Post by WxMAN on Mar 25, 2012 10:49:39 GMT -6
How Zenneth Moss Came To Be At Tamborro Station
"Why is it so hard to put tools back where they bloody belong!" Zeneth shouted to no one in particular while searching through his tool rucksack. This is the third time this week he'd had to waste over fifteen minutes just finding the tools he needed to work with instead of actually doing his job.
"Pillocks!" Zenneth continued, this time more grumbling to himself than allowing his exasperation to disperse down the corridors of the ship. The rogue thought that the ship mechanics were intentionally hiding his tools from him was quickly dismissed as he let out a prolonged sigh.
"Never attribute to malice what can be as easily explained by stupidity," he thought to himself in an effort to clear his head.
It had been seven months since he had joined the crew of The Happy Heron, a primarily Chinese owned cargo ship doing trading runs for whoever had the cash and couldn't go through 'traditional' shipping companies. What specific cargo the ship was carrying on any given run and the legalities involved in carrying it was hardly something Zenneth concerned himself with - it wasn't his job. His job was to make sure the ship ran at peak efficiency and didn't break down.
Zenneth stood up and started opening various tool cabinet drawers, leaving his rucksack the discarded, disorganized mess he found it in when he first came into the tool shed. This would be the last run he would do for The Happy Heron he thought to himself. Zenneth slammed another drawer shut, and opened the next in the column. The Happy Duck was to finish its current run at Tamborro Station, a perfect place to find another, less bothersome crew to work with.
"All crew is required to attend the daily progress meeting in ten minutes in the Mess Hall." The voice snapping over the intercom out of nowhere startled Zenneth, causing him to stiffen slightly, lifting his head with a sudden clatter of bits of metal being tossed from their resting place as the back of his head smashed against an open tool cabinet drawer he was below.
"Bollocks!" Zenneth shouted reflexively, pulling himself out from under the drawer and gripping the back of his head through his slightly unkempt, shoulder length hair with his hand. This run couldn't get over soon enough.
=======================================================================
How Zenneth Moss Came To Be.... Zenneth Moss
"Now why did they do things like this?" Zenneth wondered to himself, laying beneath the front access panel to one of the ships aft maneuvering thrusters. A befuddling array of wires, tubes, and other electronics for all but a well-trained ship engineer were crammed into the tiny one foot by two foot working area that Zenneth was studying.
"This waveguide is routed too close to the thrust control module. If they would have brought the transmitter around the side, they wouldn't of had to use a flexible waveguide, lessening the chance of a break." His eyes darted back and forth as his brain was trying to mentally disassemble the piece, attempting to figure out why the designers had made this mistake when designing the piece. Zenneth squirmed his hand down his side against the grated floor, grabbing for his PDA. "For better reliability, ensure the routing of the waveguide will be a straight line, avoiding the use of a flexible waveguide." He said, the PDA dutifully transcribing his spoken notes into text for later consumption.
A small amount of pain shot down his scapula. "The floors of this ship weren't meant for laying in this position so long," he thought as he grimaced. Zenneth rolled over to be flat on his back, taking a short break, closed his eyes and let his mind wander.
Zenneth had been on the aptly named "Pudgy Porter" for several years. Aptly named because it looked like an aluminum can which was carrying food cursed with botulism - the ship's sides had an odd, almost unnatural looking 'bulginess' to them. It may not look like much but it was the only way off of the mining colony in the Plait System.
Zenneth was born and raised on the prospect mining colony, "Plait Gamma Three", to parents that had a eccentric intellect about them. Normal people would call Maurice and Lidia Moss, Zenneth's father and mother respectively, "geeks" or possibly "benshu shike". They had come to Plait Gamma Three in order to be closer to the core of the galaxy, but also for a little adventure in their ordinarily sedate lives.
For ten years Zenneth grew up with his parents doing subsurface scans for valuable minerals under the employ of Shaing Pudong Developement, Incorporated. One could hardly call the way of living glamorous or even enjoyable, but it was honest work and it afforded Maurice and Lidia the time to home school their child and raise him to love all things related to science. This was, of course, until Shaing Pudong, Inc. was bought out by the much larger, Rico Mining, Incorporated. Under the Rico Mining, Plait Gamma Three was expected to double their monthly deliverables of ore, and to do so without extra personnel. The meager times of before had now become even leaner. It soon became apparent to the entire colony that Rico Mining was only concerned with keeping their investors happy, and not about keeping the colony a nice place to live. Unfortunately, Rico Mining was also the only way to get off the colony without putting oneself in life-ending debt.
