Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[The Scythian]

This is an Out of Character thread. I posted this to R109 originally, but it died. All my posts in this thread will be made as my person, and not as Goldfinch, the character.



I wanted to write down the timeline for Goldfinch, named in the Amarr Book of Records as Jade Rkard, the Gallente-born Reclaimed and Emancipated wife of a minor Amarr Holder.

Her story is unusual.

I highly value your feedback. My knowledge of lore is quite imperfect, and your replies will help me change and improve Goldfinch's backstory. I can take criticism, so please don't hold back.

by Vivian Ng

Goldfinch: Origin

YC 84.03.15: Rebirth
Jade Okamoto is born on Vlillirier VI (Ve-ly-rieh) a temperate planet in the Amevync constellation in Placid. Placid had long been a disputed region between Caldari State and the Gallente Federation. Upon seeing the child's serene face an Adakul seer exclaims in shock, rather uncharacteristically, that she sees "calamity bloom wherever the child would walk".

Her father is a Jin Mei of the Sang Go caste, Fox Okamoto, Governor of Okamoto Colony founded on the largest continent of Vlillirier VI. The colony is part of a seed program for frontiersmen to establish Gallente footing where Federation presence is all but a whisper.

Her mother Moon Okamoto is Jin Mei, too. She is beautiful, with gold hair that falls down past her hips. It is said that Jade would grow up as beautiful as her.

Jade has no siblings.

by Silvia Pelissero

YC 85 - 92: Warzone
Jade grows up in a life of privilege. The vines of the Jin Mei cultural caste system seem to have taken root even on this remote outpost. Jade grows up isolated from other children of her age, with private tutelage, and only holograms and occasionally her mother to keep her company.

She makes a friend in her father's colony, Amber, a girl of the same age. Something happens to Amber, perhaps as a consequence of a theft or a minor crime, and Jade never hears from her again. It is possible that Amber is a figment of her imagination, an invented friend in the mind of a lonely child.

War breaks out now and then, like bubbles rising in a boiling pot. Caldari warships are frequently seen on the horizon, and soldiers come down to harass the colonists and confiscate food and supplies. The Governor solicits for assistance from the Federation, but the Gallente High Command is afraid that official meddling in the form of military assistance would be seen as an aggressive act.

by molybdenumgp03

YC 93-94: Collusion
Jade is nine. She has an aptitude for singing and languages. She routinely watches Matari television.

Fox Okamoto offers himself as a host to a squad of Caldari militia whose ships have suffered some damage. In exchange for supplies and repairs, the militia men agree to leave Vlillirier VI untouched on their next sweep.

A Caldari general visits Vlillirier VI and the Governor agrees to provide local intelligence in exchange for immunity to harassment and raids.



YC 95: Treason
A small Gallente fleet is destroyed in a neighboring system. The survivors uncover foul play in the surviving flight records.

A Federation intelligence probe is sent to Vlillirier. Governors and colonists are questioned. Records of reconnaissance by Fox Okamoto and his colonial rangers are discovered. Okamoto Colony is provisionally placed under direct Federation custody and Fox and Moon Okamoto, and their daughter Jade, are interrogated in a closed door tribunal.

The Okamoto name is stripped of Federation legitimacy. Fox and his family are exiled to Derelik, where they choose to settle on Sosa IX, an ice planet where mines are operated and maintained on- and off-planet. It is a hard life. Sosa's star is hardly ever visible in the sky.

Jade is given the name Jade Moon Fox, after her parents.

by Silvia Pelissero

YC 96-101: Exile
Jade is a teenager. With no school or tutors, Jade's education is left up to her own motivation. She will come to pass into adulthood with only a twelve year old's schooling.

Jade adjusts poorly to her new life. She is rebellious and fiery, incapable of being useful in mining facilities that Fox, her father, was put in charge of. The facilities are positioned in bleak locations and virtually empty except for an operator or two. Mindless robots operate the myriad rusty machinery in cathedrals of scaffolding and blizzard bulwarks. Only the crackling of massive ice plates can be heard above the unsleeping, shrieking drills boring coreward.

