Alasdair Geddes is a character from the epic space adventure Space Pirate Captain MacTaggart. At the start of the series, he is the newcomer on board the Stellar Typhoon, and it is through his eyes that we are introduced to the crew.
Persona[]
Alasdair Geddes is the newest member of the crew of the Stellar Typhoon. In his own words, he's a gypsy who's had his wings clipped. He's generally a nice guy to know, but he's also rather shy at times, and often gets quite disillusioned with modern life as well. However, he means well, and tries to be friendly to the people he works with.
Alasdair is one of the very few males in the Stellar Typhoon's predominantly female crew of pirates. However, this hasn't proven to be any trouble for him, as he's quite capable of working around the distractions of his colleagues. In fact, he's actually in a romantic relationship with his superior, Chief Engineer Kyoko Mori. Their relationship started off quite slow, but is taking greater leaps and bounds as it progresses, and many others in the crew are of the opinion that it won't be long before this reaches its logical conclusion...
While Kyoko is the love of Alasdair's life, he has a fondness for many of the other women he works with. Most notable is his friendship with First Mate Leslie Kennedy, for their shared Scottish ancestry, and their common interests and backgrounds. Other favourites are Izzy-the head of the Galley Staff-and Fulton & Norton, two cats who work under Alasdair in the Engineering Team.
Alasdair has a love for Rock music, and in his spare time will play the electric guitar.
Physical Description[]
Alasdair is one of the taller characters, standing at four feet, two inches. He has light brown hair that goes down to his waist, and matching hazel eyes (masked by a pair of thick glasses). His build includes a round fluffy belly, despite his height.
Alasdair can generally be found in a military jacket, a shirt and a pair of aging bell-bottoms. At times, however, he will swap this out for other outfits, including a rather garish flower-child outfit. At all times, he wears a purple amethyst necklace, handed down to him by his mother. He treasures it dearly, as it's the last reminder of his late mother that he has.
With regards to night-wear, Alasdair will usually wear a t-shirt and a pair of boxer shorts, although he often does away with the shirt on warm nights (or on the whim of Kyoko). He's also been known to sleep in the buff on occasion, and will generally do so if given the chance.
Background[]
Early Life[]
Alasdair was born in August 2990, onboard his family's freighter, the Clan Geddes, in orbit around the planet of Jura. His parents - Hunter and Morag Geddes - were part of a band of galactic travellers, and so from birth he joined them-and his older sister, Valerie-on their travels around the Galaxy.
In those days, the most common practice would be for the Geddes family to travel along with the rest of the Pack in the Clan Geddes, and settle somewhere on a planet for any amount of time-often ranging from a couple of days to several months. A common favourite was Jura, in the Antares System, which was Morag's home planet. The family soon became regulars in the small fishing village of Kyle Abbin, and as Alasdair grew older, he began to enter into many summer romances with the local girls.
Sadly, Hunter never got to see his son grow up. He was killed in an freighter explosion at the shipping company he co-owned with his brother Stanley. Morag was devastated, and to make matters worse, the Stellar Federation simply brushed off her pleas for compensation, simply because she was a traveller. In the end, Morag rechristened the family's ship the Hunter in his memory.
Alasdair knew none of this at the time, of course, and he grew up living the life of an average gypsy child (the use of this term to describe Alasdair and his family is actually inaccurate, but they grew so used to the mistake that they simply went with it). He had a passion for spacecraft, especially as a means of travel, and he always wanted to one day serve as an engineer on a starship. To this end, he took on a correspondence course at the Doohan University of Stellar Mechanics in Glenfalcons, Procyon VI, and also got hands on lessons from Morag in the Hunter. Sadly, Morag would never get to see her son fulfil his ambitions.
Doon Th' Pan[]
In early 3007, Alasdair had been visiting some friends in the city of Glenfalcons on Procyon VI, when he received the devastating news that Morag had been killed. Exactly when, where or why was not made clear to Alasdair; all that he was told was that it'd been an attack by the Stellar Federation, and that the Hunter had been destroyed.
The news of Morag's death practically shattered Alasdair's own existence, and to make matters worse, he found that he would be confined to Procyon VI, perhaps forever. His older sister Valerie was put up by their uncle Stanley in Glenfalcons, but Alasdair disliked him intensely, so he instead moved in with a friend of his, Mercedes. However, after a few months, Mercedes' folks objected to this arrangement, and Alasdair was literally kicked out onto the streets.
This would have been the end of Alasdair, but for two strokes of fortune: shortly after his eviction, Alasdair happened upon an old executive transport corvette that'd been left to rot in a vacant lot in the city, which solved the accommodation problem; there was also a job offer from Stanley, who was looking for someone to work as a technician at his shipping company. In spite of his hatred for his uncle, Alasdair took up the job, which barely gave him enough money for even a table, let alone any food to put on it.
Joining the Stellar Typhoon[]
This unsatisfactory arrangement of things continued until mid-3009, when the ship that Alasdair was serving on, the Midnight Sun, was raided by pirates. This was doubly beneficial for Alasdair, in his opinion; firstly, he would be able to escape his dead end existence; and secondly, he was able to escape the disastrous consequences of trying to cook pancakes in zero-gravity.
Alasdair lost consciousness during the raid, but when he next awoke, he found his luck was in for a third time: the first person he saw was a devastatingly beautiful lady raccoon, who quickly introduced herself as Kyoko Mori, the Chief Engineer of the Stellar Typhoon. On meeting the Typhoon's Captain, one Jaws MacTaggart, Alasdair begged for her to take him away from his life of poverty, and perhaps employ his services on top of that.
Of course, Jaws accepted his pleas, especially after he helped them out of a scrape with a Stellar Federation battlecruiser, the Oshan Akuma, shortly afterwards.
Nowadays, Alasdair acts as a vital component of the Stellar Typhoon's workforce. He still has a lot to learn about life in the stars, but he feels confident that he can still achieve his ambitions, both to aid himself and to honour Morag. His confidence has been boosted further by his infatuation with his superior, Kyoko Mori; an infatuation which pretty soon developed into a full relationship. Though neither of them will really admit it, the general opinion among the rest of the crew is that it won't be long before they decide to take their relationship to its logical conclusion...
Trivia[]
- Alasdair shares his birthday (August 20th) with creator Craig Black. Also like Black, he is an avid railway enthusiast.
- During his travels, he was exposed to various music styles, though he particularly takes a liking to British rock. His favourite acts range from Steeleye Span to The Beatles. He is also a fan of The Who.
- Alasdair collects numerous guitars of many varieties; among his favourites is an Epiphone Casino - Vintage Sunburst, quite similar to that of John Lennon, and a gold top finish Gibson Les Paul.
Creators' notes[]
- Creator Craig Black has admitted that he made Alasdair Scottish, "'For the same reasons that Scotty from Star Trek is Scottish; that country has brought us some of the best engineers in modern history, and it stands to reason that this should still be going on in the 31st century". This also accounts for his relationship with Kyoko: "They're both from countries with proud histories in engineering and technology. Of course they're going to get together!"
- Artist Jake Elmer has stated that Alasdair is his favorite, next to Kyoko, mostly because both Jake and Alasdair share a strong interest in playing guitar and Rock music, and railway locomotives.
Gallery[]
