Captain Iphigenia Maximillienne Fenway McCannon

From Brass Goggles

Revision as of 18:34, 6 January 2009

At a glance: Captain Iffy McCannon is a trigger-happy, cheerful airship captain under command of Her Majesty the Queen. Some consider her a bit of a joke. Her prowess lies in firearms, being nice, and not realizing the gravity of situations at inopportune times.

Early History

Iphigenia Maximillienne Fenway McCannon was born in 1868, above Chicago, at the English-States Coalition Airbase to Wright McCannon, English pioneer of the Auto-Magic Omelette Maker, and Delaney Cooper, an Irish bibliophile. Spending most of her early childhood in London (when not traveling with her parents), Iphigenia attended the Cavallere Academy for Young Women as a boarder until she was 16.

On her eighteenth birthday, she received news that her parents were killed in an explosion, accidentally caused by the Brigadier Spenser Hawkes-Leggett (though she doesn't know he's the culprit yet). She was sent to live with her paternal grandfather, Aloysius McCannon, an old British war hero, now retired to Connecticut. She enrolled in the American air force as Max McCannon, working her way up to the rank of Sergeant. This was when she realized she really, really enjoyed weaponry. When she was 25, she was conked on the head by a piece of flying debris, and was sent to the British army in order to recoup. The British set her up with the bullshit job of Captain of the Potential Space Exploration Unit. Her first assignment was to find an adept crew.

The HMS Ziggurat

The HMS Ziggurat was conceived by McCannon and is constantly under construction, in order to be fit for space. Armed with this ship, McCannon scoured the known earth for a crew. She first bumped into the Brigadier Spenser Hawkes-Leggett at a tea party and luncheon in Edinburgh. The two made quick friends and he was assigned the position of First Mate. He referred to her as Iffy, eventually making McCannon known more by her first name rather than her middle.

Iffy McCannon then met Adelaide Braun at a bar brawl in San Francisco. Learning that Braun was an adept botanist and a fair map-reader, McCannon offered her the position of ship's Navigator.

Joining the unholy trinity on their first endeavor were Estella Griffin, seamstress, Nathaniel Smith, engineer, and Nate Bently, master of officers.

Later, she returned to the same bar that she and Adelaide wreaked havoc at. There, she met Jim Bones, the bartender, who demanded that she make up for the ruckus she'd caused years earlier. Using her people skills, Iffy managed to convince Jim to work as a cook on board her ship.

Relatives

Delaney Cooper's mother, Molly Cooper, was a part-time washerwoman, and her father, Harold Cooper, owned a pub. Delaney had two siblings, sisters named Trista and Annabel. The McCannons have very little to do with the Coopers, and Iphigenia has only met Molly.

Wright McCannon's father was illustrious British war hero Aloysius McCannon. Illustrious, that is, until the Johannesburg Incident - they don't like to talk about it, but it involves a herd of angry albino elephants, a crate of cigars, and several thoroughly unhappy infantrymen. Aloysius moved to Connecticut with his wife, Mabel, after the incident. Mabel died of the consumption several years ago, leaving Aloysius slightly mad, but in the most pleasant of ways. Wright also had a brother, Lloyd, but they don't speak of him much, since he had eloped with "a lady of most boring stature" years prior.

Currently

Iffy and her crew are crashed on an island in the British Isles, inhabited by Incas and a mad anthropologist, in The Daring Adventures of the HMS Ziggurat: Volume 1.

Notable Quotations

Of course I'm the worst captain ever, why do you think I'm in command of the S.S. Failboat here?

I'M SURROUNDED BY AMERICANS!