Chance Raschen

Chance (Temerarious) Raschen

The Man The Myth The Legend

Author's Note

The premise for this character is simple enough. Chance (Temerarious) Raschen is a man who isn't ashamed of his heady days of piracy and war; but wants to settle down and is unable to.

Star Trek: Freedom was the fourth game that I submitted this character to, and the only one that didn’t demand that I rewrite him to be like every other character in the game if I was to remain a player. For that alone, I will be grateful to the game hierarchy. Over time though, I’ve been asked to make minor changes here and there to make him fit into the storyline better; and other things I altered myself simply because I just couldn’t make them work. Fotunately, the premise of the character has remained, mercifully, almost completely intact. I know that this character isn't the first privateer to be played in Star Trek Freedom. However, I do not know if it is the first for this game were the writer is encouraged to develop the character into a mole.

Family Background

Margaret

Chance’s mother, Margaret, and his biological father met while vacationing on Risa. After a short and invigoratingly intimate relationship; the two parted and never attempted to contact each other. As a result, on Stardate 2371.12.06, Chance entered the world a bastard child; and never even met his father. Because of the relationship his mother had with her father, Chance’s grandfather became his surrogate father figure while Chance was growing up.

Margaret worked as a bookkeeper/office administrator for her father, a bounty hunter named Edward Raschen. He was respected by everyone on both sides of the law, and was referred to as “Easy Ed” because of his calm appearance and easy going demeanor. He could also be vicious, unrelenting, and ruthless in his pursuit for those he was hired to capture when his kindness was mistaken for weakness.

"Easy" Ed

After a couple of years, Ed and Margaret started a new firm called Impetuous Industries. The company’s base products remained bounty hunting, and security consultation. Once the company expanded into shipping, then eventually into research and development; Impetuous Industries eventually became contracted to several military and civilian shipyards and space stations throughout the Federation. The headquarters for Impetuous Industries was located on the family’s 300 acre ranch in Texas on Earth.

At 14 Chance started to accompany his grandfather on his bounty hunting excursions. It was Easy Ed that first taught Chance the use of weapons; bounty hunter and pirate tactics; starship and urban warfare; cargo and troop transport; blockade running and smuggling; piloting; and dueling.

T'Lela

Chance celebrated his 18th birthday on Romulus because he had accompanied his mother on a business trip there. It was that same trip that he met his fiancé; a Romulan beauty named T’Lela who was a Sub-Centurion in the Romulan military. Much to the discouragement of her father and the encouragement of his mother, T’Lela and Chance courted and, after a couple of years, were eventually engaged to be married despite her father’s objections about Chance’s parentage and upbringing.

Wanting to be a civilian ship's captain in the family business, he applied to the Houston Texas campus of Hardy-Knox University and was accepted. While there he learned more about piloting, navigation, vessel resource management, and general operations of starships than he had learned from his grandfather. Two years later, Chance graduated and received his civilian Able Crewman and Ship Captain’s licenses. T’Lela and her father made the trip to Earth so the young couple could be married.

Pre-Starfleet History

Chance originally had no intention of joining Starfleet, but he did have a strong sense of "for God and Country", so he became a member of the Irregular Federation Forces. When the Cardassian-Federation War started the couple agreed that T’Lela return to Romulus when Chance received a government commission, or Letter-of-Marque, to attack assorted types of enemy shipping throughout the war. Chance was also commissioned to provide logistical support to special units assigned to some of the Federation’s more clandestine interests; plus some of the larger, military campaigns.

The Federation Irregular Forces was a type of militia that consisted of privateers and mercenaries hired to augment the Federation Starfleet and the Marine Corps and were required to wear an identification patch on their right arm; their motto was “Auxiliary Power Redefined”. While serving in the I.F.F., Chance decided to use a pseudonym and the name he chose to use was “Chance Temerarious”.

