Sienna Audrey Shelton (played by Floodwaters) is a Nepleslian civilian who, in early YE 35, escaped from slavery in the city of Urtullan in the HX-24 system aboard the YSS Eucharis. She is the former owner and captain of the Concordia Veil.
As of YE 38, her whereabouts are unknown.
Sienna Audrey Shelton | |
---|---|
Species: | Nepleslian |
Gender: | Female |
Age: | 23 (born November YE 15) |
Height: | 5'9“ (175.26 cm) |
Weight: | 134 lbs (60.78 kg) |
Organization: | Independent |
Occupation: | Freelancer |
Rank: | Unknown |
Current Placement: | Unknown |
When you realize that your life is a one-way road
When you realize that there's no point of return
When you understand that you can't go back anymore
When you understand you can only move onwards…
Build and Skin Color: Sienna is a tallish, slender young woman with an athletic feminine figure. Her skin is white with an almost imperceptibly vague touch of ruddiness, and her cheeks are often slightly flushed a faint red. Toned muscles can be seen on her upper arms and abdomen whenever they are visible, and long legs descend from modestly curved hips and a cinched waist.
Eyes and Facial Features: Sienna's eyes are an unremarkable shade of greenish brown, and her face has a slender, subtly elegant appearance to it. Her nose is long from top to bottom, modest with soft but defined angles, her lips full. She has a sly smirk that could be called “arrogant.” Her resting facial expression is one of cool, analytical observation, obscuring most visible clues as to what is going through her mind at any moment.
Ears: Sienna has nominally human ears with attached earlobes.
Hair Color and Style: Sienna's hair is an auburn, chestnut shade of brown, and she typically keeps it cut relatively short so that it can't get caught in her work. She does, however, typically make at least a rudimentary effort to style it in such a manner that doesn't make her look too tomboyish. Her preferred style is a feathered look swept to one side, sometimes even letting it fall gracefully down above one eye without blocking her vision.
Dominant Hand: Sienna is right-handed.
Voice: Sienna has a mezzo-soprano voice with a mildly “breathy” sound to it, almost with a very faint rasp. She also speaks in an accent that, while not overbearing or heavy, would sound coarse to a more culturally refined ear. This accent becomes increasingly pronounced if she is upset, agitated, or angry.
Distinguishing Features: If one looks closely, one can see that Sienna's hands are calloused and rough, and her short-clipped fingernails typically have a bit of grime and dirt under them and around her cuticles. Also of note is the fact that Sienna is, by all appearances, a pureblood human. If asked, she has no strong opinions about her racial “purity,” and is not averse to cybernetic or bioengineering enhancement, only has never had the resources to acquire any, nor a strong desire to pursue them as of yet.
Sienna is an intensely private person with a no-nonsense type of demeanor and a very dry sense of sarcastic humor. She tends to be rather reserved and on guard around people she just meets, and usually keeps them at a distance for a long time with her standoffish attitude and snarky comments.
She is, however, not entirely lacking in charm. Although her behavior has skirted the boundaries of being anti-social, what she lacks in empathy for her fellow man and woman she makes up for in her noncommittal, non-confrontational air. She is slow to anger and very laid back in most situations, and if those around her refrain from saying anything she views as silly or nonsensical, she can be pleasant enough to talk to and be around if she wishes, if for nothing else than simple idle chatter.
In brief, Sienna may be slow to intimacy of any kind, but generally treats everyone around her with equal, level-headed nonchalance that leaves many with a strange sense of ease and comfort. Though she tolerates the presence of other people easily enough, she tends to keep to herself, given the choice.
However, because of her wariness of other people's motives, Sienna tends not to trust others to do things she feels she can do better, whether or not it's objectively true. With her personal property (such as her ship), she can be an outright control freak the the point of being an oppressive micro-manager. Although in most other situations she is very even-tempered, as stated above, she currently lacks the skills to be an effective leader and is easily frustrated by the complications of delegating work. During her first stint as a cargo ship captain, on more than one occasion her impatience and mistrust led to a rather hostile outburst completely at odds with her usual temperament.
Sienna is very protective of her personal space, having been accosted sexually several times in her teenage years, albeit mostly with minimal success. In normal social environments she detests any physical contact more intimate than a handshake, and will react with discomfort (and on occasion, violence) if someone touches her without being given explicit permission to do so.
She harbors a strong disdain for political matters, and generally does not care who is in power nor anything about their agenda so long as they leave her alone. She feels no particular loyalty to any faction, nor does she feel that any of them owe her anything, reasoning that political power is too fleeting, fickle, and fragile to waste any energy pursuing. She also has very little sense of nobility or honor, as her personal ethos dictates that one is responsible for one's own well-being, and as such it is quite rare for her to put herself in harm's way for others. On the few occasions in which she has in the past, she has often found herself puzzled by this apparent contradiction, but has never admitted that it could be anything resembling a personal attachment, even to herself.
