Xalese Taala Höl

18

Female

Luytenia, Luyten System

Despite being eighteen cycles old, Xalese Höl isn’t particularly a “mature”-looking woman by most people’s point-of-view. She’s one of the shortest students at the Taiyōtawa Interstellar Piloting Academy, standing at an unassuming 5’3” and has been often teased about her diminutive, youthful appearance on more than one occasion. Her hair is a bright silver and her eyes a sharp pair of sapphires – a visage that oft reminds academy instructors of her mother, Yeles. The young Luytenian evokes a strong presence in lieu of being a “tall” woman, often appearing as an moody, harsh, and hostile personality from sheer expression alone; this can be asserted from the fact that her instructors find her composure problematic despite her test scores being off the charts when it comes to being one of the few Generation 2 Valkyrie prospects.

Xalese Höl is a temperamental young woman who has resigned to her fate at the academy. Despite being the daughter of two of the greatest valkyrie pilots in recent memory, Ese has shown that she's not happy and at the rate she is going as a prospective coordinator talent she probably will never be happy. A lot of this is in part of her feelings toward piloting and the role her parents played for the greater confederacy.

Will finish writing this, but hey outlines:

▪ Ese’s parents are killed in battle against Ascendant forces when she is eight years old. The subsequent funeral denotes their deaths as a necessary tragedy and that their memory as “heroes of the confederacy” will live on. Ese begins to despise the terms ‘hero’ and ‘noble sacrifice’.

▪ Hates the Ascendancy for murdering her parents during the war.

▪ Hates the Confederacy for forcing her parents to take part in a unwinnable gambit for the “greater good”.

▪ Wants to live up to her parent's legacy yet despises the concept of being a pilot at the same time. A hypocrite with emotional baggage.

TC

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Kalian Bel Cyris II. He commonly goes by Bel.

19

Male.

Agria, AKA Tau Ceti E, Tau Ceti System.

When one envisions the son of a hero, Bel probably isn't the first person to come to mind. Standing at the fairly average height of five feet, eight inches, he doesn't exactly have the towering stature or striking looks one might anticipate. His face appears to still be clinging desperately to the last vestiges of its baby fat, with surprisingly round cheeks and a somewhat dull and narrow rather than sharp and chiseled jawline. His nose is low and small, and somewhat round and buttonlike in exactly the manner one might expect an overly affectionate grandmother to find quite pinchable. He has a very prominent forehead - some might call it a fivehead - framed by the short-cropped bangs of his dark, straight, and routinely messy hair, and particularly emphasized by his high-set brow. Neither of these features, one might add, do much to detract from the rather defined contour of a set of bold eyebrows that seem so prone to frowning that you could swear them to be somehow magnetically attracted to his bright, clear blue eyes.

These eyes are, in particular, the crown jewel of his face, with a mature, focused look that perhaps, in some sense, rescues his countenance from looking wholly childish. They have a fascinating sort of energy to them, seeming to shimmer and shift with the slightest change of expression in a way which is wholly captivating. Were the rest of his features half so enthralling as his eyes, there could be no doubting him to be handsome. Nevertheless - particularly when he smiles, revealing almost equally bright rows of white teeth - he could be reasonably called somewhat attractive, or at least cute - a word which he himself would surely never tolerate.

His skin is relatively clear apart from the occasional pockmark, mole, or scar from carelessly scraping or cutting himself by accident upon some jagged piece of metal while working. Having spent his life largely either in space or underground, his skin is unsurprisingly rather pale. Nevertheless, despite his somewhat aloof lifestyle, he's in decent physical shape, probably from hauling around machine parts here and there, or from helping his family stock their small shop back when he lived with them on Agria. Nevertheless, he's less buff than he is simply thin, and as such doesn't exactly have the most imposing sort of figure.

More often than not, he's seen wearing a variety of nondescript hoodies, t-shirts, jeans, and slacks - usually blue, white, red, or gray if he can help it. However, he's particularly often seen simply wearing a hoodie over some casual clothes patterned stylistically like a flight suit, with some simple bits of padding tacked onto them for effect, but coupled with a significantly finer white and red jacket emblazoned with a red delta logo. While this logo was adopted by his engineering group, it was originally the personal crest of his mentor and role model, Captain Asher Zaren, from whom he received the jacket as a present from his days as a pilot. He wears it with pride out of reverence for his mentor, and is seldom seen without it.

