Uthali Chensikyaar

Quote:
[While aiming a pistol and grinning disturbingly at some goons] "Please try something stupid."

Race: Ursoid
Age: 33 years (Terran Standard)
Height: 206cm (6'9")
Weight: ~250kg (550 lbs.)
Hair: Black and White
Known Aliases: "Chen"; "Laughing Bear"; "Smiling Death"; "Belyy Cherep"; "Chuckles"

Origins and Early Life

Uthali "Chen" Chensikyaar was born on Medvemir, a UFP protectorate world at the edge of the GPR/UFP stellar boundary. While originally under the flag of the GPR, and the native ursoid population GPR subjects, control of Medvemir was hotly contested. The GPR lost control of Medvemir during the last Bug invasion; BRINT commandos had long been operating on the planet, working with the natives and fomenting rebellion. When the GPR was otherwise occupied holding off the bugs, the BRINT agents spurred the revolution and helped the locals throw off the GPR yoke. Chen's family were local leaders and had close ties with some of the BRINT agents. After Medvemir had signed treaties with the UFP, Chen attempted to cement his family's position within the new power structure. He had just become old enough to serve, so he sought full UFP citizenship and honor for his family name by enlisting in the Starforces.

He was a natural choice for the Space Marine Corps, and after four tours and seeing plenty of combat against the bugs and skirmishes with the GPR, Chen was selected--because of his tolerance to high-gravity conditions--as a candidate for a Marine peacekeeping mission on a UFP protectorate world called Avatar III. The Marine presence was intended to help protect the Mekpurr population of the world from the ravages of the native feline avatars, though there was some corruption within the military ranks that had been kept secret for some time now. As misfortune would have it, this would change when Chen arrived. Liars and tigers and bears, oh my.

Military Service and Controversy

As with many long-term garrison situations, bad elements within start to develop and coalesce. Avatar was no different. Chen learned that some of the peacekeepers were engaging in unsanctioned psychological warfare against the avatars. On patrols, these marines would frequently commit atrocities against the natives in order to terrorize them and break the enemy's morale. While this was bad enough, Chen also learned that these same marines were running a sort of protection racket, and would refuse to render timely aid to the Mekpurr colonists without tribute. Chen confronted the ringleaders of this gang and stopped their reign of terror, but in the process was forced to kill one of the marine war criminals. By stopping the vile acts of these dishonorable soldiers, he had also committed the sin of bringing the whole sordid mess into the open, forcing the commander of the garrison to acknowledge that these crimes had taken place on his watch.

With the garrison commander's debrief of the situation, High command was prepared to brand Sergeant Chensikyaar a murderer and sweep the actions of his victims under the rug, but the locals knew better, and the good relations between the Mekpurr colonists and the peacekeepers were on shaky ground already. Chen's prospects didn't look hopeful at all until the unprecedented intervention of an Avatar chieftan gave him a chance to avoid the gallows. The chieftan knew all too well of the horrors that had been visited upon scores of his warriors and villagers by the rogue marines, and the enemy leader owed Chen a debt of honor for stopping those villains. The chieftan offered to withdraw from the area if Chen was given a fair chance at justice, and swore that if he was not treated honorably, word would spread among the tribes and attacks in the area would increase tenfold. The garrison commander conceded to these demands, and called for a military tribunal to address the situation. Chen was allowed to request his counsel, and called upon one of his former commanding officers who had become a JAG officer: one Major Hannibal Jung, a fellow marine who had served several tours on Avatar III, and who was well known for his fondness of the planet and its people.

Trial and Imprisonment

With Major Jung's counsel, the murder charge staring Chen down was deemed a clear case of self-defense, and several of the other capital offenses were struck down due to the magnitude of the actions that had spurred Chen to act in the first place. As the trial wore on, the garrison commander began to regret not handling this as a summary court martial; opening up these proceedings allowed the public to see what had unfolded while the commander was in charge. The commander also became acutely aware of how public sentiment weighed on the decisions of the court. As it turns out, the public by and large wanted to see war criminals brought to justice, and did not want to see someone they had begun dubbing a "hero" hung out to dry for stopping a bunch of evil men.

The whole affair was a black eye for the commander, and he couldn't allow Chen to get off unscathed. With the charges dwindling, the commander spun the case in his favor and used the last weapon he had in his arsenal. He managed to get procedural errors on Chen's part to stick. The only reason, the prosecution asserted, that a gang was able to operate freely was because others who knew about it--Marines like Sgt. Chensikyaar--had remained silent. If only they had spoken up, these horrible acts could have been stopped the "right way," and the guilty parties could have been brought to the justice of law and not the justice of the sword. While exonerated of all the most serious crimes he had been charged with, Chen was unable to deny that he had, indeed, taken the law into his own hands. Major Jung tried to argue that the dangers involved in not immediately confronting the threat of the gang was exigent circumstance justifying Chen's action, but the Tribunal had decided to become hidebound to the letter of the law toward this facet of the proceedings. Chen was ultimately found guilty. Not of the crimes he was originally charged with, but of disregarding the chain of command and acting without orders. With this judgment, the court seeming to imply that the commander would have gladly authorized Chen to act if only he had told him, first. Chen saw the writing on the wall and was bemused by it all. He thanked Major Jung for his efforts on his behalf, but urged the Major to let the matter come to rest. "No need to sink two careers, here," he is reported to have said. He would accept their sentence, as he had no regrets.