When she does smile or laugh, it is usually subdued and quiet; only in extremely rare circumstances does Sienna laugh uproariously or smile brightly.
She is a cynic and a skeptic, rarely taking others at their word or believing outlandish tales without taking them with a grain of salt or seeing proof with her own eyes.
She is largely ambivalent to the apparent transformation of humanity to genetically engineered or cybernetic organisms, though she does harbor some degree of curiosity and doubt about what is becoming of the species. Some of this stems from her upbringing, and some stems from a natural trepidation of civilizations “playing God,” as she was told in her youth. She is not averse to genetic and cybernetic enhancement, however, nor does she look down on “artificial” humans. If anything, she has a lingering wonder about the nature of the human soul, and what might become of it.
Sienna does have a feminine, “girly” side, but it is such a comparatively minor part of her personality that she practically never displays or calls attention to it. While there may be a very few stereotypically female things about her, not many know about them, nor does she have any desire to advertise it.
Other information: Sienna is addicted to Qualen.
Sienna was born naturally in YE 15 as the second child of Carson and Midori Shelton aboard an unregistered starship only known as the “Katja.” Both of her parents were vehement Nepleslian Reds, fervently distrustful of progressive technology, and raised both her and her older brother Jacob to be mistrustful of authority and to value their freedom. As a young girl, she had very little understanding of what her parents were involved in, only knowing that her life was unpredictable and chaotic. One day they were planetside, three days later they may be woken from their beds and herded into a cargo hold, never to see that place again. And other times nothing would happen for weeks or months on end, only to have the idyllic pause interrupted again with another abrupt move. Her parents would sometimes disappear for days at a time, and only her brother Jacob (who was older by almost seven years) would be there to look after her. There were times when brigands, thieves, and sometimes enemy soldiers sought to take advantage of their situation and lack of guardianship, forcing Jacob and in some cases Sienna herself to handle their own safety, whether by hiding, fleeing, or fighting.
Jacob was an accomplished mechanic, having learned under the tutelage of his father, and was more than happy to share his knowledge with his younger sister. He was also insistent on teaching her how to defend and take care of herself as well, knowing that he would be unable to watch her every hour of every day.
As Sienna grew into her teens, she began to resent her lifestyle. She couldn't understand the guerilla war her parents were involved in, as they kept the specifics of their exploits a secret from her, “for her own good.” Before she was 13, all she knew was that she wanted nothing to do with the pointless civil conflict again. If anything, she actually began to sympathize marginally with this Yamatai culture her parents so demonized, out of rebellion. She did not, however, harbor any serious feelings of defecting or seeking Yamataian citizenship. Her feelings stemmed from a combination of teenage rebellion, resentment for constantly being put into danger by those she felt were neglecting their obligation to raise and take care of her foremost, and a desire to escape from the conflict that she felt her parents were perpetuating, as she had no personal reason to dislike the Yamatai, and felt that she was being robbed of the chance to have a “normal” life.
When she was 13, the family was on the swampy world of Kennewes. Her resentment had grown to the point she could stand it no longer, and she resolved to run away. Although she tried to convince Jacob to come with her, he ultimately refused, but reluctantly helped her get offworld to start her new life. She found out not long after leaving that the fateful battle between the upstart Reds fleet and the Nepleslian Greens had taken place back in the Kennewes system, and that the rebellious movement had been crushed, leaving the fate of her family unknown to her. Her decision to leave Jacob behind still haunts her to this day.
She drifted for months, getting as far away from the core worlds as possible, doing off-and-on mechanical work for disreptuable merchants and vendors that had no qualms with exploiting child labor in the parts of colonies and space stations most people ignored, as well as odd jobs of questionable ethics and legality all for what essentially amounted to table scraps. She ultimately wound up on the subterranean colony of Urtullan. Within a month she crossed the wrong person, betrayed by a young man she had befriended, and found herself bound as an indentured servant to a vendor named Olaf, a heavyset, balding, nasty-looking man with a glass eye and a wild gray beard. She spent four years of her life there, keeping a low profile and doing as she was asked in order to avoid drawing the attention of the Mishhuvurthyar overlord of the colony, or being tossed outside, waiting and watching for her chance to escape. She remained diligent about staying physically active to compensate for the low gravity of the planet, making sure she didn't allow herself to weaken and degrade any more so than was necessary.
https://stararmy.com/roleplay-forum/threads/9510
In YE 35, while delivering an air condenser across the slum-city of Urtullan on HX-24 I for her owner/master, Sienna stumbled upon a firefight in the streets involving one of the away teams of the YSS Eucharis. Several of them by the time she got there had been injured, and one of their helmets had its faceplate shot out. Recognizing their potential as an means of escape from her slavery as well as off of HX-24 I, she approached the team and offered her assistance in getting them to a medical facility as well as building a temporary rebreather unit for the one whose helmet had been shot so that they could get back to their ship without breathing the toxic air of the planet.
