UEF Background Data, page 1

Code name/ call sign: "nenothtu"
Birth Name: Cecil Frederick Carpenter
Birth Date: 23 July 2271
Birth Place: Autonomous Republic of Vandalia, American Federal Empire (AFE), Earth, United Earth Federation (UEF)
Current Assignment: Lieutenant Commander, Chief of Security Section, USS Penelope 117931, CPT M.F. Luder, commanding

Nenothtu was born in The Autonomous Republic of Vandalia, one of the reorganized states on the east coast of North America in what was known as the United States, before World War 3 (also known as the "Energy Wars") caused it to reorganize into the AFE in the early 22nd century.

Vandalia is a mountainous area rich in minerals and timber, but economically impoverished due to the wealth from those products being transferred to outside interests. The only other major export of Vandalia is fighting men, who are produced by the boatload in the harsh economic environment. Nenothtu was forged in the crucible of the "Clan Wars" of Vandalia of the late 23rd century, in which extended family groups, or "Clans" were pitted against other extended family groups in a struggle over control of the area's resources. Those wars were fueled, funded, and fostered by the outside interests mentioned above, who had a vested interest in retaining control of the wealth-producing products of the region, and keeping the wealth out of the hands of the locals.

Nenothtu left Vandalia as an already battle-scarred veteran of those wars in 2290, at the age of 19, after his entire family had been wiped out in a series of attacks by the competing Taggart Clan, which didn't survive as a viable entity either. Well, not after neno had hunted down and finished the Taggart survivors, one at a time, over the course of several months. He appeared to be a young man completely devoid of remorse, and dedicated to duty as he perceived it.

After leaving Vandalia, nenothtu gravitated to the major Space Port which had been called Cape Kennedy before the Energy Wars, and had been rechristened as Gammage Interstellar Spaceport upon it's reconstruction in the building boom that followed those wars. By the time neno landed there some 150 years after it's reconstruction, the port had grown into a thriving metropolis centered on the port with all that entailed, the good and the bad. The transition to interstellar flight from purely intrasystem flight after the 2183 revolution in travel occasioned by Plight's development of the "Boundless" really kicked the port into high gear.

Nenothtu established a ruthless and lethal reputation for himself there, and was soon in the employ of a local crime family as an 'enforcer'. The situation suited him, as he had as strong a sense of family as his employers, even if they WERE flatlanders. He had found a place to 'belong', yet still had the nagging feeling of being an Outsider.

Around two years of that was enough for neno. He became dissatisfied with living in the miasmatic flatlands of the AFE, and developed a restlessness to see the rest of the universe. To that end, he signed up with a military-for-hire outfit called "Wilson's Rogue Rangers" and shipped out for adventure among the stars. Some adventure. Most of his time was spent in sheer boredom aboard starships bound from one battlefield to the next, interspersed with the sheer terror of being dropped on to a battlefield where masses of people were trying to KILL him. These battlefields were wholly unlike the Clan Wars of his past for sheer size and destruction. He saw lots of them between 2292 and 2310.

For a brief period around 2296 nenothtu tried to settle down. He met a woman named Margot James on a colony world named "Travis' Rift", and tried to ease himself into a domestic role. It just didn't work. After the birth of a son in early 2297, relations with his common law spouse deteriorated to the point that he was spending more and more time off planet in angry little wars here and there, and not nearly enough time at home in the only angry little war that mattered. For all his stress on "family" it seems that very thing will ever elude him. That situation continued for the next several years until a ship he was on was reported missing and presumed lost in 2310. For all intents and purposes, neno had simply vanished from the universe, leaving Margot to raise their son alone and fatherless on a harsh colony world. It wasn't entirely nenothtu's fault. He was just on the wrong ship at the wrong time.

The starship in question, the "Elysium", was homeward bound after a series of sharp actions in the Black Rock Archepelago when problems had developed, and it had crashed on Khalamzadar. Nearly the entire crew had been killed, and most of the Rangers aboard had died as well. Neno and 9 other Rangers survived the initial crash, and set up a base near the wreckage, hoping for rescue. Over the course of the next 7 years, they battled the elements and wild animals of a jungle planet, dying one by one over time from various causes, until nenothtu was the last survivor of the ill-fated expedition. They spent some time exploring the ruins of a vanished civilization that were present on the planet, but never found a clue as to who the original builders were.

