Vic Dantor

Vic Dantor is a Skakoan engineer/scientist.

Family
Vic was born to well-off parents on a rich core world, Skako. His mother, Ori Dantor, passed away when he was young. His father, Lorr Dantor, was a caring parent, if often an absent one. Like many successful Skakoans, Lorr is an industrialist. He is an executive of a company called SkaTech that builds internal systems for large-scale droids and ships. SkaTech is a member of the Techno Union. Vic also has an older brother named Ori, who was extremely influential in his upbringing.

Early life
Vic spent much of his formative life in intense education as was normal for a Skakoan boy and then following his brother around on business offworld, which was decidedly not normal. Skakoans are famously xenophobic, but Ori was quite the opposite. He was fascinated with xenopsychology and the ways that other species understood the world differently. He started going offworld attached to his father's business as a programmer and representative of SkaTech, but later began pursuing his own interests in politics. Since Vic's father was so busy with his work, Vic was encouraged to tag along with his (10 years older) brother on these trips as an assistant even in his teens. Vic put up with it initially, as he was not as gregarious or xenophilic as his brother, but grew to appreciate the benefits of contact with other species for profit and the sharing of information.

Vic knew he was interested in engineering early on, but went through several phases in his education in trying to decide what to do with it. His brother was a gifted programmer, so he tried out some of that, but ended up wanting something more hands-on. After trying out some weapons training, he thought he might join the Skakoan military and become a combat engineer, but his family’s politics took a different turn (see below) and that became undesirable. He ended up becoming interested in geology and materials science, which led him to his career as a prospector and miner.

Politics
As the Separatist movement took off and the Confederacy was born, even non-political Skakoans were rather forced to have an opinion. Vic's father, Lorr, was an established Techno Union company executive; he was initially lured by profit to support the war, as it was very lucrative for the company. The Techno Union was ostensibly "neutral" in the conflict, at least initially, and was selling starships to the Republic to maintain deniability even as they supplied the droid army to the Confederacy. While that may not have been 100% clear to the Skakoan public at the outset, it was to Lorr, who could see his company being turned into part of the war machine. It was Ori who talked Lorr and Vic into supporting the Peace faction. It never was entirely clear why Ori was so set against the war, but he gave up his programming job and got into politics to try to help stop it. And then he campaigned passionately for those who opposed the fighting. Ori and Lorr agreed with many of the Separatist grievances with the Republic and even supported the idea of a Confederacy separate from the Republic in principle, but did not agree with Wat Tambor's vision and the escalation of conflict.

Career in mining
Vic finished his education with a doctorate in materials science and began prospecting in the Outer Rim. He found some success in doing this, but one particular opportunity caused him to try to set up his own operation rather than pass along his findings to established buyers. He gathered investment with the aid of his family and offworld contacts and some assistance from his father's company. He established a mining company called Dantor Materials that was all-but-on-paper a subsidiary of SkaTech.

Vic hired a professional overseer to run the operations of the mine, while setting himself up as the lead scientist. This was a bit of an awkward arrangement, as his overseer was ostensibly in charge, while still taking orders from someone on site who would normally be his underling. The rest of Vic's mining crew were specialists and labor from a mishmash of Confederacy worlds; the crew was mostly comprised of Humans and Mustafarians, but there were others as well as many droids both for security and for use in the mining operations. There were no other Skakoans on the crew, but Ori visited regularly and Lorr and a delegation of the investors visited once. Aside from the mining crew, there were no other people closer than a few hundred miles to the nearest settlement.

It takes a long time to set up a mine; it was not expected that the mine would begin to produce much of anything but samples until the second year of operations. Vic's work on the mine was partly strategic, showing them where to dig and analyzing the initial samples and partly a function of the digging, as he was in charge of the explosives and the blasting done with them. Strip mining wasn't an option, as digging to the clusters of the best mineral deposits was much more advantageous. Vic also found himself being the de-facto medical technician and mechanic to supplement the droids purchased to serve in those roles. Having a gifted mechanic ended up being more important than expected, as there were no end of mechanical problems on site.

The incident
Two Jedi showed up out of the blue one day and told us to cease mining operations. They had very official-looking documents showing that this stretch of nowhere was owned by the Council and was off limits. This was news to Vic, but the planet wasn’t really even in disputed territory anymore, being in space firmly controlled by the Confederacy. Vic had not met a Jedi previous to that day or really known anyone who had. He called his brother and father while the overseer argued with them, but his father had nothing to suggest and his brother was unreachable. Everyone was astonished at the absurdity of the claim. The Jedi in charge seemed confident, but clearly angry with the need to argue with us. The way that he talked made it seem like he didn’t think much of what looked to him like a Separatist incursion into Jedi affairs. The younger Jedi was very young and didn't seem sure about what was happening, even to the point of maybe being sympathetic to the miners' situation.

The standoff turned violent when the overseer ordered the security droids to escort the Jedi back to their ship. The Jedi in charge resisted and a fight broke out. All of the droids were destroyed while the crew fled, and then the Jedi began destroying the mining equipment as well. Several of the mining droids and the heavy equipment that was kept aboveground was wrecked in short order and the entrance to the mining tunnels was collapsed once the Jedi were sure that there were no workers left underground. They left, but they promised to return if the mine continued operations.

The crew left. All said they'd never return while the site was under Jedi edict. A few wanted to continue working for Dantor Materials, but the investors had already been upset about the delays from the mechanical problems, so the whole company has entered bankruptcy and suspended all activity, despite Lorr's attempted intervention with SkaTech's board.

The mine still exists, albeit abandoned and sealed. All the equipment used for mining aboveground is broken, and most of the more expensive other stuff was sold off, but the living quarters, mess, and workshop are intact. There is some heavy equipment left underground, but the entrance would have to be cleared to get to it.

Before the game
Vic has come to Coruscant to plead his case with whoever he needs to talk to in order to get his life back. He really was hoping that his brother would help him, but he hasn't been able to contact him at all since then. His father says that he didn't want to worry Vic, but Ori had been out of contact with the family for a while. The Republic officials say that they don't know anything about it and the Jedi themselves must be behind the edict. He found himself arguing with a functionary in the Jedi temple when everything went to hell.

Unique item
Vic's brother Ori wrote a translation program for him. Most Skakoans use this terrible translator that causes lots of audio artifacts and buzzing due to the language being very difficult to translate. Many use it as a sign of disrespect and contempt for other species, but Ori thinks that's bullshit, so he wrote a better one. He says it uses machine learning to adapt the user's speech to those around them in order to make the user more approachable and fit in better. It really works. Because of this, Vic's translator has learned to speak in the dialect of the Outer Rim community that he belonged to for the last year. He has not reset it yet as he attaches giving up on the dialect with giving up on his mine. Plus, after speaking this way for so long, it has become just how he expects his voice to sound. It does come off as pretty provincial in the Core though. He can change it temporarily to default settings if he really wants to. Vic also can speak Basic without a translator, but he is a little hard to understand due to his physiology (he doesn't have any teeth!).