Jade makes a new friend, Saffire, a girl of the same age. The two are close, and are proficient only at wasting time, stealing away with each other to the consternation of Jade's parents, exploring the remote corners of the ice planet they were both stuck on.

Jade loses Saffire under an ice sheet on a frozen lake. It is possible that Jade's only friend on Sosa IX is imaginary, too.

by molybdenumgp03

Next: An officer from a Capsuleer ship stops by Sosa IX to recruit baseliners as crew.

[The Scythian]

Before the next update I thought I would share some portraits of people in Goldfinch's life so far.

Rogues Gallery I

Click for larger version

Click for larger version

Moon Okamoto
Shown younger as Governess of Vlillirier VI, and older as a laborer on Sosa IX

Moon was born to a powerful Jin Mei family of the ruling Sang Do caste. Instead of entering marriage with a person of equal stature, she choose instead to uplift Fox Okamoto, a fiery Federation solicitor with high ambitions to surpass his Sang Go heritage. Her marriage with Fox was a quiet ceremony with few friends. Moon had spurned many powerful suitors and had alienated her family with her choice for a husband.

Moon's time on Vlillirier VI began to show strains of dissatisfaction with her isolation from big cities and high society. Both of Jade's parents intended for the birth of a child as a way for Moon to reclaim her sense of belonging. However, Moon found herself to be an unfit mother, emotionally overwhelmed and generally irresponsible. She left Jade's upbringing to nannies and computers, secretly falling into drug addiction and alcohol abuse.

Moon suffered greatly on Sosa IX, grinding through a life of hard labor in a dead end life.

Click for larger version

Click for larger version

Fox Okamoto
Shown younger as Governor of Okamoto Colony in Placid, and older as a Federation exile in Derelik

Fox found the Jin Mei caste system's glass ceiling very early in his life as a solicitor specializing in military law. His post as a Governor on Vlillirier VI was secured as a reward for the prosecution of a few high profile so-called war criminals on Caldari Prime. He was later found guilty for colluding with the enemy, the Caldari militia, and stripped of rank, name, and citizenship.

Fox had always been an intense professional man, leaving very little time to his personal life. The deterioration of his relationship with his wife on Vlillirier VI took a turn for the worse on Sosa IX.

Click for larger version

Amber

A childhood friend of Jade's. The two girls were matched in height and weight and often would be seen together. They would crawl around in the secret network of pipes left by Caldari colonists who had initially settled Vlillirier VI. Sometimes they would spy on Fox Okamoto's reception of offworld visitors.

Amber disappeared from Jade's life after the petty theft of a necklace from a colonist of some repute.

by Jory Hemmelgarn

Saffire

Saffire was a black haired Sebiestor born and raised in Matari space. Jade never could uncover what circumstances had brought her to the ice planet of Sosa IX. She was very secretive and protective of the secret. Saffire had an intense, self-destructive personality. She didn't fear the blizzards, avalanches, and a thousand other hazards on sunless Sosa IX. Together with Jade, they explored the untouched depths of their home, underground caves and abandoned mining rigs on frozen lakes and tucked away inside glaciers. One of their favorite places to visit was a structure constructed like a cathedral, buried beneath tons of ice and snow, and impossibly-Jove in design.

As friends they had a relationship that oscillated between the poles of intense love and violently charged opposition.

Saffire's mysterious death occurred on a frozen lake. Jade seems to have told the authorities that Saffire had fallen through a weak spot in the ice shelf, drowning instantly in the intense chill of the lake water.

[The Scythian]

by Erik Jones

Chapter 2: Deicide

YC 105.06.30: Spacefarer
Jade Moon Fox is twenty one years of age. Her parents, Fox and Moon, speak very little to each other and Jade is left to her own devices. She dreams about being closer to the stars.

