David Cooper

Cooper is a human/AI hacker, the pilot of the DSRV-1, and formerly a consultant on board the HMS Intrepid. He is played by Bentham.

## David Cooper

### Aliases

DaveCooper the Coward

Cooper the Pooper

Cooper the Courageous

## Biography

### Consultancy

Cooper was consultant on board the HMS Intrepid. His job was to assist the pilot of the Intrepid in travelling to distant systems, having been involved in the construction of the Intrepid's Rating 6 Spike Drive.

When the Intrepid enters this new system, it is immediately attacked by ships of an unknown origin. As the battle turns in the favour of the enemy ships, Cooper mans one of the engineering consoles, trying to power up the spike drive for an emergency jump out of the system. Finding that the enemy ships have already destroyed parts of the drive and that a jump is impossible, Cooper relays this information to the ship's captain, who orders him to board one of the docked emergency escape frigates, the DSRV-1, and abandon ship.

Cooper barely makes it to the DSRV-1, and manages to make an uncharted jump to a nearby system, just as the critically damaged HMS Intrepid lunges forward and rams an enemy cruiser.

Apparently being the only survivor from the Intrepid, Cooper begins checking the systems of the damaged frigate, and finds that something in the cargo hold is drawing away a significant amount of power from the ship's systems. Unable to change this, he goes to check out the cargo hold and finds a strange egg-shaped device in there. Two men appear out of this device, who introduce themselves as Stacks and Ulysses. Both men express their confusion about the entire situation, before everyone is forced to leave the cargo bay because the ship's hull has sprung a leak. Cooper introduces himself as a consultant and suggest that the other two may be able to help him repair the ship.

While repairing the ship, Cooper notices that the device has begun to drain power from the systems again, and after investigating the group discover that the device has produced another individual, this time a robot named S.A.A.N.D.E.E.P., whose appearance frightens Cooper into running away.

Cooper spends the next couple of days piloting the ship while the others clean up the debris and repair the ship. When Stacks calls a meeting to decide on the leadership of the group, Cooper posits that it should be him, a proposal that, to his dismay, is decidedly rejected by the other three. This meeting is cut short when the ship finishes its jump and arrives in a new system.

Upon entering the system, the group spends a short time scanning it, and after they've confirmed with the locals that they can refuel the ship at one of the system's stars, Cooper plots a course to said star.

### Diamonds

After refueling, Cooper discovers Ulysses has claimed the cabin which he had previously taken up residence in. Being unable to persuade the turnip farmer to leave, he takes his belongings to another cabin and settles there.

Cooper contacts one of the merchant ships ships in orbit around, but S.A.A.N.D.E.E.P. takes over the conversation as "captain Rizzetti" and arranges a meeting between Stacks and Ulysses and the merchant. To Cooper's chagrin, the robot remarks that he didn't include Cooper in the meeting because he felt it would jeopardize the mission. The robot quickly reverses this opinion when Stacks botches the meeting by bringing along a weapon, and begins referring to Cooper as 'Captain Cooper'.

Scanning the nearby inhabited planet, Cooper finds that it has no atmosphere, but it is rich in carbon. The group then decides to land the ship on a nearby inhabited planet to see if they can get some supplies and possibly repairs there. Cooper meets with two of the officials and learns from them that a nearby group of smugglers is doing some unlicensed mining for diamonds. Since this is the planet's main export product and they're losing a fair bit of revenue from this, the officials tell Cooper of a bounty on these smugglers. The group thinks this is a good opportunity to make some credits and Cooper reluctantly agrees.

They devise a plan to act as another group of smugglers and ask them to ferry the diamonds off world for them in exchange for a small fee. Stacks contacts the smugglers, who agree to a meeting. Cooper flies the ship to the meeting, but when arriving at the location he quickly realizes they would be at a severe disadvantage. An attempt at relocating the meeting fails, and the group decides to quickly head over to the smugglers' camp while a part of their forces are away.

Flying there at high speed, Cooper deftly lands the DSRV-1 at the camp and the other three members of the group quickly neutralize the three remaining smugglers. Shortly after the fight, the other smugglers return from the failed meeting in a shuttle that has been modified to carry a weapon. After a few misses, Cooper manages to destroy the shuttle using one of the the DSRV-1's turrets.

## Personality

Cooper seems to be reluctant to enter conflicts. He is however an excellent pilot.