Futuristic Fly a Little: An Interstellar Noir Character Sheets

[queendilettante]

It's 2130. The solar system has been (largely) terraformed and interplanetary megacorporations run most governments in the Solar System.

A group of outcasts, banded together by circumstance and bad luck, work together in this character-driven RP about righting wrongs and striking back against injustice - genuine or otherwise.


CS Template:
Name: _
Occupation (Former or Current): _
Gender: _
Age: _
Sexuality: _
Height: _
Weight: _
Build: _
Hair: _
Eye Color: _
Complexion: _
Distinctive Physical Features:

Typical Clothing:

Personality:

Quirks:

Skills/Equipment:

Bio/Backstory:

_

 

[queendilettante]

Mai Nishida
Scorned Detective

Gender: Trans Woman (she/her)

Occupation: Former Detective

Age: 32

Birthday: January 2, 2099

Sexuality: Lesbian

Height: 5’9

Weight: 165 lbs

Build: Average

Hair: Wavy black hair falls just above Mai’s shoulders. When trying to impress, she straightens it and combs her bangs.

Eye Color: Light brown

Complexion: Clear, usually with light makeup. She has some old acne scars on her neck and forehead.

Distinctive Physical Features:

• Mai has somewhat piercing eyes.
• Mai has a few precision scars across her body that are from the removal of various medical implants. Some have healed better than others
• She’s been told repeatedly that she has “resting bitch face” and so makes an effort to force a smile that kind of just makes her look constipated.
• She has fairly pronounced canine teeth.

Typical Clothing:
Mai tries to assert professionalism in the way she dresses. She wears a plain blouse or button up shirt tucked into belted slacks with a tie and formal shoes. She also often sports a trench coat because she thinks it helps sell the look, but she thinks she looks silly in it. When geared up for combat, she wears bullet proof vests underneath her clothes if possible.

Personality:
Mai is serious and formal, though somewhat easily flustered. She does what she can to stay on topic and to continue pressing forward with her goals, but small interruptions can completely throw her off of her rhythm. She’s been “working on” being better at adapting to changes in her plans for a while now. It hasn’t panned out.

Mai has a rock solid sense of justice that she adheres to strongly. She can’t forgive open disregard for intelligent life and pursued her line of work specifically because of it. Even once she left her employer due to their wanton corruption, she pursued her investigations into galactic criminal minds and enterprises as a vigilante. The laws don’t control her justice, she does.

Mai is ambitious and driven, though often to the negligence of her own health. She was never particularly blessed with a strong constitution, and so since she was stripped of her medical cybernetics, she’s been fighting a weak body. Her failings make her furious and lead into a feedback loop of further instance at pushing beyond her capabilities.

Mai is generally rather soft spoken and prefers quiet company to loud or boisterous social gatherings.

Quirks:

• Mai is somewhat frail and has a weak body. Her arms and legs are frequently in pain.
• Mai is near-unrivaled at investigating crime scenes, but her people skills are a bit lacking. She struggles to interpret intention when people talk and jokes tend to go over her head.
• Mai got hooked on smoking when she worked for her former employer and hasn’t been able to quit.
• Mai loves children and will play games with kids she passes in the street.
• Mai's illness is fibromyalgia. She's frequently fatigued and having muscle pains and soreness across her body.

Skills/Equipment:

• Mai prefers weaponry that’s easy to conceal. Low caliber pistols, knives, poisons, etc., are her preferred method of lethality when it’s required of her.
• Through her extensive time working as a detective, she’s skilled with basic first aid and can also perform (basic) autopsies.
• Mai has a photographic memory that she uses to recreate crime scenes in her head or retrace steps. She needs to spend quite a bit of analyzing her environment to perfectly record it, however.
• Mai is very thorough and observant. She's generally good at telling whether or not people are lying, even if she can struggle with deeper socialization.

Bio/Backstory:

Born on a Martian colony, Mai has known the brutality of the Solar System since childhood. Even terraformed, the chill that sweeps through most of Mars' populated areas kept her family constantly fighting for warmth. It didn't help that she's always been sickly. When Mai's intellectual abilities became evident, her and her family thought it may be the only ticket ever afforded to them to move up into something better.

Mai graduated high school three years early, in spite of the illnesses plaguing her, and immediately joined up with the New Tokyo Police Department. By proving her abilities to them, she was granted medical implants, stabilizing her constitution and making her healthy for the first time in her life. This new boost allowed her to quickly become invaluable to the NTPD, and Mai became a detective at 19. She was a natural, even finally being able to afford to transition. She moved her family to New Barcelona, the warmest and steadiest colonial city on Mars, and stayed behind to keep them secure. Everything went smoothly.

