Rodent of Unusual Size
Rodent of Unusual Size
Just the Basics
Name: Valerya Anastasya Aleksandrova
Birthday: 15-Feb-2037
Age: 26
Gender: Female
Nationality: Saint Petersburg, Russia
Profession: Variable fighter-mech pilot
Picture:
Physical Traits
Height: 175 cm
Weight: 60 kg
Eye Color: Val's natural eye colour was green, but when she got artificial replacements to correct mild hyperopia, she opted for striking emerald green.
Hair: Val could hardly be described as vain, except for when it comes to her hair. It is naturally a deep crimson, and despite the hassle of tying it up to meet military regulations, or containing it in zero-g, she keeps it waist-length.
Physique: Valerya is very tall and lithe, and slimly built - the definition of the dancer's body. She has long limbs for her frame, small hips and bust (although, these have both grown significantly since her pregnancy), and she carries herself with a smooth grace that looks natural in Earth gravity, Moon gravity, and even zero gravity. She carries herself like someone who knows she is being watched, and judged, and is never allowed to show exhaustion or sloppiness. Even when she is on the verge of collapse, she never slouches, always carrying herself with pride and dignity.
Tattoo's, Scars and Other Markings: On Valerya's upper right bicep is a tattoo of the wings and crossed propeller blade and anti-aircraft gun of the Russian Air Force, with the Latin words "Ad Astra" beneath. On her left bicep, the outlined red star of the old Soviet Air Force. She normally wears low key jewellery - simple bobs in her ears and a basic stainless-steel chain with her service tags - but on the ring finger of her left hand, she wears a pure rhodium ring, made of interleaving and twisting strands arranged in a fractal pattern to catch the light in different patterns depending on the angle. On the inside of the ring are engraved the words: "Влюбленность вечна.". On her abdomen is a clearly visible scar from the emergency surgery she received after her miscarriage.
On the Inside
Personality: In the past, Valerya, although driven and ambitious, was outgoing and friendly, cheerful and positive, and always happy to meet someone new. She was never open, or intimate, with anyone - even people she knew for years - but she was so friendly and warm with them that few people ever noticed the walls she put up around herself. Her husband, Misha, was the first person to notice that despite how easily and freely she made friendships and other attachements, she never really put any of herself into these connections. He was the first to challenge her to do that, and the last.
Since Misha's death, Valerya's walls are back, thicker than ever. She is no longer as cheerful and friendly as she once was, now greeting people with a polite wan smile and little more. Where she would seek out company in the past, even if only for superficial connections, now she prefers solitude. She is polite and tolerant of other people's presence, but she makes it crystal clear by her posture, expression and comments that she would much rather be left alone. Her manner is always polite and well-mannered, but her comments can be wry and biting.
Generally, since the tragedy, Valerya's personality is less like her free-spirit mother's, and more like her harsh, career-soldier father. She is less tolerant of anyone who is not operating at a professional, efficient level, and has little patience for mistakes or any signs of weakness or human frailty. She will snap at, and berate, anyone who she feels is not doing their best for the cause, or for the safety of humanity.
Sexual Preference: All her life, Valerya would have described herself as straight. Recently, however, she has considered expanding her options.
Biography: Valerya's childhood was rocky, split in a bright line between her Naval Admiral father, and her free-spirit mother who openly disdained anything military, or anything traditional. After being bounced back and forth between the two for the entire first third of her life, Valerya went neither way, opting for a middle path of her own making. Her mother's love of adventure and the stars and her father's determination and ambition combined, and Valerya knew before she even entered high school which way her life would. Ad astra. To the stars. And by a path of her own making.
And no one who knew the young Valerya would have doubted she would make it. Ambitious, disciplined, yet creative and flexible, there was no challenge - academic, athletic or even artistic - that Valerya could not surmount. All through high school and then university she maintained only cursory friendships and relationships while she built up an academic and athletic reputation - in m-theory physics and gymnastics - that she used to earn high-standing admission into the Russian space program by way of the Air Force.
