Clement Starke

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""Madness is the medicine of the modern world. Take it in moderation, or it will have consequences.""

- -Clement to Tony during a therapy session shortly before his death.



DESCRIPTION

Background
Clement Starke was born in Altrincham, Manchester, into a wealthy crime family. During his childhood, he grew up disliking the lifestyle his parents lead and showed no interest in following them into a life of crime. He was found to be intellectually brilliant at a young age and excelled academically. Clement told his parents he had no desire to follow a life of crime and would rather life a normal life; outraged, his father sent him to boarding school, Gordonstoun School, Scotland. After graduating from Gordonstoun, aged 18, Clement applied to study Medicine at the University of Oxford. He graduated summa cum laude in 4 years, much faster than the usual time taken to complete Medical school. Clement was offered a place at the University Hospital of Zurich, Switzerland to complete his post-graduate medical residency, he was offered this due to his remarkable academic performance and his ability to speak German, French and Italian. He became a fully licensed Surgeon and Psychiatrist in 2001, after 4 years of residency.

After completing his training, Clement set up his own private Psychiatry consultancy office in Central Manchester, his first time returning to the city in 12 years. In this time, his parents were willing to forgive him and understand his wish to not follow a life of crime; their change in attitude was only due to Clara, Anne and Tony's willingness to take up the family business now they were old enough to decide. Clement stayed close to his family after reconciling during his 10 years back in Manchester, in which time he had become a very well known psychiatrist with many high profile patients, including politicians, footballers, business people and organised criminals. Clement received many invitations to join the British higher society from his patients, but always refused, leading him to be seen as a figure of mystery as he was never seen outside of his office.

In 2011, Clement was targeted in an assassination attempt from a rival of the Starke family, he was viewed as an easy target due to not being an active member of their crime business. He was confronted in his office by a man posing as a new client who then attempted to strangle Clement while his back was turned, he managed to break the hold and overpower his attacker; after a long melee, Clement killed his attacker in self defence by stabbing him in the heart with an antique dagger that was on display in his office. He did not call the police since this was a criminal matter and would jeopardise his family, instead he contacted Tony and they disposed of the body. Clement decided to flee the UK after this, he moved to France, changed his name to Dr Clement Moreau and took a surgery position at the Rothschild Hospital, Paris; where he remained for 5 years.

In 2016, after no communication with his family for 5 years, he returned to his Parisian appartement to find his brother sat at the head of his dining table in the dark, after having broken in. Tony had tracked Clement down to offer him a place in Syndicate Affluence as the organisation's doctor; while not being required to take part in any criminal activity; other than unofficial medical practicing. Clement considered this as he was frustrated by the lack of promotion or advancement in his current job. He accepted the proposal and also offered his expertise in setting up a drug manufacturing business, a market Tony mentioned the LSSA were looking to expand into.

For 2 years, Clement worked in the shadows, performing surgeries on the injured members of LSSA, providing psychiatric help for those who needed it and overseeing the day to day operation of the Weed, Cocaine and Meth laboratories. In 2018, Tony was killed by The Lost, three years after Clara and Anne were also killed, this left Clement as the only surviving sibling, this drove him to severe depression and made him break his morals. This also drove Lucifer into depression ultimately leading to his departure from Los Santos. Clement stayed however, and decided to take the role of the de facto Chairman of the company to ensure its survival, he had embraced the life of crime, and began to hunt out those responsible for the murders of all his siblings.

By 2020, Clement discovered that the deaths of Clara and Anne were planned by a crew known as The Professionals, he began to hunt an execute those involved. Due to the location most of these people lived, Clement was nicknamed the "The Butcher of Vinewood" by the media. He was never caught for these murders as he successfully removed any evidence the police would need. He currently still pursues the exact members of The Lost responsible for Tony's death; but kills any member of The Lost he can.

Lucifer returned to Los Santos in mid 2020, at which point Clement stepped down and let him return to the role of Chairman. Due to Clement's work over his 2 year absence, Lucifer gave him the permanent rank of Commissioner, filling the role his brother occupied before his death.-*

In July of 2021, shortly after the opening of the Auto Shop businesses, Lucifer sent Clement to Vice City for three weeks to scout and gather intel on whether expansion into the city would be possible in the near future. He grew out his hair and beard beforehand to help with his disguise and performed minor plastic surgery on himself to hide his more distinctive features. During this time he didn't interact with any of the local crime families or organisations but observed them distantly and scouted properties Syndicate Affluence could purchase if they were to expand into Vice City, this included a list of apartment buildings, houses, small local businesses, etc. Lucifer believes the best way to expand into a new city is to do it slowly rather than going in big straight away, much like the building process in Los Santos since 2013. Before returning to Los Santos from Vice City, Clement travelled back to Europe to take care of some family business in the United Kingdom and to begin renting out his apartment in Paris, it had been empty for five years and was beginning to look suspicious. In total, Clement was away for one month and a day, the longest he'd been away since joining LSSA. During this time, he appointed his protégé, Ivy, to do the dirty work on his behalf.

After Hours
After Lucifer's departure, Clement began to research new ways to earn money for the organisation. He preferred a money source that required minimal violence, this lead him to purchasing an old nightclub with an eye to renovate it; he promptly contacted Tony Prince, who had recently moved to Los Santos and offered him a cut of the revenue in exchange for his help to set up and run the club. The club was named The Palace, it was highly successful, meaning Clement did not need to worry about money and had more time to continue hunting those responsible for the death of his siblings.

