[center][img]https://files.catbox.moe/9kedwv.jpg[/img][/center]

[b]Character Name:[/b]
Beauregard McKeough

[b]Callsign:[/b]
Hugh (“You know what? Just call me by that handle anytime, I don't mind. Really sad that nobody calls me Beau anymore these days.”)

[b]Character Archetype:[/b]
Good Old Boy

[b]Character’s Guiding Motto:[/b]
“It's five o'clock somewhere – 'cept when it's raidin' time!”

[b]Character’s Fatal Flaw:[/b]
Heavy drinker (“I'm responsible though... I swear!”)

[b]Character’s Expertise:[/b]
Reconnaissance, Stealth, Survival

[b]Nationality/Allegiance:[/b]
Capellan Confederation Supporter caste, loyalist (“I ain't a diehard patriot though, more like better the devil you know”)

[b]Background:[/b]
When twelve-year-old Beau McKeough learned that he would be learning to pilot a 'Mech, he leapt in excitement right then and there, as rambunctious young boys are wont to do.

As soon as his father and older siblings told him what for exactly, however, that excitement quickly died down.

The reason he was to pilot a 'Mech, they told him, was twofold: for him to learn the family trade (for the McKeoughs owned and ran no less than the biggest timber company on Espia) as well as to render, in the words of the Ministry of Social Education, “some kind of volunteer work that can be interpreted as having made some contribution to the state,” which in the case of young Beau was to clear out swamps and forests using a [i]Lumberjack[/i] gifted to him from the McKeoughs's fleet of IndustrialMechs.

Despite the dream having been turned into a chore, Beau nevertheless performed quite well at land clearing, even picking up a good deal of land surveying and speculating from the senior members of the government crew to which he was assigned. Upon turning 15, Beau passed his citizenship evaluation with flying colors and joined the older members of his family as a bona fide member of the Capellan Supporter caste, which counted among its number captains of industry and trade in addition to educators, economists, and members of the judiciary.

Such was Beau's performance in service of Espia that he was offered a spot at the Capella War College – which he promptly declined, stating that he knew that the chances of ever going home to  one's home planet are slim to none should one become an officer, and that spending most of his boyhood day in and day out in the dank cockpit of his [i]Lumberjack[/i] had left him burned-out and jaded as far as piloting was concerned. Desperate for a change of scenery, Beau matriculated at the University of Balya Gora (UBG), purportedly to major in civil engineering but actually to party like an animal and enjoy himself like he never did before. For not only was the “Bee Gee” Espia's number one institute for higher education, it was also the place where the best and the brightest from all over the planet got together to get drunk, get laid, and pursue a different kind of “higher learning” altogether. Nevertheless, in between the partying and the studying and the having to assist his siblings at the McKeough Timber Co. headquarters, Beau managed to graduate with honors and was given a sinecure by his father.

Beau had just completed his first year of graduate studies in geological engineering via distance learning with Sian University when news of the Capellan withdrawal broke out. Upon hearing this, Beau immediately rushed to the McKeough headquarters, where he found his parents, his siblings, their extended family, and their most trusted retainers and employees all gathered in the boardroom. 

Steeling himself against the tears, Beau's father announced to all present that already he could sense where the wind was blowing, that he could feel it in his blood, for even on long-ago Terra the McKeoughs of ancient Ireland were no strangers to the never-ending cycles of calamity and upheaval. It was for this reason that the elder McKeough, in agreement with senior members of the family as well as members of the board, management, and the employees' union as well, decided to sell the company before the inevitable backlash from the increasingly-restive Servitor underclass would reduce everything they worked for into piles of worthless ash.

Before dismissing everyone for the final time, the patriarch added that while he would like nothing more during this difficult time than for his family and closest friends to accompany him to the Espian outback to lay low, perhaps it would be just as good for them, if they so wished, to go their separate ways and survive independently of one another to the best of their ability, for that was how the McKeoughs survived wars, famines, and genocides throughout the millennia; so long as a mere handful or even just one of them remained standing at the end of it all, the family could always begin anew.

