The big ugly monster pod in my Phoenix, well, he's a brute. He pisses me off. Why do I anthropomorphize my pods? Some people would chalk it up to superstition, or pilot tradition, or something of that caliber. Me? Umm, yeah. Well, see, there's this thing. A while back I went on an ill-advised jaunt to unknown space, because I thought I was hot stuff. Well, for my trouble, I got beat up on and got my head caved in by some big ugly flux. Killed the pinkos. A lot of them actually. It's like, my job, y'know? But they got me good. Well, my friend, at least I think she's a friend; Aelagi. She wrote a lil tale about my outing, called "Ellipse". She has a pretty turn of phrase, I think. Almost as prosaic as I am, prolly - but anyway. She tells all about it. I'm rambling again, aren't I? Squaddies still swear I'm touched in the head. But they're not far from the truth, really. I have a small computer in my head. A cyborg interface. By Amananth standards, it's not too fancy. Doesn't give me an "edge" or anything. Well, maybe a little. Sim with me one time and see... but anyway. I hate rambling. Drives me crazy. But as my mom used to say... It's isn't that long of a drive, is it? Bah. Regardless. It did weird things to my ship computers. I have these tiny silicon transfer points in my fingertips that let me "talk" directly to the ship's computer. I ... umm ... "developed" the ability to do it without touching, now, too. How? Damned if I know. I don't really want to know. It's weird. You know how some people talk about voices in their head? Heh. I can tell you some whoppers, my man. TALL tales. Except, well, they aren't. Kinda sucks.

Anyhoo. Again. I *do* ramble, don't I? Chalk it up to one too many pod rides and shaddup, k? Aight, thanks. SO. When I "talk" to these computers. It started going both ways. They picked up on things. Parts of my personality. You ever talked to yourself? There's some things about yourself that just tick you off occasionally, right? Heh, well, umm. All 3 piss me off. Badly. Take Galileo, for example. He's my brutish, slightly snobby, can do no wrong Fighter computer. He's a pain in my butt. Sounds kinda like me when I get cocky, actually. I HATE cocky people. I don't like the damn mirror at times, by the way. But yeah, moving on. He's good, though. He anticipates things - he learns. Ever wish you had a co-pilot? It's cool. Except when he pisses me off and tells me what to do - as I'm doing it. Snobby bugg... nevermind. You get the picture. Aristotle! Oh man what a bookworm. Smart as a whip, too. Except he's *always* got to be right, darn him. I hate the mirror. Man I hate the mirror. He mostly gets used for arty hunting, which is beneath his oh so high and elevated station and... sorry. It makes him mad. Poor baby. It's one way to stave off the boredom though. Every so often I take him out for a spin and play with phocs, though. That's fun. Fast lil bugger, I'll give him that. Heh, Harvey. I swear to you, I do *not* pick their names. I would never be a "Harvey". Oh Lord. But god help me, I like the bugger. He's a loudmouthed curmudgeon who's stingy as can be. But I love him. He likes arty hunting too. Take that Aristotle! Ha. Sorry. I almost like him. Until he acts like a stingy Sol with only 50 credits to rub together. Jerk. So! Welcome to my lovely digital family. Heh. Yay.

So, basically, I have a top-of the line AI in every ship I fly, with a central database that updates every version to each other every 30 seconds. Cool stuff. I never get hacked either. HA! A shot in the arm for security. What are the odds of getting hacked with 12 advanced AI's and an artifact Amananth contruct riding herd on my system defense? Not bloody likely, says I. Man, I need to stop rambling. You try writing with people talking to you inside your head. Bloody distracting. I get a real-time spell-checker for my trouble though. Bloody whoopee. I think I'm rambling again. I suspect by this point, I'm doing it solely to piss off Aristotle, too. So humor me? He's funny when he gets upset. He splutters. I'm sure you have never heard an AI splutter - but trust me - it's hilarious.

