Post by ErosThanatos on Dec 6, 2012 1:17:14 GMT -5
Password: Acklay
Name: Obbad Hoome
Race: Bith
Age: 37
Height: 5'9"
Weight: 175lb.
Birth place: Coruscant
Appearance: Bith as a species are not known for being particularly distinguished looking- Obbad is about as average looking as they come. The Bith in fact maintains that unassuming demeanor, dressing in somber blues and blacks even when in plainclothes. He speaks in a reedy monotone, and tends to whistle when deep in thought.
Never an imposing figure, Obbad tends to slouch and rarely keeps eye-contact for long. His diction, though assiduously polite and precise, has a meandering and unfocused quality. Most of the time he seems to barely recognize he is in a conversation at all.
Despite initial appearances, Obbad in fact maintains himself with scrupulous attention to detail. His CSF uniform is always neatly pressed. His service weapon is oiled daily. The slope-shouldered timidity with which he generally conducts himself seems more than anything a meticulously crafted facade.
Personality: In his psych evaluation for promotion to Sergeant, Obbad was listed as having 'an understated intellectual vanity that is nonetheless fundamental to his work as a security detective'. In sharp contrast to most beings in his line of work, Obbad pursues his warrants firstly to prove he is smarter than them, and secondly to assuage a sense of justice. At the very least, Obbad acknowledges the insecurity implied by that sense of vanity.
Having been born on Coruscant - and an orphan to boot - Obbad has a very weak connection to his species' culture. Combined with his need to prove himself an intelligent and useful officer, Obbad has shown a marked tendency to isolate himself.
Psychological evaluations also revealed a stubborn adherence to a persona designed so that Obbad himself is underestimated. His quiet attitude is a coping mechanism- Obbad believes himself, and in fact is, an extremely intelligent being. His insecurity - about his upbringing, about his abilities - seem to compel him to hedge his bets. To his thinking, it is better to be underestimated and occasionally surprise others rather than overestimate and consistently disappoint.
Obbad's only consistent emotional attachment - he does not form friendship easily or for long - is to his parent figures, Timon and Jarek. The two Bothan men's unwavering dedication to their wards form a fundament from which the rest of Obbad's values seem to be built.
Occupation: Republic Security Forces
Rank: Special Agent
Skills:
Criminal Justice
Trained Forensic Analyst
Registered Bith Beer Expert
Ships/Vehicles:
Attributes:
Physical Strength: 4
Intelligence: 7
Speed: 5
Leadership: 6
Unarmed: 6
Melee Weapons: 5
Ranged Weapons: 6
Bio:
Early Life
Obbad Hoome was born and raised in the depths of Coruscant, having been left outside the Mynock Alley Orphanage as a baby. The orphanage, run by a married pair of Bothan cityworkers, was one of the sole stabilizing establishments in the neighborhood. Run mostly on the meagre credits its owners could tease from various charitable organizations, it took in those who were without parents - or at least without parents interested in raising them. The Bothans, Timon and Jarek, managed to keep a transient score or so of children clothed, fed, and educated.
When Timon and Jarek couldn't find the birth parents, they named the Bith baby Obbad Hoome, a name selected from a holonet Bith Name Generator. The Bothans figured the child had been left at the Orphanage by parents who knew they could not give him the life they wanted for him. It was a regrettably common occurrence. Whoever Obbad's parents had been, neither Timon nor Jarek - whose administrative work in the city Census gave them plenty of experience at tracking people down - could find them.
The truth of Obbad's abandonment are depressingly straightforward- Ynnic Oonp, a Bith ex-political science professor used his late wife's stored genetic material to have a son. Having lost her several years before to a landspeeder accident, Ynnic wanted something to remember her by. It was barely two months after Obbad's incubation that Ynnic, in a moment of clarity, realized he could not keep his son- not with his career in shambles, his funds dwindling, and an increasing spice dependancy. With no relatives able to take the child, Ynnic banked on Timon and Jarek's reputation and left Obbad outside their orphanage.
Ynnic Oonp committed suicide less than a week later.
Though the clinic in which Obbad was 'born' no longer exists, its paperwork does. If he were to ever turn his investigation that way, he might be able to learn the truth of his origins.
Obbad proved to be a quiet but intense child- indeed, for a time the Bothans feared he was not developing speech at all. Though experienced at caring for a variety of species' young, the two were not intimately familiar with raising a Bith. The child's eventual interest in books assuaged their concerns, and gave Timon and Jarek a way to engage with Obbad. Little by little, book by book, the two teased him out.
