Post by Rugs on Nov 19, 2009 22:02:29 GMT -5
Name: Allistair Sampson
Race: Human
Age: 21
Birthplace: Kylah Plains, Dantooine
Allegiance: Dantooine Liberation Army
Status: Chief Technician
Rank: General
Height/Weight: 6'0"/163 lbs
Appearance:
Allistair is fairly tall, if a bit lanky. Even so, he's quite healthy and in good shape from years of helping out around the farm. He's well tanned, from all of his time spent outside over the years. His dark brown hair is usually unkempt and greasy, from the time he spends doing his mechanical work. Allistair's eyes are a very dark brown, so much so that they almost look black. He often wears a light jacket, that's a dark brown in color. With that, he's usually seen in an orange shirt and somewhat thick working pants, with some light leather boots. One thing he always has on is a red scarf, tied around his upper right arm. It was a gift from his father.He also usually has a knife hanging in a sheath on his hip, along with a blaster pistol in a holster. Allistair also has a tattoo on his back, in between his shoulder blades. The tattoo is a symbol of his rank and standing within the DLA.
Personality:
Allistair is quite friendly to people he knows, though he can be a bit sarcastic at times. The young man is also incredibly tenacious, and won't give up on anything once he's set his mind to it. In the same vein, once he's devoted to a cause, he's fiercely loyal to it. He is especially protective of his family and close friends, and of his homeworld-and such is how he came to be a part of the DLA. Other than that, he's usually a bit quiet and reserved when amongpeople he doesn't know. He also tends to space out when he's very involved in his work.
Ships/Vehicles:
Equipment:
Blaster Pistol with extra power packs
Knife
Pack of Cigarras
Depending on mission, will carry grenades, explosives, additional/different weapons etc.
Stats: (Feeble, Below Average, Average, Above Average, Superior, Legendary)
Strength - Average
Agility - Above Average
Intelligence - Above Average
Charisma - Average
Combat Training:
Marksmanship - Adept
Hand-to-hand - Novice
Knife-fighting - Adept
Guerrilla warfare - Adept
Other Training:
Mechanic work - Expert
Subterfuge - Adept
Crafting (bombs, traps, etc) - Adept
Field medicine - Novice
Farming - Adept
Ground vehicle piloting - Adept
Atmosphere vehicle piloting - Apprentice
Biography:
A Beginning Years 0-5
Allistair was born to Leiliana and Erledutch Sampson, on their farm estate on the Kylah Plains of Dantooine. He was the second child to the family after his brother Erledutch(or just 'Dutch'), who was nine years his elder. The Sampson family was a family of farmers, and owned a fairly large plot of land on the plains. They people of the Sampson Estate were a close-knit bunch, and it didn't matter if one was a Sampson or not; all were treated fairly. Though he was too young to think anything of it at the time, when Allistair was three, a family came to the estate, looking for work. They had a daughter with them, a Mirilian girl that went by the name 'Mo.' As far as Allistair was concerned, Mo had always been there, and she played a sort of sister role to him as he grew. There was also Lily, whose family had arrived near the time of Allistair birth. As was the case with Mo, she was a sort of sister to Allistair, and the group of her, Dutch, Allistair and Mo would grow to be very close as they grew older.
As Allistair grew, he grew as most boys do, playing around the grounds with friends from other estates and with his older brother, and taking his schooling from the few tutors they had on the estate. From the beginning, Allistair was a good kid, if a bit reserved at times. But he seemed to get on well enough with almost anyone, a trait he'd keep as he continued to grow. Another thing that started to develop for him in these early years was his adoration of his brother, Dutch. It would grow to become more pronounced as Allistair aged, but even so, he looked up to his big brother.
The Kylah Plains Years 6-8
As Allistair grew, his parents and brother started to teach him about the things he'd need to know to work around the farm; basic things like how to handle some of the simpler, safer equipment, and how to help with caring for the animals. Actually, that last thing wasn't as simple as it might seem. You see, for some reason unknown to both him and the rest of his family, Allistair never got along well with animals. He wasn't afraid of them, but he didn't click with them as well as most of the others on the farm. He could work with them when the need arose, he just preferred to try to keep his distance from them, as the uneasiness usually lead to some rather humorous situations--more for others than him. But as time passed, he'd grow to work a little better with them, if only enough to stop botching his work. Most of the help came from his mother, Leiliana, who had a knack for dealing with the animals of the farm. She taught him that the animals respond to the emotions of their handlers, and if Allistair was nervous, the animals would be nervous as well. And so what Allistair learned to do was to relax, and to trust that the animals wouldn't do anything out of the ordinary--they were trained, after all. Even so, he just wasn't the kind of person that dealt with animals well, and was still a tad uncomfortable around them.
One day, the Sampson family got a visit from a man named Salvador, who was the Allistair and Dutch's uncle. Salvador was a different man than the rest of the Sampsons, and had spurned the life of a farmer to travel the stars. He worked as a smuggler these days, but he still stopped by to visit the family every now and then, along with his female Zeltron friend and a Rodian that never seemed to talk. And, perhaps if a stranger were there to observe, they would have noted a faint sense of tension in the household between the Sampson parents and Salvador. They were, after all, quite different, and walked very different lives. But he was family, and, despite his... strange ways, he was welcome into the Sampson estate. On this particular visit, he came with gifts for the Sampson brothers. Dutch got a leather jacket, and Allistair got a knife with a wicked looking blade that had some sort of etchings on it. To help out with jobs around the farm when he was older was the official reason that his uncle gave, but once when he found Allistair alone, he told the boy that it was because he thought he had the look of a knife fighter about him. But he told Allistair to hold off on learning to use it as a weapon until later--there was no need for such a young boy to learn such things yet. Allistair was a bit wary of his Uncle Sal, despite the man's charm, but nodded and was respectful to the man, as his parents had taught him to be. Even so, Allistair did like the knife. It was almost as much a work of art as it was a weapon, with beautiful carvings on the blade.Time went on, and Allistair honored his uncle's wishes. In fact, he didn't even really use his knife that much, or not at first anyway. But that would change a few years down the road.
Shortly after he reached the age of eight years old, Allistair started to show some interest in mechanical things. At this point, it was little more than fiddling with equipment--he wasn't trained in these things, after all. But his father saw the fascination with the things, and noted of it. Some time later, he asked Allistair if he'd want to learn under Lars Edgrin--the estate's chief technician. Allistair jumped at the chance, of course, and he started to have some time every day where he'd follow Lars around as he did his work, and learn from him. Though it'd take some years before he got to the point where he'd be at the level where he could start doing work around the estate on his own, he caught on to the work pretty quickly. Allistair had a sharp mind, sharper than most other kids his age. It seemed he had a natural knack for working with the mechanical things around the estate, and Lars once remarked to Erledutch that Allistair had more potential than he'd seen in a long time, and that if he kept at it, his skill could take him far one day.
Rivalry Year 9-10
As he grew, Allistair started to wander out on his own from the Sampson estate when he had completed his chores for the day. Of course, he had some friends that he'd go adventure out with from time to time, when he wasn't with his brother or Mo or Lily, but he liked to explore the countryside alone. Of course, most of his exploration wasn't really more than wandering a little ways off of the borders of the Sampson estate--he was still too young to go off by himself. But he didn't mind; the grounds the family owned were beautiful, and offered plenty of room for a boy to go around having his 'adventures.'
One evening, while he was out on one such adventure, he ran into a boy named Timothy Kavrick, who was from a neighboring estate, and the same age as Allistair was. From the beginning, Timothy and Allistair didn't get along. Everything started when Allistair was out, looking around by a creek that ran through the land close to the Sampson estate. When he met Timothy, he was friendly as always, but Timothy was quite rude. Timothy claimed that that particular area around the creek was 'his,' and that Allistair couldn't go there unless he had permission to. Allistair knew this was untrue, of course; the land didn't belong to anyone. But Timothy continued to proclaim that Allistair had to leave, and Allistair started to get frustrated. It happened that Allistair had been growing a bit out of his more reserved ways and was growing less and less afraid to speak his mind, and he threw an insult at Timothy that was something to the effect of calling him a raging moron that couldn't run a piece of land if he tried. He then launched into a rant about how the area they were in didn't belong to anyone, and there was no way that he needed Timothy's permission to go where he pleased. Was it the smartest thing to say? Perhaps not, but Allistair was irritated, and just wanted to go on in peace. But instead, he got a very pissed off Timothy, who lunged forward to attack him.
