Approved Character [Battlefield Education] Sarena

Sarena is a player character played by Navian.

Species & Gender: Nepleslian Female.
Year of Birth: ??
Organization: None
Occupation: Student
Rank: 1st-year
Preferred Plot: Battlefield Education

Physical Description
Sarena is over six feet tall, a lanky and hypermuscular adolescent with very large hands and feet. Though soft, unfit, and weak for her size, this isn't saying much. Her skin colour is 'cantaloupe' (tan), her hair colour is 'burgunberry' (purple), and her eye colour is 'orange' (amber). Her ears and face are round, and not particularly large in proportion to her head, but then again, her head is large is well. Her hair is straight and waist-length, smoothly brushed, but only cut at the ends. Despite good grooming and hygiene, her body odour is a perennial complaint. Her voice is breathy and higher-than-average pitch, though this is due to her very reluctant manner of using it. Her natural voice is clearer, if she ever uses it.

Personality
Sarena is short-tempered, but brittle, feigns a math phobia despite being a genius in this area, has an extreme love of music that she also attempts to hide, and is very shy. She is also very fond of fruit, especially tropical varieties, and is not very shy about this interest. She tends to work the names of fruit into her speech and snacks on them when possible, and can barely imagine a meal without them. Like most teenagers, she seeks approval. She can be outspoken when she feels an authority figure is not living up to their role.

Having being raised as a cabin girl on an all-female mercenary starship, she has little meaningful social experience with the opposite sex... though, the culture she grew up in was more macho than most men experience, and had a strict martial code, with honour duels and Klingon promotions. She is ashamed to have been unable to conform to their personnel standards, but open to seeking a more inclusive community. Her father was doting, but not wise, and absent-minded. She has not seen him in nearly a decade.

History
Sarena is a mercenary brat. There are no adequate records describing her early life. Her origins are Nepleslian, but her family was not loyal. She was effectively dumped onto Tsubomi in mid-summer of YE 38.

Social Connections
Sarena is connected to:

• Zoia 'Sivaro (Roommate)

Skills Learned
Sarena has the following notable skills:

• Entertainment: Sarena isn't always content to just listen to music, sometimes she remixes it. She also plays electronic keyboard instruments. She is fond of popular culture, in general.
• Culinary: Sarena's passion for fruit extends to a passion for food preparation. She is so often unsatisfied with the amount and variety of fruit in most meal portions that she tasks herself with creating her own, improved versions that incorporate many fruits, in important roles.
• Domestic: As a former cabin girl, Sarena has years of experience as a domestic servant. Her recent growth spurt was a major cause of her loss of employment, as cleaning and clumsiness go very poorly together. She is accustomed to using these skills aboard a mercenary cruiser, not on a planet.
• Mathematics: Sarena is incredibly gifted in this field due to genetics. Her interest in it is tepid.
• Fighting: Sarena has four years of martial arts training already, ranging from unarmed combat to knife, sword, beam, stun, and thrown weapons. Her skills have gone to rust within the past year, however. She has only ever used these skills in the training rooms of the ship on which she was boarded.
• Strategy: Sarena has basic training in squad tactics, for what little use it's been.
  
• Technology Use: Sarena has no trouble using computers, or operating remote sensors. She mainly uses the former for her musical hobbies, and mainly uses the latter for 'covert surveillance'.

Inventory & Finance
Sarena has the following:

• School uniform outfits, and standard equipment
• Several outfits of Western desert-style clothing
• Basic equipment for dojo training and target practice
• Cheap, mass-produced katana her mother is pranking her with, by telling her it's an ancient heirloom
• Lots of fruit

Character Will
In the case I become inactive (gone for more than a month):

• Can this character be used as an NPC by a GM or FM? NO
• Can this character be adopted after I'm gone for a year or more? YES

I never mentioned I was Co-GM when I convinced you to join, did I? Well I am and that's why I was so happy that you were joining!

Neps age the same way humans do. Go ahead and make an age estimate for us.

There are no adequate records describing her early life.

Click to expand...

The wiki is all seeing and knows everything about characters. What I quoted above won't work and should be expanded on. I know in chat you said you wanted to write minimal background, but you need something else of more substance. You have some information about being on a mercenary ship and that is a good launching pad for background. @Reynolds will be able to help you more than me there.

I'm going to fix you up a nice and fresh wiki, so any additions or changes, pm them to me or post them in this thread. Shouldn't be long!

https://wiki.stararmy.com/doku.php?id=wip:character:sarena

At the very least, add in:

• age
• height
• weight
• city of birth
• year of birth

Try your hand editing the wiki or pm me/ post here.

I may have missed some things that Reynolds will catch.

[Edit: Didn't know what "klingon" promotions are so I changed it to just promotions.]

Most of this seems fine. I just hope she isn't going to be too quirky, but we'll see.

