[CHAR] Shattered Galaxy: New Beginnings

[Thinslayer]

Vera Valentine

* Given name & Family name: Vera Valentine

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* Worldview & Motivations: Vera believes that every human life is precious and purposeful, and that even the most villainous of them deserves a chance at redemption. Her goal in this mission, indeed in her whole life, is to bring hope to a humanity devoid of any. Those close to her have noted, correctly, that this does not necessarily translate to loyalty toward the Empire, and her fellow Immortals have maintained an eye on her ever since they realized this about her.

* Personality Traits: Saucy, playful, and indefinitely starstruck, she looks at every encounter with another human being as something to be celebrated. The human mind, to her, is an infinite wellspring of mystery, and causing a person to express their own deepest thoughts is one of her life's greatest joys. But there is also a quieter, more contemplative side of her that one may find if enough time is spent with her, one that seems almost hopeless. In her capacity as diplomat, she has seen the full range of human expression, and she is not as naive as she looks - she does not hold much hope in humanity's future. So how can she bring hope to others when she herself has none? "When all hope is lost," she would say, "call out to her, and she shall return to you."

* Quirks/Hobbies: Vera is something of a novice poet. Her verse is technically sound, but rather uninspiring sometimes. She is also the idyllic gamer girl - sexy, competitive, and talented. Unfortunately for prospective gaming partners, she has more important things to do with her life, like saving the galaxy, for instance. Vera has an intuitive engineering sense that makes her more useful than your average politician when things break down, thanks to her early interest in vehicle design. On a side note, her father wasn't too happy when she tore apart his teleporter, but that's neither here nor there.

* Faults: Putting excessive value on human life, combined with her internal hopelessness, leads her to avoid confrontations when possible. She would rather make people feel happy than tell them the truth, if she were forced to choose between the two. She wouldn't lie, but she wouldn't say what needed to be said, either. Deception isn't entirely out of the question for her, though, and in fact it is often the only way for her to avoid confrontation that doesn't involve outright lying. Additionally, for all her preaching about the value of human life, she has surprisingly little to say when others have to do the dirty work of actually killing people who threaten the greater good. The hypocrisy is not lost on her, and has been a thorn in her side ever since it first occurred to her.

* Background Info: Vera Valentine was raised on Crescent Prime, the innermost core world of the empire and by far the most populous. With the capital being the center of culture and technology, she initially absorbed most of the traits common to her peers. She went to virtual school classes since she was only two years old, played with her friends in the streets (devoid of cars for several decades with the advent of cheap teleportation), and fell into a depressed stupor along with millions of others by her thirteenth year of age, vanishing into the (artificial) forest in a sort of "coming of age" ritual. At this point, most people made a decision, whether to continue striving for meaning in life or to end the struggle once and for all. Evidently, she must have found some meaning in her life, because she returned to the public sphere a year later bent on joining the military. She proved to be a talented warrior, but what really sold her to the higher-ups was her unwavering optimism and ability to inspire everyone around her. Thanks to her budding political acumen and a few well-placed bribes, she weaved her way up the ladder. How she became one of the seven Immortals, however, is classified, and not a few attempts were made to uncover this well-kept secret of hers.

* Job Description/Role: Immortal, Diplomat
* Properties & Possessions: shear-hardening hazard coat, dimensional containment unit, semidenim leg piece, microfiber top piece, bicast polymer foot guards, wrist-mounted chronometer, A.I. implant, multi-frequency mineral scanner, bioscanner, handheld particle blaster, S.E.E.D. launcher

[Marquise]

Michi

* Given name & Family name: Michi de Maganza


* Description/Image: Michi is not particularly physically prepossessing, standing a diminutive five foot three, and whipcord-lean rather than bulking with muscle. Svelte and trim and permanently youthful thanks to generations of genetic modification and the rigours of military life, she is far older than she appears.

Her face is fine-boned and sharp, with spectacular cheekbones and a pointed, elfin chin - as though generations of good breeding have come to their natural culmination and then progressed slightly further. She is not beautiful in the conventional sense – ‘striking’, instead, might be a better term. Pale-skinned, her Cupid’s bow lips stand out in an otherwise-bloodless aristocratic face, always painted a rich crimson, and her deep-set green eyes burn brightly, quick and darting and missing little. Pale blonde eyebrows arch dramatically, often raised in sardonic question, and her hair is currently a thick and lustrous matching shade – although kept severely in check in military braids, the gold beads which weight each of them gleaming brightly.

Michi is somewhat unusual amongst the upper echelons of the Empire in not radically changing and modifying her body; she is considered something of a prude amongst the glitterati of the Core as a result, having shown little interest in the kind of transformations that are commonplace amongst the glitterworld elite.

Michi is rarely seen out of uniform; the mess-dress of the Imperial Navy is acceptable at even the highest level, and she prefers the certainty it confers, with its medals and rank flashes, its gold braid, epaulettes, aiguilettes and clearly-defined code. On the rare occasions she might be encountered out of it, she dresses well but not ostentatiously. Her clothes might be of the finest make and perfectly tailored, but she is old, old money and from an old name; not for her the posturing of the nouveau riche. Flashing mood-silk ballgowns and clothes spun from cloth-of-gold are beneath her.

* Worldview & Motivations: Michi views the Crescent Empire and its Core as the pinnacle of civilisation and enlightenment. Although a Core native born and bred, and from one of the highest families in the Empire to boot, she has seen many places over the years in service to the Navy and has measured countless planets and polities against that yardstick; all have been found wanting in some manner or other. Whilst she might find the more extreme pleasures the glitterati pursue distasteful, she is always quick to champion the sophistication of a post-scarcity state and the many advantages the Empire offers, particularly over the ragtag fringe worlds and their endless, fractious bickering and warmongering.