Just months before nenothtu was rescued in 2317, Margot died. Apparently she had never given up hope for his return, and had never had him declared dead. It's rumored that her last words to their by then 20 year old son were "That worthless damn daddy of yours is too mean to die. He'll eventually come home. When he does, you tell him for me that I'll see him in hell." And that's all there is to say about that.

In 2317, an exploratory ship named the "Daedalus" found neno and the remains of the camp on Khalamzadar on a mapping expedition and brought him home. After a few months, the sheer boredom and relative (to Khalamzadar) ease of colonial life got the better of him. Nenothtu made contact with a few gentlemen he had met over the years, seeking off world employment in the only real skill set he had ever known. That led to an appointment in the UEF Services through channels he couldn't even begin to imagine. He and his son left Travis' Rift, and never looked back.

His appointment to the Penelope is rumored to have been occasioned by his file having been left on "someone's" desk.

And that's how he got to where he is today.

An incident aboard Penelope in which nenothtu went into a coma during an encounter with an alien vessel, the "Yydryl", left him somehow "changed" when he emerged from the coma. Voices in his head during the incident told him that his "vibrational level was being raised", and neno attributed that message, and the voices, to hallucination. Neither was. Even nenothtu is unaware of what that change entails.
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Psychological Profile

"Neno probably learned some of the hard lessons on Khala-whatever-that-planet's-called.
Sometimes you gotta do what's wrong to do what's right. "

--- SeekerOfAUTMN

Yeah, he learned some hard lessons on Khalamzadar. But he also learned 'em on Black Rock, Wotan, Ninkidu, and several other battlefield worlds over time.

For neno, this isn't a matter of right or wrong, it's a matter of what's effective, and insures the ship and crew's arrival alive on the other side of the battle, and helps insure against the necessity of future battles, because he really doesn't like fighting, but one does what one is good at.

The more thorough the victory, the less likely a repeat performance in the future.

He doesn't like fighting, because people get killed and things get torn up, and one day, one of those people getting killed is gonna be him. He'll do whatever he feels necessary to push that date with destiny as far into the future as he can, as long as it doesn't endanger the crew of "his" boat.

He feels it's "his" boat, because he's tasked with the safety and security of the Penelope.

I guess it might be a matter of "right" and "wrong", but his perceptions of those concepts don't necessarily agree with what is determined to be "normal".

It's "right" for "his" people aboard Penelope to survive and thrive. That include every man-jack aboard. He tends to feel more responsibility than is actually his.

It's "wrong" for "his" people to be killed or threatened.

He's often harsh and abrasive with those same people he serves because it gets their attention, and helps them to develop their own survival mindset, even if only out of fear of what HE might do to them.

Kind of like what drill sergeants used to do to recruits, he's cruel to be kind.

He's really a pretty simple man, and has pretty simple views, but to some, such as Studious, and perhaps Luder and Badger, those "simple" views may be well nigh incomprehensible.

He DOES have a heart, but he ain't gonna let you see it if he can help it. In his mind that might compromise his combat effectiveness.

His sense of duty, honor, and loyalty is WAY too overdeveloped, but may not always coincide with the common definitions of those concepts.

That's why he didn't mind completely and totally obliterating the NI ships. They were a threat, and had to be dealt with on a permanent basis, so THOSE NI agents would never become a threat again. That's also why he's going to back up Asher just as far as he is humanly able to push it.

Besides, he made a pact of sorts with Asher in the captain's ready room in the NI interview episode. His sense of honor and loyalty won't allow him to back out of it now that Asher's apparently in the grease.

Through thick and thin. That's what Brotherhood is about. If you abandon a brother when he needs you the most, you're a waste of otherwise perfectly good skin in nenothtu's mind.

[edit on 2009/7/8 by nenothtu]

[edit on 2009/7/8 by nenothtu]