Ranger Lufa Caldoni
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WARNING! THIS FILE CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR UP TO THE MID FIFTH SEASON! WARNING!
Full Name: Lufa Caldoni.
Rank/Position: Currently a Ranger (first level) and First Officer.
Physical Description: 19 years old, 5'6", small-boned, skinny, delicate features. He has a smattering of freckles across his upturned nose and his flaming red-orange hair-crest is cut short so it won't be in his way. His fangs are on the long side and very sharp--a startling thing to see on such an otherwise "innocent"-looking face.
He has rather fluttery, "nervous" mannerisms--but what other people mistake for nervousness is actually brought on by an overabundance of energy--he's HYPER!!!
He has an almost British-sounding accent, but with a Centauri rolled "r" and slight lisp, when he talks.
Personality: Hyperactive, well-meaning, intelligent, with a witty, uproarious sense of humour and a sense of style that's a bit TOO fancy and decadent even for a Centauri. Seems to be happy-go-lucky and easygoing on the outside, but that is just covering his deep inner sadness. Sometimes prone to bouts of depression and is very moody and philosophical for his young age.
Loyalties/Alignment: To his loved ones, first, then to the Rangers, and then the Centauri Republic AS A WHOLE, but NOT the Emperor. He believes that NO one person should have THAT much power. In general, his loyalties tend to side with individuals as opposed to large organisations.
Relationships: His only living blood relative (barring a few distant cousins) is that wimpy, foofy, nervous little "No-Name Minister Dude" who eventually becomes the Regent.
(I realise that supposedly the Regent is given a name in a fifth-season episode, but I haven't seen it yet, so I made up a name for him here. Deal with it.)
Background: Okay, first thing you gotta understand, for any of you newbies out there who might be confused, is that Lufa is my OWN character. So don't expect to see him on the show, he is completely out of my own deranged head. And now that we've gotten that out of the way, ON to our STORY!
Lufa was just another random noble strutting the streets of Kiro City, the capitol of Centauri Prime, in the year 2259, when he was only 16. The city was packed full of power-hungry Lords, Ladies, Ministers, Senators, and more, all lurking as close to the Royal Palace as possible in order to suck up to the throne. So there was not much to distinguish Lufa, or his family, from the rest of the pack. House Caldoni's only "claim to fame" was that one of their members was in the Imperial Cabinet of Ministers--the Emperor's personal advisers, and DIRECTLY beneath him, save the Prime Minister. SOUNDS very prestigious, doesn't it? But everyone who counted KNEW that Minister Caldoni had only gotten his job because almost nobody in the family could STAND him, and they had been willing to do ANYTHING to get him out of their hair. Including heavily bribe the Imperial Record-Keeper to alter the records and get him hired--as a "clerical error!" He was far too nervous and wimpy--and nice--to have gotten such a high rank the NORMAL way...blackmailing, backstabbing, poisoning, you know, the usual
House Caldoni lived a basically peaceful, quiet, boring life of luxury. But on October 15, 2259, (Earth time, obviously) all of that changed...
On this particular evening, the new, young Emperor, Cartagia, whom everyone had thought of as a mere puppet for the whims of the TRULY dangerous people behind the throne, decided to test his new powers for the first time--and showed everyone just how dangerous HE was in the process.
HOW did he choose to do this?
By picking four mansions at random along the riverfront at the bottom of the hill that the Royal Palace sat on--of which the main lodging of the extended family of House Caldoni was one--and telling his soldiers to "Burn those to the ground. They're obstructing my view. And kill EVERYONE inside, while you're at it!"
For NO reason at all!
Shocked beyond belief but even MORE frightened at what might happen to THEM if they disobeyed, the soldiers did just that.
That night, almost the entire Caldoni family, except for a few distant cousins who live way out on far-flung islands (no, not Celini!), were ALL at the manor house. They were having a traditional family dinner. The only two NOT there were the Minister--who was working late at his office in the Royal Palace--and Lufa Caldoni, who was at a play.
Now, the frightened little Minister did NOT learn about this disaster in time to prevent it, but he DID hear things, being in the Royal Palace, and by the time it was rather late at night he knew what was going on. He realised he couldn't save any of the others, but he DID manage to snag Lufa from out of the shadows RIGHT before he went in the front door. He then took Lufa back to his office at the Royal Palace and tried to think of a way to hide him, because he thought, not without cause, that Emperor Cartagia had decided to make a vendetta against his entire family. How was HE to know that four Houses had been completely wiped out that night on a WHIM? The average person has a hard time thinking like a madman...