Allistair didn't back down from Timothy's attack. After all, he had learned some things about fighting from his big brother. He could surely take Timothy, right? Wrong. The scuffle didn't last long, perhaps because it went so poorly for Allistair. It was clear from the beginning that he wasn't going to win the fight, and it soon turned into him trying to fend off Timothy's blows, rather than trying to beat Timothy. Timothy relented after beating Allistair for a short time, and told him that he'd get the same thing again if he ever came back near his creek. Allistair fumed to himself as he made his way back home, his body aching from the bruises left from Timothy's assault. Surely Timothy had only bested him because he had surprise going for him. Before he had gone fifteen paces, he knew that he'd be back to face Timothy the next day. And he wouldn't be beaten, then. When he got home, he explained his bruises away to his parents as the result of him falling. They weren't convinced, and his mother started to press harder for an explanation, but his dad only looked at Allistair knowingly, and let Allistair go, saying something about finishing something once it had been started as he left.
The next day seemed to drag on and on for Allistair, as he waited for the time to come when his work for the day was done and he could go back out to face Timothy once more. But the time came, and he wasted not a moment in heading out. Sure enough, when he arrived, Timothy was there, arms crossed and a smug look painting his face. Timothy told Allistair that he knew he'd be back, and Allistair responded, saying that Timothy had just gotten lucky yesterday. With that, the two started their second scuffle, and though things went slightly better for Allistair, he was still beaten. Quite decisively. But he didn't give up. Once Timothy relented, he jumped back up and tried to take Timothy by surprise, but that only lead to more of him getting knocked down and beaten. As he limped home, he started to entertain the thought that maybe he couldn't beat Timothy in a fight. But he'd have to keep trying; if he gave up, word might spread to the other kids in the area and he'd never hear the end of it. And so the trend continued. He'd go out when he could to face Timothy, and he'd get beaten. And, as the time passed, word started to spread among his peers that he was constantly getting the crap kicked out of him by Timothy. Something would have to be done, but Allistair was at a bit of a loss as to what that would be.
Eventually, his parents sent his brother to talk to him about what was going on. Allistair was reluctant to talk about it at first, but after a while, he told his brother what had been going on. Of course, Dutch already knew what was going on, given the way that the rumors had spread around on the Plains, but it was good to hear it from Allistair. Allistair begged his brother not to get involved; he wanted to beat Timothy by himself. Dutch agreed with him, telling him that it was his problem to solve. But he offered to teach Allistair some more about fighting, since getting beaten every time he went to confront Timothy wasn't going to help him. Allistair readily agreed, and skipped his trips to confront Timothy to train with his brother. Timothy started to spread word that Allistair had given up, as Allistair had feared he would, but he ignored them and focused on learning from his brother. He showed some signs of improvement, and the time came when he felt he'd be ready to face Timothy again. So he made his way out to the spot by the creek, and made his stand.
The fight was a close thing--even though he had learned a good number of things from his brother, fighting fist and foot just wasn't Allistair's thing. Not to mention that Timothy was naturally faster and stronger than he, so no matter what he did, he had to struggle to keep ahead of Timothy. But in the end, Allistair was able to beat Timothy, though it might have been a Pyrrhic victory with all of the bruises he suffered. But he didn't care; as far as he was concerned, he had proven himself, and he now had the right to go where ever he pleased. Timothy did let off with trying to stop Allistair from going to the spot by the creek--in fact, after his loss, he claimed that it was getting boring there anyway. But even so, the two had developed a very strong dislike for each other, and wouldn't get along well at all.
Growing and Learning Years 10-11
Allistair started to help out around the farm more as he grew older, and he started to learn some new things. He continued to make swift progress in his apprenticeship under the estate's chief technician, and the man seemed to always have some sort of praise on his lips for Allistair. Allistair rather enjoyed being the subject of so much good attention, though he tried to keep it from going to his head; his mother had warned him against that one night after he had been bragging to some of his friends about how great he was. That'd only lead to him being careless, she had told him. And so he worked hard to get better at what he did without letting his ego run away.
As he grew older, he started to carry his knife around with him some, to help out with work around the estate, as his uncle had said--cutting equipment when he needed to, or using it to gut the occasional fish he caught from the creek. But he also would start to learn how to fight, both with a knife and with a blaster pistol. Almost everyone on the estate knew how to fight in some form, and he'd need to learn as well; the Kylah Plains could be a dangerous place at times, after all, and he'd have to know how to defend himself if the need arose. And so he would learn. In addition to the time spent doing his work around the estate and learning from Lars, he started having lessons with using a blaster pistol with his father in the estate's shooting range. Allistair picked it up quickly enough, and would grow to be a pretty good shot with a pistol through the years. He also started to learn how to fight with a knife, both from his father and his brother. While he wasn't as proficient with a knife as he was a pistol, he picked up on it well enough, though he seemed to be hopeless when it came to fighting unarmed.
Allistair was presented with the first test of his mechanical skills a short while after his eleventh birthday. He had been learning under Lars for about three years now, and it was time for him to see what he could do on his own. The job was a simple one, and he'd do it under Lars' watchful eye to be sure that no unfortunate accident happen. One of the estate's droids was malfunctioning, and Allistair would have to fix it. In order to do this, he'd have to fix some of the wiring that had been damaged in some storms out of the Plains. Speed wasn't an issue with the job, since it would be best for him to get it right the first time, rather than having to go back and fix it again a short time later. And so he set about working on his little project. He worked slowly but methodically, and the project took about three days to complete. He'd ask Lars for help when he got to a point where he didn't know what to do, but that only happened twice; Lars had taught him well. The project was a success once finished, and Allistair was very proud of himself; he'd completed his first real repair job for the estate. Lars told him that also meant he'd get to start looking into some of the more complex things with the work they did, now that a firm foundation had been laid for Allistair.
The Order Years 12-14
Allistair started to take a rather peculiar interest in the Jedi Order as he grew older. Of course, he wasn't a Force sensitive, and if he eligible to be a Jedi, then he more than likely would have been in the Temple by this point. But still, the boy developed an odd sort of envy for them, and viewed them in much the same way that other kids follow the adventures of their favorite super hero. You see, it all started one day when Allistair saw a report that his father was watching on the HNN about a daring rescue that had been pulled off by a Jedi Knight and Padawan. A very wealthy CEO had been kidnapped by a gang and held hostage inside his own corporate offices. The Jedi team had been sent in to handle the situation, and the security cameras inside the building had recorded the confrontation. Once the two Jedi arrived to where the CEO was being held, they tried to negotiate a way out of the situation, but the gang could not be reasoned with. So combat broke out. To Allistair's amazement, one of the Jedi created a shield of the Force to protect the CEO while the other neutralized the gang members with the Force. Since that day, Allistair grew to be quite fond of the Jedi Order, and looked up what information he could about them, mostly into whatever missions he could find or into what they believed. He grew to believe that no matter what happened in the galaxy, everything would be okay as long as the Jedi were there to watch over the Republic. His father took note of his interest in the Order. Erle didn't approve or disapprove, as he didn't have much of an opinion on the Jedi, but even so, he pulled his son to talk one day. He told him that while the Jedi were indeed powerful, and did many good things for the Republic, they weren't infallible. No one was. He told Allistair there wasn't anything wrong with looking up to someone, but he warned him to not let his expectations run wild, or he'd end up disappointed. While Allistair was at first a bit disheartened by his father seemingly trying to play down those that he looked up to, he took Erle's words to heart, and kept his expectations in check.
But that's not to say that's all that happened during this time of Allistair's life. For the most part, life was quiet. There was the occasional confrontation with Timothy, but other than that, everything was as it always had been. He continued his shooting and knife fighting practice with his father and brother, and those continued well; he'd be a good shot with a pistol one day, and pretty handy with his knife to boot. His apprenticeship under Lars continued along well, and he started to branch out into learning the more technical side of computers. Most of his work now started to shift to helping out with various technical work around the farm; working on repairs, checking on computer systems, things like that. And though he still remained under Lars' watchful eye, he got to do the work on his own from time to time. He sometimes screwed up, as one would expect, but as he worked more and more, the errors become few and far between, and when he did mess up, he paid for it by making sure to spend however much time was necessary on the project to fix it.
