Michael Sebastian Carlini

[DragonDaimyo 3]

Player

Player name: DragonDaimyo

Character number: Two

Faction: Serpent Tail

 

General

 

Full name: Michael Sebastian Carlini

Nickname: N/A

Age: 31

Gender: Male

Race: Natural

Occupation: Serpent Tail Commander

Birthplace: Venice, Italy, Eurasian Federation

Citizenship: Earth Alliance (Eurasian Federation), NOVA (Orb Union), PLANT (PLANT)

Personality: Michael is a rather jovial man who always likes a good joke. He is never mocking (except occasionally concerning himself in jest), and has a tendency to try to lighten the mood a little when possible. However, when trouble of any sort arises, all thoughts of humor are banished. Many people think he has some sort of multiple personality disorder, but it is really a laser-like focus on what he needs to accomplish.

 

Michael cares little for the politics of the Earth Sphere, which was one of the biggest factors in his becoming a mercenary in the first place. As a result, he tries to keep any personal friendships outside of the Serpent Tail and Junk Guild to a bare minimum. He does not want to enter a situation in which he might be forced to fight against a friend.

 

Appearance

 

Height: 6' 1"

Weight: 142 lbs.

Hair Colour and Style: Brown hair, flecked with the early onset of grey. Kept rather short and brushed to the right.

Eye Colour: Emerald green

Identifying Marks: None

Skin Tone: Light tan

Build: Michael maintains himself in good physical shape. It is his belief that sharp skills and a strong body will carry him through the day and allow him to survive any battles he fights.

Clothing: Uniform: A Eurasian Federation uniform with no rank insignia and the Earth Alliance emblem replaced by that of the Serpent Tail.

Pilot Suit: An Earth Alliance suit with the Serpent Tail insignia replacing its Earth Alliance counterpart. The orange coloring has been replaced with emerald green.

Civilian clothing:  Michael prefers to wear a polo shirt with slacks when choosing civilian clothing. On days were it might be chilly, he'll also don a sports coat. On hotter days, he'll swap the coat for a baseball cap.

 

Handiness: Right-handed

 

Background

 

Mother: Lenora Carlini

Father: Sebastian Carlini

Siblings: None

Wife/Girlfriend: Alexandria Carlini (Maiden Name: Johnson)

Children: Catherine Carlini (Age: 7)

Michael Carlini Jr. (Age: 4)

 

Personal History: Michael Sebastian Carlini was born on January 19th, C.E. 53. Born in the watery cit of Venice, Michael grew up with a fascination of the sea. It was actually rather hard not for an adventurous child to not be drawn to it. In Venice, water was everywhere, and the Mediterranean was just a stone’s throw away from virtually any point in the city. Michael’s family lived in an apartment complex with windows facing the Grand Canal itself, where Michael was able to see all sorts of naval traffic enter the city. Fishing boats, private yachts, giant tankers, and luxury cruise liners all passed by his home as they made to dock in Venice.

 

As Michael grew older and began his education, his fascination with the sea did not fade away, but it did become more specific. He grew infatuated with learning about the old Age of Discovery, when primitive naval vessels sailed over the ocean with little idea as to where they were going and no clue as to what they would find when they arrived. Columbus, Magellan, Cartier, and other names of the leaders of famous expeditions were those that he read about almost endlessly during his free time. The courage and determination of those men inspired him. However, as his education continued, he found another sort of “Age of Discovery”, and researched that as much as he had the original. His new obsession became the stories of mankind’s initial forays into outer space. The dangers, the risks, yet all of the scientific knowledge that was gained from those missions, all of this added up to a fascinating account. He studied everything he could about the space shuttle missions, the space stations that were placed in orbit, and the discoveries they made in process. Explorers of a different nature than those who sailed the ocean, to be sure, but those men were explorers nonetheless.

 

When Michael thought about his future, he knew he wanted to be like the men he read and heard about in all of the books, tapes, and videos he had read and seen. But he knew he would never be able to do that on Earth. The ocean was well-documented by this point, and had been as tamed as it was likely ever going to be. There was little real risk involved in a naval voyage with any care and thought put into it. Even some of the worst equipment available was better than what they had during the Age of Discovery. In the end, that left Michael with only one choice. He might not be able to participate in anything like the early missions to space, but there was still so much more to learn there. He would still be able to make a difference there, if he put his mind to it. So he did, and he began aiming to go to space. His family was rather well-off, and Michael was an only child, so his parents decided to indulge the young man’s enthusiasm. Michael’s mother had a brother who lived in the Copernicus lunar city, who had agreed to take Michael and give him a place to stay if he was heading to the moon. It was proposed, and Michael agreed without delay. He left at the age of 14, after graduating from Jr. High School.

