[OOC] The Last Kings of Orion

[Igraine]

This is a CLOSED RP

“Everything is theoretically impossible, until it is done. One could write a history of science in reverse by assembling the solemn pronouncements of highest authority about what could not be done and could never happen again.” ~ Robert A. Heinlein, The Rolling Stones

And All We

The year 2028 saw the beginning, and 2031 witnessed the end. “It” started small, of course, and truth be told, no one could ever say for sure when “it” had started, or how. But eventually “The Change” had crept up over the coasts of Chile from the Pacific.

"The Change."

Sure, the press-assigned name was innocuous, rather dull to say the least, but that did not make the initial swath of destruction any less horrific. Fish and sea mammals died off in numbers that left South American coast lands a wasteland of rotting carcasses. And every so often, a thick, poisonous yellow mist would blow inland, choking every living thing unfortunate enough to cross its path.

The eco-zealots worked themselves into a frenzy, screaming their half-assed theories from every makeshift pulpit they could find about secret giant corporate chemical dumps, or biological weapons, or the “natural consequences of anthropogenic global warming,” and so on, ad nauseum.

That is, until the first of the New Kind made their way to shore.

These… things, these creatures of the New Kind – had no precedent anywhere in the hundreds of millions of years of Earth’s evolutionary path, emerging from the oceans and infected shores in just a few stupefying months. Evolutionary and marine and terrestrial biologists, oceanographers and virologists and climatologists alike were helpless to provide any inkling of an explanation for their appearance, much less a solution .

A matter of no consequence to the New Kind. The aquatic creatures came first insect-like creatures came first – at least to the visible eye - and then the reptilian, the avian and eventually some that almost resembled mammalian life forms. There were only two common factors between all The mist didn’t kill them. Rather, the Kind seemed to thrive in the thick poison that killed all other life.

The enviro-cultists remained convinced the Kind were mutations produced by pollutants or contaminants of some type. What other explanation could there possibly be? How else to explain what had happened to the once happy-go-lucky ocean creatures, obviously deformed into hideous monstrosities by the greed of giant corporate interests and the callous disregard of all those vicious SUV drivers with their murderous carbon footprints?

Evolutionary scientists hypothesized this might be the start of a mass extinction event; that perhaps the disappearance of the dinosaurs had nothing to do with a cataclysmic meteor strike, but some hitherto unknown mechanism that initiated a radical change in the entire biosphere.

But the proverbial life’s breath was summarily sucked out of the world for all time with the final, truly terrifying revelation: hex-stranded DNA.

Alien. Whatever the hell was happening, it was not – and never had been – terrestrial in origin.

The aliens had landed – and somehow, no one had even noticed. Space and surveillance agencies across the globe, from NASA to the Russian Federal Space Agency, were all “baffled” according to their copious press releases – not that it mattered for long. As if someone – or something - had flicked a switch, The Change began to spread with a sickening speed, expanding its reach geometrically, grasping fingers of irrevocable death across every oceans and continent.

Initial efforts to “quarantine” the affected areas of South America in the heat of nuclear fires were doomed from the start. Whatever the hell these things were, they brought their environment with them - atmosphere and strange plant life, single-celled and multi-celled organisms all consuming and digesting and regurgitating the rich primordial soup of Earth’s living biology to promulgate its own existence. The paper thin layer of organic life that had always lived on Earth was simply being devoured. Eaten and shat out for something no longer even… Recognizable…

And What We Still Have to Hold Close

The last known enclave for Earth’s pre-Change biology was known as “The Mountain.” A top secret joint military and civilian base located in the Rockies of southwest Wyoming, this unprecedented undertaking dwarfed even the Cheyenne Mountain Complex in size and scope, The Mountain did not even have a proper name beyond the rather obvious moniker. And yet near a century of unprecedented, unwavering dedication and international cooperation was the lifeblood of this complex. Nation of origin - Israeli or Chinese, American or Sudanese or Russian or Norwegian or any hundreds others over the decades – were all subsumed to their single-minded dedication to their respective work and fields of study. Financed entirely by vast sums of private capital, organized beneath the protective auspices of the U.S. military, the work the scientists, researchers and engineers developed in The Mountain was entirely cutting edge, highly experimental - pure science for its own sake, unfettered by financial or governmental restraints. Suspended animation, biostasis, asteroid mining, faster-than-light travel, reactionless drives – science fiction was being made real, all with the lofty hope of seeing humanity colonized among the stars.

But with The Change came a new sense of urgency among these brilliant men and women, the first inklings that something was about to go horribly, irrevocably wrong with the whole damned world. The unthinkable somehow became the probable, and then a horrific certainty. Their ambassadorial flagship the Copernicus, mankind’s greatest technological achievement to date, would become humanity’s ark.

Or rather, an interstellar Noah’s ark.

Even as cities, nations, and then entire continents were snuffed out of existence, devoured by the relentless, fatal colonization of the New Kind, those still working in and around the Copernicus fought to the bitter end to recover every last human life left possible in the contaminated environs, though these gains were precious few. Agricultural, space farming and microgravity experimentation – and one desperate run to a nearby wildlife rescue sanctuary – ensured everything from paramecia and wolves, blue algae and red roses, found their place among the denizens of the Copernicus. Only when they were certain there was nothing more salvageable in the poisonous wasteland that had once been Earth, the side of that nameless mountain was blown out and the Copernicus launched to begin its fifteen year sojourn.

