[hider=Mark A. Lopez]
[h3]Character Description[/h3]
[list]Name: Mark A. Lopez
Species: Human
Sex: Male
Age: 36
Role/Job: Military Engineer / Maintenance Specialist

Appearance: [img]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/860685218984886323/1476343238674747584/jan-goszyk-ohf-02-jan-goszyk.jpg?ex=69a0c749&is=699f75c9&hm=647630625eaca25f5c59b7a6052cdd10a5beb507b244b4a6f1583c87b9e1f9a4&[/img]
Mark stands at about 6’0” with a broad-shouldered build earned from years of physical labor both on the farm and in the field. His skin is tanned and weathered, with lines of sun exposure and grit from working in harsh environments and a scar at his right cheek from an incident in the EDF. His eyes are dark brown, his hair is usually shaved short at the sides.

Most defining is his left arm—a biomechanical replacement, with visible servos and a few personal modifications bolted onto the frame, including a retractable multi-tool and an arc lighter.[/list]


[h3]Strengths and Weaknesses[/h3]
[list]
Skills:

Field Engineering: Mark is a highly competent mechanical engineer, specializing in vehicle repair, hull maintenance, and jury-rigging damaged systems under pressure. His knowledge spans from farming combines to military drop-craft.

Improvisation: On or off the battlefield, Mark has a knack for making do with what’s available—turning junk into solutions. He once rigged a cooling bypass using irrigation pipes and an old refrigerator core.

Biomech Tuning: Since receiving his mechanical arm, he’s become adept at fine-tuning prosthetics and other biomechanical interfaces, sometimes helping others with maintenance if they trust him.

AI Systems Enthusiast: While not a programmer, he has a deep (albeit amateur) understanding of old-world AI theory, and has spent years sketching out designs for a non-AI multipurpose helper unit. His fascination is a secret he keeps close around most people.

Weaknesses:

Limited Coding Knowledge: Despite his fascination with AI, Mark has little grasp of complex software or algorithm design, making his goals difficult to achieve without outside help.

Blunt Honesty: Mark has a tendency to say what he thinks, which doesn’t always make him the most diplomatic member of the crew.

Loner Habits: Years of working in solitude, first on the farm, then in forward engineering posts have made him slow to trust and often self-reliant to a fault.

Arm Dependency: While his biomechanical arm is a marvel of medical engineering it's also a potential liability. If it’s damaged in combat or during field work, it can short out, seize up, or overload the power system he relies on for other tools. Maintenance is constant, and failure at the wrong time could mean losing vital capability or even consciousness if the feedback circuit surges.

[/list]


[h3]Background:[/h3]
Mark Lopez was born on the colony world of Shinar, one of the breadbasket planets under Eden’s nominal control. Life on the farm was honest, hard, and painfully dull for a boy who always wanted to know how things worked. While most of his peers were content managing livestock or harvest cycles, Mark spent his free hours digging through old equipment manuals and disassembling engines—much to his father's frustration.

The moment he turned of age, he enlisted in the Eden Defense Force. For him, it wasn’t patriotism, it was escape. The EDF gave him structure, purpose, and most importantly, access to machinery far more complex than a tractor. He specialized in mobile repair teams, patching hulls and power systems mid-operation,iIt was during one such deployment responding to a native incursion on a refueling moon that a fuel tank explosion cost him his left arm. The recovery was long, but the biomechanical arm he received became a project in itself, something to improve and refine, piece by piece.

Years passed, he rotated between Eden and her colony worlds, assigned to keep aging patrol ships running and patch together crumbling infrastructure. Off-duty, he filled notebooks with schematics for a machine assistant, a sort of autonomous helper drone that could aid mechanics or farmers. But anything resembling artificial intelligence was a dangerous subject. Even speaking the word "AI" in Eden's outer colonies was enough to get you shunned or even killed. Still, he toyed with the idea of limited, pre-scripted logic routines as a workaround, he never built the thing, but he carried the notes wherever he went.

Then came the Metacer. At first, he thought the reports were another drill or a hoax, then his relay station stopped responding. Then the sky fell.

Mark served during the desperate defense of Tarnas Station, buying time for civilians to evacuate. When the order came to fall back, he stayed behind to ensure the generators didn’t fail. He escaped only when a freighter pilot overloaded their engines and crash-launched through the hangar roof, buying him just enough chaos to board the last transport to Eden Orbital Station. [/list][/hider]