Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
Draft wiki entries for Tom, Barbara and their ship
Draft wiki entries for Tom, Barbara and their ship
#1
    Tom Rutley

    Appearance:
    
    Slightly under 6', broad-shouldered but skinny. Mixed race (white father, South Asian mother), skin tone best described as "Ambiguously Brown" with black hair slowly greying. Walks with a slight but noticeable limp.

    History:
    
    Tom is one of the older First Fen, born in Leicester, England in 1970. Joining the RAF in 1989, he went on to serve as a Chinook helicopter pilot in the Balkans, Operation Iraqi Freedom and Afghanistan before being seriously wounded in the line of duty and discharged in 2005. Finding himself at something of a loose end,(Tom will admit, if pressed, that he was probably having a mid-life crisis) Tom made the decision to go Up after inheriting the property of his late godfather and discovering a large stash of handwavium.
    
    In doing so, he took the unusual step of establishing a working relationship with British defence contractor QuinetiQ through an old comrade-in-arms who was now employed at the Ministry of Defence. This gave him the powerful advantage of unhindered access to European airspace in the spacecraft he was building.
    
    Construction of this craft took him almost a year, with the design being finalised in the autumn of 2007 but the first test-flights not taking place until the summer of 2008; his Cobra Mk1F is believed to be the first purpose-built Fen craft laid down.
    
    After flying across the Atlantic to pick up a passenger, and acquiring a hitchhiker in the process, Tom eventually reached Fenspace in early November of 2008 and entered the freight business. Initially he and newly-recruited copilot Barbara specialised in shipping fresh fruit and vegetables from Earth, but have since moved on to general freight and passenger work, sometimes as a sub-contractor for Hermes Universal Deliveries but also as an independent company (White & Rutley Ltd.) through one of the many bulletin board services for Fen looking for odd jobs. They've made a minor specialty of house removals, but will take most general freight jobs and even occasional Gondolier work.
    
    In 2011, Tom and Barbara were involved in a rather messy diplomatic incident when making a seemingly routine passenger pickup from a Canadian airfield and discovering four biomodded fenkinder in the company of a human trafficker and child pornographer. According to an official statement by the Canadian government, Tom turned the trafficker over to the local police and absconded with the fenkinder before they could be repatriated, and no further action was taken.
    
    However, at around the time he was leaving, a mysterious radio message from someone claiming to be a Fencraft pilot under fire from US fighter aircraft was broadcast over the International Distress Frequency; both US and Canadian authorities insist it was a hoax, but rumours persist that a Fencraft and the mundane military exchanged fire that day.
    
    A short while later, Tom and Barbara were caught up in a plot by Separatist extremists to turn an asteroid into a kinetic bombardment munition to be used against Earth. They were able to prevent it from being launched, although Tom was seriously injured in the process, and most of the conspirators remain at large. This incident would have caused a major stir if it hadn't been overshadowed by corruption scandals in the Sailors Armed Militia and the steadily worsening piracy and other lawlessness in the Belt. Nevertheless, the Convention did not forget, and Tom's testimony was a major part of the inspiration for the formation of the Hate Crimes Unit.
    
    During the Boskone War, Tom flew his ship in the assault transport role in concert with an Operation Great Justice taskforce known as Bravo Four One, made up largely of former British Armed Forces personnel recruited from the 'Danelaw. They fought a number of successful boarding actions and severely disrupted the thionite trade. (It was around this time that he and Barbara yielded to the inevitable and started dating.) He was rewarded for this service with a commission as an OF-5 Troubleshooter, assigned semi-permanently as OGJ liaison officer to the Extraordinary Events Agency, who swore him in as a Special Constable in recognition of his invaluable assistance against Earthside drug traffickers. Tom and Barbara have gone on to establish a reputation as the rare breed Troubleshooters who don't take their job title literally and go around causing unnecessary explosive mayhem in the course of carrying out their duties (Necessary explosive mayhem is another matter, of course.), which tends to get them assigned to any job where Space Patrol's ungrudging cooperation is needed.
    
    One of their first post-war assignments was the notorious "Fazbear Five" incident, which led to Tom and Barbara becoming surrogate parents to five bioroid fenkinder. As of 2015, the two of them are attempting to settle the question of whether baseline-humans and catgirls are interfertile once and for all.
        
    When not on the clock, Tom can often be found in one of Fenspace's many fine bars, with a glass of good single malt at his elbow. He's not the most outgoing sort, but with a little encouragement he'll usually turn out to have a good story to tell...
    
    Handwavium abilities:
    
    None. Tom is not entirely opposed to the idea of biomodding, but is holding off while he remains in overall good health.
    
