Vanderkam
From Xenosaga Wiki
Vanderkam is a Lt. Commander within the U-TIC Organization and a covert operative working within the Federation Military. He is a large, built man with dark skin and a curious tattoo of a purple X splashed across his face. He bares a strikingly similar physical and mental resemblece to another man named Vanderkam (mistakenly transliterated as "Vanderkaum" in the English localization) who appeared in the Playstation RPG Xenogears. In Xenosaga Lt. Cmdr. Vanderkam was assigned to the Federation cruiser Woglinde along with Commander Andrew Cherenkov and two other U-TIC loyalists. Their mission was to steal the Zohar Emulator recovered from the recently lost planet of Ariadne and return it to their commander Margulis on the asteroid complex Pleroma. Their plan goes awry when the Gnosis attack the Woglinde and her escort fleet and steal the Emulator from the cargo bay. Vanderkam and his subordinates survive the incident but are parted from Cherenkov.
In Episode II, Vanderkam is promoted to Captain and is put in charge of defending U-TIC/Ormus' effort to recover the Original Zohar from Labyrinthos. Put in command of a sizable force of A.M.W.S. his order was to ensure that nobody, in particular Jr.'s party, broke through to the old U-TIC facility. He positions a massive energy cannon at the back of the detachment right before the entrance to Labyrinthos which he personally controls with his two subordinates. When Jr. and company finally show up Vanderkam was easily defeated due to technical issues with the primary gun. Whether or not Vanderkam survives the destruction of his cannon is unknown.
Vanderkam had an unnamed older brother who was a Fleet Captain in the Federation Navy's 147th Fleet from the planet Gedalya. This captain, also bald and equally volatile in nature lead the U-TIC-driven effort to contain the Kukai Foundation after false video evidence is shown to the Executive Committee making the claim that the Kukai Foundation's flagship Durandal destroyed the Woglinde instead of the Gnosis. This claim is proven false and Vanderkam's Fleet Captain brother also disappears from the storyline, though it may have been possible that he was either killed during the Gnosis invasion of the Kukai Foundation or when Albedo turned the full fury of his E.S. Simeon loose on the Federation fleet after the Song of Nephilim was revealed.
In the Episode II portion of Xenosaga I&II Vanderkam shows up on Old Miltia and confronts Shion and her companions in the Proto Dora (the green tank-mech seen at the end of Episode I on Proto Merkabah).
