Chris McLean, commonly known as "Mongoose soldier", was a long-standing member of Cobalt Squad.
Character history[]
McLean rarely discussed his past, and was far and away the quietest member of Cobalt Squad. On one occasion, he read a Sonoran Storm brochure and mentioned once having a bad experience with snake dancing, where his natural resistance to snake venom was the only reason he survived. (Disruptive Selection)
He served with Cobalt Squad for all important missions from February to October 2009. (Darwin's Soldiers, Survival of the Fittest)
He was the quietest of the squad members, rarely speaking to anybody. Nobody even bothered to learn his name; he told it once to Rudyard Shelton who forgot it moments later. He survived the events of the Dragonstorm incident. (Disruptive Selection)
Later Cobalt Squad jumped through the Einstein-Rosen bridge to help collect the captured men who had been led by Richard Warden. (Pavlov's Checkmate)
As Crota was stated to be the last surviving member of Cobalt Squad by 2039, McLean must have died some time before then. (Disruptive Selection)
Trivia[]
- When it came time to name "Mongoose soldier", LettuceBacon&Tomato asked the other authors if somebody other than himself or Serris would like the chance to name a background character. MrDrake decided to name him after a character from Total Drama Island. This is the only example in Darwin's Soldiers where an author named a character introduced before the author had joined.
- His extended namelessness despite being an important and ongoing character in the role-play was a reference to the first role-play, where several characters (the most notable being Sharon Varma and Neville Ivers) started out as long-surviving background characters consistently referred to by their species (i.e. "Iguana security guard") until the authors finally realized they deserved names.
- On several occasions (such as here) Serris referred to Mongoose Soldier as female.
- In the discussion thread, Serris posted further information on McLean's life between the main events of Disruptive Selection and the epilogue thirty years later:
"He was honorably discharged but blaming himself for being unable to save Cobalt Commander as well as the stress of keeping such a massive secret, he took to drinking. Ten years after the final defeat of Dragonstorm, after a few too many drinks at a bar, he stumbles onto a road and is hit by a car, killing him almost instantly."