Post by Space Core on Aug 31, 2012 19:42:33 GMT -5
Name: Beluga Orcta
Race: Herglic, male
Age: 62
Height: 9ft85’’
Weight: 885lbs
Birth place: Space
Appearance: Beluga is a Herglic. That in itself speaks volume about his size. Considered only of slightly greater than average height and stature for his species, he towers above most other sentient species of the galaxy and is dangerously strong. He has a powerful build, exhibiting developed muscles. His smooth hairless skin is charcoal black and possesses a faint sheen, a feature common in his species. His face is quite flat, and his head doesn’t stand much higher than his shoulders. Like all Herglic he possesses two blowholes on the top of his head. A unique feature of his are two thin (by Herglic standards) white lines that begin over his brows, arc around his head and are prolonged all the way to his hands, passing over his shoulders in the process. Each of his two hands is made of three large fingers (including opposable thumbs) that grow progressively thinner the closer to the tip you go. His feet have three toes. A thin membrane connects the two major fingers (ie: the two fingers that aren’t thumbs) and all the toes together. Like all Herglic his eyes are completely black.
His entire left side sports multiple burn marks and vivid scars, all of which were obtained when his parents’ ship was shot down by angry creditors (a side effect of his father’s gambling, more on that later) and crashed on the surface of Giju with a young Beluga aboard. The white scars and burn marks stand out from his dark skin starkly, but they are the least of his injuries form that time. Firstly his left leg was maimed in the shipwreck and never healed properly, endowing him with a permanent limp. To help him walk he possesses a cane (detailed in the equipment section). His limp is significant, but his size allows him to make most other species engage in a brisk walk to keep up with him. Secondly his left eye was permanently blinded; the eye itself is intact, but internal damage made the orb useless. However he has always stubbornly refused to have prosthetics installed, preferring to keep them as a warning of the dangers of gambling.
His clothing changes depending on where he is. At work or at any time when he finds himself inside the Senate or in the presence of fellow Senators he usually sticks to a formal garb constituting of a black long sleeved tunic, matching pants, a white scarf loosely tied around his neck and a cloth band tied at an angle around his forehead to dissimulate his left eye. The whole would usually be covered by a long white coat draped around his shoulders. The extensive covering is not one he enjoys, but it a courtesy he shows to his fellow senators, sparing them the sight of most of his scarred side. The rest of the time he changes in a getup he is more at ease with. A simple dark green tank top, black cargo pants, sturdy brown leather boots and silver metallic bracers on his forearms.
Personality: Beluga, unlike most of his fellow Herglics, is a strict employer, expecting the very best from his subordinates. He does not tolerate mistakes and never lets failure go unpunished. He is not cruel however, and while his standards are high the punishment is rarely disproportionate to the employee’s mistake. Strict but fair. He even applies this trait to himself, holding even greater expectations in regards to his own work. Don’t be mistaken though, he is no perfectionist; he simply demands and expects quality. His high expectations stem from his trade philosophy, “do good on others, and in turn they will do good on you.” In other words deliver quality goods in a timely fashion and you’ll be paid well.
He holds a very strong sense of duty to his people. That is not to say he wishes to set the Herglic people up as masters of the entire Universe. He simply believes that if his people call for his aid then he is obliged to help. Back when he was a travelling merchant he would always pass through Giju, carrying essential materials to his homeworld from both the core and outer rim worlds. Furthermore he has paid off the debts of his Herglic workers more than once, on the condition that they never gamble again, a technique which has worked more than once. Beluga has also often spent long months searching through ancient Herglic ruins, trying to understand the technology and culture of his ancestors, but to no avail.
Beluga’s political view is one best described by libertarianism. He generally distrusts governments and accepted the role of Senator against his will. However he was nominated by his people, and his sense of duty to the Herglic made him accept it. He has held the post of several years, lending a concrete example to the saying that the best politicians are the unwilling ones. His political beliefs have been forged over several decades and tempered by his experience as the head of a trading caravan when he encountered his fair share of bureaucracy and useless legislation. As a Senator he takes great pleasure in bringing down such regulations, and often personally ignores them.
Describing him as a “by the rules” type of guy would be sorely inaccurate. He regularly bypasses regulation which he feels hinders his progress, but does so in a discreet enough way that it doesn’t usually catch up to him. However there are certain regulations which he would see upheld to his dying breath, especially those rules which ensure the protection of trading caravans.
Much like most other Herglics Beluga loves meeting new people, especially now that he is a Senator. He can often be found in bars, speaking with passing traders, bounty hunters and other spacers or drifters. He loves hearing stories of faraway worlds, which his position in Coruscant no longer allows him to travel to. However most of the time it isn’t the person he is interested, but their travels. Sometimes he does, however, find a person whose company he enjoys, and seeing how many individuals he meets it can happen several times a week. His affection, however, isn’t quite as forthcoming as his interest in travel and exotic worlds and is displayed in a gruff and indirect manner. A sure fire way to know if Beluga likes your company is if he reveals some of the more interesting of his travels.
One personality trait of Beluga’s which is very uncommon among Herglics is his loathing for gambling and games of chance. A scarring experience in his youth firmly rooted the idea in his mind. His injured left side is a vivid memento which he has stubbornly kept. The pain and the scars have done an admirable job of steering him well away of casinos and races. Even in politics he doesn’t usually make rash decisions, preferring to settle down and think things through while smoking his pipe.
Beluga prefers to be honest, disliking the subtle subterfuges and abundance of dishonesty that is rife within the Senate and a common encounter in political life. He has a gut feeling that if politicians dropped their acts and stopped acting and manipulating for their own personal glory the Galaxy would be a much friendlier place. But he is a pragmatist, and a cynic. In other words while he does not like lying he will often hide or embellish the truth when in the presence of fellow Senators. When away from political life he prefers honesty, to the point of sometimes being perceived as blunt. Even before becoming a Senator he had no qualms about lying to politicians and other officials, “give them a taste of their own medicine” he would often say with a chuckle.
Beluga is a master conversationalist and orator. It’s not very surprising given the fact that he considers speaking with others to be a hobby. Most of the jobs he has taken up in his life have been focused on talking with to others, whether it be to interrogate suspects and victims, or to sweeten a business deal, and most recently to debate during Senate sessions. His friendly demeanour, acute sense of humour and confidence give his discourse a strong charisma that makes him an excellent leader. His keen mind is a lethal tool in arguments, allowing him to find the weaknesses in his opponent’s arguments and exploit them.
Beluga is sensitive about his size, but not quite as much as his fellow Herglics. For example he has no qualms about manoeuvring through doors too small for his frame (and has actually become incredibly adept at it, being able to slide around spaces meant for humans with an ease and fluidity born out of experience). However he does not appreciate direct comment made about his bulk. Usually a calm individual, a couple of references made about his weight in a negative light will make him snap quite easily. Beluga’s anger is peculiar though, it is the contained kind, one that he keeps hidden from view, until the chance for revenge presents itself. In other words Beluga never forgives and never forgets. A particular tell of his is his habit to click his tongue off the side of his mouth noisily whenever he is annoyed or frustrated.
Occupation: Politician
Rank: Senior Senator representing the planet Giju.
Equipment:
Cane: A 53’’ long walking stick that Beluga keeps close by at all times to help him walk. At its core it is made of a strong metallic alloy, capable of withstanding Beluga’s full weight, but it is covered in wood to make it easier on the eye.
Pipe: A simple pipe made of white wood and engraved with several ancient Herglese runes. Beluga always keeps it around, along with a pouch of tobacco. He smokes it often, especially when thinking. He has a tendency to expel the smoke through his blowholes when lost in particularly deep thoughts.
Special Skills:
Advanced analytical and deductive skills-Beluga worked in several different trades before becoming a Senator. He even dabbled in medicine for a few years. Several of these jobs required a keen eye and an even sharper mind, which he has developed over decades.
Expert trading skills-Growing up and later owning one’s own trading company has a tendency to develop one’s trading skills. Beluga is capable of selling you a bauble you don’t need for twice its real value and make you think you made a deal.
Ships/Vehicles: None at the moment.
Attributes:
Physical Strength: 7
Intelligence: 7
Speed: 2
Leadership: 6
Unarmed: 1
Melee Weapons: 1
Ranged Weapons: 1
Bio:
Age 0-10: All good things come to an end
Beluga was born on his parents’ spaceship. Whel Orcta and Felsh Orcta (his mother and father respectively) were both well-known traders who transported goods (mainly spices and foodstuff) form the outer rim to the core worlds by way of the Rimma, Perlemian and Correlian trade routes. The days aboard his parents’ freighter were usually spent with Beluga taking lessons from a tutor droid his parents had purchased for his benefit and helping his mother and father with various tasks. Those days built the foundations for the trading skills Beluga would later come to master.
However as all things, that era came to an end, more abruptly and violently than they would have wished. Felsh Orcta was a kind man, honourable and proud, his greatest vice was gambling, a pastime to which he was addicted. One day Felsh got particularly unlucky and fell deep in debt, so deep he was too proud to admit it to anyone. A self-made man, he could never bear to be in debt to anyone, and especially not to friends. In a desperate bid to get rid of his debt he bet everything on one final race, and won. That should have been the end, had his creditor not been a rather unscrupulous Hutt. It was decided that Felsh would be made an example of what happened when you crossed the Hutt. As he was travelling back to Giju, Felsh’s freighter was attacked, destroyed and crashed on Giju. During the entire attack Felsh came clean to his family, and explained to them exactly why they were about to die. The only thing Beluga understood at the time was that this had been caused by gambling.
Felsh and Whel both died in the crash, but the then ten years old Beluga survived, the entire left side of his body was severely wounded. Several muscles in his left leg were torn to shreds, and a piece of muscle the size of a human’s fist was completely removed from his body. Furthermore the left side of his face was crushed in several places, and fragmented pieces of bone mangled the optic nerve connecting his left eye to his brain. His entire skin was lacerated and burnt, some areas more severely than others.
Ages 10-18: Loss, pain, recovery and growth.
He was found, unconscious in the wreckage a couple dozen minutes later by an official rescue team and was administered basic kolto-based first aid to stabilise his condition. By the time he was administered proper treatment scarring had become inevitable. When he awoke he was still in considerable pain, his entire left side bandaged up. A few days later he refused to have his eye and leg surgically removed to make way for cybernetic prosthetics, at the time his decision was mostly driven by a wish to inflict pain on others by saying no to everything and anything, a childish and immature response, but after all he was still a child then. In his later years he continued to refuse every time he was offered to be outfitted with prosthetics, wishing to keep the scars and the pain as a warning against gambling.
