Stefan Schneider

Stefan Schneider was one of the illegal salvagers known as Magpies who, in the wake of the Aegis VII disaster, boarded the derelict USG Ishimura and pieced together the truth of the Marker that had destroyed it. Hunted at once by the reawakened Necromorphs, by EarthGov, and by the agents called the Oracles, he was the only member of the salvage crew to leave the ghost ship alive.

Magpie career#

Schneider made his living among the Magpies, the illegal salvagers who scavenged wrecks and worked sites beyond the reach of the law. He eventually found work aboard the Hunter's Moon, where he served as second-in-command to Captain Jessica Li. In late 2508 or early 2509 the Hunter's Moon traveled into the restricted Aegis System alongside three other Magpie ships and began mining operations there.

The Aegis System#

As soon as the Magpies shocked into the system they set about collecting their illegal spoils. Schneider clashed with the captain of the Black Beak, Benedykt Malyech, an active Unitologist, an early sign to him that both EarthGov and the Concordance Extraction Corporation harbored Unitologists in their ranks and could not be trusted. While the salvagers worked, Schneider noticed interference coming from the ShockRing they had used to enter the system. Without warning a ship shocked in on the Magpies' position and destroyed the Liberte in the process. Schneider identified the new arrival as the USG Ishimura.

Boarding the ghost ship#

The Magpies boarded the Ishimura intending to claim it as salvage and found it filled with a sludge that matched human DNA. Schneider suggested that activating their ShockRing might have killed the Ishimura's crew through a malfunction. The salvagers split up, with Schneider and Li exploring the Medical Deck and finding the remnants of the slaughter that had taken place there. Regrouping on the bridge, they debated what to do with the wreck. Schneider correctly surmised that the EarthGov blockade of the system had been searching for the Ishimura, though he could not yet confirm it, and he found that all the ship's records were locked.

When Malyech produced shards of the Red Marker recovered from the Ishimura's hull, Li proposed ransoming them to the Church of Unitology, and Malyech assaulted her, after which he was confined to the brig. Schneider managed to recover partial logs revealing that the crew had pulled an intact Marker up from the planet's surface. As he puzzled over why fragments of the Marker were embedded in the hull, a fellow Magpie named Venschiff attacked him, and Schneider killed the man with a shard of the Marker. More information was then extracted, and Schneider learned of the Marker-induced madness that had consumed the colony and the ship, and that the same madness was driving the behavior of Malyech and Venschiff. He passed this on to Li, after which he lost contact with her.

Survival aboard the Ishimura#

Unknown to Schneider, the Marker fragments had begun reanimating the dead crew of the Ishimura. As he and the other Magpies stood on the bridge, it was swarmed by the risen Necromorphs. Two of the salvagers were killed at once, and the rest fought back desperately until all but Schneider were overwhelmed. He was then hailed by EarthGov soldiers who had come aboard. Schneider faked his location, telling them he was in the Cargo Bay with the intact Marker and offering to trade it for the salvage rights to the ship. The ruse drew the marines into the Cargo Bay, away from his true position on the bridge, and he was pleased to hear gunshots echo through the ship as the Necromorphs fell on them.

Fighting through the creatures, Schneider saw the Ishimura's quarantine protocols engage again, and he spotted the two Oracles who had boarded in a stealth ship, realizing they had come for him. He pulled on an EVA suit and walked along the hull back toward the docking bay, only to be confronted by both Necromorphs and the Oracles. As the agents closed in, they were attacked by a Hive Mind, and while they fought it off Schneider slipped back inside toward the docked ship.

Escape#

Cornered once more by the two Oracles, Schneider threatened to remote-pilot the Magpies' ShockRing into the Ishimura's engine bay if they did not back off. They took him for a bluff until he declared that he had lost everything in the venture and had nothing left to lose. He had deduced by then that the Marker not only drove people mad but reanimated the dead. The counter he was holding went off, exposing his bluff, and out of time and options he leaped through an airlock door as the Necromorphs swarmed the Oracles and killed them. Reaching the docking bay, he found the creatures crawling over his own ship and took the dead Oracles' stealth craft instead. He contacted the EarthGov blockade and gave them the location of the Ishimura, then activated the stealth ship's ShockPoint Drive and escaped the Aegis System, leaving the blockade and the doomed ship behind.