Legacy of the Confederation III - Characters - June Shu-Xian

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BIO:  A politician who obtained elected office through grass roots campaigns, June Shu-Xian had earned her name as being 'incorruptable' both among the constituencies of the Confederation and her rivals. Born in the Wolf systems, Shu-Xian's family immigrated to earth in search of a better career path for their daughter. Remaining on Wolf would have forced her down the path of either manufacturing or mining, jobs held by the Shu-Xian family for a hundred years and handed down from one generation to the next. Shu-Xian demonstrated mediocre academic achievements during her secondary and primary schooling years. Her family feared they had made a mistake and were concerned that their daughter's lackluster performance would dishonor the Shu-Xian legacy. In the end, June barely passed her courses and immediately enlisted in the mandatory two years of military service required of all Confederation citizens.

Unfortunately, she also performed abysmally in the military to include failing riflery scores and a lack of endurance for field exercises which nearly washed her out of basic training. It was also in basic that she discovered her hidden talent...investigation and an unwillingness to compromise her principles for political convenience. It was well-known within officers' circles that some of the enlisted men and women were smuggling nanotech narcotics in and out. June blew the operation wide open, and ironically, she was only able to do so because the base commanders assigned her to 'desk duty' due to her performance in the field. Each week, her base received a rations shipment for soldiers in the Hack. June, assigned to review the manifests, found that three boxes were present on the shuttle which were not present on the manifests. And each week, the base commander's adjutant would retrieve those boxes.

Taking her findings to the base commander, she was dismissed as ignorant and advised, "The UMC pays you to reconcile manifests, not to point out when things don't add up." June escalated her concerns to the division Colonel who also dismissed her concerns and recommended to the base commander she be discharged for conduct unbecoming. June finally sent her findings to members of the Interstellar Congress, Stellar News Network (SNN), and Confederation News Agency (CNA). Within days, the story hit the VOX of every ConFed citizen between earth and Procyon.

The base commander and Colonel were court martialed and replaced. The first act of the new commander was to promote June for her outstanding investigative work and her devotion to the ConFed ideal, even when her way of life was threatened. The story stuck with the public and Shu-Xian's name became a household name synonymous with ethics. When June completed her two years in the UMC, she ran for local political office and won. She ran for higher offices in the next ten years, winning every time. Her pledge to the public was three-fold:

"I will always tell you the truth"

"I will always seek out the truth"

"I will not accept political contributions from any business, corporation, or political action group"

While very few pieces of legislation initiated by Shu-Xian's office ever passed through Congress due to political elements residing with her peers, Shu-Xian maintained a stranglehold on her electorate. She made publicly known her disdain for any ConFed official appointed to a position as a result of political connections and not hard work. For this reason, Shu-Xian had no respect for Fleet Admiral Karla Wainwright, believing she was only appointed to that role due to Senator Wainwright's influence.