Your Oolite Identity

[FeelGone]

I don't really have a steady approach with my main save file, but based partly on a character I use in a sci-fi RPG, here is an idea for one of my possible personae:

Name: Dr. Isambard ("Sam") Vivian Athanasius Waters, BSc (OO), MD (LA(In))
Species: Human
Home system: Geison (G5)
Rating: Elite*
Record: Clean
Credits: Anything he has left at the end of a trade run he spends on Thal gargle blasters
Occupation: (Mostly) peaceful independent trader and cargo/passenger courier, miner & escort
Ship: Cobra Mk III**

A peaceful, reasonably prosperous democracy tucked away in a corner of Galaxy 5 otherwise reserved for bitterly infighting feudalities, uneasy communist regimes and crumbling multi-governmental facades, Geison sees medicine a popular career choice among its young colonists, given the obesity, heart disease and other ailments associated with the planet's notoriously sumptuous cuisine; Sam, being of a more adventurous bent, was attracted to the craft after watching medics treat the victim of an evil tree fish attack. His mother was a UPS clerk, but he aspired to more and began diligent studying to become a doctor. For about five minutes, until he got bored and wandered off to play zero-G cricket.

He gained experience working as a ship's medic on Moray Medical Boats along the 5-L1 trade route (their frequent attacks meaning he got a lot of hands on training, but saw more time inside escape pods than the actual ships) and studied via distance learning for a degree in Exoobiology with the Oopen Ooniversity, with a minor in Psychiatry (a profession he considered until being told it wasn't that lucrative, what with group rates for insectoids and all). But too much time in Seedy Space Bars, chasing the tails of flirtatious furry felines, left him with poor grades that denied him a coveted spot at Esgeer University's Medical School. Indeed, the only program willing to accept him was the Galactic Navy, who sent him to Lave Academy's branch at Inenares for his education.

Inenares is a boring world and was unable to hold Sam's interest, and he borrowed heavily against his future salary from the Black Monks to finance witchspace trips around the sector (and the resulting Seedy Space Bar tab) in the Cobra Mk III he had inherited from a relatively distant relation after an entire branch of his family tree accidentally got themselves stuck during a pleasure cruise on a ship that got fancy with the GalDrivePod; the deal worked out nicely for him in that he was able to fold the loan's religious pretence into acquiring numerous spurious leaves, but less nicely insofar as, when payment was due, even the Galactic Navy would not have saved him from the wrath of the Monks, meaning he had to sign over his entire pension.

His academic performance at the Academy was terrible, yet he managed to pass a year ahead of schedule - admittedly because while performing a routine autopsy of a Thargoid he accidentally reanimated it, leading it to eat all the administrative paperwork (and staff). As a Galactic Navy medical officer, he was considered more deadly to his own crew than an entire fleet of Thargoid Carriers. Indeed, his rank of 'Commander' is fictive; in the Navy, he never rose above the Lieutenant pay grade, having continually been busted back every time he gained a promotion, and his sole Chief Medical Officer posting aboard a Navy Frigate with Sector Command 9 lasted all of 22 minutes (which still gave him time to misdiagnose 4 patients, mistreat another 2, flush a medical technician out the airlock, 'misplace' 20 tonnes of narcotics, and impregnate the Vice Admiral's wife).

After a record 43 demerits, 12 counts of conduct unbecoming, and one act of public lewdness with an Attesolaian spotted shrew, he was dishonourably discharged. This prompted him to go on an epic bender spanning six months and five galaxies, finally waking up - in circumstances that remain unclear to him - on the Lave GalCop station with only the keys to his ship, a pack of frozen monkey burgers, and a spare sock. With his bank account cleaned out by bar bills, HOopy casino splashes, and medical malpractice suits, he was left to trade away his Navy medals (mostly to impressionable types too awed by their shiny appearance to notice they were all for things like 'Biggest Chug', 'Most Likely To Cut Off The Wrong Leg', and about twenty Purple Glands that were actually for self-inflicted injuries - Sam was often bleeding more than the patient by the end of the surgery), managing to scrape together enough for 7 LY of fuel and, you guessed it...

