Character Sheet (
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Name: Cadet Sergeant Peter Mattlov
Age: 21
Gender: Male
Branch of Service: Cadet, Armed Forces of the Federated Suns
Physical Description:Wiry and compact, Mattlov is slightly below average size, which is a boon in tight and confined cockpit spaces. He's dark of eye and hair and has a slightly swarthy cast of skin. While he keeps his hair buzzed down because he has a thing about lots of hair and neurohelmets, the hair was thick on his head. He tends toward a five o'clock shadow quickly.
Character History:Peter Mattlov's family were once the dukes of Caph, a highly industrialized planet with extensive research and development facilities a jump away from Earth and a part of the ancient Terran Hegemony. With the Amaris Civil War and the First Succession War, Caph's tech and industrial base were destroyed by a series of raids and chemical weapons attacks, and wound up in the Federated Suns for a time, though it changed hands to the Capellan Confederation and then back to the Federated Suns once more in that time.
Peter Mattlov's family lost much of their power before the Amaris Civil War, when another Duchess decided to cooperate with the forces of Stefan Amaris, the Usurper, and then in the process of subsequent invasions, lost their political power. In the process of rebuilding family fortunes in the wake of the numerous devastating attacks on Caph, the family found themselves conducting interstellar commerce between the successor states, moving products primarily between the Lyran Commonwealth and the Federated Suns, but also into the other successor realms. The company, a started by a group of Caph-based investors, provided Mattlov's family with a reasonable standard of living as they were one of the charter families in the Zhao-Mattlov-Salazar Group.
Peter's father, Michael, was an executive in this company and his mother, Fatima Mohammed, was a leftenant and mechwarrior in the 3rd Crucis Lancers and a veteran of the push on Tikonov during the Fourth Succession War. After her service was up, she mustered out and settled down on Caph with a husband to have a couple children; Peter was the first. Born in Aswan, he was raised wit h a good and sophisticated education in interstellar politics and history -- Caph's proximity to Earth and varied history meant that Peter had a good sense of Star League history as well as the Succession Wars. While his mother was a loyal Davion ex-officer, his father was part of a cosmopolitan consortium of traders that were former citizens of the Terran Hegemony.
Peter was not inclined toward the life of a company man; he liked the war stories. His mother, a decorated former Jagermech pilot and lance leader, was his lodestone; she would dispense the stories in small amounts, reluctantly, but it came out. She had served with the 3rd in Ozawa against the DCMS 5th Sword of Light, then Markab against the Fifth Sword of Light again, Tikonov against 1st Chesterson Voltigeurs of the CCAF, Tigress against House Hiritsu of the CCAF during the Fourth Succession War. That she survived some of the fiercest fighting of the later succession wars was a credit to her, and gave her a certain stature in Federated Suns society alongside her husband, as her regiment were the planetary garrison on Caph, and it meant that young Peter was acquainted with mechwarriors from the 3rd.
As a child, during the War of 3039, he experienced warfare first hand, though as a civilian, when Caph was invaded by the Ryuken-ni and Ryuken-san regiments of the DCMS; his mother was reactivated to duty and assigned to the headquarters of Marshal Vanessa Bisla as a liason to the local government; relations between the Marshal and Duke Ban Gustafson were poor, and Fatima Mattlov was stuck holding the bag in that. Peter, meanwhile, witnessed some of the fighting as the Draconis Combine forces attacked Aswan and then were routed by Wolf's Dragoons, the Davion Assault Guards, the Avalon Hussars and the 3rd Crucis Lancers, who were deployed to the planet, a staging area for AFFC forces, in anticipation of an offensive against the Draconis Combine. During the Combine Forces' landing, he was in a shelter that took a hit from a flight of LRM's that shook the entire structure, but was otherwise unscathed.
When his intent to become a mechwarrior became clear, it was the combination of a strong education, with tutors provided by his father, as well as his mother's guidance and connections with officers from the 3rd Crucis Lancers, that gave him the proper skills to pass the tests to place into NAIS's College of Military Science, one of the most prestigious institutions in the Inner Sphere.
While at NAIS, Mattlov excelled in his studies, but he was considered a hotheaded, mercurial sort. He would follow if led well, but held himself to high standards and others to the same -- occasionally, his temper would come through, but often with a redoubled effort to master something. Not everything came naturally to him, but willpower overcame what natural talent didn't. His family had money, but it wasn't enough to own a battlemech (his mother's battlemech belonged to her family, and she gave it up to a younger cousin joining the AFFS when she resigned her commission), so he knew from the outset that he'd have to earn a battlemech pilot's billet in a House regiment through skill.
