CAO Yezod Hershwitz

The Magnate's Story

Yezod Hershwitz glanced at his notes, then up at the holographic projections hovering over his desk. His face was a mask of simple attentiveness - only deep inside his mind was something screaming. He cleared his throat.

"Just to make sure that we are completely on the same page on this project, sir, could you go over the final target once again?" he asked.

"The final target," rumbled Merchant Lord Zorden, "is to access maximum resources from the planet during the envisioned time frame, while maintaining its status as a viable world desirable to the Vaylen. Your job is to facilitate transfer of those resources off-world to places in the League that can make better use of them, while maintaining the illusion that we're rebuilding. Eventually, if everyone does their job, the Vaylen will hit Nova Sparta again and the League will have warning that they are on the move without losing one of our more valuable worlds."

"I understand," Hershwitz scrolled through the report on his desk rapidly, then looked up again. "I've been reviewing the initial resource analysis and I don't see anything allocated for evactuation."

"Don't worry Hershwitz," Zorden said with a faint chuckle, "if you check your personal resource allocation - page 388 chart B - you'll see that we've allocated a ship for your personal use. When the time comes you and your staff can evacuate. We aren't going to leave you hanging."

"That's good to hear, sir, but I was asking about the evacuation of the population."

There was silence, broken only by the faintest of hums from the holographic projectors.

Somewhere deep down in a corner of his mind, something coldly analytical was reviewing the situation in logical terms. Nova Sparta was too exposed, and too badly damaged to be successfully defended. Stripping it of its resources made sense in the context of the larger economic picture. Using it as a tripwire to absorb the initial brunt of the next Vaylen offensive made sense in the larger strategic picture. Evacuating the population would hinder both these worthy goals. But another part of his mind saw only people - people by the millions - being enslaved and hulled by the victorious Vaylen when the planet fell.

He could still walk away from this. A part of him urged him, begged him to do so. But another part of him thought of those millions of people, living their lives on Nova Sparta, going about their business, not knowing that light years away in a corporate boardroom men and women they had never seen were deciding to feed them to the worms. Yeshvod knew that he was only one man, and there was a limit to what one man could do - but when that one man was CAO of an entire planet his reach became fairly long. Nova Sparta was lost - but perhaps not all its people need be. If he took the position he might be able to get some of them out - maybe only a few, but wasn't that better than leaving them all?

Hershwitz had never been a soldier, and he was brave primarily in an intellectual sense rather than a personal one. But he had grown up and spent most of his career in the communal Thorden Bloc, and his personal and political instincts told him that people mattered more than the bottom line. If he didn't take the job, it would change nothing - the League would just find someone else to do it, and it would still get done. If he did take the job, however, he might be able to make a difference. How big a difference, it was impossible to tell.

Hershwitz looked levelly at the holographic displays, and allowed his face to assume its best "subordinate gratitude" expression.

"The project sounds intriguing, sir. I look forward to carrying it forward to fruition," he said. Years of diction training kept the quaver completely out of his voice.

* * *

Hershwitz has been planetary CAO for ten years now. He got off to a bad start when some of his attempts at planetary economic reform almost collapsed the economy altogether. Since then he has developed something of a reputation as a bland nonentity to most. He does, however, have a very favorable reputation among the slave and serf class, as he has worked to regulate the slave trade (though he has not managed to eliminate it) and ease working conditions somewhat. Aside from that and an interest in education, he mostly leaves the day to day affairs of the planet under the care of subordinates and concentrates on the "big picture".

A few people know that Hershwitz has some sort of ties to organzed crime on the planet. His name comes up every few years in some kind of tabloid expose, but nothing ever comes of it and most just assume that its typical political corruption at work.

Still, ten years of living on a powder keg, waiting for it to explode, are enough to try the soul of any man. If Hershwitz has any additonal ambitions or plans, he keeps them mostly to himself.

Background

(GM'S NOTE: since I can't find anything in the rules that requires me to make FoN character sheets public, I am not going to for the time being. I will, however, make public stuff about the FoNs and other NPCs that would be public knowledge.)

Lifepaths:

• Born Citizen
• Student
• Instructor
• Local Official
• Legislative Official
• Diplomat
• Financier
• Magnate
• Chief Executive

Age: 58

He has affiliations with the Merchant League and a Reputation as planetary governor. He is known to be friends with the First Speaker of the Psychologist Foundation.

He has two pieces of property that are publicly known. The first is Prosperity Station, which is a space station where most of the League government business gets done. Access is restricted to League government personnel only, and everyone there is closely monitored. (Yep, he owns it - one of the perks of being CAO is that you can kick the government off your space station if you want to!) The second are his offices/residence on Nova Sparta, which are smaller, but also heavily guarded and monitored.

Yezod has a personal shuttle, and a bodyguard/pilot who takes him around.

Beliefs

• "Nova Sparta is lost."
• "Saving some is better than saving none."
• "I cannot trust others."

Instincts

• "Refuse the Connection."
• "Lie to the League about everyone else — and to everyone else about the League."
• "Help the helpless."

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