100 Cr.

And so he set off, trying to make his way in the Ooniverse as a civilian, and to succeed where his failings in the military had ranged from the spectacular to the cataclysmic. Sam's subsequent career has been influenced by his background as a physician. He does not trade in firearms (having seen their dreadful consequences), slaves (pitying their appalling plight) or narcotics (which he keeps for himself), instead usually turning them in for reward;*** nor does he engage in piracy or even go out of his way to acquire kills (he is happy to beat down a craft until it hits the injectors, unleashes its escape pod, or simply stops firing); his bounty hunting is mostly limited to that conducted along the escort routes he sometimes flies (although his I.T.H.A. reputation has never been that good, given his tendency to stay too long at the station bar after accepting a contract, leaving the cargo vessel hyperjumping alone into a deadly attack while he slurs through a karaoke rendition of 'Bridge Over Trumbled Waters').

By and large, then, Sam is simply a peaceful trader, picking up cargo contracts when he can, ferrying passengers around both in his Passenger Berth (which, when unoccupied, serves as his Bachelor Pad complete, of course, with Beer Cooler) and on short range Taxi flights; he also engages in a lot of asteroid mining now that he has managed to afford an Ore Processor and some mining lasers. He has a special fondness for Moray Medical Boats, abandoning his largely pacifistic ethics to rain murderous hell on any unscrupulous pirates fancying the notoriously easy prey, but otherwise his only protracted spell of combat activity was in the service of the Ramazan Liberation Front.

Sam does not fly Galactic Navy reserve missions (they laughed him out of the signup office), conduct Random Hits (though he is a well known face at every Seedy Space Bar this side of Riedquat), serve a Feudal House (he is committed to the overthrow of all such regimes...well, committed insofar as he subscribes to the odd newsletter), or actively seek out pirates to bounty hunt or easy cargo to snatch.**** But he is ready to defend himself when needed, to consider aiding those in danger, and at all times to do battle with the Thargoid menace - not that he won't hit the injectors if he's worried about missing closing time.

(* However, there is no way Sam would be Elite, even after years of in-game time. So let's say that he is Competent, or perhaps Dangerous, and that the kills otherwise include the vast number of patients he accounted for while practising medicine.
** Which I have kept with in most of my long term save files such that I can measure the capacities of new OXP ships I meet. It's possible that, ICly, Sam would have traded up for something with more cargo space. Let's say he hasn't because he's simply too lazy.
*** Always, in the case of slaves, as dumping them in space - unless they're in an escape pod - would seem an even crueller fate.
**** These are all things I do in my main save, hence why this is really more an alternate persona.)

[Cmdr Wyvern]

Better late than never. My main persona, which I've been playing since Oolite was version 1.65.

Name: Derik Roh'i (AKA his fighterjock callsign, "Wyvern")
Species: Hybrid Dracolic Large Lizard (Warmblooded carnivore)
Homeworld: Tionsola, G1
Combat Rating: ELITE
Seedy Bar Rating: Great One
Naval Rank: Captain
Record: Clean
Credits: A lot! (not counting inheritence and corporate shareholdings)
Career: Mostly bounty hunting, though forays into mercenary work, freelance escort, testing, and wherever he feels would do the most good.
Ship(s): Cadeceus Omega "Persistence of Memory", armed for extreme lethality combat; Vampire Mk1 Redux "Stormbringer", extensively modified for intercept and persuit roles.

Losing his parents and two siblings to a piracy and slavery gang, Derik possesses a deep hatred of pirates and slavers, and an innate, almost instinctual ability to read and exploit tactical errors; he can and often does use enemy tactics against them, as well as come up with unpredictable maneuvers on-the-fly. Also he's practically fearless, and prone to perform daring heroics in spite of personal risk. He doesn't retreat, won't back down, and is known to be relentless in defence of close friends and family.

