Derek Maxwell
Appearance
Derek is a solidly built man of average height with short-cut brown hair and a neatly trimmed full beard and mustache that have darkened with age, giving him a sterner look than befits his personality. Adding to his outwardly grumpy aura is his tendency to frown and furrow his brow when he is thinking, which made him seem more than a little unapproachable to his students back in his teaching days. His brown eyes are fairly unremarkable, save for the intensity one can see in them when Derek is focused (again, not helping his case). All of that isn't an issue once you actually get to know him.
Skills and Abilities
Shotgun Expert: Derek's weapon of choice, by virtue of versatility, is the shotgun. He has almost two decades of experience, much of it in combat, with shotguns, and is well acquainted with the wide array of munitions available to them and the practical applications thereof. For what it's worth, he's a very good shot with these weapons.
CQC Proficient: Like all soldiers, Derek is trained in close quarters combat techniques. For him, however, it is a must because he's rarely had the luxury of carrying the usual assortment of backup weapons in order to make room for the gear necessary for his primary occupation. He's learned to improvise with said gear if needed.
EVA Expert: Derek has actual years worth of EVA time under his belt, and is familiar with several models of spacesuit.
Zero-G Combat: He's seen plenty of it.
Drone Operation: Derek is well versed in the operation of several different types of drones used in bomb disposal, searching rubble, exploring damaged ship sections, scouting out prime locations for setting charges, and ferrying around stocks of equipment.
Mechatronics: Derek has enough knowledge and experience to repair, maintain, and fabricate some modifications to many models of drones. He can even do a little programming. What he can’t do is design, manufacture, and program (or reprogram from scratch) something as complex as a modern drone without assistance.
Demolitions Expert: Derek's specialty is safely handling tools, chemicals, and explosives with intent to deconstruct a target precisely and efficiently, or with extreme prejudice. He has two decades of commercial, industrial, and combat demolitions experience in a variety of gravity environments. As such, he has some rather unique solutions to problems solvable with explosives, chemicals, or the liberal application of physics.
Bomb Craft: Derek has all the chemical, mechanical, and electronic knowledge necessary to manufacture explosives, detonators, and associated devices with proper equipment and materials, and can fairly easily improvise something workable without.
Bomb Disposal: Far from what is presented in movies, it's actually a really simple skill to describe: You blow up the bomb with another, smaller bomb. Execution is a little trickier, but Derek knows what to do. Disarming conventional bombs by other means is extremely rare (and specific), unnecessarily dangerous, and generally not advised. The rare exceptions tend to be either nuclear or exotic.
Trap Expertise: Pirates, smugglers, privateers, and occasional other odd militants are not nice people when you board their ships and stations. Part of Demolition's job is detecting and dealing with traps before they kill soldiers and other personnel in job lots. Having seen and disassembled enough of them over the years, he could reasonably be expected to set traps himself, if the need arose.
A Nose For Contraband: A side effect of customs work, Derek is pretty good at reasoning where things people would rather conceal are stashed away. We'll just not talk about the activities of people he may or may not have known in the service possibly contributing to this knowledge. He certainly never has.
Bug Hunting: Derek has plenty of experience in locating and dealing with hidden surveillance devices, mainly as a side effect of his profession.
Bachelor's of History: Derek has a degree in history. It's been far more useful to him than you'd think.
CQC Proficient: Like all soldiers, Derek is trained in close quarters combat techniques. For him, however, it is a must because he's rarely had the luxury of carrying the usual assortment of backup weapons in order to make room for the gear necessary for his primary occupation. He's learned to improvise with said gear if needed.
EVA Expert: Derek has actual years worth of EVA time under his belt, and is familiar with several models of spacesuit.
Zero-G Combat: He's seen plenty of it.
Drone Operation: Derek is well versed in the operation of several different types of drones used in bomb disposal, searching rubble, exploring damaged ship sections, scouting out prime locations for setting charges, and ferrying around stocks of equipment.
Mechatronics: Derek has enough knowledge and experience to repair, maintain, and fabricate some modifications to many models of drones. He can even do a little programming. What he can’t do is design, manufacture, and program (or reprogram from scratch) something as complex as a modern drone without assistance.