A tall, slender Khanid in a dropsuit comes to visit the meagre residents of Sosa IX. His name is Rory Kaid, and he comes from a starship and is visiting to recruit baseliners who can operate mining equipment. Jade is drawn in by Rory's lavish personality and tales of space travel. She and twelve others are selected to throw their lot in with officer Kaid.

There is some argument between Jade and her parents. How could she leave them? Her otherwise absent and cold parents are stricken with grief, and Jade cuts herself off emotionally and chooses to ascend offworld.

She does not know she would never see her parents again.

by Silvia Pelissero

YC 105: The Demigod
Jade serves as an engineer aboard a mining vessel, a Procurer. Its Khanid captain, Kari Chapel, is rarely seen and Jade comes to discover that she is a Capsuleer, a hyperadvanced human who operates the ship from inside a Tritanium egg known as a Capsule.

Jade works as an engineer on the emitters and tractor collection bays on the lower decks. She is often alone and enjoys singing in the amphitheatresque pipeways of the starship.

The Capsuleer Kari comes to be fond of Jade and relieves her of hard hours in engineering, employing her instead as a personal attendant. Jade comes to be in an intimate relationship with Kari's X-O, Rory Kaid. She discovers, much to her distaste, that Rory and the Captain are intimate too.

by Silvia Pelissero

YC 105.12.21: Laughter
Jade awakens to a ringing sound, repeating like the chime of a cathedral. She flings open the door to the Command Center and she sees..

The deck must have been on emergency power. All the lights were red and slowly and ominously flashing on and off. A golgothic mass of shadows surrounded Kari's Capsule. It was nearly twenty of the crewmen. But what were they doing there? Some were hunched over with laser torches slicing away at the Capsule wall. Others were heaving synchronized axes at sections of Tritanium plate cut loose by lasers. Poised right in front of the Capsule stood Rory Kaid, knives out.

A door was cut into the Capsule, and a viscous oily green fluid bled out. Rory pushed away the shadows that were the crewmen and reached into the Capsule, pulling Kari out. He dragged her away from the Capsule by her hair, ripping the cables linked to her spine. The X-O realized Kari was awake just as she locked a death grip onto his neck, hanging onto him with cables still pulling at her like tentacles.

Rory's arms hug Kari and his nimble hands slice an arc into her neck. Blood spills out and inexplicably Kari starts laughing, a strange mellifluous dark cackle. Like the wolf's head which lives a few breaths even after being cut off, Kari's hands were still choking Rory with inhuman strength and her body was flailing around wildly tangled in cables and hair. The veins in Rory's face were flush and his lungs were nearly empty.

And at last, she was still and moved no more. Her laughter died moments after she did.

The ship begins to groan and shudder, as if collapsing into itself. Blasts are heard. Jade realizes that the starship is under attack.

by Agarwen

YC 105.12.21: Angel's Descent
With Kari's death, her Procurer's is adrift aimlessly in an asteroid belt in G-R4W1 system in the Curse region, but not for long. A wing of hostile ships descend upon it and moments later the hull is breached. Hundreds die.

The attackers are Angels, pirates native to the region. Jade survives the attack, but is caught when Angels scour intact decks in the wreck for survivors and salvage. Rory Kaid, a survivor too, seems like he may have been in league with the pirates.

Bound, gagged, and blindfolded, Jade is transported to an Angel ship bound for an unknown location deeper in Curse. She has no inkling yet of her new life as a slave.



Next: Life and death amongst pirates in Curse.

[The Scythian]

by Silvia Pelissero

Chapter 3: The Hanged Woman

YC 106: Salvage & Salvation
Jade learns she is the property of Rory Kaid, the Angel collaborator from the Capsuleer Kari's ship. She is kept in his apartment on an Angel outpost in Curse. Rory does not have dark appetites of his own, but many of his Angel friends do. Jade learns to steel herself against abuse and assault, but each near-death experience takes its toll.

Jade is cut on her left hand, her good hand, by one of Rory's prostitution emptors. The knife cut severs some nerves in her palm, causing the hand to occasionally shake uncontrollably. Rory is furious with the emptor, but does very little to attend to his slave's injury.