Chen was dishonorably discharged from the Space Marines, and was sentenced to 3 years service as a member of a terraforming crew on the remote Hell-world of Chitin II, a former Bug colony that was taken during the second Bug War The hives had been dug out with planetbusters and the surface scrubbed with Hellburners. Only now, after over a hundred years was the surface anywhere approaching survivable and recoverable. This hard labor would involve maintaining the atmospheric processors and keeping hostile indigenous wildlife out of the base perimeter.

Psychology

Being punished for doing the right thing can easily take a toll on the psyche of any person, but Chen refused to let this injustice break him. He began to see the Hell-world as a challenge of sorts, asking himself over and over "If this is the price I must pay to take an honorable path, would I do it again?" Day in and day out, he answered with gusto, gleefully tackling every challenge the noxious Hellscape had to offer. Over time, he found great amusement in his own sense of duty, and soon found it hilarious that those people who had sentenced him thought that this chance to prove himself was punishment. Some would argue that the constant threat of death for such a long time had induced post-traumatic stress, and that Chen's constant bemusement was a coping strategy. It earned him a new name from his fellow convicts, "Laughing Bear."

Most new arrivals were replacements for "workers" who had perished rather than for those who had completed their terms. By the end of his sentence, Chen had gained some notoriety and fame among his fellows. His presence here had kept many of them alive. He found it even funnier that those who thought they were punishing him had once again put him in just the place a person like him needed to be. He considered making this world his new home and staying on after his sentence was complete, but the men he had helped for so long wouldn't hear of it. They demanded he leave this prison and live. He had earned it, they said, for helping so many of them for so long. This loyalty astounded Chen and reaffirmed for him the beauty and hilarity of a truth he had held dear for the last three years: That honorable deeds speak far louder than any lies. Deep inside, he felt vindicated. Every time he thought about those who had judged him, the irony made him made him laugh. Each threat he encountered after his sentence was complete only made him smile, for he had seen the worst that Chitin II could offer.

Post-Incarceration

Chen drifted from one world to the next for two years. He rarely had difficulty finding work as a laborer--which he saw as honest, enjoyable work--but his unsettling personality often cost him jobs, and forced him from one work site to the next. He dabbled for a while with being a mercenary, but often found that the people who needed him most and those he was most willing to help often didn't have the funds to make it a worthwhile career. His criminal record kept him from seeking plenty of legitimate work that he would have enjoyed, such as police work. As he passed from one menial job to the next, he was prepared to embrace this nomadic style for the rest of his days. He could not return home with the black marks on his record, and court orders precluded him from even returning to Avatar III, where he likely could have lived like a king (at least in one community). While travelling from one system to another, his low-passage bunk mate struck up conversation and over the course of several days during the long FTL journey, learned Chen's history. The dapper canine then made Chen a curious offer. He had been tasked with finding a crew for a small vessel named the Bedeviled Coterie, and he was looking for people who needed a second chance. Maybe even a chance to make things right, or at the very least, make something theirs again. Chen asked if all the spots were filled yet, and when he found that they were not, suggested another name to the canine, a man who had lost everything defending the good name of others.

Chen accepted the offer, and shortly after, he and the canine were off to find and recruit Hannibal Jung.

Physical Appearance

Medvemir, Chen's homeworld, is a high-gravity planet. As such, his people are slightly shorter than ursoids originating in Earth-normal gravity environments. Chen stands 205cm, but his tissues are dense and he is heavily muscled, even for an ursoid, having a mass of approximately 250kg. His fur is white and black, closely resembling the patterns of the Terran panda, with black arms, legs, and a white belly. Unlike a panda, only part of Chen's face is white; his ears, nose, neck and the sides and back of his head are black. The white of his face is sometimes said to resemble a death's head, and the reason the BRINT agents on Medvemir called him "Belyy Cherep," or white skull.

From seeing plenty of battle and battling the elements and wildlife on Chitin II, Chen's body is covered in scars. These are not very noticeable thanks to his thick fur, but due to working on the atmosphere processors on Chitin (which often required removing the gloves of his pressure suit to manipulate fine controls, the hair on his forearms down to his paws thins out to be almost non-existent. His natural skin color is the color of muddy soot, and his skin is not supple at all. Rather, his hands look as though he is wearing gauntlets make of dry, burned skin. He is only 33 years old, but sometimes has the appearance of a furry Methuselah. Additionally, because of repeated exposure to the noxious atmosphere of Chitin II, his already deep, throaty voice has been rendered into a perpetually raspy growl.

Unlike many ursoids, Chen can seem initially jovial, as he laughs and chortles with no warning, and he often cracks jokes and makes the occasional witty comment. People usually change their initial view of him, however, when they learn why he is constantly amused with life. Chen thinks danger is funny; the fact that he has lived this long is flat-out hilarious...and when he seems to be enjoying himself the most, the space around him will probably soon become quite unsafe to occupy.

Some think that Chen is mentally unbalanced and has a tenuous grip on reality based on how he processes threats and reacts to them, but this couldn't be further from the truth. He is merely incredibly dangerous when put in a tight spot.