    Mundane attributes and quirks:
    
    Fully qualified and licensed pilot in the 'Danelaw.
    Bilingual in English and Hindi, plus a basic working knowledge of German.
    Competent but not outstanding marksman, sufficient to pass Great Justice certification but not to win any awards.
    One of the very few First Fen to go to the trouble of getting a proper handwavium-handling license in his country of origin.
    Maintains a residential address in Scotland and remains domiciled in the UK for tax purposes, even if he spends relatively little time there.
    Politics best described as 'left-of-centre in Europe'. Voted Labour until the whole Iraq thing.
    Calm and level-headed under pressure, for the most part, but has something of a short fuse where certain touchy subjects are concerned.
    Detests the use of 'Mundane' and its derivatives in a derogatory manner, gets really annoyed when people accuse him of being fendane like that's some kind of insult, and generally wishes Earth and Fenspace would just stop squabbling already.
    Chronic inability to pronounce Mal Fnord's surname.
    Connoisseur of fine liquor and Real Ale.
    
    Affiliation:
    
    Tom usually describes himself as a Generalist, but privately thinks as himself as one of the Elite fen, who are sadly under-represented in the Convention. (That's ''Elite'' as in the space trading sim, not the SMOF.)
    
    Known Associates and Enemies:
    
    Besides Great Justice and the Extraordinary Events Agency, Tom maintains close ties to the Senshi through Tanith Curtis, who he met briefly and completely failed to recognise when he dropped those biomodded fenkinder off at the Moon Kingdom Memorial. Tanith found this both highly amusing and a refreshing change of pace, and the two of them ended up becoming close friends. He's also earned himself a place on the small and highly exclusive list of people Haruhi Suzumiya actually likes, partly for foiling that Separatist plot but also because he got her arch-nemesis yelled at by his wife.
    
    Speaking of which, Tom is unofficially persona non grata on Stellvia ever since he ran into Noah Scott in Meg's and told him exactly what he thought of his parenting skills vis a vis Agatha Clay, sparking an intense but inconclusive fistfight that ended with the two men deciding they were best of friends and going on a bender of epic proportions. Leda Swansen was not at all amused, especially since Inspector Aki turned out to receive their bail money in person. (The rest of the SMOF, on the other hand, thought it was utterly hilarious.)
    He is also a sworn enemy of both the Slans and the Tom Kratman fen. (Yes, they exist, and you'd be amazed how much overlap there is between the two groups.)
    
    Secrets:
    
    Tom is always rather vague about exactly how he got the leg injury that forced him out of the RAF, heavily implying that he took a bullet while hovering, lost control of his aircraft and collided with a building. In actual fact, he received his injury after his Chinook was forced down on a special forces insertion mission near the border, spending ninety minutes holding off the Taliban with a carbine after pulling his wounded and unconscious copilot from the wreckage. Tom was subsequently awarded the Military Cross for conspicuous gallantry and resourcefulness under fire, but this is something he prefers not to broadcast because he finds veteran-worship uncomfortable enough as it is. He also tends to gloss over the fact that it took him nearly a year of physiotherapy before he could walk without the aid of a cane on account of being rather violently allergic to pity.
    
    That 'hoax' broadcast was the real deal; Tom's ship was attacked by two F-16s from the Illinois ANG while inside Canadian airspace, and he shot one of them down and damaged another. Illinois state police personnel also crossed the border by helicopter to intercept the fenkinder before they could be taken Up. The Canadian government was not consulted about this beforehand and were extremely annoyed when they found out, and only allowed the incident to be hushed up because they were afraid of giving the younger and more hot-headed fen ideas. Tom does not like talking about this incident and prefers to pretend it never happened.
    
    Bravo Four One weren't ex-servicemen, they were serving SAS personnel on secondment to Operation Great Justice through a covert military assistance program. When not training OGJ recruits, their mission was to put an end to a Boskonian smuggling ring supplying British far-right extremists with thionite and weapons.
    
    Many of the charters he takes on the side are actually a cover for maintaining contact with confidential EEA informants in some of the less salubrious parts of Fenspace, and for facilitating the ocasional exchange of information that Her Majesty's Government would rather not be seen handing over through official channels.
    