At the age of eleven Beluga left the Giju hospital, and moved in with his father’s brother (in short his uncle) Plankto Orcta and his wife Bel Orcta. At first relations between them and the young Beluga were hard, the child was silent, and they feared he would become a recluse. After a few months they decided to send him back to school so he could finish his education. Plankto knew that his brother would have wanted his son to be educated. That, as it turned out, was exactly was Beluga needed.
During the first few weeks the young Herglic was silent, not speaking a single word to anyone. He always did his work on time, and turned out to be a quick study, but his instructors were worried about his mental state. The job of bringing him out of his solitude was, unassumingly assumed by a young girl in his class named Kija Melnuu, a contagiously cheerful and annoyingly inquisitive young child. Every day, at lunchtime, while Beluga was alone, she would sit down in front of him and start talking, about the weather, about her day or about anything else that passed through her excited little mind. Her reasons were not entirely selfless, she was curious about the new student, and his refusal to communicate with others had made her very curious. It was several weeks before he said his first word. “Shut up”. First contact had been made; not what Kija had been hoping for, but giving up wasn’t her style. Over the course of the entire lunch period that day she managed to get him to say both his own and her name. It was progress, but her curiosity was far from sated.
Over the course of the following months Kija always ate with Beluga speaking to him, and he would sometimes tell her about his own story. In the first few weeks after his first words she discovered that his parents had been trader, but as soon as she asked where they were now he stopped talking. She couldn’t get anything out of him for over a month. That was the general pace of their relationship, Kija would learn something, and the she’d make a gaff that would make Beluga withdraw. The interactions, minimal as they were, somewhat reassured both his teachers and aunt and uncle. Over the course of the first two years at school Beluga became considerably more open, the pain was beginning to heal. He had expanded his circle of friends past Kija (although to be truthful most of these friends were originally Kija’s friends). At the same time Beluga’s grades remained good, especially in scientific areas where he excelled. He was still a quiet child, but now worries that he would grow to shun contact with others began vanishing.
From the ages of thirteen to eighteen Beluga’s life started falling into a comfortable routine. Sleep, work, food and friends where his greatest occupations. Every passing week he regained some of his old cheerful demeanour. By his fifteenth birthday anyone who met Beluga would never be able to guess just how great a wreck he had been just a short five years prior. At school the teenager continued to show brilliance in both science and humanities.
On the eve of his sixteenth birthday Beluga and his uncle had a talk, the serious “what do you plan on doing with your life” sort of talk. It was over the course of a long discussion that Beluga cme to terms with soemthign that had been gnawing at him. He didn’t want to be a trader. He never wanted to leave the safety of Giju. Or at least so he thought at the time. Plankto suggested that Beluga study medicine, there were few Herglic doctors, and the job wouldn’t require that the teenager leave the planet, a suggestion to which Beluga took a strong liking.
At the age of seventeen he experienced his first crush. She was two years older than him, and for a while she was all he thought about. To this day he keeps blaming hormones for what came next. He made his move, seduced her, and experienced his first fling. It lasted a whole of two months before she decided to break it off, something Beluga took surprisingly well. Truth be told he was in love with another, Kija had been the object of his affection for a while, but he had never worked up the courage to ask her. He had decided that too much was at stake, he didn’t want to risk their friendship.
At the age of eighteen he applied and got accepted into a good medical school on Giju, and the boost in confidence stemming from that made him decide to have a nice, long and honest talk with Kija. And that didn’t go as planned. As they met up she revealed that she was leaving Giju to work on as a trader and she asked him to join her. An offer he couldn’t accept. In the end he decided to say nothing, believing both of them would be happier that way, the discussion ended in a violent row, and the two parted ways on bad terms. He often reflects upon this moment and decides that if he could go back in time and do things differently he would choose this moment.
Age 18-30: Doctor, cop and feeling useless.
Thankfully for him medical school was complex enough that it kept his mind off Kija. For most of the time at least. It was during his first year that he came to realise that he had lost all interest in romance. It was not that he wasn’t attracted to the opposite sex; it was simply that the one woman he loved wasn’t anywhere he had the guts to go.
At the age of 23 he completely his initial five years with excellent grades and dove into the post-undergraduate curriculum. It was during this time that he met a young Vraxis bacta producer by the name of Grak. The two befriended one another quite quickly, and usually got to see each other around twice a month (in other words every time Grak delivered his bacta to Giju). Over time Beluga made friends with several other small bacta producers that sometimes passed by Giju.
By the time he was 27 he had finally become a doctor, specialised in iinfectious diseases. A profession in which he spent two years practising before he finally admitted to himself that he didn’t like it. Disease and injuries were rare on Giju, and he was left with little work, in addition to that the growing usage of bacta made his profession somewhat obsolete, and made him feel like a bacta dispensing machine more than a trained doctor.
At the age of 29 he resigned from his post as a doctor and immediately took up a job in Giju’s capital’s peace keeping force. His reasons were relatively simple. He had managed to scare himself. In the few weeks before he resigned as a doctor he had begun to think about how it would be to travel the stars, exploring new and exotic worlds on the other side of the galaxy. It was a calling that most Herglics felt and one which had led to most of them becoming traders of some description. But the void held too many painful memories for him. In a way he didn’t fell ready to face it again. And so he dived into his next job, putting all his waking hours into it, preventing himself from thinking too much.
Due to his infirmity he was a rather poor field officer, but he exhibited impressive deductive skills and a keen eye, both traits which he had honed in medical school. He hadn’t been in the force long enough to apply as a detective, but other officers usually brought him along to take a look at the scene and get his opinion.
During his time in the Giju police force he helped catch several of Giju’s biggest criminals. Jerak “The Luck”, a Balosar who rigged every game of chance he could find, making himself thousands of credits from the gambling-addicted Herglics. As well as Dukkis “The Butcher” Fizzel, an Aqualish with a penchant for killing and carving up his victims like a meat merchant would. Apart from that Beluga also came across several small time crooks. After all Giju was generally a lawful and peaceful planet Jerak and Dukkis were the two biggest criminals on the planet at the time. Once again Beluga rapidly found that his chosen occupation didn’t satisfy him. Except for the odd field investigation every other month it was mainly about filling out paperwork for him.
Age 30: Business and getting off Giju.
At the age of thirty he finally gave up, having had enough of writing endless reports. He’d joined hoping to make Giju a better place, but the reach of the police was anything but long. For a time he wandered bout, aimlessly. It was during that time that he got to thinking. What did he really want to do? The answer came surprisingly quickly. He wanted to get off Giju. A strange conclusion given his prior phobia of space travel. But the more he thought about it, the more he realised that his mind was set, or rather had been set for a long time now. The memories of his parents’ death had become an old, well healed wound, and there was no logical reason to fear their profession. As this dawned upon him, something else nagged on his mind. He had enough money to buy a ship and food. But what would be trade? His parents had a strong spice business going, but their old contacts were either dead, retired or had forgotten about him. A chance encounter with his old Vratix friend Grak yielded the answer.
Grak wasn’t happy with how business was going. He didn’t have enough resources to send his bacta much further than Giju, and that hurt his revenue. Every month he found himself with surplus, which he had dutifully been stockpiling. To Beluga there was no better opportunity. He would buy a ship and transport Grak’s bacta to the core worlds, where prices were higher for the ‘miracle fluid’. He would then return with the profit and he and Grak would share it (with a larger slice going to Grak, who had to take on more expanses). The deal was made over a small restaurant table, one that would grow to become a major business in just over a decade.
Beluga purchased a second-hand light freighter which he named “The Pequod”, after his parents’ own ship. The ship was an old Dynamic-class freighter, completely outclassed by the standards of the day, but Beluga didn’t need the fastest ship. He needed one reliable enough to get him to the core worlds. His journey would be simple; he’d follow the Rimma trade route all the way up to Abregao-rae, from there he’d travel to Balosar, Foeroth, Metellos and even Coruscant, selling some of his cargo on each planet before returning to Thyferra. The first run was a success, profit rolled in and Beluga took a mind to expanding his client base. He struck similar deals as the one with Grak with other small bacta producers from Thyferra. His profit exploded, and he managed to keep his Vratix clients happy. By transporting bacta for multiple different producers he could increase his profit but still keep his Vratix clients happy by giving them a larger share of the profit he made on their merchandise.
Age 30-46: Expansion
For the following five years Beluga never changed his route. Over time he began to make powerful allies on the planets he visited. His merchandise was of quality and he was able to undercut most of his rivals. At first he was selling to small hospitals and corporations, but soon enough he was trading with big players. Then the he began to expand, he bought a second ship and hired a pilot for it, a fellow Herglic and an old friend of Beluga’s.
At the same time he expanded his cargo he got back in touch with some of his parents' old providers, a list of which was relatively simple to obtain through his uncle. Seeing his success with bacta they decided he was a relatively safe investment and as such decided to sell him their foodstuff, mainly exotic outer rim spices, which he could offload on core worlds for a handsome price. Beluga’s business model was simple, one ship would take the bacta and the other would transport the spices. He would always personally undertake the bacta run, spending hours on his own travelling between planets. He usually spent what spare time he didn’t waste in bars talking with patrons either reading or exercising. His body did not allow him to practise combat moves, but he would often lift weights for hours on end, a somewhat simple way to pass time, but one that allowed his mind tow wander. Reading on the other hand, reading was his combat training. He knew he was a cripple, and so he honed the one weapon he possessed. His mind, and a mind needs books like a blade needs a whetstone. Over time he developed formidable upper body strength and ket his mind sharp his mind.
By the time he was forty his business included seven ships of various sizes, employed twenty people, received supplies from thirty different sources and traded in bacta, foodstuff (mainly spices) and raw materials for goods ranging from clothing to blasters. Most of his suppliers were outer rim goods that sold well in the core worlds. He had strong political ties on Metellos, Balosar and Abregado-rae. He didn’t really like the politicians even back then, during his time as a police officer he’d already taken a strong disliking to red tape, as a trader bureaucrats were his greatest headache. That is exactly why he befriended the politicians, having a high up friend meant he and his ships could bypass some of the more time consuming procedures. It was during this time that he began doing some digging on a particular Hutt, the very same one that had been his father’s creditor. However he found no way to take his revenge quite yet, and so let the matter go for a bit.
His business was mainly concentrated around the Rimma trade route, sometimes his ships ventured closer to the Correlian trade spine. The pilots of his ships had free rains to take up their own routes. Beluga always rewarded innovation that led to increased efficiency. The Herglic trader knew that if he wanted to expand his trade to include the area surrounding the Parlemian trade route he would need to create a second branch of his company. One that would be headed by someone he trusted completely. Grak had his obligations on Thyffera and couldn’t leave too far from his homeworld, and his other pilots he trusted with individual ships, but not an entire branch. He had only one choice.
