The Aurora

The Aurora is the Mechanisms' starship and an ex-soldier of the Cyberian Navy.

## Origin

Aurora was born as a moon! Moons being weaponized is apparently a thing that happens, so that’s likely how she’s a ship now, but the physics of all this *are* very strange. She seems to have grown up in the same way as a human, meeting Doctor Carmilla as a baby and Jonny d'Ville and Nastya Rasputina when she was older. Importantly, she was sentient as a moon, and this is before she had any sort of programmed AI! she wasn’t capable of speaking at that point, but that may have just been because of her very young age.

Aurora and Doctor Carmilla have known each other for a very long time. Extrapolating from things Maki Yamazaki has said, we can assume that Aurora was a moon of Terra, Carmilla’s home planet. Maki has implied in the discord that 1. Terra used to have two moons and 2. Carmilla blew the other one up; that, combined with ‘I raised an orphan’ and a few other messages, could suggest that Carmilla did the moon equivalent of killing Aurora’s parent. perhaps because of this, Carmilla took it upon herself to raise Aurora. However, Aurora is *not* a mechanism. As a alternative theory (though not a mutually exclusive one) there are a few messages about Carmilla ‘creating life’ in discussions of Aurora; we know Carmilla didn’t assist with Aurora’s birth, but it’s possible, as they are moons, that rather than already being there Aurora was created from one of the fragments of the moon Carmilla destroyed.

Sadly, we do not know how she got to Cyberia, but we know quite a bit about her experiences there. She initially was a navy ship, but mutinied and joined the rebellion. She also participated in the October Revolution, in which Nastya Rasputina died and was mechanized. This may have been her choice, but it is more likely Doctor Carmilla and/or Jonny d'Ville made her, as they are the ones who won her from the Cyberian navy. When they stormed the ship, a woman was trapped inside- Specialist 278 Tereshkova, presumably the Aurora's programmer. What her and Aurora's relationship was like is unknown, but Aurora did not make any attempt to save her, so it may have not been positive. Before dying, Tereshkova managed to program a final distress message into Aurora, as well as coding the Mechanisms' blog.

The Aurora is most likely based off of the historical Russian battleship Aurora.

## Physical Features

The Aurora is classified as a Cyberian Pallada-class Protected Cruiser (extensively modifed) / Arachnid “Voyager” Webship. Her original body is a Cyberian battle cruiser. The main things there are the bridge, engine room (presumably expanded), some communal areas, and Gunpowder Tim's armory. She is orbited by an O'Neill ring, where the Mechanisms live. There is gravity there but not in the main body. She is powered/moved mainly by a solar-sail, which is maintained by biomechanical spider repair drones. Those spiders are semi-sentient and have a queen, which has been known to argue with Jonny D'Ville every five hundred years. She also has limited rocket propulsion for when they are out of deep space and inside systems. Her movement speed is 1% the speed of light. She also is partially biological. She is noted to be biomechanical and Maki has expanded on it in the Discord, saying that she has flesh and teeth. Additionally, there is a reference to Nastya being 'inside Aurora's veins', and a semi-canon fanfiction by Morgan Wilkinson elaborates on the specifics of this, confirming that the veins are literal and Aurora has a heart.There is also a machiya onboard.

## Appearances

### Once Upon a Time In Space

The Aurora wants to go and save Briar Rose, and tells Nastya this, resulting in the Mechanisms saving her.

## Death

Nastya claims that the Aurora is no longer herself due to the Mechanisms' modifications. It is unknown if this is true, but if it is, the Aurora died when Nastya sent the last original piece of her into Valhöll, the Yggdrasil system's sun. If it is not, the Aurora could have died when Raphaella flew her into a black hole, if that fragment Raphaella was said to be taking was her main body.Ignoring both of those, her death is unknown.

## References

1. ↑ Messages sent on the Stowaways discord.
2. ↑ How The Aurora was Won, fiction
3. ↑ Ghost in the Machine, fiction
4. ↑ Tales of the Blogbot, fiction
5. ↑ Crew bio
6. ↑ Drawing by Nastya's actor, tumblr
7. ↑ A Bedtime Story, fiction
8. ↑ The Aurora Strikes, song
9. ↑ Messages sent on the Stowaways discord.
10. ↑ Who Killed Dr Carmilla, fiction
11. ↑ She'll Fly True, fanfiction (disclaimer: contains explicit content)
12. ↑ Messages sent on Maki Yamazaki's discord server.
13. ↑ "The Aurora Strikes", bandcamp
14. ↑ Out, fiction
15. ↑ Death to the Mechanisms, bandcamp