Bel could perhaps best be described as a walking contradiction. At a glance, one might describe him as cheerful, confident, and carefree. He's perpetually irreverent and casual, making light of almost any situation and thus finding something in it to amuse himself. He always seems on top of his game, ready for anything that comes his way. And yet, he's also aloof in a sense, as he stubbornly refuses to seriously engage with... well, almost anything, really. His constant joking hides a tendency to seldom treat any matter seriously. This isn't to say he's indecisive or cowardly, however. If forced to address or answer to a challenge head-on, he'll tackle it as best - and as quickly - as he can, all while making it seem effortless. And yet, his reluctance to answer seriously when questioned or rise to the occasion when called hints at the fragility of his ego.

In this sense, he's quite the rebellious teenage spirit. He doesn't like being compared to others, because regardless of his relative competence, he seems to expect he'll be looked down on or spited. And yet, given how hard he tries to look like he's not trying, he also clearly values his reputation. He wants to be praised, or, failing that, to be told that what he's lacking is motivation and effort, not talent. When one figures this out, he's surprisingly easy to lead on bit by bit, as he'll sometimes forget that he's supposed to seem unconcerned when he thinks he's doing well. In these cases, his enthusiasm and pride are clearly quite genuine, and are so earnest that one might find them quite charming in spite of his sometimes obnoxious behavior. The problem is, once he's had time to calm down from his high of pride, he goes right back to being just as affectedly unconcerned as ever.

He's very slow to trust people, and tends to think the worst of almost everyone he meets, always expecting some hidden agenda guiding their actions, and trying above all else to avoid being a pawn in their game. He values his independence very highly, such that he's even hesitant to speak warmly of others, much less be known to have helped them, lest they realize he actually values and admires them. He hates talking about anyone's problems, let alone his own, and as such, can seem quite cold-hearted. And yet, perhaps the one he's trying to deceive is himself, not wanting to admit that despite his desperate efforts to be his own man, utterly unfeeling and unconcerned with the affairs of others, he's actually not as terrible a person as he pretends to be? In truth, what really frustrates him so much in hearing the feelings and hurts of others isn't that they're bothering him and wasting his time with something he doesn't care about, but rather that he can't offer a solution to those problems - a fact he's all too familiar with in his own family life.

His family is, in a phrase, both the root of his many neuroses, and the only exception to them. When it comes to the Keliath family who raised him, he's easily embarrassed by them, but unmistakably warm towards and respectful of them, particularly his mother Anda. However, if there's one thing that makes him go from merely aloof to actually hostile, it's his father. His personality seems to do a complete 180 whenever the elder Kalian Cyris comes into the picture, and he becomes incredibly cold, bitter, and outright angry. Above all else, never compare Bel to his father, especially if that comparison is unfavorable. Doing so might make you an enemy for life.

In short, while he's in some senses kind and devoted to those he truly cares about, Bel is nevertheless a perpetually rebellious teen with severe trust issues, a short temper and a fragile ego - a faker who can't be honest with himself and his own feelings, much less express those things to others. Treat him well, and he'll probably consider you a friend, even if he won't say so. He's not, perhaps, what one would expect of the son of a hero, or of an aspirant hero himself. But he'd probably say that those expectations are ridiculous. Utter selflessness and honesty? Giving up one's own life for the sake of those one doesn't even know? Allowing one's self to be merely a tool, a sacrifice, for the sake of all those cynical adults who play good people like pawns in their big game? His world has never been so big as all that. So long as he's not hurting anyone, and the people close to him are happy, then all the rest will follow - even if he no longer has a place to return to when the fighting's done.

Physical Coordinator

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Camus Porter Tuko

19

Male

Evis, Epsilon Eridani System

Camus is a bit lanky, standing at 6'1" with a lean build. He has the distinct combination of bright blue eyes and blonde hair, the latter of which is kept at a medium length and is more often than not a bird's nest atop his head. His skin is fair to match his eyes and hair.

