Connor Duffy (born 414 IE) was a resistance fighter during the Laral Occupation of Amargosa. He lived in Lansdorp where his best friend was Ellie Nardino. His father was, until his death during the Gelt Incursion, a professor of engineering at Lansdorp University.
Duffy witnessed the death of Ellie’s father during the Gelt Incursion when Commander Nardino’s transport exploded. He, Ellie, Eric Yuwono, Davra Andraste, and Suvi Atall survived the fusion blast that destroyed Lansdorp by fleeing underground.
He escaped with the others through the Transcontinental Maglev tunnel beneath Lansdorp and spent the night on a disabled train. The next morning, after pointing out to Davra that Yuwono had waivered in his plan to head for the mountains, he convinced Davra to lead them. Yuwono objected, but followed. They soon made it to a rail station above the city in the foothills. The station came under attack by insurgents loyal to Lucius Kray. The group, as well as several passengers who followed, were rescued by resistance fighters under command of Lieutenant Straker. The leader of the insurgent force was later executed under Section 11.
Aboard Straker’s hover tram, they headed for Edoras in the Misty Mountains. However, the tram came under attack by Gelt. Duffy joined the others in battle under Yuwono. While the Gelt were repelled, Suvi died in the fight by heat ray. As they recovered, Duffy spotted lights on the distant maglev line, including a train sitting abandoned at the station. He suggested they take the train into the Misty Mountains without asking permission. It was Duffy who realized the train’s locomotive was a robot with a dead man’s switch. Because of this, they were able to move the train once they determined the maglev rail to be powered.
When the maglev stopped due to an obstruction, Duffy and Nardino stayed behind while Davra and Yuwono investigated. A Gelt battle wagon appeared, which sent the pair scrambling for weapons. They nearly shot Davra when she and Yuwono returned, announcing they now had a Gelt battle wagon. Duffy suggested finding the maintenance crew’s toolkit to dismantle it.
After dismantling and stowing the battle wagon, Duffy rushed to Ellie Nardino’s aid when the train entered a pitch black tunnel. She had such severe claustrophobia that she foamed at the mouth. The attack subsided, however, when the maglev emerged inside the Edoras Transit Station. However, she ran out and had a nervous breakdown.
As Davra helped Ellie calm down, Duffy and Yuwono found themselves surrounded by insurgents loyal to Lucius Kray. Davra distracted the gunmen by hurling grenades into their midst. Colonial Guard emerged from the elevators to neutralize the gunmen, but Yuwono was shot in the process. Escorted by the resistance up to Edoras, Duffy and the others met the head of the resistance, Diana Jovann.
Accompanying Nardino, Andraste, and Straker on the maglev, he traveled east in an attempt to round up resistance fighters. The train came under attack by insurgents. Duffy realized they could slip out the back and attack the insurgents unseen. They slipped off carrying fire extinguishers. The insurgents surrendered, but the maglev fell under attack again, this time by Gelt. The insurgents defected and formed the forward line against the aliens. Duffy went with Andraste and Nardino atop the train to hurl grenades at the aliens, taking out a battle wagon. The second battle wagon was taken out by a third when JT Austin threw a grenade at its heat dish. Suicide drove the hijacked battle wagon. Unfortunately, Lieutenant Straker was killed in the battle.
The team, now under the command of Lt. Patel, traveled to the Harlan-Ragnar Station to link up with the contingent from Walden. There, Quan punched JT and threatened to Section 11 him until Suicide intervened. Duffy joined Andraste and Nardino in also blocking Quan by saying they had to be arrested as well.
Connor attended Lizzy Parker‘s funeral, then accompanied Suicide and the others on the maglev east, intending to reach resistance near the ruins of Arcanum. When the maglev stopped due to a destroyed bridge, they marched down into a ravine and found an abandoned village. The villagers, however had not abandoned the area but hid in the woods. They also killed the Gelt invaders sent to clean up, hanging them from a large tree.
Duffy figured out how to recharge Gelt power supplies with human vehicles. He and Ellie also rigged a Gelt heat dish to a runabout. When Ellie expressed sympathy for JT, voiced his skepticism as neither his father the admiral nor his mother, the CEO of Dasarius, came to rescue him. He left, however, to go with Davra to retrieve flatbed cars for the maglev. He left Nardino to test the weapon with JT.
During the run-up to the planned attack on the Founders' Mine, Duffy drove the maglev. Once the attack began, Duffy took Ellie Nardino with him into the mine where they laid down grenade and railgun fire to cover Davra and Suicide as they emerged from cover. After the mine had been secured, Duffy intended to drive the maglev back and forth to ferry refugees to the Founders’ Mine. However, he discovered, and showed Col. Jovann, that all power to the rail had disappeared. The maglev no longer functioned.
Three months later, Suicide tapped Duffy and Ellie Nardino to join a team that would make direct contact with the fallen Ban Ki-moon. She assigned them to rig the maglev tunnel to blow if they were followed and to give any resistance in Edoras the option if they took over the transit center. While there, he and Ellie worked with Davra experimenting fiber netting to use as camouflage.