She managed to get the team safely to a nearby clinic, and left them there to return to Olaf's junk shop. She retrieved the belongings she'd been hoarding for the first escape opportunity, cobbled together a second rebreather for the away team based on one she'd built for herself over several months of trial and error, and stole Olaf's credit chip before returning to the clinic.
Upon her return, she came across the assassin who'd attacked them attempting to garrote one of the soldiers in the alley behind the clinic. Sienna intervened, managing to drive off the assassin temporarily. Once the group was tended to, she led them to an unused airlock high up in the city dome, with the assassin resurfacing once more to fire at them from below. Getting the team out of the city and up to the planet's surface, she sabotaged the airlock behind them.
When the shuttle arrived, the assassin reappeared again, and the shuttle was forced to abandon one of the soldiers when rocket fire pounded one of its engines, and the soldier who'd lost his helmet (now breathing through the rebreather) was attacked by a Mishhuvurthyar parasite. Sienna, seeing the parasite attacking him, insisted that the soldier be killed and disposed of, even threatening to do it herself regardless of the consequences, but she was stopped by the team's commander. When she learned that the parasite had been removed, she regretted her actions, but never made any apology or called attention to it, preferring not to let the previously infected soldier know what she had nearly done.
The shuttle's pilot circled back around to collect the missing soldier, though Sienna strongly disagreed. Another shot to the open rear door knocked out the air containment field, and Sienna, without her rebreather, very nearly suffocated on the toxic air before they got the door shut. The pilot managed to land the damaged shuttle and kill the assassin while he was fighting with the stranded soldier.
https://stararmy.com/roleplay-forum/threads/10311
The day after her extraction from Urtullan, Sienna was offered by Hanako the chance to tag along with an expedition to explore a the wreckage of a ship that crashed decades ago on the surface of the second planet in the HX-12 system, a large, high-gravity world whose prevalent indiginous life at the crash site seemed to be a sticky, iridescent teal fungus.
After a somewhat rough landing on unstable ground, the team entered the wreck through a gash in the hull, forced inside earlier than desired due to the sudden onset of a powerful dust storm. They found the wreck upside down and bereft of any sign of its former crew, at least at first. Working their way deeper into the crash, they found that the upper decks, which lay below them and deep underground, long since buried by the blowing dust and fungal spores, were flooded with a vile viscous fluid that appeared to share characteristics with the growths on the surface. Signs of the ship's former crew began to manifest – galley supplies strewn about, decayed clothing and personal effects, but the biological leftovers that remained appeared to be rotten, almost digested.
Locating the bridge, the team found that the bridge crew still hung suspended from their seat harnesses, obviously not having survived the impact. They discovered the captain's suit displayed the name of Alessandra Bekele, as well as the insignia of the pre-Yamataian civilization of Uesureyan, and they were able to discern that the ship had been on a survey mission. They weren't able to find out why the ship had crashed, however, before one of the team members mistakenly attempted to supply power to a computer terminal, sparking a fire. Sienna tried to extinguish the flames using handfuls of the muck that flooded the area, only to find that it was also flammable.
After nearly deciding to seal the door to the bridge with half of the team still inside once the entire room went up in flames, she and Yamashiro Natsumi were able to clear a path through the fire using extinguishers they found and extract those trapped inside before they received word from the YSS Eucharis that the weather had cleared temporarily, and they had a small window of time to return to orbit before another, larger storm would hit.
They returned to the Eucharis with a scant haul of computer terminals salvaged from the wreck, but little useful information.
http://stararmy.com/roleplay-forum/index.php?threads/mission-19-3-return-to-eucharis.10423/
Upon returning to the Eucharis, Sienna joined the crew in decontaminating and sat in on the debriefing. During the down time, Yamashiro Natsumi continued a concerted effort to make her feel welcome, although Sienna herself remained distant.
http://stararmy.com/roleplay-forum/index.php?threads/mission-20-strangers-essai-dreamworld.10579/
The Eucharis made contact with a planet-sized spacefaring mechanism populated by the Essai, a never before encountered alien race. Although Sienna questioned the wisdom of such a decision, the ship accepted an invitation to land, make contact, and engage in open trade with the civilization living on the planet-ship.