With that final family reunion having adjourned as quickly as it had begun, Beau went over to his parents and informed them of his decision to find a way to stay and fight for his home, if not for the Confederation at large – but not the conspicuously unwieldly and corrupt planetary government, which as a university student he had grown to hate. After getting their blessing, Beau drove to the McKeough hangars out in the boondocks to retrieve his [i]Lumberjack[/i] and got in touch with some politically-active loyalists he knew from university, who then put him in touch with a cell of the Capellan Citizens' Combine which during this time had not yet been subsumed into the Espian Free People's Movement.

To his horror, Beau found out that the leader running his cell was none other than Margaret Bo, an erstwhile UBG student council president. Hailing from the Directorship caste ("more like the Dictatorship caste, haha") and notorious for being a veritable Machiavellian queen bee even during their Bee Gee days, Bo didn't pass up the chance to poach him for her own cell, for he was the closest thing to a seasoned 'Mech pilot she could get from a pool of mostly civvies. Furthermore, she demanded that while serving under her, Beau should relinquish all claims to his first name, for there could only be one Bo/Beau in her cell – namely, herself.

With his first name taken from him and finding it irritating for others to either mispronounce his surname or lazily call him some variant of “Mac,” “Mackie,” or the slur-sounding “Mick,” the pilot eventually settled on just being called “you” by the others, which in time became “Hugh”: his callsign as well as the name he went by from that moment on.

Despite their working relationship having gotten off to a rocky start, the cell leader reluctantly agreed that in exchange for his unquestioning service to her excellency and as a hazard pay of sorts, as the cell's only pilot he was to be allowed to keep a moonshine still in his trailer as well as some grain and all the liquor looted from their raids in lieu of pay. After all, he reasoned, his job during raids and ambushes was to draw to himself as much enemy gunfire as he could take if they weren't close enough for him to hit with his chainsaw. “Booze helps to calm my nerves when we're not raiding, besides I'm literally a dead man walking now ain't I?” was his excuse to her. "I believe I'm entitled to that at the very least."

Margaret Bo was more of a bureaucrat than a field commander, but Hugh didn't mind her hogging all the credit each time they scored a win against the regime they both hated, so long as he got his agreed-upon share of the spoils and was permitted to drink to his heart's content in private. Bo, being uncompromisingly domineering and a teetotaler to boot, continued to secretly resent him for this; at the same time, the Capellan Citizens' Combine and the Espian Free People's Movement began to closely associate with one another.

Unfortunately for Hugh, Bo was also ambitious – so much so that after being told that she was considered for a higher position in the Free People's Army, she thought it would be a good idea to seal the deal by seizing the pilot's stash of alcohol to give to the FPA honchos as a gift, and as a grandiose show of authority, to subject him, her top (and only) pilot, to "long-overdue disciplinary action" – all the better to remind all concerned of the pecking order.

Hugh found out about this and reckoned that it was high time to get out of dodge. Later that night, he loaded into his cargo bay all the worldly possessions he still had with him, including his still, his stash of alcohol, and just to spite Margaret, an old jukebox from the cell's mess hall that he figured was a Bo family heirloom.

After convincing the guards that he was on a solo covert mission to take the stuff in his hold to some potential allies (which was still technically true, he told himself), Hugh hopped into the cockpit, powered up his [i]Lumberjack[/i], and strode off in search of the source of that exotic moonshine he got from the black market whose label was stamped with nothing but a green knight's helmet. That fine hooch had been on his mind ever since his first sip.

“Pretty sure it's those mercs from offworld who made that good shit,” Hugh thought to himself as an ancient Terran song* started to play on his stereo. “Gotta be.”

[b]Battlemech:[/b]

[center][img]https://files.catbox.moe/1kwpjg.png[/img][/center]

Hugh pilots a dull-gray [i]Lumberjack[/i], originally an LM1/A, which with the grudging approval of Margaret Bo he paid the technologically-inclined members of their cell a significant amount of liquor to upgrade with looted weapons. The souped-up ForestryMech now sports an LRM-10 in place of one of the dumpers, additional armor, and machine guns instead of its signature lift hoist. Painted on the 'Mech's left chest plate is the iconic green Capellan Confederation emblem, now weathered. And in case anyone's wondering, it still rocks its chainsaw.

[hider=*The song]

[center][youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5oEVJ7ru2E[/youtube][/center]

Jk, actually it's this one below if the last one wasn't good for your immersion:

[center][youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGLVMBTIAPE[/youtube][/center]
[/hider]