Two years into her service, Valerya was a Captain with an open invitation to join the solar gate project. In her initial training in the solar gate technology, she met Mikhail Nikolaevich Fyodorov (Михаил Николаевич Фёдоров), a theoretical mathematician specializing in the complex Reimann geometries associated with the jump gate physics. At first their relationship was rocky, at best - while they were occasional lovers, it was a relationship of physical convenience only, and both would have sworn no emotional attachment to the other. But then, without warning, there it was. Undeniable, unable to be overcome even by Val's fiery determination. She was was love, deeply in love, and so was he. A year later, they were married.
The marriage was, perhaps, a little rushed, in that neither knew what to do with it once the ceremony was over. Neither Misha nor Val had ever dreamed of being married - both had been so entirely focussed on their career their whole lives, and neither had any interest in simply giving up their career for the sake of something as traditional as a marriage. They were madly in love, with the operative word being "madly", and even though they knew that one day Valerya would blast into the stars - with Misha unable to follow - they could not quit it.
And then, Valerya got pregnant. Everything changed. Suddenly, space could wait, and Valerya took leave from the program. They set up in a small apartment in Saint Petersburg, and decided to give family life a shot.
Around six months later, Valerya was a month shy of her due date, and she and Misha were in the second bedroom discussing the painting and redecorating they would have to do to turn it into a nursery. They were joking about whether to put space ships up on behalf of their unborn son's mother, or 4-d holographic plots of hypergeometric manifolds on behalf of his father, and which would confuse the child less, when, suddenly, Misha collapsed. Valerya tried desperately to revive him for several minutes, utterly confused because he had been in perfect health, before trying the emergency services number. But the lines were jammed.
She resolved to drive him to the hospital herself, when she suddenly felt stabbing pains in her stomach, and noticed blood stains in her crotch. Without warning, she went into labour... and on the floor of the half-finished nursery, lying beside the body of her dead husband, in indescribable agony, she delivered the stillborn body of her son.
Bleeding profusely and unable to move, Valerya lay on the floor of the nursery for eighteen hours between the bodies of her husband and child. At first she screamed for help. Then, she just screamed. By the tenth hour, she was cursing the name of every god she could remember a name for. When rescue personnel finally found her, she was delerious.
Despite the terrible damage the virus had done to the child in her womb, Valerya had suffered little harm, and was released in a matter of days. That may have been due as much to the chaos and lack of hospital space available following the attacks, as it was due to her hardiness. A week later she reported to the Russian Air Force for service, under her maiden name, and a month after that, she was cleared for a return to duty - complete with an emergency promotion to Colonel.
Over 80% of the European space force had been male, meaning Valerya was one of a very small number of trained and capable pilots, so it was no surprise that she found herself being offered an assignment to pilot a next-generation weapons platform.
Abilities: Valerya has an above-average agility and balance from her dancing training, which she has leveraged into above-average hand-to-hand combat abilities, but while she is better than most, she is not even nearly among the best. Her reflexes, however, are far above average, and that, along with her psionic compatibility with the advanced interface matrix, is why she was selected as one of the fifteen. Her eyes have also been replaced to correct vision problems, but now allow her clear night vision. But what makes her most effective as a combat agent is her situational awareness, and sharp intellect, which she leverages into a vicious and unpredictable weapon, both in and out of the cockpit.
Likes: Flying, dancing, dressing up.
Dislikes: Aggressive cheerfulness, disrespecting of personal boundaries, doing nothing.
Fears: Drowning, dead bodies, medical examinations.
Who I've Lost: At the time of the virus attack, Valerya was two months shy of celebrating her first anniversary with her husband. She was eight months pregnant at the time. Unfortunately, she was eight months pregnant with a boy. He didn't survive either.