Once the floodgate was opened, however, it was not easily closed. Obbad took to learning more than he took to socializing- a more dangerous proposition than it sounded in a place like Mynock Alley. Where other children were making social connections which might help insulate them from the predatory criminal elements of the neighborhood, Obbad had only a kind of fearless naivete. Bith sleep patterns meant that Obbad need only Trance while the other children played, so that he could read, study, and learn while others slept.
At the age of fourteen, it never occurred to him that a landspeeder repair shop might be a front for illegal gambling, nor that his loitering in said shop would be construed as an interest in snooping on the gambling. For his part, Obbad merely wanted to learn how landspeeders worked.
The owners of that particular vice den had thought to simply dispose of the nosy Bith child, and sent the Trandoshan enforcer guarding the entrance to do so. While the Trandoshan hadn't been told explicitly to do away with Obbad, the means by which the Bith was disposed of had been vague. For the bloody-minded reptile, it was as good a reason as any to indulge himself.
It was only the intervention of a local homeless glit-biter, Racket Jones, that saw Obbad returned to the orphanage unharmed. Racket Jones made it clear that he would be a witness, and a loud one at that. Faced with the glit-biter's nuisance, the Trandoshan settled for a casual backhand and the assurance that Obbad wouldn't get off so easy next time. In an effort to keep Obbad out of any further trouble, Timon and Jarek took advantage of a government program aimed at exceptional but at-risk youth to fund Obbad's admission in a boarding school several layers above Mynock Alley.
Schooling
Obbad continued to prove himself an avid student at the new school, but the environment also proved nearly toxic to him. A fairly respectable institution, the gutter-born Bith was sorely out of placed. For all the excellent in his grades, Obbad did not go home for the holidays. He did not celebrate his species' customs- showing in fact only passing familiarity with them.
Having made only a handful of friends, the 18 year-old Obbad applied to study abroad at Clakdor VII. With a grant to study criminological differences between that planet and Coruscant, Obbad was determined to at least try and understand where he was supposed to have come from.
He never did. Whatever isolation Obbad felt back on Coruscant was only magnified. Before, Obbad's feeling of being an alien could be chalked up to actually being an alien species to his peers. Most of them had been Human or Twi'lek, some Bothan and some Ytrill. On Clakdor VII, Obbad was an alien among his own species.
Though offered residence with a family connected to the Bith Social Science University, Obbad chose instead to use some of his grant money to rent an apartment to himself.
While the year spent on Clakdor VII was a disappointment emotionally, it did wonders for Obbad's career opportunities. His published paper got him an offer to join the Coruscant Security Force. Obbad deferred only long enough to complete a Master's Degree in Criminal Justice before he accepted.
Walking The Beat
By the time Obbad had graduated, sworn in as a Coruscant security officer, and received his first post he had not been home to Mynock Alley in over a decade. Though Timon and Jarek had visited him when they could, the continued running of the Orphanage was their primary concern. Obbad was like a son to the Bothans, but he was but one son out of hundreds.
Obbad Hoome gained some recognition for his work in the lower levels of Coruscant, specifically in breaking up the notorious glitterstim racket around his old neighborhood.
Starting with Racket Jones and homeless glit-biters like him, Obbad used a network of informants to identify and isolate key dealers in the area. The homeless and indigent population of Mynock Alley - often exploited but easily ignored - proved a reliable source of information. Every day, Obbad drove his landspeeder around a specified block. If Racket Jones or one of his other informants had something they wanted to tell him, they would be there with a rag, attempting to clean windshields for chits. And if that were the case, Obbad would simply drive by, and have another officer pick them up.
Not once did the Bith lose one of his informants, and not once did the criminals put away by Racket's informing ever know who had given them up.
After a near fatal overdose, Racket gave in to Obbad's insistence and checked into rehab. He cleaned up, and eventually Obbad hired him as a consulting expert whenever he needed someone to testify in court about Mynock Alley gangs or their customs.
Among his peers, Hoome gained a reputation for scrupulous work and only rare appearances at the squad's weekly sabacc games. On those occasions 'Odd' Obbad Hoome did show up, he at least made sure to bring a new Bith ale or lager- the sole investment Obbad had found in the Bith culture was their breweries.
Obadd's tireless dedication to cleaning up Mynock Alley did not go unnoticed. After making Sergeant, Obadd stressed arrests in his squad- even if the charges didn't stick, the inconvenience of making bail kept the dealers off the streets temporarily. When the dealers began to wise up, using dead-drops and under-age couriers (who couldn't be criminally prosecuted to the same degree as legal adults), Obbad had his squad focus on weapon charges. When the dealers started registering their weapons, Obbad had his squad focus on traffic violations.