Shortly after the team resumed their push toward the Western Ocean, Austin and Yuwono brought in a Gelt prisoner, a woman who did not speak Humanic. Duffy dubbed her “Trixie,” which earned him her hostility. Apparently, the name meant something obscene in the Mother Tongue.
During a scouting mission in the western foothills of the Misty Mountains, Duffy witnessed Ellie dragged away by the strange lycanths. He only heard her screams before she disappeared. After Suicide calmed him down, he helped JT and Davra, who had joined the team, to hot rig a pair of bat wagons to ride to the ruins of Lansdorp. During the trip, JT and Yuwono shared a bottle of whiskey with him to get him drunk.
Duffy participating in the Section 11 hearing for Davra and Hauser. Suicide offered to let him sit it out as he had just lost Ellie. He declined and voted with the others.
He marched with the team through the same maglev tunnel he, Davra, Ellie, Suvi, and Yuwono traveled after the destruction of Lansdorp. When the team reached the bunker, he spent hours attempting to hack it. However, the hidden entry panel became exposed, allowing Suicide to use her military credentials to enter. The team entered, only to be stopped by a platoon of Marines.
Duffy was present when Governor Anton Croix attempted to cancel the mission to reach the Ban Ki-moon. When Suicide opted for an escape plan instead. she put him to work improvising explosives. When they broke into the armory, Duffy wanted explosives and equipment that would let him hack vehicles. The others went for ammunition. Beyond the city, the team had to scale two cliffs via old construction footpaths when stopped by the collapsed maglev bridge. Duffy, along with Yuwono and Tishla, saved JT from falling after the ground gave way beneath him on the far side of the ravine.
Further along the journey, the team recovered two bat wagons, one abandoned by Lucius Kray’s militia. One of the wagons lost its solar wrap. Duffy came up with a scheme to power both vehicles and allow them to travel by night, as well as use light while covered with camo netting. The team later encountered Kray’s militia but was able to repel them.
They eventually reached a fishing village on the shore of the Western Ocean just in time to see Kray steam off in the last seaworthy boat. They found a large fishing boat with its reactor disabled and a breach in the hull. Suicide sent him and Tishla, along with a Marine named Jiang, to scout a nearby quarry for nanite paste and a controller to program them. They located a stash and an outdated controller, then salvaged a quarry transport to return to the village.
He sailed to the site of the Ban Ki-moon‘s crash but remained aboard the boat while Suicide took JT, Tishla, and the Marine Jiang. Upon her return, she revealed that Kray intended to seize the ship. She ordered Eric Yuwono to remain behind and play the part of a defector while Duffy and JT returned to the ship to free Tishla and head for Nebraska Island. Upon reaching the island, he escaped nearly being shot by a hijacked combat shuttle. In the jungle, he discovered Amargosa Two, one of the ships Suicide hid for the Governor Croix, when he ran into a landing strut concealed by fiber netting. He had to help hoist the boarding ramp back into place as the ship would function with minimal power until well above 3000 meters.
Once the ship became airborne, Suicide executed a low-orbit wormhole jump to Hanar. Duffy discovered wormhole sickness in the process as Suicide had no time to render the windows opaque.
While on Hanar, Duffy began training for shipboard engineering, including time aboard the Challenger learning warp dynamics. Additionally, he trained with Mitsuko Yamato‘s unit as their resident explosives expert. When Mitsuko and her team decided to defect to Hanar if JT Austin also defected, he agreed to join them.
Aboard the Challenger, Duffy began learning warp dynamics under Peter Lancaster. He and Austin helped locate the resistance during a reconaissance trip to Amargosa. They also suggested putting a kinetic device into the colony transport over Arcanum.
When the Liberation of Amargosa began, Duffy flew aboard JT’s shuttle, formerly known as Dunkirk and renamed Normandy 6 for the mission. He was attached to Mitsuko Yamato‘s platoon as an ordnance specialist. During their landing near Riverside on Amargosa, their shuttle went down in the shockwave and EMP from the fusion blast that destroyed the city. He survived with a concussion. JT was disappointed he wasn’t revived by a lycanth as he was.
Duffy recovered sufficiently to program a handful of mechs neutralized by the fusion blast so they would operate remotely. He then joined JT and Mitsuko in a raid on Kray’s rear. He had procured a stash of stun grenades used by the Gelt. However, as the team moved in on Kray, his concussion symptoms flared up. Mitsuko fell back with him and tended to him while JT, Yuwono, and the admirals sneaked up on the Colonel.
After the liberation, Duffy became an ensign in the Navy attached to the Challenger. The ship’s engineer, Peter Lancaster, would train him to become part of a growing field of warp specialists. In 432, however, Duffy served detached duty aboard the Valles Marineris on a mission to Marilyn. Admiral Burke wanted him to assist Suicide and JT Austin in camouflaging the Goldeneye in its search for Jayne Best. He and Boolay adjusted the Goldeneye‘s plasma vents to hide its drive signatures. They also were able to toggle the ship’s transponder to register as the Tachi. Duffy also rigged a hyperdrone to give off the Goldeneye‘s transponder code to trick Jez Salamacis into believing Suicide and Austin had gone to Jefivah.
Apprearances: The Children of Amargosa, Second Wave, Storming Amargosa, Suicide Run