Aurora Alloces Citrine Ovsol-Klystron
- Virtue: Genetic superwoman, Rifter roots, Practical education
- Vice: Clueless in high society, Practical education
- Rank: Head of House Ovsol-Klystron (population 1)
- Does not support war against the Rift
- Atheist
- (Upper) class traitor
- Free marketer
- Aspirations and Goals: Find my social feet in this viper's nest
- Outlawed Rifter gene-hax: Expert
- Ship operations: Professional
- Streetwise: Layman
- Finances: Layman
- Socializing: Terrible
- Style: Terrible
About Me
About my name
Aurora Alloces Citrine Ovsol-Klystron
What does this tell you about myself? Like all nobility - yes, I can be addressed as Nari but I am also Captain - my name is multipart and meaningful.
Aurora is my given name. That which shines brightly.
Alloces is derived from the family of my father, an intellectual from beyond the Great Wall.
Citrine is a reference to the golden-yellow eyes I had even as a newborn.
Ovsol is my noble prefix, and it is noble indeed. I hardly need to clarify that every title granted during a reign of an Emperor shares the same prefix and every Emperor's prefix is unique. But I can see you don't recognize mine. Is it one of those unusual ones that break this rule, such as those given to the survivors of the Siege of Bataria? Say it out loud. 'Ovsol'. 'Of Sol'. Sol, the star around which humans originated and all but abandoned in the Exodus. Comprehension dawns, I'm sure.
And finally Klystron is my surname. Would you recognize any Klystrons, you ask? Doubtful, unless you go into the history books and find the Galtz-Sonika Affair. We have been one of the House Obscura for a long, long time.
My Story
When I was 11, my parents vanished. The ship they were one dissapeared mid-jump with everyone onboard. An event rare enough to make some minor headlines, but not so rare as to be unheard of. At a stroke I was alone, the last Ovsol-Klystron. I had relatives, an aunt and grandparents, but they were on my father's side - beyond the Great Wall. While I did spend a third of a T-year on the far side of the Great Wall after my parent's dissapearance, this was not to be my home. I was instead sent to school in Luxor, capital of a hundred worlds as an Emperor's Ward where I stayed for the next five years. I have little to say about that time; I made few contacts and fewer friends. I will grant that it was an education, if nothing else. By age 16 it was clear that without a House or a patron I was faced with several choices; join the Fleet as an ensign and hope to one day claw my way up to some small rank, be a petty bureaucrat for a position that needed a title but little else, join the debutante scene and hope to snag someone with rank or money, join the clergy or simply flee back to the far side of the Great Wall.
I chose none of these.
The Klystrons had some wealth stashed away; savings and survivor's pension. That, plus my small stipend I recieved as a Ward was enough for the down payment on a (frankly usurious) mortagage; by age 17 I was the owner and sole proprietor of a cargo ship older than myself, the 413 Rampant Phoenix (a certain subset of Imperial shipping concerns have shockingly limited creativity). Hardly uncommon - many ships are owned by individuals, even if many more are owned by Houses or large commercian firms - but mine was a rare case indeed. As a noble, I could rightfully call myself not just Shipmaster, but Captain. A minor distinction, but an important one in a very specific way - as Captain I could bid on various shipment contracts for the Fleet, even ones to the front lines. These were, of course, the most profitable and I was up to my eyeballs in debt. All was well for five years, just me and as few crew as I could manage moving all manner of military supplies from reaction gasses to flowtanks to livestock to garrison troops (I paid out of pocket to have my ship cleaned after transporting livestock. I paid out of pocket to have my ship cleaned twice after transporting garritroops - never again!).
It was on the eve of the 108th Gran Plemora, that greatest of all celebrations - save only coronations themselves - that marks the once-a-decade creation of another wormhole seed by the Star Forge when my life changed forever. I was transporting a shipment of interface fighters to Ultima Thule, passenger cabins taken up by Monsignor Mornstein-Montfort - an unusual priest who made regular trips through the sector and had found my unflinching atheism a challenge - and the sisters Lasalle - the two Fleet officers in charge of the interface fighters and who were a study in contrasts and sibling rivalries - when the message came through. Princess Zarya had been on an inspection tour and was returning to the capital for the Gran Plemora when reavers stuck her ship. We were onboard the only ship less than a day's travel away.
The rest is, as they say, history.
I had never expected to actually go to the Gran Plemora, but there I was. My beat up transport limping into a parking orbit, portside cargo shell still torn open from where I'd rammed the reaver across its engine deck, surrounded by gleaming, gold-skinned ships of the Guard - a Crown Yacht, the princess having paid me honor for her rescue.
What comes next is legend.
