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Riker is a main character in ArmA 3's Apex Protocol campaign.

Background[]

A member of NATO's Combat Technology Research Group (CTRG), Riker is assigned to the elite unit's Group 15.

He serves as the team leader of Group 15 - Team 1, otherwise known by its callsign of Raider 1. He was also additionally referred to by his radio callsign of Raider 1-1.

Apex Protocol (2035)[]

Operating under the cover provided by the ongoing joint-NATO/Gendarmerie "Safe Horizon" exercises, Group 15 are able to quietly infiltrate into the South Pacific nation of the Horizon Islands.

Supported by a second team callsigned Raider 2, both Raider teams were officially dispatched to hunt down the warlord - given the codename of "Warlock", of a local insurgent group who called themselves the Syndikat.

Unofficially however, they were actually sent to locate the whereabouts of a package called "Keystone", who was vital to the success of their operation.

Riker and the rest of his team members Grimm, Truck and Salvo, first landed on the shores of southern islands of Tanoa where they began searching the nearby Syndikat hideouts for signs of Keystone. Along the way, Riker's team linked up with Raider 2 and discovered a local police officer restrained by the insurgents.

After freeing the man, he revealed the location of a radio tower nearby that was apparently holding more contraband and officers hostage. However, there were no other survivors found at the radio tower. Furthermore, neither team had any success in finding any leads on Keystone or Warlock despite raiding all the nearby outposts.

The next day, CTRG is warned by their local contact called Blue Cap of a large Syndikat convoy that was planning to raid a nearby village. Both Raider teams quickly moved into position to ambush the insurgents. When Raider 2 finally arrived as well, Riker briefed them on their plan of attack. Raider 1 would split up with Riker leading Truck and Salvo in cutting off the front of the convoy near the bridge, while Grimm and Raider 2 would hide along the main road to seal the flank.

« Remember, folks, there's a bridge over there. Leave it standing. Locals have it hard enough as it is - we're here to help, not hinder.
Riker
»

The convoy rolls through and is boxed in soon after by both Raider teams. After confirming that all of the insurgents were deceased, Riker and the rest of Raider 1/2 moved to extract further north.

In the hopes of luring out the elusive Warlock, CTRG devised a plan to root out all of the rogue leader's supply caches one by one. Thanks to intel provided by Blue Cap, Riker's team knew exactly where to find the caches. They moved deeper through the inner main island and destroyed several caches hidden at a Syndikat compound disguised as a lumberyard.

Blue Cap then provided new intel to CTRG on the possible whereabouts of Warlock. The leader was apparently hiding at one of his safehouses located at a village called Namuvaka but wasn't going to be there for long. As the evening settled, Riker's men immediately made their way towards the village.

Instead of Warlock however, they only found the cold and badly bruised corpse of what appeared to be Blue Cap himself.

« Shit, that's Blue Cap! Watchtower, SITREP, our POC's been - the fuck? We being hacked here? Watchtower, someone's connecting to - wait, no, it's a burst transmission.
Riker, moments before the attack
»

At that exact moment, Riker and the rest of the Raider's helmet camera feeds were hacked by an unknown source. The video footage showed a large team of unmarked, Chinese-speaking operatives closing in onto both Raider 1 and Raider 2.

Before Riker could even begin to report back to CTRG command, they came under heavy fire from the operatives and were forced to retaliate. After a brief but fierce exchange between the two sides, Riker and the rest of the Raider teams came out alive and succeeded in eliminating their unknown attackers. In the aftermath of the ambush, Riker immediately reported their encounter to CTRG command.

« Further to my last, the enemy we engaged were not Syndikat. They look way higher up the food chain. Definitely Chinese - maybe CSAT - but, their equipment is pretty advanced. Prototypes, maybe.
Riker
»

There wasn't any time to continue their investigation of the operatives however. New intel had been obtained on the positive location of Keystone's whereabouts. Codenamed as "Toronto", Keystone was imprisoned at one of Syndikat's hideouts further in the south. Riker and the other Raiders quickly moved to assault the location.

After clearing the insurgents surrounding Toronto, Riker and the rest of Raider 1 stacked up to breach the building and was the first to move in. They free Keystone from captivity and discover him to be none other than Captain Scott Miller, the leader of CTRG's Group 14 (whom even Riker was thought was missing in action).

There was no time to explain to the members of Group 15 as to how Miller had been captured, however. Their main priority for now was to get off the island immediately before Syndikat cut them off entirely. Fighting their way through seemingly endless waves of Syndikat, Riker and the rest of the Raider teams finally managed to evacuate Miller.

The Captain then briefed them on what intel he had gathered before his capture; the Chinese-speaking operatives they had fought off were called "Viper Team", and were deployed to the Horizon Islands as part of a wider-spanning plan by CSAT to purposely destabilise the country. They were supplying arms and funding to Syndikat and were even - in Miller's own opinion, responsible for causing the South Pacific Disaster through the use of a seismic WMD known only as "Eastwind".

Time was running out however, as Miller rightfully suspected that Viper were planning to close their operation on Tanoa. They had to move onto their command centre, a so-called "black site" that they were using to stage their operations from. Along with Miller, Riker and the Raiders headed off to Sosovu Island in the region's far west and split off individually to search for the black site.