For a while.

There was a murder case - by the books, really. Teenage girl found dead, loads of evidence - everything pointed toward a single suspect.

A single suspect.

A single suspect that just so happened to be on the courts. A single suspect that had helped approve a NTPD budge increase. A single suspect that Mai's bosses wanted to protect. They told her to rule it a suicide, say that the girl staged her own death to look like a murder. She was told to lie to the family and give them no peace.

She was fired before she could even finish her refusal.

Within the day, Mai's medical implants - the implants that kept her healthy - were ripped away and she was back on the street. Her car, her house, her job, her life; everything was ripped away because she wouldn't stomach their bullshit.

She should have been thankful to have gotten away with her life, what with the way she fought those thugs that fired her, but the only thing she could feel was a rotten taste in her mouth. Corruption ran deep. What good was solving crimes if only those without power could be punished for them?

No, she couldn't leave it there. She'd make sense of this world, if it meant turning the entire System upside down to expose it.

Mai was on a clock; she needed to make enough money quickly enough to be able to afford her hormones and her medication, lest she slide back into dysfunctional state. It's been a delicate balancing act for a few years, pushing her body just enough to earn enough money through her vigilante P.I. work to keep her body moving.

Even so, she's made quite a few connections and now might finally be the time to make a push.

 

[kaito9049]

Name: Sal DuBois
Occupation (Former or Current): Engineer
Gender: Male
Age: 32
Sexuality: Straight
Height: 5’11”
Weight: ~260 lbs
Build: Average
Hair: Short, cropped black hair that tends to grow out long in the front by the time he cuts it
Eye Color: Black
Complexion: Generally clear, with some light burn scarring on the hands and neck
Distinctive Physical Features:

• As mentioned above, he has minor burn scars on his hands (usually covered by gloves) and a three-inch burn patch on the right side of his neck, both results of “workplace injuries.”
• Sal sometimes gets sudden bursts of pain in his left shoulder, causing him to wince and massage it for a few minutes.

Typical Clothing:
Sal’s usual outfit is strictly utilitarian, composed of an old cargo jacket and work pants, both lined with arc flash PPE and stained with a half-dozen different types of synthetic oils. He also usually carries one of several different gear bags, the straps of which he holds in one hand or around his back to reduce pressure on his bad shoulder.

Personality:
Deeply cynical and impressively lazy, Sal rarely does anything without muttering some complaint under his breath. His grumblings rarely prevent him from actually doing his job, provided he’s being compensated, and he tends to take a pride in his work that borders on boastfulness once it’s completed.

Sal tends to be fairly practical as a person, rarely holding grudges or making deep friendships, and scoffs at anyone foolish enough to put their necks on the line for a cause. This aloofness also makes his fairly untrustworthy; he’ll gladly sell someone out if it means saving his own skin.

Still, he appears to have some standards. He refuses to take jobs for megacorps, and if he likes someone enough he’ll do what he can to help them out — though you can be sure he’ll call in the favor. And if he ever gets the sense that a job is going to nag at him later, he’ll call it off immediately.

Sal seems happiest in smaller groups, where he can work on an engaging personal project in relative peace while excitedly explaining the technical aspects to anyone in earshot. He usually performs well in stressful situations if left largely alone, but if he feels too crowded or pressured he can quickly become overwhelmed, snapping at people at random. He tends to feel guilty about this afterwards, but is wholly incapable of apologizing for anything.

Quirks:

• Sal tends to smile with his mouth and not his eyes. He has been told this unsettles people. He said thank you.
• Sal tries to take apart objects when he’s bored or nervous. He has been banned from four dentist clinics.
• Sal shows little interest in matters unrelated to tech and engineering. This is actually because he doesn’t know all that much and is trying to pass it off as apathy.

Skills/Equipment:

• Sal has a frankly irresponsible amount of tools that he swaps out depending on the job. He’s a very skilled engineer, capable of repairing most common-type vehicles, industrial equipment, and weapons. He specializes in engines, however, and likes to upgrade them. But his strongest mechanical skill seems to be breaking things “just enough” that they’ll fail on the user at some point, a talent he’s been hired to use more than a few times.
• Sal is surprisingly proficient at armed combat, appearing comfortable with a variety of military-grade weapons. He favors a heavy pump-action shotgun, however, having installed minor implants in his right shoulder and forearm that absorb most of the recoil. Still, he prefers to avoid direct combat and mostly carries the gun around as a deterrent.
• Sal possesses an impressively high pain tolerance, possibly a result of the many scrapes and burns he receives as part of his job. But that doesn’t mean he won’t constantly complain about it.