Fifteen years. Annual shifts were established for a handful of the six thousand, seven hundred and twenty-two adults aboard, rotated out so that walking, talking people could watch the hydroponic projects, care for the animals they were able to salvage, perform maintenance and resource recovery on the Copernicus, chart the medical progress of the “sleepers,” and pilot the ship.

Fifteen years, until they came to the first planet that might - just might - sustain human life.

And Where All Hopes Lie

Despite the invaluable treasure she ferries across the galaxy, the Copernicus is not herself a lovely ship. Some 400 meters in length, the ship’s exterior is smoothly cylindrical when fully operational, and segmented into five identical, rotating sections that turn about an axis comprised of the ship’s separate engine bays. Within the engine axis is a series of passable holds and locks that can be detached in case of emergency or, as they were originally designed, at planet fall on the less-than-sexily-named M15233-18.

Otherwise known – either tongue-in-cheek or with a desperate hopeful fervor by the crew of the Copernicus – as Canaan, “the Promised Land.”

The sweet Promise Land of Canaan, anticipating the arrival of her new people on the Copernicus.

Each of her five sections is a completely self-sustaining unit, containing both human, animal and plant samples salvaged from Earth. All shipboard assets - from hydroponic laboratories to engineering bays and medical facilities, from the waking crew living quarters and mess to animal pens and reclamation processors - are all spaced equilaterally within each. In addition, four pod-bays are located at a “pole” within every segment, each pod-bay capable of supporting five hundred “sleepers.” At the moment, those still held in stasis are spread more-or-less evenly throughout the Copernicus, though of course all family members – sleepers or the handful of wakened crew – are housed within the same section.

This is the Earth year 2034 AD, and the start of the third “shift change” aboard the Copernicus. The oncoming crew is being woken from stasis, receiving their respective status briefings and preparing to begin their annual duties – this time, to include the essential harvest of ice from asteroids located at their aphelion orbit of the red dwarf G217. The first of four scheduled materiel collections operations in “normal space,” this will be a true test of nerve, skill and design for the awakening crew.

The Copernicus

The Copernicus is approximately 400 meters in length, the exterior built with utility in mind. The entire ship resembles nothing so much as an enormous cylinder comprised of five equilateral sections surrounding an axis through its center. Each of these sections, specifically designed to separate at planet fall, is self-sustaining, outfitted identically in terms of personnel and supplies, and capable of independent space and terrestrial travel. For so long as the Copernicus' sections remain intact however, the command module of the forward (first) section remains the main location for the vast majority of piloting and navigation.







Because many of the awake crew will have to perform multiple shifts, every wakened crew member has his or her own personal room, to be decorated - or not - as desired. These rooms consist of a bed, multiple built-in storage areas, a "portal" portraying any view desired and communications access and, while not spacious, do provide a modicum of privacy and "normalcy" in the most extraordinary of circumstances.







Recreational and mess areas were deliberately constructed to provide for comfort and ease, and are deliberately neither military Spartan nor austere. Though bathrooms are by necessity communal, considerations for privacy, dignity and a very human touch were intentionally designed in their layout.



The vast majority of those on the Copernicus are, of course, in cryostasis. Within each of the five sections are located four different stasis bays, each bay capable of maintaining 500 beds at a time. It is the vital work of the medical technicians to ensure all these beds are maintained and monitored each day of the Copernicus' sojourn.



The asteroid mining ships and the crews that operate them ensure the lifeblood of the Copernicus continues to flow.



Specially designed space exosuits have been developed to cater to the specific job-related needs of each crew member who must enter the vacuum of space, to include maintenance personnel, engineers and the asteroid mining crews.

AmongHeroes: Dr. Gavin Brock

Derren Krenshaw: Antoine Eadoré

Dotcom: Deli Beltran

idlehands: Owen Reece

Igraine: 1SG Abigail Larson

Justric: Robert S. Bach

KuroTenshi: Connor Douglass

Lillian Thorne: Stella Albright, DVM

RoadRash: William "Big Bill" Cothran

SECONDARY CHARACTERS

Derren Krenshaw: Mowzer

Dotcom: Maya E. Coleman, Ha-neul Bae Park

idlehands: Ester Baum, Naomi Ben Zeev, Henry Graham

Igraine: MG Benjamin S. Lahan, Pauline Bethany Weber

Justric: Jack Pumphrey

Lillian Thorne: Penelope Raffin

RoadRash: Sgt Michael Davis

[Igraine]

For anyone interested who just happens to find us? So sorry but this is a closed RP, and the people who will be participating already know who they are.

And finally, thread up! I'll be updating with all the pretties as they come along, but for all of you who requested a thread to chat and post up the CS's? tah dah! And after this post here, I'll post a CS for my character that can serve as a template for anyone who might still need one. Long or short, it really doesn't matter at all - just something to introduce your character to the rest of us!

[Igraine]

From a photograph affixed to the interior of 11-year old Michael A. Davis’ stasis bed. Written in a neat, precise script on the back, ‘Christmas Day in Red Wing, 2029’

Name: 1SG Abigail "Abby" Jane Larson

Occupation/Crew Position: Military Police Supervisor/Security Specialist

Age: 34

Background: The youngest of five children, and the only girl child at that, Abby grew up in Red Wing, Minnesota, alternately protectively spoiled and playfully tormented by her older brothers: Alan, Aiden, Aaron and Alexander. The matriarch of the Larson clan, Anne, was a high school secretary and her father Alistair, a combat veteran of Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, was a captain on the Red Wing Police Department.

