Corsair Benitez Family

This is a player faction. For the affiliated NPC faction, see Corsairs

UNDER CONSTRUCTION --Carlos Benitez 11:17, 21 March 2009 (MDT)

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The Benitez are a Corsair faction that plays a significant role in the politics, defence and management of the Corsair nation. An adoptive crime-family, the Benitez are ruled by a "Don" normally descended from the original Benitez bloodline. Often concerned with special operations, smuggling, espionage and diplomacy, the Benitez have a smaller but no less significant role in the defence of Corsair territory and front-line warfare.

The History of the Familia

The Hispania

The Story of the Corsairs began on the Sleeper ship, the Hispania. Sabotaged by one of the passengers, 4 out of the ship's 6 engines where almost completely destroyed.

Automatically, the Sleeper Ship's inhabitants where woken from their stasis. Panic took over. Arguments arose, and suspicion between the passengers was rife. The identity of the saboteur remained a mystery. Managing to obtain order, our ancestor, Santigo Miguel Alvarez (the first) managed to obtain order persuaded the rest of the passengers that it would be best to return to stasis and wait for the Ship to find its way to some kind of suitable planet.

A shudder, and the passengers awoke. The ship had detected planets. Looking out of the windows, 3 where visible. One, an ice moon, the other lacking any real atmosphere was instantly rejected by the ship's computer due to high radiation levels. One remained, a desolate world of Mountain peaks and fields of ash. The ship did it's scans. The people waited. Then the report came;

"Atmosphere can support life." The passengers breathed a sigh of relief as the computer continued it's report. "Planet lacks enough arable land to support a population this size. Hazards include dust storms and volcanic activity."......they waited..."Planet deemed unsuitable for colonisation." Mayhem broke out once again. Should they land and try to begin a settlement there, or should they move on? Some argued that they may not come across another inhabitable planet, others argued that they would starve if they landed on the one they had found. Unable to calm the passengers, Santigo-Miguel Alvarez engaged the engines of the Hispania. The engines shuddered, and the computer cut in, stopping the ship. "Warning, fuel level critical. Current fuel reserves will only be enough to provide 1 short burn". The news caused many arguing passengers to change their views on landing. No consensus was reached, and eventually around half of the group made for the escape pods. The rest remained on the ship. Many of the Alvarez family chose to leave. Santigo-Miguel stayed with his vessel. The pods fell towards the planet, through its atmosphere, crash-landing on an ash field on the planet's southern hemisphere. Those who remained on the ship decided that they would burn the remaining fuel, and use the momentum to drift to another system. In the dark sky of the planet, a bright light sped through the heavens, before fading, and going out, as a faint outline of a huge object drifted out of sight.

Planet Crete

Over the next fifty years, the settlers battled with famine, and over half died out. Their children continued to farm the little arable land on the planet they had named "Crete" but marooned on such a desolate and bleak planet, the suffering continued for many generations. The settlers became resentful and jealous of those who had remained on the ship. They began to believe that perhaps even death in empty space would be preferable to the purgatory of Planet Crete. This attitude caused many changes within the settlers. As the family of the "drifters" leader Santigo-Miguel Alvarez, the Alvarez "settlers" where persecuted, even accused of being the ones who sabotaged the Hispania in the first place. The Alvarez settlers changed their name, and became the honourable family Benitez.

Lacking the resources to build ships, the settlers became resigned to the fact they may be stranded on the hell of Crete forever, but eventually, after 400 years, something came that changed their fate forever.

Franz Schulman

Financed by the Rhineland Government and Daumann, the explorer Franz Schulman was dispatched to the great unexplored expanse of the Walker Nebula. His exploration ship eventually stumbled across a bleak planet of ash and mountains. To his surprise, his scanner picked up life.

His landing party was met by a group of apparently savage humans. All of them where killed, except for Schulman himself. The settlers had, sensing an opportunity to break out of their ashen prison, attacked the party and taken Schulman hostage.

Bargaining took place over Schulman's communicator, and a the settlers negotiated their way on board the exploration vessel. Using hidden weapons, they took the remainder of the exploration team by surprise, and took over the ship. They left no survivors, and after Schulman was tortured and revealed the details of how to fly the ship, he was also killed.

The settlers used the ship to explore the surrounding systems, and to bring back supplies to the people trapped on Crete. Eventually, enough metal was obtained to build more ships, in a similar style, and they began to mine fields of resources in the system, bringing back their loot and taking it to Crete.

Eventually, they stumbled across a mysterious jump hole in their system. The ship was attacked by strange creatures, but the settlers managed to fight them off. They obtained strange objects...alien objects.

It was around this time they discovered a space station in a neighbouring system, belonging to a group of traders calling themselves "Zoners". The relationship between the Zoners and Settlers of Crete thrived, and trade lead to living conditions on Crete improving dramatically.

The Zoners had food to trade, and soon the Settlers had enough food to sustain a larger population.

The Outcasts and Corsairs

The settler ships explored further, and eventually came across another group of humans...speaking in Spanish accents. The settlers destroyed the ships they found, resentful of the drifters for leaving them to suffer for 400 years. The drifters had a new name now though, they called themselves "The Outcasts".