During the twenty two years since they’d last talked to one another Kija had moved to the planet Esseles, married and had two children. Her husband was a small time trader who voyaged between the worlds on the Parlemian trade route closest to Esseles. When Beluga rang at her doorbell their reunion was awkward. To say the least. But soon enough they managed to drive past that, and he made his business proposition. He would buy a few ships, put them in the care of Kija and set her up with potential suppliers on the Parlemian trade route, and then he would leave her to run it as she pleases, sending him a monthly report on operations and paying a slice of profit to him. A simple plan, and one that was hard to refuse. That day he left Esseles with a rekindled friendship and a new business branch along the Parlemian route.
His business kept growing steadily, and he was heading out personally less and less. He only did bacta runs with his personal ship every now and then to amuse himself, climbing aboard the ship of the pilot he’d left in charge of the ‘miracle fluid’ and just going along for the ride. It was during this time that he began to search for Herglic ruins. He’d always been fascinated by the history of his people, especially stories of the ancient Herglic Empire and he now had a lot of time on his hands. His old ship, The Pequod was still in service, one of the ugliest piles of metal in the Galaxy, but to his eyes the most beautiful creature ever to grace the skies, reliable as hell to boot. He installed a series of computers and upgraded the navigational unit of the ship, turning it into a mobile office from where he could monitor all the hips owned by his company and give out orders and then set off. He was aged forty six.
46-55: Hero of Giju
He travelled to multiple worlds which had belonged to the ancient trading Herglic Empire, visiting ancient ruins and using his contacts to enter some of the more recent archaeological sites. He even uncovered some new sites, which he then had uncovered privately, returning dozens of artefacts to Giju. When he was forty eight he received news that his uncle had fallen gravely ill and hastily returned to his homeworld. He hadn’t been on the watery planet in over a decade, and he came back to find things had changed around since he was last there.
Giju’s peaceful existence had meant that over time the bacta trade had begun to bypass the Herglic homeworld. The small Vratix bacta suppliers that used to do business on Giju had nearly all become Beluga’s suppliers and his ships rarely stopped on Giju to do business. Bacta being in short supply Plankto Orcta’s condition was progressively growing worse. As he arrived at his uncle’s bedside Beluga immediately inspected the case, checking and double-checking every exam that had been undertaken, but he failed to find the cause. His uncle passed away a few days after his arrival, and Beluga remained on the planet for several weeks following the burial. He mainly wanted to be there to ensure his aunt didn’t do anything rash, but also because he wanted to assess the extent of Giju’s lack of bacta. He wasn’t blaming it for the death of his uncle, even large amounts of kolto had failed, and in Beluga’s honest opinion bacta wouldn’t have fared any better.
During this time on his own planet Beluga met the several of Giju’s political elite. Most of them had been present at his uncle’s funeral (Plankto having been quite an active politician in his younger days), but they had not dared bother him then. They pestered him everywhere he went, mostly asking for help to fund campaigns. Several of the more radical elements even mistook his recent archaeological donations to the planet as being a sign of support for parties that believe in Herglic-domination. He promptly explained to these people that he had no interest in having his time wasted by them. Which did little to discourage most of them, much to his chagrin.
After pondering on Giju’s current problems he isolated two major factors as slowly draining the planet of life. The first was the growth of offworlders flooding the planet, looking to make some quick credits exploiting the Herglic’s obsession with games of luck. The second was the constant brain drain, skilled individuals leaving their homeworld due to the lack of job potential on the planet. Two assumptions which had been easy to reach. Solutions was much harder to find, but he eventually found ways he, personally, could help.
After spending one galactic standard month on the planet he took back to the stars, but not without having acquired a few political allies on Giju. His first move to improve his planet was to create an experimental school which implemented lessons on the dangers of gambling, never prohibiting it, but teaching pupils ways to lessen their losses, and about controlling the need to play ‘just one more game’. In addition to these he funded several ad campaigns on Giju and several other worlds with large Herglic populations, and helped fund an anti-gambling special interest group on Giju which would actively campaign. He had seen other sentient species use similar techniques to attempt to curb the impact of alcohol and tobacco on their population with some success. He, of course, didn’t expect change to occur overnight, but he did hope that his efforts were a step in the right direction.
Regarding Giju’s second problem his plan was somewhat more ambitious, and the main reason for his fraternising with Giju’s politicians. He hoped to turn Giju into an even bigger trading hub than it already was over several decades. The plan was that by enlarging its spaceport Giju would be able to become a crucial stop on the Rimma trade route and attract more Herglic traders by offering a prime location set between the outer rim and core worlds.
During this time he also negotiated with his bacta suppliers, attempting to find an agreement which would allow some bacta trade on Giju. Grak, whose business had grown considerably since his first business agreement with Beluga, was one of the first to agree, accepting to ship lower quality bacta to Giju. Ater all the Herglic rarely needed high quality medicine unlike the core worlds. Most of Giju’s medical needs were covered by low to medium quality bacta for small wounds and infections. Of course if a ship crashed down on Giju and a kid was found with half his body burnt to a crisp bacta reserves would be insufficient to completely heal the victim, but Beluga rationalised that it was either this or nothing.
Upon deciding that things were satisfactorily set up he turned his mind back to archaeology, while ruling over his trade company and keeping an eye on the Giju situation. In other words his days were busy enough, but things were going smoothly enough. Over the course of nine years he built four more of his ‘experimental schools’ on other Herglic-heavy worlds such as Esseles, his advertising campaign gained backing from multiple political parties on Giju (all eager to jump on the ‘gamble responsibly’ bandwagon) and so did the special interest group he had kick-started. His plans to turn Giju into a massive trading hub weren’t moving quite as swiftly as he had hoped, but he wasn’t all that bothered. He’d set up events to take effect in the long term.
One hiccup he did encounter in this time was Hutts interference with his operations along the Correlian trade spine. He had been taking away profit from Huttese operations outside of Nal Hutta for a while now. The Hutts were sending pirate groups to harass convoys flying under his banner. Beluga immediately travelled to the fringes of Huttese space, opening negotiations with several Hutt families. As it turned out one of these particular families whose profit he was sapping was the very same Hutt family that had blown up his parents’ ship, the Desilijic. The Herglic businessman immediately found a great opportunity for revenge. He made a deal with the two other Hutt clans involved in the negotiations. He would order his ships to stay away from systems close to Huttese sace, but in return he wanted the Desilijic clan to be ruined. To the Hutts it was a simple decision. Seeing as their pirate attacks on Beluga were outside of Huttese space legal action could be taken against them, and Beluga had enough evidence to make any fair court trace the pirates back to the Hutts. Accepting the Herglic’s deal meant saving their profits, the cost would be to take down one of their rival Hutt clans. To any sane Hutt the answer was simple. At age 52 Beluga had finally gotten revenge on those who had murdered his parents.
Age 55-62: Reluctant leaders are the best leaders.
Returning from the borders of Huttese space Beluga was met with news he didn’t like. The Herglic Senator had passed away, and polling on Herglic-heavy planets had shown that, of all people, the wider Herglic public wanted him to take up the mantle. Now dedication to their people was a trait common among the Octa family. Felsh had often made generous donations to various associations on Giju, and Felsh’s father before him did the same. Beluga had also proven he had a vision for the Herglic, and his people had picked up on that particular vision and found they liked it. But the trader had never been big on politics, always preferring to obtain contacts in places of power and using them rather than entering the spotlight himself.
At first he refused to run a campaign or even be involved at all. He rationalized his self-disgust for letting down the Herglic away by telling himself that early poll results were always erratic. However with each passing week where he remained at the top of polls despite not actually running that argument got weaker and weaker. Finally, just under a month away he made up his mind and officially entered the race. His campaign was mainly based around exposing his ideology, a libertarian approach which would focus on reducing the reach of the government. That did nothing to lessen the amount of support he was receiving. His opponents ran a rather severe negative campaign on Beluga, targeting his disregard for regulation as well as uncovering dirt on him as best as he could, mainly focusing on Beluga’s supposed ‘involvement’ with Hutt crime lords. In answer to that Beluga chose a more positive approach, not releasing a single negative piece of advertisement, and using debates to address and rectify the claims of his opponent. In these debates Beluga often came across as calmer and more reasonable while his opponent was getting more and more frustrated by the day. In the last days of the campaign he began making some serious gaffes and was accused of running a campaign focused on slander, which lost him even more support. Needless to say Beluga won by a landslide, managing to obtain over two thirds of the votes. Just a few days after the results were made official the accusations of slander surrounding Beluga’s opponent’s campaign were found to be true.
Shortly after taking up his office in Coruscant Beluga came to realise that his fellow Senators weren’t exactly impressed by him. To them he was a wealthy businessman who had yet to make his mark on the political agenda. Several of them came to meet him in his first few days, hoping to get him to their side. These Senators soon found out that what Beluga lacked in political experience he more than made up in brainpower. With every meeting the Senators came out realising that he’d told them absolutely nothing while making them feel like they had the upper hand, playing them at their own game. A skill Beluga had developed while negotiating prices.
The first few bills that passed through the Senate which Beluga got to sit on weren’t ones he needed to truly take part in. He voted, aligning himself with whatever side made most sense to him, but never took active part in debates. It was a little over a year since he’d taken office when a bill he could really sink his teeth into reared its head. The Senate would be voting on a piece of legislature which, if passed, would force local governments who were part of the Republic to submit each public project they were planning to evaluation by the entire Senate. The idea was to allow the Senate to coordinate the efforts of individual planets and to prevent them from spending more than they should by rooting out and preventing the more feckless projects.
