Backstory Summary - Jacob "Lash" Elmann McDaggit

[DarthCloakedGuy]

So, having agonized over writing this out properly since 2008 when I joined the forum with this character, and having come to the conclusion that I will never have the writing skill to make this thing properly, here's the tl;dr summary of it all.

Feedback, advice, etc, are all greatly appreciated.

The basic story with Jacob Elmann McDaggit was that he was born on Planet Houston, the second child of parents who had been rounded up on Denver for trespassing and taken to Sugarland before being released there. Through hard work (despite the inherent poverty), they managed to save enough to follow the posters that promised fair work and good pay on Pittsburgh. Conditions on Pittsburgh were only slightly better, the only plus being easy employment loading and unloading ships at the spaceport.

At one point, Mr. Rivers, a DSE executive, came over in his liner to come and inspect the mining operation on Pittsburgh. Mr. Rivers had a daughter, Susanne, who he was very protective of, to the point where she was seldom permitted to do anything without him (even though she was nearly finished with her teenage years), to the point where she took a ship down to the planet.

She and Jacob met in the spaceport, and even though the two of them were worlds apart, they shared a strong desire to escape their two worlds and go elsewhere. They decided at one point to run away, and conspired to 'borrow' two small fighters from her father's liner and run away to Los Angeles to live their own lives.

Unfortunately, before they left together, Jacob mustered up the courage to propose. Unfortunately, he couldn't afford a proper gemstone ring, so he purchased from a shady vendor a beautiful purple necklace for her, hoping it would do in the meanwhile. (This was during the events of 800 A.S.)

They managed to make it past Fort Bush with no trouble (even though they weren't expecting any trouble), but a Navy patrol shut down the tradelane between Forst Bush and Manhatten to intercept them there.

"Hand over the Artifact", they demanded, but neither of them thought they even /had/ one. When they failed to comply, a Navy fighter fired a pair of powerful missiles at Susanne's fighter, destroying it and rupturing her escape pod.

In a fit of rage Jacob attacked the Navy patrol, managing to destroy one of their ships before a similar missile caught the tail of his fighter and forced the automated ejection system to engage.

He was picked up a while later by a Junker who was passing by on his way to Rochestor. Once there, he was released and the Junker treated the poor soul to a drink and listened to his story. From there, he was directed to what might be his best shot at revenge, a couple of Rogues working under the legendary crime boss Sylpheed. He was taken back to Buffalo, but there were no spare ships for him, so he was (again) employed loading and unloading supplies of black market goods onto and off of the ships.

He became good friends with a skilled, eager, but inexperienced Bloodhound pilot who was actually related to him on his mother's side, and therefore bore a certain resemblance.

During this time, his brother, Jack, had garnered a reputation for unusual tactics and ruthless efficiency, said to know what criminals are going to do before the criminals themselves do. He'd hunted his way up the ranks into a Hammerhead and was becoming more and more daring.

After one fateful battle in the Badlands (where he was outnumbered eight to one), he had taken tremendous damage, his shield generator permanently fried, and sensor system ruined, but he had taken down seven of the other ships. Lash's friend cut across his path from an asteroid, catching the bounty hunter completely off-guard and dropping a mine directly in his path.

It is well-known that Rogues are generally a spiteful lot, and there are those who pay very well for Bounty Hunters delivered alive for torture and interrogation. It was exactly this sort of bounty that Lash's friend intended to cash in on.

Unfortunately, Jack's escape pod had cracked in the battle, and was leaking atmosphere. He wouldn't last to Buffalo unless the cargo bay was pressurized, so that's what Lash's friend did.

This was a fatal mistake, as it allowed Jack to cut open his pod from inside with a vibroblade knife and catch Lash's friend off-guard in the cockpit, placing a bullet (yes, his favored weapon was a heavy slugthrower pistol) in the back of the pirate's head.

Jack commandeered the dead pirate's clothes and ship, relying on close physical similarities (and also some disguise techniques he had picked up in his line of work) and proceeded to check the fighter's navigation logs, which revealed that the fighter had undocked from someplace nearby, within the Badlands. He knew this had to be the legendary Buffalo Base.

He hatched a plan, and contacted high-ranking officials within Interspace Commerce and many other corporations whose ships had come under attack by the Liberty Rogues in recent years. He told them his plan and got information on what bounty they would pay him if he could make Buffalo Base, and all hands on board, dissappear from ther lives forever.

He acquired a suitcase nuke from a contact on a Freeport nearby, and carried it to Buffalo. Using his stolen identity, he would walk in, find the station's power core, and deploy the nuke there on a timer, before recommandeering his ship and leaving the blast radius.

It was a few minutes before Lash's shift at the docks that he docked. In his disguise and with his acting prowess, no one saw the infamous Bounty Hunter-- they saw an enthusiastic young pirate taking something up to see management, probably a suitcase full of Sirian credit cards he'd stolen from a shipment. He'd been gone for a while, so no one knew what manner of prey he'd managed to find.

While on his way to the innards of the station, he passed by his brother, once known as the hard-working innocent Jacob but now known as Lash for the way he struck out at the Navy fighters back a ways. He saw, and he recognised his brother, and his face paled a little-- his act nearly broken.

Just enough that Lash saw through it too. If Jack's had paled, Lash's became one of horror. He recognised his brother, the infamous bounty hunter. He knew that suitcase didn't contain credit cards. It could only be a bomb.

After a momentary exchange of "Brother?" between the two, Jack began walking quickly towards the innards of the station. Lash reached over and pulled the laser pistol out of the holster of a nearby Rogue and shot his brother square in the back-- twice before he hit the ground.

Lash was horrified with what he'd done, and the weapon was quickly taken from him. Jack's body was searched, and Bounty Hunter identification was found-- as was the true nature of the suitcase.

As the Bloodhound that had once belonged to his friend was now free, he was permitted to fly in it for a while, before the Rogue leaders saw to it that a new Barghest was constructed immediately for this individual.

Lash has two big chips on his shoulder, one against the Navy for the murder of his fiancé, and one against the Bounty Hunter's Guild for making him shoot his own brother. He's a very angry man, loosening up only when drunk with alcohol... which he almost always is nowadays.

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HISPANIANS, FOR THE GREATER GLORY OF HER PEOPLE
A Plea to the Outcasts (PG)
CHARACTERS:
LR-I.Got.Nothin', LR-Empty.Pockets, and LR-Dead.End = "Lash" McDaggit of the Liberty Rogues.
SMUG~Eat.My.Exhaust = Jane Terraman and Bob McAdams, smugglers of the Liberty Rogues.
[H]Cj.Martino.Perez = Martino Perez, self-declared Counselor of the Hispanians.
AVATAR MADE BY SPIRIT! THE AWESOME.