I think the backstory is fine, but as far as the actual History section of the thing goes, maybe you can fluff that up a bit? Maybe just move some bits from Personality there to fill it out. I was also hoping @CadetNewb might be able to help fit this Nepleslian Amazon mercenary ship into the history with White Harbor and Yamatai. Maybe he knows of a good way to tie this in and make it feel more SA-ish, if you know what I mean?

I did notice her age only works out to 13, which seems a little low. I think most of the non-Neko are about 16.

Also, her martial arts history is only briefly touched on. It should definitely be a bit more of a focus for this plot. Maybe she knows a cool space pirate fighting style...? Just think about it for a bit.

Also sign up for a wiki account if you can, so you can have a user page for us to link to!

So flesh it out just a bit, ask around about that history stuff, and I'll take another look at it.

I'll have a go at it tomorrow and watch the thread. I'll let you know.

Thanks!

I've done a good bit of editing, though I still expect to do more. In particular, I don't know what to do about Sarena's parents. Her mother's a mercenary, but probably not an ex-marine, since female Nepleslians were just too rare back then. The mercenary ship she joined probably did not have many Nepleslian crewmembers, for about the same reason. It would have been much easier for them to find warrior-women from other cultures. Her mother probably learned her skills the hard way, which would explain why she was so eager to abandon her homeworld.

Her father might have been a Nepleslian soldier... or maybe a Lorath scientist. Any of these might count as associated characters, but none of them should come up in the RP, so I'm reluctant to rush to add details, like names and backgrounds for them. If Sarena's an alien hybrid, that would be relevant, but there's no reason she needs to be, strictly speaking.

As far as age goes, the older the character is, the less likely she is to keep growing. As soon as she's done growing, the worst is over for her; everything gets much easier. Putting her at the most awkward stage was my goal. I guess there's some wiggle room, especially if she does have some alien DNA. There's no other reason I need her to be any particular age, it's just the awkward stage that's important. (Incidentally, I think that's about two years later for males!)

As I envision it, the mercenary cruiser she lived on isn't really meant for naval combat and boarding, its main purpose would be to transport the company, their stores, munitions, and vehicles. I think they'd prefer straightforward security contracts, with some ground-pounding. Conventional military and self-defense styles seem more appropriate, especially since Sarena received only basic training. A mish-mash of styles taught by a variety of experts that joined the company from different backgrounds makes sense, though.

@Navian

Well, the only thing I've seen that's out of place would be the first two sentences of her physical description. It describes her as being hyper muscular, yet at the same time weak. Nepleslians are generally baseline humans with just a small bit of oddity mixed into their genetics - some more than less - but are otherwise within normal expectations.

By that I meant high muscle mass, but poor muscle tone. Some people have very large muscles, but their size and appearance is more due to fluid than a high density of strong muscle fibers. It's common for people who have naturally large muscles, without training to get them. I remember hearing a few anecdotes about people who started out with huge calf muscles that shrank when they started strength training, to their disappointment.

Another side of it is that people with show muscles often aren't that strong compared to someone who's wiry, and specifically trained in combat. Either way, that's the sort of thing I was getting at. Some people would call them 'fake muscles', though 'low-density, with poor recruitment patterns' might be more precise. She's still pretty strong, since being 'weaker than she looks' isn't a very strong statement. It might be clearer if I use those exact words...

I don't think there's specifically anything about her that's not baseline human (at least so long as her natural hair colour is actually brown). She's an oddity, for sure, but the sort of oddity that exists in the real world, albeit at a rate of less than one in ten million. I can tone that down if necessary, I might have a skewed view of how much larger than life the other characters are.

If that's the case regarding her musculature, be sure to specify, otherwise it'll be confusing. Again, I can't find anything off other than that.

Alright, if you don't see any problems, then this is APPROVED and you can go post in the RP thread. Just need @Wes or anyone else handy to move this to the proper place, thanks!

Sarena's sheet has been updated to reflect the passage of time to the end of the first semester of YE 38, and her history section expanded to reflect the most recent events (including the parts that weren't played out in the RP, which is a bit tricky). The idea is that she's now available to be recruited for training as a mecha pilot in Uso's Star Organization, to help fill out Alex's wing with more troubled teenagers. Because of course that's a great idea. @Dumont suggested it might be 110% likely that Uso would hire Sarena's 'family' of mercs and their ship, too, so we could also work on that, if so. @Zack

Keeping in mind that that was a 90% chance, with the extra 20% tagged on with the provision that one of them chokes Uso out to prove their dominance.

But sure. Just keep in mind that if we ever get around to untangling the braided plotline of 188604 you should probably elect to keep your two active characters there seperate from one another.

I think I'd have to work harder to avoid doing that, so no problem there. And yes, as I mentioned to Dumont, the crew contains a variety of races, including Lorath, so that doesn't seem very unlikely.