Beluga wasn’t the head of the group of Senators opposing this particular bill, but by the time the votes came in most would agree that he had been the greatest driving force behind the opposition. His first move was to reach out to his old political contacts all over the Galaxy, trying to get a feel for the general opinions regarding this bill on various planets. Soon enough he found out that the people of a few of the figures pushing for the passage of the bill were indecisive about the issue and that the Senators for these planets had usually applied their own political preferences for this. Now Beluga knew that the people themselves weren’t the ones directly casting the votes, but he also knew that Senators wanted to be re-elected, and that meant doing what their voters wanted them to do. As such he planned multiple rallies and ad campaigns against the bill and set them up on the indecisive planets, hoping to turn the people against their own Senators, he also made use of several of his old trade contacts and asked them to spread the word against the bill, essentially turning them into free advertising banners. A sound plan, but those Senators concerned rapidly made their move, beginning a set of ads supporting the bill, Beluga had a head start, but his opponents were playing on their home turf. But that was only the tip of his plan. Unlike his opponents he didn’t care about the opinion of the people on the planet he was advertising on, he only wanted to stretch out the efforts of the key figures backing the bill. That, over time, would tire them out faster, making them less likely to be persuasive enough to win over centrists. Which ties neatly into the second section of Beluga’s plan, debating. A few Senators had seen his skills when it came to talking, but those were mainly on his side in this particular campaign, a significant boon, as it would mean he had an element of surprise. Most of the Senate had never heard him debate. They soon found out how dangerous his speech could be. His powerful, booming and confident voice meant few could speak over him, additionally he often used the cavernous sound of his blowholes being cleared to gain the senate’s attention, preventing his opponents from cutting him across. Furthermore, and most crucially, his speech was clear, his arguments were easy to follow but hard to counter and any time his opponents would deliver their own arguments he would pick each and every one apart individually. He won over several of the centrists, bolstering the numbers of those opposing the bill. The third and final plan of Beluga’s plan was to prevent behind the scenes alliances as much as possible. He suggested that the lives of the key Senators who were involved in this bill be televised, “a way to show the citizens of the Republic just how hectic things can get in the weeks leading up to a vote,” he claimed as the reason. This particular aspect of the plan wasn’t quite as successful as he had hoped, mainly due to Senators using their subordinates to form alliances rather than meeting personally, a lesson Beluga would keep in mind.
By the time the day of the vote came the side opposing the bill managed to secure a narrow victory, earning Beluga a reputation as a fearsome opponent when he truly put his head in the game. Since that first success the Heirglic Senior Senator has had both successes and victories in his political endeavours, but his fellow Senators now hold a healthy amount of respect for him.
Following the end of his first term as a Senator Beluga stood for re-election, once again by popular demand, and once again won easily enough. He has, however, confirmed that he would not stand to be re-elected for a third term.
Theme Song: L’Imposture-Louise Attaque
RP Sample:
Marsia was running round the freighter’s cargo hold, checking and double checking each and every crate. She wasn’t usually this stressed out; the source of her anxiety was the large bipedal cetacean sitting at the back of the hold. He was seemingly deeply absorbed into a large tome, a pipe clamped firmly at the side of his mouth, but she had a feeling his single good eye had rested on her more than once, drilling a hole into the back of her head. Balosars were rarely trusted with anything due to a rather denigrating reputation. She’d been lucky enough to get this job and she had started to feel like the Herglic employing her was beginning to trust her, but now this. He’d shown up unannounced, asking her if she’d mind if he tagged along for the ride. Recognising him immediately she had naturally said that she wouldn’t mind at all. It was technically his ship and his merchandise. She was in no position to refuse. But truth be told it did bother her. She was afraid. What did this mean? He was the owner of the company even if he didn’t directly control it anymore, plus he had other things to do than go on a random bacta run. The man was a Senator for crying out loud! Was this a formal evaluation of some sort? A test of whether he could trust her or not? Would her words and actions on this run affect her future in the company? Was he just aboard to tell her he was going to fire her? Marsia was so deep in her own thoughts that a sudden cavernous bellow made her jump several feet in the air with a high pitched squeal. Her antennapalps had been extended and the sheer volume of the noise had sent a stabbing pain into her skull, in addition to scaring the blood out of her veins.
------
Human philosophy was truly interesting, though this particular tome was a bit too nihilistic for his taste, obsessing over the rejection of religion, traditions, routine. In short the rejection of everything. Surely a man trying to lead such a life would turn mad in but a few short days. It was just after he came to that particular conclusion that he subconsciously noticed that there was perhaps just a bit too much smoke in his mouth and he swiftly blew it out through his blowhole, around the same time that his musings were cut short by a high-pitched squeal. He blinked once and looked up, noticing the young Balosar pilot standing with her knees slightly bent, one hand over her chest and seemingly out of breath, her antennapalps quivering.
“Is everything quite all right?” Beluga inquired softly, taking his pipe out of his mouth.
“Y-yes sir. I-you just startled me sir,” she replied shakily, slowly regaining her composure. She straightened up before continuing. “I’ve checked the cargo and everything seems to be in order. We are ready to depart sir.”
“Seeing how many times you were spinning around those crates I’d say I can trust your appraisal of the crates,” the Herglic chuckled to himself, a comment which elicited a faint blush to appear on the pilot’s pale cheeks. Beluga picked himself up, grabbing his walking stick with his left hand while simultaneously extinguishing and putting away his pipe with his right hand. “Well ladies first,” he added with a friendly smile, pointing at the door with his cane. She thanked him and headed straight for the cockpit. The Herglic had a bit of trouble with the small corridor, having to simultaneously walk hunched over and sideways to make it through the narrow passage to the control area. Upon emerging on the other side he immediately noticed the Balosar sitting in the co-pilot chair. “What exactly do you think you’re doing there?”
“I-Sorry sir, I just presumed you would want to take command of the ship,” she explained hurriedly, bolting up and out of the seat.
“I recall saying I was coming on for the ride, not that I was commandeering your vessel,” the Herglic replied, slightly amused by the pilot’s nervousness. The Balosar nodded shakily and took her place in the pilot’s seat and he went over to sit down next to her. The seat was wide enough for his build; he’d had all the ships used by his company modified to have an enlarged co-pilot seat, just in case he felt like climbing aboard.
“All instruments are reading properly, all measurements are within acceptable parameters. We are ready for take-off,” the change was sudden enough and stark enough to take Beluga by surprise. The nervous little creature that had been fidgeting around the hold for a good half hour had transformed into a calm and confident individual. In a way it wasn’t surprising. It wasn’t the first pilot he’d met who felt most comfortable behind the command instruments of a ship. Ironically it had been quite the opposite for him until barely a decade ago. Smiling to himself he relit his pipe, taking a couple of long drags and blowing out the smoke with a content smile before making himself comfortable in his seat and turning it so he could look at the Balosar.
“So Marsia, got any interesting stories to disclose to an old bored man?” Beluga asked, staring at her intently with his one good eye. This was the bit he enjoyed when he intruder upon his pilots’ ships. The long gap between destinations where they could just talk.
“I’m not sure any of them would be distinguished enough for the ears of a Senator,” he could immediately notice that a part of her mind was regretting that statement already. She was at the commands of her ship and was feeling confident, but she knew she’d spoken out of place. Beluga could see the slight creasing around her eyes which betrayed the fact she was physically cringing and trying to stop herself from cringing at the same time.
“You don’t trust politicians do you Masia?” he asked mildly, glancing out of the cockpit’s windows. He didn’t want her to think he was scrutinizing her every move now was he? Then again he was fairly certain she was thinking a great many things about him and his presence right now. Hired pilots rarely knew how to react when the man who controlled whether they’d be paid next month or not was ‘tagging along for the ride’.
“N-no sir. I do not,” she replied truthfully after a few seconds of hesitation. “It’s nothing personal sir. I’ve just never met a politician who didn’t say exactly what he thought I wanted to hear.”
“That’s probably the wisest thing you’ve ever done. Certainly wiser than joining whichever pirate gang it was you joined about, well I’d say fourteen years ago,” the Herglic replied mildly, he could practically feel her tensing up, her grip tightening on the instruments. “I hope prison wasn’t too unpleasant. Can’t say you didn’t deserve the four years they sent you in for, I don’t like pirates very much you see, but there is a difference between deserved punishment and cruel punishment,” the entire sally had been blasted out with barely a pause for the Herglic to breath, but he was hardly out of breath. Frequently debating in the Senate meant he was used to speaking for a long time with little time to catch his breath. The tension was now thick enough to be cut with a vibroblade.
“Wha-how did you even…”
“Tattoos often mark one’s experiences in life and I’ve gotten quite good at reading them. It’s no different for you. That mark on your shoulder is clearly the brand of some sort of pirate group. The fading of the ink means it was bad quality, probably a small gang with little funds. That fading also allows me to give a relatively accurate estimate of how long it’s been on your skin. As for the prison, well the tattoo on your left breast which is just peeking out of your shirt,” a blush flashed across Marsia’s cheeks and she readjusted her top, “paired with the faded barcode imprinted on your wrist are obviously prison tattoos. The ink quality is even shoddier than that of your pirate markings, probably homemade, a measure rarely resorted to nowadays except in prisons. A way to defy the guards I suppose, stick it up to the man. The particular motif you chose, that round head with antennapalps on the top is a mark rarely applied by tattooists too far from Balosar, and the barcode is similar to the one prisoners are assigned in the Abregado-rae prisons, which would make sense since the group you were a member of wasn’t exactly rich, so they had to stay close to home. I also happen to know a thing or two about possible sentences for piracy on a variety of planets, knowing what your opponent is risking helps to gauge how desperate they are. Four years isn’t much for piracy nowadays, but they’re not kind on pirates on Abregado-rae, even among other inmates they’re considered to be outcasts, so I’m guessing you either weren’t a long term companion of your pirate friends or you were small fry,” by the end of his tirade Marsia was visibly clenching her teeth, she was about to says something she’d regret when Beluga began speaking again. “It has to be quite shaming for you, to have your past laid bare like that by a man who is, essentially, a total stranger. Still, not quite as shaming as that one time when I was eighteen and my aunt walked in on me and my then girlfriend in the act,” he added the last sentence after a small pause, blowing smoke out through the corner of his mouth.
“I-I-what?! What was that for? I didn’t need to know that!” the Balosar burst out, eloquence and anger long forgotten due to the sheer absurdity of the Herglic’s latest revelation.
“I was merely equalising the playing field Marsia. I’ve just ranted on for quite a while about your past. I’m assuming you were in considerable discomfort, having the darker elements of your past dug out by a total stranger in what I assume you thought was a judgemental tone is quite unbearable. As such I balanced things out, we are now both roughly equally shamed,” he explained with a friendly smile. “Plus the entire trial has taken your mind off your troubles. But for clarity’s sake I suppose I’ll explain to you why I’m here. You see, much as you dislike politicians, so do I. I never wanted to be a Senator, but my people needed me to take on the mantle, so I did. Sometimes I like to escape the politics and just leave all my troubles behind while being driven around by another pilot. And for the record I don’t care what my employees did before joining the company so long as they prove to be trustworthy and competent, two qualities you’ve already proved you possess. Now, do you have any interesting stories to tell me?”
