Name: Robert Raker
Nickname: Blackjack Bob/Blackjack
Gender: Male
Race: Human
Profession: Captain (Specialties: Fighter Pilot, Command)
Age: 36
Description: Considering his record as a military man and as a Mercy, Captain 'Blackjack' Bob is a surprisingly jovial looking man. Broad faced and bright eyed, Blackjack's face is usually either smiling or laughing. A great many fools have attempted to play Blackjack, perceiving his kind face as 'trusting'. Very seldom is that mistake made twice. Blackjack has always been considered moderately attractive, with strong features and a bluff chin marred largely by a squashed nose- a memento of several bets gone very wrong. Blackjack's skin is a slightly olivine tan, kept that way more by genetics than by frequent exposure to sunlight. Dark wavy hair, cut short and kept neat, meets his beard in thick sideburns. His eyes are dark brown, fading to a lighter honey color near the pupil. A cybernetic foot that's slightly the wrong length makes him limp on his left leg.
Background: Once, a decade ago, Blackjack was an up-and-coming wing commander for the burgeoning UPSSD (United Planets Space Superiority Division. Only place it exists now is the Deeps). He was smart, clean, and brought his boys and girls back home. He took risks, but his natural charisma always saw him through the fallout of occasionally playing fast and loose with the rules. His subordinates knew him as generous, understanding, deadly dangerous in a fight, and an unpredictable field tactician. If the UPSSD hadn't been crushed and assimilated by a larger empire, it's possible Blackjack would have become known as one of the great geniuses in fighter command. That, however, didn't happen.
In the final days of the United Planets, when the UPSSD was strained to the breaking point against an invading force that vastly outnumbered and out-teched their own forces, Blackjack made the first gamble of his life that backfired in a he couldn't fix. The UPSSD was evacuating civilians from the planets, trying to get as many people out as possible before the invader's made landfall. Since the Invaders were after the planets, Blackjack anticipated that the transports would be ignored as long as the invader fleet had something bigger worth focusing on. Blackjack was all too willing to provide that 'something bigger'.
Taking every pilot of the UPSSD's shattered forces that was willing to lay down their last full measure for the civilian transports, Captain Robert Raker lead an all out assault on the invader flagship. Two people made a critical miscalculation. Blackjack expected the flagship's commander to be a veteran, not the combat-green first son of a colonization magnate, and severely overestimated his tactical savvy. The Flagship commander expected the UPSSD's fighter force to be too primitive to inflict major damage, and severely underestimate the effectiveness of their short range missiles and strike capability.
The result was bloody. The flagship captain sent out fighter squadrons to destroy the fleeing civilian ships, seeing them as an unprotected target rather than a waste of time, and trusted the flagship and supporting combat vessels to handle the incoming fighters. Blackjack realized that he'd made a mistake when the first transport went dark, but by then he was too late to protect them. Not too late, however, to take revenge. He lost nine-tenths of the fighters he took with him, but he left the invader flagship a shattered hulk, plummeting through the orbit of a gas giant.
Blackjack forgave himself for what happened a long time ago, but the Magnate never did. Branding Captain Robert Raker a war criminal, he's successfully managed to haunt Blackjack out of pretty much every legitimate opportunity, forcing him down the path of an independent Mercy.
Notable Quotes:
"Aces high!" (Habitual, Blackjack's version of 'Heads Up!')
"The leg? Funny story, lost my real one in a dice game back on Sho-Draver station. Got this one playing cards with a midget a month after that. Damn thing never has fit on quite right."
"I give you no illusions, no false hope. I know I'm thought of as a gambler, but this is no gamble. This is a trade, our lives for theirs. There are ten thousand civilians on every one of those transports; our sisters, fathers, mothers, brothers. Everyone we have ever cared for, our people, are on those ships. Every second we buy them is one more they aren't hunted, one more that brings them closer to escape. This war is lost, but our people will live on because of what we do today. We are broken, battered, and defeated, but this is still our finest hour. The game is up, and it's time for the accounts to be settled. Let us make it a reckoning that our foes will never forget!" (Blackjack's address to the last of the UPSSD pilots)
"My hand to the stars, I have never cheated and been caught. Since you're calling me on it, I obviously wasn't cheating. That's logic for you."
Traits: Habitual Gambler, Physical Disability (leg), Trustworthy Face, Cunning, Enemies in High places, Local Hero, Overprotective
Skills (Skills… These are the main features that determine what your character can do, what they can't do, and everything in between.