As the years continued, the harshening of the conditions in Plait Gamma Three did as well. By the time Zenneth was of working age, sixteen by Confederate Human World law, he had a choice to make: to live his life out on the colony or strike out amongst the stars as his parents had done to find his own adventure. With his family's blessing he was assigned to an engineering internship aboard the Nikko Maru, a mining transport ship owned by Rico Mining.
While his parents were excellent teachers, it is nearly impossible to substitute school books and technical manuals for hands-on experience. Zenneth flourished in his internship, quickly gaining competency in many of the ships engineering functions. A year later, Zenneth was hired on as an entry level engineer and assigned to the ship the Doting Ciclid. The next few years were a blur; life aboard the Doting Ciclid was busy, boring, and oftentimes dangerous. Recently, the Doting Ciclid had been assigned to run more risky trade routes, routes frequented by pirates and other opportunistic vagabonds. This meant that the entire crew, engineers included, had to have basic firearm and hand-to-hand training - in case of assault by
enemies. Zenneth didn't like this part of the job at all: he never found violence particularly palatable.
It was also during this time when Zenneth really began to bristle under corporate life. He hated how Rico Mining used its size, money, and influence to bully other corporations, colonies, and people. If there was a competitor had found something useful, Rico Mining would buy them out. If they couldn't buy them out, they would bully them out. If they couldn't bully them out, they would use their influence in local politics to evict them with paper and ink. Rico Mining was just a symptom, however, of the persistent human ability to resort back to its prehistoric tribalistic nature - despite several thousand years of "evolution," people still find ways to oppress those beneath them.
Zenneth began saving up his money; while life outside the mega-corporations was certainly much harder, it also allowed you the ability to choose who you associate yourself with.
"Hey! No sleeping on the job!" A kick to the underside of his foot snapped Zenneth from his refreshing break.
"Sorry sir! Won't happen again!" Zenneth replied after gathering himself.
"See that it doesn't or you'll be off this ship by this time tomorrow!" The man shouted back to Zenneth from down the hall.
"Yeah, right." Zenneth thought, "Get to choose who you associate with - what a hopeless romantic I was." With that Zenneth got back to work repairing the maneuvering thruster.
"Why is it so hard to put tools back where they bloody belong!" Zeneth shouted to no one in particular while searching through his tool rucksack. This is the third time this week he'd had to waste over fifteen minutes just finding the tools he needed to work with instead of actually doing his job.
"Pillocks!" Zenneth continued, this time more grumbling to himself than allowing his exasperation to disperse down the corridors of the ship. The rogue thought that the ship mechanics were intentionally hiding his tools from him was quickly dismissed as he let out a prolonged sigh.
"Never attribute to malice what can be as easily explained by stupidity," he thought to himself in an effort to clear his head.
It had been seven months since he had joined the crew of The Happy Heron, a primarily Chinese owned cargo ship doing trading runs for whoever had the cash and couldn't go through 'traditional' shipping companies. What specific cargo the ship was carrying on any given run and the legalities involved in carrying it was hardly something Zenneth concerned himself with - it wasn't his job. His job was to make sure the ship ran at peak efficiency and didn't break down.
Zenneth stood up and started opening various tool cabinet drawers, leaving his rucksack the discarded, disorganized mess he found it in when he first came into the tool shed. This would be the last run he would do for The Happy Heron he thought to himself. Zenneth slammed another drawer shut, and opened the next in the column. The Happy Duck was to finish its current run at Tamborro Station, a perfect place to find another, less bothersome crew to work with.
"All crew is required to attend the daily progress meeting in ten minutes in the Mess Hall." The voice snapping over the intercom out of nowhere startled Zenneth, causing him to stiffen slightly, lifting his head with a sudden clatter of bits of metal being tossed from their resting place as the back of his head smashed against an open tool cabinet drawer he was below.
"Bollocks!" Zenneth shouted reflexively, pulling himself out from under the drawer and gripping the back of his head through his slightly unkempt, shoulder length hair with his hand. This run couldn't get over soon enough.
=======================================================================
How Zenneth Moss Came To Be.... Zenneth Moss
"Now why did they do things like this?" Zenneth wondered to himself, laying beneath the front access panel to one of the ships aft maneuvering thrusters. A befuddling array of wires, tubes, and other electronics for all but a well-trained ship engineer were crammed into the tiny one foot by two foot working area that Zenneth was studying.
