Luciano, Nicholas "Nickels": Difference between revisions

Luciano, Nicholas "Nickels" (view source)

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Nickels

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 ==Manner==
-* '''Quarters''': Nickels really makes himself at home, even it involves some bribery to get a few illicit items aboard and some finagling and forgery to make sure he has a larger suite than his rank might otherwise entitle him to.  Decorations include his elaborate gun kit for stripping and cleaning and loading the heirloom chrome .45s mounted on the wall, his framed picture of his sainted mother Mary Catherine Alouette "The Hellcat" Hellene-Luciano, and his own small copy of the Book on its own shelf with the appropriate icons and apocrypha.  He has a small but flourishing zitkis berry bush, a flowerbox for his iarmyk lapel flowers, and assorted bric-a-brac that he is either smuggling somewhere or considering using as gifts.  He has a large armchair upholstered in the rich leather of an Alvanian giant sloth, a forcefield sound system for listening to his operas, and assorted stands, perches, and technical equipment for his beloved pet Iotian clee, Alibi, who acts as Nickels' confidante, henchman and secretary bird.
+* '''Quarters''': Nickels really makes himself at home, even it involves some bribery to get a few illicit items aboard and some finagling and forgery to make sure he has a larger suite than his rank might otherwise entitle him to.  Decorations include his elaborate gun kit for stripping and cleaning and loading the heirloom chrome .45s mounted on the wall, his framed picture of his sainted mother Mary Catherine Alouette "The Hellcat" Hellene-Luciano, and his own small copy of the Book on its own shelf with the appropriate icons and apocrypha.  He has a small but flourishing zitkis berry bush, a flowerbox for his iarmyk lapel flowers, and assorted bric-a-brac that he is either smuggling somewhere or considering using as gifts.  He has a large armchair upholstered in the rich leather of an Alvanian giant sloth, a forcefield sound system for listening to his operas, and assorted stands, perches, and technical equipment for his beloved pet Iotian clee, [[Alibi]], who acts as Nickels' confidante, henchman and secretary bird.
 * '''Mannerisms''':
 ** '''The Nickel''': Like many of Earth's gangsters of the lost and misty past, Nickels is extremely superstitious and talismanic, and this is expressed through a mannerism that becomes immediately obvious upon meeting him.  He is almost at all times toying with an Iotian nickel; this is a denomination of coin that came into circulation about 5 years after the USS Horizon departed the planet in 2168.  The nickel is 30.6 millimeters in diameter and weighs 12.5 grams, with heavy smooth edges, and die-cast faces.  Nicky Luciano's lucky piece is a 2268 nickel, featuring the profile of Boss Bela Okmyx on the head, and on the tail an image of a large boviform ungulate once referred to as a ''kyko'' in the Iotian tongue, but now more commonly called an Iotian buffalo.  He flips the coin nearly constantly, making soft pinging sounds, and can roll it back and forth across his knuckles, spin it between his fingertips, and seemingly make it appear and disappear from hand to hand.  It can be very distracting for people with him, but it helps him focus and center.  He has also exhibited some minor skill with [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnosis hypnotic induction] using the twirling, twinkling coin rolling across the backs of his knuckles or spinning slowly between his fingertips as a focus.
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 * '''Hobbies'''
-** ""Non-Lethal Weapons Development"" - During his deployment on the [[USS Independence-A]], Nickels undertook a project to develop non-lethal weaponry that could be deployed against a group of pirates that had stolen a Starfleet vessel, the USS Phoenix.  He was proud of the designs he created and deployed, and was all the more shocked when none were used.  The incursion into the Phoenix was a bloodbath, with the Independence's Marines and command staff using lethal force at every opportunity.  Since then, Nickels has become something of an obsessive materials engineer, a mad genius in his own way.  He is constantly utilizing modern technology in new ways to develop ways to stun, baffle, batter, dazzle, befuddle, heckle and incapacitate.  Among some of his more innovative ideas are a stun grenade called the Beatdown Ball, a specialized gel round for the TR-116 that deploys a shock heavy enough to discomfit a [[Nausicaan]], an ocarina-sized sonic weapon called the Missile Whistle that creates a compressed audio wave that strikes with physical force, and the Tesserbat, a construction of folded rodinium plates and a tektite core that uses kinetic energy to assemble itself into a regulation-length baseball bat when one swings the handle.