Bio/Backstory:

Not everything can be fixed.

Sal DuBois was always gifted with machines. He was fascinated by spacecraft, war engines, drills — anything that was held together by steel and wires. And anyone who wants to work on the biggest, most complex machines has to sign up with a megacorp.

So he did. Sure, he had to basically uproot his whole life and move to the corp’s campus, and this particular business didn’t have the kindest reputation. But so what? It more than paid the bills, and if he didn’t do the job, someone else would — might as well make sure it was done right.

Sal did well with the corp, quickly gaining a reputation for being a reliable and creative, if a bit anti-social, worker. He was soon working on some of the organization’s most cutting-edge technologies, and eventually was invited to Brand Vigilance, a highly selective training program where he was trained in more...unorthodox techniques. Like how a cab’s fuel line could be replaced in under five minutes.

Or cut in less than three.

People don’t *leave* conglomerates, not when they’ve joined something like Brand Vigilance. Workers, hired under contract, might retire under a stack of NDAs or get reassigned or terminated. But they don’t leave. Not for long.

Sal left. Not immediately, but a few years into his position at Brand Vigilance, he stopped coming in. Once his employer realized out he wasn’t just out sick, things got a little heated. After all, no self-respective corporate could let an employee walk out with years of trade secrets and potentially defamatory memories. Sal was immediately blacklisted by the company and its subsidiaries. Then a team of lawyers managed to get his financial accounts frozen. And his personnel file was passed on to the division of Brand Protection.

Despite his former employer’s efforts, Sal has managed to stay hidden for a couple of years. He’s made ends meet doing gig work, repairing a cargo ship here or upgrading a shield generator there. His career as an engineer has pretty much imploded, sunk like a carrier with a faulty fuel injector. Trying to find a job at any company of note would only land him in legal trouble — or worse.

So he’s waited. For what, he’s not exactly sure. It’s the engineer’s instinct in him to figure out a solution, even when there doesn’t seem to be one.

Not everything can be fixed. But anything can be broken.

 

[Hard Boiled]

Beware of an old man in a profession where men usually die young.

Name: DODGER, ASHLEY

Occupation: BOUNTY HUNTER

Gender: F CIS

Age: 40 - DOB 14JAN2090

Sexuality: BI

Height: 5FT7IN - 1.7m

Weight: 150lb - 68kg

Build: FIT

Hair: RED

Eye Color: BRO

Complexion: LGT - WEATHERED

Distinctive Physical Features: Bright red hair. Sagging, leathery skin from constant sun exposure. Face littered with dark, benign growths, synonymous with amateur interplanetary travel. Missing two toes on right foot. Assorted scars. Forearm tattoo of The Missus pinup.

Typical Clothing: Ashley keeps her wardrobe unassuming, wearing exclusively dull browns, blues, and greens. In average climates such as spacecraft, Ashley mostly dresses light in elastic pants and one-tone sweaters, lending her an ability to blend into most any crowd. She often dons a black beret to keep her distinctive red hair in check, and carries a pair of sunglasses for the often oppressive sunlight. She wears a set of dog tags for one Banks, Ashley F.
On Mars, she wears a base layer of thermals followed by duty pants, heavy puffer coats, and a thick scarf to combat the tundra that penetrates even the most advanced Martian colonies.
While working, she wears the same duty pants without the thermals, two crossed utility belts around her waist, and a brown denim jacket older than she is.

Personality: Charming isn't the word most would use to describe Dodger - sly is more suited. Airy and confident, she tends to downplay the severity of any given situation, perhaps as a consequence from her tendency to always "get by". She can be intensely frustrating to have a conversation with, apparently enjoying the game of speaking in riddles and making people think twice. If one, however, can keep up, she'll gladly welcome them as an intellectual equal.

In theory, at least.

If the situation calls for it, she can quickly drop the act, assuring any potential threat of who's really in control. Dodger fights dirty, using any and all tools at her disposal to achieve her goal, in combat and in life. The enemy of her enemy is her friend, and she is not afraid of making deals if it serves her in the moment. Her moral compass is ambiguous at best, blatantly acting in favor of self-interest in many cases, though she has been known to be generous to those less fortunate than herself.

