Post by Deleted on Oct 25, 2014 21:26:17 GMT -7
Zheng Gao
| NAME Zheng Gao ALIAS Admiral AGE 35 DATE OF BIRTH 01/17/2547 GENDER Male | PLAY BY Takeshi Kaneshiro SEXUAL ORIENTATION Heterosexual AFFILIATION Criminal, anti-Xuan Wu OCCUPATION Crime Boss PLACE OF BIRTH "From" Whittier, born a spacer, lives "on" Ita |
HEIGHT
5'9"
WEIGHT
155 Lbs.
HAIR
Black, medium length, well kept
EYE COLOR
BrownPHYSICAL BUILD
Thin and athletic
DISTINGUISHING MARKS
None
GENERAL APPEARANCE
Zheng has a "command presence". He always moves with a purpose and seems to have a grasp of the situation at all times.
CLOTHING STYLE
Zheng often wears utilitarian attire for work, but when circumstances don't require it, he typically dresses in suits as befits his rank and wealth.
LIKES
| STRENGTHS
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OVERALL PERSONALITY
Zheng was born into his current life, the legacy of his father. From that foundation, he has expertly grown the business and taken it into unexpected paths. Zheng is the kind of person who can attract followers and then earn their loyalty and keep them. He inspires hard work, and he is effective at always finding work.
On a deeper level, Zheng is remarkably principled for the CEO of a large corporation, the de facto prince of an entire moon, and a pseudo-crime boss. In business, Zheng is a man of his word. He follows through on all his deals and stands by his friends even when it puts him at risk, especially when it puts him at risk.
He also speaks his mind, and in particular he speaks out about the Xuan Wu empire. He is vocally opposed to the occupation of his own homeworld and the other worlds the empire controls. He actively recruits refugees into the corporation and does what he can to relocate families and even to smuggle relatives out of the empire. This has combined to make the empire even more hostile to Zheng and his tiny moon Ita.
| FATHER Zheng Jianguo - d. 2571 - 59 MOTHER Zheng Xue - d. 2579 - 60 SIBLINGS Zheng Xui Li - 33, lives on Pelorum OTHER NOTABLE RELATIVES None that are notable | SIGNIFICANT OTHER None CHILDREN N/A OTHER SIGNIFICANT PERSONS Onas Knox PETS N/A |
BACKSTORYZheng Gao's story starts with his father Zheng Jianguo back during the Wars for Independence. As rebellion swept across the Kalidasa system, Young Jianguo of Whittier was recruited to support the cause at only 15 years old. He began work in the Lagrangian points of the orbiting moon, Ita, salvaging old ships. By 18 he was running his own crew, and by 25 Jianguo had formed his own company, Breakwater.
Both then and now, Breakwater was primarily a starship salvage company. Ita had always been a dumping ground for old ships just waiting to be broken apart. Back then though, the war time needs of burgeoning nations meant old ships needed to be brought back to life and damaged ships needed to be repaired, so Breakwater did its part to support the war effort during the first wave of these wars.
During the second wave of rebellion, in 2541, Jiangquo took a more personal involvement in the conflict. As war production continued at home, the 29 year old Zheng assembled a ragtag fleet of his own ships to join the Independent military. For the next six years, the Breakwater fleet fought across the 'Verse and even into the heart of White Sun. Only in 2546 with the war winding down would Jiangquo return to Kalidasa, quickly settle down and start a family, and return to his business.
In the meantime, it is important to note that while Jiangquo had been up on Ita, the Xuan Wu empire had swept through and conquered Whittier, his homeworld. Ita itself remained independent as an unterraformed rock no one cared enough about to risk war. Zheng's growing business, both before and after the war, went hand in hand with his relief efforts on his nearby homeworld and this army of refugees is what helped Breakwater balloon in size.
After several successful decades, Jiangquo was diagnosed with cancer and died a few months later leaving his legacy to his son, Zheng Gao who was only 24 at the time. Gao's story is very much that of his father, the man he was devoted to. Like his father, Gao started in the business at a very young age, and although the son of the owner, he worked his way up through the various positions of the organization. The transition to fill his father's place was rocky, but Gao has proven he is up to the challenge. In the past decade under Gao's control, Breakwater has expanded to encompass all Ita operations (not counting "poachers", small unauthorized crews), has spread to operations in Six Sigma, and has also formed direct ties to larger suppliers such as the Syndicate of Persephone.
Where his father was subtle, Gao is straightforward. Jiangquo quietly welcomed those who escaped the Xuan Wu on their own. Gao on the other hand actively and openly supports refugees. For those employees with families still within the empire, he does his best to secure their escape as well. As Breakwater has become even stronger in recent years, Gao has not hesitated to openly speak against the empire and its subjugation of his people.
