Lavi Lutz

When asked where he was from Lavi Lutz would often joke and say that he was from “the systems.” In a sense Lavi truly was from all over and at the same time nowhere, as he was born on a Soman trading vessel that traveled through much of known space. The trading missions of this ship could be as rudimentary as a supply run to somewhere in the Mandate, or as illicit as a techsin purchase from Xicaw. The ship’s captain, and Lavi’s father, Cornelious Lutz was an earnest man and was from the very sense of the word a materialist. Cornelious valued the many supposed pre-annihilation artifacts he collected more than anything. Lavi, when speaking to one of his father’s crew, found out that the reason his mother left him was precisely because of these materialistic tendencies. Lavi's mother had asked Cornelious: “What do you love more your son or your vases?” To which Cornelious simply replied: “Well, one I got for free, the others cost a fortune.” Ironically, while Lavi’s mother left on the implication of that answer, she made no attempt to assume custody over him. Lavi never resented his father, in fact he admired him, his father loved his many material possessions, so he made it his life’s duty to collect those possessions. Lavi did however find it disingenuous when his father claimed that the purpose of his wealth accumulation was solely for Lavi to inherit.

Lavi himself grew up to be very outspoken, and had a deep fascination with history. One question that Lavi always pondered over was: If the orbitals were man made constructions, where did humanity originally come from? When Lavi asked adults this question he was always dissatisfied, they would say that the orbitals were always there, or that mankind originated from their specific orbital. It was only Lavi’s father, Cornelious, that provided an answer of clarity, “Well we must have come from a planet, as to which planet... well I couldn’t say for certain but if I had to guess I’d say Ero. Why’s that?” replied Lavi. “Because that’s the only planet blown apart into a million pieces! And if its humans we’re talking about then you can bet on our self destructive behavior.”

Lavi continued to study history, reading books, or watching holotapes, but at the age of only 13 Lavi had found that he had exhausted the historical archives available to him. As known human history was only a thousand years old, Lavi had already learned everything that was available and found this to be both a cold depressing reality of time lost, but also as fuel to feed his ambitions of understanding and his perusal of knowledge.

Three days before Lavi’s 16th birthday, his father Cornelius was killed by a Xicawan merchant who was upset that a previous “artifact,” an oil painting of a woman in a lake, sold to him was counterfeit. Cornelius’ crew simply shrugged their shoulders and set course for Soma. At Soma, Lavi formally inherited his father’s possessions from his will and after hiring an appraiser Lavi’s grief became humor as the vast majority of Cornelious’s “artifacts” were proven to be fake. Lavi at first wondered how his father, a man who admired his “artifacts” so greatly, could not determine that they were fake. After some pondering Lavi, to the shock of the appraiser, heaved an outburst of laughter. He finally understood that his father didn’t enjoy his “artifacts” simply for having them, but rather he enjoyed his life’s pursuit of tricking others to buy his goods for profit. In this sense Lavi’s father had died doing what he loved. At that moment Lavi decided he too would live his life in a manner that he found enjoyable. Unlike Cornelious however, who focused on wealth accumulation, Lavi desired to cement his life’s focus on exploring the lost history of pre-annihilation.

After selling his father’s many possessions for a meager sum, (save for his father's decorative inkwell pen, which Lavi kept for sentimental reasons) combined with Cornelious’ savings, strenuous studying, and lucky test scores, Lavi was admitted into the Observatory, Soma’s best university and one of the most prestigious centers of learning in the Void. While Lavi had wanted to study history, the university lacked a formal history department, causing Lavi to instead study governance. Lavi’s favorite class was System Dynamics, where under the tutelage of the eccentric Obeservator Rench, Lavi began to admire republican style governance, such as the government of the RFO.

