Updated ref sheet for 2023.

Personally:

In his youth as a Dewott, Captain Harrison was much more cheerful and a bit of a jokester. However, following after the death of his parents, his attitude would change as a result to more serious. He will not tolerate any goofing off or horseplay if you’re a member of his crew. He isn’t violent but it’s advised NOT to get on his bad side.

Background:

Samuel (Sam) was born and raised in Nuvema Town by his loving parents, who unlike other Samurotts, has no warrior background. Samuel's father was a tugboat captain whose duties included towing barges loaded with railway cars or garbage between Virbank City and Castelia City as well as helping ships enter or exit the harbor ranging from cargo vessels to massive ocean liners. As a young Oshawott, Samuel took an interest in his father's stories of the many ships that came from the other regions like Kanto and such. Whenever the family went to Castelia City, the largest city in all of the Unova region, Sam's excitement would go sky high as he loved to go to the piers to see the ships, some of which were extremely large and had one to four funnels. He would often daydream being on board a ship and the thrill of sailing to distant regions outside of the Unova.

Once Samuel had reached his teenage years, as well as evolving into a Dewott, he went to look for a job on board a ship. He decided to work for one of the most well known and famous shipping lines of the Pokemon world, the Cunova Line, which connected Unova and the Galar regions on a daily weekly service. Samuel went to work on a medium-sized ocean liner as a deckhand, the lowest of all ranks. While it was full of excitement, Samuel would at times miss his family and often wrote to them when off duty. It was while within his first year of working on board that Samuel met his best friend, a Pikachu named Bud. Bud originally worked to help load and unload cargo from railway freight cars at the warehouses in Nacrene City, but he found the job boring and left to instead pursue a career on the open ocean.

Throughout the 1910's and into the 1920’s, Samuel worked his way up the ranks from deckhand to first officer. During a voyage to the Galar region after evolving into a Samurott, Samuel met a young female Primarina named Mary. Both fell in love with each other and were married not too long after that where they settled in Castelia City. Shortly after taking their honeymoon to the Alola region, Mary became pregnant and gave birth to a baby male Oshawott named Edmund. It was considered the happiest of times for Samuel and his new family.

But then, in late 1929, the stock market in Castelia City crashed, dragging all of Unova and the other regions into a great depression. As rates plummeted, Samuel noticed a sharp decline in passenger service, which alarmed him. Losing his job meant that his family would have to move to a smaller house and lose their valuables. He had witnessed a family get kicked out of their house when they couldn't pay the rent. It was something he didn't want his wife and child to have to go through. Things got worse when Samuel's father, who's fortune was reduced to nothing by the crash, committed suicide with a handgun. Samuel's mother, heartbroken by what had happened to her husband, took her own life as well.

Although Samuel would be promoted to the rank of skipper in the early 30’s, the next few years were grim with no signs of the depression letting up. Things, however, were starting to heat up with the Cunova Line's biggest rival, the Kalos Line, launched their newest super liner, the SS Lumiose City, a three funneled vessel weighing at 79,280 GRT and 1,029 ft (313.6 m). She was to be commanded by a Greninja named René whom Samuel had developed a rivalry with.
The Cunova Line would counter the threat with their own super liner to be called the SS Queen of Unova. Construction of her had begun in 1930 in the Slateport City shipyard in Slateport City, Hoenn, but had to stop from the depression. The Galar government needed the money to finish the Queen of Unova as well as for a future running mate. The Unovan government would loan some money for work to resume, and in 1934, five years after the crash, Queen of Unova was launched in September of that year. Two years later, the Queen of Unova left on her maiden voyage with Samuel as it’s captain. At 81,237 GRT and 1,019.4 ft (310.7 m), the Queen of Unova was the largest vessel of the Galar region and certainly the biggest ship Samuel has ever commanded.

By the late 30’s and into the 40’s the economy of Unova and the world had started to recover from the crash. In 1945, Samuel left the Cunova Line to work for the Unova Lines, a company mostly involved in shipping. It did have a few liners but most were second hand from other regions from the previous two decades. That would all change in the following decade.

The 1950’s brought about a new era of fashion, music, politics, technology, and so forth. Art deco had given way to mid-century art, swing music folded to rock ‘n’ roll, film genres like westerns and science fiction began to pop up on the silver screen. New advances in technology saw the invention of the television brought into the homes of families. The discovery of splitting the atom from years of research in the 40’s would lead to the creation of nuclear energy, something that was promised to power all of Unova well into the future.

In 1952, Samuel would become the captain of a brand new liner built in the Unova region, the SS Unova. Inspired by the SS Queen of Unova and Aloha, the SS
Unova, while smaller in length, size and tonnage (53,330 GRT / 990 ft / 302 m) was an advancement in technology thanks to revolutionary steam turbines allowing it to reach a maximum speed of 35 knots (65 km/h; 40 mph) making it 5 knots faster than the Queen of Unova (it’s claimed that it could reach a possible speed of 40 knots or faster.)

Reaching the pinnacle of life, Samuel has experienced a lot in his life throughout the first half of the 20th century going through many ups and downs.

Facts:

-Samuel’s full name is named after the following people: Samuel after Sir Samuel Cunard, founder of the Cunard Line, as well as a nod to Sam’s species, Samurott. Fitzgerald after F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of the 1925 novel, “The Great Gatsby.” Finally, Harrison after the character Captain Harrison of the 1972 disaster film, “The Poseidon Adventure” played by the late Leslie Nielsen

-Samuel's vessels he’s commanded, the SS Queen of Unova and SS Unova, are carbon copies of the real life ocean liners RMS Queen Mary (1936) and the SS United States (1952). Like the previous line Samuel worked for, Unova Lines is a parallel company of the real life United States Lines. Unlike the Cunova Line, however, Unova Lines sails only between the Unova and Galar regions

-Due to his duties as captain as well as being a father, Samuel doesn’t have the time for battles unlike his youth years

-Samuel’s favourite sports are baseball, rowing, and swimming

-Valves modernism and scientific progress over tradition as well as his region’s old folklore

-Hails from an alternate universe/timeline that doesn’t involve the events of Mega Evolution, Dynamaxing, Terastallization and the Hisuian era (remakes/spin offs also fall into this category as well)

-Lives in a Unova region influenced by RDR 1 & 2 (early years) and Mafia 1 & 2 (later years)

-Although Samuel does not follow the warrior ways of his species, his father would still teach his son the ways of the scalchop/seamitar as his father did so with him when he was young. Samuel still carries his seamitars in his scabbards on his forearms despite not using them very much

-Owns a car based on a 1950’s Oldsmobile

Character © me.

Samurott and Pokemon © GAMEFREAK / Creatures Inc.