Once, while he and his brother, along with Mo and Lily were out on a trip on the pains, they made a discovery. There was a hole in the side of the cliff, and they decided to see where it lead. So they went in, weapons up and ready, and explored. It was a cave, and its walls were coated in a dazzling array of crystals, and the ground was covered in about an inch of water. From that point on, it was their 'secret spot, and they'd go there whenever they needed to be alone, or to get away from it all. Allistair would sometime venture out at night to look up at the night sky and wonder what the wide galaxy that stretched out above him was like. It was a special place for all of them.
Flint Years 15-16
Allistair was also growing to be one of the best technicians on the estate. His time with Lars was paying off well, and in a few years, he'd be able to work completely free from being under Lars' watch. That thought excited him, though he knew he'd still work around on the estate; he didn't feel the need to try to go anywhere else. He also started to experiment with hacking, though he kept that very hush-hush. He wasn't very good at it for a while, but once he got over the hump of hacking his first computer, he found that it was much easier to hack into others. He'd grow to be decent at it.
But just as Allistair's technical skills were growing, so were his skills in combat. He'd spar with his father, both of them using (dull) knifes, and while he wasn't going to set the world on fire as a knife fighter, he could hold his own, and thought quickly on his feet. In fact, he moved rather spryly on his feet, and would often try to use his agility to make up for what he may have lacked in physical prowess. Allistair got more chances to use a pistol--a real pistol--out on the plains, to defend himself from the occasional attacking beastie. He was a good shot, and was really quite comfortable with using his pistol, more so than he was his knife.
One day, Allistair took a trip to the town of Flint. It was a smugglers' town--a wretched hive of scum and villainy, if you will. He'd heard from his friends that a merchant stayed there that would sell firearms to anyone that had the money for them. Now, Allistair already knew about Flint--many people did, and his brother was a well known, well respected boxer in an unofficial ring there. He even had the nickname 'The Kylah Voritor.' Well, Allistair had been wanting a pistol of his own, rather than always having to borrow one of the estate's pistols. Besides, if he got one of his own, he could tinker with it, modify it a bit; something he couldn't do with the estate blasters. And so he made his way to Flint, and sought out the merchant. He found him easily enough, though he soon found out he didn't have the money to buy the pistol he wanted. So he wandered about Flint for a little while as he pondered what to do to make enough credits to get the gun from the merchant. It just so happened that that night was one of the nights when the little fighting ring met, and lo and behold, his brother was there. And then the idea struck him. From what he had heard, his brother had started boxing at about the same age that Allistair was now, and surely there was some money to be made from stepping in to the ring. So he'd jump in himself and see if he could make any cash. What was the worst that could happen.
In retrospect, perhaps that wasn't Allistair's greatest idea. He'd somehow forgotten that while he could handle himself with a knife or a pistol in his hand, he was hopeless fighting without some kind of weapon. The beating he got was a fair reminder of that, and after one fight, he decided he'd had enough of that and the ring was no longer a viable option. Instead, he decided to put his technical skill to work, and did work for some of the neighboring estates. Lars approved, saying it'd give Allistair some experience working on his own. Allistair did well. It perhaps wasn't the most exciting work all the time, but he did good, and after some time, he had enough money to buy his pistol and some parts to upgrade the power of the pistol's shots.
But even though all may have been well for Allistair, it was not for both of the Sampson brothers. Allistair noticed that his brother had picked up a drinking habit, and he suspected that Dutch drank to drown out his sorrows from the recent loss of Lily, his love who had left him to pursue an education at an offworld medical school. The loss had been devastating to Dutch, and Allistair could understand his brother's sorrow, but the way his brother would wander off alone, with nothing but a bottle of whiskey and his shotgun, worried Allistair. So, being the young man of initiative that he was, Allistair decided to confront Dutch. One night, he found his brother out on the plains and told him that he habit was ruining him, and to snap out of it. That was met with a curt insult, as Allistair had expected, and so he had to move on to Plan B: a good punch to the face. Now, Allistair was hoping the shock of it would wake his brother up, rather than piss him off, because Allistair knew there was no way he could beat his brother in an unarmed fight. But he swung out anyway, and to his surprise, he knocked his brother off of his feet. To his great relief, it seemed that something changed in his brother's eyes and he apologized, before setting his drink aside, and standing back to his feet. Dutch didn't have to deal with his drinking problem anymore from that day on.
Calm Before the Storm Years 17-18
An interesting event happened shortly after Allistair's seventeenth birthday. His older brother had taken to riding around and racing swoops, and the two had even spent some time working on swoops in the past. Everyone on the farmstead--even Allistair--had found a way to pitch in enough money to get Dutch into the race. And so Erle, Dutch and Allistair made their way to the town of Jurelle, where the race would be held. The race would wind through a canyon, and Allistair got dizzy just looking down into from the vantage point on the edge. He wished his brother luck, and made his own final check of the swoop (it never hurts to be sure) before heading off to watch the race. It was a brutal thing. A few of the participants used underhanded tactics to get leads, and there were several injuries. But through it all, his brother managed to come out on top, and was declared the victor. There was a celebration that night--one of the biggest Allistair remembered ever being in--as those who had made their way out from Kylah celebrated long into the night. Though he hadn't one anything, that night was one of the happiest of Allistair's life.
For a time, Allistair's life quieted down. He finished his apprenticeship under Lars and was growing to be one of the best technicians on the estate. He liked his work, and was good at it. When his eighteenth birthday rolled around, he received, among other things, a red scarf from his father. At the time, it hadn't been much more than something wipe grease off on when he was working, but future events would make it something much dearer to Allistair.
One day, Allistair decided to take on a personal project and started tinkering with one of the old droids that was locked away in one of the estate's warehouses. At one point, it had been a nice, fully functioning repair droid, but an accident had rendered it more or less useless. So Allistair decided it'd be a good test of his ability to see if he could fix it up. So he set to work. At first, the work went smoothly. He was able to do a good deal of repair on the droid using the tools and parts he had on hand. But the external damage wasn't the hard part. When the droid's power cell had overloaded some years ago, a lot of its circuitry and wiring had been fried, and fixing or replacing those would be difficult, even for Allistair. But he'd set his mind to fixing the droid, and now that he had started on the project, he wouldn't give up. So he'd work on it, little by little every day over the course of the next few months. As he found out what parts couldn't be fixed and would need to be replaced, he'd do as he always did and go to work on other estates to gather enough money to purchase what he needed. Over the course of about a year, he was able to acquire and install everything and bring the old droid back to life. It was perhaps the achievement that Allistair was most proud of. The droid proved to be quite helpful around the estate, as it was a repair droid, and any extra help was always helpful.
The Unsung War Year 19-Present
Not too long after Allistair's nineteenth birthday passed, a day that would change both him and all the people of Dantooine came. It was the Sith Invasion. They'd just been going about their normal daily lives when the encroachers came from the skies. There was resistance, but it was a doomed effort from the beginning. The Sith juggernaut expanded out, sweeping over the lands of Dantooine like a fire raging fire that could not be extinguished. It was only a matter of time before their attention reached the Kylah estate. When they did, some of the people of the estate tried to put up a resistance, but it was quickly evident that any hopes of fighting the Sith off would be in vain. So while Erle and his men fought off the Sith as they could, and Dutch went around gathering everyone for an evacuation, Allistair set to making a quick look over of the vehicles, along with Lars and M4, the droid. Everything was in order, and Allistair gathered his belongings, which only really consisted of his knife and pistol, and they set off. M4 was in a speeder with Allistair, and Lars was in a different one, with Leiliana. As they pulled away, Allistair noted that the Sith soldiers were pulling back from the estate, and stopped his speeder to turn and look--a mistake that almost cost him his life. They weren't pulling out because they had been defeated, they were leaving because the Sampson estate was going to be bombed into ruin. He turned the speeder to flee once more when he heard the roar of bombers over head, and almost didn't make it. But he did, though, unfortunately, several others did not. His mother and Lars were two of the unlucky ones.
