Ho ho ho, here's a drink
Stats
Faction: Darkwire
Role: Bar Owner, Information Broker
Birthplanet: Chandrila
Current residence: Denon
Species: Human-Basic
Age: 67
Height: 5'6" (167cm)
Weight: 180 lbs. (81.6 kg)
Skin-tone: White
Hair color: White to grey
Eyes: Blue
Gender: Male
Orientation: Homosexual
Marital Status: Single
Force Sensitive: No
Playby: Johannes Brahms
Appearance
Well past middle-aged for a human, the once muscular soldier is now a plump, little man. Short of height but portly of build, his gut protrudes forward and extends his belt line a bit. His mostly white hair, with specks of grey, is long (past the shoulder) and unkempt, only brushed aside from time to time to keep from his brilliant blue eyes. His beard, too, is long and signifies his age and experience well. He is rarely seen without a grin on his face and has a hearty, booming laugh. While walking, he often clasps his hands behind his back, perhaps a remnant of his military days, but more likely to keep himself from falling forward. Shenn's clothes are typically of the smuggler vein. Various tunics with vests and cargo pants with a belt to match a short-ankle boot.
Personality
Shenn is a jolly old fellow, with a smile on his face and a glitter in his eye. He has been known, in the past several years, to be quite the mediator of difficult situations thanks to this. He has an extraordinarily strong presence, but he is never domineering. He enjoys telling stories, jokes just as much as he enjoys listening to the stories of others. A conversationalist in all aspects, Shenn is very open with himself and others. His studies has given him a wealth of knowledge that he both freely and for a price provides to those who need it and his experience has given him wisdom beyond the ages, allowing him to pass advice and judgement similarly. He is seen as carefree and has been known to lose himself in thought. Shenn enjoys long walks, the arts and liquor of all brands.
Text color: #FF7F50
History
Shenn was born to a politically influential family on Chandrila. Due to the stature of his parents, he was either constantly on the move for extended periods of time, or alone with a nanny-droid for even longer periods of time. Shenn would develop a keen memory of what he saw while out in the galaxy and spent a good time studying while isolated from everything. Later, he would go on to relate to a friend that he had trained his memory to be photographic in those days and had stimulated himself such that he kept that retention later in life. His parents did have his memory retention rate tested, for their personal knowledge of what was best for their son, but Shenn would leave the results out of his stories. Shenn was always known for being quite bright. He was not schooled like most children and, though he was always considered quite sociable when visitors were around, he preferred private tutoring. Always inquisitive, a quick study and crafty, Shenn once went as far as reprogramming the nanny droid to extend his bedtime hour, bake him some sweets and purchase him a dejarik holotable. He was clever enough to switch the settings back prior to his parents returning from their diplomatic missions in order to keep himself out of trouble. Shenn was often in trouble.
These traits would stay with him throughout his teen years and into old age. As a teenager, he, along with his peers, among whom he had quite a few friends despite his home-schooling, began getting more and more involved with the democratic systems of his planet. Chandrila was always a world known for its outspoken political views, as well as its overwhelming participation in all things civil. Shenn, with a good deal of support from his equally politically savvy parents, Frei (father) and Osa (mother), started becoming a frequenter of the Hanna City Rotunda. Despite what his parents were wont to believe, however, Shenn merely listened. Though he would comment on things to his friends when asked his opinion, Shenn was rarely an advocate for publicly announcing his opinions. He found the shouting matches to be no less barbaric than all of the war holos he had seen and, being naive to such things, found the politics to be just as contemptible, if not more. His philosophies on life began slipping more and more towards pessimism.
He did speak out on one particular occasion. The frequent topic of debate had been the state of war in the galaxy. One day, one of the more outspoken and brash members of the crowd began to accuse another member of war-mongering. The other man, also one of the loudest members of the local society, had just prior called Chandrila weak for remaining neutral in the war, when what they should be doing was taking up arms in an attempt to cease the conflict. The former speaker, continuing with his accusations, stated that only a fool would sacrifice the well-being of an entire world to solve the issues of a galaxy that had no wish to be settled. Shenn, having sat through the entire argument, was about ready to snap. Ever since he had started attending these sessions, open civilized discussion always seemed to turn ever-so-quickly into a full-out engagement. Had there not been armed guards very nearby to police the Rotunda grounds, Shenn often wondered how many splattered heads would be lying around.