+** '''Non-Lethal Weapons Development''' - During his deployment on the [[USS Independence-A]], Nickels undertook a project to develop non-lethal weaponry that could be deployed against a group of pirates that had stolen a Starfleet vessel, the USS Phoenix.  He was proud of the designs he created and deployed, and was all the more shocked when none were used.  The incursion into the Phoenix was a bloodbath, with the Independence's Marines and command staff using lethal force at every opportunity.  Since then, Nickels has become something of an obsessive materials engineer, a mad genius in his own way.  He is constantly utilizing modern technology in new ways to develop ways to stun, baffle, batter, dazzle, befuddle, heckle and incapacitate.  Among some of his more innovative ideas are a stun grenade called the ''Beatdown Ball'', a specialized gel round for the TR-116 that deploys a shock heavy enough to discomfit a [[Nausicaan]], an ocarina-sized sonic weapon called the ''Missile Whistle'' that creates a compressed audio wave that strikes with physical force, and the ''Tesserbat'', a construction of folded rodinium plates and a tektite core that uses kinetic energy to assemble itself into a regulation-length baseball bat when one swings the handle.
 ** '''Magic''' - Once upon a time, a student at San Francisco's Starfleet Academy saw Nickels Luciano crossing the quad, casually making his nickel appear and disappear from his closed fist, and asked if he was a magician.  Nicky had no idea what the student was talking about, but looked it up, and shortly he began studying legerdemain and sleight-of-hand, and registered with the Galactic Brotherhood of Magicians as a close-up magician just before graduating from the Academy.  Although he primarily focused on coin tricks, he is also adept with making other small objects appear and disappear and many forms of card magic.
 ** '''Pistoleering''' - Nickels is a crack shot with his antiquated .45 automatics, and enjoys target shooting and shooting skeet with them, although he has to be careful about using projectile weapons on a starship.  He's become increasingly satisfied with simulated pistol shooting, though, and is a patient - if wisecracking - teacher for anyone who wishes to learn the old art.
 ** '''Fizzbin''' - Widely regarded as the most unnecessarily complicated game in the galaxy, [http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Fizzbin fizzbin] was invented on the spur of the moment by [http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/James_T._Kirk Captain James T. Kirk] during his incarceration by Boss Bela Okmyx in 2268 to distract his guards.  In true Iotian fashion, the rules were perfectly recalled, endlessly discussed, and finally refined into a game that has made it all across the galaxy.  He is happy to discuss the rules of the game in long, intense detail with anyone at all providing they're buying the drinks and the minimum ante for the game is set before the discussion of the rules begins.  Nickels played fizzbin heavily even for an Iotian of an old family, and is mildly infamous in Okmyx Chicago for having been dealt a royal fizzbin (two jacks, two queens, two kings, and a seventh card of a suit different than all the pairs, only obtainable by sitting on the dealer's right).  The odds of drawing that hand, it has been noted by [http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Spock scientific luminaries], are astronomical.
-** ""Smuggling"" - This is something of a secret - and Nickels and Alibi certainly work to keep it that way - but Nickels has been unable to resist the allure of taking a piece of the action made available serving as a Security officer between the far-flung planets and star bases a Starfleet vessel travels between.  He uses his quarters to stash an astonishing variety of contraband.  He never takes anything dangerously illegal - he strictly keeps his hands clean of [http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Ketracel-white ketracel white] and similar drugs, and he only moves archaic or ceremonial weapons.  Nonetheless, he has turned a tidy profit, and maintains a network of contacts in the seamy undersides of star bases all across the Avalon sector.
+** '''Smuggling''' - This is something of a secret - and Nickels and Alibi certainly work to keep it that way - but Nickels has been unable to resist the allure of taking a piece of the action made available serving as a Security officer between the far-flung planets and star bases a Starfleet vessel travels between.  He uses his quarters to stash an astonishing variety of contraband.  He never takes anything dangerously illegal - he strictly keeps his hands clean of [http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Ketracel-white ketracel white] and similar drugs, and he only moves archaic or ceremonial weapons.  Nonetheless, he has turned a tidy profit, and maintains a network of contacts in the seamy undersides of star bases all across the Avalon sector.
 ===Likes and Dislikes===