Dutch led the ragged band of survivors to the secret place, and once everyone was there, it seemed that all they did for a long time was mourn. Understandably. Everything they had ever known had just been ripped to shreds by the Sith, and for what? What had they done to deserve the fate that had fallen on them? Whatever the reason, as they spent those next long days mourning their loss in the cave, something changed within them. They would not stand by as the Sith ravaged Dantooine and let them have their way with her. No, they would rise up and fight off the encroachers. It was then that Erle revealed his past to everyone else: before settling down on Dantooine, he'd been a member of the Special Forces for the Republic, and had specialized in counter terrorism. He knew the way such groups worked, and he also knew that if there was any hope of fighting back against the Sith occupiers, they'd have to act as an insurgency group. And so the Dantooine Liberation Army was born.
Of course at first, they were more a band of angry settlers than an army, but that didn't deter them. They might not have been able to take the Sith head on, but they knew their home better than the Sith, and they had more reason to fight than the Sith. Even so, they had to be cautious. They were outmanned and outgunned, and they could not afford to let the Sith know who they were or where they were striking out from. So they fought as Erle taught them to, blending in the ordinary people before striking out swift and hard, and fading away once more.
While his brother joined a strike team with Erle and a few others, Allistair found that his talents were best utilized in other ways. Under Erle's tutelage, he found that making a bomb or a trap of some sort wasn't really all that different than what he had been doing on the estate, once he set his mind to it. And so that's what he'd do, making tools to use in the fight against the Sith from what they had on hand or could steal, and performing repairs as necessary, along with the help of M4.
With time, the DLA grew both in ability and number, though they still remained an underground resistance force. But even so, slow progress is still progress. Bombings, sabotage, assassinations, they did anything they could to be a thorn in the Sith's side. They even were able to free prisoners from to prison camps. It seemed all was going well. They had grown over the past few months, and sympathy for their efforts was starting to spread throughout the citizenry of Dantooine. Allistair even started planning to carry out a devious attack on a convoy after some time spent making observations. But things could not continue as they were.
Erle and Dutch were captured by the Sith while they were on a raid, and for a moment, it seemed that everything the DLA had worked so hard for was going to crumble down onto their heads. The loss affected all of the members of the DLA, but it affected Allistair more than anyone else. Already, the Sith had taken his home and his mother, and now they wanted to take his father and brother from him. But instead of sorrow, a cold, hard rage began to build in Allistair, and his hatred of the Sith grew to be even stronger than it had been before. One day, he saw the red scarf his father had given him on his eighteenth birthday, and decided to wear it wrapped around his upper right arm, and has been doing it ever since. He also picked up the habit of smoking that he now has from one of the men of the DLA. As plans for a rescue were set in place and finalized during the weeks that Dutch and Erle were being held, Allistair modified and accelerated his own plans. There was a Sith convoy that made its way through Flint every nine days. At first, he'd planned to set a trap to disable them with some ion mines that had been stolen on an earlier raid, so that a raiding team could ambush the convoy and take what they were carrying. But now, everything had changed. The Sith had taken what family Allistair had left. And he was going to make sure they paid for it.
Roleplay Sample:
The Sith convoy rolled slowly through the streets of Flint, a smugglers' town on Dantooine not too far from the Sampson Estate on the Kylah Plains. A young man watched the convoy trudge on from his vantage point on a hill not too far outside the city. He was fairly tall, a bit lanky, and well tanned, with unruly dark brown hair. There wasn't really anything about him to make him stand out, save the red scarf tied around his upper right arm. This was Allistair Sampson. Here we go, he thought as he blew out one last puff of smoke from his cigarra before smothering it out under his foot.
A lot of planning had gone into what was about to happen. Careful observation had found that the convoy passed through Flint at about the same time every nine days. The action that was about to take place had been in planning for a long time, but recent events had accelerated the process. You see, Allistair was a member of the Dantooine Liberation Army, or the DLA, and not too long ago, the Sith had taken both his brother had his father hostage. That just couldn't be allowed to go unpunished. So while plans were made for a rescue mission, he had decided to move ahead with some of his own plans. And that's where the convoy rolling through Flint comes into play. See, the original plan had been to disable the convoy with some stolen ion mines and take the equipment that it carried in a surprise attack, but that changed when the Sith took Dutch and Erle. No, they had taken his family, and now Allistair was out for revenge. He wanted blood. And so, with a bit of ingenuity, he was able to fashion some fairly sizable bombs together out of equipment and supplies back in the DLA's hidden base. So now, the convoy would be disabled by the ion mines yes, but then they'd all be blown to hell by Allistair's little surprise. Of course, explosions are nothing to take lightly, and that's where another phase of the planning had taken place. The people of Flint that weren't already involved in the DLA were sympathetic to the cause, and had been warned before hand to stay clear of the area where the attack would take place. Even so, DLA soldiers that were posed as civilians had made a pass through the area an hour earlier, and warned all of the inhabitants of the coming storm.
And now the time had come.
"This one's for you, Dutch," Allistair said as he looked down into the town at the convoy. "And you, Dad." For a moment he was quiet, and the only noise on the hill was the sound of the grass rustling softly as the wind blew through it. But Allistair was in motion after a moment, moving to the speeder he'd brought out, which was located just below the crest of the hill on the other side, so that he'd be out of vision from the town. He had a part to play.
He jumped into the speeder and picked up a bulky set of equipment and looked at it. It had a screen, split into quadrants that showed the area where the attack would unfold from four different angles. As was mentioned earlier, a lot of planning had gone into this, and there were hidden cameras mounted back in the town that were relaying their feeds back to his device. There were also a few switches, and they were critical to what would be occurring shortly. Each of the devices--the mines and the bombs--had a wireless relay attached to them that ran to his device, so he could arm and detonate them manually from a distance. The last thing he picked up as a comm device, that would mask the tone of his voice. It sent its signal to the speakers of several bars and cantinas in the town that had been moved around so that they could be clearly heard on the streets.
"Let's get this party started," Allistair muttered to himself as he looked down at the screen, noting that the convoy was rolling into position. He activated his comm as he armed the mines, and felt his palms start to sweat as adrenaline flooded into his system. Gotta stay calm, Al. A screw up here would not be a good thing.
He pressed the detonation switch when the vehicles were in position and there was a flash of blue light as the mines went off, and one of his cameras was knocked offline in the process. But he ignored that and focused on what he could see from the remaining three screens. The mines had worked. He flipped the switch that would arm his bombs and spoke into the comm device.
"Well, gentleman, looks like you're having some trouble there," his voice rang out in the street, distorted beyond recognition by his device. "Doncha just hate it when your vehicles crap out on ya?" That was followed by a sly chuckle, as if the mysterious voice knew more than the Sith soldiers would like.
"Who the hell is that," screamed out the man that Allistair assumed to be some sort of commanding officer or something of that sort. "Show yourself immediately!"
"Who am I," Allistair asked back. "I can't tell you who I am, but I can tell you who we are."
"What are you talking abou-"
"We are the workers of Dantooine," Allistair continued over the Sith. "We are the merchants, the business people, the farmers. We are her sons and her daughters. We are everywhere, Sith, and we will not let you take her and do as you please."
"Who the hell are yo-"
Allistair continued on without even noticing the enraged Sith's attempts to question him. "You, on the other hand are encroachers--invaders into a land that does not belong to you. You are a cancer upon our homeworld, and we will cleanse you from her countenance."
"Just what are you talking about?!" the Sith roared. "Who are you?! Where are you?! Show yourself before I am forced to make my men find hunt you down!!"
Allistair only smiled for a moment before speaking. "You don't know?" he snorted a short laugh into the microphone. "The fires of liberation are burning on Dantooine, my friend. And nothing will save you when they find you." He smiled again. "In fact, I think they already have." With that, he hit the button that would detonate his explosive, and there was a slight delay as the signal traveled to them. But the next instant, he heard a dull roar in the distance, and the image on his cameras blacked out. He stepped out of his speeder and walked to the top of the hill to see that a thick plume of black smoke was rising out of the town. A wind blew in, setting his coat to flapping gently about him. He reached into his pocket and produced another cigarra, along with a lighter. He lit it, and watched the smoke curl up into the sky. His only regret as he watched the black smoke waft lazily through the air was that he couldn't do these types of attacks more often. They took a lot of planning and materials. "Serves you damn bastards right," he muttered around his cigarra. The bastards had taken his father and brother, and he'd make sure they paid for it. If he had to make all of the plains of Dantooine run red with blood, then by the Force, he'd do it.