Name: Ceradi [w]Unar (Chair-Aid-ee {almost silent 'whuh'}-ooh-NAR)
Nickname: Fish
Gender: Male
Race: Neo-Dolphin
Age: 25
Profession: Navigator/Dealer
Description: Ceradi is an excellent specimen of his species, and he shows it off flagrantly. Twelve feet from head to tail and exceptionally muscular, Ceradi is covered from tip-to-tip in glowmarks: tattoos that become more or less visible depending on exterior light, UV radiation, and Ceradi's own body heat. His skin, what little of it isn't covered in tattoos, is a greyish white, an exotic tone several shades paler than normal. Ceradi is, in fin terms, roguishly handsome, with a daredevil charm that tends to end whenever he opens his mouth. Still, by the somewhat… liberal standards present in most neo-dolphin communities, Ceradi is merely possessed of a gallant rakishness. Or, in the words of other races, irretrievable bluntness and crudity.
Background: Ceradi was fourteen when he fled the planet of his birth, one of the lucky few to escape the surface on a transport and make it free of murderous interceptor squadrons. His home was lost when the United Planets was consumed, as most small bootstrap alliances are, by the insatiable hunger of greater powers. Still, Ceradi never got over the battle he witnessed as he left his home behind, of the enemy fighters tearing the other transports open, of the allied fighters striking back, and most of all, the nuclear star of the Invader's flagship burning away in decaying orbit.
Ceradi finished growing up in a backwater colony, eking out an existence as a keeper on a freshwater farm. The work in the thin water backbreaking for one of his size. He grew strong, and adept at using his strength to achieve the greatest result with the minimum effort possible. He grew up poor, living on the stories of better times, and of the heroes that saved the remnants of their people from death. Ceradi spent what little free time he had chasing girls and fantasizing about traveling the stars and learning the craft of a navigator. Roguish was one word to describe Ceradi's habits in those days, utterly uninhibited would be another. The circumstances are unclear, but Ceradi ended up living out his fantasy when it came down to either accepting three Support Compacts, each from a different lady fin, or fleeing on a trade vessel. Given that choice, Ceradi 'borrowed' his fathers old tech-harness and fled immediately.
In the infinite darkness of space, Ceradi served as cook, cleaning rat, lay pilot (look at the controls and yell if we're about to crash), and, when a captain discovered that years in a farm world had actually given Ceradi an aptitude for dealing, as a junior trade liaison. What is remarkable about this is that Ceradi served these positions on no less than ten different ships and stations over a three year period. Ceradi's uninhibited nature generally got him removed forcibly after he propositioned someone, or when he actually got caught in the act with various someones. Still, Ceradi's charm generally kept him one step ahead of the fathers, mothers, husbands, angry family members, and jealous lovers that pursued him.
It was when Ceradi was twenty-two that he met Captain Blackjack Bob, the only person who had ever filled Ceradi with awe. Blackjack had been looking for a new navigator, and Ceradi had just gotten dumped from his job as a pilot-auxiliary after making an exceptionally dirty joke to his employer's mate about fins and neo-dogs in zero gravity. It was perhaps the only time when Ceradi had gone in trying to get a job and been actually scared of failing to impress. It's not known whether Blackjack first hired Ceradi because he saw his potential, or because he reminded him of home, but he did hire him. Over the years, Ceradi has grown to be a capable pilot, and has kept his benign hero worship of Captain Blackjack, though he's gotten comfortable enough around him to return to his usual, libido oriented, self.
Notable Quotes:
"You know, the general rule for my species is that it's an inch for every foot of length. And just so you know, baby, I'm twelve feet, three inches long."
CERADI: "Hey, baby, you ever had sex with a fish before?"
KHANNET: "Ceradi. For the last time. You. Are. Not. A. Fish. You are a starborn mammal."
CERADI: "I'm glad you've noticed how much we have in common. Come back to my cabin, I'll show you the rest."
"Pants are for species that have something to hide."
"Have you noticed how attractive I am?" (Habitual)
"Sir, I swear it's not what you think." (Habitual, when confronted unexpectedly, for any reason, by the Captain)
Traits: Overwhelming Emotion (Lust), Bad reputation, Utter scoundrel, Self-taught, Good Natured , Exceptionally Strong, Attractive, Zero-G Aptitude, Neo-Dolphin
Skills (Skills… These are the main features that determine what your character can do, what they can't do, and everything in between.
Author
Topic: Roller's Block (RTD Brainstorming Thread) (HAPPY LATE BIRTHDAY) (Derm is 5k) (Read 746406 times)