Name: Elise Beaumont Age: 19 Status: Spare

Background (Posthumous-V): Originally 'Martian Space Colony IV - Olympus,' a massive habitat comprised of several attached Stanford Tori rings orbiting the planet Mars, now converted into a generation spaceship and flagship of the human fleet. The V in the name is purposely ambiguous, but based on the feelings of humans who named it, it would be easy to infer that it stands for Victory, Vengeance, or perhaps even Vindication. Although the Olympus was never built to go anywhere, self-sufficiency was always part of its original design. The habitat's capacity for producing food beyond what its inhabitants required was particularly useful in the immediate aftermath of the Earth Cataclysm. The spaceship was built by adding new parts and functionality onto the colony, effectively converting it into a cruiser. The Posthumous-V launched in an incomplete state, with just the bare minimum necessary to put the ship into motion: the anti-matter drive, manufacturing facilities, and a forward ice shield, meant to protect the ship from debris. Humanity does not know what they will encounter at their destination, but the plan is for the ship's final form to include forward-facing torpedo tubes and a mass accelerator main weapon. Ramming the enemy's homeworld as a last resort is not off the table, either. However, because the ship won't need to fire until the end of its several centuries-long voyage, the weaponry won't be built anytime soon. Technology and understanding of the enemy will likely improve greatly throughout the course of the trip, so there's no hurry in building them. The Posthumous-V's storerooms, and the storerooms of other ships in the fleet, were filled to the brim with raw building materials, because there won't be any stops for collecting more. However, most of the long section between the habitat rings and the forward ice shield is, at this stage, composed purely of structural metal trusses, because nothing has been built in there yet. The Posthumous-V's manufacturing facilities are still running, producing not only the everyday goods that its inhabitants need but also entirely new sections of the ship, which are being assembled piecemeal as expansion becomes necessary.

Background (Society): Although the Posthumous-V's governance is technically derived from the Mars semi-autonomous government, its civilian wing was almost entirely ousted in the brief conflict regarding humanity's direction. The Martian Admiralty was the ones in charge by the time the ship set sail. Each section of the habitat rings has its own elected representatives, but the ship's command structure's (captain and officers) decisions take precedence, which is something that seldom happens but has plenty of precedence. In short, self-governance only exists within the space that the military leadership allows. Although the daily lives of the Posthumous-V's inhabitants are governed by democratic bodies, civil liberties aren't equal for all, law enforcement is heavy-handed, and there is a clear stratification of society. The descendants of the space colony's original inhabitants, as well as those who descend from Mars surface colonies, enjoy full civil rights and live in the best areas within the habitat's rings. Despite being born well after the ship's departure, the people in this group call themselves 'Martians' and often boast stories of their ancestors who, at the time, accepted going on a one-way trip to a distant, inhospitable planet. On the other side, those derived from the refugees of the Earth Cataclysm lack several of the same freedoms and are referred to as 'Spares.' The people in this group cannot vote, run for office, purchase property in the 'surface' of habitat rings even if they have the money to do so, receive higher education, or even reproduce without permission. They live in areas that were never meant to house people, many decks under the cities inside the habitat rings, and often take the worst jobs that the Citizens don't want to perform. Spares can freely come and go between the surface and the lower decks; they just cannot settle on the nice areas. Children inherit the status of their mothers, and the only way a Spare can become a full citizen is by performing outstanding service towards the ship. Spare children attend the same schools as citizens but can only go as far as middle school. Spare women must apply for a permit to have kids, and if they become pregnant without one, they are forced to get an abortion.

Background (Final Assembly): Out of all the jobs available within the Posthumous-V, Final Assembly is the most dangerous of all. As the ship's smelters and foundries continue to produce entirely new areas, someone has to actually assemble them in place. That means wearing a spacesuit and working on unpressurized sectors of the vessel, or sometimes even out directly in space. The most arduous and dangerous jobs on the ship are the only paths available for a Spare to become a Citizen, and Final Assembly is the only one of them that doesn't require decades of service. Just 7 years wearing the suit, and anyone can become a Citizen. The pay is really good too. However, because the fatality rate is quite high, not many are willing to take this kind of job, even among the Spares. The chance of a final assembler dying before completing 7 years of service is around 37%. The ship never stops slowly accelerating towards its final velocity, and there's no way that they would stop to try and retrieve a worker that 'fell off.' If that were to happen, that person could do nothing but watch the ship rapidly disappear towards the stars, leaving them to float in interstellar space forever. Accidents of this sort are exceptionally rare, though, and the vast majority of injuries and fatalities are the results of 'more normal' kinds of workplace accidents you'd expect on a construction site. The parts are shipped to worker camps near their final positions. The majority of them are small, modular pieces intentionally designed for a single assembler to carry and bolt into place in a low-gravity environment. Final assemblers stay in these camps for long stretches of time when they are 'on shift,' and it's not unusual for these workers to spend more time in camps than in their actual homes.

