Ben Saunders

[Zelot]

Ben Saunders was born on Planet Houston in the Texas system twenty seven years ago. His father ran a small newspaper and his mother cleaned the homes of LPI executives. While Ben's father Richard was well known locally, his mother was the one who paid the rent. Most people saw Richard as a nice guy, but a bit of a kook. His newspaper ran crazy stories about the corrupt nature of the Liberty government, and most people thought they we pretty farfetched, that was until the day Richard went missing. Ben was 15 that day, he never saw his father again. Most of the people who talked to him about it seemed to think that Richard must have gotten to close on a particular story, and that he was killed because he knew too much.

[font=Calibri]After his father's disappearance, Ben went through Richard's things, looking at documents, trying to find out what it was his father had been killed for, but getting no answers. Ben had to know why his father had been killed, the question festered in him, month after month, year after year, he searched through every document his father had, and still felt like he was nowhere.

During this time he occasionally printed editions of the paper, finishing stories his father had started. It was about three days after the release of one of the editions, a story on a place called "Alaska" that the man came to his door. The man didn't say his name, but told Ben that he was the one that had given Richard the information on "Alaska." The Man told Ben that he wasn't safe anymore, not after the last story had come out. Ben didn't waste any time, he packed up his father's files and books, and loaded them on the old Rhino his father had, and left Houston that very night. First he dropped his mother off at her cousin's home on Los Angeles hoping she would be safe there, and headed out into the Border Worlds, hoping time out of Liberty would allow him to find the answers he was looking for.


Ben traveled the Sector for 4 years, exploring the Omegas and Tau's and seeing the beauty of the Omicrons. He traded to earn a living, but only so he could continue his research. He spent his time learning as much about Liberty as he could, the philosophy and politics of the government, the rights and liberties afforded to citizens under the Laws of Liberty, and also about its history, not only hear in Sirius but going back to Earth and the Country of the United States. It was, as Ben learned his father's favorite topic in history, and he had many books on the topic. One in particular had taken control of Ben's mind; it was called "Common Sense" by a man name Thomas Paine. Ben saw many corollaries between Paine's time and his own. Paine talked about the pitfalls of power and the effects they had on governance. Ben saw the Liberty government in much the same way. Ben continued to write, and finally finished his first pamphlet named in honor of Paine's work; Ben called it "New Common Sense, Why it is we are doomed to repeat our mistakes." Ben decided he had to give the work to the people of Liberty, and set a course for NY.

[font=Calibri]When Ben arrived in NY, he found that things had gotten worse in Liberty, with an Officer of the SA demanding 5 million credits because Ben's ship had a thruster he had purchased from the Zoners. Ben didn't have anywhere near the amount of the fine, and while trying to explain that to the officer in question, his ship was ruthlessly destroyed, and his life almost taken from him, if it were not for a passing Liberty Rogue patrol. He found himself on Padua Base, with a few items, including a few disks of his father's most important writing, Paine's "Common Sense", and his own manuscript and not much else. He decided he would start the next chapter of his life here at Padua with the Rogues who had seen fit to save him.

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