He usually dresses in uniforms to standard. Despite the formal wear, however, he carries himself rather lax. His hands are often in his pockets, his eyelids half-closed as though he's ready for a nap, and his general body language being very relaxed. Even when he gets heated, he won't appear much more aggressive than that. When he is dressing casual, he'll stick to dress pants and shirts, though will wear them much more comfortably--loose tie, sleeves unbuttoned and rolled up, a jacket on his shoulders if it's suitably cold, and the like.

Steadfast and even-tempered--with a slight, ever-constant lean towards the aloof side of things--Camus is difficult to get a reaction from beyond relatively subtle facial expressions. Despite this, he's a surprisingly good 'people person.' He has an easy time reading others, and intuitively understands how he can best interact with them in almost any given moment. Grossly empathetic, he is quick to be burdened by the troubles of those around him, and has developed a bit of a self-sacrificial nature; he hides this under his subdued personality and oft purposefully mildly abrasive rebukings directed towards squadmates for doing things he considers stupid (especially in regards to piloting valkyrie). It's not something he enjoys doing, but accepts the trade of temporarily hurt feelings in favour of better pilots--it's what will keep them all alive, after all, and though it's not something he'll make an announcement out of, the last thing he wants to see is his comrades injured or killed. He always quietly watches out for people, and therefore isn't keen on taking shit when it comes to the life-or-death situations pilots often find themselves in.

By the same token, Camus is also quick to direct blame coming from authority figures towards himself, and is harder on himself than anyone else. Having always focused on being a Physical Coordinator, his eventual assignment as a Tactical Coordinator instead shook things up. Still not used to the role, he's prone to anxiety, though he can ignore it when he's doing his job--and somewhat when he's not, with the help of cigarettes and alcohol. His position as TC has begun to grow on him, however. While he doesn't have delusions of grandeur, the thought of being a 'hero' of sorts is appealing to him. This stems from his desire to help and protect those around him, and so the rarer nature of those with the aptitude to be TCs and the role's heavier focus on being an overseer of the battlefield is slowly becoming a point of pride for the boy, beyond the already massive privilege of being one of the very few in the universe to be able to pilot a valkyrie to begin with. It's a duty he takes seriously, despite his flaws. Along with his willingness to put himself in danger for the sake of others, and a lack of qualms with what he must do for that goal, it makes him a good--if sometimes terrifying--soldier to have on your side.

The boy has his insecurities, like any other young adult. Not particularly excelling in any real skills in comparison to the other valkyrie candidates leaves him wondering if he's really good enough to be assigned to such a powerful weapon, and he has fears of bringing others down due to this percieved lack of talents. What he does have, however, is that unbending drive of his, pushing him forward even in the most hopeless situations, and even capable of turning him into a demon possessed to accomplish his goals. Borderline psychopathic levels of willpower can make up for a lot, but it also brings with it it's own set of complications.

Though it'd be difficult to gather from looking at him now, Camus comes from the slums on the outskirts of a megacity on the terminal line of the tidally-locked planet Evis. He'd be much quicker to call the place a 'shithole' rather than 'home.'

Still completely uncertain what happened to his parents, he only has the vaguest memories of them that stick with him. Minor conflicts (relative to the great space battles going on in the galaxy around him) around the slum he was born in forced him and the rest of the population to relocate. Following a group of children of various ages, the then five-cycle old Camus found himself in the lower streets of the city's more modern downtown.

Learning quickly that no one cared about him but himself, the boy fought for scraps to keep himself alive. The literal underside of the sprawling city was left mostly to its own devices by official authority, the problem of lawlessness too far gone to neatly fix in any reasonable amount of time. It was during his time spent here that Camus first learned what it was like to take another's life. First it happened indirectly through theft, when he took what little food a random man had left. When the boy had returned a few days later to see if he could nab anything more from the man, he found a lifeless body.

