My answers on these might be a little anomalous.
1. Why do you portray your character as an 'average Joe' human? That is to say, a character who sleeps in a bed every day, eats normal food, has an 'apartment' in a station, and goes to hang out at capsuleer bars. Why do you portray your character as a normal human instead of an immortal demigod?
In one sense, I don't.
Aria never feels quite so alive, so "real," as when she is "being" a ship, stalking the depths of space. That, to her, is closest to what a capsuleer "is," and she can disappear for days or even weeks at a time into her capsule, adopting the ship's senses and identity as her own.
On the other hand, the fact that it's that easy terrifies Aria. She rationalizes her reluctance to "become a ship" full-time by various means, and is sincere about her explanations, but to a large degree she's really just scared. As a result, she (usually) maintains a rigorous schedule for practicing "being human," including preparing her own simple meals, continuing her monkish physical training, and dealing with others on a "human" level, including going to social gathering places such as bars and dealing with others face to face (not "actual" humans, however; she really has trouble relating to crew and even her personal staff, and avoids such uncomfortable encounters).
2. Why do you claim loyalty to one, and only one faction, at the exclusion of all others? We as capsuleers are in a unique place, we can go where we want, and talk to whoever we want, so its perfectly reasonable for a Capsuleer to be friendly and loyal with both the Gallenteans and the Caldari. Why isn't this an angle we see more? Why do we see so much of an 'us versus them' rhetoric within the community? A community which, from what it seems to me, is in the best possible place to form as a bridge between these groups.
Aria currently acts as a "bridge" between the Caldari and Cartel factions, since she is emotionally attached to one group and circumstantially bound to the other. Also, because she does not consider stands on principle to be useful or constructive, she makes a hobby of puncturing other faction capsuleers' hard-line attitudes whenever convenient or amusing.
3. Why do we as capsuleers limit ourselves the way we do? Even the poorest capsuleers are super rich by the standards of New Eden, we can afford lives of ridiculous luxury, we're effectively celebrities in the groups we have standings with, and we command the fates of millions of people individually, so why is this aspect of capsuleering so downplayed? Why do we play normal people, when we could be so much more?
As noted above, for a long time, now, Aria's experiences as a ship have had the crisp, vivid character of living reality, while her experiences wearing the body of a person she knows to be dead have taken on a surreal, dreamlike quality. This inversion inspires an existential terror, which drives Aria towards religion.
The
Achura Shuijing sect values clarity above all, and, as Aria interprets it, goes a long distance towards explaining what is happening to her. However, for this to be useful, she needs to maintain a high enough level of understanding to monitor and interpret her own situation. In an attempt to maintain her clarity, Aria surrounds herself with an environment conducive to thought: simple, clean, and orderly. Much of the time, she maintains a lifestyle appropriate to a monk: simple meals, unassuming living quarters, limited furnishings.
In attempting to live a simple, contemplative life, however, Aria ensures that she lives like absolutely no one around her: the expense involved in acquiring a steady supply of fresh imported vegetables, fruit, fish, and tea is high; the simple, abstract artworks she favors are generally nevertheless very expensive; her expenditures on personal security are flat-out lavish. She also has a habit of casually converting sizeable swaths of station real-estate to her use: she once arranged for a large percentage of a closed deck to be converted into a "natural" garden for the sake of her own meditations and so that her slaver hound, Rui Shi ("Auspicious Lion"), would have room to run around.
Aria herself perceives no contradiction, here, but that does not mean that none exists.