Zheng Gao's actions have put Ita in an even more precarious position. Early in his "reign" in '72 the Wu actually attempted to annex the surprisingly prosperous moon. This resulted in a battle which ended as a decisive victory from Breakwater and a humiliating defeat for the Wu who had vastly underestimated the fighting capabilities of these asteroid salvagers. Before the empire could muster a larger force to obliterate all resistance, the Entente proclaimed a guarantee on Breakwater's sovereignty. Since then, Gao has also negotiated an economic treaty with the Commonwealth which although it does not rise to the level of a defense treaty, provides adequate incentive for defense as well as a useful pretext should the Commonwealth require one. Since that brief conflict a decade ago, tensions have only gotten worse, but Ita remains free and independent.
Breakwater currently has over one hundred thousand employees, operates over a thousand ships and twenty space stations, and moves more than forty thousand ships a year. In addition, Gao has ramped up production of the "ghost fleet" his father started. At the end of the Wars of Independence, hundreds of warships were no longer necessary and many didn't actually belong to any of the new nations but to a soon-to-vanish alliance for independence. Many of these vessels simply disappeared in the late forties. This ghost fleet has actually been stored and hidden in Kalidasa with a special branch of Breakwater both maintaining the fleet and slowly adding vessels over time to increase its size should such a fleet be needed.ROLEPLAY SAMPLEZheng had come a long way to be here. It was a four day trip from Kalidasa, each way of course. The route from Xuan Wu to the Gateway was the most common run made by Zheng's benignly named "Breakwater Inc." Most of the ships and cargoes sent this way were typically addressed to Onas Knox as well. What made this convoy different, however, was that Zheng had come personally.
Zheng Gao did not like what he was hearing about Persephone and he liked even less what he wasn't hearing. From Onas there hadn't been so much as a peep about anything out of the ordinary. The only thing amiss was the slight deviation in the Syndicate's orders. There was business as usual, of course, but there were also requests for ships and parts that were not the standard supertrade fare, as if these additional orders had some other purpose or were being rerouted on to someone else.
It didn't really even take that slight suspicion to sound the alarms though. What was really happening on Persephone soon became abundantly clear through other channels. The standard gang violence that plagued many worlds had taken a sudden upturn and had simultaneously become much less disorganized. The main media networks weren't covering it, but there were plenty of people with cameras and cortex connections ready to spread it around the 'Verse. Gao's own sister, Xui Li, living on nearby Pelorum had even sent him a wave about it.
Beneath the plain fact that something was happening, there were a fair number of conspiracy rumors as well, and they were convincing enough to draw Zheng's attention. Chief among them were the claims that Cherry Rosier, the Pirate of Paquin, was behind it. She had brought the majority of her strength from Red Sun out to take the Gateway from Minerva. This was all kinds of bad, and Zheng felt it both as a human being not wanting this pirate to gain any more control and as a businessman knowing what this expansion might mean.
Onas was Zheng's contact on Persephone, hell he was his greatest business partner. He would have expected at least a heads up about a crime war erupting. Add in the suspicions that the Syndicate was not merely an innocent bystander in all of this, and Zheng wanted answers... and he wanted them bad enough to come personally.
He'd arrived at the head of a larger than normal salvage fleet carrying all sorts of raw materials and specialty parts for the Syndicate and waiting to accept scrap for the return trip. In the mix were a few ships both ways that would be swapped, those that Onas would take and work on and those that were still well enough to fly that would be flown back to Kalidasa and melted down without a trace. However, along with the boss man came a slightly more militarized contingent, and Zheng had also brought a few extra un-ordered supplies as well. Back in Kalidasa he had given the order to begin mobilizing in case they became involved in the conflict, but with reinforcements four days away he needed to bring at least a vanguard of men and material.
So that was the state of things as Zheng arrived at 8th and Orchard. Supplies were moving in and out, business as usual. Even with Zheng's men beginning to mix with the work, however, it seemed as if the place was more crowded than he last remembered. More rippers at work, more drivers moving supplies... and more enforcers around the perimeter. Could be nothing or it could be the sign of war-time production.
Zheng walked straight into the warehouse as if he worked there, and he was allowed in by those who did. The few who either knew him or noticed the peculiarity of a man in a suit in their midst looked up, but for the most part he entered the warehouse largely unnoticed. By the general population that is... no sooner had he begun to walk through the main bay then he saw Onas Knox himself headed toward him. It was good to know that the Syndicate wasn't falling down on security. They'd actually pegged him the moment he arrived, cleared his entrance, and informed their boss to be ready.
"Ni how, lao buhn!" he exclaimed as they got close. "Onas, puhn yoh." Zheng knew the man's Chinese was weak but he should have no problem with that. "Long time no see. What is the Syndicate up to these days?" The informal small talk was a less than subtle disguise for the actual heart of the matter and reason for the visit. What the hell was going on?
Roleplay Experience: Here and there for years.
How You Found DoS: The 'Verse
Other Characters on the Site: Roger Davis, Friedrich Hoffman
Preferred Method of Contact: PM to Staff account Roger
Anything else:
Password: Ckhqj
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