“Maybe all politicians aren’t as bad as I thought,” Marsia smiled, more to herself than to the Herglic sitting next to her. The first honest sign of a positive emotion she’d shown all day. “I could probably start with how I became a pirate which, I warn you ahead of time, was against my will…”
Race: Herglic, male
Age: 62
Height: 9ft85’’
Weight: 885lbs
Birth place: Space
Appearance: Beluga is a Herglic. That in itself speaks volume about his size. Considered only of slightly greater than average height and stature for his species, he towers above most other sentient species of the galaxy and is dangerously strong. He has a powerful build, exhibiting developed muscles. His smooth hairless skin is charcoal black and possesses a faint sheen, a feature common in his species. His face is quite flat, and his head doesn’t stand much higher than his shoulders. Like all Herglic he possesses two blowholes on the top of his head. A unique feature of his are two thin (by Herglic standards) white lines that begin over his brows, arc around his head and are prolonged all the way to his hands, passing over his shoulders in the process. Each of his two hands is made of three large fingers (including opposable thumbs) that grow progressively thinner the closer to the tip you go. His feet have three toes. A thin membrane connects the two major fingers (ie: the two fingers that aren’t thumbs) and all the toes together. Like all Herglic his eyes are completely black.
His entire left side sports multiple burn marks and vivid scars, all of which were obtained when his parents’ ship was shot down by angry creditors (a side effect of his father’s gambling, more on that later) and crashed on the surface of Giju with a young Beluga aboard. The white scars and burn marks stand out from his dark skin starkly, but they are the least of his injuries form that time. Firstly his left leg was maimed in the shipwreck and never healed properly, endowing him with a permanent limp. To help him walk he possesses a cane (detailed in the equipment section). His limp is significant, but his size allows him to make most other species engage in a brisk walk to keep up with him. Secondly his left eye was permanently blinded; the eye itself is intact, but internal damage made the orb useless. However he has always stubbornly refused to have prosthetics installed, preferring to keep them as a warning of the dangers of gambling.
His clothing changes depending on where he is. At work or at any time when he finds himself inside the Senate or in the presence of fellow Senators he usually sticks to a formal garb constituting of a black long sleeved tunic, matching pants, a white scarf loosely tied around his neck and a cloth band tied at an angle around his forehead to dissimulate his left eye. The whole would usually be covered by a long white coat draped around his shoulders. The extensive covering is not one he enjoys, but it a courtesy he shows to his fellow senators, sparing them the sight of most of his scarred side. The rest of the time he changes in a getup he is more at ease with. A simple dark green tank top, black cargo pants, sturdy brown leather boots and silver metallic bracers on his forearms.
Personality: Beluga, unlike most of his fellow Herglics, is a strict employer, expecting the very best from his subordinates. He does not tolerate mistakes and never lets failure go unpunished. He is not cruel however, and while his standards are high the punishment is rarely disproportionate to the employee’s mistake. Strict but fair. He even applies this trait to himself, holding even greater expectations in regards to his own work. Don’t be mistaken though, he is no perfectionist; he simply demands and expects quality. His high expectations stem from his trade philosophy, “do good on others, and in turn they will do good on you.” In other words deliver quality goods in a timely fashion and you’ll be paid well.
He holds a very strong sense of duty to his people. That is not to say he wishes to set the Herglic people up as masters of the entire Universe. He simply believes that if his people call for his aid then he is obliged to help. Back when he was a travelling merchant he would always pass through Giju, carrying essential materials to his homeworld from both the core and outer rim worlds. Furthermore he has paid off the debts of his Herglic workers more than once, on the condition that they never gamble again, a technique which has worked more than once. Beluga has also often spent long months searching through ancient Herglic ruins, trying to understand the technology and culture of his ancestors, but to no avail.
Beluga’s political view is one best described by libertarianism. He generally distrusts governments and accepted the role of Senator against his will. However he was nominated by his people, and his sense of duty to the Herglic made him accept it. He has held the post of several years, lending a concrete example to the saying that the best politicians are the unwilling ones. His political beliefs have been forged over several decades and tempered by his experience as the head of a trading caravan when he encountered his fair share of bureaucracy and useless legislation. As a Senator he takes great pleasure in bringing down such regulations, and often personally ignores them.
Describing him as a “by the rules” type of guy would be sorely inaccurate. He regularly bypasses regulation which he feels hinders his progress, but does so in a discreet enough way that it doesn’t usually catch up to him. However there are certain regulations which he would see upheld to his dying breath, especially those rules which ensure the protection of trading caravans.
Much like most other Herglics Beluga loves meeting new people, especially now that he is a Senator. He can often be found in bars, speaking with passing traders, bounty hunters and other spacers or drifters. He loves hearing stories of faraway worlds, which his position in Coruscant no longer allows him to travel to. However most of the time it isn’t the person he is interested, but their travels. Sometimes he does, however, find a person whose company he enjoys, and seeing how many individuals he meets it can happen several times a week. His affection, however, isn’t quite as forthcoming as his interest in travel and exotic worlds and is displayed in a gruff and indirect manner. A sure fire way to know if Beluga likes your company is if he reveals some of the more interesting of his travels.
One personality trait of Beluga’s which is very uncommon among Herglics is his loathing for gambling and games of chance. A scarring experience in his youth firmly rooted the idea in his mind. His injured left side is a vivid memento which he has stubbornly kept. The pain and the scars have done an admirable job of steering him well away of casinos and races. Even in politics he doesn’t usually make rash decisions, preferring to settle down and think things through while smoking his pipe.
Beluga prefers to be honest, disliking the subtle subterfuges and abundance of dishonesty that is rife within the Senate and a common encounter in political life. He has a gut feeling that if politicians dropped their acts and stopped acting and manipulating for their own personal glory the Galaxy would be a much friendlier place. But he is a pragmatist, and a cynic. In other words while he does not like lying he will often hide or embellish the truth when in the presence of fellow Senators. When away from political life he prefers honesty, to the point of sometimes being perceived as blunt. Even before becoming a Senator he had no qualms about lying to politicians and other officials, “give them a taste of their own medicine” he would often say with a chuckle.
Beluga is a master conversationalist and orator. It’s not very surprising given the fact that he considers speaking with others to be a hobby. Most of the jobs he has taken up in his life have been focused on talking with to others, whether it be to interrogate suspects and victims, or to sweeten a business deal, and most recently to debate during Senate sessions. His friendly demeanour, acute sense of humour and confidence give his discourse a strong charisma that makes him an excellent leader. His keen mind is a lethal tool in arguments, allowing him to find the weaknesses in his opponent’s arguments and exploit them.
Beluga is sensitive about his size, but not quite as much as his fellow Herglics. For example he has no qualms about manoeuvring through doors too small for his frame (and has actually become incredibly adept at it, being able to slide around spaces meant for humans with an ease and fluidity born out of experience). However he does not appreciate direct comment made about his bulk. Usually a calm individual, a couple of references made about his weight in a negative light will make him snap quite easily. Beluga’s anger is peculiar though, it is the contained kind, one that he keeps hidden from view, until the chance for revenge presents itself. In other words Beluga never forgives and never forgets. A particular tell of his is his habit to click his tongue off the side of his mouth noisily whenever he is annoyed or frustrated.
Occupation: Politician
Rank: Senior Senator representing the planet Giju.
Equipment:
Cane: A 53’’ long walking stick that Beluga keeps close by at all times to help him walk. At its core it is made of a strong metallic alloy, capable of withstanding Beluga’s full weight, but it is covered in wood to make it easier on the eye.
Pipe: A simple pipe made of white wood and engraved with several ancient Herglese runes. Beluga always keeps it around, along with a pouch of tobacco. He smokes it often, especially when thinking. He has a tendency to expel the smoke through his blowholes when lost in particularly deep thoughts.
Special Skills:
Advanced analytical and deductive skills-Beluga worked in several different trades before becoming a Senator. He even dabbled in medicine for a few years. Several of these jobs required a keen eye and an even sharper mind, which he has developed over decades.
Expert trading skills-Growing up and later owning one’s own trading company has a tendency to develop one’s trading skills. Beluga is capable of selling you a bauble you don’t need for twice its real value and make you think you made a deal.
Ships/Vehicles: None at the moment.
Attributes:
Physical Strength: 7
Intelligence: 7
Speed: 2
Leadership: 6
Unarmed: 1
Melee Weapons: 1
Ranged Weapons: 1
Bio:
Age 0-10: All good things come to an end
Beluga was born on his parents’ spaceship. Whel Orcta and Felsh Orcta (his mother and father respectively) were both well-known traders who transported goods (mainly spices and foodstuff) form the outer rim to the core worlds by way of the Rimma, Perlemian and Correlian trade routes. The days aboard his parents’ freighter were usually spent with Beluga taking lessons from a tutor droid his parents had purchased for his benefit and helping his mother and father with various tasks. Those days built the foundations for the trading skills Beluga would later come to master.
However as all things, that era came to an end, more abruptly and violently than they would have wished. Felsh Orcta was a kind man, honourable and proud, his greatest vice was gambling, a pastime to which he was addicted. One day Felsh got particularly unlucky and fell deep in debt, so deep he was too proud to admit it to anyone. A self-made man, he could never bear to be in debt to anyone, and especially not to friends. In a desperate bid to get rid of his debt he bet everything on one final race, and won. That should have been the end, had his creditor not been a rather unscrupulous Hutt. It was decided that Felsh would be made an example of what happened when you crossed the Hutt. As he was travelling back to Giju, Felsh’s freighter was attacked, destroyed and crashed on Giju. During the entire attack Felsh came clean to his family, and explained to them exactly why they were about to die. The only thing Beluga understood at the time was that this had been caused by gambling.
Felsh and Whel both died in the crash, but the then ten years old Beluga survived, the entire left side of his body was severely wounded. Several muscles in his left leg were torn to shreds, and a piece of muscle the size of a human’s fist was completely removed from his body. Furthermore the left side of his face was crushed in several places, and fragmented pieces of bone mangled the optic nerve connecting his left eye to his brain. His entire skin was lacerated and burnt, some areas more severely than others.
Ages 10-18: Loss, pain, recovery and growth.
He was found, unconscious in the wreckage a couple dozen minutes later by an official rescue team and was administered basic kolto-based first aid to stabilise his condition. By the time he was administered proper treatment scarring had become inevitable. When he awoke he was still in considerable pain, his entire left side bandaged up. A few days later he refused to have his eye and leg surgically removed to make way for cybernetic prosthetics, at the time his decision was mostly driven by a wish to inflict pain on others by saying no to everything and anything, a childish and immature response, but after all he was still a child then. In his later years he continued to refuse every time he was offered to be outfitted with prosthetics, wishing to keep the scars and the pain as a warning against gambling.
