(1854 - 1887)
Edward "Ned" Kelly, known later in life as the "King of Bushrangers", was born on December 1854 in the countryside north of Melbourne, an area which saw much British colonisation due to the presence of gold. His family was Irish, an ethnicity which remains discriminated against in Britain. In his childhood he learned of the Australian bush and its dangers, but also how to survive in it. After saving a friend's life, he was given a green sash by their family, which became his identifying visual motif until death. Being raised after the Eureka Rebellion (which happened relatively nearby) meant that the British rule of law was brutal on Ned's family. After his father was found butchering a neighbour's eta, he was executed by firing squad. Most of his family was persecuted by colonial police on suspicion of having aided him.
At the age of 14, Ned turned to being a bushranger alongside Harry Power, who taught him much about leadership and fighting. The pair committed a number of robberies and eventually murdered the neighbour who'd brought so much despair on the Kelly's. Body parts from Ned's arrested family members began to appear in the vicinity of his operations, as a message from colonial authorities to turn himself in. The final straw came when Annie Kelly's head, his sister's, was found on a stake. An enraged Ned murdered three police officers and escaped, presumed dead by authorities, while Powers was arrested and shortly executed. Seeing no point in continuing their terror tactics, the police released Kelly's family, who continued working in their estate. Edward Kelly assumed a number of nicknames and continued his life of bushranging.
Nine years later Ned's name returns to the public's attention, as Commissary Fitzpatrick claimed being shot by him while searching the Kelly's farm. In reality, looking for one of his brothers who was suspected of stealing horses, he was beaten to an inch of his life after threatening Ned's mother with a pistol, but was released alive. Colonial authorities wished to proceed with an actual investigation, but Fitzpatrick and two other policemen came and set fire to their home during the night, blaming this incident on a regular bushfire. They managed to have a few of Ned's siblings and his mother imprisoned for assaulting a police officer, being sent to the Empire's far-flung colonial outposts across Australia to perform forced labour.
Shortly after the trial, police received a tip on Ned's new area of operations. Indeed, several robberies had taken place nearby, and a man with a green sash had been involved. Twelve mounted policemen were sent to ambush them, but they were murdered by Kelly and his small following of bushrangers. The only survivor, Constable McIntyre, walked almost 40 miles on foot throughout the Oceanykan bush while completely disarmed, but lived to tell the story. Reports of Ned's exploits reached colonial newspapers, but were quickly suppressed for fear of stirring up rebellious sentiments against the Crown. The story of Ned Kelly spread mainly by word of mouth, mythologising his character as a "Robin Hood"-esque figure. Colonial authorities soon set upon Kelly's gang a head bounty, beginning a continental manhunt.
Near the town of Euroa, Kelly's gang raided a bank on the outskirts with no civilian casualties. His gang's cordiality with the locals, despite robbing them at gunpoint, further increased Ned's public opinion. Shortly after, the town of Jerilderie suffered from a similar incident in which the local bank was robbed, though the situation was vastly different; this bank was mainly used by local squatters, shepherding landowners who had seized vast tracts of land by force following the Continental Collapse. Ned's gang drank with the locals and shared much of their newfound wealth. It is here that Ned's Jerilderie Letter is left to a bank accountant, who then sent it to a famous Victorian newspaper. The letter exposed a number of injustices by the colonial government and cheered on Oceanykan unity against British imperialism, regardless of race or place of origin. Censorship was quick to follow, but not wholly effective at preventing the spread of these ideas.
A few years later, a friend of the gang named Aaron Sherritt betrayed their whereabouts to the police, for which the Kelly gang had him shot. Police forces arrived with lightning speed, resulting in a firefight which ended in a draw. The survivors relayed these events to Melbourne, which sent an entire company of colonial militiamen to end Ned Kelly. The gang seized the town of Glenrowan for a last stand, aware that they were being surrounded on all sides, but something unexpected happened. Instead of surrendering their arms, the locals joined Kelly, inspired by the men and women who had defended Eureka many years prior. Eighteen armed citizens and Ned's gang of four fortified a local hotel and passed the time drinking or playing games while waiting for the battle.
Kelly's gang was well-armed and possessed crude suits of steel made from ploughs, which a Ferozen tribe had forged for them. On the second day's morning, their makeshift fortress came under assault. Colonial authorities had the entire place surrounded. Over an hour of fighting, most of the town's militiamen lay dead. The gang, due to their armour and combat experience, survived for longer. Colonial forces were reportedly astonished by the seeming invulnerability of Ned Kelly's men to gunfire, even questioning whether they were human. The government lost around 52 men, a crippling pyrrhic victory. Ned's suit had successfully stopped any mortal wounds, but his unprotected limbs were mangled and oozing blood. He jumped out of a window and rolled down into a pool of mud, not being seen for around ten minutes. The rest of his gang was also in a similar state and were swiftly finished off at point-blank by Victorian militiamen.
According to Private Forger, who first found him, both his pooling blood and veins were tinted a hue of bright blue. The scared militiaman ran and reported to his commanding officer. By the time an entire squad of infantrymen came back to investigate, they found nothing. It was then that Ned jumped out of a bush, as if he wasn't wearing 50 kilograms of armour, and killed his attackers with two revolvers, missing not a single shot. Private Forger managed to escape, telling the tale of the invincible bushranger. Remaining colonial forces retreated, as did Ned. The authorities once more believed him dead due to his grievous injuries.
After this event he moved into the Outback, where British colonial authorities would seldom find him. He found refuge within a nomadic tribe from whom he learned much of Aboriginal language and culture. In 1883, four years after his escape, he enlisted a few willing men and rode east towards the Great Dividing Range, where he found brigands from all walks of life. All of them had heard the legend of Edward "Ned" Kelly, and eagerly joined him. Only five months after leaving the Outback, Ned had amassed over 200 men and controlled a sizeable portion of land. During this time he learned that his Jerilderie Letter and later massacre near Glenrowan has stirred revolutionary sentiments in Victoria and New South Wales, making him renowned as the "King of the Bushrangers". Seeing opportunity, Ned gathered more than 2000 men from Queensland and began a campaign of terror against the British.
News of his resurgence spread like bushfire, as did calls of rebellion. A number of defeats were dealt to colonial forces, largely thanks to Ned's voracious reading of strategy and tactics while hiding in the Outback. His approach to command was very pragmatic, and his most trusted lieutenants were also capable leaders. Ned's men were motivated by speeches of Oceanykan unity, inspired by the splendour of past civilisations, the revolutionaries of Eureka, and Ned's own seemingly supernatural struggle against the British. Soon enough whispers spread throughout the world of a "brigand bannerlord". His army's battle standard was none other than the Southern Cross, similar to that of the Eureka Rebellion, and its soldiers wore the green sash as a symbol of selflessness and national unity. This episode in Oceanykan history is known as Ned's Rebellion.
Brandishing a better built, more ergonomic copy of his iconic armour (though made of Mithril), he rode south towards Sydney with over 30,000 men. It was the spring of 1887 when Ned Kelly was killed in a cavalry charge, gunned down by the New South Wales Corps' artillery, an event known as the Battle of Gosford.