So. Here I am, trying to ride herd on a 3 toed monkey of a programmer that's updating the command center, right? I get that straightened out. I tell him - "you need to pull the data from *this* database, not the bloody personnel files. Not everyone wants to read bogomips' duty log, k? We all know she can kill hordes of flux with two hands tied behind her back, and that the triple phocs are just, oh, so boring, anymore. That's nice. But you know what, Mr. 3 toed monkey programmer? That does *not* go on the front page of the feed. Know what I mean?" Programmers. Can't do a friggin thing with them. So, that emergency taken care of, I go back to work on paperwork. Tons of paperwork. I need a clone, Jeeves. Send him right over, and be a good chap, what? I wish. Paperwork. I have to fly, too. Cool beans. So, having shrunk the Cinatai mountain peak of paperwork down to mere hillock size, I go over my personal nest egg. Investments, supplies, procurement, systems functionality checks, financial briefs. The works. Ah, the wonders of joining the "high-speed" world of interstellar commerce. I own a Solrain shipping firm supplying the stations - not one of the big jobbies - just a small independent outfit that was looking for an out-faction backer. Seems they ran into some problems with overhead and the vaunted Solrain beauracracy was about to dump them on their ear. I bailed them out, and they get to wave the flag of "neutral, un-aligned shipping". I make bloody well sure they *stay* neutral, too. Factionalism is a headache I have no desire to tangle with. Patriotic? Sure. Blindly serving your fction's interests at the expense of the Reconstruction? Nah. Don't get me wrong. I have nothing against Factionalism. But to each his own. There's plenty of em going around. Somebody has to be bloody neutral, or inter-factional commerce would grind to a halt, eventually. Your eyes are glazing over, Ensign. Ah, an Oct. Good man. Carry on.

Where was I? Oh yes. Finances taken care of. Now for a little personal time. Tend to my artifact hoard, sell the pieces I'm not intending on using. Assemble the pieces I need for a truly kickin ship. All I'm missing is an AB-4, now. Eh, it'll come. That's a side business, if a lucrative one. I'm not flashy. I don't hang out my shingle. Not a bit. I get everything I want - and sell whatever's left over. Or I buy cheap, sell high. Whatever. I made enough to get comfortable on. That's about it. The rest is going towards my next project. A station. An eight-module hummer. Want to hear about it? Too bad. Cause I don't know a stinkin thing about the buggers yet. I know what everyone else knows - except the people that field tested em. Buggers. Oh well. Forget em. I'll get mine too. I'm just tired of living on the fly. GBS is as close to a home as I have. Even that isn't the same though. I'm stealing my flight crew from there, though. Bwahahaha. I might hire away that junior dispatcher, too. He's got a good handle on traffic, from what I've seen. He bought me a drink after the Battle of GBS, too. Good guy. Night bartender might move, also. We are seriously going to strip GBS of staff. Oh well. Let ISU hire some new ones. They've about taken over the bloody place by now anyway. Our whole old guard will ship over to our POS network when it comes online. Hope ISU realizes that, and is starting to look for new hires. Heck, I might help em. I still want to stop by the old stomping ground occasionally.

So, now that I've introduced myself, and gave you a little taste of the life. Well, my life isn't exactly the "standard". I'll tell you that up front. I'm ummm... flamboyant? But hey, welcome to the life of your eccentric Air Group Commander - in our parlance? The CAG. That rambling introduction was a bit of briefing, a bit of humorous background. I'll try not to go off on so many tangents from here on in. Let me straighten up and become an officer. Welcome to New Dawn, ladies and gents. The biggest, boldest, and brightest squadron in TRI. We fight Conflux, my friends. You know that. Some of you have done it already, and I sincerely hope you'll keep on doing it. Because you are now on the front lines of the most important war humanity's fought. We've made contact with two non-human races - the first was the Amananthii. Some will tell you they're not to be trusted. In this squadron, I'm here to tell you - Amananth and New Dawn have quite a history now. Probably more history with us then any other squadron in existence. We were *there* at the first Sentient incursion in Amananth space, and we've been at more than we can count, now. Dr. Qson? The one you see in the news every other week? That's our closest friend in TRI. No joke, no lie. She's an honorary member of this squadron, we protect her like she's one of our own, and she's the best ally to have. She hunts Conflux with us, for us, and we return the favor. It's what we do.