The happiest memories of Abby’s childhood were of the summers and winters spent on the Minnesotan lakes. Swimming, waterskiing, snowmobiling, snowshoeing and even ice fishing, the Larsons spent weeks at a time with aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents, basking in the warmth of a genuinely loving family. Athletic, outgoing, and eternally full of mischief, Abby raced in her big brothers’ footsteps, bedeviling teachers and frustrating her parents (in the most charming way) all through grade school, and then on into high school.

She saw no reason for that to change when, during the summer of her senior year, the dirty bombs of 7/4 were detonated in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Abby gently, but irrevocably, set aside her parents’ dreams she’d settle down to become a teacher, or maybe a nurse - anything sensible really - when she enlisted in the US Army as a military policeman, the day after Aaron and Alex. Her first tour of duty after basic was in the combat zone of the Korean Peninsula. Abby emerged from the other side of that conflict wiser, and sadder, and knowing her family had expanded to hundreds of brothers, and even a few sisters, for whom she’d gladly give her life.

Aaron and Alex returned to civilian life after the China Seas, but Abby did not. She’d found her place, a calling and a sense of purpose, having a hand in protecting the people and things she held dear. Abby liked being an MP, and she was damn good at it.

That hard-won and early maturity though, didn’t necessarily extend to every corner of her life. Sometimes Abby was tempted to jokingly claim that marrying her squad leader SGT Ned Davis, a year after settling in at her first CONUS duty station, was probably the most spectacularly awful mistake she’d ever made - but that wouldn’t be entirely true. No, not that she’d made bigger mistakes before or since – she hadn’t. But if Abby hadn’t indulged just once in being young and dumb, there would be no Michael Alistair Davis - and even with all the good already in her world, that boy was the very best.

The mistake of marrying a hard-drinking, womanizing asshole was a quick enough fix three years after it started (even without taking up any of her brothers on their enthusiastic offers to come kick his ass). But with a little boy to raise almost entirely on her own, Abby doubled down on her determination, she’d do everything in her power to give Michael a world worth living in.

Promotions came, and schools, her time put in as a drill sergeant in Fort Leonard Wood and, of course, deployments. Abby had just come off her second back-to-back unaccompanied tour, when she got what ought to have been a shit assignment at a pissant post in Wyoming. As First Sergeant for an MP company at a testing range, there wasn’t an awful lot to do but ensure the roadblocks were up during missile launches and the right people were waved onto base; that the roads to “the Mountain” facility an hour away were well-patrolled and clear of unauthorized personnel, and that bored soldiers didn’t get up to too much trouble in their down time.

But for Abby, this assignment was just the breath and space her little family needed most. This was a post where she could be home for Michael when school let out, and help him with his homework. She could take him to baseball practice, and sit in the bleachers most every weekend like every other Mom, cheering her son's team. Abby could even put in for leave over a holiday or two, to visit her family in Red Wing.

She could have never imagined the singular importance of this duty assignment, any more than the rest of their world could have anticipated The Change.

[idlehands]

Name: Owen Reece

Occupation/Crew Position: pilot of a mining craft

Age: 39

Description: About 6 feet even and around 200 lbs, having put on a few since getting out of the army, he is built solid and strong. Pale gray eyes, brown hair and a dimple when he smiles on his right cheek. He has a farmer's tan from the time he spent outside.

Background: Reece was born in a small coal mining town in southern West Virginia, to a family with a long history of mining that stretched back centuries and across an ocean. When he was in high school, he took a job with his father and uncles down in the mines. Though technology made it safer, there was no escaping dark, enclosed space of the mines. He worked, played football, got into trouble and managed to graduate high school.

Without money for college he did as many young men do in poverty stricken places, he joined the military. In the army, he became fascinated with helicopters and thought it a nice change to be up in the air rather than underground. He became a warrant officer and piloted Blackhawks in rescue, recon, transport and security missions. By age 21, he was a lead pilot and spent ten years flying for the Army. He retired earlier than he would have liked after his helicopter was shot down on a rescue mission and he lose half his crew and injured his back which required surgery and titanium rods. His flying career was over and rather than going home he went out into Colorado, where he had been stationed. He blamed himself and wallowed in the misery of being haunted by the men he failed to get to safety and the young crew that had died, including WO Lisa Kelly, a bright young woman with a love for her job and a new husband and one of his crew chiefs, a young man who came from a poor urban background and had become an unlikely friend to the redneck pilot. He mourned the loss of his career and the love he had for flying, belieiving he would probably never have the opportunity again.

Solace he found in a whiskey bottle and a wife he hardly saw serving him with divorce papers. He had married her early in his army career when he was training in Ft. Rucker, Alabama, believing she was pregnant with his child. Shortly after their union, she miscarried. It was downhill from there, but Reece had made a committment and hoped it would work out. Eventually, they both preferred when he was deployed and he found himself signing up for anything that would take him away from home. They had no children and he suspected she cheated on him a number of times and found he did not care when she left. It had been a marriage out of the fact she had wanted to be married and Reece was away on duty most of the time.

Reece had to spend weeks in recovery after surgery but once he was let go, he retreated into the wilds of Colorado. He spent weeks hunting and fishing, hiking and being alone. He grew out his hair and beard, hiding the last traces of his former Army life. Finally, in need of funds and feeling better, he got a job with a mining company and went back to his roots. Rather than coal though, he was mining for gold. Once the romanticism wore off he found a higher paying job in the line of natural gas mining where he became an expert at the running the drills.