Not long after, Camus found himself in a conflict with a boy a few years older--one of the ones who had run from the same slums. The boy had caused plenty of trouble for Camus in that time, and this fight was particularly heated and nasty. Survival instinct drove Camus to make sure the boy (as well as the small crew of his that witnessed the fight) would never bother him again. In fact, after the fight, that small crew began to answer to him when any of them ran into him, which was interesting, though not something he ever asked for. Despite their pasts with each other, he found himself beginning to care for them, his nature fighting against everything the world had taught him thus far.

At the age of nine, Camus caught wind of Kalian Cyris, and with him knowledge of the existence of valkyries. The story completely captured his imagination. For the first time, Camus had someone he looked up to--and a desire to go beyond the streets he lived in. The stars began calling for him, and dreams of piloting a valkyrie like Cyris helped his sleep.

Opportunity first came knocking two cycles later in the form of violence and tragedy, as it tended to. Camus had finally angered the wrong sort of people; a group of real criminals tracked him down, and killed at least two of the boys in his 'crew.' Camus himself was kept alive, the men seeing value in having him work for them. Of course, the boy wasn't very onboard with this at first, but upon learning that 'working for them' meant moving around space in a ship, he warmed up to it. He still hated the men, of course, but he'd learned to take the good with the bad in life.

He lived for the next half-dozen years as essentially a child soldier for this militaristic criminal group. Forced nearly daily to do things that completely went against his moral compass, the boy came close to losing it multiple times; it was here he really learned to kill emotions, and to do what needed to be done to keep himself alive. Though he was even assigned one of the few mechs the organization had, it became difficult for him to continue dreaming of being like Kalian Cyris--after all, it was hard to imagine Cyris being an active part of heinous criminal activities, even if it wasn't something Camus really had a say in.

At age seventeen, the group he was with had a bloody encounter with a Confederate force that vastly outmatched the. Camus fought in his mech for some time, before realizing that this event could be his ticket out of his current life. The boy turned his guns on his captors (one of the many acts of his that still haunt him), managing to surrender and exit the unit he was piloting before being blown to pieces.

Over the next months, Camus made his case, knowing imprisonment for his connection with the criminal organization was likely. The key may have been his performance in that decisive encounter, as an offer was made to him: if he attended Taiyōtawa's academy, he'd be put on probation rather than jailed. Of course, this was the easiest decision in his life, so the boy accepted and then excelled.

While his conscious was far too stained for him to ever aspire to be like Cyris, he worked himself to the bone to be able to pilot a valkyrie, and begin to make up for the damage he had been forced to do to the lives of others.

It didn't take long for his potential as a Tactical Coordinator to be revealed, and the powers that be forced him onto that path despite his requests. Camus was none too happy about this to begin with, but as he began to distance himself further from the ideal of Cyris he held in his mind, he began to grow into the role of TC.

Camus has never really had a place to call home--shockingly, the Academy is the most stable enviroment he's been in, and due to this, he's been quick to become attached to it and the people he works with. The interactions he has here are incredibly normal compared to what he's become used to, which has taken adjustments on his part. Most difficult of all has been a sort of pressure to open up to others, especially his partner, which he's not too keen on--the boy takes pride in his ability to remain level-headed, but if someone were to see beneath the surface, they'd quickly find out what a nervous wreck he is, even if he never lets that affect his performance.

Tactical

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Alicen "Alice" Priseris Stalfos

Eighteen

Female

Epsilon, Epsilon Indi system

Just like her abilities, Alicen appears as a run-of-the-mill girl with little of note.

Alicen does not have any strange hair color, instead having a simple hazel coloring to her lengthy hair, with her irises being of a similar tint. Her skin is free of any sort of blemishes, although it edges on the lighter spectrum due to Alicen being used to artificial sunlight throughout her youth rather than real sunlight. Regarding her height and weight, Alicen finds herself standing at 5'5'', and while she refuses to disclose her weight, she lies in the recommended range for her respective height and age. As a final note, Alicen's choice of attire is the Taiyōtawa Interstellar Piloting Academy uniform, along with a similar pilot suit when piloting a Valkyrie.

Average.