Race: Human
Age: 21
Birthplace: Kylah Plains, Dantooine
Allegiance: Dantooine Liberation Army
Status: Chief Technician
Rank: General
Height/Weight: 6'0"/163 lbs
Appearance:
Allistair is fairly tall, if a bit lanky. Even so, he's quite healthy and in good shape from years of helping out around the farm. He's well tanned, from all of his time spent outside over the years. His dark brown hair is usually unkempt and greasy, from the time he spends doing his mechanical work. Allistair's eyes are a very dark brown, so much so that they almost look black. He often wears a light jacket, that's a dark brown in color. With that, he's usually seen in an orange shirt and somewhat thick working pants, with some light leather boots. One thing he always has on is a red scarf, tied around his upper right arm. It was a gift from his father.He also usually has a knife hanging in a sheath on his hip, along with a blaster pistol in a holster. Allistair also has a tattoo on his back, in between his shoulder blades. The tattoo is a symbol of his rank and standing within the DLA.
Personality:
Allistair is quite friendly to people he knows, though he can be a bit sarcastic at times. The young man is also incredibly tenacious, and won't give up on anything once he's set his mind to it. In the same vein, once he's devoted to a cause, he's fiercely loyal to it. He is especially protective of his family and close friends, and of his homeworld-and such is how he came to be a part of the DLA. Other than that, he's usually a bit quiet and reserved when amongpeople he doesn't know. He also tends to space out when he's very involved in his work.
Ships/Vehicles:
Equipment:
Blaster Pistol with extra power packs
Knife
Pack of Cigarras
Depending on mission, will carry grenades, explosives, additional/different weapons etc.
Stats: (Feeble, Below Average, Average, Above Average, Superior, Legendary)
Strength - Average
Agility - Above Average
Intelligence - Above Average
Charisma - Average
Combat Training:
Marksmanship - Adept
Hand-to-hand - Novice
Knife-fighting - Adept
Guerrilla warfare - Adept
Other Training:
Mechanic work - Expert
Subterfuge - Adept
Crafting (bombs, traps, etc) - Adept
Field medicine - Novice
Farming - Adept
Ground vehicle piloting - Adept
Atmosphere vehicle piloting - Apprentice
Biography:
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”
~ Thomas Jefferson
~ Thomas Jefferson
Childhood
Years 0-10
A Beginning Years 0-5
Allistair was born to Leiliana and Erledutch Sampson, on their farm estate on the Kylah Plains of Dantooine. He was the second child to the family after his brother Erledutch(or just 'Dutch'), who was nine years his elder. The Sampson family was a family of farmers, and owned a fairly large plot of land on the plains. They people of the Sampson Estate were a close-knit bunch, and it didn't matter if one was a Sampson or not; all were treated fairly. Though he was too young to think anything of it at the time, when Allistair was three, a family came to the estate, looking for work. They had a daughter with them, a Mirilian girl that went by the name 'Mo.' As far as Allistair was concerned, Mo had always been there, and she played a sort of sister role to him as he grew. There was also Lily, whose family had arrived near the time of Allistair birth. As was the case with Mo, she was a sort of sister to Allistair, and the group of her, Dutch, Allistair and Mo would grow to be very close as they grew older.
As Allistair grew, he grew as most boys do, playing around the grounds with friends from other estates and with his older brother, and taking his schooling from the few tutors they had on the estate. From the beginning, Allistair was a good kid, if a bit reserved at times. But he seemed to get on well enough with almost anyone, a trait he'd keep as he continued to grow. Another thing that started to develop for him in these early years was his adoration of his brother, Dutch. It would grow to become more pronounced as Allistair aged, but even so, he looked up to his big brother.
The Kylah Plains Years 6-8
As Allistair grew, his parents and brother started to teach him about the things he'd need to know to work around the farm; basic things like how to handle some of the simpler, safer equipment, and how to help with caring for the animals. Actually, that last thing wasn't as simple as it might seem. You see, for some reason unknown to both him and the rest of his family, Allistair never got along well with animals. He wasn't afraid of them, but he didn't click with them as well as most of the others on the farm. He could work with them when the need arose, he just preferred to try to keep his distance from them, as the uneasiness usually lead to some rather humorous situations--more for others than him. But as time passed, he'd grow to work a little better with them, if only enough to stop botching his work. Most of the help came from his mother, Leiliana, who had a knack for dealing with the animals of the farm. She taught him that the animals respond to the emotions of their handlers, and if Allistair was nervous, the animals would be nervous as well. And so what Allistair learned to do was to relax, and to trust that the animals wouldn't do anything out of the ordinary--they were trained, after all. Even so, he just wasn't the kind of person that dealt with animals well, and was still a tad uncomfortable around them.
One day, the Sampson family got a visit from a man named Salvador, who was the Allistair and Dutch's uncle. Salvador was a different man than the rest of the Sampsons, and had spurned the life of a farmer to travel the stars. He worked as a smuggler these days, but he still stopped by to visit the family every now and then, along with his female Zeltron friend and a Rodian that never seemed to talk. And, perhaps if a stranger were there to observe, they would have noted a faint sense of tension in the household between the Sampson parents and Salvador. They were, after all, quite different, and walked very different lives. But he was family, and, despite his... strange ways, he was welcome into the Sampson estate. On this particular visit, he came with gifts for the Sampson brothers. Dutch got a leather jacket, and Allistair got a knife with a wicked looking blade that had some sort of etchings on it. To help out with jobs around the farm when he was older was the official reason that his uncle gave, but once when he found Allistair alone, he told the boy that it was because he thought he had the look of a knife fighter about him. But he told Allistair to hold off on learning to use it as a weapon until later--there was no need for such a young boy to learn such things yet. Allistair was a bit wary of his Uncle Sal, despite the man's charm, but nodded and was respectful to the man, as his parents had taught him to be. Even so, Allistair did like the knife. It was almost as much a work of art as it was a weapon, with beautiful carvings on the blade.Time went on, and Allistair honored his uncle's wishes. In fact, he didn't even really use his knife that much, or not at first anyway. But that would change a few years down the road.
Shortly after he reached the age of eight years old, Allistair started to show some interest in mechanical things. At this point, it was little more than fiddling with equipment--he wasn't trained in these things, after all. But his father saw the fascination with the things, and noted of it. Some time later, he asked Allistair if he'd want to learn under Lars Edgrin--the estate's chief technician. Allistair jumped at the chance, of course, and he started to have some time every day where he'd follow Lars around as he did his work, and learn from him. Though it'd take some years before he got to the point where he'd be at the level where he could start doing work around the estate on his own, he caught on to the work pretty quickly. Allistair had a sharp mind, sharper than most other kids his age. It seemed he had a natural knack for working with the mechanical things around the estate, and Lars once remarked to Erledutch that Allistair had more potential than he'd seen in a long time, and that if he kept at it, his skill could take him far one day.
Rivalry Year 9-10
As he grew, Allistair started to wander out on his own from the Sampson estate when he had completed his chores for the day. Of course, he had some friends that he'd go adventure out with from time to time, when he wasn't with his brother or Mo or Lily, but he liked to explore the countryside alone. Of course, most of his exploration wasn't really more than wandering a little ways off of the borders of the Sampson estate--he was still too young to go off by himself. But he didn't mind; the grounds the family owned were beautiful, and offered plenty of room for a boy to go around having his 'adventures.'
One evening, while he was out on one such adventure, he ran into a boy named Timothy Kavrick, who was from a neighboring estate, and the same age as Allistair was. From the beginning, Timothy and Allistair didn't get along. Everything started when Allistair was out, looking around by a creek that ran through the land close to the Sampson estate. When he met Timothy, he was friendly as always, but Timothy was quite rude. Timothy claimed that that particular area around the creek was 'his,' and that Allistair couldn't go there unless he had permission to. Allistair knew this was untrue, of course; the land didn't belong to anyone. But Timothy continued to proclaim that Allistair had to leave, and Allistair started to get frustrated. It happened that Allistair had been growing a bit out of his more reserved ways and was growing less and less afraid to speak his mind, and he threw an insult at Timothy that was something to the effect of calling him a raging moron that couldn't run a piece of land if he tried. He then launched into a rant about how the area they were in didn't belong to anyone, and there was no way that he needed Timothy's permission to go where he pleased. Was it the smartest thing to say? Perhaps not, but Allistair was irritated, and just wanted to go on in peace. But instead, he got a very pissed off Timothy, who lunged forward to attack him.