A short history lesson. We started out out in a group called TRA. The Ripstar Alliance. We started as a pro-Octavian Squad, but eventually became embroiled in the great Civil war with Cruentius Legio and OEC. Bitter times, massive battles, and we were decidedly aggressive then. If someone calls you a "carebear" because you fly with New Dawn? Laugh. That's all. Laugh. We're fighter pilots. We just fight a different war now. The most important one. Remember that. Always remember that. We may tow, we may mine, we may hunt artifacts. But we're fighter pilots. We're not the bloody military. We're better. But I digress. Yeah yeah, I know. I said I wasn't going to. Oh well. So back to the reason I told you this. Sometimes we may have to fight to preserve our battle lines. The occasional ne'erdowell, pirate, rogue, thrill seeker... we get all kinds. Don't be surprised when we do. Every so often we have to rattle the saber when someone decides to force our hand. Yeah, it sucks. But you gotta protect your squadmates.

So what do all of our ranks mean? Well, there's a brief outline of them in the Rank Matrix. The link is on the forums, (and on the squad page....) if you're curious. Here's the "unofficial" version. Falcon is "The Boss". He started this thing, and he's been around forever. Honestly? I joined New Dawn shortly after TRA broke up and Falcon decided to make New Dawn an "all-flux" squad. I've never been anything but a fluxer. I think I'm #2 on the seniority list, closely followed by ZeroZ95. Havik, AvengeND, Vengy, and Darkcloud get runners up. (There's more to the origins of New Dawn itself - we were around before TRI - but that's another story - and a bit long to tell here. But as far as actual time of service in ND, overall, James, Falcon, and Vengy were there at the beginning, and I was not too far after - Havik was a few months behind me. So in case you were wondering, there ya go. I'll tell that story later.) I'm digressing again. Neato. The CAG stands for Commander, Air Group, like I said above. In TRI, there's nothing but air, so that implies that we have other interests - frankly? TRI has nothing to do with that, so we'll leave that out. (I'll tell that in the other story, too.) It's an old rank - Falcon used to have that rank, actually. New Dawn's original founder's name is DeathGiver. He was the first Commander, I was the second, but I never felt quite comfortable outranking Falcon. He deserves the job. So, he is New Dawn's 3rd Commander. At present, I'm loosely the "2nd in command". In TRI terms, that means not a thing. I actually recently resigned my "Fleet Command" spot to actually do my job I've been neglecting. But I'll leave that for storytime #2 as well. Fleet Command. That is a TRI specific ranking, and as TRI is the only portion of space we are currently active in, officially, they're the head honchos. Their word is law, ladies and gents. They make policy, break it, adjust it, and give the orders. They're there to keep New Dawn running smoothly, and within it's charter as the premier Conflux fighting force in TRI space. Falcon's orders are on top, then Fleet Command. Your Fleet Commanders are ZeroZ95, Havik, and Kelvar.

Next up are the =Huntmasters=. We haven't gone on a proper hunt in a while. Way back when, we'd get in large groups and hunt as a team. With a quick nod to our appreciably improved skills and reputation from those times, we seldom find a need for such an endeavor. Your Huntmasters serve several roles, though. Firstly - They are all good trainers. They can teach anyone to hunt anything. They know all the "tricks of the trade" backwards and forwards. They can lead one of the aforementioned hunts smoothly, and with extreme predjudice. Secondly - They are also officers. In the absence of Fleet Commanders, they are the ranking officer when on duty. They know what they're doing, so if they tell you something, likely they havea good reason for it, y'know? Thirdly - They are diplomats. They have the authority to speak for New Dawn in regards to NAPs, Problems that occur with other pilots, misunderstandings, and the like. We appreciate their help - a lot. Fourthly - they are much like our Colonels, in wartime. We're quite a large group sometimes, and Generals/Admirals (Fleet Commanders) need to delegate things to people with proven track records of getting things done. They have lots of experience, and have been with New Dawn quite a while.

Now for =Specialists=. A relatively new rank. If you're familiar with Warrant Officers, you know that they aren't *quite* officers, but not enlisted, either. They're our core of "go-to" guys. Special Forces, in a way. They're good hunters, quick thinkers, and good at finding solutions to tricky situations. When we need a name off the top of our heads to do something important, that's who we call first, usually. It's still largely a definition in progress at this point. Partially a reward for dedicated service, and partially to give us a pool of seasoned vets to pull from in time-critical situations. They may be in charge of you for certain operations, usually on a temporary basis.