During one class period a ferocious debate emerged in the classroom among the students. The subject of the debate focused on whether the Mandate was a positive or negative force for the systems. At one end of the spectrum, Wideborn, a peer of Lavi, headed the pro-mandate side arguing: “the Mandate provides order and justice in space that wouldn’t otherwise be there, therefore it can only be viewed as a positive entity.” To which Lavi, the de facto “leader” of the anti-Mandate side, responded arguing that “justice and order are relative concepts,” and that “Wideborn neglects the two fundamental sins of the Mandate government: that it inhibits the knowledge of its citizens through the abolishment of techsin and research of ‘forbidden technologies’ and that the Mandate uses force to limit the civil liberties of both the individuals and orbitals they conquer.” Lavi, providing a more persuasive and logical argument in a place of knowledge, itself inside a democratic state, had won the debate on the account of the professor. As his classmates congratulated him, Wideburn slumped down in his chair, his face flush red with anger. Several hours after class had ended Wideburn intercepted Lavi on his way to the rec hall and proceeded to batter his rival. Wideburn, with his much larger frame, had no issue subduing his smaller opponent. Lavi, blooded after the fight, took a shower and pondered, “Is this all violence is, a tool for those who have lost an argument of words?” From that point on Lavi abhorred violence but yet he could never reject its practicality as a tool.

After graduating from university with a degree in governance, Lavi desired to work in the Soman government and make his way up, with the end goal being a seat on the high council. Lavi figured that the representative leaders of one of the voids oldest orbitals must know something about pre-annihilation history that they weren’t telling the public and he desired to find out what. No matter how long it took Lavi, a young man of 20, he would rise up through the Soman leadership and expose the truths of the void or in the very least have a greater capacity to research those truths. Unfortunately Lavi’s idealism was undercut by the prevailing Soman system of patron-client relation enshrined within the government. While Soma was nominally a representative body, its many years of economic prosperity had established a tremendous wealth inequality exemplified through the ruling affluent elites, able to buy votes with wealth as a form of tax. Lavi, after spending a great deal of time searching for a job in governance, finally found one working for a Monopol, the wealthy lawmakers of Soma. The man’s name was Skrudrifer Praxis, and he gave Lavi a position as an aide, although to Lavi’s disappointment “aide” really meant “errand-boy.”

“Your father was a merchant, yes? said Skrudrifer. “Yes he was.” Replied Lavi. “Does that mean you, yourself can fulfill the duties expected of a merchant, by that I mean both pilot ships and sell goods?” “Well yes, err…though what does that have to do with this position as your political aide? Questioned Lavi. “What kind of question is that? As my aide you should fulfill all my duties both private and public. If you do that then I’ll put in a good word for you.” Responded Skrudrifer condescendingly.

Lavi had spent the better part of 4 years both trading Skrudrifer’s goods across the void and representing him politically. Lavi was astonished by how corrupt Skrudrifer actually was as it was Lavi who brokered the many deals between Skrudrifer and the Mandate. Sometimes Lavi was meant to delegate covert information between the two parties, other times it was to “sell” goods to the Mandate on behalf of Skrudrifer’s company, SkrudServe, this really meant that Skrudrifer was being paid off by the Mandate to serve their interests. “How rampant was this corruption?” thought Lavi. “was it limited only to Skrudrifer?” Lavi couldn’t say. Even excluding Lavi’s tight lips and loyalty to Skrudrifer, he performed his job excellently, maximizing the deals possible for his client. As far as Skrudrifer was concerned however Lavi remained nothing more than his errand boy. Lavi was well aware that he was being exploited but also couldn’t deny his impressive paychecks. “Is there really a future for me here? I’ve lost my life’s original dream.” Often pondered Lavi.

One day Lavi was particularly surprised to be ordered to travel to Tecton space. Skrudrifer had demanded that Lavi purchase an extremely unique artifact from the Tecton leader Mennog. Lavi, at first protesting against such a dangerous mission, eventually consented when promised his long overdue promotion as Skrudrifer's "aide de camp." When traveling to Tecton Space on his one-man-cruiser, Lavi was intercepted by a Tecton Patrol vessel. The captain of the Tecton ship was most disagreeable and remarked how they were “short candidates for the X-MES celebration." Despite Lavi's pleas, the Tectons enslaved the once free merchant.