Allistair didn't back down from Timothy's attack. After all, he had learned some things about fighting from his big brother. He could surely take Timothy, right? Wrong. The scuffle didn't last long, perhaps because it went so poorly for Allistair. It was clear from the beginning that he wasn't going to win the fight, and it soon turned into him trying to fend off Timothy's blows, rather than trying to beat Timothy. Timothy relented after beating Allistair for a short time, and told him that he'd get the same thing again if he ever came back near his creek. Allistair fumed to himself as he made his way back home, his body aching from the bruises left from Timothy's assault. Surely Timothy had only bested him because he had surprise going for him. Before he had gone fifteen paces, he knew that he'd be back to face Timothy the next day. And he wouldn't be beaten, then. When he got home, he explained his bruises away to his parents as the result of him falling. They weren't convinced, and his mother started to press harder for an explanation, but his dad only looked at Allistair knowingly, and let Allistair go, saying something about finishing something once it had been started as he left.
The next day seemed to drag on and on for Allistair, as he waited for the time to come when his work for the day was done and he could go back out to face Timothy once more. But the time came, and he wasted not a moment in heading out. Sure enough, when he arrived, Timothy was there, arms crossed and a smug look painting his face. Timothy told Allistair that he knew he'd be back, and Allistair responded, saying that Timothy had just gotten lucky yesterday. With that, the two started their second scuffle, and though things went slightly better for Allistair, he was still beaten. Quite decisively. But he didn't give up. Once Timothy relented, he jumped back up and tried to take Timothy by surprise, but that only lead to more of him getting knocked down and beaten. As he limped home, he started to entertain the thought that maybe he couldn't beat Timothy in a fight. But he'd have to keep trying; if he gave up, word might spread to the other kids in the area and he'd never hear the end of it. And so the trend continued. He'd go out when he could to face Timothy, and he'd get beaten. And, as the time passed, word started to spread among his peers that he was constantly getting the crap kicked out of him by Timothy. Something would have to be done, but Allistair was at a bit of a loss as to what that would be.
Eventually, his parents sent his brother to talk to him about what was going on. Allistair was reluctant to talk about it at first, but after a while, he told his brother what had been going on. Of course, Dutch already knew what was going on, given the way that the rumors had spread around on the Plains, but it was good to hear it from Allistair. Allistair begged his brother not to get involved; he wanted to beat Timothy by himself. Dutch agreed with him, telling him that it was his problem to solve. But he offered to teach Allistair some more about fighting, since getting beaten every time he went to confront Timothy wasn't going to help him. Allistair readily agreed, and skipped his trips to confront Timothy to train with his brother. Timothy started to spread word that Allistair had given up, as Allistair had feared he would, but he ignored them and focused on learning from his brother. He showed some signs of improvement, and the time came when he felt he'd be ready to face Timothy again. So he made his way out to the spot by the creek, and made his stand.
The fight was a close thing--even though he had learned a good number of things from his brother, fighting fist and foot just wasn't Allistair's thing. Not to mention that Timothy was naturally faster and stronger than he, so no matter what he did, he had to struggle to keep ahead of Timothy. But in the end, Allistair was able to beat Timothy, though it might have been a Pyrrhic victory with all of the bruises he suffered. But he didn't care; as far as he was concerned, he had proven himself, and he now had the right to go where ever he pleased. Timothy did let off with trying to stop Allistair from going to the spot by the creek--in fact, after his loss, he claimed that it was getting boring there anyway. But even so, the two had developed a very strong dislike for each other, and wouldn't get along well at all.
Early Adolescence
Years 10-14
Growing and Learning Years 10-11
Allistair started to help out around the farm more as he grew older, and he started to learn some new things. He continued to make swift progress in his apprenticeship under the estate's chief technician, and the man seemed to always have some sort of praise on his lips for Allistair. Allistair rather enjoyed being the subject of so much good attention, though he tried to keep it from going to his head; his mother had warned him against that one night after he had been bragging to some of his friends about how great he was. That'd only lead to him being careless, she had told him. And so he worked hard to get better at what he did without letting his ego run away.
As he grew older, he started to carry his knife around with him some, to help out with work around the estate, as his uncle had said--cutting equipment when he needed to, or using it to gut the occasional fish he caught from the creek. But he also would start to learn how to fight, both with a knife and with a blaster pistol. Almost everyone on the estate knew how to fight in some form, and he'd need to learn as well; the Kylah Plains could be a dangerous place at times, after all, and he'd have to know how to defend himself if the need arose. And so he would learn. In addition to the time spent doing his work around the estate and learning from Lars, he started having lessons with using a blaster pistol with his father in the estate's shooting range. Allistair picked it up quickly enough, and would grow to be a pretty good shot with a pistol through the years. He also started to learn how to fight with a knife, both from his father and his brother. While he wasn't as proficient with a knife as he was a pistol, he picked up on it well enough, though he seemed to be hopeless when it came to fighting unarmed.
Allistair was presented with the first test of his mechanical skills a short while after his eleventh birthday. He had been learning under Lars for about three years now, and it was time for him to see what he could do on his own. The job was a simple one, and he'd do it under Lars' watchful eye to be sure that no unfortunate accident happen. One of the estate's droids was malfunctioning, and Allistair would have to fix it. In order to do this, he'd have to fix some of the wiring that had been damaged in some storms out of the Plains. Speed wasn't an issue with the job, since it would be best for him to get it right the first time, rather than having to go back and fix it again a short time later. And so he set about working on his little project. He worked slowly but methodically, and the project took about three days to complete. He'd ask Lars for help when he got to a point where he didn't know what to do, but that only happened twice; Lars had taught him well. The project was a success once finished, and Allistair was very proud of himself; he'd completed his first real repair job for the estate. Lars told him that also meant he'd get to start looking into some of the more complex things with the work they did, now that a firm foundation had been laid for Allistair.
The Order Years 12-14
Allistair started to take a rather peculiar interest in the Jedi Order as he grew older. Of course, he wasn't a Force sensitive, and if he eligible to be a Jedi, then he more than likely would have been in the Temple by this point. But still, the boy developed an odd sort of envy for them, and viewed them in much the same way that other kids follow the adventures of their favorite super hero. You see, it all started one day when Allistair saw a report that his father was watching on the HNN about a daring rescue that had been pulled off by a Jedi Knight and Padawan. A very wealthy CEO had been kidnapped by a gang and held hostage inside his own corporate offices. The Jedi team had been sent in to handle the situation, and the security cameras inside the building had recorded the confrontation. Once the two Jedi arrived to where the CEO was being held, they tried to negotiate a way out of the situation, but the gang could not be reasoned with. So combat broke out. To Allistair's amazement, one of the Jedi created a shield of the Force to protect the CEO while the other neutralized the gang members with the Force. Since that day, Allistair grew to be quite fond of the Jedi Order, and looked up what information he could about them, mostly into whatever missions he could find or into what they believed. He grew to believe that no matter what happened in the galaxy, everything would be okay as long as the Jedi were there to watch over the Republic. His father took note of his interest in the Order. Erle didn't approve or disapprove, as he didn't have much of an opinion on the Jedi, but even so, he pulled his son to talk one day. He told him that while the Jedi were indeed powerful, and did many good things for the Republic, they weren't infallible. No one was. He told Allistair there wasn't anything wrong with looking up to someone, but he warned him to not let his expectations run wild, or he'd end up disappointed. While Allistair was at first a bit disheartened by his father seemingly trying to play down those that he looked up to, he took Erle's words to heart, and kept his expectations in check.
But that's not to say that's all that happened during this time of Allistair's life. For the most part, life was quiet. There was the occasional confrontation with Timothy, but other than that, everything was as it always had been. He continued his shooting and knife fighting practice with his father and brother, and those continued well; he'd be a good shot with a pistol one day, and pretty handy with his knife to boot. His apprenticeship under Lars continued along well, and he started to branch out into learning the more technical side of computers. Most of his work now started to shift to helping out with various technical work around the farm; working on repairs, checking on computer systems, things like that. And though he still remained under Lars' watchful eye, he got to do the work on his own from time to time. He sometimes screwed up, as one would expect, but as he worked more and more, the errors become few and far between, and when he did mess up, he paid for it by making sure to spend however much time was necessary on the project to fix it.