Demolitions Expert: Derek's specialty is safely handling tools, chemicals, and explosives with intent to deconstruct a target precisely and efficiently, or with extreme prejudice. He has two decades of commercial, industrial, and combat demolitions experience in a variety of gravity environments. As such, he has some rather unique solutions to problems solvable with explosives, chemicals, or the liberal application of physics.
Bomb Craft: Derek has all the chemical, mechanical, and electronic knowledge necessary to manufacture explosives, detonators, and associated devices with proper equipment and materials, and can fairly easily improvise something workable without.
Bomb Disposal: Far from what is presented in movies, it's actually a really simple skill to describe: You blow up the bomb with another, smaller bomb. Execution is a little trickier, but Derek knows what to do. Disarming conventional bombs by other means is extremely rare (and specific), unnecessarily dangerous, and generally not advised. The rare exceptions tend to be either nuclear or exotic.
Trap Expertise: Pirates, smugglers, privateers, and occasional other odd militants are not nice people when you board their ships and stations. Part of Demolition's job is detecting and dealing with traps before they kill soldiers and other personnel in job lots. Having seen and disassembled enough of them over the years, he could reasonably be expected to set traps himself, if the need arose.
A Nose For Contraband: A side effect of customs work, Derek is pretty good at reasoning where things people would rather conceal are stashed away. We'll just not talk about the activities of people he may or may not have known in the service possibly contributing to this knowledge. He certainly never has.
Bug Hunting: Derek has plenty of experience in locating and dealing with hidden surveillance devices, mainly as a side effect of his profession.
Bachelor's of History: Derek has a degree in history. It's been far more useful to him than you'd think.
Personality
Derek is a patient and highly intelligent individual who enjoys both learning new things and the benefits of the wisdom of age, but not the experience of his increasingly obsolete knowledge in a rapidly advancing society. He has a natural bent for and enjoyment of problem solving that happens to be driven by an equally great annoyance at the problems themselves. Derek is slightly Autistic, and tends to approach everything from an often inscrutable train of thought, which can result in socially awkward situations. He is calm, even in combat, unless and until someone or something goes well out of its way to break his mental stride, and even then those concerns can be shoved aside in the face of pressing matters.
Derek has seen and done a lot in his thus-far 42 years of life, and it shows in one of the several knowing looks he has when someone younger is about to have what he calls 'A Learning Experience'. Far from being an old salt, however, he will offer advice and quiet guidance to any who are receptive to such, though he has caught himself doing 'The Lecture Thing' increasingly since he became a dad. Derek is not bothered by the presence of younger commanding officers, as this is a normal thing in the life of a specialist.
Derek has seen and done a lot in his thus-far 42 years of life, and it shows in one of the several knowing looks he has when someone younger is about to have what he calls 'A Learning Experience'. Far from being an old salt, however, he will offer advice and quiet guidance to any who are receptive to such, though he has caught himself doing 'The Lecture Thing' increasingly since he became a dad. Derek is not bothered by the presence of younger commanding officers, as this is a normal thing in the life of a specialist.
Biography
Derek graduated highschool at 18, and immediately entered college. There, he majored in History and minored in Chemistry, and graduated at the age of 22. Unlucky for him, the job market at the time had little use for history majors, and a minor in chemistry wasn't worth much to prospective employers who could pick from graduates with better specialization. With funds running low, and the lease on his apartment due to expire at the end of the month, his employment prospects, or lack thereof, did not appear to be the answer he was hoping for. Not an uncommon fate for fresh grads. Rather than beat his head against the wall that was his unlikely employment prospects and waste a month, Derek decided to enlist.
Derek entered the Streitkräfte der Gemeinschaft's Endarmee boot camp later that summer. After the aptitude test battery, and his general training was over, Derek started training in the demolitions specialization in late fall. His first deployment with the army would come in summer of the following year, where he'd end up seeing sporadic combat, both urban and open field, in the Arabian Peninsula theater. Most of the time, however, was spent with the corp of engineers; blasting away obstacles, removing traps, disposing of munitions, and acting as security for non-combat specialists.