Throughout the war there were only two instances where Chance showed the unrelenting, ruthless viciousness of a bounty hunter. The first occurred while escaping a Cardassian Prisoner-of-War compound. An Andorian named Thrall admitted to murdering T’Lela during his attempt to escape in Chance’s ship, the Star Hawk, alone and leave his fellow escapees behind. A Klingon Colonel known as Kree-ton, thwarted Thrall’s plan. In his fury, Chance beat the Andorian to death with a spare piece of pipe. Chance then took T’Lela’s remains to Romulus, and placed her lifeless body at her father’s feet. After Chance told him how T’Lela had died and how he avenged her death; her father placed a hand on Chance’s shoulder saying “I thank you, my son”.

The second was at a Cardassian starbase designated Echo Bravo-454; it was there that mere moments after the Cardassians surrendered the base to teams of the F.I.F.; the Klingons, lead by Colonel Kree-ton, felt their honor was slighted and attacked their I.F.F. allies. During the retaliation against the Klingons, Chance led a team that captured a B’rel class Bird-of-Prey and used it to help destroy Kree-ton’s ship which was a Vor’cha class battle cruiser.

Within a week after the Cardassian-Federation War was officially declared at an end, all Letters-of-Marque' were made null and void. Any of the privateers and mercenaries that decided to join Starfleet or the Marines Corps was welcome to do so and “In appreciation of meritorious wartime service” was allowed to continue wearing the patch of the Irregular Federation Forces on their uniform.

Irregular Federation Forces- "Auxiliary Power Redefined"

After the war, Chance still had the Star Hawk and continued to serve the Federation as a privateer, providing the same kind of logistical and combat support for assorted missions that he did during the war. He also kept using the pseudonym Chance Temerarious, which had become his alter ego.

He spent some time taking part in a Starfleet Intelligence program dubbed Project: Scarlet Pimpernel; in which the mission was to rescue Federation citizens that were detained from behind enemy lines by any means necessary. Chance was later sent to protect Federation interests by fighting in the wars between the Ferengi Alliance and the Orion Syndicate. First he fought for the Ferengi against the Orions; and then again the following year for the Orions against the Ferengi.

After several years of being regularly sent to go along Federation borders and attack any non-Federation shipping until Starfleet was able to reestablish the balance of power in those areas, Chance became very dubious as to the merits and stability of the Federation. It was about the same time that Admiral Rodrigo Doenitz started “moving the pieces” to become the Federation President. He had one of his intelligence agents, a Romulan exile named D’rajevon, reconstitute the Irregular Federation Forces and approach Chance, as well as others, with new Letters-of Marque which allowed them to attack only specified targets within the Federation and any targets of opportunity outside Federation borders to include territory held by the ‘rebellious’ 52nd Fleet. Chance was also given the code name: Stellar Pilgrim.

Chance hit a point in life were he decided that he wanted to become a ships captain in the shipping division of his family’s company, Impetuous Industries; but his mother and grandfather dissuaded him on the facts that his past privateer activities would hurt the company in foreign territories. So they recommended that he should join the military in order to regain at least some legitimacy, and pay his debt to society before becoming employed by the family’s firm. Chance agreed and contacted a Starfleet recruiter on Vulcan.

Starfleet History

When he enrolled into the academy at age 34, Chance was able to receive credit for the civilian Crewman and the Merchant Vessel Master licenses that he received from Hardy-Knox University, plus credit for his wartime experience and record. As a result, Chance only really had to attend the ‘fourth year’ of the academy, which he used to study military tactics. He also managed to maintain possession of his ship (Star Hawk); this helped make it possible for Chance to rapidly meet all of his field training requirements by taking part in various kinds of missions during school breaks. It also earned him extra income as well.

Once in the academy, D’rajevon was able to present Chance, the Stellar Pilgrim, with a message signed by President Doenitz ordering him to take charge of a team assigned to capture a warship belonging to the 52nd and proceed with it to Bajor. After having had the dubious honor of graduating with the lowest passing GPA in academy history, Chance was assigned to the U.S.S. Dennison as an Operations Officer.