At the age of eleven Beluga left the Giju hospital, and moved in with his father’s brother (in short his uncle) Plankto Orcta and his wife Bel Orcta. At first relations between them and the young Beluga were hard, the child was silent, and they feared he would become a recluse. After a few months they decided to send him back to school so he could finish his education. Plankto knew that his brother would have wanted his son to be educated. That, as it turned out, was exactly was Beluga needed.
During the first few weeks the young Herglic was silent, not speaking a single word to anyone. He always did his work on time, and turned out to be a quick study, but his instructors were worried about his mental state. The job of bringing him out of his solitude was, unassumingly assumed by a young girl in his class named Kija Melnuu, a contagiously cheerful and annoyingly inquisitive young child. Every day, at lunchtime, while Beluga was alone, she would sit down in front of him and start talking, about the weather, about her day or about anything else that passed through her excited little mind. Her reasons were not entirely selfless, she was curious about the new student, and his refusal to communicate with others had made her very curious. It was several weeks before he said his first word. “Shut up”. First contact had been made; not what Kija had been hoping for, but giving up wasn’t her style. Over the course of the entire lunch period that day she managed to get him to say both his own and her name. It was progress, but her curiosity was far from sated.
Over the course of the following months Kija always ate with Beluga speaking to him, and he would sometimes tell her about his own story. In the first few weeks after his first words she discovered that his parents had been trader, but as soon as she asked where they were now he stopped talking. She couldn’t get anything out of him for over a month. That was the general pace of their relationship, Kija would learn something, and the she’d make a gaff that would make Beluga withdraw. The interactions, minimal as they were, somewhat reassured both his teachers and aunt and uncle. Over the course of the first two years at school Beluga became considerably more open, the pain was beginning to heal. He had expanded his circle of friends past Kija (although to be truthful most of these friends were originally Kija’s friends). At the same time Beluga’s grades remained good, especially in scientific areas where he excelled. He was still a quiet child, but now worries that he would grow to shun contact with others began vanishing.
From the ages of thirteen to eighteen Beluga’s life started falling into a comfortable routine. Sleep, work, food and friends where his greatest occupations. Every passing week he regained some of his old cheerful demeanour. By his fifteenth birthday anyone who met Beluga would never be able to guess just how great a wreck he had been just a short five years prior. At school the teenager continued to show brilliance in both science and humanities.
On the eve of his sixteenth birthday Beluga and his uncle had a talk, the serious “what do you plan on doing with your life” sort of talk. It was over the course of a long discussion that Beluga cme to terms with soemthign that had been gnawing at him. He didn’t want to be a trader. He never wanted to leave the safety of Giju. Or at least so he thought at the time. Plankto suggested that Beluga study medicine, there were few Herglic doctors, and the job wouldn’t require that the teenager leave the planet, a suggestion to which Beluga took a strong liking.
At the age of seventeen he experienced his first crush. She was two years older than him, and for a while she was all he thought about. To this day he keeps blaming hormones for what came next. He made his move, seduced her, and experienced his first fling. It lasted a whole of two months before she decided to break it off, something Beluga took surprisingly well. Truth be told he was in love with another, Kija had been the object of his affection for a while, but he had never worked up the courage to ask her. He had decided that too much was at stake, he didn’t want to risk their friendship.
At the age of eighteen he applied and got accepted into a good medical school on Giju, and the boost in confidence stemming from that made him decide to have a nice, long and honest talk with Kija. And that didn’t go as planned. As they met up she revealed that she was leaving Giju to work on as a trader and she asked him to join her. An offer he couldn’t accept. In the end he decided to say nothing, believing both of them would be happier that way, the discussion ended in a violent row, and the two parted ways on bad terms. He often reflects upon this moment and decides that if he could go back in time and do things differently he would choose this moment.
Age 18-30: Doctor, cop and feeling useless.
Thankfully for him medical school was complex enough that it kept his mind off Kija. For most of the time at least. It was during his first year that he came to realise that he had lost all interest in romance. It was not that he wasn’t attracted to the opposite sex; it was simply that the one woman he loved wasn’t anywhere he had the guts to go.
At the age of 23 he completely his initial five years with excellent grades and dove into the post-undergraduate curriculum. It was during this time that he met a young Vraxis bacta producer by the name of Grak. The two befriended one another quite quickly, and usually got to see each other around twice a month (in other words every time Grak delivered his bacta to Giju). Over time Beluga made friends with several other small bacta producers that sometimes passed by Giju.
By the time he was 27 he had finally become a doctor, specialised in iinfectious diseases. A profession in which he spent two years practising before he finally admitted to himself that he didn’t like it. Disease and injuries were rare on Giju, and he was left with little work, in addition to that the growing usage of bacta made his profession somewhat obsolete, and made him feel like a bacta dispensing machine more than a trained doctor.
At the age of 29 he resigned from his post as a doctor and immediately took up a job in Giju’s capital’s peace keeping force. His reasons were relatively simple. He had managed to scare himself. In the few weeks before he resigned as a doctor he had begun to think about how it would be to travel the stars, exploring new and exotic worlds on the other side of the galaxy. It was a calling that most Herglics felt and one which had led to most of them becoming traders of some description. But the void held too many painful memories for him. In a way he didn’t fell ready to face it again. And so he dived into his next job, putting all his waking hours into it, preventing himself from thinking too much.
Due to his infirmity he was a rather poor field officer, but he exhibited impressive deductive skills and a keen eye, both traits which he had honed in medical school. He hadn’t been in the force long enough to apply as a detective, but other officers usually brought him along to take a look at the scene and get his opinion.
During his time in the Giju police force he helped catch several of Giju’s biggest criminals. Jerak “The Luck”, a Balosar who rigged every game of chance he could find, making himself thousands of credits from the gambling-addicted Herglics. As well as Dukkis “The Butcher” Fizzel, an Aqualish with a penchant for killing and carving up his victims like a meat merchant would. Apart from that Beluga also came across several small time crooks. After all Giju was generally a lawful and peaceful planet Jerak and Dukkis were the two biggest criminals on the planet at the time. Once again Beluga rapidly found that his chosen occupation didn’t satisfy him. Except for the odd field investigation every other month it was mainly about filling out paperwork for him.
Age 30: Business and getting off Giju.
At the age of thirty he finally gave up, having had enough of writing endless reports. He’d joined hoping to make Giju a better place, but the reach of the police was anything but long. For a time he wandered bout, aimlessly. It was during that time that he got to thinking. What did he really want to do? The answer came surprisingly quickly. He wanted to get off Giju. A strange conclusion given his prior phobia of space travel. But the more he thought about it, the more he realised that his mind was set, or rather had been set for a long time now. The memories of his parents’ death had become an old, well healed wound, and there was no logical reason to fear their profession. As this dawned upon him, something else nagged on his mind. He had enough money to buy a ship and food. But what would be trade? His parents had a strong spice business going, but their old contacts were either dead, retired or had forgotten about him. A chance encounter with his old Vratix friend Grak yielded the answer.
Grak wasn’t happy with how business was going. He didn’t have enough resources to send his bacta much further than Giju, and that hurt his revenue. Every month he found himself with surplus, which he had dutifully been stockpiling. To Beluga there was no better opportunity. He would buy a ship and transport Grak’s bacta to the core worlds, where prices were higher for the ‘miracle fluid’. He would then return with the profit and he and Grak would share it (with a larger slice going to Grak, who had to take on more expanses). The deal was made over a small restaurant table, one that would grow to become a major business in just over a decade.
Beluga purchased a second-hand light freighter which he named “The Pequod”, after his parents’ own ship. The ship was an old Dynamic-class freighter, completely outclassed by the standards of the day, but Beluga didn’t need the fastest ship. He needed one reliable enough to get him to the core worlds. His journey would be simple; he’d follow the Rimma trade route all the way up to Abregao-rae, from there he’d travel to Balosar, Foeroth, Metellos and even Coruscant, selling some of his cargo on each planet before returning to Thyferra. The first run was a success, profit rolled in and Beluga took a mind to expanding his client base. He struck similar deals as the one with Grak with other small bacta producers from Thyferra. His profit exploded, and he managed to keep his Vratix clients happy. By transporting bacta for multiple different producers he could increase his profit but still keep his Vratix clients happy by giving them a larger share of the profit he made on their merchandise.
Age 30-46: Expansion
For the following five years Beluga never changed his route. Over time he began to make powerful allies on the planets he visited. His merchandise was of quality and he was able to undercut most of his rivals. At first he was selling to small hospitals and corporations, but soon enough he was trading with big players. Then the he began to expand, he bought a second ship and hired a pilot for it, a fellow Herglic and an old friend of Beluga’s.
At the same time he expanded his cargo he got back in touch with some of his parents' old providers, a list of which was relatively simple to obtain through his uncle. Seeing his success with bacta they decided he was a relatively safe investment and as such decided to sell him their foodstuff, mainly exotic outer rim spices, which he could offload on core worlds for a handsome price. Beluga’s business model was simple, one ship would take the bacta and the other would transport the spices. He would always personally undertake the bacta run, spending hours on his own travelling between planets. He usually spent what spare time he didn’t waste in bars talking with patrons either reading or exercising. His body did not allow him to practise combat moves, but he would often lift weights for hours on end, a somewhat simple way to pass time, but one that allowed his mind tow wander. Reading on the other hand, reading was his combat training. He knew he was a cripple, and so he honed the one weapon he possessed. His mind, and a mind needs books like a blade needs a whetstone. Over time he developed formidable upper body strength and ket his mind sharp his mind.
By the time he was forty his business included seven ships of various sizes, employed twenty people, received supplies from thirty different sources and traded in bacta, foodstuff (mainly spices) and raw materials for goods ranging from clothing to blasters. Most of his suppliers were outer rim goods that sold well in the core worlds. He had strong political ties on Metellos, Balosar and Abregado-rae. He didn’t really like the politicians even back then, during his time as a police officer he’d already taken a strong disliking to red tape, as a trader bureaucrats were his greatest headache. That is exactly why he befriended the politicians, having a high up friend meant he and his ships could bypass some of the more time consuming procedures. It was during this time that he began doing some digging on a particular Hutt, the very same one that had been his father’s creditor. However he found no way to take his revenge quite yet, and so let the matter go for a bit.
His business was mainly concentrated around the Rimma trade route, sometimes his ships ventured closer to the Correlian trade spine. The pilots of his ships had free rains to take up their own routes. Beluga always rewarded innovation that led to increased efficiency. The Herglic trader knew that if he wanted to expand his trade to include the area surrounding the Parlemian trade route he would need to create a second branch of his company. One that would be headed by someone he trusted completely. Grak had his obligations on Thyffera and couldn’t leave too far from his homeworld, and his other pilots he trusted with individual ships, but not an entire branch. He had only one choice.
