Preston Cole (Earth-4001)

Vice Admiral Preston Jeremiah Cole (service number 03956-26127-PC) was a human officer of the UNSC Navy who served during both the Insurrection and the Human-Covenant War. Cole is best known for being the commander of the majority of the UNSC Navy from 2525 until 2543 and for his role in creating the Cole Protocol, a central UNSC law responsible for defending Earth's location for decades. A military genius, he defeated the Covenant in every major battle he fought and his battle record was considered to be without equal, even more impressive than that of the Spartan-IIs.

Originally born on a small farm on Earth, Cole eventually enlisted in the UNSC Navy and quickly accelerated through the ranks after his graduation at the Luna OCS Academy. As the Insurrection began, Cole was hailed as a hero throughout human space by the Navy as he led numerous battles and campaigns against insurrectionist and pirate forces. However, after beginning a relationship with Lyrenne Castilla—a rebel leader, unbeknownst to Cole—he was relegated to a desk job for the rest of the war, where he eventually retired and faded into relative obscurity.

However, after the Human-Covenant War begun in 2525, the Office of Naval Intelligence elected to have Cole lead a battle group against the Covenant at Harvest, leading to Cole's victory at the Battle of Harvest. For the following decades, Cole led numerous campaigns against the Covenant with moderate success. In 2543, at the Battle of Psi Serpentis, Cole was presumably killed after he caused a gas giant to go nova to destroy a massive Covenant fleet. Nonetheless, some UNSC officers believe that Cole survived the battle and choose to privately retire away from the UNSC.

History
The history of Preston Cole is the same as his mainstream counterpart.

Personality
Preston Cole was instinctive and a tactically brilliant officer of the UNSC Navy. Highly regarded as a strong, heroic, and legendary commander, Cole's tactics were commonly replicated and employed throughout the Navy. During his career at the time of the Insurrection, Cole believed that his success in combating insurrectionist forces was attributed to luck rather than skill, and questioned whether his rapid promotions through the Navy's ranks was warranted or not. Cole correctly assumed that the Navy was using the atrocities committed by insurgent forces to increase public reception of the UNSC's quelling of the rebellion, while hailing Cole as a hero. During the Human-Covenant War, Cole was again highly regarded by both the military and civilians. Cole was favored by his superiors, as he had the willingness to sacrifice himself and any number of subordinates and ships if the sacrifice brought greater victory, an action that many other naval officers were reluctant to do. UNSC Central Command continued to provide Cole with ships and crews to combat the Covenant, despite the large amount of losses Cole accumulated over time. However, Cole himself was unwilling to stop and was dedicated to win, despite the cost of lives, ships, or effect on his sanity. He believed that it was his responsibility to succeed and, if he failed, the Covenant would destroy billions of lives and hundreds of worlds. Regardless, Cole's sanity predictably suffered, partly caused by stress originating from the large amount of faith the Navy put in Cole to defend human space. It was later presumed that, if Cole had indeed faked his death at the Battle of Psi Serpentis, Cole would seek to leave in isolation from the UNSC to relieve himself from decades of non-stop fighting and stress.

Even as a child, Cole was highly intelligent, though had little means to express him creativity when he was young. Wishing to see the colonies and explore space, enlisting in the UNSC Navy was Cole's only option to pursue this desire due to his family's limited finances. As a child, Cole was described as precocious and obedient to his parents. He had an unwavering stare that unnerved both his classmates and teachers. Cole was a child who often overanalyzed situations and needed to cultivate his imagination. He rarely seemed to have fun at his school, seeing everything as a task that needed to be completed. Cole often fell asleep in class, the result of having a large amount of chores at his home. However, Cole's family instilled a no-nonsense work ethic and discipline in Cole that made him seem rather anachronistic in comparison to the rest of the population, who were enjoying the benefits of their "golden age" and had a noteworthy sense of entitlement.

Cole was noble and had a sense of chivalry. While stoic and utterly stubborn, Cole refused to abandon or provide incriminating information on the women in his life, even when he faced a court-martial or even capital punishment. On August 3, 2530, after learning of an incident in which Sergeant John Forge assaulted Lieutenant Prosser after the officer had attacked Forge's daughter in a bar, Cole personally ensured that the resulting investigation was fair. After Prosser ultimately received a court-martial, Cole had Forge transferred to UNSC Spirit of Fire to keep the incident quiet. After his retirement from naval service, Cole became regarded as a "fallen hero" that turned into a womanizer who drank too much, particularly enjoying Finnish black vodka. Despite this, Cole continued to read books on military histories, naval battles, biographies of military commanders, and theoretical mathematical monographs on slipstream space. After learning of the Covenant threat, Cole was quick to return to service with the Navy.

Personal Life & Relationships
Though Cole married Inna Volkov for unknown reasons despite not being the father of her first child, he came to love her, her child, and the three other children that the couple had over the following years. However, Volkov filed for a divorce in March of 2500. Cole wrote her, accepting responsibility for the failure of their marriage, stating that she never wanted a long-distance military marriage, and though he would always love her, he could not ignore his duty to humanity by attempting to prevent a full-blown civil war. Cole was devastated by the divorce and attempted to maintain contact with his children, though he never received a response and assumed that Volkov was burning his letters. Several years later, Cole began a relationship with Lyrenne Castilla, a bar owner he met on the backwater colony of Roost. However, after marrying her, Cole discovered that Castilla was an insurrectionist leader and the captain of Bellicose—the rebel frigate that he had pursued for years. Cole was heavily affected on a personal level; after losing the first woman he loved and suffering, he found another chance at love only to discover that she was an insurgent. ONI operatives later believed that—following the reemergence of Bellicose during the Covenant War—Cole had faked his death at Psi Serpentis to reunite with Castilla and spend the rest of their lives together in isolation.

Cole maintained a close relationship with his brother, Michael Cole. During his service in the Navy at the time of the Insurrection, Cole often wrote to his brother, detailing his exploits that occurred throughout his early naval career and often confiding in him. After initiating a romantic relationship with Castilla, Cole continued to provide Michael with details on their relationship and later provided him with photos and videos of their wedding. Cole also had a close friendship with Michael Stanforth, a fellow naval officer. After Stanforth discovered that Castilla was an insurgent, he broke regulation to warn Cole before ONI arrived to interrogate him. Throughout the incident, Stanforth provided Cole with support and pressured ONI into giving him a fair investigation process.