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The Criminal

Name: Delaney Cop'en-Hag'en
Gender: Female
Apparent Age at time of sentencing: 18
Homeworld: Rasu'ya

Crime: Initiation of a nuclear war through the release of 99 red balloons, participation in underground anti-government terrorist groups
Verdict: Guilty
Punishment: Relocation to Gaia

Appearance: Her judge and jury described Delaney as "deceptively cute." She is petite by anyone's standards, barely standing 5' 0" on a world where the average adult stands about 6' 2", and generally light in coloration - blonde hair, pale skin, pastel purple eyes. Like all Rasu'yans, she has a pair of curving horns extending from her skull above her ears, made of a naturally-forming white opal material. She is fairly thin in build, but deceptively heavy.
Fashion sense: Delaney uses her appearance to her advantage, and dresses to flatter her figure. Depending on the occasion, she will either dress herself down to look childish, or dress herself up to appear more sophisticated and mature. She almost always accessorizes with a long red scarf tied around her neck, the symbol of the OphalMinhe Underground.

Personality/history: Idealistic and manipulative are two words that best describe Delaney. Despite being an unusual combination, she makes it work for her. Delaney knows what she wants and how to get it, and has been using her appearance and her considerable acting skills to such ends from an early age. She rose to nation-wide prominence as a young child as a part of a song-and-dance troupe of young girls. As the smallest and youngest of the girls (she was later given growth inhibitors to keep her small and cute), Delaney became the media's baby and realized that she could use this favoritism to further her own desires, but as she grew older began to realize how childish she was being. She began to realize the evils of the government and the errors of the system, and began to speak out against it. She was contacted by the OphalMinhe Underground at the age of thirteen and began working with them, and was kicked out of her group six months later after she was seen wearing the Underground's trademark red scarf. A week later, Delaney dropped out of the public eye and began working with the Underground full time as a spy, often having to go undercover in order to sabotage Government employees and operations. She believed deeply in the cause, deeply in the power to change things, and deeply in the fact that she was doing the right thing.
While working for the Underground, Delaney met a young man named Samaan Tor'en-Char'en. It was love almost instantly, and it was them who planned and instigated the launching of 99 red balloons as means of protest against the government. The government, in turn, decided to use the balloons as an excuse to bomb the neighboring country, beginning a nuclear war that lasted almost a year. In the aftermath, Delaney and Samaan were captured, put on trial, and found guilty. Samaan, being no one, was executed, but Delaney still retained some of her power and prestige from her career as a performer. The Government understood killing her meant facing a revolt, and so they sentenced her to relocation instead.

Origins

Rasu'ya is an industrialized planet somewhere in the vicinity of Vega. The planet is divided into two hemispheres of five sectors each, known as countries, and each of the ten has its own government. Some are democracies, some are monarchies, some are republics, some are dictatorships, and some are... not so nice. Delaney hails from a country that is perpetually warring with its neighbors. The average populace is sedated with propaganda and drugs in the water, though Delaney's upbringing protected her from that since she needed her wits to perform.

The civilization occupies most of the world's surface, and the weather is mild, but until some 500 years ago it was not so. Classically, Rasu'yans lived in cities carved into the bedrock where the ground protected them from the blizzards, hurricanes, and wind systems that swept the surface. However, a meteor struck the world, plunging it into a decade-long ice age. When the smoke cleared, the weather patterns had evened out significantly and the Rasu'yans abandoned their caves in favor of the surface. Around this time, the country system was established.

The abandoned tunnels fell into disuse until approximately 50 years ago when the OphalMinhe Underground began using them as a base of operations. Due to the mazelike, interconnected nature of the tunnels, the darkness, and their sheer size, the government has not been able to root out the Underground.

Rasu'yans are silicon-based mammalian aliens originally brought to Rasu'ya sometime in the distant past (they are molecularly unlike any other life forms native to the world and therefore not believed to have evolved there.) Originally imported as slave labor and poaching fodder, Rasu'yans gained control of the world, and the technology required to build their society, following a massive slave revolt four millennia ago. Their skeletons are classified as one of the most valuable in the known galaxy - Rasu'yans' bones are made of pure, high quality opal, and most members of the species have between two and six curved opal horns growing from the crown of their head. Patterns and colors vary from individual to individual, as does the coloration of skin, hair, and eyes, and no two Rasu'yans are said to have the same horns. Rarely, Rasu'yans will display differently colored horns, but usually the entire skeleton is uniformly one variety of opal.
Rasu'yans stand, on average, at an adult height of 6'2". They are naturally thin due to their metabolic makeup - a fat Rasu'yan is probably ill. Despite their apparent slimness, the average Rasu'yan weighs well over 200 lbs due to their dense stone bone structure. Despite their heft, they are noted as agile and strong. They are a naturally long-lived species, capable of living to ages of more than two hundred years. The typical Rasu'yan is considered to be sexually mature at sixteen years, and mentally mature at twenty-two.

Naming conventions: Rasu'yan surnames are formed by combining the first syllables of each parent's names with the ending 'en and then arranging them in order of father and then mother.

So, for example, were Delaney and Samaan to have a child, its name would be "---------- Sam'en-Del'en".

Xenophobia: Given their past as victims of poaching, Rasu'yans are extremely distrustful of other species. They are generally isolated from the galactic community at large due to their refusal to deal with other species for fear of being taken advantage of. With their trust issues in mind, it is understandable why they would not change one of their "Most Dangerous Criminals" from being a Rasu'yan to being another species. As a result, Delaney/Rina's transformation does not cross species lines.

More Miscellany

"She arrives on Gaia with Delaney's red scarf, and always wears it, even though she is not certain of its significance. "

Just a brief question, and I'll try to give you a more in depth opinion later. Why is she unsure of its significance? Has she lost her memory? If so, why?

I very much like this concept (and I'm not listening to 99 Red Balloons as a result) and can't wait to see her in action.