 

Michael stayed with his uncle’s family for two years, during which Michael spent only what time he needed on his actual high school studies, and spent most of the rest of his time researching his new surroundings. He would often swing by the spaceport and try to see some of the ships that would dock at the lunar city. He also looked at how they had constructed the city itself, as well as the construction methods used for various ship classes. The military ones were all classified, but he could still see some civilian models, and could often apply principles used in those to the sketchy details he had on other ships. He sought after anything he could use to further his goals voraciously. He would have stayed on the moon longer, but after two years in Copernicus, the year was C.E. 70, and with tensions mounting between Earth and the PLANT colonies, Michael’s parents insisted he return for his own safety. Begrudgingly, he boarded a shuttle and headed back to Italy.

 

As the war started and flared to high intensity, Michael cared little for the politics of the situation. He obviously didn’t know what ZAFT’s motivation was besides revenge for the Bloody Valentine attack, but he knew that the Alliance was a hotbed of anti-Coordinator sentiment. Michael was aware of Coordinators, of course, with their enhanced genetics and supposedly superior status. However, he simply didn’t agree with the propaganda. He had met a few Coordinators while on Copernicus. True, they had been beyond him in their understanding of a lot of things, but to Michael, that had only meant that they had knowledge that they might be willing to teach him, which they often were. He didn’t think they were at all superior, and if they though so, it certainly hadn’t shown. And before he met those Coordinators, he simply couldn’t have cared less about the whole thing. Thus, he simply ignored the propaganda and mass rallies. It was actually a very viable option, since the Eurasian Federation didn’t have as pervasive a Blue Cosmos presence as the Atlantic Federation did. However, as his 17th birthday approached, he made the decision the join the military and support the Earth Alliance in the war. He made this choice for two main reasons. First was the encouragement of his parents and friends. Even though they were not Blue Cosmos supporters, their nation was at war, and they pushed him to support their nation in its time of need. Second, however, was his desire to return to space. After all, he would soon either need to find a job or attend a college. Neither possibility left much room for a trip to outer space. If he was to get back into space, it would have to be soon or not at all. It went without saying that the second option was no option at all.

 

On his 17th birthday, he signed on with Eurasian Federation space forces. Within a week, he was on a transport bound from Panama to the Ptolemaeus lunar base. There, he received a crash course in military operations and basic tactics for the mainstay Alliance mobile weapon: the Moebius mobile armor. Michael despised the limited and vulnerable little craft, but there was no other option for him. The Moebius was all the Alliance had to work with at the time, so Michael’s highest priority in the battles he fought in was to survive. Each fight was a harrowing experience, but survive he did, even managing to take down one GINN in a skirmish battle. The Moebius had such a high rate of loss that when the Strike Dagger was finally deployed and delivered to the space forces, Michael was one of the veterans of the space forces, and received one the first units available. It was much more effective than the Moebius ever could be, and Michael finally felt like he would be able to accomplish something in a fight. The Battle of Boaz was Michael’s first large engagement with the Strike Dagger, and managed to rack up three kills before the nuclear strike hit the base. Using nukes left a bad taste in his mouth, but the target was pure military, and so even if he didn’t like it, Michael could at least accept the method of attack. The next battle would be an entirely different matter. The Second Battle of Jachin Due featured a mass nuclear attack on the PLANTs themselves, a blatant move aimed at wiping out the civilian population. Michael knew that Blue Cosmos hated Coordinators, but attempted genocide went above and beyond anything he’d expected. It was thus with great (but silent) pleasure that Michael saw the strike intercepted. Due to large number of desperate enemies on the battlefield, Michael again switched tactics, hoping only to survive the chaotic battle and utterly unconcerned with any glory available to him.

 

After the battle, the war was over, and Michael left the Earth Alliance forces as soon as the opportunity presented itself. He was through with the Alliance forces, after being disgusted with the low tactics they demonstrated in the last battle. He was not, however, ready to return home to Italy, so he traveled back to Copernicus and started doing odd jobs there. He had experience with a mobile suit, and so he sometimes used a borrowed construction model in some larger-scale jobs. One of these jobs also had a lot of Junk Guild techs working with the freelancers, and Michael made fairly fast friends with one team of them. While catching some R&R after a rather tiring shift, Michael was talking with techs when one of the mentioned working with the Serpent Tail during the war. Curious, Michael asked the man some questions about the group, as he wasn’t familiar with them. He learned that the Serpent Tail was a mercenary group that would sometimes cooperate with the Junk Guild, often operating with a similarly loose organization broken down into independent teams of mercenaries. After finishing the job he was working on, he did some research on the Serpent Tail. He had acquired some talent with a mobile suit during the war, so he figured he might be able to make a living off of that particular skill. And since he had no particular loyalty to ZAFT or Orb, and had no desire to return to the Alliance forces, being a mercenary might be just the thing. He hunted down a Serpent Tail team and one month later, officially joined the Serpent Tail as a Pilot Recruit.

