Origins of CMDR Terrorfirma - part 1
06 Oct 2016Terrorfirma
TERROR! TERROR! TERRORfirma, not TERRAfirma! How many times have I regretted choosing that as my CMDR call-sign name? How many times have people totally botched it, misheard it, changed it?
My real name is Terrance Fermin. I was born to refugee parents fleeing one war torn system after another, caught in the advancing ravages of war and local conflicts. We claimed next to nothing as our own, only what we carried on our backs, wandering from station to station in the human colonized bubble of space, without a home. I never knew the security of standing on solid ground. I never had a home planet where I could feel the soil beneath my feet and its strength and security. The play on words of my callsign originates from this origin. I am not Terrafirma (which means Solid Ground), but Terrorfirma. My life has been one of cold ships and dirty stations mixed with fear, anger and uncertainty. I stand on little more than my fears.
People began calling me "Terror" rather than my given name at an early age. It may have been because I was a confused unruly child or because I was fearful of the cold unloving world outside the protection of my family. I used to like to think it was because I had a slow burning rage. I had a rage which wanted to unleash terror upon those who dumped this misery upon my family and mankind as I knew it!
My parents worked hard every day of their lives. Both of them were tireless, dedicated backwater station workers. They wanted a better life for me and saved every credit they earned through a lifetime of legitimate hard work. It was the horrible working conditions and the foolish negligence of others that brought them to an end, not their tireless vision and dedication to do what was right and work hard in spite of their oppression. When I was but 19 earth years old, my father and mother both passed away in what the station outfitting manager called an "unfortunate accident".
My mother and father were both working on the installation of a turreted beam laser for a visiting Anaconda. They were skilled installers in the shipyard's outfitting department, but their supervisor considered himself an "engineer" of sorts. He wanted them to tweak the energy output while he made modifications that he was unqualified to work on. The resulting explosion tore a huge hole in the 'conda and killed my parents outright.
I was training to be a station-to-surface shuttle pilot at the time of my parent's deaths. I got word of their demise via a local public Galnet broadcast beamed to the surface of the cold airless world where I was working. Impersonal. Official. Cold as the space outside of my shuttle. They were gone.
I discovered as I filled out official paperwork, that mom and dad had left me the rights to a small trade ship. It was only a Sidewinder which was minimally outfitted. Apparently, the small amount of money they had saved, gave them the usage rights to this tiny ship. It was not mine outright, but under a loan agreement assigned to my name. It was my one chance. Even as small as this little ship was it had the ability to do something I had never been able to do in my shuttle training. It could jump out of system! It had a Frameshift Drive! I took the opportunity to leave that nameless station and system. I don’t even remember where the location of my parents death was anymore. I think it might have been a small platform in a system near Gidzenko Ring - Federation territory. But I am not sure anymore. That was another life a long time ago. It did not matter anyway. I was done with that place.
So, I set out seeking a way to start anew. I immediately applied to the Pilots Federation as a privately registered pilot. I chose the CMDR name Terrorfirma because it represented the only ground I had ever stood on. Solid firm Terror.. not the sweet solid soil on a pleasant Earth-like world. I vowed to never set foot on any solid atmospheric planet until I found a way to change this horrible society that brought me up in misery and fear. As soon as I could earn enough credits as a pilot I would sell my interest in this loaned sidewinder and get a ship of my own!