Rory's apartment is visited, while he is away, by a Ni-Kunni named Cid Kanaan. Jade serves Cid with meal and drinks out of hospitality. Cid is taken by Jade's sharp personality and openness. A week later, Jade is confiscated upon Cid's authority and her ownership is transferred to him. There is very little Rory, a common pirate, can do against the word of a Salvation Angel.

Rory Kaid is removed from Jade's life, but she doesn't realize she will inauspiciously hear from him again.

by Jean Giraud

YC 106-107: Masoleums of Gods
Cid Kanaan's passion is exploration. Systems like Utopia in the Heaven constellation are still littered with forgotten remnants of long departed Jove precursors. Cid and a small, trusted team spend months collecting and analyzing Jove and ancient Amarr artifacts and trinkets.

Cid improves Jade's rudimentary reading skills. He teaches her mathematics and physics.

Jade's broken sense of gratitude manifests as sexual interest in Cid, her savior and teacher. Cid Kanaan softly rejects these advances, directing Jade's attention to more academic and esoteric matters.

by Ei En

YC 108: Marionette
War with Sansha breaks out in Curse. Salvation Angels intercept a Sansha diplomatic shuttle with a True Citizen and several True Slaves.

Cid and his team work tirelessly to reverse engineer the implants found in their Sansha prisoners. The process of extracting implants kills all but one of the True Slaves. Cid and Jade name the survivor Bijou. The long hours and hard work burns out many of Cid's assistants, but Jade stays by his side. Often just the two are found working late in Cid's research facility.

Jade spends many hours to help rehabilitate Bijou. There are things she has to relearn which seem basic or mundane.

The True Citizen prisoner may have been a scientist of some repute with knowledge of Sansha's ability to deploy wormholes instantaneously. Cid becomes obsessed with gleaning information from the prisoner, but ultimately ends up killing him during an unsuccessful implant extraction procedure.

Cid wires himself to implants obtained from the True Citizen prisoner. He spends hours and days interacting with dangerously glitched transmissions to the Sansha hive mind. Jade and Bijou are unable to talk the scientist out of his curiosity. The weeks wear on and Cid suffers brain damage.

Jade and Bijou slowly watch their mentor and father deteriorate. The madness seizes Cid Kanaan more and more frequently. He is stark and inconsolable.

by Matthew Woodson

YC 108.12.16: Backslider
On almost the third anniversary of Kari's death, Rory Kaid and a small wing of Angels storm Cid's research outpost. The intrusion is quick and bloody. Most of Cid's assistants are executed. Jade and Bijou are forced to watch as Rory puts a laser blaster to Cid's heart and opens fire.

Rory Kaid puts Jade and Bijou to work as prostitutes, in typical Angel Cartel fashion. Bijou goes out of her way to protect Jade. She dyes Jade's striking gold hair to black, so as to make her less attractive, and she takes Jade's clients herself, splitting all her money between the two.

Bijou gets in an argument with a client and an altercation follows in which she is killed. Jade never sees the body of her friend. It is possible that Bijou, too, is an invention in Jade's mind in the style of Saffire and Amber before her.

by Alejandro Jodorowsky

YC 109.12.31: Retribution Never Sleeps
On New Year's Eve, the outpost of Rory Kaid's home is attacked. Hundreds die as they are burned by plasma rain or by being blown out into space. The attackers land in dropsuits and gunfire ensues. They firefight their way to Rory Kaid's apartment where he is holed up.

The Capsuleer Kari Chapel reveals herself as the angel of retribution. She stands over a cowering Rory, reciting a hundred and one reasons he should die. In a fit of rage Kari drives a metal blade through Rory Kaid, killing him instantly.

Kari regards Jade with pity, but considers her one of the betrayers. She leaves her to rot with Angels, disappearing into the night as the Angel outpost is thrown into chaos.

Not many days later, Jade is sold to an Amarrian Holder.



Next: Rebirth in Amarr.