Havier Witkin

"This is classified information!"

This article contains unmarked spoilers. You have been warned.

Havier Witkin

Quotes

Information
Full name	Havier Witkin
Affiliation	IOP
Voice actor	Wakamoto Norio
Artist	Unknown
Released on	CN, TW, KR, EN, JP

Havier Witkin (维特金・哈维尓) is a former member of the KCCO and Chief Robotics Project Supervisor for LBT General Manufacturing, and the current chief executive officer and founder of Important Operation Prototype Manufacturing Company (IOP). Despite his act as a half witted old man with a poor sense of humor, he is actually a cunning politician and worked on all generations of Tactical Dolls since the earliest prototypes, making him an important actor in developing the modern generation of combat androids.

Background

Witkin was an army technician in the KCCO in 2032. He was notably involved in countering a terrorist attack on the relics site OKb-413, disarming the explosives while the terrorist were neutralized by the teams of Carter. This meant he was aware of the existence and meaning of OGAS. He later left the army and joined LBT General Manufacturing, where he led the team that created the first Skeletal-Frame Robot adapted for assembly-line production, with a revolutionary list of specifications that required two years of tremendous work to produce the final prototype.

Witkin later worked on the advanced but ultimately unmarketable ALR-51C, shifting its attention to the popular ALR-50E2. 15 months later, now Chief Robotics Project Supervisor, Witkin took a liking to young engineer Mihacj from Westchester United Electronics Manufacturing Company at a mixer and pulled the necessary string to sell the ALR-51C's blueprints and most of its databases to Westchester at low price, enabling Mihacj to develop the TD-01. Following the TD-01's success on the market, Mihacj's next idea was to replace its operating system by a dedicated AI, and joint development began with LBT and Witkin. The quick progress in the field of dolls pushed the Pan-European Alliance to ask Westchester and Scheppel Advanced Technology Company to collaborate on creating a completely combat-capable Tactical Doll system in order to replace human soldiers. Westchester and Scheppel both invested capital in forming a new company dedicated to military combat doll applications, called Important Operations Prototype Manufacturing Company, or IOP, of which Witkin would be the president.

It took three years from planning to official founding to create IOP. During this time, Witkin sensed the dolls market could go beyond military organizations and spent time finding partners to solve the incoming technical challenges of advanced doll systems and rise interest in the civilian and security markets. Witkin registered three wholly-owned subsidiaries in the US, Ukraine and China to find local partners. The Ukraine branch entered a partnership with the rapidly growing Sangvis Ferri Manufacturing, who were more interested in toughness of the ALR-52P than the advanced technologies of the CSD-03H (to Witkin's chagrin) and invested large amounts of money in IOP while also offering to provide AI researchers.

The start of World War Three in 2045 forced Witkin to accelerate his plans to begin taking the fast-coming military contracts, and IOP was founded in 2046. Sangvis Ferri became an important partner as production demand became higher and higher, but their modified ALR-52P Jaegers became more popular than IOP's clumsy CSD series. IOP lost contracts to SF, which enraged Witkin and the two companies' relations soured. Witkin nevertheless pushed for versatile Tactical Dolls and worked to improve the AI and reliability of the CSD series, but didn't get satisfying results, demoralizing IOP's teams. In 2049, Witkin discovered through Mihacj the underground research group 90wish and was impressed by their technological capacities and development drive, but the group seemed completely inaccessible. Witkin learned from contacts in the Russian Internal Internet Security Bureau and Ministry of Internal Affairs that 90wish was in an internal debacle and that two former IA scientists 90wish members were threatened by their former comrades: Persicaria and Lycoris. Witkin hired a PMC to escort them to IOP's buildings, which succeeded though he PMC soldiers suffered casualties. The Ministry of Internal Affairs was also involved in the mission to secure Persicaria in the person of Berezovich Kryuger. Both scientists agreed to work for IOP under false identities as members of a shell company called Hermit, contracting with IOP. Hermit's work enabled several breakthrough in the CSD series' development, leading to the CSD-08A and CSD-08B models, the experimental IAD series and the ACD series, regaining the favors of military clients for their reliability, resilience and capacity to be used both in frontlines and as manual laborers.

With the boom of the civilian industry after the war and the constant improvement to military and Service Dolls by Persicaria with the help of one of IOP's biggest client, Kryuger's PMC Griffin and Kryuger, IOP grew fast. However, Witkin refused to add funds to Lycoris' autonomous AI research, prompting him to join Sangvis Ferri who hired G&K to escort Lycoris from Hermit to their underground research facility to avoid any retribution from Witkin. Witkin would learn about Lycoris' defection later on, but would be prevented to seek revenge by G&K and SF's strategic weight, and he resolved to keep IOP competitive by increasing Persicaria's funding, leading to the creation of 16Lab. After Sangvis Ferri stopped existing as a weapons manufacturer after the Butterfly Incident of 2062, Witkin's IOP basically controlled the dolls market.

Character Info

Witkin appears to be of a similar age as Kryuger and Carter, he has difficulty walking without his walking stick, as his right leg was wounded possibly during his time in the KCCO. Kryuger and Witkin have known each other for some time and Kryuger believes that even though he does not look reliable, he never speak untruthfully. His multiple connections gave him access even to dangerous ordnance like Collapse bombs. He described himself as a patriot once but it might be just an excuse for him to oppose the KCCO.

Story Involvement

Witkin showed uninvited to the banquet organized by the KCCO and Griffin and Kryuger to announce their collaboration in destroying Sangvis Ferri and left several unsolicited and irritating comments before he was driven out by Carter. He left a mysterious warning to Kryuger and the Commander that the operation wasn't about destroying SF.

As the KCCO turned against G&K during the operation, Witkin was confronted by Persica about his involvement with OGAS in order to find the truth behind Lyco's death during the Butterfly Incident. Witkin was unwilling to help Persica dig deeper into the matter as to not endanger her and the profits she generated, but he gave in and explained the operation at OKb-413 and the true goal of Carter and the KCCO. He then had five Collapse Fluid canisters airdropped at Angelia's location on the frontlines to help her repel the KCCO forces and prevent them from capturing Elisa and OGAS, warning her that she would be branded a traitor or worse for using them.

After the battle ended, Witkin visited the new G&K headquarters setup by the Bureau of State Security to announce that I.O.P. would officially remain their sponsor even after Kryuger's political arrestation and provides work contracts for the company.

Gallery

• 

  Artwork of Witkin.