The Commander

The Commander

Information
Full name	The Commander
Affiliation	Griffin & Kryuger
Voice actor	-TBA-
Artist	Unknown
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"I can't sleep yet, I still have work to do..."

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The Commander (指挥官 (zhǐhuīguān) in Chinese and 指揮官 (shikikan) in Japanese) is the identity of the player character in Girls' Frontline. Because they represent the player, their gender, appearance, personality and past are loosely defined in the game.

As a tactical commander of Griffin and Kryuger (G&K), the Commander is tasked with assessing the strategic situation and to remotely give orders to their Tactical Dolls squads in the field. They are helped in their duties by their logistics officer Kalina. Early in their career at G&K in 2062, the Commander was involved with the elite T-Doll squad AR Team and demonstrated high commanding capabilities, gaining the trust of their superiors. This led them to assume increasingly important missions against Sangvis Ferri and eventually to become an asset to the Bureau of State Security against KCCO and Paradeus.

The Commander is also expected to be the protagonist of Girls' Frontline 2: Exilium, taking place in 2070.

Character Info

The Commander's default appearance.

The appearance and gender of the Commander can be customized by players in the game in the Wardrobe screen. The default genderless appearance of a Commander in-game is a mud-stained G&K uniform, crude headlamp and gas mask. After the player chooses a gender for their Commander, they have access to a clean, complete uniform with beret, and the character will have blue eyes with light skin and dark brown hair, short for men and shoulder-length for women. After KCCO's betrayal of Griffin and Kryuger and the ensuing three-way battle involving Sangvis Ferri and Paradeus, the Commander was physically tortured by Nytos after telling false accounts of the battle and noted that their face would look even uglier than after having been caught in the fallout of the Collapse bomb.

Glimpses of the Commander's personality can be deduced from their recruitment into G&K. Because of the particularity of G&K troops being T-Dolls, the main factor of recruitment for human commanders isn't professional training or experience, but being able to pass a psychological evaluation dedicated to measuring interpersonal compatibility with T-Dolls, and general traits of character like patience, courage and loyalty. Prior to Continuum Turbulence, the Commander had dialogues in costume stories, showing their care for the T-Dolls under their command, but was with very few exceptions a silent character in the main story. In Continuum Turbulence, the player was sometimes prompted to choose among several dialogue choices. In later story chapters, the Commander has direct dialogues with other characters.

In the official manga, they are replaced by Gentiane. The Commander was referred to as a woman in the translation of the 2020 April's Fool.

Story Involvement

The known history of the Commander starts after they got hired by Griffin and Kryuger in 2062. They were assigned to a forward base in Sector 09, in a relatively calm area near the frontline of the hostile Sangvis Ferri territory. At the time, G&K had accepted the contract for six months and had urgent need of more personnel to contain the menace.

Recovery of AR Team

At Sector 09's control center, the Commander met their logistics officer, Kalina, and expressed some concern about their qualification for the job. Kalina assured them G&K's selection process was tough enough to ensure they were ready. The Commander was tasked by Helian with an assault mission on their second day after only one drill of experience. Helian tasked the new commander because she was stringed for manpower but had confidence in the recruit's capacity and was ultimately impressed by how swiftly they carried the mission. Helian later tasked the Commander with new missions to have them gather field experience, helping in recovering ^SMG SkorpionSkorpionSkorpion and capturing Scarecrow as part of G&K's search for the whereabouts of AR Team. Helian later enrolled the Commander in G&K's advanced testing program as a candidate for G&K's tactical reserve, which they passed with flying colors.

Using Scarecrow's intel, Helian sent the Commander to a potential site to collect new intel, but seeing that Sangvis Ferri was consistently beating G&K to intel sites, such operations were temporarily halted and, much to their chagrin, the Commander returned to defending the frontline in Sector 09 instead of leading investigative missions. This proved temporary as G&K's leader Berezovich Kryuger, on Helian's recommendations, assigned the Commander to help 16LAB's director Persica in her search for information about AR Team. The Commander's successes led them to gain the trust of Persica, and Helian tasked them with the recovery of ^AR M4A1M4A1M4A1. The Commander's independence in leading the mission was a great advantage in defeating Executioner, who expected G&K's HQ to handle the mission and monitored their transmissions instead of local channels. Persica later tasked the Commander with retrieving Sangvis Ferri parts for her ongoing study of their manufacturing process and shared some of her background with AR Team with the Commander, stating the importance of M4.

After the successful recovery of M4, Helian kept dispatching the Commander to retrieve the other members of AR Team, pushing back Hunter's troops and recovering ^AR M4 SOPMOD IIM4 SOPMOD IIM4 SOPMOD II and ^AR ST AR-15ST AR-15ST AR-15 with their own T-Dolls since HQ could provide intel but no reinforcements. While ^AR M16A1M16A1M16A1 was still missing, Helian redeployed the Commander to support a local intel recovery team, in reality Squad 404, fighting Intruder deeper in Sector 09, before being tasked to destroy the ringleader to clear Sector 09 of Sangvis Ferri occupation after 404's mission concluded, retrieving the last member of AR Team in the process. After the battle, M16A1 relayed to the Commander a clue ^AR UMP45UMP45UMP45 had asked her to pass on to Persica: “It's raining on the plain”. As a mark of respect for the Commander's efforts and skill, M4A1 decided to reveal the content of the mission during which her team was separated and they recovered intel about Plan Parapluie in Sector 09's Safe House 3.