Arena War
Clement purchased an Arena War workshop mostly to add to the LSSA arsenal. He has not appeared on the Arena War show, instead he rents the facilities out to people who do want to appear on Arena War.

The Diamond Casino & Resort
Following the redevelopment of the Diamond Casino in July of 2019, Clement purchased a luxury penthouse suite to add the the LSSA's property portfolio. The penthouse is used to display a handful of pieces of artwork from Clement's personal collection. Clement worked with the former owner of the Diamond Casino, Tao Cheng to try and resist a takeover from the Duggan Family; they were unsuccessful in retaining ownership, leading Clement to form a plan to continually steal from the famously "unbreachable" Casino vault.

The Diamond Casino Heists
In December 2019, after a few months of planning, Clement was contacted by Georgina Cheng along with Lester Crest in order to begin setting up the Diamond Casino Heists. Arcades were purchased as the front for the preparation area, further adding to LSSA's network of legitimate businesses. Since 2019 and Lucifer's return, the Casino has been successfully hit an unprecedented amount.

The Cayo Perico Heist
In December of 2020, The Diamond Casino was further renovated to accommodate a new underground Nightclub called the Music Locker. Ruling members of LSSA were contacted by Miguel Madrazo who requested a meeting at the newly opened club; during the meeting, Miguel requested that LSSA carry out a heist of the notorious narcotics smuggled Juan Strickler "El Rubio". This heist involved retrieving sensitive documents that could be used to blackmail the Madrazo family and stealing valuables from Strickler simultaneously for LSSA's profit. Lucifer and Clement reluctantly agreed to work with the Madrazo Family and promptly began searching for a base of operations, leading to the purchase of the Kosatka, a Cold War era Russian Nuclear Submarine. LSSA took ownership of the submarine and recruited Helmsman Pavel for the running of the sub. The Kosatka was upgraded and refitted for LSSA's purposes and painted in the organisation's black and red colours and adorned with a Union Flag. Lucifer is a particular fan of the submarine as he keeps on saying "It'll be the safest place to be in 2077!" though nobody is quite sure what he means by that.

The LSSA had been looking to make a move against El Rubio for quite some time, as he is their main competitor to LSSA's own drug manufacturing empire. Being contacted by Miguel Madrazo was the push needed to finally plan an assault on Cayo Perico. The island has been hit a number of times, with many valuables, collectibles and drugs taken in that time.

Los Santos Tuners
In July of 2021, Lucifer and Clement had been discussing expanding into another franchise of legitimate businesses, they settled on purchasing a network of Auto Shops around Los Santos. Auto Shops were chosen for two reasons one was due to hearing about the soon-to-open LS Car Meet and would provide a large amount of business, and secondly, they served as a homage to Tony Starke, who often spoke of opening his own garage after he retired. After purchasing the network of five Auto Shops and attending the LS Car Meet, LSSA were put into business with the talkative twosome, KDJ and Sessanta who wanted to organise a series of smaller scale heists. These heists were took far less planning than most of the previous jobs but also offered less pay. LSSA bought a fleet of newly imported Annis Remus' and highly modified them with armour, enhanced performance and an all black paint job with red lighting, to maintain a somewhat low profile.

Personality
Clement is co-ordinated, sophisticated, cultured, eloquent, charming, and a genius-level academic. He is perceptive, dry-witted, loyal and very emotionally stable but conversely egotistical and prone to bursts of extreme violence and brutality. He has a taste for luxury cars, fine cuisine, art, fashion and classical music. Clement is also interested in history, literature and linguistics, being able to speak a wide variety of languages fluently. Clement is mostly egotistical of his academic prowess, as Lucifer once joked about Dr. Maxim Rashkovsky being smarter than Clement because he has more PhDs to which Clement joked "If you ever gave us any time off I'd have 5 PhD's by now!"

Relationships
Clement shares a close friendship with high ranking members of the Syndicate Affluence. He maintains a strong friendship and understanding with Lucifer, both professionally and recreationally as they share an appreciation for fine wine and literature; it is known that Clement and Lucifer have a weekly routine of buying an expensive bottle of wine and drinking it together while discussing literature, jokingly referred to as the "LSSA Book Club" by other members. He also shares a close friendship with the Head Mechanic, Ste Corby, often talking about cars together, restoring classic vehicles and modifying vehicles for the crew together.

Appearance
Clement has black, short hair that's beginning to go grey, he is usually clean shaven. He is well groomed and stylish, usually wearing nothing but tailored suits. He is tall and lean and has no tattoos.

Skills and Attributes
Clement was trained in high speed driving by Tony and trained to shoot by Lucifer. He is a highly skilled unarmed and melee fighter, having competed in many boxing and fencing tournaments at Oxford. Clement is able to speak English, French, German, Dutch, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Portuguese and Russian fluently, Clement's Polyglotism means that he is frequently used by Lucifer during meetings and business negotiations with non-English speaking businesses and families.

Trivia

 * Clement is a cultured polymath and has a detailed knowledge on many subjects including Science, Art, Literature, Linguistics, Philosophy, Engineering and Culinary Art.
 * Clement studied Medicine at the University of Oxford, graduating summa cum laude and completed his studies a year earlier than others in his class due to being placed in an accelerated programme allowing him to continue studying though the summer months.
 * Alongside his Medical degree, Clement also holds a research PhD in Organic Chemistry and two Master's Degrees in History and Fine Arts.