The Story of Rove Keelin

[Chardroid]

Hello. My name is Rove Keelin. This is my story.

I was born on Planet Pittsburgh in the New York system in 129 AS. Relatively most of the Sirius sector was unknown at that time, and the other sleeper ships were just rolling in. What I do remember is that my mom Sasha Keelin and my dad Hareld Keelin loved me very much, and would do anything to protect me. Hazards were often, as the planet was barren and food was scarce for the wolf-like creatures that attacked often. My mother named me after my dead grandfather, Joseph Rove Keelin that arrived on the sleeper ship Liberty. Beyond that I don't remember much of anything else.

When I was 5 years old, something horrible happened. When my dad and I were out at the market buying food and supplies, the ground began to shake. I remember having this feeling that something bad was about to happen, and I was right. My father, although he tried to hide it, looked just as confused and frightened as I was. This was not any normal earthquake like the usual ones. This was different. I looked up into the sky only to find a strange blue shape that was like nothing I had ever seen before. My dad grabbed my hand as I looked at the thing in wonder, and we ran back home. Explosions surrounded us, people died at our feet. It was a frightful thing for a 5 year old to see, and like any other, I started to cry. When we finally reached home, my parents both knew what they had to do. There was only one escape pod in the house, and only room for one passenger. I never saw them again.

For a ship scavenged for only a couple hundred credits, it was quite good. The G-force stabilizers kept my 5 year old body mostly intact and the life-support only occasionally malfunctioned. With the planet in ruin, I drifted in space until a ship happened to pick me up, and at that point I was so exhausted with all the crying and the stress that I passed out. When I woke up, the captain of the ship told me to never tell anyone about what happened, no matter who it was. Later I found that the corrupt government I agreed, as there was nothing else I could do. Eventually I arrived on the planet Honshu, and was given 2 fake parents. I interacted with them so little that I don't even remember their names. They fed me, they clothed me, they cared for me, but they weren't real. I lived those years of my life in severe depression, as any other child would do.

It was 134 AS. I was a strapping 15 year old, and more stubborn than the rest. I usually spent most of my days just fishing. No school, no work. Just fishing. It calmed me somewhat and helped me relax, but the truth was I was still alone. I tried very hard during that time to remember what my parents were like and what those things were, but to no avail. Despite what that life was like: working all day, almost never seeing my dad, living in poverty every day; I wanted it. I wanted that life back so badly. Luckily (or unluckily), I got to see them again. Not my parents, as they were beyond this world. But those things came back. Everything played back like a movie, with exactly the same events happening. The blue shapes in the sky, the explosions everywhere, people dieing. I hated the life I spent on this planet so much that I actually ran to get in my own ship. I left that world like the one I did 10 years ago, and that time I was at least kind of happy. I hated those blue whatever-they-were's so much though. I blamed them for everything that happened to me. But yet, after all that, I was still curious. Still gazing in awe at those things, wanting to know them, but also not. The only thing that was different this time was that I got to choose where I went this time, and not have it chosen for me.

Being the stubborn, thrill-seeking, party-loving teenager that I was, where else to go to but planet Malta in the Omicron Alpha system. But, as anyone would know, going there comes with a price, and that price is addiction to the ever-powerful drug Cardamine. It was very fun there, though. I shipped the precious drug from Malta to Planet Duta in the Tarratuta part of the Omicrons. It was quite the fun life, as every time a shipment of Cardamine ended up in Duta, a big party was thrown for me, and this kind of life endured for 27 years.

It was the tragic year of 161 AS. The Cardamine life was mine, and I loved it. My previous lives were dead to me, and I cared nothing of them. All that I had was me, my ship, my Cardamine, and the friends I sold it to. But, as fate would have it, those beings that attacked me so long ago were still after me. This time not just the planet was destroyed, but the entire system. This is why nobody has ever heard of Omicron Tarratuta. At that time I was high on Cardamine, and despite being able to recognize what those shapes were and what they did to me, the Cardamine boosted my curiosity and depleted my hatred. I stumbled over to my ship, and flew into space. My flying, although terrible, was impressive for someone on a Cardamine high. I flew straight into the blue object, not caring for anything, and the last thing that I remember at that point is some blue goo reaching into my eyes.

I woke up 639 years later. It was 800 AS. Exhausted from all the cryogenic sleep I was put in, I collapsed onto the floor and just focused on breathing in and out. It was harder than it needed to be, but I withstood through it all. When my body finally decided to stop vomiting, one of the scientists dragged me over to a bed. My hearing was faint but still intact. I listened to him as he explained to me what had happened. Apparently those blue objects were an alien species known solely as Nomads. He told me that I was infected with one of those things, and I was a slave to them. I slowly started to remember all the horrible things that I did, but without my control. It was like watching a movie in first person, where you are the bad guy, but you can't do anything about what you can and cannot do. The scientist told me everything, from how they found me adrift in a Nomad wreck, with several other Wild, that's what he called them. Numerous experiments were performed on these Wild, and I was one of them. All the other experiments failed, and the last one was performed on me. They named the experiment the Keelin experiment, after me, but it's one never to be used. They said that while yes, it does separate the Nomad from the human, the Nomad becomes corrupt and offset from the Nomad mindshare, which is how they communicate. This made all the other Nomads significantly more aggressive, and eventually ended up in the destruction of Freeport 7 along with all the other events that intertwined with the Nomads. The corrupt Nomad parasite that was once inside of me is the most enraged of them all, and has been nicknamed "Rove K'Hara". Luckily, Rove K'Hara adopted the Cardamine addiction that I had, which only rippled into the other Nomads. The scientists agree that, should such an experiment be performed again, the Nomads might end up even more enraged. Besides, there were no more Wild to test on. However, the experiment had it's impact on me, where sometimes I get extremely destructive and angry, releasing the small part of Nomad that still lingers inside me somewhere.

I had thought of nowhere better to go than that of my home planet Pittsburgh. Today, I try to make the best of my fractured life. I work for the Liberty Navy currently, and fly the LNS-Orion V. Maybe someday I can find more to add to this log, but for now, this is Rove Keelin, and this is my story.

// Please feel free to make any posts that you feel you can add to this story. But please, within moderation. I don't want to have this be a free-for-all. You don't need to check with me if a post is right or not, but don't make anything too crazy.
// When I said that I work for the Liberty Navy, I meant independently. I'm not actually a part of the player faction, but this could certainly change at any time.
// Thank you for reading this and I hope to see you in space.