This particular time, Shenn was unwilling to remain seated and silent. The setting was quite arena-like, and for Shenn to move himself to be heard, he had to stand from where he was sat, and move out to the arena. As he stalked his way there, the two arguing were blind to Shenn's approach and a general murmur had worked its way through the crowd. The son of famous politicos finally taking the stage to speak was something to hear, whether he would make a fool of himself or follow soundly in his parents footsteps. The crowd itself always surged when the topic of war was brought up each, which, wasn't too surprising, considering the debate had been going on for as long as any could remember. In those days, the way the Rotunda typically functioned was that anyone wishing to speak to the general assembly would stand behind whichever side they wished to support. They would be called up at certain points in the argument by whoever was in charge of that side of the debate, with no one controlling the flow of discourse except the people themselves. The other peculiar thing was that there were no voice amplification systems that would allow everyone to hear, you must either find a way to silence your opponent or you must shout above them until they were silent.
In this instance, since Shenn wished to support neither side, he approached the center of the arena, right in between the two raised podiums where the arguers stood. Once he reached the middle, neither opponent were yet aware of his presence. Yet every eye in the stadium was on Shenn. Many of his friends, having always considered Shenn to be mild mannered and polite, didn't think that he could even speak above the ruckus that the two oblivious spokespersons were creating. And yet, Shenn was to be heard. Mustering as much volume as he could, he began cursing at the top of his lungs. The people close enough to hear were shocked, others chuckled and plenty more rolled their eyes. It wasn't too long before the current debaters stopped and threw very indignant looks towards Shenn. Shenn was not to be calmed, as he kept up the volume of his voice, he shouted out his complaints to the two opposing sides.
"You," he pointed at the accuser, "ignorant pile of bantha fodder. What makes you think that you're so high and mighty? What gives you the right to accuse someone of war-mongering simply for speaking his mind? The whole point of the Rotunda is to support the right of free speech and in freely speaking we announce our opinions to the general public so they may form opinions of their own. My opinion is that you are a moron. There is a war raging in the galaxy, and it has been for longer than anyone can ever remember there being peace. Our neighboring systems have suffered greatly, both from loss of life and from bombardment. It is only a matter of time before the same is true for us. The sooner we prepare to defend ourselves, the more likely we are to survive the conflict.
"And you," he said as he turned and pointed at the other debater, "are no better you pompous coward. How can you speak for an entire people when the words coming from your own diffused brain have no basis in truth? You say that we should take up arms and join the fight but to what end? To have our people slaughtered so your name can go down into the annals as their glorious leader and supporter? Why don't you be the first to carry a gun into battle, on the front lines of the bloodshed you so eagerly seek to send others to? Do you think you could kill a man? Or would you just as soon kiss a Wookiee?"
At that point, Shenn turned towards the door and marched out, throwing his arms in the air and cursing loudly the entire way. His words drew an amount of applause from the audience, his friends in particular were quite impressed. As for the two debating, they continued their own civil onslaught, paying little heed to what Shenn had to say. His words had been wasted on them. Shenn never returned to the Rotunda, though his parents had of course heard about the uproarious fashion in which he had presented himself. Knowing that his parents did not approve and realizing that he cared little for politics, he vowed to leave the planet and never return. Two years later, at the age of nineteen, he found his opportunity through a military recruitment campaign. Much to the shock of his parents, he left Chandrila with his hair trimmed to a military cut and suited up from head to toe in the gear of a Private in the army.
Shenn would spend twenty years as an enlisted soldier. He was never sure exactly who he was fighting for, however. Sides seemed to change by the tour and conflicts were bloody enough that most of his commanding officers changed even more frequently. He was always good at remembering the names of his oft changing superiors as well as the other soldiers in his platoon, but he found it best not to make friends. Too often he would be only one of four or five men to return out of the original thirty-eight. He wondered, at times, why he always seemed to be the one who stayed alive. He fought on the front lines with everyone else, there was no reason why a stray blaster bolt couldn't hit him. And yet, from the original two hundred recruits that had joined on Chandrila, it took only seven missions on one tour for Shenn to be the last, and there were nine more engagements yet to go in that first three month stretch.
Due to the alarming rate of death and Shenn's apparent invulnerability, he was promoted to Corporal at the end of his first tour, already becoming more of a leader for the soldiers than their superiors. His first several tours were held on a planet with significant shipyards. The spaceflight in was worse than a horror holo. The shipyards, once having been great, towering infrastructures were now only twisted scraps of durasteel, strewn every which way. The planet's surface, once largely green and blue, had appeared to be greatly brown and gray from space, with red, yellow and orange explosions blossoming in several locations.