"This waveguide is routed too close to the thrust control module. If they would have brought the transmitter around the side, they wouldn't of had to use a flexible waveguide, lessening the chance of a break." His eyes darted back and forth as his brain was trying to mentally disassemble the piece, attempting to figure out why the designers had made this mistake when designing the piece. Zenneth squirmed his hand down his side against the grated floor, grabbing for his PDA. "For better reliability, ensure the routing of the waveguide will be a straight line, avoiding the use of a flexible waveguide." He said, the PDA dutifully transcribing his spoken notes into text for later consumption.
A small amount of pain shot down his scapula. "The floors of this ship weren't meant for laying in this position so long," he thought as he grimaced. Zenneth rolled over to be flat on his back, taking a short break, closed his eyes and let his mind wander.
Zenneth had been on the aptly named "Pudgy Porter" for several years. Aptly named because it looked like an aluminum can which was carrying food cursed with botulism - the ship's sides had an odd, almost unnatural looking 'bulginess' to them. It may not look like much but it was the only way off of the mining colony in the Plait System.
Zenneth was born and raised on the prospect mining colony, "Plait Gamma Three", to parents that had a eccentric intellect about them. Normal people would call Maurice and Lidia Moss, Zenneth's father and mother respectively, "geeks" or possibly "benshu shike". They had come to Plait Gamma Three in order to be closer to the core of the galaxy, but also for a little adventure in their ordinarily sedate lives.
For ten years Zenneth grew up with his parents doing subsurface scans for valuable minerals under the employ of Shaing Pudong Developement, Incorporated. One could hardly call the way of living glamorous or even enjoyable, but it was honest work and it afforded Maurice and Lidia the time to home school their child and raise him to love all things related to science. This was, of course, until Shaing Pudong, Inc. was bought out by the much larger, Rico Mining, Incorporated. Under the Rico Mining, Plait Gamma Three was expected to double their monthly deliverables of ore, and to do so without extra personnel. The meager times of before had now become even leaner. It soon became apparent to the entire colony that Rico Mining was only concerned with keeping their investors happy, and not about keeping the colony a nice place to live. Unfortunately, Rico Mining was also the only way to get off the colony without putting oneself in life-ending debt.
As the years continued, the harshening of the conditions in Plait Gamma Three did as well. By the time Zenneth was of working age, sixteen by Confederate Human World law, he had a choice to make: to live his life out on the colony or strike out amongst the stars as his parents had done to find his own adventure. With his family's blessing he was assigned to an engineering internship aboard the Nikko Maru, a mining transport ship owned by Rico Mining.
While his parents were excellent teachers, it is nearly impossible to substitute school books and technical manuals for hands-on experience. Zenneth flourished in his internship, quickly gaining competency in many of the ships engineering functions. A year later, Zenneth was hired on as an entry level engineer and assigned to the ship the Doting Ciclid. The next few years were a blur; life aboard the Doting Ciclid was busy, boring, and oftentimes dangerous. Recently, the Doting Ciclid had been assigned to run more risky trade routes, routes frequented by pirates and other opportunistic vagabonds. This meant that the entire crew, engineers included, had to have basic firearm and hand-to-hand training - in case of assault by
enemies. Zenneth didn't like this part of the job at all: he never found violence particularly palatable.
It was also during this time when Zenneth really began to bristle under corporate life. He hated how Rico Mining used its size, money, and influence to bully other corporations, colonies, and people. If there was a competitor had found something useful, Rico Mining would buy them out. If they couldn't buy them out, they would bully them out. If they couldn't bully them out, they would use their influence in local politics to evict them with paper and ink. Rico Mining was just a symptom, however, of the persistent human ability to resort back to its prehistoric tribalistic nature - despite several thousand years of "evolution," people still find ways to oppress those beneath them.
Zenneth began saving up his money; while life outside the mega-corporations was certainly much harder, it also allowed you the ability to choose who you associate yourself with.
"Hey! No sleeping on the job!" A kick to the underside of his foot snapped Zenneth from his refreshing break.
"Sorry sir! Won't happen again!" Zenneth replied after gathering himself.
"See that it doesn't or you'll be off this ship by this time tomorrow!" The man shouted back to Zenneth from down the hall.
"Yeah, right." Zenneth thought, "Get to choose who you associate with - what a hopeless romantic I was." With that Zenneth got back to work repairing the maneuvering thruster.