From: ikonoqlast@gmail.com   
      
   So, in lieu of actually, you know, writing, I feel the urge to dick around.   
      
      
   My question for you, are the following characters acceptably plausible?     
      
   Science fiction story (of course).  Wooden starships and iron men sort of   
   thing.  No aliens, no 'magic', no AI.  Dramedy format.   
      
      
   In no particular order-   
      
   Marine officer.  Hobby is mixed martial arts.  General bad ass.  Goes on about   
   his father emphasizing development of body and mind, so he's also an excellent   
   chess player and generally smart.  His secret- dad actually said body, mind   
   and soul.  Took    
   ballet as a teenager (dad insisted) and danced the male lead in a high school   
   production of Swan Lake.  He suppresses this information, but his insider's   
   knowledge of ballet periodically leaks out.   
      
      
   Captain.  Jean Luc Picard clone.  Jewish, occasionally observant.  Very   
   smart.  Deliberately avoiding promotion to Commodore because he loves ship   
   command.  Was hero's and love interest's instructor at the academy.   
      
      
   Reporter.  Carl Kolchak clone (from 'The Night Stalker', inspiration series   
   for The X-Files)  Childhood friend of Captain and present as an embedded   
   reporter, allowed because the Captain wants it.  Foreign ('german') relative   
   to  main cast.  Dad was a    
   diplomat/intelligence officer under official cover but he doesn't know about   
   the spying, though it's pretty obvious to pretty much everyone else.  Job   
   titles like 'Assistant Passport Control Officer' or 'Assistant Cultural   
   Affairs Liaison' are pretty    
   much bureaucratize for 'Official Spy'.  He is himself an occasional   
   intelligence asset for 'german' intelligence.   
      
      
   Other reporter.  'Native' rather than from Civilization.  Beautiful, smart and   
   very good at her job.  Junior correspondent for moderately popular news   
   magazine.  Also embedded.     
      
      
   Female doctor.  Ship's physician.  Burned out, very disappointed in her life   
   and her choices.  Not a great healer but still generally competent.    
   Occasional recreational drug user.     
      
      
   Ship's cook.  Former spy of the George Smiley, grey men doing grey things in   
   the dark variety, not James bond running a shooting variety.  Last mission   
   (years previously) ended with him deliberately befriending and killing an 8   
   year old girl in the    
   course of overthrowing a nasty government and making the ensuing civil war   
   smaller.  (cf Princess Anastasia).  Had religious conversion and now dedicated   
   Christian and pacifist.  Most excellent cook due to religious dedication to   
   increasing happiness via    
   food.  Also acts as de facto ship's chaplain/counselor.   
      
      
   Hero's friend.  Kim Kinnison clone- smart, strong, handsome, charismatic,   
   nice, whole package.  Naval intelligence officer of the adventurous type, NOT   
   of the George Smiley persuasion.  Very good at undercover work.   
      
      
   Ensign (no one cares what his name is, nor mentions it, ever), freshly out of   
   the academy on his very first assignment.  Naive, inexperienced and unlucky,   
   but actually neither stupid nor unskilled.  Iron butt-monkey.  Has a 'lucky'   
   red shirt.  Sure    
   enough, the *shirt* comes through everything he undergoes unscathed...   
      
      
   Bosun.  Been there, done that, multiple times.  Old salt.  As junior NCO   
   served under the hero's grandfather, and takes a paternal interest in his   
   welfare and treats him (in private) with all the respect he thinks the young   
   shit deserves, but is actually    
   fond of him.  Enjoys embarrassing him with stories of his notorious   
   grandfather's adventures.   
      
      
   Ship's clerk.  Marine.  Babyfaced (cf Audie Murphy), extremely shy, eager to   
   please, sincere and apparently utterly harmless, with an uncanny ability to   
   slip into the background and not be noticed.  Has been awarded the empire's   
   highest award for valor    
   in the face of the enemy TWICE.  The first was heroism 101 in a situation   
   modelled on 55 days at Peking.  The second was for a different situation based   
   on the Japanese occupation of the Philippines in WWII, only uglier.   The   
   citation was for carrying    
   on a campaign of fear and intimidation to impair the enemy's morale.     
      
   People who have read his actual file are scared shitless of him.  His   
   counselor at Imperial Medical committed suicide because he 'couldn't get the   
   pictures out of his head'.  His specialty was post traumatic stress disorders,   
   ie getting the pictures out    
   of people's heads...  He could give Dexter lessons in knife tricks vis a vis   
   human anatomy in consequence of his 'campaign of fear and intimidation against   
   the enemy'.  The love interest considers him to be the boogeyman man and is   
   utterly terrified of    
   him.   
      
      
      
   Love interest, married, husband not seen.  Ship's engineer and first officer.    
   Perfect officer type  Her crew love her.  Everyone loves her.  Bosun even   
   treats her with respect verging on adoration, unlike the way he treats every   
   other officer.  Named    
   Prudence and personifies the concept.  Educated in a particularly effective   
   Catholic girl's school, and can deal with any situation that comes up while   
   remaining perfectly ladylike at all times.     
      
   Her unseen husband's actual identity (beyond 'he's a naval officer') is known   
   to only four characters (her (duh), captain, hero's friend and hero) as they   
   were all either attending or participating in their wedding.  Others speculate   
   and/or wager on it.     
      
      
   Hero, ship's navigator and operations officer.  Father is head of the entire   
   navy, grandfather as above.  Comes from a long, long, LONG line of naval   
   officers.  Raised his entire life to be one himself.  Seeks /slack/ in naval   
   discipline, but will remain    
   within the lines of acceptable conduct.  Kirk in recent movies he is not.    
   Generally comic, but it's a mask and he can be rather cold blooded and   
   frightening when he drops the mask.  Can, will, and has killed in cold blood.    
   Operational and navigational    
   genius taking after and trained his whole life by his father.     
      
   In love with the (duh) love interest since the academy.  Seems to have   
   destroyed his chances with her romantically in the course of triumphing in a   
   previous conflict with her (id vs superego, discipline vs free spirit, etc)   
   before he realized his true    
   feelings (oops).  Known to have a particularly irrational loathing and hatred   
   for 'Cyrano De Bergerac' or any other work with a romantic triangle.   
      
      
   Anyone you have problems with?  Any character type I left out that should be   
   included?   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)