Vanessa McMurdo

**Lieutenant McMurdo** is a character from the epic space adventure *Space Pirate Captain MacTaggart*.

## Persona

Lieutenant McMurdo acts as one of the two main subordinates to Commander
Barratt onboard the Stellar Federation battlecruiser *Oshan Akuma*. Her primary task is to carry out the orders that
Captain Mandarin relays to her, though she often acts as a general assistant to
her.

Despite
being a fox, McMurdo isn't all that intelligent or cunning, and she can best be
described as *like Mandarin, but worse*.
Her head is frequently in the clouds, and she's also something of a coward. She
tends to become scared easily, and will agree with *anything* said to her, even if she might not actually agree. Commander
Barratt often leaves McMurdo out of his plans, only for her to make up her own,
most likely wrecking the original!

McMurdo
often forms one half of a double act with Captain Mandarin, and they are almost
always seen together. While they are *somewhat*
on the same wavelength, McMurdo tends to be the follower, and she will blindly
follow Mandarin's plans in any situation, even at the cost of her own nerves.
Mandarin often takes advantage of her for this reason, to keep herself out of
trouble.

Of
course, McMurdo does seem to have a *little*
shred of competence somewhere in her, as indicated by the fact that she has far
fewer predecessors than Captain Mandarin. At the very least, she was seen
working under Barratt when Captain Gwydir, Mandarin's last predecessor, was
still alive.

McMurdo's
exact personal views on Jaws MacTaggart and her crew have never been made
clear, but she seems to have a secret admiration for their courage,
determination and abilities. Needless to say, she doesn't dare bring this up in
front of her superiors, for obvious reasons!

## Physical Description

Biologically speaking, Lieutenant
McMurdo is a red fox, but her fur has a creamy yellow colour, due to a genetic
mutation she was born with. She is 3 feet four inches tall, has green eyes, and
has blonde hair, tied up in a ponytail. Like Captain Mandarin, she has a
distinctive *raccoon mask* across her
eyes. She is also of about equal bust size to Mandarin.

McMurdo
wears a variant of the standard Federation Military Police uniform, consisting
of a navy blue infantry jacket, a green t-shirt and skinny jeans. Her shoes are
far less *standard issue*, being a pair
of lime-green sneakers with bright red highlights.

## Background

Lieutenant McMurdo was born Vanessa
McMurdo on November 21st 2983. She was born and brought up in Glasgow, on a
less than pleasant housing estate riddled with crime and poverty, but she
managed to survive her formative years without much trouble. There *were* a few major incidents here and
there, and these perhaps gave McMurdo a sense of her own mortality, and thus a
desire to do something that would let people know she'd existed.

However,
for many years, McMurdo was stumped as to just *what* she could do. That was, until about halfway into the year 3001,
when the onset of the Fourth Galactic War created a surge in demand for new
military officers. This seemed to strike a chord in McMurdo's mind, and she
duly signed up for the Stellar Federation Military Police.

McMurdo
was rushed through her training, and commissioned as a Midshipwoman onboard the
*HMS Montrose*, a deep space repair
ship. However, she only served onboard the *Montrose*
for a year or so, before being transferred to her better known ship, the
battlecruiser *HDS Oshan Akuma*. Here,
she became acquainted with her primary superior, Commander Barratt, along with
three of her enemies, Keiko MacTaggart, her husband Finbar and
then-Midshipwoman Leslie Kennedy. Needless to say, their working relationship
was *not* one of the best.

Over
the next few years, McMurdo would serve loyally under Commander Barratt, but
also see a number of her fellow officers executed on the spot, for failure to
perform their duties adequately. A major turning point came in McMurdo's life in
3006, when she met Lieutenant-Commander Mandarin, who had just been transferred
from a replenishment fleet tanker, the *HMS*
Chiselton*. The two struck up an uneasy friendship, but because of Barratt's*
general treatment towards his subordinates, neither was sure that it would last
long.

As
it turned out, both Mandarin and McMurdo would survive long enough to start
regularly working together under Barratt in mid-3009, after the untimely execution
of Captain Gwydir. By now, of course, Keiko-now Jaws-had been dishonourably
discharged, and Finbar and Leslie had deserted in her wake. Commander Barratt
was sent out to try and capture or kill her, and the two vixens were made to
help him in his objective.

However,
as we have seen, they have ended up doing more harm than good, as despite their
collective years of experience, they aren't all that competent. McMurdo, even
less so, but for the most part, we haven't seen much of her, or what she thinks
of her colleagues and enemies. Perhaps we never even will, but for now, McMurdo
is resigned to constantly failing in even the most simple missions, and bearing
the brunt of all the abuse thrown at her. Not that she seems to mind, though,
or even be *aware* of it...

## Trivia

* Producer Jordann Edwards had actress Kelly Macdonald in mind, since she's also from Glasgow.