and get a good job, but…. BUT, things do not always work out how you would like them too. So, he was stuck saving up money and working in a garage in New York. He took night classes when he could afford them, but he was facing a very long road ahead.
Others had different plans for him.
He never quite knew how they got his military records, but the agents that showed up at the garage changed his life and gave him new purpose. They told him that they had been watching him for some time, ever since before he joined the Navy. He was given a speech about a world people hidden beneath the surface of modern society and of the duty they had to protect people from individuals with special powers. He was pretty sure they were full of bullshit, but then one of them showed him just how wrong he was.
Two years after the Company was founded, Ryans entered their ranks. He felt more suited for this work than fixing cars, maybe because it took him back to his time in the military. It was challenging and dangerous. He quickly became a field agent, bagging and tagging some of the worst evolved with his partners. There are times he wonders how he survived for so long, even outlived two evolved partners.
While he was made for the life, there ever events that occurred that had him doubting the Company and how they did things. When Adam betrayed them all, he almost left; but his partner convinced him to stay and help prevent the idiots from taking over. Experience told him how that could end. So he stayed, but the seeds of doubt were planted.
Outside of his work, he managed to find a life. While at the grocery store one day, he met his wife. Mary was a checker at the store and was at least a good ten years younger than him. It had been her red hair that grabbed his attention and it was her smile that hooked him. He walked out of there with her number and a promise of a date. It was a whirlwind romance that left him dizzy and married by the end of that year, but he was happier than he had been for some time.
The down side of it all was that his work had to stay a secret. He felt shitty about it, but that's the breaks. As far as his wife knew he was a sales man for Primatech Paper Company, traveling all over the world to sell paper and paper accessories.
The first of his two girls were born in 1989… followed by another a short year later. After the second girl was born, they decided no more! They had only really been aiming for the one child, but the second had been a total surprise. He loved his girls, but he was gone a lot on business. A part of him felt like he was becoming his dad, but like his dad what he did was for his family to make the world a safer place. Still did not make it easy to see their sad faces when he had to walk out the door again.
He was off in Seattle chasing down an evolved man, who had inadvertently slaughtered a restaurant full of people, when the Midtown Man exploded. He and his partner at the time had just gotten the guy zapped, depowered, and ready for transport to level 5 when he got a frantic call from his youngest. Mary had told them that she was headed to Midtown that morning and the girls could not get a hold of her. So Ryans got on the first plane home for New York and rushed home to his girls. Sadly, in the weeks following they found Mary's remains within the wreckage of one of the buildings.
Both his girls were still in High School and needed their daddy more than ever now. This kind of put him in a tough place. Though in truth he had been with the Company for nearing thirty years, maybe it was time to retired and enjoy a calmer life. So, after so many years of loyal service he retired to take care of his girls.
It was not easy to take care of two teenagers. The way he did things and the way his wife had were completely different; and, the girls chafed under his rules. Ryans especially had a big problem with the boys his girls brought home, a lot of them were punks and rowdy… just like he had been. His favorite line to his girls was, 'I was a boy just like him and I know what I was thinking back then.' That of course got a lot of 'Ewww! Daddy!' but he never let up. None of them were good enough.
When the Linderman act came about, Ryans felt some relief. To him this was the start of a better life for his girls. To him the registration for evolved was a good thing. Keeping records of them all might help keep them in check. Now he knows not all evolved are bad his liked his partners, but this a good idea.
When his girls were at school, Ryans found he had a lot of free time on his hands. Though he occasionally grabbed lunch with some of the people from his time with the Company; those times were few and far between and that left him at home twiddling his thumbs. He ended up taking up gardening. He had started with potted plants on the back porch of their home and somehow ended up turning their backyard into a garden. It was not as exciting and stimulating as bagging and tagging, but it was something.
Who was he kidding.
He missed the old life, but a part of him felt like he could not go back to it. With both his girls finally graduated from High School and enthusiastic to go off to start their lives, Ryans’ life became bland and boring. He spent his days tending his garden, bowling with some of the other guys, and still he kept in touch with some of his old buddies from the Company. It never occurred to him to ask for his job back, especially as those he had worked with slowly left the Company’s fold.
However, his life started to chafe him, after the maniac Mortimer blew up Primatech paper…. some of the people he knew died in that assault. Many friends and agents, he helped train perished. It felt like after he left, the evolved became much too bold, were starting to get out of control. While he saw FRONTLINE as a danger to the Company, he also agreed that it could have been good for the country. Those evolved men and women would be under the control of the government. Not that the US government is not flawless. He knows it has it has its share of idiots.
Little did he know that his life would take a turn that would test those ideals and set him on a path he never expected to take.
But to learn about that, you will have to go check out his pre-TimeSkip Logs
Following the fall of the Ferrymen’s last stronghold, which resulted in so many death, Ryans found himself filled with a sort of rage that would not be quelled. Though he followed Nicole up to Canada to Hollis’ place, he just couldn’t stay away from the country he spent so much of his life defending. Their parting was a little bitter sweet, realizing that what they had been to each other in a burned future, was not to be in this one. They respected and cared for each other, but neither saw a marriage in their future. So it was not as hard as he thought to leave, to do what he knew was that was right. Fight for his country and its freedoms; this time it would be against the government itself.
As soon as he returned to the states, he put out the call to the remaining Ferrymen to join with him against the Mitchell administration. Only a few joined him at first, while he picked at the fringes of the unraveling administration; but slowly the number grew.
His youngest daughter is born while he was deep the trenches. He did manage to get the news as a radio message that Nicole had a girl… just like she had hoped. His family grew by one, giving him yet another child to worry about. Worry he did about all of them. He kept tabs on all of his children, even Ingrid and Russo. Even his brother’s kids were checked in on.
Soon he found himself in the second Civil War, by now with Nicole helping him first on the frontlines, then to work through the tactical aspects from behind the lines, while he forged ahead on the front. Once the war started, Ryans with his group of Ferrymen remnants (To include some of those closest to him like Lucille, Megan, Lynette, and Huruma.) joined forces with military defectors. He throws himself fully into the fight, learning how best to work with his handicap, using his training from his time in the SEALs, and training others in their tactics. His explosives training became an integral part of the teams success. Utilizing IEDs and the sort to make the US government suffer. They were all guerrilla tactics.
There was not a situation that he would not throw himself into, to include the assassination attempt on Mitchell. This would be a mission that would haunt him forever. He took in good men and they couldn’t complete it, losing so many of them… young and old alike, even Ryans had to be carried out of there and spent months recovering from the injuries sustained. Recover he did, allowing him to help in the take down of Raven Rock.
There was a great sigh of relief when the war finally ended, but it left Ryans and the people around him scarred. This life had been the only one he had known since he was 16 in one way or another, so having it end was tough on him. Luckily, being who he was and the parts he played, the war trials that followed kept him busy for some time afterwards. Being hailed a war hero bothered him, it wasn’t a title he really relished or the attention that he received. There were too many good people that gave up their lives for the cause that deserved it more then him.
When not dealing with trials, Benjamin used his gardening skills to help rebuild the Safe Zone, though he had no interest in being any sort of council. He spent time with his kids, especially, his youngest. Still, he floundered, as he searched for a purpose again. This was a new world that didn’t really have a place for a man whose life had been all about conflict and survival.
Where does a man like that fit in?