From childhood to her induction as a pilot among the stars, Alicen has always been considered average. Alicen was never outstanding or spectacular in any specific field, being considered second-rate her entire life. This consideration, among the calls for Alicen to drop out from the Academy, have fueled an abnormal willpower within herself. Despite a number of disappointments, Alicen sees no point in surrendering to the whims of others, even if it takes her a few tries to even reach their equal. Alicen knows she is likely not to be a name for the history books, but she is damn sure that she'll die trying her hardest.

That being said, this outlook Alicen has on life is not without its disadvantages. Whilst Alicen tries to be the best she possibly can, there are those who still look down upon her, and her competitive nature has doubtlessly strained any relationship Alicen might have. Placing Alicen with a coordinator who willfully gloats, or often has similar thoughts, will likely lead to trouble. In short, Alicen is like the younger sibling repeatedly losing at a video game because the older sibling refuses to let them win for once. Constantly "rubbing it in" is likely to lead to Alicen punching the offending individual, despite the possible disciplinary measures that may happen.

The Ascendant-Confederate war had placed the Epsilon Indi system in a peculiar position.

Composed of a K-type main-sequence star, a Jovian exoplanet and two brown dwarfs, the Epsilon Indi system was home to a large number of synthesizers that harnessed the gas emitted from these celestial beings. With the war raging, however, the constant need for fuel-related necessities made the system a high-priority target for both parties due to the extensive facilities it contained. Segments of the system would periodically change hands, bringing poverty and ruin to the populace as they were worked to the bone, like slaves to a foreign master. They were caught in a conflict that wasn't theirs, preferring to be left alone, yet the war would refuse to give into their wishes.

Nevertheless, life would continue on as normal, and in the year 2709 CE, Alicen was born as the second child of the Stalfos lineage. Alicen's childhood was relatively normal, minus the war outside their home, and was expected that she was to be another nameless soul working to exploit the system just like her parents and her forefathers had done so for years upon years. However, Alicen would later find out that life had other plans as she begun to near her first decade of life. During the war, a Confederate Valkyrie would crash into the station the Stalfos had called their home after a prolonged and costly battle.

The emergency shutters were quick to respond to save those that resided inside, yet not everyone came out alive. Both the impact and the previous damage from the battle had led to the Tactical Coordinator's death, however, the Physical Coordinator, Andor Nessel, had survived, albeit wounded. No one was willing to take him in, lest they be considered an enemy of the Ascendants for helping a Valkyrie pilot, yet it was the Stalfos who stood up for what was right and brought the PC to their quarters. The man was in dire need for help, and his numerous injuries had to be treated before a large amount of blood was lost.

Andor's wounds were eventually treated, but due to the seriousness of his injuries, he soon became–more or less–a permanent member of the Stalfos household. Alicen would take a great interest in Andor, who would regale her with tales of being a pilot whenever she asked. Noticing something in Alicen, Andor would take it upon himself to ask her parents for the right to teach their child what he could of being a pilot, which after some deliberation, her parents would accept. The dangers were there, but a life among the stars was a better life than in the slum-like conditions that inhabited Epsilon Indi system.

Under Andor's tutelage, Alicen would learn some of the basics of a Physical Coordinator, and of being a Valkyrie pilot. There were times when she would struggle, yet Alicen had knack for persevering, even if it took multiple tries. By her eighteenth birthday, Alicen had somewhat of an understanding of what Andor taught, but there were those that had considered his teachings useless. The war ended seven years ago, so why should he be teaching people to fight and die as heroes? Still, when a group of important individuals from the TIPA arrived in the system, Alicen would be one of the few granted a future far from the dull nature of Epsilon Indi, mainly thanks to Andor's assistance.

PC

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Ryner Aurelius

18

Male

Terra Nova

A warm smile and a friendly aura dampen what might've otherwise been an imposing figure. Ryner stands at a height of about 6'1" and owns a lean build with fairly broad shoulders. He has a sharp chin, and he's been told on more than one occasion that he has "delinquent's eyes". His hair never seems to be taken care of, always left unkempt, and he is known to break dress code by adjusting his outfit to feel more comfortable. One might assume this means that he is not a particularly self-conscious person when it comes to appearance, but he also seems to wear gloves to hide his scarred hands, so perhaps that's not entirely true.

He would probably be considered fairly handsome were he to take more interest in better presenting himself.