When the Change began, the wacko eco nuts in the area belonging to a radical environmental group called Green Guardians began to blame the fracking and oil/gas drillers and there were incidents of violence between them. Owen Reece had caught a couple of them trying to destroy his multi million dollar machine and ended up beating one of them badly, enough to land him in jail. Luckily for him the judge was sympathetic and likely owned stock in the company and had let him off with probation. His company was forced to fire him because the incident recieved bad press, despite the fact the GG had committed vandalism. Out of work and his back always hurting, he found his options limited. A proud man who hated to ask for help, he got a job delivering pizza to make ends meet until a chance encounter with an old friend. A former fellow pilot, WO Troy McMahon who now worked for a place known cryptically as the Mountain, offered Reece a job. It would take him back into mining and perhaps even flying. The pay and benefits were incredible and there was a chance they could fix his back nearly as good as new. Reece jumped at the chance and within the week, was hired and moving his meager possesions and his pickup truck to Wyoming. (WIP, facts subject to change)

Personality:

Owen Reece is a born rascal, a joker and a man who loves his vices. He is generally rough humored and friendly on the surface but it takes awhile for him to trust anyone, until he has judged their worth by their actions. He is free with his opinions and cares little for things like rank, learning in the army that bars and stars on turds didn't make them any less a turd.

Habits: A long time smoker who had to give it up, he keeps a seemingly endless supply of toothpicks in his pocket for his oral fixation. He still drinks, having learned a long time ago as a teen how to make rot gut moonshine which was pretty much ubiquitous in the poor WV country he grew up in. He's a gambler, in particular poker, and has a habit of betting on the outcome of things no matter how trivial or deadly. He likes old music and frequently hums or whistles songs, his favorite on this journey being "The Joker" by The Steve Miller Band.

Scars/Tattoos: Surgical scar along his spine, about 8 inches long in his lower back; a large scar on his left thigh from the crash; various nicks on his hands and forearms from the manual labor he did most of his life. A tattoo on his left bicep with his old unit's badge and two memorial scrolls for his friends that died. Above it is n older tattoo of a skull with a crossed shovel and pickax behind it from his mining days.

Personal Items: His personal notebook, full of music files, some pictures, and a few games and books. A deck of well worn cards, a pair of dice, and his old dog tags. A smuggled bottle of Jack Daniels, an economy sized box of toothpicks, and a hunting knife that belonged to his father.

[DotCom]

*phew*

Delilah Espinosa de Jesús Dominguez del Beltran aka Deli Beltran

An ebullient (epileptic) 21-year-old from Barcelona, Copernicus's proclaimed "Queen of Blowing Shit Up" hopes to find safety for the rest of humanity -- and redemption for herself. Loves people, dancing, sarcasm, and Nütella.

The Nitty Gritty

Age: 21 years | Position: Demolitions

Virtues: Inventive, easy-going, brave | Vices (or something): Stubborn, anti-authoritarian, easily bored/distracted

Motivation: Redemption...and comic relief | 3-Word Nutshell: Spunky, rebellious, spontaneous

Brief Bio
Born to a Spanish rocket scientist and a self-proclaimed 'free spirit', Deli is technically the second of four children, and the only girl. Before The Change, and even during, she never took much seriously. She was smart, but never driven, too unapologetically stubborn to succeed in academics or military, like her father and brother before her. She was set to graduate high school at fifteen years old after obtaining an unofficial degree in chemistry and robotics from her father's college. But the idea that she might have to grow up was appalling enough that, for a few months, she ran off with her mother, building animatronic puppets for a sideshow circus.

Her youngest brother, Alfredo, is ten, now asleep on the Copernicus. Prior to its launch, Fredo had not spoken to anyone in over a year.

Her oldest brother, Diego, is also a Copernicus sleeper. He is a severely autistic savant, who tends to be quiet, but is fluent in fourteen different languages. He, along with his sister, comprises one half of the remaining Beltran triplets.

Her mother was a Frenchwoman, born Adèle Laurant, who changed her name to Gira-Sol (Catalan for sunflower) after meeting her former husband, Guillermo Beltran. Gira was a singer and circus performer in Spain who doted on her children but, like her daughter, had a very hard time staying still. She became particularly 'unhinged' after an accident one year prior to the launch of the Copernicus, and abandoned her family to become one of the vigilante ecozealots. She has not been seen or heard from since as far as anyone knows.

The head of the family, Guillermo Beltran, moved his wife and children to America to begin work on the Copernicus. A genius engineer and renowned (literal) rocket scientist, he was able to secure space aboard the legendary ship in which he had a large part creating. Unfortunately, he never got to see the results of his work. He died one month before the launch.

Finally, Dacio Beltran, the once-golden boy of his family, and the youngest of the triplets. Something of a prodigy in his own right, Dacio and Deli were best friends, even when the younger dropped out of secondary school in her final year -- Dacio had always blamed himself for that, as he graduated at fifteen and completed schooling at the Polytechnics University of Catalonia by seventeen, bolstered along the way by the crisis The Change had presented. He had been with the demolitions unit of the Spanish Armed forces just a few months when their father moved them to America. Shortly after that, he returned to his bunk one day to find his sister with a smuggled pile of electronics and explosives.

In the six months following the death of her brother and best friend, Deli retreated into herself, making an effort, for the first time in her life, to be better than she was. Her expertise, her will, and a fair amount of nepotism, found her a spot on the demolitions team that would blow out the side of the Mountain before the Copernicus's launch.

Deli has more or less returned to herself, boisterous, irreverent, hard-headed. But to her, Dacio's death -- and her father's -- still feel very recent. And she's never forgotten his last words to her as she tried to shove his insides back inside:

Prengui el meu lloc, germaneta. Troba una estrella per a mi.