Obbad's strategy was simple; the nature of Mynock Alley meant that it would never be spice-free. Dealers would never lack for buyers. What Obbad could do, though, was make it exhausting, frustrating, and unprofitable to deal spice in Mynock Alley. Eventually, those dealing spice found new corners from which to peddle. Eventually, Obbad began to win his small crusade.
The Slow, Upward Climb
Obbad was eventually noticed by the Republic Security Force- it was rare that so low-key an effort made by law enforcement could have such a noticeable effect on the crime rate of a place like Mynock's Alley. Eager to capitolize on the first-hand knowledge Obbad had on spice distribution in low-income areas, the Republic Security Force recruited the Bith.
Obbad's recruitment was part of a organization-wide push to curtail the spice trade on Coruscant. The perpetrators had never been an unknown. Broo the Spade and his extended family, a brutal clan of Weequay, were the major distributors of narcotics to the various gangs and individual spice-dealers of Mynock Alley.
Broo the Spade was wanted in connection to a half-dozen murders. His nickname was in gruesome reference to his uncomplicated thuggery- it was said that Broo wouldn't bother to bring both a murder weapon and a tool to bury you in a garbage heap. One would serve for the other.
With his recent induction into the RSF, Obbad was tasked with Broo the Spade's warrant. His job was to not only see Broo put in jail, but make sure he stayed there as well.
RP Sample:
"The Bith has the call." Nelly said, leaning forward at the sabacc table. Across from him, Obbad raised a brow ridge then cleared his throat.
"Now hold on- its... calculated from 21 er 23, right?" he said, running a hand over his bald pate. "So a -20 beats a positive 18?"
Nelly guffawed, leaning back and casting a glance towards the others at the table. Everyone liked when Obbad came to sabacc night. If nothing else, he proved that whatever deity existed out in the universe at least had a sense of humor.
"Yeah. And the game is called sabacc. And you're on Coruscant, and your name is Obbad Hoome." Nelly said, drumming his fingers on the table. "Oh, and you're a Bith. Just in case you forgot that too."
"Hey, what're we drinkin', Odd?" called one of the others. Obbad made a low whistling as he considered his cards.
"Rygelian wheat-beer. They dry-hop it in the same barrels as Rygelian whiskey- wait, and the Idiot's Array is..." Obbad paused, humming and whistling again. "...probably irrelevant, nevermind."
"Tell you the truth, Odd, and I mean no offense I really don't." Nelly began, pushing his stack of chits into the center of the table. "But how you've got such a good clearance rate is beyond me. You'd forget your head if it wasn't screwed to your neck."
"I like it. Nice and drinkable." another man said, swirling his bottle. "Not like that other stuff you brought."
"What, the Clakdor pale?"
"No, the uhhhh what is it." another cut in, grabbing up an empty. Nelly looked annoyed that no one had paid heed to his ribbing of the Bith. Obbad, for his part, continued to quietly whistle as he looked over his cards.
"The Clakdor pale wasn't bad, it was just-"
"It was swill."
"-complex. It had a complex aroma."
"Nerf aroma."
"Nerf can be complex."
Nelly coughed into his hand, drawing the two arguing men's attention back to the table. He gestured towards Obbad, who blinked slowly.
"The newly minted Sergeant here was about to lay down his hand. I think we both know you don't have an Idiot's Array." Nelly said. "I call."
Obbad made a quiet 'pht' sound with his mouthfolds before rolling a shrug.
"Patience." he said, laying down his cards. Nelly's quirked grin slowly drifted off as the Bith's cards approached 23. "That's really it. Patience."
"What?" Nelly said, tossing his cards down. The Bith had been sitting on perfect sabacc for the entire hand, placing incremental and insecure bets. In his eagerness to draw Obbad into a larger pot, Nelly had committed most of his chits. A solid play that made Nelly realize how much a fool he'd just been played for.
"You said something about my clearance rate. I get it with patience." Obbad said, raking in his winnings. "Might not be the fastest thinker, or the smartest guy but if I think good and long eventually I get there. Not much else to it."
"Odd Obbad Hoome. Remind me not to invite you back here." Nelly said ruefully, rubbing at his chin. He snorted a laugh. "You're a shark."
The Bith rolled another shrug, taking a slow sip from his own beer.
"What's the human aphorism? If the shoe hits-"
"Fits. If the shoe fits."
"Right. That."