Dodger euphemistically refers to herself as a "peoplefinder". A renowned bloodhound of the skies, she frequents fueling satellites and other information hubs, shaking down bits and pieces from a guy who knows a guy. Known to chase convicts across the solar system, Dodger has built a reputation of a persistent hunter in it for the long-haul over the past decade and a half. To those whose interests are aligned with hers, she is a valuable asset not to be underestimated. To everyone else, they'd best not stand in her path.

Quirks: Ashley idly runs her fingers across her jaw, mourning her complexion. Her scarf, shades, and beret lend to concealing her, often citing the beating sun or frigid Martian breeze. She snorts when she laughs and can play the harmonica.

Skills/Equipment: Ashley is a talented conversationalist, able to strike up a conversation with just about anyone and ask things without asking. She watches without looking, and chameleons into a crowd, able to present herself as whatever or whoever is necessary in the moment. She plays to her strengths and others' weaknesses, believing there's no such thing as a fair fight. She understands people and how they operate, and is more than willing to use that to her advantage.

With more than twenty years of experience under her belts, there is most definitely a system to her apparent chaos. She always considers consequences, and doesn't bet on losing horses. If she seems unprepared, you're missing something.

Though she rarely uses them, more than often relying on intimidation, Ashley owns a small collection of weaponry consisting of two long energy rifles and one ballistic self-loading handgun. Ashley is proficient in shooting and Krav Maga from her URMMC training decades earlier.

Her ship is a small corvette-class spacecraft capable of interplanetary travel, outfitted with light armaments and a large cargo bay.
The lower deck consists of the cargo bay, mess room, and the engine room.
The upper deck contains the cockpit, bunk room with eight bunks and lockers, captain's quarters, and a small office with a round table for group discussion.
There is a ladder in the cargo bay that leads to the bunks and a steep stairway in the mess that leads to the cockpit. Each deck has a main hallway.
Plastered on the port side of the ship is a vintage pinup of a blonde woman in a white dress laying on her back, with her hair flowing under the windshield.
Underneath is inscribed, The Missus.

Bio: Ashley Francesca Banks was born to the decisive first generation entirely birthed in the United Republic of Mars. Surrounded by fierce nationalism due to the achievement of complete separation from Earth, Ashley fell right into the trap of high school recruitment, enlisting in the United Republic of Mars Navy Marine Corps at 18.

Steadily honing her skills, Banks fought in territory battles for the URM for the majority of her career, serving as well in the Battle for Europa, wherein she distinguished herself as an excellent NCO against impossible odds. Following the completion of her contract, she moved on to freelance work, purchasing herself a spacecraft to hunt more elusive prey.

Mention "Dodger" in shady corners around the solar system, there's no mistaking who you mean. From smuggling to protection to "surprise relocation", Dodger sees the world in green, gaining employment from both individuals and corporations, recognized universally as an expensive, yet reliable contractor for only the best, willing to do anything necessary to complete her end of the deal.

 

[guac]

Name: Nova Thompson
Occupation: Former secretary, current escaped convict / amateur cyberware mechanic
Gender: cis woman
Age: 32
Sexuality: straight
Height: 5’5
Weight: 160
Build: stocky in a way that disguises how muscular she actually is
Hair: dark brown dreads that she prefers to wear gathered into a loose bun
Eye Color: brown
Complexion: light brown, clear except for some old acne scars on her cheeks
Distinctive Physical Features: cyber prosthetic arm (left)

Typical Clothing: In a past life, Nova favored a snug skirt and a soft cardigan – back then, her biggest worry was being comfortable sitting at her desk. Nowadays, she finds cargo pants and a leather jacket to be more practical.

Personality: Nova is stubborn and headstrong. If she sees a problem, she’s gonna fix it herself, and no she doesn’t need help goddamnit. She used to depend on her husband for a lot of things, and now that he’s gone she refuses to depend on anyone but herself. She has a kind soul, and deep down believes there’s got to be some kind of justice in this fucked up world.

Quirks:

• A little hot headed – her husband used to tell her she was cute when she was angry
• Terrible cook

Skills/Equipment:

• Cyber prosthetic on her left arm — nothing too fancy but it has a high grip strength and hydraulic “muscles”
• She is skilled in repairing her own prosthetic, a skill she was forced to pick up in prison where she had no access to cyber mechanics
• Typing speed 130 wpm (and has been that way since before she lost her arm, thank you very much)
• Can color-code a filing cabinet like nobody’s business

Bio/Backstory:

Nova Thompson did everything right. She finished school, she got a steady job, and she found herself a nice boy to marry. Then everything went to shit.