Take my place, little sister. Find a star for me.

She doesn't talk about Dacio often. But the tattoo on her back -- a field of stars that disappear over her shoulders, emblazoned by the words caos dins, chaos within -- was inspired by him. And a Nietzsche quote: "You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star."

--

Secondaries: Both WIPs for the time-being

Maya Elizabeth Coleman

Jamaican-born and naturalized, Maya Coleman is the last in a long line of military pilots. There was never any other option for her but the Copernicus. She believes in justice, duty, and honor above self, and can't stand to see a job half done. She has no family aboard the Copernicus, which is just fine by her.

The Nitty Gritty

Age: 41 years | Position: Pilot [currently flying section two of the Copernicus]

Ha-neul Bae Park

Ha-neul Bae Park, known in recent years as simply Park, was a reverend as a small church in Seoul, South Korea, for thirty five years before a mysterious and life-changing event prompted him to move to the States. He obtained his MD in psychiatry from Berkeley and opened a pro bono practice in Oakland, California. He was commissioned to the Copernicus as a therapist and psychiatric consultant.

The Nitty Gritty

Age: 66 years | Position: Ship Shrink and Unofficial Pastor

[KuroTenshi]

Name: Connor Douglass

Age: 24

Position: Mechanical Engineer (aka Mechanic, aka Grease Monkey)

Background:

Connor Douglass was born and raised in New York city to a single mother, Teri Douglass. They say it takes a village to raise a child and growing up Connor had no shortage of adult role models from his mother's large family. Aunt's, uncles and cousins; it was often joked that it was amazing New York had room for the large family. In order to support herself and her child Teri had to work two jobs and often it was Connor's uncle Duane charged with watching him. Most of those days (especially during summer vacation) were spent in Duane's garage, repairing and sometimes restoring cars and motorcycles.

Connor's love and fascination with machinery began in that garage.

While his classmates were content to simply play with remote control cars, Connor liked to take them apart to discover how they worked. After he learned the mystery's of the remote control car's his curiosity took him to, uh, other electronics.

His mother had not been happy to find her vacuum cleaner disassembled because Connor wanted to take a part the motor.

After being grounded for two weeks, Connor began buying broken or second hand appliances so he could take them apart and not have his mom yell at him. After awhile it became apparent to the adults in Connor's life (both family and teachers) that his mind worked differently from those in his age group. Things that even adults had trouble comprehending clicked quickly for Connor. Math and science were his favorite subjects in school and soon he was blowing past material meant for his grade level, skipping past middle school and entering high school at the age of 13.

13 years old in a New York City public high school...Those were not fun times for Connor.

At the age of 15 though he graduated high school and received a scholarship to MIT. At 18 year's old the ink was still drying on his Bachelor's Degree of Mechanical Engineering when he was recruited to The Mountain. The Change had just begun and over the three years of Hell, Connor had lost everything.

Quirks/Personality: Uncle Duane used to always tell Connor that machines have souls to them, that they're people in their own way. The engine is the heart, the electrical system is the nervous system and so on and so forth. Growing up as 'that weird kid' left him a bit less than enthusiastic with talking to people. So he kind of substitutes human companionship with the machines. To him they are kind of like people (not literally of course but he'll talk to an engine block like an old drinking buddy and remain mostly quiet around people). The fact that he doesn't really socialize with other's leads most people to believe that he has a ten foot stick up his ass and is arrogant about his intelligence and sees talking to them as being beneath him. This is very far from the truth. Connor does not brag about his intelligence, in fact he'd rather not talk about it and he certainly doesn't think he's better than anyone else. He's just...shy basically.

Tattoo's/Scars: The scar on his cheek is from his first time crawling around inside of Copernicus; he was checking a fuel line and nicked himself on a sharp piece of metal. He calls it his 'welcome gift' from the ship. Connor has an abundance of tattoo's, the ones on his forearms, neck, across his collar bone and shoulders are all based on Celtic knotwork. However the one with the most meaning is one he got in 2030 on his right upper arm. It's a black and white open pocket watch with exposed gears and the time set at one minute until midnight and on the open cover that is at an angle, one can just barely make out the design of a celtic tree of life.

Personal Belongings: Lots and lots of pictures. Step foot into Connor's cabin and you will find the wall next to his bunk covered with pictures of friends, family and nature. He also has with him a pocket watch that was passed down to him from his grandfather, to relax he likes to sit down, take it apart and look at all the little gears then put it back together again; like a puzzle.

[Derren Krenshaw]

Name: Antoine Eadoré

Gender: Male

Age: 29

Occupation/Position: Linguist and medical technician in charge of maintaining cryo beds.

Background: In movies, in books, sometimes even in the real world, you hear the words 'I didn't sign up for this'. Spoken in fear or disgust, usually by those of the military, it signifies a choice to give up, to refuse to accept whatever situation they have been placed in.

Antoine did sign up for it, for whatever might be thrown his way. He knew the military was his calling, even before he left his hometown of Saverne to attend the Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris. With a bright mind boasting a keen grasp of languages, and a steady hand adept at both suture and keystroke, Antoine distinguished himself within the university, and found a welcome reception from the French Army upon his graduation.

It was a marriage to outshine any other, the fresh-out-of-college med-tech distinguishing himself quickly as someone eager and willing to do the hard work that needed to be done. Close to six years he spent in the arms of his country's military, years spent to try and preserve the lives of those around him, brothers all. His tour saw him all across the globe, hours not spent fighting, patching wounds or sleeping occupied with learning and translating language after language as the years went on. It was hard work, it was thankless, unrelenting work, but if you asked him now, Antoine would still say it was some of the best years of his life.

