Because...
a) ...a number of people here are already in the know...
b) ...doing double accounts on this forum would likely be viewed as social engineering by some of those people and be a bitch to juggle anyway...
and c) ...keeping this a sekrit makes me feel like I can't "safely" contribute to several debates and topics as fully as I'd like to...
...I'm just going to confess publicly (to those who might care) that Ruby Amatucci is my character.
With that out of the way:
Name: Ruby Amatucci.
Ethnicity: Ni-Kunni (though genetically and cybernetically modified).
National Origin: Esoterian expatriate, Sansha's Nation.
Age: 22.
Height: 170 cm.
Weight: 70 kg.
Hair: Artificial with a metallic sheen, overall color is usually black, but can be changed at will.
Eyes: Artificial with color and even lighting effects activated at will; can be extended up to 50 cm on telescopic, somewhat prehensile stalks.
Ruby grew up deep under the earth, in the underground shelters below the shattered ruins of Skyward City, formerly a great metropolis on a planet someplace in Esoteria, built during the glory days of Sansha's Nation. Like the rest of her Community (the capitalization is intentional), numbering a few thousand people, her ancestors were members of the scientific and cultural (and to a smaller degree, professional) elite of Skyward City at the time of the war against Sansha's Nation. The Community (even in exile) is led by a mysterious person who Ruby only refers to as her uncle.
Although growing up in a highly physically (and in many ways socially) enclosed environment, Ruby also had access to halls upon halls of cultural achievements in the form of art, information and technology deemed so important to save from the ravages of war that storage space for it took precedence over installing life support systems for a greater number of people. This special situation allowed for high levels of education throughout the small community, as well as countless hours spent on escapism fed by the literature, music, holovids and games of a bygone era.
The Community retained a great amount of medical knowledge and equipment from pre-war times, and continued to make some progress even given their limited human resources. Augmentations both cybernetic and purely biological were not only commonplace and expected, but evolved into actual rituals of childhood, youth and adulthood, with children looking forward to the day they would get old enough to receive such-and-such "upgrades". Ruby herself possesses many such augmentations, some of them purely practical, but many of them either partly or completely ornamental.
The Community in latter times was not completely isolated, however. Scientists and engineers, working from old, preserved blueprints, managed to build a crude aerospace shuttle from salvaged material. They then used this shuttle both as a means to increase their salvaging radius around the ruined surface city, and to trade with local capsuleer warlords for supplies.
While this trade brought in sorely needed supplies, it was facilitated by the bargaining away of blueprint copies of advanced Sansha technology. Ruby herself is not very forthcoming on the exact details, but it's apparent that this deal was discovered by agents of the Nation proper (or a local splinter group thereof) and that the bargaining away of potential military secrets was not well received by them at all.
Whatever the exact details were, the community needed to flee their old home altogether, taking with them most of their assets and buying passage on a capsuleer ship out of Sansha's Nation and into the "enemy territory" of central space. Once there, the question arose how and where the community would now situate and sustain itself.
The idea was soon put forward that if someone among their number had the ability to survive capsuleer training, that would effectively solve most of their economic, political and security concerns. It was after the following preliminary testing that Ruby was singled out and elevated to a position of prominence inside the Community. The collective resources of the Community were still great enough to buy her way into the Imperial Academy without too many uncomfortable questions being raised.
After finishing her capsuleer training, Ruby has effectively become the breadwinner for the entire Community, spending a considerable portion of her earnings on its upkeep. She still submits to the leadership of her uncle, but as breadwinner she has power of her own as well. The idea of starting an orphanage was her own, though admittedly it wasn't a hard sell to her uncle and the remainder of her Community.
Since then, they've established friendly relations with other capsuleer groups connected to the Nation, though the question of whether and when they'll be able to return home is still an open one.
Personality-wise, Ruby is quite whimsical by most people's standards, almost child-like in her thought patterns - though she does have the ability to pull herself together when needed, and her strong feelings of communal obligation help her stay at least marginally focused even when her duties get boring. She's outgoing and friendly, as well as a hopeless romantic, although she seems to take a much greater interest in involving herself in (and trying to help along) the romantic affairs of others, rather than seeking out a similar attachment of her own.
Despite her current status as an expatriate, Ruby is quite proud of her origins, and will not hesitate to defend Sansha's Nation and its historical leader in any argument. She views the war as being entirely the fault of the other empires. Furthermore she displays a distinct streak of local patriotism on Esoteria's behalf, and will often talk slightly disdainfully about "Stainers", who she evidently views as less sophisticated and educated than Esoterians. Whether or not this perception is true or false, it's certainly based on prejudice, as Ruby hasn't met nearly enough confirmed "Stainers" or read enough statistics to form a truly informed opinion.
Ruby's stance on True Slaves (or Auxiliary Citizens, as they've always been called in her Community) is simple: They are not "real people", they never had the capacity to become real people, and viewing them as real people (present or past) is just as silly as having those same sentiments about drones.
Edit: Updated with awesome image.
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Topic: [Character] Ruby Amatucci (Read 5235 times)