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Yaphet is the second son of a hard working Arlean farmer. He
learned to manage all
aspects of dad's farm before vowing to escape and never return.
He enlisted in the
Marines but his poor education, coupled with his high
intelligence conspired to keep
him from advancing (he thinks this is due to jealousy on the part
of his lieutenant).
Then in his second term, a command carrier clipped his side,
injuring his knee and he was mustered out after only three years.
He next decided (on a lark) to try his hand in a band. He is a
reasonably talented
saxophone player and did well enough to get partial ownership in
a ship. Most of
his career as an entertainer is a mystery to his shipmates
(sometimes the subject of
rampant and wild rumors!). Why he gave up what seemed to be a
lucatrive career is
still an unknown.
Deciding he wanted to get farther from home (out of the sector),
Yaphet enlisted in
the Imperial Scouts, reasoning that he could travel far and wide
(meet interesting people,
see new places and catalog them). Again accident kept him from a
long and successful
career. He was mustered out with another injury after only two
years.
Sitting in a bar, mulling over his troubles, in the capital
center on Arlea, he
noticed a fight about to break out on the other side of the room.
There were several
tuffs about to attack a rather skinny, nerdy looking academic.
Unhappy with life in
general, Yaphet waded into the fray, tossing tuffs right and
left. After a rather
spectacular finish in which he smashed two of the tuffs' heads
together while lifting
them off the ground, the victim offered Yaphet a job. It turned
out this unassuming
individual was a leading researcher at the university. So he
embarked on an academic
career as a research assistant. This worked out well for him
because he proved valuable
to the professor for his strength and size. And it allowed
Yaphet to stretch his mental
muscles. For seven years he was happy. However, his string of
bad luck wasn't through
with him yet and in an unlikey series of events, Yaphet was let
go after a disaster in
the university library where several shelves of exceptionally
rare books collapsed on him,
injurying his knee yet again! The university did pay to have his
knee replaced but only
on condition he never set foot in the capital again as long as
the university existed (and
it was at that point, 157 years old, with a promising future).
Dejected and lonily, Yaphet seems to have fallen in with an
unsavory lot and decided to
find out what happened to that ship he had part ownership in. It
was sold but the investment
wasn't a loss. Several other nefarous characters seem to have
acquired partial ownership
and the group bought an surplus Imperial cargo ship at auction.
But it seems that quite
a bit of the history of this vessel is shrouded in mystery.
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