Captain Roh'i casually rejects the gaudy dress most Elite combateers don, so is always seen offship in tough and practical, if somewhat plain miner's garb (jeans, flanel shirt, plain leather vest and heavy boots). As unassuming as his wardrobe is, the gunbelt holstering an old but devastating plasma sidearm and a jade hilted long dagger, his many scars and his cybernetic eye, along with bulging muscles and an almost 7 foot tall frame are intimidating enough to give all but the most ballsy troublemakers second thoughts.

A normally jovial, laid back demeaner belies a feirce, determined rage in battle. In combat, Derik will use sniping tactics and precision shooting, aiming to disable his prey, but once at dogfighting ranges he unleashes sheer brutality, using his ship's offencive capabilities to their fullest, with intent to destroy.

Though Derik is a hunter and a merc - and the only Roh'i to turn to a violent profession in well over 500 years - the Roh'i are a trading family with large corporate holdings spread across Charts 1 and 2. For the interested, Derik was awarded the rank of Captian along with the Galcop Valor Cross for his heroics during the Tibecia invasion.

The Roh'i are related by marriage to a broad variety of other Lizard families. Derik himself is married to Esei Nelp-Roh'i, a reptilian centarid "space gypsy" which he is very dedicated to. They have a foster daughter - a petite felinid, resqued former slave, homeworld unknown; thought to be from a colony outside Galcop's influence.

[Squeek]

Name: Fearless-to-Foolishness, "Squeek"
Species: Harmless Rodent
Home system: Reidquat
Rating: Poor
Record: Clean to Offender, depending on particulars of latest landing.
Credits: Not many.
Occupation: Bounty Hunter
Ship: Code of Hammer-Rabbi (Adder)

Seeking to prove that his species was anything but harmless, Squeek set out from his homeworld in an old Adder.

He has garnered a reputation as a courageous hunter-and a repeat traffic offender- due mostly to his near-suicidal methods of piloting in and outside combat.

[ulaidian]

Commander Name: Neill 'Ulaidian' House
Species: Human
Age : 33
Rating: Average
Home System: Sorace G1
Legal Record: Clean*
Credits: Seems to have an AA+ Credit rating
Occupation: Seems to have a finger in all pies...
Ship: More ships than women to date.. parent's are hoping he 'settles down'.


Neill is your typical rich boy in most respects, as in he hasn't had to want for anything.. and it seemed all was going to plan (in his parents mind anyway)... until he became infatuated with Rebecca Weston.
From this period on, he seemed to start to neglect all that was given to him, and developed, in polite society, a wild streak. After buying a beat up Cobra MkI he started to trade in small things, shooting down pirates around the Sorace home system, and mocking GalCop for their inefficiency (which, of course, all... in polite society, do anyway).

Of course, this brought him to the attention to the authorities fairly quickly, and his parent's quickly hushed it up with a few well placed 'donations', and agreed that Neill, or 'Ulaidian' as he was called now, should join the military.

He didn't agree.

With his own meagre wealth, he decided he would be able to make a run for it, and swiftly took off. We know he has been around G1, and up to now, has never been reported in any other galaxy. The last we heard he was in a Werewolf, but this has not been confirmed, as we were also told he showed up in a Vortex.

Regardless, the personal wealth he left with would now (given that he doesn't seem to have done anything with it of consequence) be running out, and it is suspected, but not proven, that one of his parent's.. possibly his mother, knows of his whereabouts, and supplies him whenever he needs... one of them may even be 'promoting' him to various feudal Houses, as his name is well respected and he is a member of the House of Aronar.
This suspected help and promotion is despite a public proclamation from both Mother and Father that he was 'lost' to them. We do know he is still the heir to the House dynasty, whether he likes it or not. This help also seems to help keep his record clean.

Footnote - 'Ulaidian' is a name that survives within the House family, and derives from the family's origins on Old Earth's 'Ulster' Province of Ireland.