Once, while he and his brother, along with Mo and Lily were out on a trip on the pains, they made a discovery. There was a hole in the side of the cliff, and they decided to see where it lead. So they went in, weapons up and ready, and explored. It was a cave, and its walls were coated in a dazzling array of crystals, and the ground was covered in about an inch of water. From that point on, it was their 'secret spot, and they'd go there whenever they needed to be alone, or to get away from it all. Allistair would sometime venture out at night to look up at the night sky and wonder what the wide galaxy that stretched out above him was like. It was a special place for all of them.
Late Adolescence
Years 15-18
Flint Years 15-16
Allistair was also growing to be one of the best technicians on the estate. His time with Lars was paying off well, and in a few years, he'd be able to work completely free from being under Lars' watch. That thought excited him, though he knew he'd still work around on the estate; he didn't feel the need to try to go anywhere else. He also started to experiment with hacking, though he kept that very hush-hush. He wasn't very good at it for a while, but once he got over the hump of hacking his first computer, he found that it was much easier to hack into others. He'd grow to be decent at it.
But just as Allistair's technical skills were growing, so were his skills in combat. He'd spar with his father, both of them using (dull) knifes, and while he wasn't going to set the world on fire as a knife fighter, he could hold his own, and thought quickly on his feet. In fact, he moved rather spryly on his feet, and would often try to use his agility to make up for what he may have lacked in physical prowess. Allistair got more chances to use a pistol--a real pistol--out on the plains, to defend himself from the occasional attacking beastie. He was a good shot, and was really quite comfortable with using his pistol, more so than he was his knife.
One day, Allistair took a trip to the town of Flint. It was a smugglers' town--a wretched hive of scum and villainy, if you will. He'd heard from his friends that a merchant stayed there that would sell firearms to anyone that had the money for them. Now, Allistair already knew about Flint--many people did, and his brother was a well known, well respected boxer in an unofficial ring there. He even had the nickname 'The Kylah Voritor.' Well, Allistair had been wanting a pistol of his own, rather than always having to borrow one of the estate's pistols. Besides, if he got one of his own, he could tinker with it, modify it a bit; something he couldn't do with the estate blasters. And so he made his way to Flint, and sought out the merchant. He found him easily enough, though he soon found out he didn't have the money to buy the pistol he wanted. So he wandered about Flint for a little while as he pondered what to do to make enough credits to get the gun from the merchant. It just so happened that that night was one of the nights when the little fighting ring met, and lo and behold, his brother was there. And then the idea struck him. From what he had heard, his brother had started boxing at about the same age that Allistair was now, and surely there was some money to be made from stepping in to the ring. So he'd jump in himself and see if he could make any cash. What was the worst that could happen.
In retrospect, perhaps that wasn't Allistair's greatest idea. He'd somehow forgotten that while he could handle himself with a knife or a pistol in his hand, he was hopeless fighting without some kind of weapon. The beating he got was a fair reminder of that, and after one fight, he decided he'd had enough of that and the ring was no longer a viable option. Instead, he decided to put his technical skill to work, and did work for some of the neighboring estates. Lars approved, saying it'd give Allistair some experience working on his own. Allistair did well. It perhaps wasn't the most exciting work all the time, but he did good, and after some time, he had enough money to buy his pistol and some parts to upgrade the power of the pistol's shots.
But even though all may have been well for Allistair, it was not for both of the Sampson brothers. Allistair noticed that his brother had picked up a drinking habit, and he suspected that Dutch drank to drown out his sorrows from the recent loss of Lily, his love who had left him to pursue an education at an offworld medical school. The loss had been devastating to Dutch, and Allistair could understand his brother's sorrow, but the way his brother would wander off alone, with nothing but a bottle of whiskey and his shotgun, worried Allistair. So, being the young man of initiative that he was, Allistair decided to confront Dutch. One night, he found his brother out on the plains and told him that he habit was ruining him, and to snap out of it. That was met with a curt insult, as Allistair had expected, and so he had to move on to Plan B: a good punch to the face. Now, Allistair was hoping the shock of it would wake his brother up, rather than piss him off, because Allistair knew there was no way he could beat his brother in an unarmed fight. But he swung out anyway, and to his surprise, he knocked his brother off of his feet. To his great relief, it seemed that something changed in his brother's eyes and he apologized, before setting his drink aside, and standing back to his feet. Dutch didn't have to deal with his drinking problem anymore from that day on.
Calm Before the Storm Years 17-18
An interesting event happened shortly after Allistair's seventeenth birthday. His older brother had taken to riding around and racing swoops, and the two had even spent some time working on swoops in the past. Everyone on the farmstead--even Allistair--had found a way to pitch in enough money to get Dutch into the race. And so Erle, Dutch and Allistair made their way to the town of Jurelle, where the race would be held. The race would wind through a canyon, and Allistair got dizzy just looking down into from the vantage point on the edge. He wished his brother luck, and made his own final check of the swoop (it never hurts to be sure) before heading off to watch the race. It was a brutal thing. A few of the participants used underhanded tactics to get leads, and there were several injuries. But through it all, his brother managed to come out on top, and was declared the victor. There was a celebration that night--one of the biggest Allistair remembered ever being in--as those who had made their way out from Kylah celebrated long into the night. Though he hadn't one anything, that night was one of the happiest of Allistair's life.
For a time, Allistair's life quieted down. He finished his apprenticeship under Lars and was growing to be one of the best technicians on the estate. He liked his work, and was good at it. When his eighteenth birthday rolled around, he received, among other things, a red scarf from his father. At the time, it hadn't been much more than something wipe grease off on when he was working, but future events would make it something much dearer to Allistair.
One day, Allistair decided to take on a personal project and started tinkering with one of the old droids that was locked away in one of the estate's warehouses. At one point, it had been a nice, fully functioning repair droid, but an accident had rendered it more or less useless. So Allistair decided it'd be a good test of his ability to see if he could fix it up. So he set to work. At first, the work went smoothly. He was able to do a good deal of repair on the droid using the tools and parts he had on hand. But the external damage wasn't the hard part. When the droid's power cell had overloaded some years ago, a lot of its circuitry and wiring had been fried, and fixing or replacing those would be difficult, even for Allistair. But he'd set his mind to fixing the droid, and now that he had started on the project, he wouldn't give up. So he'd work on it, little by little every day over the course of the next few months. As he found out what parts couldn't be fixed and would need to be replaced, he'd do as he always did and go to work on other estates to gather enough money to purchase what he needed. Over the course of about a year, he was able to acquire and install everything and bring the old droid back to life. It was perhaps the achievement that Allistair was most proud of. The droid proved to be quite helpful around the estate, as it was a repair droid, and any extra help was always helpful.
Fires of Liberation
Years 19-Present
The Unsung War Year 19-Present
Not too long after Allistair's nineteenth birthday passed, a day that would change both him and all the people of Dantooine came. It was the Sith Invasion. They'd just been going about their normal daily lives when the encroachers came from the skies. There was resistance, but it was a doomed effort from the beginning. The Sith juggernaut expanded out, sweeping over the lands of Dantooine like a fire raging fire that could not be extinguished. It was only a matter of time before their attention reached the Kylah estate. When they did, some of the people of the estate tried to put up a resistance, but it was quickly evident that any hopes of fighting the Sith off would be in vain. So while Erle and his men fought off the Sith as they could, and Dutch went around gathering everyone for an evacuation, Allistair set to making a quick look over of the vehicles, along with Lars and M4, the droid. Everything was in order, and Allistair gathered his belongings, which only really consisted of his knife and pistol, and they set off. M4 was in a speeder with Allistair, and Lars was in a different one, with Leiliana. As they pulled away, Allistair noted that the Sith soldiers were pulling back from the estate, and stopped his speeder to turn and look--a mistake that almost cost him his life. They weren't pulling out because they had been defeated, they were leaving because the Sampson estate was going to be bombed into ruin. He turned the speeder to flee once more when he heard the roar of bombers over head, and almost didn't make it. But he did, though, unfortunately, several others did not. His mother and Lars were two of the unlucky ones.