Sadly, however, even good marriages can turn sour. In Antoine's case it came with the Change, with the sudden coming of a threat his beloved military knew now way to counter. It was then that he caught the eye of the lovely young lady that was science, standing guard within The Mountain.

The breakup was dealt with quickly, Antoine wrapping himself within the arms of mad experimentation before the ink had dried on his discharge papers. He eagerly jumped at the offer to learn how to maintain and operate the cryo pods that would preserve his species, and it was without a second's hesitation that he accepted the offer to participate in one of the many studies going on. An attempt to accentuate the gifts in already-gifted persons, the scientists claimed if they succeeded he would be able to learn any language spoken near him faster than one could believe.

And it worked! The experiment, the drugs did all they had been promised to do and more! The intricacies of language, already easy for him to grasp, were rendered so very simple to him now. How perfect it was for the job he would need to perform on the Copernicus, and with the afterglow of time spent with his new mistress still fresh in his mind... how could things get anything but better?

[AmongHeroes]

Name: Dr. Gavin Brock

Occupation/Crew Position: Synthetic Biologist and Bioengineer

Age: 41

Appearance:

Gavin stands at 6’-1” tall, and possesses a muscularly athletic build that belies his academic occupation. His eyes are a deep blue, and his hair is a mixture of dirty blond, strawberry red, and the first strands of a peppery gray. His skin is fair, and his shoulders, chest, and neck are covered in freckles. Gavin possesses no defining scars or other deformations, and the only adornment upon his skin is a small sparrow tattoo upon his left shoulder.

Background:

Gavin Brock was born on the British Crown dependent Channel Island of Jersey, just scant miles from the northwestern coast of France. He had a comfortable and privileged childhood, afforded from his father, Dr. Allan Brock II, running a successful medical practice in the Jersey capital of St. Helier. Gavin’s mother raised him and his younger sister, Marley, full time, home-schooling the children until they were ready to enter college.

At only a year apart in age, the Brock children were very close. Their connection was undeniably strong, but it was far from the only thing the siblings shared, as it soon became apparent to that the brother and sister duo were both highly intelligent. Upon completion of their equivalent Secondary School years, Gavin accepted a full-ride academic scholarship to the California Institute of Technology with the intent of studying biology. Marley entered London’s King’s College a year later to follow in her father’s footsteps, and pursue a career in medicine.

The next decade was a whirlwind of triumph and opportunity for the Brock siblings, with Gavin completing his doctorate in synthetic biology and bioengineering, and Marley finishing medical school with a promising future as a specialist in virology.

Fate allowed Gavin to pursue his calling with abundant success, as his research led to several minor breakthroughs in the field of human genome manipulation, and genetic precursor treatments for cancer. In short order Gavin was being called the most influential scientist in his area of study, eventually even being nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for his contributions in cancer research.

Marley achieved her own level of success, though she did so in a less conspicuous manner. With her specialty in virology, the youngest Brock took her skills to the poorest regions of the world, working with the World Health Organization on combating disease.

Even through all the demands of achievement, the Brock family somehow managed to stay close--especially Gavin and Marley. After his work with cancer research, Gavin even promised his sister that he would focus his efforts upon disease prevention in the Third World, and that he would eventually even join her on the frontlines of humanities war with sickness.

In truth, Gavin kept this promise, though in a way he never could have fathomed. With the coming of The Change, and the New Kind, the Brock siblings found themselves on a battlefield they were not prepared for. As Chile and South America became embroiled with the chaos and death of The Change, Marley was deployed in the contingent of doctors and scientists from the W.H.O. that were sent to try and get some sense of what exactly humanity was facing.

Gavin, on the other hand, was held back from the initial wave, being forcefully sent by the British government to the international research and testing facility known as The Mountain. With little choice, and with no knowledge of the well-being of his family, Gavin joined the research team within The Mountain, and began in earnest to try and chip away at the titan that was The Change.

As the months progressed, news of the world outside of the stone halls of The Mountain were growing ever darker. The progress into The Change, and the New Kind, as the research team had come to call them, was infuriatingly slow. All that was really achieved was discovering that humanity had never before witnessed anything like the biological Armageddon that was The Change, and as such, had almost no power to combat it.

[Igraine]

Thank you so much Heroes, for all the pretties! Yes, he is the man with all the beautiful graphics because... Uh... Some of us just... Can't graphic. >.>

I figured we may start some time later this weekend or early next week, if that sounds all right with everyone, just so people have time to get their CS's up and mold them as far as they'd like before we begin. I know people have work and/or school and/or family obligations to meet (personally, I'm taking visiting family to tour Washington DC tomorrow). So does that sound acceptable to everyone, as a decent timeframe to begin ICly?

[KuroTenshi]

That sounds good to me :3

[Lillian Thorne]

I'm still working on my CS (thanks Igraine for fielding my panicked PM) and gearing up for a painful final next week but even so I should be fine for starting. Just bear with me

[idlehands]

That sounds great, I'm still working on my bio and brainstorming possible secondary characters but of course I'll wait on them until everyone is well established with their characters. Usually I just come up with them out of necessity anyway. I'm really looking forward to RPing with my old cohorts Kuro and Igraine and with everyone else I've not written with before. Lillian, we're both fish out of water in sci fi but it should be fun to stretch our legs in the stars!

[DotCom]

All of those things y'all already said. Alladat.