During the twenty two years since they’d last talked to one another Kija had moved to the planet Esseles, married and had two children. Her husband was a small time trader who voyaged between the worlds on the Parlemian trade route closest to Esseles. When Beluga rang at her doorbell their reunion was awkward. To say the least. But soon enough they managed to drive past that, and he made his business proposition. He would buy a few ships, put them in the care of Kija and set her up with potential suppliers on the Parlemian trade route, and then he would leave her to run it as she pleases, sending him a monthly report on operations and paying a slice of profit to him. A simple plan, and one that was hard to refuse. That day he left Esseles with a rekindled friendship and a new business branch along the Parlemian route.
His business kept growing steadily, and he was heading out personally less and less. He only did bacta runs with his personal ship every now and then to amuse himself, climbing aboard the ship of the pilot he’d left in charge of the ‘miracle fluid’ and just going along for the ride. It was during this time that he began to search for Herglic ruins. He’d always been fascinated by the history of his people, especially stories of the ancient Herglic Empire and he now had a lot of time on his hands. His old ship, The Pequod was still in service, one of the ugliest piles of metal in the Galaxy, but to his eyes the most beautiful creature ever to grace the skies, reliable as hell to boot. He installed a series of computers and upgraded the navigational unit of the ship, turning it into a mobile office from where he could monitor all the hips owned by his company and give out orders and then set off. He was aged forty six.
46-55: Hero of Giju
He travelled to multiple worlds which had belonged to the ancient trading Herglic Empire, visiting ancient ruins and using his contacts to enter some of the more recent archaeological sites. He even uncovered some new sites, which he then had uncovered privately, returning dozens of artefacts to Giju. When he was forty eight he received news that his uncle had fallen gravely ill and hastily returned to his homeworld. He hadn’t been on the watery planet in over a decade, and he came back to find things had changed around since he was last there.
Giju’s peaceful existence had meant that over time the bacta trade had begun to bypass the Herglic homeworld. The small Vratix bacta suppliers that used to do business on Giju had nearly all become Beluga’s suppliers and his ships rarely stopped on Giju to do business. Bacta being in short supply Plankto Orcta’s condition was progressively growing worse. As he arrived at his uncle’s bedside Beluga immediately inspected the case, checking and double-checking every exam that had been undertaken, but he failed to find the cause. His uncle passed away a few days after his arrival, and Beluga remained on the planet for several weeks following the burial. He mainly wanted to be there to ensure his aunt didn’t do anything rash, but also because he wanted to assess the extent of Giju’s lack of bacta. He wasn’t blaming it for the death of his uncle, even large amounts of kolto had failed, and in Beluga’s honest opinion bacta wouldn’t have fared any better.
During this time on his own planet Beluga met the several of Giju’s political elite. Most of them had been present at his uncle’s funeral (Plankto having been quite an active politician in his younger days), but they had not dared bother him then. They pestered him everywhere he went, mostly asking for help to fund campaigns. Several of the more radical elements even mistook his recent archaeological donations to the planet as being a sign of support for parties that believe in Herglic-domination. He promptly explained to these people that he had no interest in having his time wasted by them. Which did little to discourage most of them, much to his chagrin.
After pondering on Giju’s current problems he isolated two major factors as slowly draining the planet of life. The first was the growth of offworlders flooding the planet, looking to make some quick credits exploiting the Herglic’s obsession with games of luck. The second was the constant brain drain, skilled individuals leaving their homeworld due to the lack of job potential on the planet. Two assumptions which had been easy to reach. Solutions was much harder to find, but he eventually found ways he, personally, could help.
After spending one galactic standard month on the planet he took back to the stars, but not without having acquired a few political allies on Giju. His first move to improve his planet was to create an experimental school which implemented lessons on the dangers of gambling, never prohibiting it, but teaching pupils ways to lessen their losses, and about controlling the need to play ‘just one more game’. In addition to these he funded several ad campaigns on Giju and several other worlds with large Herglic populations, and helped fund an anti-gambling special interest group on Giju which would actively campaign. He had seen other sentient species use similar techniques to attempt to curb the impact of alcohol and tobacco on their population with some success. He, of course, didn’t expect change to occur overnight, but he did hope that his efforts were a step in the right direction.
Regarding Giju’s second problem his plan was somewhat more ambitious, and the main reason for his fraternising with Giju’s politicians. He hoped to turn Giju into an even bigger trading hub than it already was over several decades. The plan was that by enlarging its spaceport Giju would be able to become a crucial stop on the Rimma trade route and attract more Herglic traders by offering a prime location set between the outer rim and core worlds.
During this time he also negotiated with his bacta suppliers, attempting to find an agreement which would allow some bacta trade on Giju. Grak, whose business had grown considerably since his first business agreement with Beluga, was one of the first to agree, accepting to ship lower quality bacta to Giju. Ater all the Herglic rarely needed high quality medicine unlike the core worlds. Most of Giju’s medical needs were covered by low to medium quality bacta for small wounds and infections. Of course if a ship crashed down on Giju and a kid was found with half his body burnt to a crisp bacta reserves would be insufficient to completely heal the victim, but Beluga rationalised that it was either this or nothing.
Upon deciding that things were satisfactorily set up he turned his mind back to archaeology, while ruling over his trade company and keeping an eye on the Giju situation. In other words his days were busy enough, but things were going smoothly enough. Over the course of nine years he built four more of his ‘experimental schools’ on other Herglic-heavy worlds such as Esseles, his advertising campaign gained backing from multiple political parties on Giju (all eager to jump on the ‘gamble responsibly’ bandwagon) and so did the special interest group he had kick-started. His plans to turn Giju into a massive trading hub weren’t moving quite as swiftly as he had hoped, but he wasn’t all that bothered. He’d set up events to take effect in the long term.
One hiccup he did encounter in this time was Hutts interference with his operations along the Correlian trade spine. He had been taking away profit from Huttese operations outside of Nal Hutta for a while now. The Hutts were sending pirate groups to harass convoys flying under his banner. Beluga immediately travelled to the fringes of Huttese space, opening negotiations with several Hutt families. As it turned out one of these particular families whose profit he was sapping was the very same Hutt family that had blown up his parents’ ship, the Desilijic. The Herglic businessman immediately found a great opportunity for revenge. He made a deal with the two other Hutt clans involved in the negotiations. He would order his ships to stay away from systems close to Huttese sace, but in return he wanted the Desilijic clan to be ruined. To the Hutts it was a simple decision. Seeing as their pirate attacks on Beluga were outside of Huttese space legal action could be taken against them, and Beluga had enough evidence to make any fair court trace the pirates back to the Hutts. Accepting the Herglic’s deal meant saving their profits, the cost would be to take down one of their rival Hutt clans. To any sane Hutt the answer was simple. At age 52 Beluga had finally gotten revenge on those who had murdered his parents.
Age 55-62: Reluctant leaders are the best leaders.
Returning from the borders of Huttese space Beluga was met with news he didn’t like. The Herglic Senator had passed away, and polling on Herglic-heavy planets had shown that, of all people, the wider Herglic public wanted him to take up the mantle. Now dedication to their people was a trait common among the Octa family. Felsh had often made generous donations to various associations on Giju, and Felsh’s father before him did the same. Beluga had also proven he had a vision for the Herglic, and his people had picked up on that particular vision and found they liked it. But the trader had never been big on politics, always preferring to obtain contacts in places of power and using them rather than entering the spotlight himself.
At first he refused to run a campaign or even be involved at all. He rationalized his self-disgust for letting down the Herglic away by telling himself that early poll results were always erratic. However with each passing week where he remained at the top of polls despite not actually running that argument got weaker and weaker. Finally, just under a month away he made up his mind and officially entered the race. His campaign was mainly based around exposing his ideology, a libertarian approach which would focus on reducing the reach of the government. That did nothing to lessen the amount of support he was receiving. His opponents ran a rather severe negative campaign on Beluga, targeting his disregard for regulation as well as uncovering dirt on him as best as he could, mainly focusing on Beluga’s supposed ‘involvement’ with Hutt crime lords. In answer to that Beluga chose a more positive approach, not releasing a single negative piece of advertisement, and using debates to address and rectify the claims of his opponent. In these debates Beluga often came across as calmer and more reasonable while his opponent was getting more and more frustrated by the day. In the last days of the campaign he began making some serious gaffes and was accused of running a campaign focused on slander, which lost him even more support. Needless to say Beluga won by a landslide, managing to obtain over two thirds of the votes. Just a few days after the results were made official the accusations of slander surrounding Beluga’s opponent’s campaign were found to be true.
Shortly after taking up his office in Coruscant Beluga came to realise that his fellow Senators weren’t exactly impressed by him. To them he was a wealthy businessman who had yet to make his mark on the political agenda. Several of them came to meet him in his first few days, hoping to get him to their side. These Senators soon found out that what Beluga lacked in political experience he more than made up in brainpower. With every meeting the Senators came out realising that he’d told them absolutely nothing while making them feel like they had the upper hand, playing them at their own game. A skill Beluga had developed while negotiating prices.
The first few bills that passed through the Senate which Beluga got to sit on weren’t ones he needed to truly take part in. He voted, aligning himself with whatever side made most sense to him, but never took active part in debates. It was a little over a year since he’d taken office when a bill he could really sink his teeth into reared its head. The Senate would be voting on a piece of legislature which, if passed, would force local governments who were part of the Republic to submit each public project they were planning to evaluation by the entire Senate. The idea was to allow the Senate to coordinate the efforts of individual planets and to prevent them from spending more than they should by rooting out and preventing the more feckless projects.
