Kaledoria wrote:Character Application
Name: Lorelei Martin
Age: 25
Appearance: Caucasian, 1,79m, 72kg, athletic build, medium-length black hair, dark grey/blue eyes, tiny (barely recocnizable) 1cm long scar on the left side of the head between temple and ear. Tattoos on shoulders, upper arms and left thigh(Image)
Bio: Lorelei was born as Gisele Moore in Toronto, Canadian Hegemony. Daughter of an IT-Security expert and a Programmer, Lorelei was introduced to technology from the earliest childhood. At age 11, she started associating herself into Hacker Circles. She equipped her computer with illegal software and gathered a botnet of computers from various localized nets to be able to circumvent most national access restrictions. For years she only used her talent for internet-vandalism and building up connections and generally the thrill of the danger associated with the deep end of the net (You know, with pedophiles, drug-dealers, snuff-porn, hitmen etc.). A few years later, she started with credit card fraud and activism that spilled over to real-life started (leaking illegally acquired documents, doxxing dirty government and corporate power-players, arms and drug deals without the proper licences).
At 17 she broke with her parents (not that her parents were bad people, they did not hurt or abuse her in any way, they were just mostly absent) to protect them, as she joined more radical networks. She had her biometric data in the national database neutralized and created a fake identity.
After three years, her "circle of friends" had grown to something that the government classified as a terrorist organization. At the same time, there were internal tensions between the hedonist and the idealists, the eco-activists, the ultra-democrats and the anarchists (Lorelei herself had a rather hedonist view and shared some democrat and anarchist points but opposed both the extremists of those factions and the eco-terrorists in general) and the group decided to disband before the gov would find them.
With two friends, Lorelei decided to take off the black hat and don a grey one, joining a small, upstart mercenary group specializing in drone- and cyber warfare. She quickly expanded her horizon from mostly net-based information warfare to closed systems, radio-interception and onside hacking. While those fields came naturally to her (even though it lacked the pyschological aspects of hacking, that she was a professional in) she also took shooting and military hand-to-hand combat training, as her fellow company-members insisted. It came in handy in fact, after less then two years on the job, when the tactical control van manned by Lorelei was discovered by an enemy patrol and she had to personally neutralize two enemies.
The mercenary service changed her rapidly. She started to romanticize the young rebel she used to be while getting more and more accustomed to selling her skills to anyone that pays. Her view on politics became extremely jaded. At the same time, she started developing a personal philosophy, that is concerning to her friends (not that she has ever been a model for mental stability). She seeks thrills and takes unnecessary risks, tries to live fast and intense, as if she could be dead tomorrow.
Company: Amber Sky: A mercenary collaboration of 28 members and 6 noncombatant employees. (3 lawyers, 2 secretaries, 1 relationship manager (lobbyist)). The company is collectively owned by the members and business-decisions are made democratically, independently of the military chain of command (1 "captain", 3 "lieutenants", 8 "sergeants", 16 "corporals"). The company has significant resources. The vehicle fleet consists of: A large armored command-tank, two smaller armored amphibious vehicles and six vans (that can be outfitted for surveillance equipment, troop-transport, drone transport). They own two awacs drones, three air-superiority drones, six air-to-ground attack drones, five ground-combat/SAM drones and lots of micro-drones (for surveillance, small arms support, communication and com-interception). They have a contract with H.I.C, a global telecommunication and mapping service that allows them to get high detail satellite images of an area on demand on short notice (usually within 2-3 days).
Amber Sky offers various services and has specialized in military intelligence and reconnaissance.
Equipment: Lorelei's personal equipment consists of a bullet-proof vest, a helmet, a personal firearm (Glock18-style) with sound-suppressor, a civilian motorbike, and a portable computer (while the computer has a flip-up display and keyboard, she usually operates it with Hud-Goggles and motion-capture gloves) with various gadgets. Her latest piece of personal equipment is a bionic implant called SCN-Regulator (see below)
Starting Location: Where do you need me? What is the plot?
Theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yj1yg-8YxAI
Motto: Wars are not won by dudes with rifles crawling through the mud.
Company Flag: ...
Other:
- Note that Lorelei is not a typical member of her company. She is the best expert on Internet-based cyber-warfare and social hacking. She is an expert with software while many of her colleagues are more focused on the hardware (electronics and mechatronics specialists), on drone-piloting and/or clandestine operations.
- Over radio, Amber Sky uses gem- and mineral-based callsigns. Lorelei's callsign is Lazurite. Yeah, she is known by many names...
- Speaks English, French, ASL (or successor) and a bit of Japanese. Also has a simultaneous translation program on her "board" that speaks 1200 languages.
- Has lately gotten a SCN-Regulator (or sleep regulator as it's commonly known). This bionic implant to the hypothalamus allows her to sleep on command, pre-select the depth and duration of her sleep phase and if necessary reduces the effects of sleep deprivation during extended wake phases (compared to people trained to stay awake for extended periods, she cannot actually stay awake longer then usual. However her concentration drops by less, especially for the first 24 hours). Due to the enhanced quality of the sleep, 6 hours each night is totally sufficient. The implant has other quality of life features concerning the cardiac rythm (digestive system) that are less obvious in a healthy 25 year old.
PS: I started imagining a more in-detail map then the descriptions about the world you have given. In parts I loosely interpreted the framework you set out. In the unspecified regions I made some changes that seem plausible (well, less unplausible then a new Roman Empire) because after 400 years a lot should have happened... (I think I'm still rather conservative)
https://i.imgur.com/jPJfXQd.jpg
Going down the cyber-warfare route, eh? Can't wait to see what happens with this! Accepted! As for your starting location, I'd say that, since your focusing on the hacking side of things, I'd say somewhere in Turkey would be a good place to be, considering the NIR is one of the largest nations and the Turks don't really enjoy being ruled by a bunch of weird, neo-Roman Italians. Also, I will definitely use bits of your map to improve upon the map that I was already making.