On their first night planetside, the crew all experienced exceptionally vivid, disturbing dreams, further strengthening Sienna's suspicions that their hosts had hidden, sinister motives for inviting them. After being exposed to the air in the environment that was allegedly tailored to suit humanoids, trace gasses laced with nanomachines began to alter the crew's behavior. With their cybernetically enhanced immune responses, the Nekovalkyrja and Minkans were for the most part less affected, and were able to devise countermeasures, but several of those present, including Sienna herself, fell under the influence of the drug, forcing the crew to return to the Eucharis.
Sienna, to that point rendered exceptionally mellow and docile by the drug and having lost her inhibitions, began to behave oddly, including making a rather direct sexual advance on one of the crew. Soon after being returned to the ship, she fell into a deep sleep and was plagued by several nightmares dredged up from shattered memories and parts of her deeper psyche. When an examination probe roused her in the middle of a particularly frightening dream, the first thing she perceived was a Nightmare-type NMX body lying dormant in one of the Eucharis's containment cells, which sent her into a paranoid, terrified panic. She escaped from the medbay and attempted to escape from the ship, single-mindedly and unconsciously obsessed with returning to the dreamworld. Yamashiro Natsumi pursued her into the bowels of the ship, finally catching her as she made her escape through the landing strut bay. Now without an immediate option to flee, in an animal panic Sienna began to furiously fight to free herself, severely wounding Natsumi in the process before she was shot by Orshira Izokia with a stun pulse and again rendered unconscious. She was taken back to the medbay and restrained.
After having the hallucinogens purged from her system and released from treatment, Hanako at last came to the decision that they were in jeopardy and ordered the ship prepared to leave. However, when the decision was made, the up until then passive dreamworld turned aggressive and activated dozens of drones armed with stun weaponry that had been hidden throughout the ship without the crew's knowledge. A shipwide fight broke out, and the landing pad on which the Eucharis sat began to sink into the purple water below it, threatening to consume it and all inside.
After a drawn-out struggle, the crew managed to regain control of the ship and lift off moments before it was completely swallowed by the sea, with yet another refugee passenger in tow: a Chelti merchant.
http://stararmy.com/roleplay-forum/index.php?threads/post-mission-20-back-on-hanakos-world.10830/
Having no other place to be, Shosho Hanako invited Sienna to accompany the crew on leave at the resort on Hanako's World as her guest, and at her expense. There, she was given an extremely generous stipend by Jalen Sune, who was retiring, in gratitude for her assistance, and invited to his retirement banquet at the Princess Dunes restaurant on their first evening ashore.
Yamashiro Natsumi took Sienna around the town and helped her pick out a formal gown for the banquet, a privilege Sienna had never before had. While she was overjoyed at the sight of herself dressed up so prettily, she soon found that wearing such garments was more difficult than she'd expected, and she was a minor source of amusement for the other crew members present. There was also an unfortunate misunderstanding and resulting scuffle with Misato Suzume, in which the newly-promoted and strung-out NCO attempted to gift Sienna with a new 10mm pistol, which Sienna interpreted as an attack.
One evening while visiting the beach for the first time, Sienna and Natsumi's discussion of her stay on the Eucharis turned into a heated argument over her reluctance to count on others. It resulted, however, in Sienna finally beginning to exhibit signs of trust in the Neko, confiding in her on a small piece of her sordid past.
While on Hanako's World, Sienna and Natsumi actually did later share a rather wild night of drinking and socializing in the resort town, forming a kind of bond which Sienna still has difficulty acknowledging. In a moment of poor drunken judgment, she actually ended up going back to a Yamataian soldier's hotel room for a passionate (but ultimately meaningless) one-night stand, remembering practically nothing from her fling but a vague recollection of the soldier's first name.
Not having the resources or desire to remain indefinitely on the idyllic but all-too-fantastic vacation world, Sienna returned to the Eucharis to continue exploiting Hanako's hospitality. Wracked with an intense hangover from her bender with Natsumi the night before, Sienna did her best to nurse herself back to health while the crew of the ship conducted war games near and on the world of Ether. However, in her hazy state of mind, she did not hear the announcement of the ship's intentions, so when the spaceborne combat scenario simulated hull damage, she believed it to be real. Having already been to the medbay for a painkiller and a burn ointment from spilling hot Coffee on herself, she sprang into action despite still feeling miserable, believing that she was the only one aboard competent and coolheaded enough in a crisis to save her own neck.
Understandably, after the war games ended, she was less than pleased to learn that it had been a simulation, but simultaneously finally came to realize the dangers of living aboard a warship to whose nation she owed no allegiance. She resolved that her stay aboard the Eucharis was over, and it was once again time to move on.
