Send “In Another Life” and I’ll tell you a fact about an AU version of my character.

In the Cowboy Bebop/Star Wars/Star Trek/Babylon 5/Battlestar Galactica/Firefly crossover AU, Hakuba was the captain of a smaller battlestar called the Unicorna and commanded a crew of twelve dozen people— mostly women. It was generally thought that the young captain (who had risen in the ranks far faster than anyone else his age) was a letch and a flirt, but as it turns out, he employed mostly women for two reasons:

1. He was tired of the rampant sexism in the system imposed by the Embassy
2. His particular species of anthropomorphic dog was “gifted” with the ability for either sex to reproduce, thus making them very prolific breeders. Although Hakuba was very much married to his work and had little interest in raising children, he did, however, have to deal with cycles every two months and found it easier to find empathy with female crew, who would comfort and coddle their captain. (Shinichi later discovered this and was so excited to tell Heiji that Hakuba was a “literal bitch,” causing a fight that Heiji had to break up…)

He was a very popular captain and those who served under him generally enjoyed their terms. Not only did their missions focus on relief efforts for the war-torn corners of space, but Hakuba ensured that all food served to the crew was GOOD.  He believed that good food was essential for a happy, healthy crew, and he always ate what they ate as a result. If he didn’t like it, it couldn’t be served, and he personally trained a handful of cooks who didn’t understand what that meant.

They also always had to have a lot of icecream on board, which was unusual for a warship… … … but then, Hakuba was always very good with the paperwork and manipulating the budget to accommodate for it.