    * * *
    
    Cobra Mk1F / G-ELTE
    
    Overall Length: 20 metres
    Wingspan: 30 Metres
    Mass: circa 15,000kg unloaded, depending on configuration
    Capacity: 12 tons of cargo or up to 16 passengers, depending on configuration
    Top speed: 800MPH in atmosphere or 0.07c in space on conventional drives, up to 0.21c with afterburners
    Armament: Varies
    Crew: 1 or 2 humanoids
    
    The Cobra Mk1F was the brainchild of RAF veteran turned First Fen trader and later OGJ Troubleshooter Tom Rutley, who found himself the proud but slightly bemused owner of most of the necessary parts and a large amount of handwavium after inheriting the property of his late godfather. The ship's name and design was taken from the genre-defining space trading simulator ''Elite'', but modified significantly for better aerodynamic performance. The result is a crescent-shaped 'flying wing' design which generates a surprising amount of lift. The engines are a combination of a constant-speed gravity drive and a fusion-torch 'afterburner' that functions as an acceleration drive. The latter is extremely powerful, and it's speculated that the ship could probably threaten Mayonaka's speed record if Tom were inclined to try. Unfortunately, the afterburner also uses such a ridiculous amount of fuel that pushing the ship to her absolute limit will drain her tanks dangerously low, and Tom considers 0.15c to be the practical upper limit.
    
    The presence of an acceleration drive and a surprisingly small radar cross-section for her tonnage makes the ship extremely stealthy when coasting with everything but life-support powered down. Tom and Barbra use these attributes to their advantage regularly on Troubleshooter business, as well as for improving their work-life balance after the third time they got called in on their day off.
    
    Tom's ship remained a one-off until 2013, when he happened to find himself aboard John Henry Station for an extended period on official business. Impressed by the rugged and versatile design, the engineers there offered him an undisclosed but rather large sum of money to license the design. Tom agreed readily, on the condition they consult BrabenSoft before using the "Cobra" name commercially.
    
    The result has been a fair to middling commercial success, appealing to Fen who are looking for a ship that's larger than a Bolithio-class shuttle but don't need -or can't afford- something the size of an OV-200 or an Adler. The basic design is quite flexible, albeit spartan, with two small passenger cabins and approximately 50 square metres of interior volume for freight. Crew quarters are limited to a single bunk in the cockpit area in this configuration. An alternative all-passenger version trades the cargo bay for up to sixteen cabins. Various other specialist Cobras including Search and Rescue, police and even fuel tanker versions are also available to order, and a variety of armament can be fitted according to the customer's specifications; most privately purchased examples mount either a 57mm coilgun or a 1MW laser, while military models have four underwing missile hardpoints in addition. Tom's original Cobra (He never got around to naming it, being an Air Force veteran rather than Navy, but he did manage to acquire the UK registration number G-ELTE) mounts a unique and barely PEPPER-compliant 114mm (4.5-inch) coilgun made from the gun barrel of a Royal Navy warship, which inspired the ship's Great Justice callsign, "Doorknocker".
    
    Ship quirks:
    
    In the mass-production version, engine performance will drop by 25% unless a pot of coffee is made at least once every six hours. G-ELTE, by contrast, insists on at least one mug of English Breakfast Tea every ''four'' hours, although it wasn't until Barbara first took her out single-handed that they figured this out.
    G-ELTE refuses to go through the start-up sequence unless the theme tune to Airwolf is playing. The mass-production versions seem to have escaped this quirk for the most part. (Although one Cobra whose new owner decided to play the Riptide theme as a joke when they carried out the first start-up sequence is now committed to doing it every time, which is exactly how it happened to Tom. Handwavium, it seems, has trouble grasping the idea that some things are only funny once.)
    This may not be a handwavium-related quirk at all, but any attempt at pushing a Cobra beyond approximately 800MPH at normal cruising altitude in Earth's atmosphere results in increasingly extreme vibration and loss of aerodynamic stability. This does not appear to be covered by the Slapstick Effect; G-ELTE was very nearly brought down by an asymmetric stall when Tom first encountered the phenomenon during an early test flight.

    * * *
    
    Barbara White
    
    Appearance:
    
    5'2'', remarkably curvy. Fully-furred catgirl.
    
    History:
    
    Born Robert White in 1981, Barbara was raised in rural Iowa to lower-middle class parents and developed a love of flying at a young age thanks to her Air Force veteran father. An idyllic childhood turned into a traumatic adolesence after her parents rather messily divorced around the time that Barbara was coming to grips with the fact that she wasn't gay, she was a transwoman. Nevertheless, she muddled through school and managed to qualify as a commercial pilot. With a steady and well-paying job and some savings to her name, she made the decision to begin the process of transitioning in 2007.
    
