Teli Kuromoto

Teli Aurora Kuromoto is a player character with a current arc. In all universes, she is the third (usually youngest) daughter of Søren Kuromoto and Heti Soterede Kuromoto, and the little sister of Eles Kuromoto and Søra Kuromoto. Like the rest of her family, she is a vegetarian and Shinsekai Buddhist, and of combined Eastern European and Japanese descent. She speaks multiple languages, including a conversational level of STF Skelow Standard.

She was born in December of 2130 and graduated from Star Navy Academy in December of 2152, earning her commission in early 2153. She was sent out to join the ERS Reginleif and served as its Communications Officer and shield tech from 2153 to late 2154, when she was raised to the rank of Lieutenant and given the commission for a small escort in the Reginleif's fleet. Upon the return of the Reginleif and its companion ships, Teli was commissioned to join the newly built ERS Odyssey as its Executive Officer, despite her age and inexperience. In 2154, deep in the Karabari Sector (over 200 LY from Earth) and upon the loss of the Odyssey's captain, Teli became the ship's Commanding Officer and was tasked with following its next set of orders and getting the ship home. Teli enlisted the assistance of the ship's most experienced and loyal officers below decks, Sergeant-Major Samar Kaluna and Sergeant Zuriel Abercrombie, as well as the experience of the ship's Skelow High Navigator Rendogon, to get control of the situation. Upon reestablishing contact with Earth and the admiralty, Teli was promoted directly to the rank of Commander and properly awarded the Odyssey's commission, before being ordered to begin collecting technologies, allies, resources, and information for the Earth Republic. Soon afterward, Teli utilized the Odyssey and its crew to protect the STF--particularly starfaring Skelow and merchants--from the Pyramid Menace.

Teli is the current captain of the Odyssey, and she is considered a hero and celebrity in the Skelow culture for her defense of the STF in the Pyramid War. While she is tainted now by the reputation of her father and sister after their participation in the Crimson Tide disaster at Cygnus, Teli's status among the Skelow and her ship's pivotal victories and leadership during the Pyramid War give her a large political buffer, if not total impunity. Given her actions in support of the Skelow and her personal intimacy with a member of their race, her loyalty to Earth and humanity have been reasonably questioned and challenged in the past, and continue to be questioned among the admiralty. As of late 2156, she is known (by some) and suspected (by others) to be engaged to Rendogon Flordian, a Skelow contractor and now a powerful guild master, partially because of his association with the Reginleif and Odyssey--and therefore partially due to Teli's own actions and decision-making while controlling Star Navy assets.

## Personality

Teli is, in all universes, a gentle and socially vivacious soul, curious about people and a natural anthropologist. She has a good mind for engineering and problem-solving, but she is compassionate and often suffers from an overabundance of empathy. Therefore Teli is a bad choice for the prosecution of a war and makes, she feels, a weak officer, as she is prone to privileging her relationships and her crew over fealties and organizations, and is deeply pained by the destruction of other peoples and civilizations. Teli is liberal-minded and very open to learning new things, and has few prejudices. She is strong against environmental hazards, against enemies that do not talk and cannot sue for peace, and she will protect the innocent and the people she loves with unexpected ferocity. Teli’s understanding of loyalty is unconventional for a commissioned officer; she feels that it must be earned, and will give hers to those with whom she has served, and with whom she has developed a strong relationship. She does not confer her loyalty or service based on principle alone, and will always think very hard about ethical conundrums rather than accepting an answer from someone or something else. She loves long, and forgets seldom, the people to whom she is closest.

Teli loves to read about cultures, and she adores being in space; she has been an amateur star-gazer since she was a child, and has always longed to meet all the new people she imagined lived around all those stars she saw in the night sky. When she spends time with her grandparents on Earth, she sleeps outdoors under the stars, where she feels more at home.

## Relationships

Teli has spent more time than her siblings with her paternal grandparents, who are both anthropologists; in her childhood especially she regarded them as her best friends, as she has never gotten on well with either of her sisters. In the Prime Universe, she has spent time with them in the field and helped them chronicle the folklore and ballads of many isolated populations on Earth, which nurtured her natural curiosity and helped her learn how to talk to people.

   Teli has had a particularly bad relationship with her sister Søra. Since a young age, whenever she was sent to join her sisters at boarding school, Teli would follow her sister and the twins Cassidy and Hayden Barca around, admiring them and hoping to be their friend. In return, she received a great deal of verbal bullying from Søra and had bad spells in school as a result, prompting her grandparents to remove her occasionally and teach her at home. As a consequence, Teli’s education is different from her sisters’, but her emotional life as an adult is more stable, having been the focus of her grandparents’ love and attention, and having seen her parents more often (and for longer) when they were on leave.

Teli’s relationship with her father and mother have always been primarily positive. Her personality is widely regarded to be very similar to that of her father before the Hydra’s disappearance, and he delighted in coming home to take his youngest stargazing. Neither of her parents ever had very strong expectations of her while she was growing up, and as a result they simply shared with her the things they liked, and got a great deal of mutual enjoyment when spending time with her—playing games, looking at stars, collecting insects, and reading books. This difference in her relationships has made Teli the sweetheart of her family, and both her parents have been more open with her (now she’s an adult) about things that are wrong. When Søren reappeared with the ERS Hydra and was in physical and emotional pain, he would sit for long hours in the dark with his youngest daughter in his hospital room, looking at the stars through the window and holding her hand—a level of vulnerability he would refuse to show to any other member of his family. Heti Kuromoto, who has been experiencing sickness from prolonged radiation exposure and aggregated mutations, has stated that she would have spoken more openly about it with Teli, had she been home.