Better by far that they accept imperial governance from those who know how to properly run a star nation and settle down into comfortable post-scarcity civilisation and peace.

She is motivated by duty and loyalty more than anything; the Empire has been good to the Maganzas, down the millennia, and she truly believes that imperial hegemony – backed up by the shattering power of the Imperial Navy - is the only way to keep the galaxy at peace and continued prosperity.

* Personality Traits: Serious and calm, unflappable in the face of almost any situation, Michi de Maganza is renowned for her equipoise and her sang-froid. Beneath the polish of a Coreworld native, though, beats an altogether more fiery heart, one that only really comes to the fore in moments of passion. This, then, when the shackles of good manners and taste are slackened, is the Michi de Maganza who will happily burn planets and star systems and leave a trail of graveyard worlds and shattered fleets in her wake until she achieves her objectives.

* Quirks/Hobbies: Michi rather enjoys collecting books – actual, physical, paper-and-leather books, printed or even hand-written from the ages before ubiquitous AI and digital media, and her office, as a consequence, frequently resembles an anachronistic library straight out of historical fiction. She is also a keen yachtswoman, owning her own civilian starship and competing in several of the most prestigious racing cups in the Empire. Finally, although she has little interest in melee combat – beyond the courses mandated by the Navy Academy for all officers – she is an excellent shot and enjoys marksmanship, with everything from her own favoured gravity-wave disruptor to antique chemical slug-throwers.

*Faults: Michi de Maganza can be cold-hearted and clinically ruthless. She cares for life, but only so long as its preservation doesn’t conflict with her objectives and strategy, and has little time for those armchair admirals who wring their hands and pontificate contrary to her actions after the fact. She has orchestrated slaughter on an inconceivable scale – but she always got the job done and expanded the Crescent Empire.

She is also – perhaps rightly – prideful; she grew up with a silver spoon in her mouth in one of the wealthiest and most idyllic regions of the entire galaxy, as a member of one of the great families of the most powerful galactic nation. She is aware of some of the faults of her brethren but does not take kindly to aspersions cast about her family, nor to those who paint all Coreworlders with the same brush, even as she herself to an extent looks down on the pitiable barbarians of the Fringe, not recognizing – or refusing to recognize – the similarity.

* Background Info: House Maganza has been a pillar of the Crescent Empire for generations. Their capital ringworld of Arcadia, and its surrounding sprawling fiefdom of the Elysian Reach, is deep within the very core of the Crescent Empire, close to Crescent Prime itself and insulated by depth from the fractious and barbaric fringe worlds. As a scion of that laurelled House and a Coreworlder to boot, Michi has wanted for nothing her entire life. She grew up in the studied idyll of Archades Citadel, the family’s ancestral seat at the heart of their power, and then continued her education on Crescent Prime itself. Saturated in the culture and ideals of the glitterworld Core, Michi spent her youth in dissipation, developing a pronounced taste for many of the finer things in life. Even then, however, the young Michi was uncomfortable with many of the more radical pastimes and fashions; only her social position saved her from outright ostracision.

House Maganza had always, though, sent its scions into the military and, soon enough, it was time for Michi to follow in her forebears’ footsteps. The discipline and relative austerity of the Imperial Navy suited her down to the ground; she flourished there, away from the body-mods and the expectations that she would twist herself to suit the latest fashion sweeping Crescent Prime. Her career has been built over long years of service; Michi de Maganza saw action many times in the Conquest War, rising up through the ranks as the war raged on. She built something of a reputation for being a strategically-superior, although ruthless, commander, enforcing the desires of the Crescent Empire with commendable efficiency and nary a qualm over the bloodshed.

Most recently, she has traded on her tactical and strategic victories during this vast conflict as well as a pervasive, byzantine web of family connections to gain an Admiral’s flag and command of the fleet.

* Job Description/Role: Admiral – in overall command of the imperial fleet, Michi has taken the star carrier as her flagship

* Properties & Possessions:

1. Maganza Ducal Signet Ring – worn on the little finger of Michi’s left hand, it is the only jewellery she generally permits herself, aside from the medals won during her Navy service.

2. Imperial Navy Uniform skinsuit – standard-issue for spacers, the skinsuit is equipped with powerful shield generators which can protect the wearer from the rigours of open space in the event of an emergency. Michi often uses hers to walk the actual surface of her star carrier and gain a little space and perspective.

3. Neural lace – a top-of-the-line AI implant woven all through Michi’s body, interfacing seamlessly with her brain and further enhanced by Navy upgrades, her AI allows her to process vast amounts of information – and entertainment – almost instantaneously. The lace provides an ever-present AI companion, reactive to Michi’s needs. She has had hers since the age of two and it is almost perfectly attuned to her.

4. Gravity-wave disruptor – technically and officially a sidearm, Michi’s gravity-wave cannon is entirely capable of projecting a burst of lethal gravitons to rip apart even the heaviest of targets. She mostly uses it to keep her aim in on the simulators, there being little opportunity for an Admiral of the Imperial Navy to engage in groundside combat or even hunting of any sort.

5. Dimensional containment unit – mostly used to store Michi’s extensive library and other essentials, such as fine food and wine from the Core, her DCU has followed her faithfully on every deployment, giving her some home comforts whether she has command of a destroyer or a dreadnaught.

6. Haven – a luxury civilian star-yacht, the Haven is Admiral Maganza's personal plaything and also serves as an informal officer’s club whilst docked to the carrier. It is sumptuously appointed and well-stocked with fine food and wine.