Jack of Harts

It was because of Charles that the Cowboys stopped wearing military uniforms during the Hyades Campaign. The Alliance had ordered us to help keep the peace, but the locals didn’t trust the military. They also didn’t trust the Free Chinese we put in charge of their planets. So Charles donned a business suit and went out to talk to them. It was actually a natural thing for him. He grew up wearing business suits, you know. And the locals were used to various overseers walking around in business suits. But Charles talked to them like equals, and they loved that. The rest of us followed his example and got suits of our own, and the rest is history. The business suit became our uniform, and it worked from one corner of the Hyades Cluster to the other. It also worked after War’s End, and that is all thanks to the example Charles put forward.

Charles had a real problem in the Hyades Cluster. The Chinese owned it and everybody in it. The planetary managers and landowners were Chinese. But the majority of the people who lived out there were Tibetan, Korean, Japanese, or any of the other dozens of populations the Chinese conquered on Earth. They got sent out to the stars so the Chinese would have some more breathing room on Earth. And us handing administration over to the Free Chinese didn’t help. The locals considered them just another batch of racist Chinese bastards. So they didn’t cooperate with us. Charles thought that if he dressed up in a business suit and treated them as equals, he could bring them over to our cause. He walked the streets without nametags, ranks, or visible weapons, and just talked to them. Visited their businesses. Bought their products. Made friends. That changed everything.