This, like life, is a work in progress. Thank you.
Vice Commodore, CEO Colonial Technologies, Lance S Shipwright, PhD.
What drives a man to greatness? What drives a man to madness? The answers are not so different from one another. Enter Lance Story Shipwright; a man of greatness, a man of madness.
Historic Histrionics
Lance Story Shipwright was born on the desert planet Tatooine years ago. He was abandoned shortly after birth. His mother was presumably a transient as there are no existing records that match the information available. The infant Shipwright was found in the back booth of a cantina in Mos Espa. While this start may have deterred others; the child seemed set on living. He was adopted that day.
Lance Shipwright Senior ran a marginally successful star-ship repair yard on the western edge of Mos Espa, he had no children though he had previously been married for two decades. His wife, Willow Shipwright, had died two years earlier along with their thirteen year old son Story. After the accident Lance Shipwright Senior spiraled into depression and his business suffered. He became an alcoholic. When he discovered the naked infant in the back of a dirty cantina his life changed.
The infant demanded constant attention at such an early age, the cost of which meant that Lance SR did not have the spare credits to get drunk. Within two months he had stopped drinking entirely and was now looking at revitalizing his business. He named the child after himself in honor of his dead son and lost wife; Lance Story Shipwright.
At six years old Lance JR was formally adopted. Already into his forties, however; Lance SR was looking to the future. The business had grown back up to something that they could be proud of and the profits all seemed to go to seeing that Lance JR would have a future full of options. Tutored by private instructors, as the public schools didn’t offer the education Lance SR desired for his progeny, by the time he was twelve and ready to enter the public system Lance JR was years beyond his peers.
A natural born genius, Lance JR would spend days designing fantastic machines with impossibly complex blueprints. He watched his father work and grew fascinated with the things that would come into their shops. As soon as he was able to hold a hydro-spanner Lance JR was allowed to work alongside his father and his workers. No matter what the boy fancied, his father supported. At twelve years old he had designed and built a plethora of systems and networks.
According to his teachers Lance was a quiet boy who was teased by the other children. Oddly the teasing did not seem to bother him, his grades were exemplary and he seemed stable. When he wasn’t in school Lance would be found covered in grease working in one of his fathers shops.
When he turned sixteen, LS (a nickname he’d picked up at the race-track) was invited to the Imperial Design Academy and though both he and his father disliked the idea of it, neither could debate that fact that IDA was among the best schools in the galaxy. Lance JR left Mos Espa.
For six years he did his part at the Imperial Design Academy, and for his part he was rewarded. He graduated with Honors, Suma Cum Laude, at the top of his class. At age twenty two Lance Story Shipwright was being offered contract opportunities with all the best Imperial firms. Lance firmly refused to become a cog in the New Order’s massive machine. He thanked his teachers and the Empire that had given him so much.
Lance Story Shipwright returned to Tatooine. He worked with his father for another year before finally bending to Lance SR’s wishes and accepting a job with an up-and-coming R&D firm off planet.
Unfortunately, like many things in life, the job was not what either man had expected. Lance, however; ever the dutiful son, refrained from making known the extent of his circumstances and opted instead to fabricate a fantasy world for his father inside of which Lance Story Shipwright was a successful, top positioned designer, where in he was happily dating the woman of his dreams and thinking of a future with children and the like… None of which was real, of course.
The fact of the matter was rather seedier and less noble a fate for such a promising young man. Sold into slavery, or rather contracted into it, Lance found himself being shuttled across the stars from one backwater planet to the next, conducting projects so mundane and minute he hardly recalled them all. For some time, under the employ of warlords, corporations and less easily described entities, he spent his years fixing irrigation projects or coordinating similarly uninteresting jobs.
Even under these ignoble circumstances Lance Shipwright shined. His employers were always happy, more then happy with his work. He had developed something of a reputation among the fringe elements and, eventually, found himself earning a not insignificant sum of cash. But once the lie had been crafted, Lance spent much of his time maintaining it, for the sake of his father and himself.
