& biographical.

[sunshinepilot]

NAME: Lt. Leslie Ferrell (Call Sign: Sunshine) COLONY: Picon. AGE: 34 HEIGHT: 5'6" HAIR: Dark brown EYES: Blue CLASSIFICATION: Colonial Fleet, Serial Number 4523584, Pilot, Battlestar Orthrus. [Humanoid Cylon model six (a)*] His bird is a Mark VII Viper. Capable of atmospheric flight, the Mark VII is the front-line variant of the Viper design, adding fully integrated avionics that provide superior battle management and flight information for the pilot. Being a single-seat craft, it mounts three forward-facing kinetic energy weapons (KEW). In addition, it possesses hard-points beneath the wings for mounting missiles, munitions pods and other ordnance. The Mark VII cockpit is almost totally computerized. There are far fewer analog gauges and more reliance is placed on a powerful central flight computer. This gives the Mark VII pilot far greater control of the fighter as well as, presumably, greater targeting control in a dogfight. The Viper Mark VII has primary and secondary hydraulics, the secondary system presumably acting as a redundant backup for mission-critical prime system. Damage to both systems does not significantly compromise the Viper's performance as a space combat craft, provided the pilot is sufficiently skilled to manage the changed flight characteristics. The consequences of the loss of both systems in atmospheric flight would undoubtedly be far more dire. [source] BACKGROUND: The history Leslie Ferrell recalls is as follows: he is the only child of Robin and Janesa Ferrell, born and raised on Picon. His father was a pilot in the Colonial Fleet during the Cylon War and his mother still worked (at the time of the attacks) as part of a film crew that did the location shots for a very popular televised drama (Picon being passed off as Caprica to cut budget costs). Ordinary people, ordinary problems. His father was an alcoholic with a mean streak and his mother never really learned to cut the apron strings. Like his father, Leslie joined the service young and if there was anything he did well, it was fly. Any craft, any mission. He did cargo runs for the longest time, survey missions after that, and then once he got tired of being ragged on by his old man, he pursued a slot in the Viper training program so he could learn to fly the more elegant, far more sleek birds. Learn is a bit of a misnomer, he was raw talent that needed to be refined. Agile, swift, grace under fire...he could fly a Mark VII in his sleep-- Which is what he did for most of the two years he was assigned to the Battleship Orthus. A remote sector of the known space quadrant, theirs was a mission of routine patrol. Stay on the fringe and be the eyes and ears of the fleet in case the Cylons ever opted to stop honoring the fifty-two year old armistice agreement. Day in and day out, he would take his Viper along with the rest of his squad under the CAG's orders and do a sweep of the vicinity. For two years, his scanners never showed a live bogey, nothing more interesting than an asteroid belt to look at. To entertain himself (and the squad) Sunshine took up the habit of monopolizing the comm chatter while on these patrols. He'd set his Viper to auto-pilot and read to them from whatever pilfered literary works of varying quality he had at his disposal. The worse, the better. There was nothing like changing the names and inserting the CAG's in lieu of whomever's heaving bosoms were on the page. He even did voices. Hilarious. Several months ago, that all changed when a report came over the wire for the Orthrus to return to the Colonies. The Armistice Station was under attack. And then the Colonies. And eventually, the Orthrus. They only lost fifteen souls, all pilots, during that initial skirmish but the fleet as a whole had been demolished and all of the Colonies captured, the cities nuked. President Adar was dead, refugees were panicking, military were scrambling for a new means of defense. Ferrell didn't think things could get any worse. Until they did. Insert Blah Blah about the resurrection ship. The Sixes wanting to 'go native' as an experiment. Ferrell is the result. "How do I make one of these things shoot me?" "So...by my count there are a lot of you. Me. Us. Frak, this is confusing. Why in the Gods names do we all look alike? It's a sausagefest on this ship. Where are all the boobs?" "Put that thing in the brig." "With all due respect, sir, I don't think that Raider's gonna fit in the brig...why are you all looking at me like that?!" "These bars remind me of the zoo. I used to love going to the zoo when I was a kid. Never thought about being the one in the cage though..." "99 bottles of ambrosia on the wall, 99 bottles of mead. Take one down, pass it around, 98 bottles of am--I wouldn't discharge that weapon in here, if I were you, corporal. 98 bottles of ambrosia on the wall, 98 bottles of mead. Take one down, pass it around, 97 bottles..." PERSONALITY: The CAG would describe Sunshine as a complete frakking nightmare in terms of personality but that's likely due to a difference in the two officers' senses of humor. As in, Sunshine has one and the CAG does not. Ferrell is also somewhat in love with the sound of his own voice, tends to be easily entertained, asks more rhetorical questions in one conversation than most people ask in a calendar month, and believes sarcasm is an art form of a very dignified nature. He is calm under pressure (usually), thinks on his feet, and can be very quick to anger when the right buttons are pushed. His fuse is a bit shorter these days and he's a little (a lot) more rattled than usual but this is due to both the fact that he is one of the roughly 50,000 souls in a now ragtag fleet of military and civilian vessels after the Cylon holocaust that effectively wiped out the Twelve Colonies of Kobol and nearly exterminated the human race. A race he believed he was a member of and still has feelings of loyalty for. He was killed in a dogfight against Cylon Raiders just after escorting stranded Scylla back to the Orthus and the Sister Josephine (a medical vessel) to join their caravan of survivors. His subsequent resurrection(s) have left him rattled, to say the least. * as Sunshine comes from a tabletop AU, the GM had to create a level of suspense to keep players from automatically knowing who the sleeper agent Cylons were/are and therefore, there are A and B versions of the human model Cylons numbered one through seven in addition to the canon characters. Because I rolled like crap one afternoon, Sunshine's lucky number six. Enjoy. He doesn't. ** In his version of events, the Orthrus was another active duty Mercury class battlestar at the time of the Armistice Station attack under the command of Cmmdr. Callum Maxwell.