[idlehands]

Secondary Character



Ester Baum

Occupation: Horticulturalist

Age: 27

Appearance: 5'6'', pale skin, dark brown hair and eyes

Ester Baum, a descendant of German and Polish Jews that moved to Israel after WWII, grew up in the ever present threat of terrorism and civil war of her country, served in the IDF like everyone does for 2 years before going to college. Did some graduate work in Japan, learned to speak Japanese, along with English, Hebrew and Arabic. More often than not if she's not working, she's got her head down on her notepad, reading books stored on it or using the drawing program. Dreamed of going to the space station one day to experiment in growing plants in space and did her thesis on the subject (more details of that when I figure it out) and recruited by the Mountain to work on their program.

She's rather quiet and soft spoken, intensely focused on her work and fascinated by green things and their silent world. A woman with a gentle nature but a steel core, having grown up in a land of war and human suffering over what would come to be such small things, such as difference in religion and blood. Reflecting on that, after the Change happens and humanity is nearly wiped out and the fact she's from a people known for things like the Diaspora when they were forced to leave their homelands and went out into a hostile world to make their way and the Holocaust which wiped out so many. So she looks forward to the new Caanan, where humans might make a better world.

Ester is one of the lucky ones, her immediate family were all members of the project at the Mountain. After her recruitment she read the writing on the wall and managed to get her father who is a geneticist and her mother who is a pediatrician aboard. That was followed with her younger sister, Naomi and her brother in law, David. Her sister is a computer tech and her husband had military experience as well as mining. All of them were awake for the second shift, which Ester was supposed to be a part of but the wife of the pair that ran the horticulture project had a baby, there for did not go to sleep when it was planned. She stayed up to birth and care for her infant until she was old enough to sleep. Now Ester is on the third shift but she is not alone. Naomi is pregnant and cannot go into stasis with her husband and parents.

Ester and Naomi, who is 24, grew up on a kibbutz, a communal farm near Haifa, Israel. While her mother practiced in the nearby town, her father often was gone for long stretches, guest lecturing or working on projects in places like Tel Aviv, Paris, Cambridge, Berkley, and Tokyo. Though their parents were both professionals, they had grown up farming as did their parents before them. Rather than move their girls to the city, they wanted to instill a love for the land and the skills to live off of it, to appreciate hard work and what would be gleaned from it. Both daughters served in the IDF, where Naomi met David, her future husband. While Ester began work on her PhD in agricultural science, her sister got a good job in as a software engineer and David went into security for a mining company, eventually getting interested in that industry.

Where Ester is quiet, introverted and observant, her sister is talkative, outgoing and friendly. Their mother always called them her moon and sun and they have close if not always smooth relationship.

Naomi Ben Zeev née Baum

Occupation: computer software technician

age: 24

Naomi

[Lillian Thorne]

So I am determined to have a CS up today. I'm going with something like a veterinarian/park ranger sort. Details still fuzzy but clearing up.

[Justric]

Name: Robert S. Bach

Gender: Male

Age: 31

Eyes: Dark brown

Hair: Dark brown

Occupation/Position: Neuro-Computer Interface Technician

Background: Robert, known better as Hob to his friends, has done it all. He's been on the stage as actor and musician, worked behind the scenes in art galleries and guerrilla theatre, busked on street corners from LA to NY, chalked sidewalk scenes right out of Mary Poppins, wrote short stories from a wide variety of genres, and sculpted a wide variety of projects from countless mediums (specializing in "found art".) The only trouble is... he hasn't been particularly great at any of it. Not that he ever actually failed at any of his artistic endeavors, Hob just never reached that level of greatness where he would be recognized by anyone outside a select circle. His parents and younger siblings were encouraging but never outright proud of him; they remained living in the quiet suburbia of Portland, Oregon as he galavanted wherever he found his muse.

The onslaught of The Change brought all of that to an end. At first, people threw themselves in any entertainment they could find in an effort to distract themselves, and in a perverse twist of events Hob found himself actually making money! That rapidly changed, almost as fast as the Earth itself. As more and more of the globe was covered, panic set in. No one had time for the arts anymore, at least not ones they had to spend money on! Hob's livelihood dried up, and so did the careers of his friends and acquaintances. Down and out, he found himself sharing an apartment with six other artists in Chicago and barely making rent. Outside, the crime rates soared; society was rapidly breaking down in the law of "take what you want."

So it came as no real surprise when, one night while trudging back from an unsuccessful gig, he was abducted by a bunch of men in suits driving a black van. Hob was almost resigned to whatever might come next: murder, rape, enslavement... What he had not been expecting was a job offer.

Taken to a quiet office in the middle of nowhere, he was informed that his imagination was needed for a special project of the government's. The requirements called for someone of extreme artistic ability and imagination, someone who could look at the world differently than the average person on the street. If that wasn't Hob in a nutshell, no one was! Only... the job in question was for a computer technician. Hob protested in honesty, fully admitting he had no experience with computers outside of using the internet from time to time and had only a vague idea of how one was even put together. He still remembered the recruiting agent sitting behind his desk dressed all the world like Mr. Smith from those old Matrix movies; the man had smiled like a jackal and uttered one word: "Perfect." It was then that it became more and more 'an offer he couldn't refuse.' Hob was bundled off to someplace he only ever heard referred to as The Mountain and enrolled in a series of training programs that made no sense whatsoever at first. At least, they didn't make sense until they came for him in the middle of the night for the surgery. Hob was never sure exactly how long it took, but in an induced coma he was forced to undergo a number of cranial surgeries in which rudimentary implants were installed. By the time he recovered, small silver disks rested on both of his temples.