 

Between the First and Second Wars, there was little real combat activity to be seen. Nevertheless, Michael took this opportunity to hone his skills, and constantly performed his duties to the best of his abilities. This performance was noted by his superiors, and he steadily began rising through the “ranks”, being given more responsibility in his team. As the Second War began, he was considered to be one of the Veteran Pilots of his team. He felt at home in the Serpent Tail, it’s loosely organized teams freeing him from the rigid structure he knew from his stint in the Alliance military. It definitely a much more welcoming group than the military, and he was able to worry more about focusing on becoming a better pilot than on internal politics.

 

During the Second War, Michael saw very few large-scale engagements. However, he still had plenty of opportunity to make a name for himself in the chaos of the time. His squadron completed mission after mission for their clients, whoever they happened to be at the time. Every sortie was planned out beforehand, but Michael was not too proud to switch gears if his plan wasn’t working. When he finally was given command of his own team, he picked his fights carefully, studiously avoided any engagement he wasn’t being paid to fight in. There was no point in fighting when nobody stood to gain anything, and they stood to lose so much if they lost. During this time, Michael cultivated strong ties with various Junk Guild teams who were roaming about on missions of their own. He negotiated deals with them, in which his unit would do something like escort a Junk Guild team who happened to be passing through a dangerous area. In return, he would receive maintenance and upgrades for his ship and mobile suits from the Junk Guild. A worthwhile arrangement for all parties involved. Michael grew more confident in his command skills as time passed, and during the war, there was always something to do. Both sides wanted to constantly hammer at their opponents, and so despite his young age, he was able to rack up a great deal of combat experience, both as a pilot and a leader.

 

After the war, Michael decided to take some R&R and return home to Italy. He wanted a bit of a break from the constant fighting he had seen in the war, plus he wanted to check on his family. He was hardly alone in this last aspect, as many soldiers and mercenaries from Earth headed home to check up on loved ones after the chaos of the war, especially the heavy damage wrought by Operation Break the World. Sure enough, on returning home, Michael found his family among the afflicted from that attack. They had lost everything but their life savings in the bank and the shirts on their backs, but they were alive, and that was all Michael cared about. He decided to take a year off from his mercenary duties, and used his time and money to help his parents get back on their feet. With the extra funds and with Michael around to help his mother in getting a new home, his father was able to get a new job quickly and secure the income they would need. Michael found a nice apartment in a new complex in the city, and made the arrangements for his family to move in. Over the next few days, he made it a point to get to know some of the other tenants in the building, since they would be neighbors for a while. He noticed one of them particular, Alexandria Johnson, for fairly obvious reasons. She was an attractive lady, to be certain, but there was also a calmness which, along with a good sense of humor, always made Michael more at ease with the universe. His parents noticed his attention to her, and overwhelmingly approved of a relationship, sometimes going somewhat overboard in their encouragement. Michael was an only child, and so his parents went to great lengths to encourage him to settle down and start a family since they had no other children. For his part, Michael, though he was often embarrassed by his parents, thoroughly enjoyed the time he spent with Alexandria. He had had relationships in past, but since he had moved around so much since his teen years, they had never amounted to anything. Alexandria had a good time as well, and took Michael’s parents in stride. Michael prolonged his stay in Italy by taking command of a Serpent Tail team that operated mostly in the Mediterranean area. After the war, there wasn’t much serious combat action to be had, his missions largely consisting of escort duty and mopping Blue Cosmos/LOGOS remnants in and around the Mediterranean. Nevertheless, the time he spent at home and on Earth was a nice change of pace for Michael. Looking back, he could now see how the wars and constant fighting had burned out his desire to assist with space science and help explore the universe. What was truly sad, however, was that Michael didn’t even care too much about that fact. He was reasonably happy now, and what more could a man ask for.

 

After some long discussions and careful thought, Michael returned to space for a while, but not before setting a date with Alexandria for their wedding back on Earth. While away from Earth, he began looking into a place for Alexandria and himself to live. When he heard that Serpent Tail would be setting up a command post in the Shesha colony, the answer became quite obvious. He managed to find a nice home there, and immediately made the purchase. When the time came to return to Earth, some of his friends and comrades from the Serpent Tail took some time off to attend as well. It was a nice ceremony, and the newlyweds thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing. After the wedding, the pair headed up into space, where Michael took her first on a quick trip to Copernicus as a vacation, and then to their new home in Shesha. Michael was happy to be back in space, and even happier to be able to raise a family there.

 

((Apparently, I wrote too much for the site to handle in one post, so continued in my next post.))

