Maxwell Arthur Kennedy II

[Joe Manning 0]

“I know there’s a lot at stake here, and I know the danger is significant. I would not have asked anyone else to do this. I would not have trusted anyone else.

 

“Your crew is largely new to me. You’ve brought lots of unfamiliar faces … and you don’t need to remind me who’s to blame for that. I’ve overheard rumblings that your new people aren’t getting along well with each other or with the old people. I think I don’t need to tell you that now is the time to put aside your differences and start working together. For your own sakes. You’re not about to cross one of the small-time corporate leaders that infest this station like leeches trying to suck whatever they can from the Bull’s Head economy. You’re going up against the Consortium itself, and every bit of intelligence that’s been fed to me by my inside contacts tells me that they’re brewing something big. They’re treating this like more than an account; they’re treating it like a project.

 

“Goldrock builds Gular’s ships, but their nerve center is here on Andus. Anyone who knows where those ships are ultimately being sent and for what purpose can be found here. I have people inside the Consortium, but they’re mostly on Goldrock. Security in their Andus sector is too tight to get moles deep enough inside, especially since the Consortium keeps tabs on me as closely as I keep tabs on them. Nobody in my syndicate knows about this job, though. Not even Duke. There’s no telling which of my people have Gular fingerprints on them. You’re perfect for this because you’re independent; you don’t answer to me, you don’t owe me loyalty, we barely even chat these days.

 

“I have a name -- Lightning. My contacts have seen it consistently associated with ships that were bound for the Rimward Territories. I don’t know if it’s a project name, an alias of someone the Consortium is selling the ships to, or a tag for illegal technology they’re concealing from the Federation. It’s a name you can keep an eye out for … though I’d suggest covering your bases and grabbing as much information on the Consortium as you can. I might even throw in a bonus for anything useful you can dig up.

 

“I’ll start relaying briefing materials your way. Starting with this.”

 

 

Guardian Dossier GC-581-Icarus7

Maxwell Arthur Kennedy II

Security Clearance Alpha

Access granted to Client #7493 - Timestamp 61908.12 0415 TCS

 

Name: Maxwell “Max” Arthur Kennedy II

Positions of Note: Gular Mining Consortium President & CEO

Gular Mining Consortium Board of Directors

Hyades Outreach Foundation President & CFO

Aysaen Springs Resort Chief Investor & VIP

Primary Location: Andus City Station

Gular Mining Consortium District

Private Estate on Asteroid G-5

Corporate Office on Asteroid G-3

Secondary Location 1: Goldrock Colony

Corporate Office on Goldrock V Ice Mining Station

Aliases: None Known

Description: Male, Age 42, Height 1.85m, Weight 88.5kg

Brown Hair, Hazel Eyes

Complexion Varies from Light to Tan

Family: Father - Jack L. Kennedy VI, DECEASED

Mother - Lylian Kennedy, Retired on Earth

Brother - Michael Kennedy III, Federation Council Representative

Brother - Scott F. Kennedy II, Whereabouts Unknown

See “Kennedy Family” for Manifest of Distant Relatives

 

Guardian Record

 

The Gular Consortium is the chief supplier of starships, stations, and materials to the Guardian fleet, and the Guardians are engaged in a lucrative ongoing contract to protect the Consortium’s construction yards and mining interests throughout Bull’s Head. Intermediaries are usually provided by the Consortium to negotiate fees for purchases and changes to the terms of the contract. On an official basis, Kennedy, as CEO, is considered the client and contract holder.

 

Intermediaries are similarly employed by the company when contracting the Guardians for private work. It is not always clear whether these contracts can be traced back to Kennedy. Separate records are maintained for the Gular Consortium’s extensive history of employment of the Guardians; these should be consulted. Of specific note, the Guardians were contracted to investigate a group of corporate investors based on the Coreward colony of Silver Creek in 2418. The investors turned out to be corporate spies with possible (never confirmed) connections to the Rainmakers and a trove of assembled intelligence on Kennedy and his family. Guardian Command believed that the investors were plotting the kidnapping of either Kennedy or one of his closest family members. Details remain sketchy as the investors committed suicide to evade capture, and most of their center of operations was destroyed. See Contract GC-B-1193.

