Renegade Reinterpretations
Dossier: The Corsair
"Being a Corsair means doing what's right, no matter the odds. Saving slaves, attacking pirates on their own turf, sometimes just standing up to an unstoppable force to say 'you're wrong', because someone has to. Heavy risk… but it lets me sleep easy at night."
The last of a dying breed, Jacob Taylor is a Corsair. Not simply a pirate, but the older breed, the truly adventurous, independent space captains who stole from the wicked Batarians and freed the enslaved with only a rogue's code of honor to guide them. Grandson of the legendary Curtis Taylor, being a Corsair was the family business and one Jacob took up when his father Ronald Taylor never returned. A human hero without having ever signed on with the Alliance, Jacob has been fighting the undeclared war with the Free Hegemony for as long as Shepard has been in the military. Covertly supported by the Alliance and even Cerberus front groups from time to time, the modest Taylor would be a legend in his own right were he not forever overshadowed by his grandfather's name.
Even so, he remains an exceptionally skilled Corsair, as notable for his steady temper, stable morals, and exceptional leadership skills as he is with his special-forces level space-combat and ship-boarding skills. No longer a starting companion himself, Jacob is a dossier whose mission replaces another companion's. Jacob's recruitment mission centers around a joint mission to raid a Batarian slave-ship looking to trade human captives for Collector technology, the first of many tie-ins between character missions and the main story. Jacob's loyalty mission revolves around finding his father, also a Corsair, who disappeared when Jacob was young. Though the mission seems the same from the start, the impetus of disgust is the mounting evidence that Ronald Taylor was intending to take slaves he rescued and selling them to the Collectors. It turns out that Ronald Taylor died after crashing the ship to avoid the Collectors once he realized what his crew had planned: his biometrics were used by his crew in the travesty that followed, but Jacob's father himself was uninvolved. With his past behind him, and a new-found family history of fighting the Collectors, Jacob is free to focus on the mission.
Politically, Jacob is one of those humans who doesn't conform to either the Xenonationalist or Assimilation labels. Lacking the interest in Human domination associated with Assimilation, but finding the Xenonationalist Alliance far too restrained and self-centered, Jacob's defining traits are his impatience to do good as well as his dealing with being forever foreshadowed by his grandfather (a legend he respects, but never knew). At heart a moral idealist frustrated by the world, Jacob is in the middle ground between both groups, willing to criticize both and be marginalized in return. Jacob's team-member greetings are a part of his job/role as a team leader and mediaroe, and Jacob's dialogue has as much to do with the other team members as it does with himself. As always, he remains a modest man who doesn't boast about his own skills.
Jacob's Broker Dossier notes exceptional accomplishments (Jacob has one of the highest Humans-rescued counts of all living Corsairs, despite his young age), organizational ties (he's been scouted by and refused both the Alliance and Cerberus before accepting Shepard's offer), and a personal note about how he's getting along well with aliens on the Normandy.
Author Notes:
I'll admit: I like Jacob. I even wrote a whole sub-section of First Contact War history to make him more interesting. Why? Without repeating myself too much, because he's a morally sound, stable, sane guy in a universe of weirdos and freaks. Which makes him the most unusual one of all.
I felt that moral soundness should stay. Jacob will always be a guy who's good for his circumstances, and in this case he's probably the closest thing to a Paragon Humanity has. Add some exciting back story (space Jack Sparrow! With less comedy!), and give him a dossier mission that actually matters, and he's better suited to escape the 'bland' label. He's still modest, but he can at least keep people's interest… if Ms. Shepard can keep from flirting with him.
I don't blame her, though. Those are some nice abs. I'd touch them too, and I'm just text on a computer screen!