When the Eucharis returned to Yamatai, the core of civilized space, Sienna left the Eucharis after saying her awkwardly emotional farewells to her new “friend” Natsumi. Carrying the belongings she had left Urtullan with, as well as the copious funds she had received from Sune and a few extra odds and ends of salvage she had picked up from her time with the warship, she disappeared into the sprawling cities of Yamatai, leaving no word with the starship's crew as to where she might go.
http://stararmy.com/roleplay-forum/index.php?threads/prologue-m-eager-beginnings.15071/
Eventually finding herself on the Amatsu-Nova station, Sienna managed to track down and bargain with a small scrap hull dealer. Using the funds given to her by Jalen Sune, she landed her purchase of an old, beat-up Jinsoku Cargo Runner, hull number F7-1024, which would later become her personal starship, the Concordia Veil. She spent several weeks overhauling the ship and selling unsalvagable parts as scrap to mitigate much of her costs, doing a fair amount of the work herself, and only hiring help when it was absolutely necessary.
Near the end of her work, she encountered by chance a long-long family acquaintance from her childhood: oreza_dakkar. After a surprising reunion, as well as some reconciliation, she agreed to take him as her first mate aboard her new operation. It was later that same day that Sienna hired Amelia Stroud as her astrogator.
http://stararmy.com/roleplay-forum/index.php?threads/chapter-1-0-new-hires.15133/
Acting on purchased information, Sienna took her new ship and tiny crew to an arranged meeting with a contact who claimed to have work for them, but when a scuffle in the bar turned into a full-scale gunfight, the meeting never took place. However, she managed to bring two new crew members aboard, one of which (Vel Vect'Orian) claimed to have precise coordinates of a derelict mining ship in the local asteroid belt. The other was Stitchtech Pat 64-4406-2207, a Freespacer medic with… questionable… training. Left without any other immediate opportunities for work, the captain reluctantly accepted the offer and set out in search of the ship, in hopes that they would be the first to arrive and claim a lucrative haul of salvage.
When she returned to the ship, she discovered that Amelia had (apparently) fought off two hijackers who had boarded the ship, killing one of them. Although she had her suspicions about exactly how the astrogator had accomplished such a feat, she was nonetheless impressed by her results, despite being more than a little irritated that the hijackers had been allowed on board in the first place. After a rather brutal interrogation, Sienna left the surviving hijacker on the Black Moon barely clinging to life with a dire warning never to cross them again.
http://stararmy.com/roleplay-forum/index.php?threads/chapter-2-0-salvage.15492/
Following the coordinates given to them by Vel Vect'Orian, Sienna took her ship to the Halna asteroid field in search of the derelict. However, after a series of confrontations between Vel and the crew, the Freespacer Crash Mckill still hidden in the ship's computer (and as yet unknown to Sienna) discovers the Iromakuanhe trying to hack in, and reports it anonymously. Unsure of who sent the transmission, but fed up with Vel's behavior and considering him a danger to her ship, as well as seizing the opportunity to diminish the number of people she would have to divide any potential booty amongst, Sienna had Oreza sabotage Vel's EVA suit and throw him into space once the away team exits the ship.
The remaining away team consisting of Oreza, Six Four, and Sienna EVA crossed open space to the derelict and searched the wreck, a Hikari-Class Mining Ship, which was blown completely in half, most of it floating in a cloud of debris. While searching the derelict, Sienna realizes that Amelia had decided against her orders to fly through the debris field and land on the wreck itself. Increasingly angered by the growing number of complications, she severely admonished the astrogator for her disobedience and warned her not to move until further notice.
The crew at first discovered few clues as to what caused the disaster, but they came across a survivor: dylan_bjarkmar, trapped in a medbay.
While Oreza and Six Four work on a plan to get Dylan out of the still pressurized medbay, Sienna grows even more agitated at the Freespacer's tendency to take everything literally, and stormed away in a fury while trying to contact the ship. Receiving no response, she assumed that Amelia had again disobeyed her orders, and headed back to the Veil herself.
When she arrived at the ship, she discovered Crash, as well as the fact that the astrogator was gone. Worked up into an irrational fury, the captain confined Crash (now in a temporary android body) at gunpoint to Amelia's quarters and hailed Amelia's shuttle, revealing that she knows about the stowaway Freespacer as well as threatening to destroy the shuttle if she tries to flee.
Amelia asks Crash to override the ship's systems, paralyzing the Veil until further notice and rendering Sienna powerless. Oreza defuses the increasingly volatile powder keg and manages to talk the unstable captain down, but Six Four, when returning to the ship to procure another suit for Dylan, pumped her full of a knockout dose of Qualen, leaving the operation in Oreza's hands.
http://stararmy.com/roleplay-forum/index.php?threads/chapter-2-1a-licking-their-wounds.16130/
http://stararmy.com/roleplay-forum/index.php?threads/chapter-2-2-prospects.16181/
Tensioned between the captain and the crew threatened to tear the fledgling operation apart as Sienna slowly came out of her drug-induced stupor, and Oreza did his best to maintain order as he organizes repairs and refits for the damaged ship.