By his fourth year, he was close to the top of his class, though also with some degree of disciplinary infractions -- mostly due to brawling and insults -- when dealing with some of the other students. As a result, he only rose to the rank of Cadet Sergeant in the Corps of Cadets (captain being the highest) All the same, Mattlov was highly thought of by his instructors in the 2nd NAIS Cadre and was assigned to a special joint Lyran/FedSuns field testing cadre unit out in Lyran space, working with lostech and prototype weaponry in a variety of conditions. It was considered a good way to help season promising mechwarriors with the tempo of real operations (even if it was dull garrison duty) in preparation for their commissioning in their regiments. The top students had first choice of their billets.
In Mattlov's case, there was no doubt -- 3rd Crucis Lancers or the AFFS go hang.
Psychological Profile:Mattlov is not an easy man to command -- he has his own point of view, which he will make heard, and he is confident in his skills. At the same time, when someone he respects is in command, he will work himself all the harder to make sure that person succeeds, even if it means he is going to provide feedback. He is intense and tenacious, which can lead to personality clashes in that he is not the sort of person that likes to quietly obey orders he thinks are foolish.
There is a flash of cynical humor there and considerable intelligence, but it is combined with a mouth -- his brain-to-mouth filter is not entirely engaged. If there were ever an off-the-cuff person, he is it. Luckily, the AFFS has a culture of tolerating individuals when they are good at what they do, and this applies to one Cadet Sergeant Peter Mattlov. In the cockpit, he is consumed by what he does, fully engaged.
In deference to his mother's Sunni Islam faith, he does not eat pork, but that's as far as it goes. His family is not nobility in the FedSuns, but it is well-established. He's not a social climber by inclination or ambition, and he is cheerfully indifferent to social class, something that can rub an aristocrat the wrong way. He tends to rate the world by warriors and non-warriors. The attack on Caph left him with a case of PTSD that he has struggled with-- he is claustrophobic, though he does not mind cockpits (they have windows) but he is no fan of caves of bunkers or an enclosed, windowless space with a low ceiling, and that includes not weathering dropships or APC's terribly well. Furthermore, he harbors a morbid fear of being buried alive; the LRM hits on Caph caused his shelter to shake and rattle, and some cement came loose. To this day, shifting sand or pebbles makes him slightly queasy, though he does his best to generally deal with it.
Skills:
Strong academic performance, but that is overshadowed by a gifted spatial sense; he is a natural with autocannons and firing while moving. His instructors have been routinely impressed with his situational awareness. In tactical exercises, he prefers hard-hitting, fast-moving approaches to the problem, including mobile defenses, but he seems to have a fine sense of when to get fully engaged and when to simply hold the enemies. He prefers medium mechs above all the other classes, considering maneuverability to be better than heavy armor.
He has a raider's eye for the soft spot, preferring to hit where it counts.
He is surprisingly good at trading and scrounging, though only middling as a technician.
Equipment:- Cooling vest, also favors plasteel boots (typical of Davion officers and cadets, his have spurs). He wears shorts in the cockpit, besides the essential vest and neurohelmet, but little else, which is a standard practice for mechwarriors, at least when they aren't operating in vacuum conditions, because the mech cockpits get so hot, and extra heat means possible unconsciousness. Fingerless mech pilot gloves are included in this array.
- His early graduation gift from his mother and father was well-chosen by his veteran mechwarrior mother; a combat Neurohelmet, recently manufactured and acquired through trade. When they found out about his assignment on detached duty, they sent it along early.
- Combat Medipack, strapped to his leg in the cockpit.
- Wooden misbaha, prayer beads worn around the neck -- a lucky talisman. These are of ancient Earth manufacture. He wears this in the cockpit.
- Noteputer w/telescan and wireless receiver -- only useful in built up areas with news services.
- Mauser & Grey Service Automatic - Lyran issue, but he pulled some trades to get one.
- A good, sturdy multi-tool with a holster to hold it.
- Bailout/survival pack; stored in his mech, intended to provide a few days of environmental survival where-ever he winds up.
BattlemechBecause he is familiar with the operation of the Jagermech and is considered one of the best gunners with ballistic weapons in his NAIS graduating class, Mattlov was assigned the BJ-2X Blackjack, a pre-production variant of the BJ-1 that upgrades the engine to the BJ-1X's original 225, but makes it an XL engine that is more vulnerable to side torso hits but provides increased mobility. Each autocannon is fed by a ton of ammunition in the arms, keeping the ammo supply well away from the engine, while it also upgrades the heat sinks to doubles and retains the medium laser armament. It is designed to provide long range sustained fire support for a light lance with increased mobility that allows it to move quickly and navigate rough terrain through a combination of engine power and jump jets. The idea is to test the configuration in field conditions, particularly the engines and the heat sinks, since the weapons are the classic Blackjack loadout and reliable, though the Autocannons are fed with a new linkage from the arm almost directly and that actually simplifies the feed.