Background (Personal): A young working girl with a bright, playful personality. Elise became a Final Assembler shortly after reaching the end of her studies at age 15, meaning she's been on the job for 4 years already. Like most Spares, she was an only child. That's because the government will usually only allow Spare women to have only a single child. Elise and her family lived under the city, on the first habitat ring. For a Spare family, it was one of the better places to live since it's a 1g section of the ship. Elise was born out of an affair between a married man with Citizen status and a Spare woman. As such, she grew up fatherless, with only her mother as family. Elise's mother told her that her father said that their relationship had been nothing but a 'fun distraction' and that he wanted nothing to do with them. Elise has never spoken to the man himself; she only knows his face through pictures. Elise's best friend is a girl called Petra, whom she has known since her school days. Back on these days, on her last year of school, both Elise and Petra came to like the same boy, becoming romantic rivals at the time. They both pursued him without getting in each other's way, and, in the end, Elise came out as the loser. Petra dated and later married that boy. Although they did bicker and argue somewhat at the time, they remained best friends, even to this day. Elise has acknowledged and accepted her loss in this matter, and both girls consider it to be water under the bridge. Petra is a Citizen, and Elise believes that this was a decisive factor in why the boy chose the other girl over her. Understandably, Elise is very unsatisfied about her social status. She believes that being a Spare is the reason why she had to grow up fatherless. She also believes that being a Spare is the reason why she was overlooked in love as well. Elise doesn't want to lose out on more things in the future because of her low social status or become someone's 'fun distraction' like her mother was, and that's the motivation behind why she has taken up such a dangerous job.

Relationship with Petra: Elise's best friend and the romantic rival she lost against in middle school. Petra is a woman from an upper middle-class family of bureaucrats, and she herself has a pencil-pushing desk job that allows her to sit all day inside a comfy high-rise office building. Tall, elegant, well-spoken, educated, and with a cushy job, the two girls couldn't be any more different from one another. She dated the boy that they competed for and married him after high school, and now she's a serial cheater. Petra isn't shy about telling Elise about the other guys she's meeting on the side while 'hubby' is at home. Petra isn't hiding her escapades from hubby, he knows it. The guy is a Spare, and Petra forbids him from having a job, so the only choices he has are to either accept Petra's infidelities or give up all the nice perks she provides for him. Elise doesn't approve of Petra's unfaithfulness, but her heart isn't particularly aching in solidarity for a guy that turned her down. Petra has always been the kind of girl to look down on others, and it's truly a mystery how the two girls manage to remain friends regardless. While conversing, the two talk while casually slipping insults and accusations against the other, but without any bite or ill intent behind it. Petra is a tall woman with mocha-colored skin, medium breasts, and black eyes. Her hair is white, straight, and very long, reaching below her own knees. In this society, having long hair is proof of social status, because it demonstrates that the person never has to set foot outside of the 1g environment of the habitat rings.

Relationship with Lyra: The forewoman of the work site and Elise's direct superior. Someone crazy enough to have been in this job for 14 years and not even thinking of quitting. From what Elise heard, Lyra used to be Spare and quite poor, so that must have something to do with why she won't let go, or so Elise believes. The two have a courteous relationship, particularly because Lyra is very serious about safety, which is something Elise can very much get behind. Lyra is a mature woman in her 30s, with an orange wolf cut, orange eyes, a plump body, and large breasts. The kind of woman with a motherly, caring aura.

Relationship with Noelle: Elise's coworker and another of Lyra's subordinates. Like Elise, Noelle is in Final Assembly for the sake of obtaining her citizenship. A grumpy girl that doesn't have many friends and who was difficult to approach at first but eventually did make friends with Elise. Very earnest and very concerned about safety. Noelle's ambition in life is to be wed and to have many children, but because Spares usually are only allowed a single offspring, she needs to become a citizen first. A surprisingly girly dream for a girl that's always scowling. The husband position is still open, it would seem. She is a somewhat tall white girl with light pink hair, arched bangs, yellow eyes, and and thick eyebrows. Younger than Elise but with a larger chest.

Personality: Casual, friendly, and playful. Other people rarely see Elise without a light smile plastered on her face. Thanks to that, Elise is able to get along with most of her coworkers, even though the majority of them happen to be burly men with whom she shares little in common. Despite everything, Elise doesn't think that her life is particularly bad or tragic. She has good health, a mother that loves her, good friends, and some cash to her name in the bank. Elise and her peers just need to watch out for each other, and they're all going to make it, she believes. That said, Elise does suffer a tad from an inferiority complex. When people turn her down for whatever reason, Elise jumps to the conclusion that her social status is to blame. Or her unalluring body is to blame. Or because she is being annoying. Anything that would make it her fault, really.

Appearance: Shoulder-length black hair, always worn with her bangs pinned straight back, blue eyes, and a cute face. Elise is white and has an average height for a woman that grew up under 1g gravity, with a slender body and a flat chest. Definitely not someone whose image one would associate with hard physical labor.

Outfit: The assembler's uniform is made up of brown overalls, a brown shirt, and brown pants. Kneepads and laced boots. Definitely not cute or good-looking but very practical and immediately recognizable. Most people in the Posthumous-V will know what a person using this uniform does for a living. The general feeling for most people is that Final Assemblers are cool, bad-ass people. The spacesuit is bright yellow, not significantly different visually from a 21st-century astronaut suit. The worker wears an exoskeleton under the suit, capable of significantly improving the strength of the operator. The soles of the suit are magnetic and stick to the floor, but this alone is not considered sufficient safety. Workers are always tethered with ropes, especially when working outside of the hull.