• Lyle and Nova were high school sweethearts (but she made him wait until they both finished school before they got married)
  • Lyle was a journalist, she was a secretary
• He was a good husband except for the fact that he sheltered her a little too much
  • Especially after she lost her arm in a freak work accident (filing cabinet fell and crushed it, who knew being a secretary could be so dangerous)
  • They had to save up for two years to afford the cyber arm, and in that time Lyle really got into the habit of taking care of Nova and sheltering her from physical and mental hardship as much as he could
• One day he goes on a business trip and then suddenly its been three days since she’s heard from him and the police are knocking at her door
• She is framed and convicted of his murder
• She is totally lost without him at first but can’t stand the idea of his real killer walking free
  • She knows he was looking into some shady corporation for a story before he died, and suspects it had something to do with that but can’t confirm anything from behind bars
• She hears whispers of a mob affiliated escape plan and gets herself involved
  • Her cyberarm actually becomes an integral part of the escape (prying a hatch open or something) but they make it clear that she owes their boss a favor now, not the other way around.
• Now, she finds herself on the run from the police and at an utter loss at what to do, but knows she has to solve her husband's murder or else it will all be for nothing

 

[Pipsqueak]

Name: Maeve Andela Armas
Occupation (Former or Current): Drag racer/ Gambler
Gender: Female (She/ Her)
Age: 25 y/o
Sexuality: Lesbian
Height: 5’5”
Weight: 126 lbs.
Build: Athletic/ Slight muscle build
Hair: Black
Eye Color: Blue
Complexion: Tan
Distinctive Physical Features:

• Long, slender nose
• Various scars covering her body
• Visible dark circles under her eyes
• Beauty mark under her lips

Typical Clothing: Maeve is usually seen with her infamous red sports jacket on but favors street clothes underneath. She loves cargo pants, loose tanks, tank tops, etc.

Personality: Anyone will tell you that Maeve is not an easygoing person. She’s brash, sarcastic, and always untrustworthy. If there’s any way she can undermine someone’s plans in order to benefit herself, she’ll take that opportunity. Maeve is incredibly independent although not at all stand-offish. If she has an opinion, she’ll let the whole solar system know about it.

Acting tough and being tough are two totally different things, both of which this racer has mastered. She’ll back up her bark with a vicious bite, and doesn’t typically do second chances once someone has fucked up. Still, despite her massively flawed outward appearance, she’s extremely loyal and tends to ease up around people she trusts wholeheartedly. It takes time to trust a scared dog, but they say it’s worth it in the end.

Quirks:

• Fiddles with her nose rings when agitated
• Crack her knuckles every five minutes
• Chews on the inside of her cheeks when concentrating
• Taps her foot constantly while sitting

Skills/Equipment:

• Cooking
• Racing
• Thinking up solutions in tough situations quickly
• Good with cars
• Usually carries a handgun and knife, a picture of her little sister, and a taser

Bio/Backstory: Maeve and her little sister Lilith were found on the steps of Life Idea, one of the few foster care systems built in the slums for kids just like them. Maeve huddled over her one-year-old sister protectively as the workers came to retrieve them. She was scared, already growing up faster than her 10-year-old mind was supposed to.

She had no clue what her parents had been thinking- Uprooting their whole life on some unspoken fear. They promised they’d be back, as many of the foster children’s parents had. Only one couple had kept their promise. The rest of them, Maeve and Lilith included, were forced to spend the rest of their adolescence in the crummy, unkempt and dangerous building until they turned 18 or got adopted. No sooner had the girls been taken that Maeve was stapled the “problem child”. She knew she was supposed to serve as Lilith’s mother and father, since no one else would step up to do so. The other kids constantly picked on Lilith simply because she was born with down syndrome. It infuriated Maeve, and with no way to let her anger out other than for her sister's protection, she began fighting the staff over the smallest things.

Of course, she had tried to run away with her sister multiple times. Only in their second year of being there was when Maeve finally escaped. Her sister had been adopted without her. She couldn’t live there without Lilith, and during her escape she vividly remembers thinking how much easier it was to run without her. It was a guilty thought, one that Meave never spoke of.

It was only a matter of time until she began running with the wrong crowd. They used her innocent looks to swindle unsuspecting people, and soon introduced her to gambling and drag racing. When Maeve turned 16 she participated in these events, becoming so close with the other racers she considered them family. The cops continuously tried to get the operation shut down, but only when they arrested her friends on faux charges nine years later did she find herself completely alone. Now she wanders the streets, searching for anything to bring her life meaning once again.