Loud, tenacious, and decisive, Ryner is a man who many will remember even after a single encounter, but not always fondly. He does his best to embody the heroes of the show he watched when he was younger. He is hardworking, not one to faulter, and certainly never one to run away from anything. He values these traits highly and expects the same of everybody else. Of course, being so rambunctious is often draining on those that surround him. Thankfully, he has more than enough energy to make up for it.

Ryner is characterized by his fondness for shouting, a strong sense of justice and his willingness to act upon it, rather than his intellect or his cunning. He can be very stubborn when he sets his mind to something, can't tell a believable white lie to save his life, and is capable of switching gears faster than the eye can blink. One would also do well to remember the word "tactful" is not in his vocabulary. And while it's easy to write him off as nothing but obnoxious, nobody should ever have doubts that his heart is in the right place, even if his mind has to catch up sometimes.

Ryner is always seeking to improve himself, though he takes a very notable interest in doing so physically rather than mentally. His inability to stop halfway on something should be noted; he'll give it his all or he won't do it at all. He has a competitive spirit and often challenges people who seem to be strong to him a contest. Whether it's a sport, an actual fight, or even something such as an eating competition -- he doesn't care, he'll put his all into it. It is his belief that friendly competition breeds friendships that can tough out even the greatest of storms.

As a hyperactive person, Ryner's hobbies are sports and exercise. He isn't very patient and has a short attention span, so books don't exactly do it for him. He can, however, sit down and watch a show or a movie. He really enjoys action films, can't stand drama, and scary movies... well, he's not a coward, okay? He is most commonly seen running, and perhaps would have been on the track team in a different life.

Aurelius is not under the impression he is perfect. He knows he has a long way to go, and he constantly criticizes himself no matter how well he might do at anything. He's a perfectionist and cannot ever please himself, but showing as much outwardly is not heroic, so he bottles it up. While he has no trouble befriending and trusting individuals, he does find it hard to confide in them or otherwise bug them with his own problems as doing so would conflict with the nature of his definition of "Hero". He is more than willing to help somebody else, however. For the most part, it should be safe to assume that he does not knowingly cause other people trouble, and that a majority of it is due to ignorance.

Finally, he's got a bit of a temper and can be led around by the nose by people willing to exploit it. When faced with an obvious injustice, cowardice, and especially when his father is brought up, he gets heated real quick. He considers the word "coward" to be the absolute worst insult you can throw at him, and reacts rather strongly to even the implication that he is such. He knows this is problematic, yet he can't seem to control himself anyways. It is one of many things he wishes to improve about himself.

The son of a renowned confederacy captain, Ryner's early life on Terra Nova was something to be envied. Far from the reaches of the conflict raging on, the young boy led a rather sheltered life. His earliest memories are of his excitement to watch the next episode of his favorite Super Rangers show, of exaggerated takes on Kalian Cyris' feats, and of awaiting to hear the next thing his father accomplished. These days of blissful ignorance, of idealistic hope, of happiness... they came to an abrupt end a few days before his tenth birthday, when his father, Kaiden Aurelius, become known as a deserter. The man's excuse was that he'd become terrified of the thought of dying before he could lay eyes on his daughter, who had yet to have been born at the time.

It became news anybody who was paying attention heard of. Everybody in the school he attended had made it obvious they were paying attention. From snickers behind his back, to ostracizing him, to eventually resorting to physical violence... Ryner was made to bear the sins of his father. At first, he did not respond much to the violence. He even seemed pretty submissive, but it was only a matter of time before someone called him a coward, comparing him to his father, which set ablaze his heart, and he fought back. He gained quite the temper, a reckless attitude towards physical violence, and over the years, became too much for his bullies to handle.

In this time, Ryner's relationship with his family had deteriorated. He became cold to his mother, blamed his younger sister for what happened, and resent is the prettiest word you could use to describe his feelings towards the man he once called "father". But perhaps his obsession with heroes saved him from getting too much worse. One day, a rerun of Cyris' courageous feats had aired, and watching this, Ryner became determined to be the hero his father wasn't. So, adopting a persona that was what he considered the "ideal hero", he started making his way through life again with vigor. He would stop at nothing to rid the world of any notion that he was, like his father, a coward. And one day, when approached by some important-looking people, he could only think of this Project Valkyrie as a chance.