From there, Derek would serve for just shy of two years with the Endarmee before being scooped up by the Erde Marine branch of the Leerzeichen Befehl der Gemeinschft (the GDW's space command), and doing training to be a space marine. Almost a year later, at the age of 26, Derek saw his first deployment as a space marine: with customs at Chretien station in Earth orbit. A year later, he would go on to serve in an anti-piracy capacity aboard multiple system patrol cruisers as he was slowly transferred out-system, with brief stops at stations along the way.
At age 29, Derek found himself operating out of Magnuski Station in the Silbern system. He would join system patrol cruisers for anti-piracy patrols, and perform customs work close to Magnuski between ship tours. It was here that Derek would end up forming a serious relationship with Francesca De Santis, a brilliant young engineer whom he'd encountered briefly a year prior back in Sol. It wouldn't be long before the two were married, and their daughter, Lucia, was born 'suspiciously soon' after according to their more traditional family members. Derek's priorities shifted, and he began spending time with his family every chance he got.
Unfortunately for Derek, smuggling, piracy, and privateer raids were trending steadily upward in frequency and scope. He began to find leaves were much harder to schedule, while combat became worryingly frequent. Some crews and bands they were encountering now were strangely well prepared, with better equipment, arms, and even training evident. As time went on, the usage frequency, density per AO, sophistication, and designed lethality of traps would suddenly escalate from time to time. Things even took a turn for the ridiculous one fine day, and Derek ended up riding back to base aboard an enemy Q-Ship.
After completion of an extended leave following The Q-Ship Incident, Derek found himself promoted to Warrant Officer, and assigned to an instructor posting on Magnuski Station. After four years of this, he was poached to do shipbreaking by the local shipyard master aboard Otto Station. He held this post until retirement earlier this year, where he simultaneously turned down a second stint as instructor.
Derek entered the Streitkräfte der Gemeinschaft's Endarmee boot camp later that summer. After the aptitude test battery, and his general training was over, Derek started training in the demolitions specialization in late fall. His first deployment with the army would come in summer of the following year, where he'd end up seeing sporadic combat, both urban and open field, in the Arabian Peninsula theater. Most of the time, however, was spent with the corp of engineers; blasting away obstacles, removing traps, disposing of munitions, and acting as security for non-combat specialists.
From there, Derek would serve for just shy of two years with the Endarmee before being scooped up by the Erde Marine branch of the Leerzeichen Befehl der Gemeinschft (the GDW's space command), and doing training to be a space marine. Almost a year later, at the age of 26, Derek saw his first deployment as a space marine: with customs at Chretien station in Earth orbit. A year later, he would go on to serve in an anti-piracy capacity aboard multiple system patrol cruisers as he was slowly transferred out-system, with brief stops at stations along the way.
At age 29, Derek found himself operating out of Magnuski Station in the Silbern system. He would join system patrol cruisers for anti-piracy patrols, and perform customs work close to Magnuski between ship tours. It was here that Derek would end up forming a serious relationship with Francesca De Santis, a brilliant young engineer whom he'd encountered briefly a year prior back in Sol. It wouldn't be long before the two were married, and their daughter, Lucia, was born 'suspiciously soon' after according to their more traditional family members. Derek's priorities shifted, and he began spending time with his family every chance he got.
Unfortunately for Derek, smuggling, piracy, and privateer raids were trending steadily upward in frequency and scope. He began to find leaves were much harder to schedule, while combat became worryingly frequent. Some crews and bands they were encountering now were strangely well prepared, with better equipment, arms, and even training evident. As time went on, the usage frequency, density per AO, sophistication, and designed lethality of traps would suddenly escalate from time to time. Things even took a turn for the ridiculous one fine day, and Derek ended up riding back to base aboard an enemy Q-Ship.
After completion of an extended leave following The Q-Ship Incident, Derek found himself promoted to Warrant Officer, and assigned to an instructor posting on Magnuski Station. After four years of this, he was poached to do shipbreaking by the local shipyard master aboard Otto Station. He held this post until retirement earlier this year, where he simultaneously turned down a second stint as instructor.
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