His platoon, which was only six men at that point were given a two week stint of leave in order to restock the unit with both men and supplies. The leave wasn't all that relaxing. Since it was too dangerous to ship the soldiers offworld, Shenn's platoon split their time between makeshift underground shelters that seemed to collapse more than the combat engineers assured and defending the above-ground camps from being overrun. When two weeks was up, they began their next tour, another three months on the front. This cycle went on for what felt like forever and Shenn cursed his photographic memory at every opportunity. He relived the deaths of each of his men every time another one fell to the cannon, and knew that he had in fact served 9 tours on the world. There was never a moment of rest, even while on leave. By the end, Shenn had developed a case a gallows humor and when he, now a Sergeant Major, and his troops were relocated, he seriously considered leaving.
The war blazed on and Shenn continued on. He would serve numerable tours throughout the known worlds before coming to the world of Lok. Through his service, never did he fight over a planet that appeared so worthless. Far our on the Outer Rim, the world didn't even border a major trade route or possess any resources to fight over. As he was assigned the world, Shenn wondered if his superiors were simply trying to kill him off. He had been promoted to First Lieutenant sometime previous and was now in command of a full platoon. Few of his own men survived, but some of the diehards, Corporal Frye, Sergeant Lorel and Privates Hin and Porte, were devoutly loyal to Shenn, with him having commanded them for nearly two years. Whatever the reason for his being shipped to Lok, he also found another slight change in leadership. This was common, but, rather than a General or even a full Colonel in charge of the ground assault, it was simply a Lieutenant Colonel, a Wookiee known as Tawrrowaldr.
Shenn, having proved not only his worth, but his unit's worth, time and again, almost felt insulted. But his opinion quickly changed while under the command of Lt. Col. Tawrrowaldr. They served together on Lok for two years. In that time, though Tawrro had an entire regiment under his command, their numbers dropped drastically. Not more than three months into the engagement, Shenn was given the position of acting-Captain, having been given an acting rank numerous times before due to the same circumstances. Tawrro and Shenn would work together significantly, and while their troops dwindled from the 2500 they had began with down to only around 1200, their relationship kindled into a friendship, one that Shenn honestly didn't think possible prior. He had largely shut his emotions off after so much conflict, allowing himself only passing acquaintances with his men, knowing full well that many of them would end up dead through their first few minutes of battle.
The Lok campaign was miserable, even compared with the horrendous campaigns he had participated in previously. Their enemy had outnumbered them from the beginning, their positioning had been poor and supplies had been cut off due to a stalemate in the accompanying space conflict. Tawrro continually cursed the Generals who had planned the mission and Shenn felt for the Wookiee. After the situation turned from bad to worse to hopeless, the forces withdrew from Lok. Shenn knew that he and his one friend, Tawrro, would be parting ways at the next rendezvous point and the two would spend much of the short hyperspace trip together in a cantina, telling stories of their past, but only the good ones. The last time Shenn saw Tawrro for the next forty years, Lieutenant Colonel Tawrrowaldr had received news of the death of his only son. Shenn would not learn the fate of Tawrro until many years later.
Shenn Rosham, now a Captain, though in no better position than he had been before, returned to the front lines and continued to serve whatever side he fought for with dignity and honor for another twelve years. When he finally left, he was nearly forty years of age, and retired a Colonel.
Having spent all of his time in the war and very little time on leave, Shenn had accumulated a significant amount of backpay. He also discovered that his family's offworld holdings had been transferred to his intergalactic account. Deciding that he needed a vacation, he purchased a freighter from his most recent military contractor that was now out of date and found a world on the Outer Rim that was of little importance to anyone. Trogan was a naturally beautiful planet, and although there were plenty of people living there, it wasn't hard to find a quiet spot. Tourism wasn't high on the list of things to do when a war was on, although many people wanted to get away, few were actually able. As such, worlds such as Trogan suffered, and many people left the planet in search of a better life. Shenn was lucky enough to stumble upon a large cantina, complete with a hangar and a suite of quite lavish personal quarters in an area known as the Drinking Cup due to it being a bowl-shaped depression in the ground caused by swirling tidal pools. The cantina, which had gone under many names and passed through the hands of numerous owners, had recently been abandoned, the owner having not gotten any bids for it in over five years. Shenn got the place for free.
Spending his time cleaning the place up, updating the security systems and outfitting it to his needs took little time. Soon enough, Shenn found himself with nothing to do. He hadn't taken the time to actually think in quite awhile, having found the memories to be too painful. And yet, he knew that he was a troubled man. He awoke most nights from a nightmare. He cursed his vivid memory again and again, but the dream didn't fade. In it, he found himself back on Chandrila, but instead of as a boy, he was in his Colonel's field uniform, leading an assault against the people of his world, his friends, his family. Shenn knew quite well that the only way to rid himself of these nightmares was to open himself to his memories once again, to drop the barriers he had put around his mind. As the memories started to flow, he grew more and more depressed. Many days, he would never leave his bed. Going through one tragic experience after another, he faced many more sleepless nights.
