Re: Your Oolite Identity
Posted: Sun Aug 28, 2011 7:31 pm
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.)
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.)