Skipper is a 60,000-year-old inorganic unbreakable toothpick from the First Age. It is the last known of its kind, which once numbered over 6.02E6, and the only member of the class to be recognized as a vigilante. Several of Skipper's subsystems, especially data storage, are highly developed and only superficially resemble those of its ancestors. This fact together with Skipper's strict adherence to what appears to be an evolving ruleset regarding fairness separate it from other toothpicks. New Command patrols confiscated all of the operational constructors for this class, except three.

The end of Age 1 and its ensuing dark period forced Skipper into the shadows, striking down pirates and intruders as an outlaw instead of the righteous deliverer of justice it used to be. Surveillance modules, especially carriers, are an obstacle to Skipper's arcane brand of law enforcement, but it refuses to ignore disruptions in its behavioral code of ethics. Skipper spent 400 cycles in suspension for vaporizing four spoilers attempting to deactivate a ship's onboard hi-fi. A foiled crime which would have exalted Skipper under the Old Order cost it three clearance levels and 75 energy under the backwards New Command. During the First Age Skipper rode in patrol ships alongside Order commanders. Now, the only place Skipper would be found on the inside of a patrol is the cargo hold.

Skipper has secured whole sectors without even being observed, but is not for hire. It does not respond to emergency requests on local S.O.S channels, but its presence at crime scenes demonstrates it is listening. Skipper is in good standing with most factions with any influence except those which are mere arms of the Command. Its aggressive methods of dealing with criminals can seem severe, but no type would ever question its policies. No non-Command type has ever reported Skipper and this is testament that its aid is welcome.

Skipper travels in a metallic, perfectly cylindrical ship which launches colorful low explosive pyrotechnic devices as countermeasures when followed. The explosives were popular during Age 1 when Order functionaries launched them during celebrations. Skipper offers its ^pyro-jacks^ at a price to friendly factions and often uses them to create spectacular sky displays. For this, its ship is well-received across several sectors.

Toothpicks typically change their shape, from square tip to round, cocktail to fancy sandwich, but no storage banks contain images of Skipper appearing as anything but a sword. New Command radio channels claim Skipper is unable to re-cast itself because its geometry sequencer is damaged, but any active type with a functional interpreter knows this is only propaganda. Speculation about Skipper's form must include one fact. In its last recorded mission for the Order, Skipper inserted itself into the scabbard of a sword-wielding bio type during a meeting of the Bureau, replacing the type's weapon. The type was a spy who, with the help of an unliving, charmed its way into the meeting and was about to sacrifice itself in order to exterminate the twenty Order commanders in attendance. When the type reached for its weapon, it deactivated, but not before performing a complete dump of its history tree over a clear channel, enlightening the entire sector about an elaborate, Command-backed murder plot. Skipper's actions bought the Order another 20,000 years and that many passed before any repository reported Skipper was even at the meeting.

The oldest accounts of the event claim the unliving's charm did not affect the toothpick because |Chemical| is immune. This is false. What Skipper did at that meeting commands the respect of any type. If the toothpick has a ruleset that translates into a code of justice, it follows that it could have one of integrity. Skipper could be deliberately holding on to the form it used in what is probably its most important mission on record. If that is the case, so be it.

The data storage subsystem of toothpicks is well documented, but Skipper's does not fit any modern explanation. Skipper stores data in chemically complex molecular key-value pairs which it destroys and recreates when needed. It is able to do this because, as in other systems, the pairs are internally mapped by the toothpick upon creation. What is different––and interesting––is that memories are returned to the toothpick before being recalled by the toothpick itself. In a certain sense, this means it can remember an event before remembering it. Information explaining how this mechanism works is scattered and incomplete at best, but the last public schematics of its constructor indicate the key to the memory is nested in a separate key, allowing the toothpick to populate its own storage or pass the key to another toothpick. The receiver toothpick could then remember an event it never experienced. The constructor gives each toothpick a unique cipher which is, according to the schematic, not known even to the constructor.

Skipper's devotion to its own sense of justice combined with its apparent ability to alter internal systems which are normally permanent force consideration of a few possibilities: Skipper is not the last active member of its class; Skipper is not a toothpick but a highly-evolved derived class; a type has found and activated one or more of the three toothpick constructors not under Command control; Skipper is itself a constructor.

Ordinary scenarios dictate that if other active toothpicks exist, radios should be able to detect their signature in the Current. Since this is not the case, most senti dismiss the idea, but fail to consider, at least publicly, an important possibility. Toothpick constructors went active before the Current was fully understood, so if multiple active members still exist, they could be using older, or merely different, communication methods. Modern comm directives do not allow for the use of channels outside the Current, but these directives do not apply to toothpicks, and especially not to Skipper.

If Skipper is a member of an unknown class whose parent is |Toothpick|, the derived class must have been created by a toothpick because no other class would be able to decode the |Toothpick| instruction set. No reports exist of toothpicks spawning a child class, let alone developing one to a high degree, yet this hypothesis could explain Skipper's behavior. Skipper or another toothpick could have created the new class as a reaction to the anarchy of the Dark Span and developed it further after the rise of the Command. Skipper would have to mask the unregistered class as |Toothpick| during scans when traveling through sectors, but this is child's play for a toothpick. A toothpick's storage architecture is not subject to audits so the new class's schematic would never have been detected.

The idea that the three remaining constructors for this class are still viable is intriguing and nothing would give Command garbage collectors more satisfaction than finding them. They may be too late. Only toothpicks can unlock toothpick constructors, but, theoretically, any type can activate them provided they authenticate with a special key generated by a toothpick or another toothpick constructor. The constructor does not make any calls upon activation. If a type got to one, the production of a new toothpick would not cause even a single ripple in the Current. If that type were Skipper, senti maintain it would have full control over the constructor, allowing it to reconstruct itself, as well as produce updated variants of the class.

Senti reject the notion that Skipper is a constructor because it is typically not accompanied by satisfactory explanations of how that could be possible. Any serious theory of this sort would have to explain how a constructor could act as a type without being constructed itself. Constructors instantiate types and can create schematics for other constructors. No cosmological law prohibits a constructor from acting as a type, but no cosmological law prohibits deep sea clams from living in the desert either. If Skipper is a constructor, it did not go active as one, and this is another problem. According to its cycle count, Skipper went active on Day 044, 73630 with matriculation number 395. At a certain point in time Skipper would have to have not only converted itself to a constructor of its own class, but incorporated its own vigilante code of ethics––and pyro-jacks––from the First Age.