Chu-Sho Stefan Koestler, MSN

Chu Sho Stefan Koestler is a scion of the wealthy landowning classes on the old colony of Teutonia in Q0. Brought up according to the strict military traditions of his forebears, after a period as a model student, he easily passed the entrance exams to the MSN Academy, and spent four years on New Mars, majoring in space sciences and computing. He was an able student, but was disciplined for duelling with live blades (gaining him a scar which he refuses to have corrected to this day).

Ambitious and militaristic, Koestler served on a variety of MSN vessels, always working dilligently and impressing his commanding officers, ending up as an executive officer on a destroyer on anti-piracy patrols in Quadrant 7, taking part in several successful anti-pirate operations, including winning a Commander's Citation for leading a prize crew on a captured pirate vessel. When part of the pirate crew mutinied Koestler led a counter-boarding action which resulted in the retaining of the ship, though at the expense of an investigation into whether rules of engagement had been overstepped (he was exhonorated).

He was promoted to second in command on a larger ship before gaining his first captaincy at the age of only 30, on a Scentific Survey Vessel. Koestler has continued to rise through the ranks since then, with a reputation for decisive action and being something of a 'glory hound'. At the age of just 45 he is the youngest promotion to Chu Sho in some years, and the youngest ever Sector Admiral in the Martian Star Navy. He remains politically well connected and has an eye on a political career in the longer term.