Profile
The Birdcage
AGENT BRIEF
Baek Taejun was an extremely capable investigator and intelligence operative. Though he came from a poor background, he was able to land a placement in the Korean National Intelligence Service. He was known as a relentless, ruthless, and detailed investigator, earning him the monikor of "Inner Seoul's Gwijae". Eventually he was transferred to International Affairs and was sent to France to investigate a suspected international crime ring.
While overseas at France he became affliated with Interpol. During his long assignment in France, he met future Mockingbird researcher Maria Guiffre. They eventually formed a romantic relationship and became married. He never stopped searching for his younger brother, Baek Jaehyun, an AWOL KSWC soldier, but did not manage to reconcile with him.
Working with Interpol, his investigation into Birdcage agent █████ led to him uncovering the existence of the Birdcage and its reach. This discovery and his continuing investigation into the Birdcage made him a threat to the organisation, and upon his return to Korea, he was terminated on Council orders by agent Pigeon and her team.
Taejun was highly rated in his HUMINT score by both the KNIS and Interpol. Taejun was a very physically attractive man, and he was extremely talented at projecting a likeable personality that made others want to endear themselves to him. He spoke softly and intelligently in certain situations, but was also capable of being commanding and fearsome. Taejun's talent for conversation meant he dominated any interaction he had with others, usually without the other even knowing. He was able to assess others quickly and charismatically played the role that would best endear him to others.
He was so likeable that even his peers were often suspicious about whether or not they were playing into his mind games.
Taejun was an excellent tracker and codebreaker, well trained by the KNIS. He was well known for his ability to find people using any combination of cell signals, hacking CCTV feeds, and internet tracing.
Taejun navigated cyberspace well and used KNIS assistive technologies to help him access encrpyted databses. Though he himself was not much of a programmer, he understood encryption methology well enough to work with KNIS tech developers to create assistive technologies for investigative agents.
No proficiency to evaluate.
Agent Kogarashi reported that Taejun seemed to have uncommonly keen perception and reflexes. He claimed that in one encounter, Taejun had detected and was able to avoid a sniper shot while the bullet was still midair. No data has ever been found to support Kogarashi's claims.
Baek Taejun was the firstborn son of Baek Seung, drunkard who gambled away any money he could make. He had a very hard upbringing in dire poverty, worsened by the physical abuse he and his mothersuffered at the hands of his father.
When he was seven years of age, his mother gave birth to his younger brother, Baek Jaehyun. Taejun, who at this time was having difficulties socially at school and outside of school due to his family's reputation, initially struggled with accepting his younger brother, seeing him as yet another burden in his life.
However, there was a turning point of Taejun when he realized that he had to take care of his younger brother because his parents were mentally and physically incapable of doing so. Taejun threw himself into his studies and became a model student who gradually won over his peers and his teachers due to his academic success despite a turbulent home life.
Being so rewarded for "overcoming his roots" developed Taejun's lifelong need for validation and acclamation and he continued to distinguish himself in his academic studies, earning himself scholarships to respectable schools even while working part time jobs to support his impoverished family.
As he himself became more accomplished, he began to loathe and shun his parents even further. Despite his parents taking the vast majority of the money he made in his part time jobs, Taejun managed to hide a portion of it for himself to prepare for the university. When the time came, he was able to get nearly a full scholarship to a Foreign Studies degree at Busan University, and Taejun left his family, cutting ties with all but his younger brother.
At university, he became paranoid that a bad reputation would stumble his networking at university and affect his future career, so he fabricated lies about his family and background to make it appear that he had come from a reputable, well connected family. Though he initially kept in contact with his brother during this time, for reasons unknown, Taejun soon cut off contact with even Jaehyun. His family did not hear from him for the next few years and had no way of finding where he was.
Taejun excelled at school, and with the help of his fabricated past, developed an excellent reputation at school that dinstinguished him as a leader amongst his classmates. He graduated with top honors and immediately fulfilled his required military service.
Not long after, he landed a placement with the Korean National Intelligence Service, and returned to Seoul, unknownst to his family.
Taejun continued to work hard in his career, and was determined to make something of himself. Though his methods were at times questionable, a quickly feared reputation in the streets and his effectiveness in his investigations distinguished him despite his lack of connections and experience.
Early in his NIS career he reconnected with Jaehyun. Though Jaehyun struggled with staying on the right side of the law, Taejun used what influence he could to keep Jaehyun's record clean despite Jaehyun's connection to several illegal organisations.
Taejun had only recently begun a prestigious new post overseas in France when Jaehyun defected from the ROK-SWC. Jaehyun's defection along with his theft of classified information caused Taejun himself to become investigated for a long time, but the NIS were ultimately unable to find any connection between Taejun and Jaehyun's treason.