 

A number of contracts involving Kennedy have been opened or denied. Anonymous clients requesting the arrest or execution of Kennedy for a wide variety of grievances are not uncommon. Given Kennedy’s preferred client status, these contract requests are always found to be lacking sufficient evidence or grounds for pursuit. Investigations into Kennedy’s activities are just as common and more readily pursued. Most notably, partners in Kennedy’s Hyades Outreach charity approached the Guardians in 2419 requesting that Kennedy’s use of the charity’s funds be investigated. There were suspicions that the charity, founded to provide colonies outside the Hyades boundary with food and medical supplies, was being used as a front to secure mining rights and labor on distant worlds, and that significant portions of the charity’s intake were being embezzled into Kennedy’s private accounts. The 2420 crash of the passenger liner Ganymede into the New Risa ocean claimed the lives of four of Kennedy’s partners in the foundation, including the two who opened the Guardian contract. The contract was closed with no significant findings having been made.

 

In 2418, the Guardians were contracted to look into the disappearance of high-priced Vega call girl Sophia Sublime, known to have previously done business with Kennedy. Investigation of the sordid affair revealed that Sublime had been midway into a pregnancy with an unknown father before her mysterious disappearance. Associates observed that she had looked distressed in the weeks leading to her disappearance. The customs records of Vega colony do not show Sublime departing the colony during that time. The Guardians encountered extreme difficulties uncovering any further information, as all semblances of Sublime’s life on the colony had mysteriously disappeared with her. The contract is still open, though no solid information has yet presented itself.

 

Known Associations

 

The Gular Consortium maintains business deals with a number of individuals and agencies throughout Bull’s Head. Our records of the company’s activities should be consulted for more details.

 

Kennedy has not been the type of corporate executive to lead silently from behind closed doors. He has been as much the face of the Consortium as its chief executive. In fact, the Consortium does not employ a Public Relations officer -- all releases to the press are made by Kennedy himself. Kennedy is one of Bull’s Head’s most well-recognized figures. A notorious traveler and playboy, Kennedy has cultivated relationships with many of Bull’s Head’s most prominent citizens, at times building crucial friendships, tense rivalries, fierce competitors, and outright enemies (few, it should be noted, emerge victorious from any conflict with the Consortium). His romantic liaisons have been similarly notorious.

 

Kennedy has cultivated a status as a close (though not necessarily trusted) ally of the Klingon government, overseeing the company’s dilithium trading with Qo’noS. He is known to maintain friendly relationships (possibly a guise for illicit business dealings) with two of Vega‘s casino bosses -- Sonny Bevino and Quasar -- and is a frequent guest at their casinos. Separate investigations into the bosses’ illicit activities have yielded no connections to Kennedy, though it is widely rumored that Kennedy employs the bosses to do the Consortium’s ‘dirty work.’ Among Kennedy’s romantic liaisons is TNN anchorwoman Fala Richards, whose connections to the network’s executives are well known. He also enjoys VIP status at New Risa and is a frequent guest at its priciest resorts.

 

There has been a long history of rivalry between the Gular Consortium and the Taurus Brothers, and the particulars of this rivalry are not well-understood. It is clear that the two organizations are the wealthiest in Bull’s Head. The Taurus Brothers encourage free trade above all, and it is unknown whether they view the Consortium’s monopolistic practices as emblematic of the Bull’s Head economic ideal or in opposition to the spirit of economic freedom. The Guardians’ contracts with the Consortium and the Brothers are our most lucrative, and conflicts of interest have occurred. Kennedy is known to have grand ambitions for Bull’s Head and, particularly, his role in it, and he has made no secret of attempting to wrest control of the Guardians away from the Taurus Brothers with every opportunity he can get. This last may be a key point in the rivalry between the two power groups.

