Claire

Claire Lafoix is a member of the crew from the former Hope of Morning. She is a skilled pilot and engineer, who has recently been delving into understanding The Way.

## Biography

### Youth and Upbringing

Claire was born to Alice and Daniel Lafoix on Hermes Station 25 years prior to her joining the Hope of Morning crew.

Her mother was a high-level board member of a corporation and her father was a respected senator. Due to their status, Claire was raised in the wealthier part of the station and was privileged to attend good schools and universities.

Despite their efforts and constant pushing, to both parents' disappointment, Claire was not interested in business or politics, and instead pursued a career in engineering. She graduated with excellent marks and with a robust knowledge of computer intelligence and robotics.

### Racing and the Team

Claire joined the fledgling Team Thermopylae, a small outfit competing int the premier UTC space racing league, the Interstellar Racing Network. Finding novel ways to skirt rules and regulations, as well as dramatically improving the performance of the team, she slowly grew in resources and responsibilities in the team.

### Rise and Collapse

**(Following is written somewhat shorthand)**

As Team Thermopylae rose up the leaderboard, so did the cost of earning each place. The team began taking on risky loans from behind-the-scenes FOS shell companies in exchange for access to the cutting edge technologies being developed.

Near the end of the season, it all fell apart when unexpectedly all funding was pulled driving the team into bankruptcy. The assets were subsequently acquired by those shell companies, as was their plan all along.

### Revenge and Jail

During the chaos of the team bankruptcy, Claire learned where the code and technology was being moved to. Using Artemis they hacked into those business offices and destroyed all the data on the systems.

Claire misjudged that as FOS companies, they would want to avoid investigation from authorities and considered herself safe from authority, however this was incorrect and she was arrested.

Claire was sentenced to jail on Terra.

### Hope and a Crew

On Terra, Claire teamed up with a group of fellow prisoners and used an opportunity created by the Swan and Mallard to jailbreak. With a local's assistance they escaped into Terra.

Following their escape, the crew were provided with a ship in poor shape. Following days of effort, the ship was repaired to space-worthy state and the crew left for the stars.

### Jobs and Principles

The crew began to take on jobs that could only be described as legally grey, and Claire made it very clear that she was not keen on any jobs that involved violence. She began to demonstrate skills she'd learned from her engineering and racing past, through piloting and working with Vash to work with systems and devices.

### Death and Beyond

Claire's recklessness and curiosity over alien technologies lead to her death as incorrect usage put her into instant catastrophic heart failure. It was only due to the actions of Artemis and the medically trained crew members that Claire was resuscitated.

This was also her first proper personal exposure to a powerful creature from The Way. It severely traumatised her during the time she was dead.

### Running and Horror

The crew made their way to The Acropolis in Federation space where Claire was arrested by security due to suspicions with her ID. This lead to an interrogation and subsequently an investigation of the Hope of Morning.

What followed was an enormous way creature battle between the investigator with Claire and a way creature that had been using Vash.

Following the fight, in a panic, Claire attempted to call someone for help, but instead caused a lockdown. The crew fled and were evacuated to UTC space by Hirano.

Attempting to rebuild their finances, the crew accepted a lucrative job collecting some derelict vessels, however when they arrived at the location found a mysterious experimental FOS vessel called The Nautilus. Despite wanting to investigate, Claire was denied following her mistakes on the Acropolis, and therefore was forced to stay on The Scarab as she and Hirano performed the original job they were hired to do.

The crew that went to The Nautilus soon became un-contactible and Hirano and Claire began to get concerning communications back from the Nautilus culminating in a plan to tether a derelict vessel and 'throw' it at the Nautilus to destroy it.

This was done so, however The Nautilus disappeared from space as the vessel collided with it.

Scanning for any survivors, Claire and Hirano did investigate a nearby listening post and found a survivor who was wearing one of the crew's vacc-suits. Claire named her Cailliach and Hirano and Claire returned to complete their job.

### Weaving and Danger

The crew discovered an unusual station that was remarkably similar to the one they found near The Nautilus and investigated. Upon defeating the security systems, Claire connected and used the station to uncover a vast amount of information that they had been previously unaware of. She not only managed to trigger a special visit from Ledger (who thankfully did not harm Claire), but also accidentally sent out an alert through the webway of stations, she also found that a vast Kr'Thak fleet was about to reach Proxima K.

Only having limited time available to do anything, the crew set off for Proxima K. They alerted a UTC military contact of Mohammad's to begin scanning for the Kr'Thak fleet so that in event of attack, the world would have *some* chance. Then they set off to attempt to communicate with the fleet.

Despite some concerning moments, and the un-fixable changing of the Hope of Morning, they managed to meet and discuss an alternative with the Kr'Thak from attacking Proxima K. The diplomat Makio that they met was recovered by the Kr'Thak and left their technology behind on the Hope of Morning.

The crew had 60 days.

## The Way: According to Claire

* The Way = The Void = Darkness = Hell. Different names for the same place.
* The Way is a place that is either parallel or encroaching on normal space
* The distant stars going dark, and the fear of the Kr’Thak = The darkness closing in on the distant reaches of the galaxy.
* Harbinger warned about this.
* There is no life in the void. Only death. Or a perversion of.
* Spaceships must pass very close to The Way (refer to the parallel comment previous) when traveling via Jump gates, it’s how nightmarish Way creatures manage to encroach on vessels.
* The Way and the creatures that inhabit it are hungry.
* There are intelligent eldritch creatures in The Way. They are terrifying and malicious.
* Some intelligent Way creatures are hiding amongst the populace. They are nightmarish and very, very powerful
* There are rival groups of Way intelligents.
* Some Way intelligent creatures seem to be working within existing human and xeno societies.
* The Way can infect, or suffuse, or infest. Claire has been exposed, now way creatures seem to have an interest in her.
* The Way allows for power? Magic? Something else? There have been feats by way creatures that are not explained naturally.
* They have seen her