During his first few weeks on the USS Dennison, Chance reconsidered his position in the civil war and discovered that the rest of his team did as well. They just weren’t sure how to go about it. When the Dennison pulled into Starbase Geneva, and after being promoted to Ensign (S.G.) at a late night meeting, Chance and his confederates managed to capture the ship along with the captain and command staff without any casualties. Minutes later, after announcing the groups desire to defect to the 52nd Fleet; Chance surrendered the Dennison back to the rightful captain and released the rest of his prisoners.

Chance was arrested and charged with Mutiny and Treason. Early the next morning, he was found guilty by a drumhead Courts-Marshall and was sentenced to 2 years probation, due to the pending battle for sector 001. Less than a week later, the civil war was over and Chance was given a choice to remain in Starfleet or be sent to prison for murder, treason, mutiny, piracy, and profiteering. Needless to say, he agreed to stay in Starfleet. On Stardate 2408.01.09, Raschen accepted a temporary reduction in rank in order to facilitate his request for transfer to USS Rosenante and a clean slate to restart his Starfleet career.

After his 3rd week alone on his jaunt in the Star Hawk to meet up with the Rosenante, Chance responded to a distress signal from a civilian freighter in the Davros System. Upon coming out of warp, he was attacked by 7 ships of unknown origin. Using pirate like tactics, he managed to damage 2 of the ships; the first withdrew from the engagement and the second followed the Star Hawk into a planetary gravity well and was destroyed. The Star Hawk was also lost to the gravity well, but not before Chance was rescued by the USS Rosenante.

In the "Letters-of-Marque'" mission, Chance introduced some of his shipmates to his unsavory past, and his grandfather (Easy Ed), while within the relms of the Orion Syndicate to rescue Prince Khamal of the Cartenian Commonwealth, thus ending a four-hundred year long war.

• More to come as the journey continues...

General Information

Physical Description

Chance is a 36 year old, red blooded, human Caucasian male, with blue eyes and dark blond hair; and at 69 inches tall, weighing 185 pounds, he is a handsome man in a plain looking way with a slightly weathered look about him; clean shaven; neatly groomed, short hair; a warm, encouraging smirk usually on his face; with a calm and determined look in his eye and walks with the swagger of a true survivor.

Medical

He has scars from various types of puncture & stabbing wounds; plus phaser, chemical, and electrical burn scars on legs, arms, and torso. About half of his injuries came from actual battle; the others were from torture he was put through at various time of his Pre-Starfleet career. He doesn’t mind regenerators being used on his internal organs, but will not allow them to be used on his skin.

A psychologist at the academy wrote in his dossier “Subject has never completely, emotionally recovered from the death of his wife more than 10 years ago; do to this fact, the subject wishes to die and yet still pursues life to its fullest. Subject also repeatedly uses unorthodox methods that continually exhibit a unique resourcefulness, but sadly doesn’t appear to have any stable moral grounding whatsoever in order to achieve objectives, depending on the situation.”

Also Known As

Chance Temerarious

Assignments

Operations Officer, USS Dennison, 2407.02.15- 2408.01.09

Operations Officer, USS Rosenante, 2408.01.22- 2408.01.26

Acting Chief of Security, USS Rosenante, 2408.01.26- 2408.03.15

Chief of Security, USS Rosenante, 2408.03.15- Present

Awards

Starfleet Squadron Commander's Commendation (1st award); Given on Stardate 2407.07.10 for outstanding participation in the battle against Doenitz forces during the Civil War.

Captain's Commendation (1st Award); Given on Stardate 2408.01.26 For exceptional skill and prowess exhibited in handling the situation on Davros III

Captains Commendation (2nd Award); Given on Stardate 2408.03.15 On behalf of the Cartenian Commonwealth for services rendered in the rescue of Prince Khamal from the Orion Syndicate .

Rank Progression

2407.01.15: Ensign (J.G.)

2407.07.16: Ensign (S.G.)

2408.01.09: Ensign (J.G.)

2408.01.26: Ensign (S.G.)

2408.03.15: Lieutenant (J.G.)