Teli has long admired the Barca twins; Cassidy insistently stood up for her when she was young, and Teli had an inveterate crush on Hayden from around the age of seven straight up into her first two years at the academy. She joined Star Navy Academy initially so she could follow them and her sister into service, though she started as a student of engineering; it wasn’t until her father’s disappearance and the beginning of the First Praezorian War that she entered into officer training in earnest. She was thrilled to receive a commission as an ensign aboard the ERS Reginleif as her first assignment, to serve alongside Cassidy (who would become XO), and there she developed a real friendship with and loyalty to Cassidy, a relationship that was far stronger than any she’d managed to develop with her sisters. However, she had fallen out of love with Hayden during the years after her father’s reemergence; dealing with Søren’s despair and later Søra’s disgrace, Teli looked back on Hayden’s womanizing and popularity as the demeanor of a boy, in the days of childhood—and she no longer looked at herself as a child. She easily congratulated her best friend Peregrine Cruz (“Perry”) when she told her that she and Hayden had become an item in 2154, and felt none of the pain that she felt during her days at the academy.

Teli first met High Navigator Rendogon, a Skelow and contractor for the ERSN, while she was Comms Officer aboard the ERS Reginleif. As a young Comms Officer and ensign on shields, Teli didn’t sleep much, and instead spent many long hours on shift together with Rendogon comparing cultures, idioms, the meanings of words, and even the logic of jokes, making the other ensigns roll their eyes and seek the commissary out of boredom. However, Teli grew incredibly fond of Rendogon and of the Skelow in general, seeking to know all she could about their culture and sectors of space, as they were made magical through any connection with him. She was extremely happy to learn that Rendogon would be joining them on the ERS Odyssey, and regardless of her own position has sought his advice, trusted in his perspective, and deferred to his experience. Looking at her style as captain, it would be easy to think Teli has two Xos—her official Star Navy XO Janie Margaret, and a more personal XO in Rendogon. Teli has acknowledged to herself that Rendogon’s presence has clouded her judgment—she has committed the Odyssey’s resources to assisting the Skelow because they are his people, not because it is good diplomatic policy (though she knows that it is). Rather than assisting the Federation because it of a calculated estimation of how it would help the Earth Republic’s relationship with the Skelow in the future, she knows she’s done it because she loves Rendogon, and she’s not really sorry for it either.

## Appearance

Teli is neither conventionally pretty like her eldest sister Søra, nor elegant like her sister Eles. It would be better to term her “cute” rather than beautiful—where Søra is all hard lines, Teli is all soft curves, with chipmunk-like cheeks and big, round eyes and wavy auburn hair, and an overflowing smile. She possesses light skin, an easy blush and abundant freckles, and her eyes are chocolate brown. Like the other Kuromoto sisters, she is short. In the Prime Universe, she wears an unconventional tan leather coat on the bridge, and a locket that depicts the galactic core.

## Name

   Teli Aurora’s first and middle name were inspired by her aunt Ilda’s reports from her lab on the Saturn moon Enceladus, an icy world in eternal winter. Teli’s first name is Hungarian for “winter,” and her middle name comes not from Earth’s Aurora Borealis, but from Saturn’s huge ultraviolet aurorae, which her aunt Ilda was observing some days before her death. Teli was born within a day of her aunt’s accidental passing; her grandfather, an avid modern Buddhist, believes she has received Ilda’s reincarnated soul, and these names are meant to soothe and honor that soul.

The last name Kuromoto is an ancient one in Japan; however, this particular Kuromoto family were once known as Kuromori, which means “Black Forest.” When they left their home and its dark trees, they changed their name to Kuromoto, leaving out “mori,” but the implication is historically “originated in the Black Forest.” Its cognate, however, is “dark origins,” and that works well for the Kuromoto family, who now strive to live most of their lives in space or take part in Black Ops.

## December Universe

Teli was deployed with the ERS Reginleif when the tide of the Second Praezorian War turned against humanity. Word of that turn did not make it safely into the Machine Sector for some time, meaning that the Reginleif did not know to return home until the Earth Republic had been entirely pushed out of the frontier, and the Praezorians had all systems between the Reginleif and Earth under control. Hoping to forge a partnership with the Skelow to save humanity, the Reginleif forged their way to Avart and into Skelow Space. It was then that they heard of the Battle of Earth, and the destruction of the Star Navy.

Because the Medusa was never disabled, Cassidy Barca never left it, meaning that when Teli heard of the destruction of the fleet and the razing of Earth, she knew she had lost both her sisters, the Barca twins, her parents, and nearly everyone she ever knew. Alongside the rest of the ship, Teli grew depressed and despondent, but also knew that the future of humanity rested with them and a handful of other survivors. With many members of the Reginleif crew, Teli sought citizenship and protection in the Skelow Trade Federation, and sought to make a new life. In the dark days after the December Offensive, it was Rendogon who provided her with hope that they might find allies and help for humanity, and though they weren't fast enough to save them, she continued to see Rendogon as her light in the darkness, and ultimately sought a relationship with him. She lives on in the December Universe as a refugee, hoping that someday humanity will survive in her children.