Editing Nobledark Imperium Notable People (section)

=== The Speaker for the Merchant Navy and Rogue Traders Abdul Golberg ===

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%">

The current representative of the Merchant Fleet is a Tallarn. Ot at least very strongly Tallarn influenced. Rumors abound about him. He is not the least known of the High Lords. In fact he his the most known and everyone has extensive information on him, sadly quite a lot of the information everyone has is contradictory.

His mother was Tallarn, that is almost certain. A beautiful princess of one of the city-kings most suggest although which of the grey-haired old women he has as advisors is his mother he will not say and neither will they. His father less is known about other than was an inter-stellar trader. He was of the Goldberg family, a trader dynasty on hard times somewhat reversed in recent years and as such beneath the notice or care of the other old-blood families.

One of his eyes is green and the other is yellow and nobody is sure which is the artificial/graft one. One rumour has it that his father was a Fenrisian tradesman from one of the younger colony worlds, yellow is a "normal" eye colour for those people. Some say his princess mother was married off to his father to secure an off-world trade contract, others that she ran away with him for adventure among the stars. Or the yellow is a graft and the green one is natural, green is an extremely common eye colour on Tallarn.

<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

Others say that he isn't Tallarn at all but from one of the Seven Sanctuary Cities of Nocturne. Certainly he in fluent in the City-Nocturne language, among about a hundred other languages, and is well versed in the Promethean Creed though he does not follow it.

The Writ of Trade he carries the Emperor remembers signing twelve and a half years after the Unification of Sol officially became the Great Crusade. It was to a man called Horatio Jeffers of Gredbritton, which is not to say that the family hasn't legally changed it's name at some point down the long years or indeed it could have passed to another family perfectly legally.

Of the man himself? He is a family man, that is known. He has at least one wife, always referred to as a singular and carefully never by name, though who among his entourage it is is not known. It is known that he has plural in both sons and daughters but again it is not known exactly who among his extended and extensive family they are. It is known that his mother is still alive but his father is not, though not who they are. Unless he's been intentionally and subtly giving consistent "slips" of information down the years that have no basis in reality. It's possible.

He is naturally hideously intelligent and further augmented by minor cerebral augmentations of dubious legality across the Mechanicus legal jurisdictions. It is known that he can speak at least a dozen languages fluently in addition to High Gothic and claims to be able to speak over a hundred with varying degrees of mastery though the extent of this is unverified.

He has sworn to, at and by god and gods of any number of faiths. It is unknown which if any of them he follows the creeds of and which he believes in. It could be none or it could be all of them somehow. In much the same way he has celebrated the festivals of many faiths although it's more than likely that he just likes celebrations.

His age is difficult to say as it's possible that his predecessors as head of the family, not necessarily his father, was also called Abdul Goldberg. Or he has inherited the name upon becoming head of the family. Or he really is as old as he claims (which varies quite a lot) and is just really well preserved. Given the way in which rejuvenents vary in effectiveness between people it's not totally outside possibility that he is in fact just shy of 800 and only physically of early middle years.

He is not psychic. That much if nothing else is certain, he's just really good at reading people and lies so well that he can fool or outright block a casual weak surface scan.

He always keeps a loyal psychic around with him at all times to detect and trace if anyone tries to scan him. These psykers, all sanctioned and legal, are also invariably part of the family though whether they are married into the family or there is a strong psychic gene in the Goldberg is hard to say. Certainly if they married in there is now so it's probably pointless to wonder in any case.

Of the man's rise to power what can be said? He managed to appear on the record books of as many of his competitors and fellow traders as possible so that the name was never too forgotten, positioned his family to appear big enough to fill the vacant shoes as the previous holder of the position started to look ill but still looked small enough to bully around and it didn't hurt that his family were old money. Or at least old IOUs.

It also helped that he had enough ships under his name and the name of his family to appear like a large but broad dynasty rather than a tall and rich one that nobody else wanted or the small and forgettable one that they actually were. Most of these ships were bought exactly to appear exactly as that and the mortgage is still being paid on most of them, high millage old buckets that they are.

And so the Goldbergs got he job. Not because anybody wanted them to have it but because they all wanted each other to have it far less. An ineffectual, weak and poor house would be easy to ignore if they got a position among the High Lords of the Imperium. They would have all the theoretical authority but no power to use it, the other Trader dynasties and meg-corps would have a new era of unregulated greed unbeholden to any so long as they didn't do anything to incur the wrath of the notoriously hands-off Royal Family.

For the most part they have been right though they are not worried and maybe they should be that the Goldbergs are not squandering their new position. From that ever so lofty position Abdul Goldberg can see the overt web of trade across the width, breadth and depth of the Imperium and has access to reports that can strongly hint at the more hidden web of undeclared trade. More importantly he can spot the gaps that his family can fill with their freshly acquired ships. Gaps that are being filled methodically.

The Goldbergs are setting the groundwork to be on the rise again for the first time in possibly thousands of years.

But what do the other High Lords and Ladies know of this? Fedor Jiao of the Navigators has just been deposed under suspicious circumstances, presumably Hector Rex of the Inquisition knows or at least someone in his employ knows, Merelda Pereth of the Navy probably suspects a power shift due to her contacts across the Void Born and Abdul knows that Irthu Haemotalion knows because Haemotalion generally knows or at least suspects everything. But they don't care, the business of business is not their business. The only ones who would care are the other big trader companies and they are habitually dismissive of the Goldbergs.

But what of it? Old Uncle Abdul has seemingly no real personal ambition beyond seeing his family prosper as all good patriarchs do. And professionally he is fiercely loyal to the Imperium as it is the greatest bastion of civilization that is and ever has been and trade is the backbone of it and trade is what flows through his veins as much as blood.

Indeed if you want something, he has it, or will have it soon or can introduce you to someone who does. Usually a nephew of some description, he has seemingly and endless supply of nephews. But always remember to have exact change.

</div>
</div>