[Davidtq]

Name: DSH
Species: Never seen outside of his ship, no one is really certain.
Home system: No planet will own up to spawning him, currently he's terrorising space around Laribebi in Galaxy 2
Rating: Deadly
Record: Mostly Clean, More a case of not getting caught than staying out of trouble
Credits: around 500,000
Occupation: Making Credits. He WILL take your thrumpberry juice and \ or your lunch money even in a civilised system - so long as theres no Galcop in sight
Ship: DarkWheel Cobra Mk3 "Profit of Doom" - Looking to upgrade

Now theres only three things you really need to know about DSH.

1) Dont fly in the same system
2) If you do fly in the same system make sure you have an escape pod
3) If you do have an escape pod make sure your insurance is up to date - he has no moral qualms at all about selling a jameson on their maiden flight into a lifetime of slavery for 10credits of profit.

If you wish to know more:-

There are many rumours about the being known only as "DSH". Some rumours suggest he sold his own Grandmother into slavery to purchase his first tank of fuel, these rumours are often met with derision that such an individual ever had a family. Other rumours suggest that he may have been a sold his soul to some unknown witchspace entity to finance his ship. Many agree that a lack of a Soul would be one possible explanation for the depth of this pilots atrocities.

DSH is infamous for the regular destruction of cruise ships full of grey haired grannys, apparantly purely for the recycling value of the hull debris. Murdering hundreds of defenseless victims for 70 credits total?

Another regular report received is the targetting of Moray Medical Boats, for the value of their medicinal supplies.

Many an innocent trader beset by pirates has sent out a call for help, then seen a delivering "DarkWheel" Cobra MK3 sweep in "to the rescue" tearing assunder the marauding pirate gang, then only after being duly thanked, DSH turns his weapons on the trader he just "rescued".

Its just 269 days since this beings license was stamped at Lave. In that time he has massacred his way to over 3000 kills and raised many hundreds of thousands of credits in profits from his lethal activities. If these statistics werent bad enough the rate of murder has grown worse in the last 80 days alone he has added 1800 kills and 300,000 credits.

One oddity of DSH's nature is his legal status and relationship with Galcop. Although he is notorious for cold bloodedly murdering all who cross his path, he rarely engages a firefight with legal witness's present, thus keeping his legal status clean, if interupted by Galcop during his sortees he will immedeatly flee the scene rather than engage.

One unnamed merchant in the Maesaron system reported that DSH expressed genuine surprise when it was explained to him in a vox call that some people actually buy the cargo they sell. The transcript doing the rounds on the local message boards goes as follows:-

Merchant "You know some of my trading partners buy goods from me to sell on their return journey"

DSH "Madness! Spending out money on goods to sell them again? How do they make credits out of that"

Merchant "Well what they do is to buy goods that are cheap on one planet and plann a route to another planet where they know the prices are higher, and then sell them on for more than they bought them for"

DSH "Spending time planning routes carefully to only make credits on the difference between planets prices, paying money to fill up their cargo holds..."

DSH "Whats do they think is the point of the Mass Lock feature of the torus drive?"

Merchant "They see It as a safety Feature"

DSH "Mindless morons, Its sole purpose is to alert you to potential cargo"

DSH "So let me get this straight, They BUY cargo, spend time planning a route to take it from one planet to another, then spend time and fuel getting around mass locks to avoid free cargo, just to sell it for a few credits a ton more at the destination world."

Merchant "Yes, that the idea, no murder involved"

DSH "It'll never catch on I tell you. Look at my system, I fly to whatever system has the finest edible poets or hoopiest casinos, pick up a hold full of cargo along the way and sell it, and every single credit is profit, and no time or opportunity is wasted."

Merchant "Well this trading business is legal, piracy is against the law, and many people prefer to stay legal"

DSH "What do you mean piracy is illegal? Look, Ive been doing this long enough to know full well that its only illegal if you do it when Galcop are around. Otherwise its all perfectly ok by Galcop."

Merchant "Well besides the dubious legality theres also the fact that many people dont like murdering, as a rule they object to causing the death of another sentient being, Many of your victims would have been peacefull types?"

DSH "Murder?, Death?, Victims?, If you're talking about the numbskulls who actually buy their cargo - its Darwin in action, The tree of life is self pruning as they say. Im improving the gene pool of their respective species."