Theme Music: Lara’s Theme — Maurice Jarre
Name: Valerya Anastasya Aleksandrova
Birthday: 15-Feb-2037
Age: 26
Gender: Female
Nationality: Saint Petersburg, Russia
Profession: Variable fighter-mech pilot
Picture:
Physical Traits
Height: 175 cm
Weight: 60 kg
Eye Color: Val's natural eye colour was green, but when she got artificial replacements to correct mild hyperopia, she opted for striking emerald green.
Hair: Val could hardly be described as vain, except for when it comes to her hair. It is naturally a deep crimson, and despite the hassle of tying it up to meet military regulations, or containing it in zero-g, she keeps it waist-length.
Physique: Valerya is very tall and lithe, and slimly built - the definition of the dancer's body. She has long limbs for her frame, small hips and bust (although, these have both grown significantly since her pregnancy), and she carries herself with a smooth grace that looks natural in Earth gravity, Moon gravity, and even zero gravity. She carries herself like someone who knows she is being watched, and judged, and is never allowed to show exhaustion or sloppiness. Even when she is on the verge of collapse, she never slouches, always carrying herself with pride and dignity.
Tattoo's, Scars and Other Markings: On Valerya's upper right bicep is a tattoo of the wings and crossed propeller blade and anti-aircraft gun of the Russian Air Force, with the Latin words "Ad Astra" beneath. On her left bicep, the outlined red star of the old Soviet Air Force. She normally wears low key jewellery - simple bobs in her ears and a basic stainless-steel chain with her service tags - but on the ring finger of her left hand, she wears a pure rhodium ring, made of interleaving and twisting strands arranged in a fractal pattern to catch the light in different patterns depending on the angle. On the inside of the ring are engraved the words: "Влюбленность вечна.". On her abdomen is a clearly visible scar from the emergency surgery she received after her miscarriage.
On the Inside
Personality: In the past, Valerya, although driven and ambitious, was outgoing and friendly, cheerful and positive, and always happy to meet someone new. She was never open, or intimate, with anyone - even people she knew for years - but she was so friendly and warm with them that few people ever noticed the walls she put up around herself. Her husband, Misha, was the first person to notice that despite how easily and freely she made friendships and other attachements, she never really put any of herself into these connections. He was the first to challenge her to do that, and the last.
Since Misha's death, Valerya's walls are back, thicker than ever. She is no longer as cheerful and friendly as she once was, now greeting people with a polite wan smile and little more. Where she would seek out company in the past, even if only for superficial connections, now she prefers solitude. She is polite and tolerant of other people's presence, but she makes it crystal clear by her posture, expression and comments that she would much rather be left alone. Her manner is always polite and well-mannered, but her comments can be wry and biting.
Generally, since the tragedy, Valerya's personality is less like her free-spirit mother's, and more like her harsh, career-soldier father. She is less tolerant of anyone who is not operating at a professional, efficient level, and has little patience for mistakes or any signs of weakness or human frailty. She will snap at, and berate, anyone who she feels is not doing their best for the cause, or for the safety of humanity.
Sexual Preference: All her life, Valerya would have described herself as straight. Recently, however, she has considered expanding her options.
Biography: Valerya's childhood was rocky, split in a bright line between her Naval Admiral father, and her free-spirit mother who openly disdained anything military, or anything traditional. After being bounced back and forth between the two for the entire first third of her life, Valerya went neither way, opting for a middle path of her own making. Her mother's love of adventure and the stars and her father's determination and ambition combined, and Valerya knew before she even entered high school which way her life would. Ad astra. To the stars. And by a path of her own making.
And no one who knew the young Valerya would have doubted she would make it. Ambitious, disciplined, yet creative and flexible, there was no challenge - academic, athletic or even artistic - that Valerya could not surmount. All through high school and then university she maintained only cursory friendships and relationships while she built up an academic and athletic reputation - in m-theory physics and gymnastics - that she used to earn high-standing admission into the Russian space program by way of the Air Force.