Plan Parapluie

Along with other tactical commanders, the Commander was called to G&K's secret base near Sector 09 by Kryuger to discuss Plan Parapluie. There, the Commander met with Helian in person for the first time, along with Kryuger. Sangvis Ferri launched an assault against the base before any planning could start and the Commander was knocked out during the initial explosion. They were awakened by Kryuger, who entrusted them with his personal semiautomatic pistol and tasked them with using the local terminal to mount a counterattack and establish a temporary command center while he went his own way with his revolver. Having organized the troops and dispersed the first assault wave, the Commander linked up with AR Team and Kryuger, who tasked them with organizing counterattacks while he and Helian would look into the leak that permitted Sangvis Ferri to find the secret base and stage the assault.

As the Commander was leading operations against Destroyer, G&K identified the origin of the leak to be AR-15, who escaped from quarantine, prompting G&K to issue a general order to intercept or destroy her. Having located Destroyer's command center but not shared the information with HQ yet, the Commander offered AR Team the opportunity to get on site before any other G&K troops so they might reach AR-15 themselves should she be there. However, artillery support from Dreamer led to Helian cancelling all operations in order to regroup, and the Commander guided AR Team back to HQ through artillery fire. AR Team was redeployed to search for AR-15 in the following days, alone due to heavy losses on G&K's side, and Helian approached the Commander with new orders: recovering the neural cloud backups left behind by AR-15. AR Team was assigned to the mission but not informed of the nature of the intel, though they quickly recognized it by themselves. This intel, along with the one recovered by Squad 404 in Sector 09, brought the last details about Plan Parapluie, making Kryuger worry about the Commander's willingness to destroy AR-15 if it proved necessary.

The Commander and their troops relocated to Sector 08 five days into the search to follow their leads, where they received the help of Squad ^MG NegevNegevNegev and ran into Alchemist. After capturing the area, M16 reported that M4 and SOPMOD had disappeared into a radar and transmissions jamming zone while pursuing AR-15. When the jamming (actually generated by the Parapluie virus carried by AR-15) moved back and revealed SOPMOD's IFF tag, the Commander deployed M16 and troops to recover her before receiving orders from Helian to urgently call of the search and leave Sector 08, where all local Sangvis Forces were converging. With M16 and SOPMOD assuring the Commander they could handle the search alone, the Commander dispatched troops to assist the retreat of Squad Negev, relying on the elite dolls to point the troops lost in the jamming back to G&K's command center and eliminating Sangvis forces trying to cut their escape routes. After Alchemist was killed by AR-15 and SOPMOD, local Sangvis forces temporarily lost their combat capabilities and the jamming moved further back, enabling the lost G&K dolls to regroup and exfiltrate, three hours after the retreat order.

Against Dreamer

After the retreat from Sector 08 and the loss of AR-15, all dolls suspected to be a Parapluie carrier were sent to a detention facility in Sector 05. The Commander submitted a transfer demand to G&K's HQ as to remain close to AR Team, which was granted by Kryuger, and the Commander's authority shifted from Sector 09 to Sector 05 five days after the battle, though they did not relocate physically. At Sector 05, far removed from the frontline, the Commander was tasked with usual security contractor work such as daily patrols, reports and assistance to HQ operations, a far cry from the previous active battles. Moreover, Helian explained that no contact could be established with AR Team while any doubt about a Parapluie infection had not been ruled out due to the dire consequences for G&K's reputation of losing Sector 08, though she accepted to pass audio records back and forth between the Commander and AR Team.

Three days later, the detention center was targeted by a Sangvis Ferri assault and Helian ordered the Commander to support the defenders inside the building by breaking the encirclement, providing a morale boost in the process. She also ordered not to break into the building due to the transmission jamming that appeared inside. As the logistics lines were stretched thin as the battle dragged on, Persica deployed the new elite doll ^SMG RO635RO635RO635, who tracked down the ringleader in command of the assault, Dreamer. Surprised that G&K had the ability to find her so quickly, Dreamer hailed the Commander on a public channel to announce she would soon deploy more troops and send one of her dummies to the field, intending to force the Commander to choose between supporting the dolls inside the building or diverting their troops to confront her dummy.

However, the Commander was able to dispatch RO635 alone in the building and focus on Dreamer's dummy thanks to RO635's command module and enhanced capacities against Sangvis Ferri tactics. When the dolls inside the detention center managed to retreat inside the local bunker, Dreamer could not help Elisa open it and Sangvis Ferri had to call off their assault. Helian gave the Commander special authorization to enter the building to assess the situation, where they met with RO635 in person for the first time. She asked the Commander to keep her involvement in the operation a secret from HQ and informed them that she would assume command of AR Team due to M4A1's catatonic state after her encounter with Elisa. A month later, the Commander assisted AR Team in their mission to eliminate Dreamer's dummy after she took residence in Sector 05, deploying their troops to thin out Sangvis Ferri and enabling AR Team and Squad Palette to focus on their target.

Arctic Warfare

Forty days after the successful operation against Dreamer's dummy, AR Team's aircraft was downed by a Jupiter canon and crashed in Sector 03. With help from HQ, Squad 404 and lost T-Dolls, AR Team managed to reach the border of the sector despite Sangvis Ferri troops and bad weather, only to be stopped by Architect and Gager. With their reinforcements being hours away, RO635, reflecting on how M4 would handle the fight, decided to put trust in the Commander and made last-minute change to her objectives to reach a communication center and call the Commander for help. The Commander managed to mobilize and deploy several squads quick enough to assist the stranded dolls, and ^SMG ThompsonThompsonThompson and ^RF WA2000WA2000WA2000 captured Architect, who revealed the military origins of the Jupiter cannons.

This information prompted G&K to deploy reinforcements as planned, Helian handing command over to the Commander to repel Agent's troops while G&K was dismantling and transporting a Jupiter to study it.