And then, one seemingly unremarkable day, that all changed.
On Gossamer Wings
Change, like the tides, can move swiftly and ebb with unpredictable irregularity. Waves, like energy, travel in two directions. So too did Lance Shipwright.
It had been just another boring day on the job for Lance Story Shipwright. His firm had contracted him out to yet another backwater, outer rim, fringe world to oversee the development of a high-atmosphere flight platform for the purposes of, oddly enough, maintain a watchful eye on the vast expanses of untended farm land on the planet. A local corporation had been experiencing significant profit loss which they had determined was the direct result of lax observation on the part of their Authorities and Enforcement branch.
As he had done many times before, Lance completed the job and then went on about his business. Shockingly, and much to his chagrin, his business for the day was… to be kidnapped. And although this was not uncommon, as he had been previously kidnapped on a number of occasions (all of which had been resolved without hassle) he gathered the distinct impression that this was not of the ordinary sort.
Indeed, when the blinders were removed from his eyes, Lance Shipwright was surprised to find himself in the audience of Ferguson Mumphs; Coalition Intelligence Bureau. It looked as though Lance was going to be offered yet another job, though one with far more clandestine ramifications and under the employ of a much larger body then he had been used to working for. And while the content of that discourse has since been classified the result of those talks ended with Lance Shipwright being given a fraudulent commission, contracted to carry out design projects not generally tolerated within the Coalition. A sizable facility had been constructed outside of Bimmisarri and all that was missing was a senior coordinator.
The RDS Uniform, under the supervision of Lance Shipwright, was to discover the secrets of enemy’s technologies while simultaneously developing new technologies for use within the Coalition.
Innovation and Implementation
Should one so young be able to achieve so much in so little time? The philosophy aside, this is exactly what Lance Shipwright has done.
How much freedom is too much?
The MC-170 Krakana stands as a testament to the danger of one mans mind. Operating without restrictions and lax oversight Galactic Technologies, from their facilities at the RDS Uniform, began producing the new line of standardized, affordable starships. These warships were received well and seemed to assuage the concerns of the Coalition Government that Galactic Technologies was putting their significant stipends to good use. Having failed in their initial mandate, to examine and reverse engineer Black Dragon technology, the CIB was not pleased. Ambassador Irtar Mal’Gro was dispatched to investigate…
The Protean Paradigm
Resurrection or Reconstruction
Colonial Pride & Provincial Avarice
Cross Overs & Other Notables
Dramatis Personae (Gestalt)
Colonial Minister Paula Ramos (Human)
Paula Ramos was elected and installed as the Colonial Governor of the Gestalt Colonies, the highest positon within the Provisional Government of Gestalt. She is a striking woman in her early forties. Her background in polotics stems from a previous military career prior to her formal entry into public office. Like many of the top figures of the Gestalt Colonies, much of her history is a mystery.
High Cardinal Umarlrich Oyzamndais (Human)
Cardinal Oyzamndais is responsible for the conduct of David Colony, it is his duty to oversee the Gestalt II based Colony. David Colony exists as the spiritual and acadamian heart and mind of the Colonies and it is from his position as High Cardinal that this fair featured man of indeterminate age affects his operational power. He has considerable clout within the Colonies and, aside from Minister Ramos, is one of the most prominent public figures of the Colonial power structure.
Fleet Admiral Ruben Mar-Veil (Human)
This ex-Naval commander was hired on by Lance Shipwright, with facilitator authority, to command the Colonial Defense Fleet and Colonial Defense Force alike. He has an impressive history. Having served under the banner of the Anthos Republic with distinction he got his start in the New Republican Navy before being contracted and repatroited by the Gestalt Colonies. He is in his mid fifties, though he maintains the appearance of a much younger man.
Captain d’Foose (Human)
Captain d’Foose is a hero of the Colonies; a naval commander who has fought her way through to become a public icon. Men and women alike look up to her as she sets the example and pushes the bar by which all others are judged. She has refused promotion twice and has the honor of being among the few ‘Captians’ to have multiple commands under her direct authority.