A chance to become a hero!

PC

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Ophelia "Clumsy Oaf" Minovska

20

Female

Volk Odin, Wolf 1061 System

Ophelia has a great physique by conventional beauty standards, though she keeps it hidden with, muted, modest, or professional garments, such as combat fatigues. Prim and well-kept, some would describe her appearance as disciplined and meticulous, yet simple, efficient. She embodies her profession, that of a soldier, less so in a "The few, the proud, the Marines," sense and more so as a willing and ignorant grunt, a cog in the machine sense. Stoic, emotionless, compliant, and seemingly always standing at attention, Ophelia makes certain that others feel heard and understood.

Ophelia exudes a sense of professional service. Compliant and willing to help, she robotically performs tasks required of her, often going above and beyond, asking for very little in return. She seems dissociated and detached, as if her body were not her own, and tends to push herself beyond reasonable limits. Self-sacrificing to the point of being near-suicidal, she thinks only of accomplishing the mission. Emotionally clumsy, Ophelia is awkward and can only come up with material solutions to the emotional problems of others. While she has the intention to be nurturing, her execution is lacking, as is her empathy. Emotionally stunted and unable to convey empathy properly, she sees her only form of expressing compassion in the act of making herself useful and being of utility to others. Part of her problem is the belief that she can be 'the glove that can fit any hand', and her having never found a suitable partner flies in the face of that. But it manifests in her personality, her obsessive, desperate attempts to be as excessively accommodating and compliant as possible.

Volk Odin, or Wolf Prime, is a planet with a cold, harsh climate, colonized by a desperate but industrious people. Clumsy and inept, Ophelia grew up in a family of iridium miners, one of the few, precious commodities of the planet. That, unfortunately, made it a prime target for Ascendancy forces. During a routine transaction of iridium with their most recent customer, PROJECT Valkyrie, the mine was attacked. While the Valkyries that deployed were able to stave off the attack, Ophelia's home was destroyed, her and her family buried beneath it. When they dug her out, it became apparent that she was the sole survivor of her family. Both of her hands had also been mangled by the rubble, and with subpar medical facilities on Volk Odin, she would be a hand-less cripple for the rest of her days. Taking pity on her, one of the medical staff from PROJECT Valkyrie took her on board and she became a ward of the PROJECT, and eventually provided her with prosthetic hands.

Admiring the Valkyries who had swept in and prevented the colony from utter destruction, Ophelia had, at some point voiced a desire to become a coordinator. There was a floating theory among project scientists that synchronization potential could be tested at a young age and grooming someone to be a Coordinator from their youth could produce better-skilled pilots. Deciding that it was worth a shot, they allowed Ophelia to participate, and it became readily apparent that she had a knack for being a technical coordinator, proving quite capable at initiating synchronization and interfacing with Valkyrie computers. Some say that because of her prosthetics, she was already used to the man-machine-interface, though this was just conjecture. With TC's being so much more rare that PC's, they immediately tried to pair her with potential PC trainees. Yet something wasn't quite right, and despite everything looking good on paper, despite Ophelia's willingness to accommodate her prospective partners, despite Ophelia's 'blank-slate' psychological proflie, despite everything going smoothly during simulations, Ophelia was never able to pass Synchro Training with any partner. One partner described it as, "You're supposed to feel like two minds, one body, or two bodies, one mind, but I just felt like...me". Another described it as, "...an overwhelming sense of loneliness, like she wasn't there at all".

Though the scientists never said it in so many words, Ophelia felt like a reject and could tell their disappointment. In the end, she became a test-bed for the continued development of Valkyrie computers and as something akin to a 'training dummy' to get PC's used to the feel of interfacing with their eventual TC partners. But recently, something was...different about one of the prospective PC's passing through her training simulation.

Tactical Coordinator

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Lyren Periwell

19

Female

Terra Nova

Oy, her abs are up there.