« Miller: Riker, looks like Syndikat caught up with Viper. It's a mess.
Riker: Syndikat double-cross?
Miller: Syndikat double-cross.
Riker: This just got interesting...
Miller reports back discovery of one massacre between the two factions
»

However, Riker's men and Raider 2 only stumbled onto the site of one massacre after another, as corpses of both Viper and Syndikat were found at numerous hideouts that Viper were using - both sides having turned on each other for unclear reasons. Riker and the Raider teams eventually regrouped on Miller's position after the Captain discovered the command centre. They collected much intel on CSAT's so-called "Apex Protocol" plans but were unable to find any traces of the WMD itself.

Luckily, CTRG's SIGINT were able to intercept communications between Warlock and Viper. A deal was apparently being arranged at the Blue Pearl Industrial Port on the main island's far north-east, with the two sides planning to make a deal on Eastwind itself. Riker and the others immediately rearmed and made their way towards the port.

Backed by Raider 2 and with Miller sabotaging the power generators supplying the port's lights, Riker and Raider 2 proceeded to assassinate the rogue leader in the chaos. Riker picked up one of disarm keys from Warlock's corpse, but was informed that he had already armed Eastwind long in anticipation of a double-cross from Viper.

With foreshocks being a prelude to an actual quake already being registered, it fell down to Riker and the rest of Raider 2 to stop Eastwind's activation. Riker's men regrouped with Raider 2 and fought their way through the remaining insurgents, eventually finding Eastwind itself stashed at the north-eastern corner of the docks.

Miller had arrived as well and immediately went to work on deactivating Eastwind, inserting the secondary disarm key he had retrieved earlier along with the primary key obtained by the Raiders. The process would take some time to complete however and Miller himself was left defenceless.

« Riker: Watchtower, Raider 1. We see a small QRF moving towards Keystone.
James: This is Falcon, we've got eyes on. They're ghosting between the containers. Looks like Viper's last play.
Riker spots the incoming Viper units
»

Worse yet, Viper had gotten wind of the failed handover and were mounting an all-out assault on their position. Riker and the others positioned themselves in a perimeter around Miller and braced themselves for the attack. He requested for artillery support but was denied by CTRG command as the risk of damaging Eastwind was too high.

Riker's men were forced to held off the first wave on their own, but more Vipers continued to flow in and their defences were in danger of collapsing entirely. A final wave of Vipers moved in and were about to overrun Riker's position but fortunately at that moment, a helicopter flies in carrying the rest of Miller's Group 14.

Group 14 lay down a hail of suppressive fire on the encroaching hostiles, and Riker's men are able to push out and eliminate the last of the Viper operatives. Another CTRG helicopter arrives soon after to extract Riker's team, while another flies in to slingload Eastwind away.

Personality and Appearance[]

Riker is a Caucasian male with a medium beard and has short, dark brown hair. Like his subordinates, he prefers wearing a white/dark green-coloured undershirt with just Tropic Dazzle-camouflaged pants instead of the unit's full set of thermally-masked fatigues.

He also wears a ranger green-coloured carrier rig vest but only wears a simple olive beanie with a tactical headset. For eyewear, Riker dons a pair of tactical shades like the rest of his subordinates.

A dedicated and professional soldier, Riker remains committed to minimising collateral damage where possible and genuinely believes in helping the civilian populace. Though he's strict with his subordinates (with Salvo usually being the one told off), Riker does allow some leeway with their antics and only reprimands in serious situations.

Trivia[]

  • Riker isn't considered to be the protagonist of Apex Protocol due to the four players of Raider 2 occupying the role.
    • However, several unused subtitles leftover from the (now cancelled) singleplayer version of Apex Protocol would implicitly suggest that he would have served as the protagonist of the campaign.

Gallery[]

See also[]

Characters of ArmA 3
NATO TF Aegis Andrew MacKinnon† • Ben KerryConway† • Lacey† • Martinez† • Mitchell† • Thomas Adams
7th MBCT, 111th ID David Armstrong
21st BCT, 111th ID Adam GrantCarl OwenJared SpenderJeremy CollinsJohn SturrockLouis BarklemStephen KulanskyTerry Simpson
Pacific Vince Broadale
CTRG A.J. DuttonDonald SnoweGrimmHardy† • JamesMcKayNorthgateO'ConnorRadcliffe† • RikerRoberts† • Robinson† • SalvoScott Miller* • Smith† • Truck
Exercise Electron Aiden RudwellDon Homewood† • Jack StypeJed DillonJohn KingslyKurt Spender† • Max BakerRichard LaneRichter
CSAT Abdul-Wahhab FahimVahid NamdarXu Haifeng
Russian Spetsnaz Boris KrupinIvan Severov
Loyalists Hektor Anastas* • Kael Mavros* • Loukas Thanos* • Rouvin Carras*
FIA Alexis Kouris† • Kostas Stavrou† • Nikos PanagopoulosOrestes
AAF Georgious AkhanterosKostas DimitriouKyros Kalogeros* • Thanos Gavras
LDF Aleksy NowakZbigniew Stolarski
Syndikat Solomon Maru
L'Ensemble Oringo MadakiSamjo

IDAP

Andy PatersonNathan MacDade

Civilians

Arthur* • Benjamin HopeDrábek* • Howard* • Ian KessonJohn* • Katherine BishopLucas* • Mark ColeMarkos Kouris† • Renly* • "Santiago"Šimon Čapek
indicates deceased characters | * indicates character status is unknown
DLCs that the character was first introduced in:
Marksmen DLC | Apex DLC | Laws of War DLC | Tac-Ops DLC | Tanks DLC | Contact DLC
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