Two years into her service, Valerya was a Captain with an open invitation to join the solar gate project. In her initial training in the solar gate technology, she met Mikhail Nikolaevich Fyodorov (Михаил Николаевич Фёдоров), a theoretical mathematician specializing in the complex Reimann geometries associated with the jump gate physics. At first their relationship was rocky, at best - while they were occasional lovers, it was a relationship of physical convenience only, and both would have sworn no emotional attachment to the other. But then, without warning, there it was. Undeniable, unable to be overcome even by Val's fiery determination. She was was love, deeply in love, and so was he. A year later, they were married.
The marriage was, perhaps, a little rushed, in that neither knew what to do with it once the ceremony was over. Neither Misha nor Val had ever dreamed of being married - both had been so entirely focussed on their career their whole lives, and neither had any interest in simply giving up their career for the sake of something as traditional as a marriage. They were madly in love, with the operative word being "madly", and even though they knew that one day Valerya would blast into the stars - with Misha unable to follow - they could not quit it.
And then, Valerya got pregnant. Everything changed. Suddenly, space could wait, and Valerya took leave from the program. They set up in a small apartment in Saint Petersburg, and decided to give family life a shot.
Around six months later, Valerya was a month shy of her due date, and she and Misha were in the second bedroom discussing the painting and redecorating they would have to do to turn it into a nursery. They were joking about whether to put space ships up on behalf of their unborn son's mother, or 4-d holographic plots of hypergeometric manifolds on behalf of his father, and which would confuse the child less, when, suddenly, Misha collapsed. Valerya tried desperately to revive him for several minutes, utterly confused because he had been in perfect health, before trying the emergency services number. But the lines were jammed.
She resolved to drive him to the hospital herself, when she suddenly felt stabbing pains in her stomach, and noticed blood stains in her crotch. Without warning, she went into labour... and on the floor of the half-finished nursery, lying beside the body of her dead husband, in indescribable agony, she delivered the stillborn body of her son.
Bleeding profusely and unable to move, Valerya lay on the floor of the nursery for eighteen hours between the bodies of her husband and child. At first she screamed for help. Then, she just screamed. By the tenth hour, she was cursing the name of every god she could remember a name for. When rescue personnel finally found her, she was delerious.
Despite the terrible damage the virus had done to the child in her womb, Valerya had suffered little harm, and was released in a matter of days. That may have been due as much to the chaos and lack of hospital space available following the attacks, as it was due to her hardiness. A week later she reported to the Russian Air Force for service, under her maiden name, and a month after that, she was cleared for a return to duty - complete with an emergency promotion to Colonel.
Over 80% of the European space force had been male, meaning Valerya was one of a very small number of trained and capable pilots, so it was no surprise that she found herself being offered an assignment to pilot a next-generation weapons platform.
Abilities: Valerya has an above-average agility and balance from her dancing training, which she has leveraged into above-average hand-to-hand combat abilities, but while she is better than most, she is not even nearly among the best. Her reflexes, however, are far above average, and that, along with her psionic compatibility with the advanced interface matrix, is why she was selected as one of the fifteen. Her eyes have also been replaced to correct vision problems, but now allow her clear night vision. But what makes her most effective as a combat agent is her situational awareness, and sharp intellect, which she leverages into a vicious and unpredictable weapon, both in and out of the cockpit.
Likes: Flying, dancing, dressing up.
Dislikes: Aggressive cheerfulness, disrespecting of personal boundaries, doing nothing.
Fears: Drowning, dead bodies, medical examinations.
Who I've Lost: At the time of the virus attack, Valerya was two months shy of celebrating her first anniversary with her husband. She was eight months pregnant at the time. Unfortunately, she was eight months pregnant with a boy. He didn't survive either.
Theme Music: Lara’s Theme — Maurice Jarre