Dutch led the ragged band of survivors to the secret place, and once everyone was there, it seemed that all they did for a long time was mourn. Understandably. Everything they had ever known had just been ripped to shreds by the Sith, and for what? What had they done to deserve the fate that had fallen on them? Whatever the reason, as they spent those next long days mourning their loss in the cave, something changed within them. They would not stand by as the Sith ravaged Dantooine and let them have their way with her. No, they would rise up and fight off the encroachers. It was then that Erle revealed his past to everyone else: before settling down on Dantooine, he'd been a member of the Special Forces for the Republic, and had specialized in counter terrorism. He knew the way such groups worked, and he also knew that if there was any hope of fighting back against the Sith occupiers, they'd have to act as an insurgency group. And so the Dantooine Liberation Army was born.
Of course at first, they were more a band of angry settlers than an army, but that didn't deter them. They might not have been able to take the Sith head on, but they knew their home better than the Sith, and they had more reason to fight than the Sith. Even so, they had to be cautious. They were outmanned and outgunned, and they could not afford to let the Sith know who they were or where they were striking out from. So they fought as Erle taught them to, blending in the ordinary people before striking out swift and hard, and fading away once more.
While his brother joined a strike team with Erle and a few others, Allistair found that his talents were best utilized in other ways. Under Erle's tutelage, he found that making a bomb or a trap of some sort wasn't really all that different than what he had been doing on the estate, once he set his mind to it. And so that's what he'd do, making tools to use in the fight against the Sith from what they had on hand or could steal, and performing repairs as necessary, along with the help of M4.
With time, the DLA grew both in ability and number, though they still remained an underground resistance force. But even so, slow progress is still progress. Bombings, sabotage, assassinations, they did anything they could to be a thorn in the Sith's side. They even were able to free prisoners from to prison camps. It seemed all was going well. They had grown over the past few months, and sympathy for their efforts was starting to spread throughout the citizenry of Dantooine. Allistair even started planning to carry out a devious attack on a convoy after some time spent making observations. But things could not continue as they were.
Erle and Dutch were captured by the Sith while they were on a raid, and for a moment, it seemed that everything the DLA had worked so hard for was going to crumble down onto their heads. The loss affected all of the members of the DLA, but it affected Allistair more than anyone else. Already, the Sith had taken his home and his mother, and now they wanted to take his father and brother from him. But instead of sorrow, a cold, hard rage began to build in Allistair, and his hatred of the Sith grew to be even stronger than it had been before. One day, he saw the red scarf his father had given him on his eighteenth birthday, and decided to wear it wrapped around his upper right arm, and has been doing it ever since. He also picked up the habit of smoking that he now has from one of the men of the DLA. As plans for a rescue were set in place and finalized during the weeks that Dutch and Erle were being held, Allistair modified and accelerated his own plans. There was a Sith convoy that made its way through Flint every nine days. At first, he'd planned to set a trap to disable them with some ion mines that had been stolen on an earlier raid, so that a raiding team could ambush the convoy and take what they were carrying. But now, everything had changed. The Sith had taken what family Allistair had left. And he was going to make sure they paid for it.
Roleplay Sample:
-Epilogue-
The Sith convoy rolled slowly through the streets of Flint, a smugglers' town on Dantooine not too far from the Sampson Estate on the Kylah Plains. A young man watched the convoy trudge on from his vantage point on a hill not too far outside the city. He was fairly tall, a bit lanky, and well tanned, with unruly dark brown hair. There wasn't really anything about him to make him stand out, save the red scarf tied around his upper right arm. This was Allistair Sampson. Here we go, he thought as he blew out one last puff of smoke from his cigarra before smothering it out under his foot.
A lot of planning had gone into what was about to happen. Careful observation had found that the convoy passed through Flint at about the same time every nine days. The action that was about to take place had been in planning for a long time, but recent events had accelerated the process. You see, Allistair was a member of the Dantooine Liberation Army, or the DLA, and not too long ago, the Sith had taken both his brother had his father hostage. That just couldn't be allowed to go unpunished. So while plans were made for a rescue mission, he had decided to move ahead with some of his own plans. And that's where the convoy rolling through Flint comes into play. See, the original plan had been to disable the convoy with some stolen ion mines and take the equipment that it carried in a surprise attack, but that changed when the Sith took Dutch and Erle. No, they had taken his family, and now Allistair was out for revenge. He wanted blood. And so, with a bit of ingenuity, he was able to fashion some fairly sizable bombs together out of equipment and supplies back in the DLA's hidden base. So now, the convoy would be disabled by the ion mines yes, but then they'd all be blown to hell by Allistair's little surprise. Of course, explosions are nothing to take lightly, and that's where another phase of the planning had taken place. The people of Flint that weren't already involved in the DLA were sympathetic to the cause, and had been warned before hand to stay clear of the area where the attack would take place. Even so, DLA soldiers that were posed as civilians had made a pass through the area an hour earlier, and warned all of the inhabitants of the coming storm.
And now the time had come.
"This one's for you, Dutch," Allistair said as he looked down into the town at the convoy. "And you, Dad." For a moment he was quiet, and the only noise on the hill was the sound of the grass rustling softly as the wind blew through it. But Allistair was in motion after a moment, moving to the speeder he'd brought out, which was located just below the crest of the hill on the other side, so that he'd be out of vision from the town. He had a part to play.
He jumped into the speeder and picked up a bulky set of equipment and looked at it. It had a screen, split into quadrants that showed the area where the attack would unfold from four different angles. As was mentioned earlier, a lot of planning had gone into this, and there were hidden cameras mounted back in the town that were relaying their feeds back to his device. There were also a few switches, and they were critical to what would be occurring shortly. Each of the devices--the mines and the bombs--had a wireless relay attached to them that ran to his device, so he could arm and detonate them manually from a distance. The last thing he picked up as a comm device, that would mask the tone of his voice. It sent its signal to the speakers of several bars and cantinas in the town that had been moved around so that they could be clearly heard on the streets.
"Let's get this party started," Allistair muttered to himself as he looked down at the screen, noting that the convoy was rolling into position. He activated his comm as he armed the mines, and felt his palms start to sweat as adrenaline flooded into his system. Gotta stay calm, Al. A screw up here would not be a good thing.
He pressed the detonation switch when the vehicles were in position and there was a flash of blue light as the mines went off, and one of his cameras was knocked offline in the process. But he ignored that and focused on what he could see from the remaining three screens. The mines had worked. He flipped the switch that would arm his bombs and spoke into the comm device.
"Well, gentleman, looks like you're having some trouble there," his voice rang out in the street, distorted beyond recognition by his device. "Doncha just hate it when your vehicles crap out on ya?" That was followed by a sly chuckle, as if the mysterious voice knew more than the Sith soldiers would like.
"Who the hell is that," screamed out the man that Allistair assumed to be some sort of commanding officer or something of that sort. "Show yourself immediately!"
"Who am I," Allistair asked back. "I can't tell you who I am, but I can tell you who we are."
"What are you talking abou-"
"We are the workers of Dantooine," Allistair continued over the Sith. "We are the merchants, the business people, the farmers. We are her sons and her daughters. We are everywhere, Sith, and we will not let you take her and do as you please."
"Who the hell are yo-"
Allistair continued on without even noticing the enraged Sith's attempts to question him. "You, on the other hand are encroachers--invaders into a land that does not belong to you. You are a cancer upon our homeworld, and we will cleanse you from her countenance."
"Just what are you talking about?!" the Sith roared. "Who are you?! Where are you?! Show yourself before I am forced to make my men find hunt you down!!"
Allistair only smiled for a moment before speaking. "You don't know?" he snorted a short laugh into the microphone. "The fires of liberation are burning on Dantooine, my friend. And nothing will save you when they find you." He smiled again. "In fact, I think they already have." With that, he hit the button that would detonate his explosive, and there was a slight delay as the signal traveled to them. But the next instant, he heard a dull roar in the distance, and the image on his cameras blacked out. He stepped out of his speeder and walked to the top of the hill to see that a thick plume of black smoke was rising out of the town. A wind blew in, setting his coat to flapping gently about him. He reached into his pocket and produced another cigarra, along with a lighter. He lit it, and watched the smoke curl up into the sky. His only regret as he watched the black smoke waft lazily through the air was that he couldn't do these types of attacks more often. They took a lot of planning and materials. "Serves you damn bastards right," he muttered around his cigarra. The bastards had taken his father and brother, and he'd make sure they paid for it. If he had to make all of the plains of Dantooine run red with blood, then by the Force, he'd do it.
