Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Babylonian Encounters: Maxwell Flint

We're resuming our long-promised sub-series about the people and places of the Babylon 5 station. This sub-series uses Diaspora RPG as its systemic reference, but will use FATE Core/FAE's High Concept and Trouble Aspects to help define the most important Aspects of a person or place.

We begin with a station resident who is a veteran of the Earth-Minbari War.

Timeframe: Season One and After

Location: RED SECTOR, Deck 30, Segment 6, in the block of cheap housing adjacent to the lift. There is a mixed retail area nearby, as well as Alien Sector lodgings and Alien Bazaar space (see Mongoose's Guide to the Station, p. 54 for the deck map).

Name:  Lt. Maxwell Flint, Earthforce, ret.

Jerome Flynn as Maxwell Flint

DATA FILE 

Maxwell Flint is a veteran of the Earth-Minbari war. After serving on several Earthforce vessels as a communications and intelligence analyst both during and after the war, he mustered out and used his Earthforce connections to secure a construction job as part of the workforce building Bablyon Station.

He helped build-out the station's communications networks, and currently works on an on-call basis to assist with repairs to the station's communications systems and interstellar tachyon communications network. He can also be hired out for repairs on private ships' communications systems.

Max, as his friends call him, undoubtedly knows numerous back doors into the station's communication systems and the local hub for the jumpgate's tachyon communications network. His apartment on the station is filled with vintage military communications equipment, much of which is directly connected to the station's communications secure hub.

Station staff haven't discovered this intrusion yet.

But a careful review of the station's communications logs would reveal many brief and almost untraceable communications ... some occurring within the station itself, some being station-to-ship transfers, and others being data transfers piggybacking onto Earthforce's own transmissions through the tachyon network.

A careful search of  Flint's quarters will also reveal numerous hidden and highly encrypted data crystals... way too many for a communications repairman. His quarters are also better shielded against EM noise than most; and the shielding goes in both directions.

Like many veterans, Maxwell Flint resents the Minbari, He will stay clear of most aliens, with the exception of the Narn. He has done many favors for them, they pay well, and he appreciates their straightforward manners.


PLOT HOOKS
  • Earthforce has engaged Flint as an asset in running a counterespionage operation against the Narn. Through Flint, Earthforce is feeding the Narn false intelligence in order to see how they respond to different political and military scenarios.
  • Flint is deeply in debt to loan sharks in the Downbelow. To recover his funds and pay off his debts, he has been snooping-in on Earthforce military intelligence signals (such as Earthforce fleet locations and intelligence such as Centauri diplomatic chatter) and selling that information to the Narn. 
  • Flint is a comms repairman who often picks up privileged information from his private customers (typically small merchant and diplomatic vessels). He uses this information to tip off allies on Babylon 5 about potentially lucrative trade deals.
  • On who knows? behalf Flint has been installing transponder software on a number of private ships he services. The software transmits a location ping using a ship's tachyon transponder just before a jump into or out of hyperspace. This allows a ship's location to be tracked inter-systemically.

OGL MECHANICS

ASPECTS:
  • High Concept AspectMustered out, but always on call
  • Trouble AspectNarn-friendly xenophobe
  • Communications and cryptography expert
  • Veteran of the Earth-Minbari War
  • Been on the Station since the beginning
Apex Skill: Communications (space)

Stunt: Military Grade Communications 

2 comments:

  1. I'm a big fan of "casting" actors as NPCs in the game.

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  2. Thanks, Trey! We'll be doing more of this when we can. I'm looking for some good Vorlon actors for tomorrow's post.

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