Hob went into a rage, trashing his spartan room to his utmost before a counselor was finally called in to talk with him. Surprised at Hob's ignorance of the situation, the counselor dedicated himself to explaining exactly what the hell had been going on and what was being done to him.

Neuro-computer interfacing, it was called. It was the final leap into melding the human consciousness into the digital world. One didn't need to know programming languages or structures or any of it, merely had to have the imagination and force of will to create what they wanted in their heads. By extension of the terminals that were now wired into his skull, Hob was one of the very few humans who would ever be able to do so. The computer network on the new ark, the Copernicus, needed every person the military could lay their hands on to interface with it. His abduction and forced training had been regrettable but necessary, he was assured. Out of the nearly seven thousand people who would be aboard the Copernicus, only seventeen had the mental capacity and the imagination to act as these human interfaces, and Hob would be the eighteenth and last. As foolish as it might seem to tie humanity's last hope into such new technology, the benefits were too hard too ignore for the ship's designers: the neuro system was faster and more reliable, it took up less space, energy, and resources. So long as there was at least three technicians "plugged" into the network at any given time, the ship should not have any computer issues on the software (now "wetware") end. The rest was up to the maintenance crews to deal with the hardware.

Having no real choice, Hob finally capitulated and accepted his fate. He left the Earth behind, never knowing the fate of his family or any of his friends across the States. The only personal items he had were those things he was carrying when he had been abducted, the prize of which was an accordion that no one wanted him to play. He threw himself into the training sequences then. Where he could not longer create art with his hands, he began to do so with his mind. When he was logged into the ship's neurocomputer, he was part of a pantheon of gods and goddess who bent virtual reality to their will.

Which was when he discovered the next blow. The system was not a perfect escape from reality. It could induce any number of psychosis, and team members had to subject themselves to regular counseling and psychiatric sessions in addition to monitoring each other. Worse were the ghosts. When a technician disconnected from the system, a mental imprint was left behind, an echo of that technician that the next guy or gal would have to deal with. The ghosts couldn't cause any damage, but they could be incredibly distracting! They were the residual copies of surface thoughts, emotions, and memories of the prior techs, and they floated through the system until they eventually faded away. The stronger the thought, the longer it would linger. Personality conflicts arose out of this until some technicians absolutely refused to use the same terminal as certain others. Hob and some of the other technicians also have reported to counselors the fear that these memories and impressions were somehow consolidating to form an artificial intelligence deep within the computer's core, a possibility that the designers, hardware engineers, and counselors all believe to be impossible.

Now Hob is beginning to wonder what it means if he and the others are right... and what it means if they are wrong.

[Lillian Thorne]

Name: Stella Albright

Age: 28

Occupation/Position: Veterinarian

Background: Raised by her grandparents in a small rural town in Vermont after her parents were killed in a car crash when she was almost four. She was in the car when it happened though she sustained little damage in the crash. The images of what she saw, filtered through a child’s lack of understanding, haunted her for years. She refused to speak for almost 2 years after the accident and would not look anyone in the eye. It was the animals that populated her grandparent’s small farm that pulled the silent, sad girl out of herself in back into the world. She had been marked for special services and her return to the world saved her from being type-cast as special needs.

She was a bright child and eventually pulled out of herself enough to make friends but it was always the animals that she connected most strongly with. She spent much time hiking the woods around her home and her grandfather, an avid outdoors man taught her to fish and how to survive in the wilds and all that he knew about animal husbandry. She excelled in school, particularly in sciences and volunteered in the local Vet’s office which services both large and small domestic animals. But it was when she went on a field trip to a wild life sanctuary that rehabilitated injured hawks and owls that she found a new passion. Volunteering every weekend she bike road the ten miles to the Sanctuary as long as the weather permitted until she left for school to study veterinary sciences.

Her grandparents passed away in her final year of school, almost exactly a week apart. Her grandmother simply faded after her grandfather was gone. Stella mourned but was not surprised by the chain of events and simply powered through her last semester. There was no call for her to go home with her grandparents gone so she pursued other opportunities and wound up working her way west slowly moving from state park to National forest etc, acting in various roles from Park Ranger to Veterinarian to Wildlife Rehabilitator.

Something of a cheerful Luddite she tended to live simply, using what technology she need to on the job, grateful for its ability to save lives but on her own in her private life she lived a simpler life, emulating the simple world of her childhood with her grandparents. She has a host of practical skills that harken back to a simpler time.

Immersed in her work she paid The Change little mind until things were so dire that to avoid it was to be blind and stupid. Even then she felt helpless to do anything about it, she was just a simple vet and it was so far away. Only then it wasn’t so far and there was still nothing she could do about it. She was prepared to go down with the ship, staying with her charges until the bitter end. But the end didn’t come in the way she expected too. Rescued in the last push by the people of the mountain her Wild Life Sanctuary was cleaned out and all its occupants, including the one vet who refused to leave was rescued.

(So I probably will tweak this some, but this is what I got at this point.)

[DotCom]

I should finish my MC first...but I also want to recreate Ron Glass's character from Firefly, so...that's happening. (._. ) ( ._.)

[KuroTenshi]

Wow you can get a lot of materials from mining asteroids http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining

[Igraine]

Oh yeah Kuro, it would be an excellent way to get not a few very needed replacement elements/compounds - such a cool concept!

Wasn't gone today near so long as I thought today, so got the chance to catch up I hope with characters and all :)