As Sienna's mind clears, she falls into something of a depression as the things that Oreza and Crash said to her began to resonate, but not until after having another confrontation with her first mate regarding the details of servicing the Veil.
She starts to suffer the effects of withdrawal from the massive dose of Qualen she was injected with, while searching the Black Moon's networks for any potential leads on work to make up for their previous failure. During her search, she stumbled across a distress message from a mysterious source, and after a few exchanged messages, agreed to rescue the sender from a world on the edge of Abwehran space. She also worked, begrudgingly, with Crash to work out a trade run to Khorsovarolor as a hedge on the way, in the event that the rescue mission goes awry as well.
Later that evening, Shrie attempted to smooth things over amongst the crew by taking the initiative to prepare a meal for them, bringing them together around the mess table, where Sienna took her first step in trying to be a leader, rather than a dictator.
The ship made a trading run to Khorsovarolor for a small profit, running moon dust and cave spider silk to the rebuilding world for processing into construction materials. In transit, tensions between the captain and crew diminished to a simmer, but the rift is far from healed.
Sienna and Crash became increasingly at odds due to the latter's whimsical, “prankster” nature, and Amelia tries to help the Freespacer adapt to his role, all the while trying to be patient with the captain as she makes a visible effort to be a leader rather than a dictator. However, Sienna found it increasingly difficult to undo the damage done to her reputation as the ship's captain, and felt increasingly isolated from her crew.
The captain's condition continued to worsen as she tried to keep her Qualen withdrawal symptoms hidden from the crew, but Six Four discovers them when she happens upon the captain vomiting in the lavatory. The medic does not appear concerned, advising the captain that the symptoms will pass while justifying her action of medicating Sienna as necessary at the time. Seemingly, Sienna accepts the explanation, but in secret worked out a scheme to secretly acquire small doses of Qualen from the medic's laboratory for her personal use, with the rationale of needing to expedite her recovery as quickly as possible so as to be in top shape for their next job…
http://stararmy.com/roleplay-forum/index.php?threads/chapter-3-0-strangers-in-a-strange-land.16189/
http://stararmy.com/roleplay-forum/index.php?threads/chapter-3-1-junk.16341/
https://stararmy.com/roleplay-forum/index.php?threads/1-2-1a-nothing-stings-quite-like-sienna.16844/
Responding to a distress call on one of the moons in the Neue Jaspis system, a star system inhabited by a rogue AI and its automotons, the Veil touched down in a twilight jungle to rescue a marooned Gartagen. Aside from the atmosphere having too low of an oxygen level to comfortably breathe, the moon's gravity was almost double standard, and the crew discovered that the Gartagen (who called himself Bithut Palmatar Tam) had several dozen crates of belongings he wished to take with him as well. Furthermore, the crates were located in the middle of an expansive grove of trees, with no clearing large enough and nearby enough to land the ship close enough to efficiently load the equipment.
After some deliberation, the away team consisting of Amelia and Oreza decided to use some of the explosives that Tam had to clear away a sizable portion of the trees so that the ship could land right next to the crates, facilitating loading. The plan was executed as expected, the ship was moved, and loading began; however, the explosions and commotion attracted the attention of a swarm of resource collection drones in the vicinity, all of which evidently now saw the Jinsoku and its cargo as a prime target to be stripped for materials.
A pitched battle with thousands of drones quickly ensued, the crew barely managing to get the last of the crates aboard before they were overrun. Many of the crew were separated from one another in the chaos, desperately trying to get everything and everyone back on the ship all the while fighting off the seemingly endless waves of relentless spider-drones intent on dismantling everything in sight.
Oreza's knee was broken when a damaged drone fell onto it, and Shrie was lacerated multiple times across the chest, but the crew finally managed to lift off with a fair number of drones still clinging fast to the outer hull. Using a combination of the ship's turrets and a series of daring, high-G and high-atmospheric-drag maneuvers, the drones were neutralized as they rocketed out of the moon's atmosphere, leaving Crash McKill overheated and burnt out from the extreme effort he exerted to save the ship, and Sienna temporarily unconscious from the high-G maneuvers.
After taking some time to catch their breath and tend to everyone's wounds, Sienna made preparations to head to the populous Dawn Station, as well as collected her pay from Tam, and distributed the shares generously amongst the crew. For much of the journey, it appeared that some of the tensions between her and her crew were beginning to abate, until after payments were made, she discovered that Crash had informed Amelia he would be leaving the ship. When she reacted almost with enthusiasm at his sudden departure, Amelia became angry with her, leading to yet another screaming match, undoing what little healing had occurred between them. Were it not yet again for Oreza's timely intervention, Sienna would have throttled the astrogator where she stood.
