Still the same character, but with expanded history to cover things that weren't said before.
Commander Jackson Spann, born 2 years prior to the Cantharan occupation of earth. As a young boy, Spann was an active member of the resistance forces, and worked his way up through the terran navy. Spann, also known as "El Spamo" was a remarkable tactician. While he had little grasp of huge strategy, his command on the battlefield was exceptional. He had nearly a sixth sense when it came to predicting sudden changes in enemy movement, and countered with speed and skill. Spamo won many small skirmishes and was an accomplished raider, capturing many convoys of Cantharan goods to the occupation forces. In battle, he was seldom defeated. He participated in the Battle of Proxima, and played a pivotal role to push the Cantharan Gateship into retreating towards earth. At the final battle for Sol, his task-force of ships sprung a very successful ambush on Cantharan warships. Following the recapture of earth, he was given full command of his own squadron of ships. During the ring-world conflict, Spamo was dispatched to "advise" the other races on an attack plan, as the UNS government did not want to be officially involved in a coflict at that time. Following the ring-world conflict, Spamo took leave from military life and began freighting materials to UNS rim colonies. It was during this time that the Starlance broke through into this space. Spamo privately pulled together his own fleet, showing a new facet of political skill not shown before. After the Starlance debacle, Spamo was reactivated by the UNS government and given a commission as Admiral of the Second UNS Fleet (SUNSFLT).
Spamo gives considerable time to his own hobby of mechanical tinkering. Connections with people in weapons R&D; departments, as well as his own toying with systems during his sabbatical have given rise to upgrades in weapons technology. Currently only installed on one ship, the increased performance weapons are being outfitted throughout the UNS fleets. Spamo's personal ship therefore is a veritable floating testing ground, and Spamo's constant tinkering has given rise to several modifications. His ship, the UNS Flagship Mariposa is classified as a light battleship. A standard light battleship chassis with armor plating added gives a tougher ship that can last longer than the standard light BS in a firefight. The added mass is dealt with by an upgraded engine core that produces thrust more efficiently than the normal core and an experimental gyroscopic attitude-control system that assists the manuvering thrusters. They gyro guidance system causes the ship to literally toss itself in a new direction, giving the manuvering thrusters a much needed hand in shifting the massive bulk of the ship. The UNS development board is considering putting such a system on fighters to increase their manuverability in space. Weapon systems are fairly standard, with turreted forward arc magneto cannons that have been toyed with and given better cohesiveness to maintain force of a larger distance. Borrowed photo-kinetic beams, reverse engineered from Ishiman technology are installed, and larger coolant feeds increase the recycle time of the weapons. Instead of the standard C-missile package, the Mariposa sports several short range rocket arrays, that launch vectored thrust guided missiles with AI assisted seeker heads to destroy enemy fighter craft. Larger missile tubes launch anti-ship missiles that boast the same AI guided heads to aid in tracking enemy ships. Added manuvering rockets and gyroscopic balance systems make these missiles nimble death. Finally, the Mariposa also carries a small amount of long range standoff, anti-fleet nuclear missiles. Similar to ICBMs of the past, these monsters are usually fired at incoming fleets long before they enter normal weapons ranges. The standoff missiles have MIRV heads, and once they have accelerated to a significant fraction of c, the heads separate and the relativly tiny warheads travel towards the enemy fleet at revalistic speeds, set to detonate either on contact or time fuse. Needless to say, they are very expensive and used sparingly. Spamo also has his own private ship, the Dawn Treader which has only a single anti-fighter rocket battery, 2 laser turrets and high speed, long range engines.
phew!
How's that for a description. :eek:
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