Tuesday, May 1, 2018

Character Profile: Alex Movithi

Alex Movithi: Man Adrift

"This could be really good, or really, really bad." -Alex Movithi, more often than he'd prefer

Alex Movithi's story began in 1062, born on the asteroid mining planet Mondas to Alexei and Hilda Movithi, poor junk traders. From a young age he worked for his parents aboard starships, shuttling cheap metals throughout the Mondas system, always dreaming of being an interstellar pilot, seeking to escape the poverty and corruption prevalent throughout Mondas. As soon as he turned 18, he got on the first ship bound for planet Hightower, hoping to join the imperial navy and find adventure.

And adventure he found. When he enlisted in the navy, the subsector was embroiled in the Greycoat Insurgency war. The war was a footnote in galactic history, but to those who lived in the subsector, it was devastating and left lasting scars on everyone there. Others knew it as the Greycoat insurgency or the first Frontier war, the one that interrupted trade for a few years and was a mild inconvenience. Those who lived there knew it as THE war, the only one worth remembering.

The Greycoats were secessionist insurgents from fringe worlds, tired of the Imperium's oversight, fighting to leave and establish their own coalition of worlds. Not that Alex knew any of that. To him, the war was his chance to get offworld and find something to tell his grandchildren about. Young and reckless, he entered in the flight department, the small fighters that flew the most dangerous missions into enemy territory. Every day he flew off, escorting heavy destroyers, providing support in invasions on enemy territory, and engaging the Greycoats in the silent carnage of interstellar dogfights.

Those were the good times, the times he looked back on later and thought to himself, "Those were the good times," as one would expect when reminiscing about the good times. Through all of it he refused numerous commissions, wishing to remain in the thick of combat rather than stand back and order others around. His finest hour came during the Battle of Dessel when the capital ship he served with, the INS Thoth, was surrounded by Greycoat ships. As the dwindling Imperial forces held the insurgents at bay, the Greycoats sent an elite fighter squadron equipped with experimental high-power missiles to penetrate the Thoth's power station. Through a combination of brilliant maneuvering, hard reads on enemy ships and general incompetence from one Greycoat pilot, he destroyed the incoming missiles, allowing the Thoth to hold out until reinforcements came. His valor in combat against the rebels was noted and he was promoted instantly. Suddenly, younger cadets knew his name and asked him for autographs, senior officers tipped their hats at him, and just about everyone in the navy wanted to be his friend. Life couldn't get better for him.

And it didn't. In fact, life got significantly worse.

Alex, having found success in the navy, decided to move on to other things. He had served in the flight department; next to that, anything else would be a piece of cake. Thinking of making it rich, he left the navy, bought a small cargo ship, and sought out a living as a free trader. His ship attracted all types; immigrants and refugees, scoundrels and smugglers, it didn't matter so long as they could pay for their travels. One of his passengers, young Amelia Straffin, joined the crew to hide away from the Mondasian mob and continue her studies.

But times became hard. It turns out that having no experience in the real world outside of the navy had ill-equipped Alex to the rigors of interplanetary trade, and he soon fell upon hard times. He took to gambling, losing 10,000 credits in one night. With contracts being few and far apart, and no longer being able to pay for his ship, he became increasingly desperate. When the ship and its crew stopped at the starport of a small planet called Balthazar, he wrapped a bandanna around his face, stole away from his ship in the dead of night and left the planet aboard a raider ship, leaving his crew with no way off.

Joining the crew of the raider ship he became a pirate, preying on unsuspecting vessels in the darkness of interstellar space. The money he made wasn't much, but it was enough to keep him going. Not that it brought him happiness. Every night his thoughts were haunted by those he had left behind on Balthazar and the memories of his success at Dessel, and how far he had fallen. Once he was surrounded by friends, cheering him on and celebrating his victories. Now he was surrounded by cutthroats who couldn't care less about whether he lived or died. Not that he was exempt, he supposed. Once he was a shining example of the best the Imperium had to offer; now he was taking advantage of those good-natured enough to fall victim to the pirates' bait.

It wasn't long before he made enemies. A large yacht had answered a distress call the pirates had sent out, and Alex and his fellow corsairs were eagerly awaiting the chance to board and seize the ship's riches. As the pirates boarded the craft, they encountered heavy resistance; the yacht's owner hadn't come unprepared. After taking out the guards, the pirates discovered the identity of the ship's proprietor, Baeral, a well-known, high-ranking imperial noble with connections all over the place; Alex had known and served with his brother, a captain in the navy, and he was rumored to have connections to the mob on Mondas. The pirates jumped at the chance to humiliate one of the most influential men in the subsector, belittling him before his whole crew and making him lick their shoes.

Needless to say, this made Baeral angry, and a little sad too. He never forgot the pirates who made a fool of him, and swore his revenge. But then they were gone, and the best he could do was rant before the Duke about cracking down on piracy across the subsector.

Alex never really liked his comrades on the raider ship, and the feeling was mutual; after one disastrous heist, the pirate crew unceremoniously dumped him on the crappiest planet they could find.

Naturally, it was Balthazar.

Struggling to find himself again and looking back on all the mistakes he made, Alex wandered the streets, looking for work that didn't come. It didn't help that the planet was undergoing a civil war. Eventually he found a room, bunking in a crowded apartment with an impulsive noblewoman, a still-bitter Amelia Straffin, and a man he would have forgotten existed if his bulky armor didn't make him take up half the room.

Alex didn't know what he wanted. To make amends, perhaps, to pay back his debt to society and prove that he was still in the game, that he was still the hero that had saved the Thoth at Dessel. Maybe he wanted to find a place where he could do some good in the world.

Or maybe he was exactly where he wanted to be, surrounded by chaos.

Traits and Personality
Alex is 5' 11" with brown hair and two eyes. He usually wears a jacket in grey or brown over his old naval uniform and a bandanna or scarf covering his face. He has a strong sense of loyalty to his comrades, who he refuses to abandon. He is generally a stickler for the rules until somebody else breaks them; at that point he tosses them out the window. As the oldest of the group, he has the most experience, and is pretty skilled in numerous disciplines, a jack of all trades. Alex enjoys playing soccer, drinking and talking with friends, brooding, and sleeping. Things that anger him include the use of force on civilian populations, hypocrisy, and people who talk loudly on their phones at restaurants.

In combat he generally uses a cutlass or a Gauss pistol.

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