So, he figured that his life was in danger, and so was his nephew's. But HE couldn't hide, he was a government official! The only thing he could do was to be as quiet and inoffensive as possible, and to make SURE he never did ANYTHING to offend the Emperor, and maybe he would not be noticed. Lufa, however, was another matter. So he hid Lufa in plain sight by disguising him as a palace page-boy! After cutting his crest very short and smudging him up, there was hardly any difference between him and an ordinary servant--well, at least none that an IDIOT, like Cartagia, could see. The other slaves and servants KNEW what was going on, of course, but since they all hated the Emperor just as much--and some of them for very similar reasons--they kept their mouths shut.
And so Lufa hid from the very man he was trying to avoid by being RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM, for almost two years. In those two years, he learned "how the other half lives", how to cook, mend things, clean, and how to stand upright for 14 hours straight without noticing the pain. He lost a lot of the noble inflections in his speech, as he suddenly realised they sounded silly, and came to understand that money was not everything. In other words, it broadened him.
Then came the spring of 2261, and Cartagia died of...heart failure... Lufa was suddenly left without a job, as the new ruler, Prime Minister Mollari, summarily dismissed all of Cartagia's retinue (wisely not trusting them) and the ruler the Prime Minister appointed shortly afterwards, the Regent, was Lufa's OWN uncle! And obviously he, (the Regent) couldn't have his own nephew working as his servant.
So Lufa wandered around rather lost for about a year. He had no more family or mansion, so there was nowhere to live, (his uncle offered him an apartment in the Royal Palace but it brought back too many bad memories to live there), and it somehow seemed that even if he DID have the opportunity to resume his old life as a carefree fop, he wouldn't be able to. He didn't feel right just stomping around and showing off anymore; he had gotten used to WORKING. To living by set hours and getting something semi-constructive done every day. But when it came right down to it, he really had no skills, and most places were unwilling to hire a noble, because it was so uheard-of, so he had a hard time getting hired. He floated from one random job to another for almost a year, until the beginning of 2262 and the forming of the Interstellar Alliance.
Present Day: When the Alliance formed, the Centauri Republic became a member, and the Rangers expanded to include members of ALL Alliance races, Lufa suddenly decided that THAT was what he wanted to do. He really did not have any skills to be a Ranger, but he'd always been in good physical condition, full of energy, and quick to learn. Besides, his REAL reason was that he did not really feel comfortable with ANYTHING he tried to do at home anymore--and his uncle had been acting weirder and weirder ever since he became the Regent...It was kind of a "run away and join the Foreign Legion" thing.
He was, after some surprise on the part of the local Ranger section, indeed allowed in and became the very FIRST Centauri ever to join. Shortly afterwards, he became the First Officer of White Star 41, following the sudden resignation of its former second in command. He was assigned to Babylon 5, and started settling in. He did better with SOME parts of the Ranger training than with others. For example, he learned to speak Minbari astonishingly quickly, but NEVER learned how to operate a Minbari fighting-pike. In fact, he was SO bad with it that he became notorious for accidentally braining his own teachers and destroying valuable equipment! To be fair, he had good reasons for being so bad at it. Since he could barely walk, he had been taught how to fight with the Centauri ceremonial short-sword, or Coutari, this being very important to his father, who was once a champion swordfighter. The Coutari requires an EXTREMELY different fighting style and discipline than does a pike--it uses only one hand, it's much smaller and lighter, you stand differently, balance differently, move differently, etc. And because he had started it at such a young age, it is EXTREMELY ingrained in his "muscle-memory". So, the end result is that he moves like a swordfighter when he's trying to use his pike! NOT a good combination...
This was also the way he met, of all things, his GIRLFRIEND. He had come to Cargo Bay 14 in Blue Sector to practice his pike, thinking that an empty cargo bay should be a spacious enough place that he wouldn't be able to hurt anyone or anything.
SHE thought that an empty cargo bay should be a QUIET enough place that she could meditate without hearing anyone or anything.
He took a swing with his pike and WHAM! the poor girl was laid up in Medlab.
Lufa felt very bad about this, so he brought her some (fake--all he could afford on a Ranger initiate's salary) Starlaces and came to her bedside to apologise. She was a young MINBARI woman of the Religious Caste named Jharlenn, of clan Li'Shar--and a future Grey Council hopeful--he was a fallen CENTAURI noble. But for some odd reason--the instant their eyes met, they fell in love. Awww, how sweet...(gag me, you're thinking.)
While the other station denizens simply for the most part find a mixed-species couple to be rather amusing, the Minbari are SHOCKED by it, especially her parents.
When, later on that year, the Centauri Republic pulled out of the Alliance, Lufa was almost kicked out of the Rangers as well! Many of the other Rangers were very suspicious of him. After all, he had not been in for very long, and then his government starts making war on the Alliance--it looked as if he could have been a SPY, planted by the Centauri ahead of time so they could keep track of the Alliance after they left! Of course, Lufa was no such thing, but they were right to worry about it. A hearing was held to determine whether he should get to stay in the Rangers or not, and by a BARELY majority vote, he passed.
Future: We shall see what the wheel weaves...
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