Thread: The St. Anne (Character Thread)

Name Iona Knutesdottir Brief Description Tall and willowy with the long limbs and torso of someone who grew up in space, Iona appears in her early twenties though those in microgravity climates with controlled HVAC and limited exposure to UV and other environmental hazards typically appear so well into their fourth or fifth decade. Almost two meters when she stands upright rather than floating in the relaxed and alert crouch of a spacer, Iona masses only 65 kilos. Long black hair, an affection and often a nuisance, is kept in a clubbed ponytail or wound around her head in intricate braided patterns and it frames her pale skin. Grey eyes seldom miss anything. She typically wears a black one piece coverall with an inner garment that provides either heat or cooling as environmental conditions and has hook ups for an EVA suit. Socks with individual toes cover her feet and she often uses them to anchor herself to a convenient strap on a bulkhead. Usual Gear Multitool, com with hands free earpiece, DX-90 Shard Pistol, Master's Access Card, 10m of paracord with snap eyes at each end, peppermint chewing gum. Sexual Orientation Bisexual, hetero preference OnsOffs Click Here Morning Watch Location Bridge Mid-Watch Location Various Compartments Evening Watch Location Master's Quarters Known Background Iona is a child of space conceived, gestated, and born of her mother mid-trip between planetary ports she grew up rarely touching real land. Her parents belonged to a splinter sect of Romish Xtianity which declared that since Man was made in God's image, alteration of that image through cybernetics or genetic enhancement was a sin, an outright spitting of heresy in the eyes of the Almighty. As such Iona is as close to pure Old Earth human as is found these days and carries no cybernetics or viral-borne cellular level enhancements. Before becoming Master and Captain of the St. Anne, Iona served as mate and roustabout for her family's ship, another Dogged class, since she was born. Iona's parents continue to operate it on a regular triangular trade route carrying hydrocarbons from the cometary halo of a planetary system to the belt where it is used as raw materials along with the heavy metals in the belt, taking bulk ores and crystals to the planet, picking up a load of food stuffs, general supplies and machinery, and luxuries to take back to the cometary halo before beginning again. It was on one of those trips while she had the watch that they came upon the St. Anne, derelict and adrift, and Iona shuttled over to lay claim to it with the understanding that 25 of her first ten years gross would be paid to her parents for their rights to the claim as well. Iona is strict about safety and the St. Anne is fully, some say over equipped, with emergency gear. She runs regular drills and is almost tyrannical about improving them in both time and efficiency during every iteration. She prefers to keep the compartment she is in in micro-gravity, though the ship can have any level of it in separate locations. Iona is approachable and polite to her crew but keeps a reserve so that if crisis hits none will dare question her commands. She prays before meals, upon assuming the watch, and sets aside time every seventh day for a private Mass in the observation dome with a recorded holo-priest though she does not insist any crew member believe in Romish Xtianity or any religion at all for that matter. Unknown Background Though outwardly paying lip service to her birth religion, Iona is actually silently apostate and only goes through the motions of it to keep up appearances. She believes that eschewing technology that is both medically necessary and helpful, with no effect on losing one's sense of humanity, is barbaric and is pondering getting herself enhanced. However if she does she knows her parents will cut her off, call in as much of the contract as legally possible, and leave her strapped if not bankrupt. She does not share this with any member of the crew because she knows that two can keep a secret only if one is dead. The St. Anne The St. Anne is a Dogged class medium freighter. The St. Anne and her sister ships were modularly built by the thousands over fifty years ago during the last great Galactic conflict. Using the older, simpler and well proven engines of the prior generation of technology, the Dogged ships are not fast but they were plentiful, cheap, easy to maintain and carried useful amounts of cargo in any form to feed the hungry logistical mouths of military units. After the war there were attempts to repurpose them for budget passenger liners but their speed and layout thwarted any serious attempts. Most of them have been scrapped but a few continue on, usually in the hands of single-family owners or very small companies. Designed as strictly space-borne vessels, they cannot enter atmosphere and rely on a large ship's boat to transfer items to and from the surface. The St. Anne can carry bulk, containerized, or liquid cargo with equal facility and is equipped to do her own loading and off loading when facilities are either primitive or not available. She mounts a medium turret but it currently has no weapon installed and is covered over with an observation dome. A small arms locker is present on the bridge and another in engineering, keyed to her Master's Access Card and able to be remotely unlocked or locked by the same. The St. Anne was declared lost in space over thirty years ago when she came overdue to port. When Iona found her she was drifting, cold and without emissions, deep in the cometary halo ring of a system. Her log showed normal entries and then just stopped. There were no signs of the crew but neither were there signs of them evacuating. Food, long frozen and vacuum dried, still remained in the galley. Bunks were made. All emergency gear and the ship's boat were in place and functional. It was as if the crew just vanished and no trace of them or where they went has ever been found. The original masters had long been paid off and didn't contest her claim in Admiralty court and for a year or so the St. Anne was heavily in the news as a ghost ship and theories abounded about what had happened. Today the excitement surrounding her has died down but she is still considered unlucky and, sailors always being superstitious, rumored to be haunted.