Patriotism is only for people with large families.— Orrin Channing[1]
Orrin Channing was a Human Lieutenant in the Engineering section of the Planetary Union.
Around the 2390s or very early 2400s, Orrin lived aboard Outpost 73 with his wife Sophie and their daughter Leyna. Orrin was captured by the Krill during a surprise attack and his family killed.
Orrin remained a prisoner of the Krill for nearly all of his adult life, from his early 20s until his daring escape shortly before his death in early 2421. In the last month of his life, Orrin was a passionate extremist determined to exact revenge on the Krill and to prevent peace between them and the Union.
Early life[]
Orrin Channing was born around late 2370s or very early 2380s.
Orrin was best friends with Gordon Malloy for 30 years "from grade school all the way through Union Point."[2] Both of them attended flight school.
Orrin married a woman named Sophie and they had a daughter, Leyna.
Career and imprisonment[]
After matriculation, in their early 20s, Orrin and Gordon were stationed at Outpost 73. Orrin lived there with both Sophie and their newborn daughter.
The Krill launched a surprise attack on Outpost 73. Gordon and others were trapped beneath fallen debris. While precise details are unclear, Gordon later recalled that Orrin "stopped" to pull them out of the wreckage, saving their lives but getting himself captured as a prisoner by the Krill in the process. Sophie and Leyna were killed in the attack, which Orrin witnessed but could not prevent.
Life in prison was difficult and his captives cruel, but what troubled Orrin most "was the knowledge that some day, years down the line, there would come a time when [Sophie's] absence would feel like the norm."[3]
For 20 years all I had was loneliness and brutality and all the time in the world to relive the memory of watching my family die.[3]
Escape and death[]
Orrin stole a Krill shuttle and escaped from his prison. He soon met a young Envall woman at an unnamed outpost who hated the Krill "for her own reasons."[3] The two conspired to fly Orrin's stolen shuttle to destroyers and fire vials of her explosive blood. Over the next month, they destroyed four Krill vessels with over 1,200 combined dead.
After 30 days, the Krill learned Orrin's identity and that he somehow managed to destroy their ships without conventional weapons. Orrin and the Envall woman fled around February or March 2421, hotly pursued by the Davoro'kos, until they reached Tarazed 3 where the USS Orville rescued them. Orrin presented the alien woman as his daughter and claimed they escaped from prison six weeks prior in the shuttle.
While aboard the Orville, Orrin was a vocal opponent of a lak'vai pact between the Union and Krill. "You make a deal with tyranny, it only gets worse."[3] When he learned that the Union was considering a provisional extradition agreement, Orrin decided to permanently end the peace process. He stole two quantum storage cells from Engineering, filled the cells with Leyna's blood, and asked Gordon for a shuttle.
Gordon quietly plotted with the senior officers to pretend to go along with Orrin's plan. The two "stole" a shuttle and flew to the Davoro'kos, intending to crash themselves (and the cells of Envall blood) into the ship. Once Orrin divulged his suicide plan, Gordon attempted to return Orrin to the Orville. After a brief scuffle, Orrin activated the quantum storage cell, threatening to blow up the shuttle. Gordon shot the shuttle's navigation panel, making Orrin's plan impossible.
Gordon exited the shuttle in an environmental suit but Orrin chose to remain on board, and died in the subsequent explosion.