With the boiling over frustrations she felt from the pressures of operating a starship and crew, Sienna fell deeper into depression and anger without target. During a conversation with Oreza in which her first mate attempted to console her, she turned her hostility on her old friend, driving a wedge between them and causing the first mate to decide it best that he leave the ship as well. Sienna turned to Qualen once again for stability and solace, worsening her addiction.
When they arrived at Dawn, Sienna dismissed the crew, telling them only to come back if they so desired, and set off to procure supplies and materials needed for refits and repairs, and then drink herself into a stupor that evening.
To her crew's bewilderment, Sienna did not return from her bender. When several days passed without so much as a hint as to their captain's whereabouts or wishes, many of the crew members simply left of their own accord to pursue other interests, many of them undoubtedly at least somewhat glad to be rid of her. Some of her more duty-minded employees attempted to track her down, but strangely, not a trace of her could be found. Few people on the busy Dawn Station remembered her, and those that did could only give vague accounts that led to nothing but dead ends. Sienna had, for all intents and purposes, vanished.
Eventually her remaining crew gave up the search and moved on with their lives, perhaps deducing that in all likelihood their former captain did not want to be found. The Concordia Veil was ultimately impounded and sent to a scrap yard, where it sat idle and forgotten.
https://stararmy.com/roleplay-forum/index.php?threads/mementos.59814/
For the next two years Sienna sought to escape from her failed pursuit of the freedom she sought as an independent starship captain, haunted by Oreza's words and her former crew's hatred. She changed her name to Janelle Jacobs (perhaps a subconscious nod to her brother's name), seeking to shed her old identity and hopefully begin a new life away from her past mistakes, but her increasing dependence on Qualen for solace slowly eroded her deteriorating mental state. She eventually wound up on the world of Occhestia III, and by this point she had lost herself so fully in her new identity that her memories as Sienna had been buried so deeply that she truly believed she was Janelle Jacobs.
For months she lived as a drifter and a vagrant on the Lorath world, living off of her earnings as a misbegotten starship captain and, when that eventually ran out, scratching out a living from odd jobs of varying legality to pay for dumpy accommodations at a local hostel as well as to fuel her Qualen addiction.
Sienna has a knack for machinery, and although she holds no certification or formal training, understanding them comes naturally to her. She does not consider this any sort of divine gift or mystical bond she has with machines, of course - she simply has a very mechanically-oriented mind and can visualize and understand physical interactions with little effort. She can also improvise temporary repairs with rudimentary odds and ends that she finds lying about with relatively low-tech tools in all but the most complicated situations, and can jerry-rig simple machines together from scrap given enough time and materials.
Mechanical aptitude in this age is almost inseperable from at least a basic understanding of computer technology, and Sienna is no exception. Her familiarity with mechanical contraptions goes hand in hand with her ability with computers and computer networking, and while she may not have the formal training and ability of a certified programmer, she is knowledgable enough to be able to operate, troubleshoot, make simple repairs and in rare cases make minor modifications to most common computer systems.
When faced with unfamiliar devices, Sienna is a quick learner, able to figure out how to operate new technology with relative ease in all but the most alien and complex devices. However, diagnosing and resolving very complex problems with computers is considerably more difficult for her, as her mechanically-oriented mind has more difficulty grasping the more abstract nature of such devices' inner workings.
Sienna is in very good physical condition thanks in part to her youth, and a life on the move and in the dregs of interstellar society has prevented her from falling into a sedentary or unhealthy lifestyle. Semiregular work as a mechanic has helped sculpt her as well, and while she may not be imposing or powerful-looking, she is deceptively strong for her size and almost everyone who shakes her hand for the first time is caught off guard by her vise-like grip.
She is also very limber and flexible, resistant to many forms of joint-locks and pain compliance measures, but not immune entirely.
Since escaping from her indentured life, she has kept her habit of following a consistent regimen of physical exercise every day, as often as possible, in order to maintain her physique.
Sienna has basic hand-to-hand combat training from her parents, and the life of hardship she has lived has forced her to learn how to defend herself with astonishing efficiency. Though unlikely to win a toe-to-toe fight against a trained and battle-hardened soldier, against common thugs and street rabble she has held her own in the past, coming out on top of her share of scrapes. Her technique could be called “unorthodox” (or even “dishonorable”) by many stricter traditional martial disciplines, and “circular” by more open-minded arts, relying mostly on attacks of opportunity, misdirection, “cheap shots,” and using a stronger, heavier opponent's mass against them rather than meeting force with brute force. Her lithe build as well as her astonishing dexterity and reaction time allows her greater flexibility and speed than the average muscled male, which lends to her preference for hit-and-fade tactics rather than getting drawn into a straight fight.