The Settler's expanded further, eventually constructing a space station of their own, Tripoli. Exploration teams came back with more alien artefacts, and it became a right of passage for a young pilot to venture towards the mysterious alien jump hole and bring back an Artefact.

The Settler's then stumbled across something else...a huge civilisation, with hundreds of ships, settled planetary paradises (in comparison to Crete) and lanes linking all their many outposts. Their noisy comm chat revealed they where the people of the sleeper ship Bretonia.

The settlers began hostile actions against these Bretonians, raiding their ships and taking their cargo for the benefit of the people of Crete and Tripoli. 50 years after Schulman's hijack, the settlers had earned a new identity; the Corsairs.

The Empire

Inspired by the wonders they had seen, the Corsairs became determined to live like the Bretonians, and the Rheinlanders that where discovered soon after. Not just like them, they wanted more.

The Corsairs ploughed their resources into ship research and manufacture, as well as constructing more stations across the desolate Omega systems. Their ships became the scourge of all traders in Bretonia and Rheinland alike, and soon Hunters from Liberty found their way into Corsair space, after pirate blood. They were no match for Corsair technology, and never provided more than a minor nuisance to the growing Corsair civilisation. An Empire of Crime began to form.

As the Benitez developed into one of the most significant crime families within the Corsair Empire, a democratic leadership was formed. Separate from the Senate of representatives that ruled Crete, the Benitez set up their own assembly to co-ordinate the efforts of the family of crime, ruled democratically by representatives of the highest level of respect within the familia, and presided over by the respected leader of the familia; a patriarchal Commandante sworn to serve the welfare and interests of his familia above all else. Thus, the Benitez Council of Elders was formed.

The Creatures of the jump hole infiltrated the house systems, but it mattered not to the Corsairs. The Houses nearly destroyed each other, but the Corsairs didn't care, after all, did they ever go to find the lost people of Hispania? Did they send out search parties to rescue the people of Crete from the suffering and torment? No. After 100 years living by the Alien jump hole, the Corsairs knew how to deal with the creatures. They would simply wait for the Houses to be destroyed, then move in and create a Corsair Empire. It was not to be.

The Order

A group of men and women from Liberty arrived on Crete with a proposition for the Corsairs. They where a secret group formed to fight the alien infiltrators. They offered Liberty Battleship technology. The Corsairs had never built anything bigger than a gunboat before then. In exchange, the group who called themselves the "Order" wanted the Corsairs to design a Battleship with the finesse and skill only Corsair ship builders had, and use it to hold back the nomad infiltration of Sirius.

After many months of work at Tripoli, Osiris class battleships rolled out of the spacedocks of Tripoli. The Order, satisfied with the effort, returned through the nomad jumphole and where not heard from again for some time. Meanwhile, Corsair engineers, thanks to the technology given by the Order, designed new classes of ships inspired by Corsair art and engineering.

News came from the colonies a year later that the aliens had been driven out. The Corsairs didn't care, they where content to continue their piracy and perhaps one day move against the Outcasts traitors, Liberty and Bretonian deserters and Rheinland scum, and build the Corsair empire across the stars.

An envoy from the Order returned years later, this time with a proposal for an alliance. The Council of Elders agreed, and pledged the power of new Corsair fleets to assist the Order in holding back the Nomad scourge and preventing further incursion.

Years on, the Benitez continue to be a significant part of the nation, with seats on the Council of Elders, and administrative powers over the Corsair territory and bases in the newly developed Omicron-94 system.

Benitez Diplomacy

Allied

• The Brotherhood
• Omega Pirates Guild
• Nature's Last hope
• The Order
• All Corsairs
• Artisan Farmers Alliance
• Black Dragon Society

Friendly

• Colonial Remnant
• Temporary Autonomous Zoners
• The Junker Consortium
• Zoner's consortium

Neutral

• Phantoms
• The Angels
• Kusari Naval Forces
• Kusari State Police
• Independant Miners Guild
• Zoner's consortium

Unfriendly

• Interspace Neuralnet Division
• Landwirtrechtbewegung
• Lane Hackers
• King of Fighters
• Liberty Police Incorporated
• Liberty Security Force
• Xeno Alliance
• Liberty Rogues
• Volksfront
• Alster Union

Hostile

• Rheinalnd Military
• Rheinland Federal Police
• Bretonian Armed Forces
• Bretonian Police Authority
• Liberty Navy
• Hellfire Legion
• Nova Power Gen
• Hessian Tears
• Red Hessian Army
• Republican Express Corp
• Sirius Coalition Revolutionary Army
• The Mandalorians
• Wilde
• Molly Republic
• The Keepers (Nomads)
• The Golden Crysanthemums
• Mandolorian Mercenaries
• Gateway Interstellar
• Bowex
• The Search/Destroy Agency

Fiercely Hostile

• The Outcast Guard [101st]
• Reapers Of Sirius
• Shadow Outcast Brigade
• All Outcasts