The Great Wall
It should not come as a surprise that an entity such as the Phoenix Empire has its eras of strength and eras of weakness. It was during one of the latter - the 7th century - that raiders from beyond the Great Rift were striking with unprecedented range into the Empire, tying up a disproportionate amount of the Fleet to stymie with what were, in truth, pinpricks. All this changed with the ascension of Emperor Khartu the Younger; the 72nd Gran Plemora was a decidedly military affair. Khartu the Younger stunned many of the assembled nobles when he announced where the new wormhole was to go; directly from the star system of Reunion - the heart of the Fleet itself and a single wormhole transit from Luxor - to the very edge of Imperial space in the system that became known as Bastion, to be a bastion of civilization against the darkness beyond the Rift. Aggressive raids across the Rift were coupled with massive static constructions, eventually erecting a wall of blast-cannons and hyperdetectors stretching across a hundred lights.
Khartu the Younger never saw this come to completion, of course - he died under 'mysterious circumstances' less than two decades after coming to power. It is likely however that if those who arranged these mysterious circumstances had been forewarned the identity of emperor who would come after him, they would have wished Khartu the Younger a long reign. I speak, of course, of Martianis the Crusader, the 'Mad Emperor' who launched a half-dozen crusades against the heretic and deviant and most importantly, those who were not paying all their due taxes to the Throne. Dozens of Great House Domains that had become all but independent by the late 6th century found themselves very much Imperial possessions by the end of the 7th.
For his part, Martianis (who was completely sane his entire life) died peacefully in bed after a half-century in power. His successor was Empress Oxianne who spent her reign reconsolidating the Empire and putting it on a course for the golden age of today. As for those beyond the Great Wall? The Rifters were able to evade the defenses, for a time, but eventually it became more trouble (often lethally) than any possible wealth. And so they found other amusements.
Today the route from Reunion to Bastion is still under Fleet authority, with a bare handful of ships passing daily. The Great Wall sector is poor and Riftspace is even poorer (or so it is believed, anyhow . . .) and the Empire has seen fit to leave the Great Wall as a permanent border, its massive automated fortifications cold and silent. On this side is Civilization, on the far side is genetic deviance, faithlessness and anarchy. For their part, the Rifters trade some and smuggle some into the Empire
The Rifters and I
My father was my primary caregiver. He was also a Rifter. My mother called me 'her little rifter'. Growing up on the edge of Imperial space and cocooned by a loving family I had no idea what this would mean in the future. School as an Emperor's Ward was difficult. I had attitudes and opinions and habits that weren't even frontier, some were downright foreign. Alien. My first fumbling attempts to fit in with the others were failures and I soon learned that I would be left more alone if I were weird and antisocial instead of trying to be a good little Ward. I paid just enough attention in the various classes for social graces to avoid administrative opprobium.
Departing school and striking out on my own was liberating in ways that I cannot even describe. No longer was I 'that Rifter'; I was simply another cog in the Empire's vast economy, albeit one with unusual looks and an archaic noble name. But so long as the cargo I carried or the payments I owed arrived on time, no-one saw fit to complain. I managed to return to my distant family several times, each time returning a little bit richer than I would be otherwise thanks to what I admit were less than entirely legitimate cargoes.
Now? I am to be a courtier, and not just any but a favorite of the Emperor. Among the many, many things I am expected to do is dress up for balls. I have barely worn anything save shipsuits for the past five years. Rifter shipsuits.
Imperial Aptitude Testing
Attributes
- Smarts
- IQ 8
- Wits 4
- Social
- Charm 2
- Cunning 4
- Strength:
- Durability 3
- Physical Action 6
Skills
Court
- Black Mail
- Horse Trading 1
- Chummy
- Bureaucracy 6
- Legal 2
- Speech Giving 3
- Plotting 5
Military
- Ship Command
- Helmsmen 4
- Gunnery 1
- Leadership
- Squadron Command
- Maneuver 3
- Formation 3
- Command 3
- Fleet Command
- Maneuver
- Formation 1
- Command 1
The Blue Fleet
Capital Ships
Predreadnought Battleships
- Hashihime
- Yume no Ukihashi
- Kumogakure
- Yūgiri
- Miyuki
- Usugumo
- Momiji no Ga
- Yūgao
Escorts
Jardin Export Cruiser (Modified)
- Takao: 3 armor, 4 lasers, 2 Antimatter Cannon, 6 shields, 2ECM, 3AA, 13HP, 4 Speed (Init 2)
Corsair Pattern
- Sapphire
- Emerald
Other
Capital Ships
Marauder Pattern
- Moonlight Mad Dog (Crippled - undergoing repair at Kalymnos Junction)
Gained Traits
A Dreamer Awakened: Mind altering space magic don't affect you, you have seen past greater illusions and survived stronger for it.