Perhaps the most noteworthy aspects of Sienna's combat ability is her powerful survival instinct. When faced with a threat, she typically prefers to distract and escape from the situation, but when she is backed into a corner and feels that her life is in immediate danger, she tends to turn exceptionally hostile and violent, even feral by some accounts, and will fight with a merciless, animalistic brutality that few would be prepared for.
She is surprisingly tough for her stature, with an almost supernatural sense of self-preservation. She is capable of tolerating higher levels of pain than the average young woman and can shake off at least one or two blows from a stronger opponent before being knocked down. Her stubborn, iron will also allows her to make difficult choices without hesitation when in jeopardy. However, this tendency often overrides any sense of nobility or sacrifice; if forced to choose between saving herself or a dozen innocents, Sienna will invariably elect to look out for herself.
She also is exceptionally resourceful, able to adapt to various environmental conditions, and excels at improvising weapons from normal, everyday objects to defend herself. Her cleverness, guile, unpredictability, speed, and raw force of will is what makes her very dangerous, rather than her technical fighting ability or brute strength; most opponents will either tend to grossly underestimate her or find it difficult to predict what she will do or when she will do it.
She is proficient with conventional firearms, having practiced in her youth with metal projectile weapons on firing ranges as well as in a few real confrontations in recent years. She is no expert marksman, however, and her effectiveness at moderate to long range is limited; she can hit a target at range more or less reliably in a controlled environment, but under duress her accuracy is reduced.
Living in conditions most of the more affluent parts of the galaxy may refer to as “slums” has forced Sienna to adapt to the shadier methods of sustenance, and her mechanical aptitude makes skills like lockpicking second nature to her. She is proficient enough in sleight of hand to be able to pickpocket or distract most common civilians.
She has a basic understanding of how to seduce the most low-brow of male humans, though she usually views this as beneath her, and typically won't do such a thing lightly.
She learned to be very adept at the art of stealth from an early age, starting with being forced to evade capture or harm by her parents' more unscrupulous political opponents. Her limber, slender physique as well as her surprising physical strength allows her to squeeze into dauntingly tight spaces, hang from precarious perches, and remain out of sight and hearing for long periods of time if necessary.
Though she is not compulsive liar, she is very adept at misleading people and telling convincing falsehoods when she feels it necessary to do so, and has the near-sociopathic tendency to feel little remorse for doing so.
However, this lifestyle is extremely focused on survival, and as such, while she is quite self-reliant, she has very little practical experience relying on others or taking orders. She is severely lacking in trust and is fiercely independent, believing that other people each have their own agenda and cannot be counted on when the chips are down.
Languages spoken: Nepleslian (primary), Yamataian (basic ability, can read and converse with someone who does not use slang, have an unusual accent, or speak too quickly with some effort)
Sienna is relatively well-spoken with a slightly above average vocabulary in her primary language, though her writing skills are moderately lacking as she has not had any formal writing experience or training since grammar school. She also speaks with an accent that, while not overbearing or heavy, would sound coarse to a more culturally refined ear.
Having spent most of her young adult life thus far primarily looking out for herself, Sienna has virtually no experience working with a team. Until she acquired the Concordia Veil, she did not have experience operating radios and other communications devices in any real situations, though through her experience as a mechanic and tinkerer she was familiar enough with many such devices to learn how to effectively operate them with relative speed and ease.
Being an unmodified, baseline human, she lacks any sort of extrasensory perception or telepathy.
Sienna is capable of piloting small spacefaring craft, although her ability is merely functional. She can perform basic flight maneuvers, takeoff, landing, and docking as long as she is not under duress, but beyond that she has little practical experience.
Sienna Audrey Shelton has the following items:
Sienna Audrey Shelton is not currently affiliated with any faction.
Total Savings | Addition | Subtraction | Reason |
---|---|---|---|
3000 KS | Starting Funds (credit chit stolen from her former owner/master on Urtullan) | ||
13,000 KS | 10,000 KS | Gift from Jalen Sune | |
12,500 KS | 500 KS | Various purchases on Hanako's World in YE 35 | |
10,100 KS | 2,400 KS | Purchase, salvage, restoration of the Concordia Veil | |
8,000 KS | 2,100 KS | Purchase of 6 EM-G1 Emrys Dusk Suits | |
1,000 KS | 7,000 KS | Allocated for Concordia Veil operational funds | |
0 KS | 1,000 KS | Money frittered away during her two-year bender and amnesiac episode |
This character may be used as an NPC by another GM with permission from Floodwaters.
This character may NOT be adopted.
Character Data | |
---|---|
Character Name | Sienna Audrey Shelton |
Character Owner | Floodwaters |
Character Status | Inactive Player Character |