Kenne Aalle-oup
Dr. Kenne Aalle-oup, IISS
Providence
Coming from a very unpleasant ghetto within the four billion-population supercity Goruhus on Ragklidkiks (Antares 1240) few would have picked the underfed waif to have even survived to his teens, nevermind gain a proper education and build a life for himself in Imperial service. But a series of flukes and surprising coincidences opened a door to a boarding school, then a series of scholarships on His Majesty’s dime (with university and grad school honors!), then pulling thru two terms of service in the Imperial Scouts. In a service infamous for its casualty levels, not only did Dr. Aalle-oup pull thru two classified special missions and a dangerous war mission as a Detached Scout (assisting in neutralizing a disloyal Solomani dominant mercenary unit), but did so with flying colors.
Reassignment
Shifted in the Scouts Bureaucracy Operations office, rising quickly from Admin Trainee to Junior Administrator, Dr. Aalle-oup is in the process of being transferred from Antares Sector to the Empty Quarter Sector, along with about a thousand other Scouts from Antares (mainly fresh-faced recruits) to shore up the IISS bureaucracy there. While most of the transferred Scouts are being shipped via low-berth to save costs, Dr. Aalle-oup is provided with a dedicated scout/courier, the Clerical Error, to be used at his own discretion. He’ll get to the Six Subsectors after the rest of the recruits, but he’ll have access to a solid, jump-capable starship: not something to sneeze at, in a region of space with a distinct paucity of working starships.
(As the ship is tasked for Bureaucratic service, the Clerical Error isn’t expected to go out of its way into danger. But sometimes, danger is coming whether you look for it or not. “It’s the only ship in the subsector we can get our hands on right now, so it’ll have to do…”)
I’ve Just Thought of a Capital Idea…
Dr. Aalle-oup was sent to the Empty Quarter not only because of his string of remarkable windfalls, and not only because of his low status (although both are factors). He is also a senior author of a paper that recommend a closer level of co-operation and integration between the Imperial Scouts and strongly pro-Imperial systems in the Six Subsectors, outlining mutually beneficial agreements between the Scouts and various public planetary intelligence-gathering organizations.
As a rule of thumb, the Imperium avoids such local entanglements, as it leaves the Imperium open to artful manipulation by local governments for their own political ends. However, with a lot of local Imperial assets stripped and sent to support the war effort, even dodgy and biased information is far better than simple blindness and ignorance.
While not a believer in God nor supernatural forces, Dr. Aelle-oup has always trusted in serendipity, that ‘good things will be found, if you look for them’. So far, this attitude has borne fruit, even in very risky and difficult circumstances… but there comes a time when everything comes to an end. Perhaps that time is now.
References and Contributors[edit]
- Alvin Plummer. "Personality Profiles V." Stellar Reaches 26 (2017): 17.
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