Despite this, Taejun was barred from trying to find or contact his brother using governmental resources for many years. Despite being told not to try to find Jaehyun, he continued to try to do so on his own. He struggled with this for many years. As the NIS was now monitoring him carefully, Taejun was forced to focus on producing results from his investigations.
During his time in France, he developed a romantic relationship with future Mockingbird researcher Maria Guiffre. After he proposed to Maria, Taejun became once again obsessed with the idea of finding his brother.
By now he had restored his reputation enough to be allowed access to the investigation for Jaehyun's whereabouts. Though the trail had long gone cold, Taejun was able to find one civilian that Jaehyun had possibly made contact with, Kang Sayeon. Though Jaehyun was extremely careful with covering his trail, his relationship with Sayeon was only just beginning and he was caught off guard by Taejun tracking down Sayeon. Taejun intercepted Jaehyun on one of his visits to Sayeon's residence, and the two brothers met for the first time in almost a decade.
Though Taejun wanted to reconcile with Jaehyun, Jaehyun no longer wanted to have anything to do with Taejun and was resistant to reconnecting with Taejun. Old hurts compounded with Jaehyun's fugitive status and Taejun's conflicting governmental agency had completely driven the brothers apart, and Jaehyun escaped the encounter with Taejun. When Taejun attempted to contact Sayeon again, he found that both Jaehyun and Sayeon had disappeared completely.
Disheartened, Taejun did not try again. He married Maria in France.
By this time, Taejun had become a KNIS's representative in Interpol. His extended team began investigating a series of international criminal activites that was being executed by Birdcage agent █████████'s faction.
Though agent █████████ was warned by the Birdcage that they were being investigated by Interpol, they continued their European campaign. Taejun was able to track down and skirmish with █████████ and their faction on several encounters, even apprehending and killing a couple of their allies, including Canary lackey Kogarashi, but was not able to corner █████████.
On the encounter that resulted in Kogarashi's death, Taejun gained access to a terminal to a Birdcage database. Though Taejun had initially believed █████████ to be the mastermind of the criminal organisation, he was horrified to discover that █████████ was merely a pawn to an even larger syndicate.
The security breach was quickly detected by Birdcage's cybersecurity, who shut down Taejun's access to the database and prevented him from retreiving any cyberdata, but it is unknown how much Taejun himself had seen. This uncertainly made Taejun too high of a threat to ignore.
Though he was able to avoid and survive his next few encounters with Birdcage lackey agents in Europe, Taejun decided he needed to leave Europe and return to Korea, which worked out well for his spouse Maria, a neurotech, as Korea is a leader in the neurotechnology sector.
He understimated Birdcage's network. Upon his return to Korea, Taejun was assasinated by agent Pigeon and her team.
Due to his work in Europe, the NIS made Taejun one of their Interpol representatives despite their concerns with his brother's fugitive status. Taejun was part of a team that was investigating a series of incidents tied to Birdcage agents.
Baek Taejun was a highly trained operative for the Korean National Intelligence Service, and one of their most successful investigators. He had a fearsome reputation both at the agency and on the streets as one of their most ruthless agents.
KNISAgency Executive
Kim Kyou-hyun
Agents of Interest
- An Yeong-Gi
- Baek Taejun
- Chang Siwon
- Chu Chunho
- Han Songhyun
- Han Shinhee
- Lee Jongsuk
- Min Jun
- Park Hyumin
- Park Jinhee
- Won Seung-gi
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Taejun and Jaehyun have a very complicated relationship. When Taejun is eight years older, and when they were younger, he often acted as the primary caretaker of Jaehyun. When they were younger Jaehyun looked up to Taejun and admired him as the ideal role model, however, this image was crushed when Taejun inadvertently abandoned him in his pursuit of ambition.
Despite efforts from Taejun to reconnect with Jaehyun, Jaehyun eventually grew ambivalent about his older brother, and when Jaehyun defected from the ROK-SWC, the two completely fell out of contact for many years. Though Taejun tracked him down eventually, the two never reconciled before Taejun's death.
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Taejun met Maria prior to her affliation to the Birdcage in France. In one investigation, Taejun's team requested technical expertise from Maria's university, who put forth Maria as a consultant for the case. After the closure of the case, Taejun and Maria developed a romantic relationship.
Both Maria and Taejun were extreme workaholics that didn't mind the other's obsession with work, and therefore got along well with the mutual agreement to not get in each others' way. They eventually married in France.
Maria was never aware of the details of Taejun's investigation into the Birdcage, as he upheld his classified nature of his cases extremely strictly, not even speaking of it to his spouse. After Taejun's death, there was no formal burial, and it is suspected that Maria may be keeping Taejun's body preserved somewhere.