 

Kennedy and the Consortium are understandably opposed to Federation regulations of any sort and would undoubtedly resist the Federation exerting direct control over Bull’s Head. Minos has identified the Consortium as a target of the Rainmakers, both for their opposition to the Federation and the economic strength that they represent to a free Bull‘s Head, and the company’s assets have frequently come under attack from the cult’s cells. Details of the relationship between Kennedy and his brother Michael, a Federation Council rep, are unclear. Some rumors suggest that they are estranged, while others suggest that the brothers maintain secret contact, with Michael advancing Bull’s Head’s and the Consortium’s agendas in the Federation Council. Michael’s stance on a free Bull’s Head are not known publicly, but backroom politics have become the norm in the new Federation.

 

Background

 

Maxwell Kennedy is one of the dozen or so latest heirs of one of Earth’s oldest wealthy and influential families. The Kennedy family has produced business tycoons and politicians who have, in some cases, shaped human history. The family survived Earth’s final global war, utilizing their wealth and influence to seclude themselves from the nuclear conflict, and somehow managing to secure their assets as the planet’s political situation deteriorated further and further. The heirs’ interests spread all over the galaxy at the height of Humanity’s space age. The Federation’s collapse isolated many of the family’s scions at the fringes of civilized space, but their wealth and prominence has seemingly survived unscathed.

 

In the years before Federation Civil War, the family’s interests in mining and fuel refining had already spread to the Hyades Cluster. The family was widely believed to have backed the contractors of Interstellar Frontiers in their strong bid to secure colonization rights from the Federation. A number of scandals mysteriously implication the organization at the last moment forced a sudden turnaround -- the Federation instead awarded the colonization contracts to the fledgling Gular Consortium. The Kennedy family’s assets in the Cluster seemed seriously jeopardized.

 

With the death of Maxwell’s father shortly after the outbreak of war, the family business passed to his three sons. Maxwell’s strategy toward the Hyades Cluster differed greatly from that of his father’s -- he supported a merger of the remaining assets in the Cluster with the Gular Consortium. In 2406, the Kennedy family’s Hyades assets were absorbed into the Consortium -- now already an economic powerhouse in the region -- and Maxwell was made a majority shareholder and member of the company‘s board of directors. It is not known if Maxwell had split the family business with his two brothers or if the family’s assets in Federation space are also now controlled by the Consortium -- if they are, no official records of this are likely to exist.

 

As a board member, Maxwell gained a reputation for being a shrewd businessman, an effective negotiator, and a keen investor. Aided by his guidance, the company has branched out over the last decade, widening its interests (traditionally mining and construction) to include colonial funding, research projects, and even entertainment ventures. The Consortium has relied less and less on the Guardian fleet in recent years, allowing its own private fleet to assume more of the duties of securing their mines, shipyards, and transportation routes.

 

It should be noted that the Guardians have our origin as the Gular Consortium’s original private fleet. Some of the exact details of our founding remain sketchy, though it certainly predates Kennedy’s merger with the Consortium. Either the contracts of the Consortium’s fleet commanders were purchased by the Taurus Brothers, or the Consortium agreed to release their contracts so they could dedicate themselves to Hyades Cluster security, or some combination of both. What we know is that in the years since Kennedy’s appointment to the Consortium’s board, the company has been aggressive in attempting to buy back the Guardians. The Taurus Brothers have been staunch (and financially generous) in resisting the Consortium’s attempts to repurpose our fleet into their own private security force. Kennedy is known to be one of the company’s most steadfast proponents of these attempts; we can freely speculate how this reflects his own personal ambitions toward Bull’s Head.

 

Kennedy’s rise through the Consortium was remarkably rapid. Rumors persist of shady backroom deals and ruthless cut-throat tactics; further, the backing of the Bolian government once enjoyed by the company’s founders was not strengthened when they declared themselves independent of Federation authority. Whatever resources Kennedy has brought to bear for his company or against his fellow board members, he has managed to position himself as the company’s CEO, and there is no sign that his influence will wane in the near future.