Edited July 16, 2007 by Guest

[DragonDaimyo 3]

As the years passed, Michael continued performing his duties as a Serpent Tail pilot and commander. When the overall Serpent Tail Commander stepped down from his post after a long career, it decided that Michael would assume command. Although still rather young for the post, Michael had fought in both wars and had proved himself a good commander in battle. He had as much wartime experience as anyone else, and had an excellent track record of mercenary service. Although he was daunted by the position and responsibility, Michael, with a healthy dose of support of encouragement from his wife, assumed command of the Serpent Tail. He found the position not as formidable as he had first expected. After all, the Serpent Tail teams often operated independently from one another, contacting command only for the coordination of assignments and in emergency situations. Shesha Command had an excellent staff which helped Michael complete his duties, making the task much easier. The job, however, remained fairly challenging, and he refused to take his duties lightly. He also retained command of his own Serpent Tail team, which he would take out on assignment as often as permissible, in order to keep both his crew and himself in fighting shape. Training and simulations were nice to have, but they were no substitute for real combat.

 

Around this same time, Michael and Alexandria found themselves with two children. Catherine and Michael Jr. were born three years apart and were natives of the Shesha colony. As they grew old enough to begin growing curious of their surroundings, Michael encouraged this curiosity, but made sure to teach them to temper it with caution. They were, after all, in a space colony. It wouldn’t do to have them wandering about carelessly and accidentally hit the switch to open an airlock some place. He kept no secrets from his children as to his profession, though he would often warn them against following in his footsteps too readily. Combat wasn’t for everyone, and he wanted them to be sure in their choice before they made such a decision. He has, however, allowed them to tour the ship in which his own team travels from time to time. The children were generally well-accepted by the ship’s crew and pilot squad, leaving the children with positive impressions overall. Michael’s children are a constant source of pride and joy to him, and despite his busy schedule, he takes every opportunity to spend time with them and make sure that they know he cares about them.

 

One of the first things Michael did as Serpent Tail Commander was to use funds to lease and rent a series of apartments from all around the Earth Sphere. As he is the Commander, they are leased in his name, a fact that has enabled him to legally apply for citizenship in virtually every nation on Earth, allowing him freedom of movement comparable only to that of the Junk Guild itself, which allows him to meet virtually anyone he needs to anyplace he needs to. The apartments also provide a convenient place for Serpent Tail liaisons to stay when negotiating a job with a client, and are always made available to them.

 

Player Comments: Okay, I wrote WAAAYYY too much. Need to seek moderation in my writing, but I just had so much I wanted to add. Well, anyways. According to the new rules, I can technically approve this myself, but I'd like to run it through the gauntlet to flush out any problems there may be. Also, I want to make sure that nobody has any problems with Michael's multiple citizenships. So yes. Comment? Criticisms?

 

Edit: Made one minor change. Don't know why I thought Shesha was a lunar colony.

Edited July 16, 2007 by Guest

[hannahkiki 0]

I think we never really settled the multiple citizenship thingy. Have we?

[DragonDaimyo 3]

Well, Milady's character was approved with dual citizenship (PLANT and NOVA), so I don't think it's really a problem, especially considering the nature of my character (professional mercenary with no loyalty to any government). Nevertheless, I did want to check and make sure none of the various faction leaders had a problem with that aspect to him.

[Valiant 96]

Milady's dual citizenship is actually only known to Orb and not ZAFT. Technically, she would only appear to be a PLANT citizen to all except the Orb spy network.

[DragonDaimyo 3]

You do have a point, which I hadn't considered. And in my little vision of things, all the governments would be fully aware of this fact, as well as the fact that he leads Serpent Tail.

 

If it's a problem, I'll likely just change it to an EA (Eurasian) citizenship, since that's where he's from, and leave it at that.

[liubei013 0]

I think I just read a short story, rather than a profile.

 

But anyways, it's a great profile.  I don't see any particular issues with it.

(Except in paragraph four:  'principles' instead of 'principals' )

[DragonDaimyo 3]

Hey, you never know when you're going to need to throw some school administrators into a battleship.

 

Thanks, liubei. Appriciate the feedback. 

[kct 0]

Well, you can insert the fact about the citizenship that Valiant and some of the others suggested in the last paragraph of your profile.

 

Other than that, nothing much to say, you definitely won for having the longest background history ever around here.

[Kaizer 0]

I'm going to have to drag Winders back here so he can gawk at this; I second the vote for giving DD the 'longest character profile ever' award  .

[DragonDaimyo 3]

Kaizer and kct: Thanks for the feedback. I really didn't mean to write that much. It just... happened.

 

All right, no one's really posted that they have any objections to the multiple citizenships yet. A couple of people saying there might be problems, but no actual objections. I'm gonna let this sit here for another 24 hours. If no one's objected to it by then, I'm gonna move into the Library. If you have a problem with any aspect of the profile, speak now or forever hold your peace!

[liubei013 0]

You're welcome.

[DragonDaimyo 3]

You beat me to the punch. Much obliged.