At first glance Lyren is a raging asshole, ruled by a fiery temper that lashes out at nearly everything and anyone close to her. How she, and others like her, somehow manage to be functional adults is an eternal mystery.

Lyren is not, however, ruled by her fiery temper. It is a deliberate choice to be antagonistic, to claim social and physical territory by rendering no one else willing to contest it. She's still a raging asshole, but it's deliberate. She doesn't lose herself to rage, she deliberately stokes the flames. She's quite capable of playing it cool on occasion to find a better time to explode. Lyren practices meditation in a very different way than most, where rather than silencing her emotions and thoughts, she trains herself to bring them forth on the command. Would just a little bit of pain tolerance and ruthless lack of concern for others help her win a fight? Bring out the anger. Would showing some sadness and remorse get her opponent to drop their guard? Bring out the tears. To her, the mind, the emotions, and the chemicals they induce are another tool of physical perfection. Rage, and the power it gives, is another weapon to be wielded.

Lyren cheats, at pretty much anything but her body. She is an awful person to play cards with unless you've quicker eyes than she has hands. She doesn't care about the sanctity of sports, only her victory. She's underhanded whenever she thinks it'll give her an edge, and then raw brute force to seal the deal so that they'll never think of crossing her again. The only thing she seems to respect is her body, and only then because she's concerned about long term health. And maybe a little narcissism. Regardless, she won't take any sort of supplement or steroid or experimental exercise regime even, unless it's been rigorously tested for safety. What book learning Lyren does have is probably tangentially related to her exhaustive research into better fitness methods.

Lyren cheats, but that doesn't mean she doesn't work hard. Cheating, in her mind, is a way to tip the scales in her favor, but it won't turn a kitten into a tiger. The ultimate reason why she cheats is not laziness, but the burning desire to win. So she definitely puts herself through hell to maintain what she believes is peak physical condition. If she's not training, there's a very real possibility she's researching better ways to train, or purposefully resting for the sake of better training.

The reason Lyren wanted to join the Valkyrie program is simple. The pilots of the Valkyries are the ones who are above all others in sheer personal power. She might have to share that power with one other person, but it's better than being a politician, whose power is only the sheer number of idiots following him. She doesn't want to lead a team or inspire her fellows, she wants to be a goddess of destruction who terrorizes everything that stands between her and proving her superiority. She's a bit surprised by her assignment to the TC rather than PC program, but she'll take it, figuring that the TC basically gets to be a giant fucking huge superpower robot, and that's fine.

Lyren also enjoys studying and writing character poetry.

Lyren's life does not start with some awful tragedy, abuse, poverty, or neglect. She seemed to have everything going for her, being reasonable well read and educated. She may have grown up in a rather poor part of Terra Nova, but it was still Terra Nova, and she practically lived the high life compared to plenty of other kids on frontier worlds. She was active and social, absolutely crushing children years older than her in playground games of basketball. It wasn't until the "crushing" started to get literal, that people started to get worried.

Lyren was generally the villain of many a sports anime as she grew up, and unfortunately for the poor underdogs, no plot armor or secret skills was going to let them win after Lyren broke their legs in a particularly viscous clash. Lyren got eventually banned from more or less half the leagues she joined, after the strings of accidents proved a little too hard to believe. That didn't bother Lyren though, it just proved they couldn't handle her, in her mind.

Eventually, she sought out the military, because no pussy university or sport could hold a true competitor like Lyren Periwell. And the Valkyries were the best of the military, so that's where she went.

Lyren was chosen for the TC position for mostly experimental reasons. She doesn't have the exceptional intellect, awareness, or instinct frequently expected of them. She was chosen because she resembles a "Riding the Fire" PC, who has extreme aggression and a confrontational personality, to see if that will enhance her compatibility with her PC after they start Riding the Fire, and stave off the emotional problems of other TCs by starting as far away from them on the personality spectrum as possible. Her meditation and control over her emotional state to such a conscious level was viewed as an useful guarantee of a minimum baseline of usefulness for this wild experiment in TC selection. Her extreme physical ability and G-Force resistance was considered a good match for Ryner, as there were no other TC candidates who could withstand the same acceleration he could, potentially wasting one of his most exceptional traits.

TC

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