Beluga wasn’t the head of the group of Senators opposing this particular bill, but by the time the votes came in most would agree that he had been the greatest driving force behind the opposition. His first move was to reach out to his old political contacts all over the Galaxy, trying to get a feel for the general opinions regarding this bill on various planets. Soon enough he found out that the people of a few of the figures pushing for the passage of the bill were indecisive about the issue and that the Senators for these planets had usually applied their own political preferences for this. Now Beluga knew that the people themselves weren’t the ones directly casting the votes, but he also knew that Senators wanted to be re-elected, and that meant doing what their voters wanted them to do. As such he planned multiple rallies and ad campaigns against the bill and set them up on the indecisive planets, hoping to turn the people against their own Senators, he also made use of several of his old trade contacts and asked them to spread the word against the bill, essentially turning them into free advertising banners. A sound plan, but those Senators concerned rapidly made their move, beginning a set of ads supporting the bill, Beluga had a head start, but his opponents were playing on their home turf. But that was only the tip of his plan. Unlike his opponents he didn’t care about the opinion of the people on the planet he was advertising on, he only wanted to stretch out the efforts of the key figures backing the bill. That, over time, would tire them out faster, making them less likely to be persuasive enough to win over centrists. Which ties neatly into the second section of Beluga’s plan, debating. A few Senators had seen his skills when it came to talking, but those were mainly on his side in this particular campaign, a significant boon, as it would mean he had an element of surprise. Most of the Senate had never heard him debate. They soon found out how dangerous his speech could be. His powerful, booming and confident voice meant few could speak over him, additionally he often used the cavernous sound of his blowholes being cleared to gain the senate’s attention, preventing his opponents from cutting him across. Furthermore, and most crucially, his speech was clear, his arguments were easy to follow but hard to counter and any time his opponents would deliver their own arguments he would pick each and every one apart individually. He won over several of the centrists, bolstering the numbers of those opposing the bill. The third and final plan of Beluga’s plan was to prevent behind the scenes alliances as much as possible. He suggested that the lives of the key Senators who were involved in this bill be televised, “a way to show the citizens of the Republic just how hectic things can get in the weeks leading up to a vote,” he claimed as the reason. This particular aspect of the plan wasn’t quite as successful as he had hoped, mainly due to Senators using their subordinates to form alliances rather than meeting personally, a lesson Beluga would keep in mind.
By the time the day of the vote came the side opposing the bill managed to secure a narrow victory, earning Beluga a reputation as a fearsome opponent when he truly put his head in the game. Since that first success the Heirglic Senior Senator has had both successes and victories in his political endeavours, but his fellow Senators now hold a healthy amount of respect for him.
Following the end of his first term as a Senator Beluga stood for re-election, once again by popular demand, and once again won easily enough. He has, however, confirmed that he would not stand to be re-elected for a third term.
Theme Song: L’Imposture-Louise Attaque
RP Sample:
Marsia was running round the freighter’s cargo hold, checking and double checking each and every crate. She wasn’t usually this stressed out; the source of her anxiety was the large bipedal cetacean sitting at the back of the hold. He was seemingly deeply absorbed into a large tome, a pipe clamped firmly at the side of his mouth, but she had a feeling his single good eye had rested on her more than once, drilling a hole into the back of her head. Balosars were rarely trusted with anything due to a rather denigrating reputation. She’d been lucky enough to get this job and she had started to feel like the Herglic employing her was beginning to trust her, but now this. He’d shown up unannounced, asking her if she’d mind if he tagged along for the ride. Recognising him immediately she had naturally said that she wouldn’t mind at all. It was technically his ship and his merchandise. She was in no position to refuse. But truth be told it did bother her. She was afraid. What did this mean? He was the owner of the company even if he didn’t directly control it anymore, plus he had other things to do than go on a random bacta run. The man was a Senator for crying out loud! Was this a formal evaluation of some sort? A test of whether he could trust her or not? Would her words and actions on this run affect her future in the company? Was he just aboard to tell her he was going to fire her? Marsia was so deep in her own thoughts that a sudden cavernous bellow made her jump several feet in the air with a high pitched squeal. Her antennapalps had been extended and the sheer volume of the noise had sent a stabbing pain into her skull, in addition to scaring the blood out of her veins.
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Human philosophy was truly interesting, though this particular tome was a bit too nihilistic for his taste, obsessing over the rejection of religion, traditions, routine. In short the rejection of everything. Surely a man trying to lead such a life would turn mad in but a few short days. It was just after he came to that particular conclusion that he subconsciously noticed that there was perhaps just a bit too much smoke in his mouth and he swiftly blew it out through his blowhole, around the same time that his musings were cut short by a high-pitched squeal. He blinked once and looked up, noticing the young Balosar pilot standing with her knees slightly bent, one hand over her chest and seemingly out of breath, her antennapalps quivering.
“Is everything quite all right?” Beluga inquired softly, taking his pipe out of his mouth.
“Y-yes sir. I-you just startled me sir,” she replied shakily, slowly regaining her composure. She straightened up before continuing. “I’ve checked the cargo and everything seems to be in order. We are ready to depart sir.”
“Seeing how many times you were spinning around those crates I’d say I can trust your appraisal of the crates,” the Herglic chuckled to himself, a comment which elicited a faint blush to appear on the pilot’s pale cheeks. Beluga picked himself up, grabbing his walking stick with his left hand while simultaneously extinguishing and putting away his pipe with his right hand. “Well ladies first,” he added with a friendly smile, pointing at the door with his cane. She thanked him and headed straight for the cockpit. The Herglic had a bit of trouble with the small corridor, having to simultaneously walk hunched over and sideways to make it through the narrow passage to the control area. Upon emerging on the other side he immediately noticed the Balosar sitting in the co-pilot chair. “What exactly do you think you’re doing there?”
“I-Sorry sir, I just presumed you would want to take command of the ship,” she explained hurriedly, bolting up and out of the seat.
“I recall saying I was coming on for the ride, not that I was commandeering your vessel,” the Herglic replied, slightly amused by the pilot’s nervousness. The Balosar nodded shakily and took her place in the pilot’s seat and he went over to sit down next to her. The seat was wide enough for his build; he’d had all the ships used by his company modified to have an enlarged co-pilot seat, just in case he felt like climbing aboard.
“All instruments are reading properly, all measurements are within acceptable parameters. We are ready for take-off,” the change was sudden enough and stark enough to take Beluga by surprise. The nervous little creature that had been fidgeting around the hold for a good half hour had transformed into a calm and confident individual. In a way it wasn’t surprising. It wasn’t the first pilot he’d met who felt most comfortable behind the command instruments of a ship. Ironically it had been quite the opposite for him until barely a decade ago. Smiling to himself he relit his pipe, taking a couple of long drags and blowing out the smoke with a content smile before making himself comfortable in his seat and turning it so he could look at the Balosar.
“So Marsia, got any interesting stories to disclose to an old bored man?” Beluga asked, staring at her intently with his one good eye. This was the bit he enjoyed when he intruder upon his pilots’ ships. The long gap between destinations where they could just talk.
“I’m not sure any of them would be distinguished enough for the ears of a Senator,” he could immediately notice that a part of her mind was regretting that statement already. She was at the commands of her ship and was feeling confident, but she knew she’d spoken out of place. Beluga could see the slight creasing around her eyes which betrayed the fact she was physically cringing and trying to stop herself from cringing at the same time.
“You don’t trust politicians do you Masia?” he asked mildly, glancing out of the cockpit’s windows. He didn’t want her to think he was scrutinizing her every move now was he? Then again he was fairly certain she was thinking a great many things about him and his presence right now. Hired pilots rarely knew how to react when the man who controlled whether they’d be paid next month or not was ‘tagging along for the ride’.
“N-no sir. I do not,” she replied truthfully after a few seconds of hesitation. “It’s nothing personal sir. I’ve just never met a politician who didn’t say exactly what he thought I wanted to hear.”
“That’s probably the wisest thing you’ve ever done. Certainly wiser than joining whichever pirate gang it was you joined about, well I’d say fourteen years ago,” the Herglic replied mildly, he could practically feel her tensing up, her grip tightening on the instruments. “I hope prison wasn’t too unpleasant. Can’t say you didn’t deserve the four years they sent you in for, I don’t like pirates very much you see, but there is a difference between deserved punishment and cruel punishment,” the entire sally had been blasted out with barely a pause for the Herglic to breath, but he was hardly out of breath. Frequently debating in the Senate meant he was used to speaking for a long time with little time to catch his breath. The tension was now thick enough to be cut with a vibroblade.
“Wha-how did you even…”
“Tattoos often mark one’s experiences in life and I’ve gotten quite good at reading them. It’s no different for you. That mark on your shoulder is clearly the brand of some sort of pirate group. The fading of the ink means it was bad quality, probably a small gang with little funds. That fading also allows me to give a relatively accurate estimate of how long it’s been on your skin. As for the prison, well the tattoo on your left breast which is just peeking out of your shirt,” a blush flashed across Marsia’s cheeks and she readjusted her top, “paired with the faded barcode imprinted on your wrist are obviously prison tattoos. The ink quality is even shoddier than that of your pirate markings, probably homemade, a measure rarely resorted to nowadays except in prisons. A way to defy the guards I suppose, stick it up to the man. The particular motif you chose, that round head with antennapalps on the top is a mark rarely applied by tattooists too far from Balosar, and the barcode is similar to the one prisoners are assigned in the Abregado-rae prisons, which would make sense since the group you were a member of wasn’t exactly rich, so they had to stay close to home. I also happen to know a thing or two about possible sentences for piracy on a variety of planets, knowing what your opponent is risking helps to gauge how desperate they are. Four years isn’t much for piracy nowadays, but they’re not kind on pirates on Abregado-rae, even among other inmates they’re considered to be outcasts, so I’m guessing you either weren’t a long term companion of your pirate friends or you were small fry,” by the end of his tirade Marsia was visibly clenching her teeth, she was about to says something she’d regret when Beluga began speaking again. “It has to be quite shaming for you, to have your past laid bare like that by a man who is, essentially, a total stranger. Still, not quite as shaming as that one time when I was eighteen and my aunt walked in on me and my then girlfriend in the act,” he added the last sentence after a small pause, blowing smoke out through the corner of his mouth.
“I-I-what?! What was that for? I didn’t need to know that!” the Balosar burst out, eloquence and anger long forgotten due to the sheer absurdity of the Herglic’s latest revelation.
“I was merely equalising the playing field Marsia. I’ve just ranted on for quite a while about your past. I’m assuming you were in considerable discomfort, having the darker elements of your past dug out by a total stranger in what I assume you thought was a judgemental tone is quite unbearable. As such I balanced things out, we are now both roughly equally shamed,” he explained with a friendly smile. “Plus the entire trial has taken your mind off your troubles. But for clarity’s sake I suppose I’ll explain to you why I’m here. You see, much as you dislike politicians, so do I. I never wanted to be a Senator, but my people needed me to take on the mantle, so I did. Sometimes I like to escape the politics and just leave all my troubles behind while being driven around by another pilot. And for the record I don’t care what my employees did before joining the company so long as they prove to be trustworthy and competent, two qualities you’ve already proved you possess. Now, do you have any interesting stories to tell me?”
“Maybe all politicians aren’t as bad as I thought,” Marsia smiled, more to herself than to the Herglic sitting next to her. The first honest sign of a positive emotion she’d shown all day. “I could probably start with how I became a pirate which, I warn you ahead of time, was against my will…”