And then, one day, there was nothing. He awoke, stretched, and went to the window of his room. Through it, he saw the beauty of the landscape around him, and, for the first time since he moved there, he appreciated it. Shenn spent the entire morning, afternoon and evening watching the day go by, relaxing for the first time in over twenty-two years. The forty-two year old man had finally reached a level of peace.
The next few years went by quickly, it seemed. Trogan was remote enough to be unaffected by external power struggles, although he received the holonews feeds all the time. Shenn found himself studying once again, picking up where he had left off years ago. He was a changed man. Though he was still inquisitive, a quick study and crafty, he had added patience and experience to the mix. His new found peace also brought a lighter sense of humor. Seeing as how he had taken to not shaving and growing out his beard, as well as growing more and more of a gut, one could even call him jolly. As he continued his studies, he found himself desiring the company of others again as well as a purpose, something that he had lost after retiring. He certainly had no wish to kill again, but he figured that his memory would serve him better than anything else. Shenn purchased another cantina on Denon, fixed it up quite well, named it the Blue Flame, and began his business. He became an information broker. His breadth of knowledge and perfect memory were all that he required.
The information business was booming, but his clients were low. He kept it that way, not wanting to bring unwanted attention to himself, and not wanting to deal with those who he did not want around. His cantina, unlike innumerable others on Denon, was a decent place to get a drink. He had a good staff, a good location, and a wide selection. Shenn enjoyed the cantina as much as he did the information brokering. It wasn't hard to get customers if he wanted them, whisper a name here or there, pull a favor or two, maybe even make a fair trade. He became quite popular among those who came to him. Many of the cases he received revolved in some way around the war, but he did not mind.
Amidst his time at Blue Flame, he met up with his long lost friend, Tawrrowaldr. The Wookiee was reeling from his losses gained throughout the war and Shenn, though trying to be comforting to his old friend, was spurned from Tawrro who wanted to grieve alone. Shenn, dejected, allowed the Wookiee his personal space, but kept his happy-go-lucky demeanor. Simply knowing that his old friend was alive was enough for Shenn for the time being. He had faith that Tawrro would heal over time. Some months went by, and Shenn had seen less and less of the Wookiee, who likely wished to forget Shenn and everything else of his past. But, then, Tawrro appeared back in the cantina, looking for mercenary work, as usual. This time, however, he was accompanied by a young girl. Shenn was polite and distant, simply asking for her name. But when Tawrro returned again, Shenn took the opportunity to get to know the young girl named Daiya better. Tawrro, though begrudgingly accepting of this newfound attention, did appear to be healing emotionally thanks to the presence of this young child. As such, Shenn wished to get to know the girl.
He had personal reasons for getting to know her as well. Having spent away all of his younger years in war, he had never had the chance to settle and start a family of his own, a decision that would be his only real regret as time went on. Daiya, however, allowed him to show a fatherly side of himself that he hadn't known had existed, and one which he came to enjoy expressing. She was fascinated by his stories and Shenn always seemed to be able to make her laugh, which in turn made him happier than he had ever been. Though he wasn't particularly pleased that she should be doing mercenary work at her age, he never stopped Daiya from doing something that her mind wasn't set on, and he never overstepped his bounds when concerned with Tawrro. The Wookiee was still Shenn's friend, and he would respect him, whether that respect was returned or not.
Shenn had also noticed some peculiarities with the girl. It was obvious that her past had been harsh, he could see it in her eyes. But, on occasion, a blank look would come across her face, as though in thought, but entirely subconscious in nature. Sometimes, this would even occur as she was being talked to, and she would not reply right away. Shenn pondered on the cause of this, and ruled out any neurological diseases considering it did not seem to affect her actions when she was active. It was not long before he recalled, quite clearly as per his norm, the meditations of a Jedi he had served with by the name of Tyl Ro. The Jedi was practicing what she called a Force Meld. The process was highly telepathic in nature, as he understood it, and as he remembered, the look in Tyl Ro's eyes were vaguely reminiscent, though the two were of entirely different species. He decided, for the time being, that he would keep this knowledge to himself, not wanting any harm to come to the child. Shenn knew that eventually, he would have to do something about it, but, for now, he would let the girl have peace, if she could find it.
Shenn, now a gray man, with a long beard, slightly balding and a barrel gut was happy to live out his years, telling stories and teaching Daiya what he knew. Credits were steady, and he always had a roof over his head and food on his plate. Life was good for Shenn Rosham.
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