    That didn't go so well. Her father disowned her, she lost her job for assaulting a coworker who made a transphobic remark, and her insurance company came up with every bullshit excuse it could think of not to cover her for hormone replacements. Inspired by the Guacomole Incident and lacking any better ideas, Barbara braved the local Hackspace (who were actually really supportive and accepting) and acquired a small amount of Handwavium. It made the worst mixer for tequila ever, but nevertheless she woke up in her right primary sexual characteristics the next morning... just not quite her right species. (In her own words, "Totally worth it.") Her roommate panicked and called 911, and Barbara ended up fleeing towards the nearest airfield in hopes of stealing a plane and making a dash for the Canadian border.
    
    Instead, she found Tom's ship parked up waiting for a passenger on the last day before the ban on Fencraft in US airspace came into effect. He took her onboard, gave her a ride Up and eventually ended up offering her a job as copilot. The two became good friends, then awkwardly fumbled their way into a romantic relationship in spite of the fallout from Barbara skipping a number of important steps in the transitioning process, Tom's hang-ups with the age gap and the fact he was her boss and the Boskone War raging at the time.
    
    Despite being a civilian pilot with barely any firearms experience, Barbara adapted to the life of a gunship pilot and later Great Justice Troubleshooter remarkably well. She was on point during the undercover investigation at Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria, and had largely defused the situation by the time Tom forced his way in to provide backup. She's also adapted remarkably well to fostering a quintet of quasi-teenage bioroids, although she is also quite happy to remind Tom that this was his idea.
    
    Sooner or later, however, Tom will hopefully be able to remind her that having a baby was her idea.
    
    Handwavium abilities:
    
    Barbara is most of the way along the 'catlike' end of the catgirl bell-curve, with excellent night-vision and fully retractable claws, claws that are extremely sharp and will go through anything short of motorcycle safety gear. She can also purr, a fact that makes Tom very, very happy.
    
    Mundane attributes and quirks:
    
    Fully licensed commercial pilot on Earth.
    Qualified Expert with rifles and Distinguished with sidearms during Great Justice training.
    Unfailingly cheerful, good-natured and friendly, with a knack for smoothing the ruffled feathers of anxious or frustrated passengers.
    Not quite as good at the stiff upper lip thing as Tom, but like all good pilots she has the knack for keeping a cool head in a crisis.
    Becomes terrifyingly furious if she's mistaken for a stewardess.
    
    Affiliation:
    
    Barbara considers herself a Generalist with moderate Browncoat and Belter leanings.
    
    Known Associates and Enemies:
    
    Barbara is a moderator on one of the Interwave's largest LGBTQetc support message boards. (A petition once crossed Queen Serenity's desk to have her made an honourary Named Senshi, "Sailor Sappho". The only reason it didn't come to pass was that Parliamentary convention automatically vetoes any royal edict the reigning monarch cannot issue verbally without getting the giggles.)
Reply
 
#2
For the most part, this looks good. A couple of comments, though ...

While I'm not wedded to the idea of Noah Scott's private yacht being the first purpose-built Fenship, it is described on the wiki that way: "One of the earlier Fenships and possibly the earliest purpose-built Fenship, the Epsilon Blade is one of the few privately-owned armed ships in Fenspace." It also has a launch date of 21 March 2008. Of course, nobody was keeping records at the time, so both ships can be believed to be first with no straining of credulity.

Named Sailors are a big thing with the Senshi - it's their highest honour. It also has a few requirements: "Named Senshi are the ones that have proven themselves to be exemplars of the ideals of the Crystal Millennium. Being compassionate, swift and sure in battle, and attractive are usually good indicators of potential to become a Named Senshi." From what we've seen in the Freddy's story, Barbara is definitely compassionate, and probably meets the other requirements as well. Why not give her the title? (There is the caveat that "there is only one Named Senshi for any given installation or celestial body", but consider just how many asteroids and stations there are in Fenspace.) Of course, she'll gain a reputation boost from the title - that might be something she wouldn't want as a Troubleshooter.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
Reply
 
#3
Regarding the first point, Tom started building his ship some time before the Epsilon Blade was laid down, but he didn't make his first long-distance test flight until a few weeks after the Toy Box was launched. (I really do need to nail down the timeframe better before I bug Mal to set me up with a wiki account.)

As far as the second point goes, it could also be a bit of an issue politically because there are hundreds of thousand of brave and compassionate women in Fenspace whose achievements deserve that honour at least as much as Barbara does, and it would be very easy to accuse Queen Serenity of favouritism for singling out someone who happens to be dating a friend of hers. (And she got the mental picture of "Sailor Sappho" as a really butch lesbian in a fuku stuck in her head and couldn't stop laughing for nearly half an hour afterwards, which probably didn't help.) Out-of-universe, I'm also wary of making one of my characters that accomplished in 'canon' when I'm still a relative newbie.
Reply


Forum Jump:


Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)