Athena-VII (Starfinder)

Starfinder Society Profile

• Known Name: Athena-VII (old Taldan numerals, pronounced Athena-7) / "Vee" (common nickname)
  
• Race: Android
  
• Age: 9
  
• Height: 5'4"
  
• Alignment: Neutral Good.
  
• Affiliations: Android Abolitionist Front (formerly), Absalon Buzzsaws Starstone Cup league Brutaris team (formerly).
  
• Belief: Weydan, the Endless Horizon
  
• Theme: Street Rat
  
• Character Class: Operative [with 7 Forms archetype]
  
• Place of Origin: Striving, Aballon (The Forge)
  
• Player/Type: NPC

Appearance

Athena-VII's appearance is that of a beautiful young woman of average height with shoulder-length dark hair. Her face and most of her main body resembles that of normal humans, being generally unbroken fair-skinned synthskin notably lacking in the usual lights and markings common to Androids. Her limbs are a colour closer to ivory and betray her mechanical composition more by having visible mechanical joints and actuators that could easily be mistaken for high-quality prosthetics. Her most unusual features, however, are her eyes - they are slightly larger than that of standard humans with her irises being double that. Whilst this grants her the excellent vision common amongst androids, it does make her very easily recognisable and memorable, standing out significantly from the appearance styles of most androids, but obviously not human. Nonetheless, she somehow appears closer to a human with many prosthetics and augmentations than an android.

Athena commonly wears casual clothing when she's not expecting trouble - a t-shirt, pair of jeans, and sneakers being her typical look. Her standard outfit, however, is reconfigurable and she can quickly change it to a sporty tracksuit, a red ball gown, a black minidress, a body-hugging catsuit with microfibre grips for Zero-G environments, or a glittery silver-white dancing dress. She tends to travel light and is rarely in one place for long, so she is rarely seen in anything different but has been known to rent or purchase other clothing as the need arises.

When travelling or anticipating the possibility of trouble, she wears her Mk 2 ThermSkin armour, a lightweight, form-fitting black suit of flexible carbon fibre and blended fabrics that prioritizes ease and quickness of movement, even in harsh environments. It compensates for its lack of insulating layers with a webbing of temperature-regulating lines that run across the entire suit like meridians, glowing dimly with shifting multicoloured lights as if mirroring the auroras in the sky. The faint glimmer can be increased if additional light is needed or dampened in situations where stealth is necessary, and so it is typical for these lights to be set to bright purple and whites for normal usage and dimmed to a dark purple when stealth is required. A black opaque helmet provides additional protection, glare reduction, and life-support technology.

Background

As biomechanical entities, androids can theoretically live forever with the proper repairs. While some embrace this form of immortality, most androids live what they feel is a full life—usually around a hundred years—and then voluntarily instigate a process called renewal, in which the android's soul leaves its body, allowing a fresh android soul to inhabit it. Most people consider this a joyous occasion, metaphorically equivalent to the old android giving birth to a child, and understand that a post-renewal android is an entirely new person who just happens to inhabit the same body. Yet not all people are willing to honour this change or forgive past debts and slights, and such is the case with Athena.

Athena awoke in an abandoned storage facility on the machine world of Aballon, standing upright in a black-market renewal crèche. Around her, the place was completely empty, save for a note and a pen left in the centre of the concrete floor. Clearly hastily scrawled, the note read only: Run. Hide. Retaliate. Beware the mark. Next to the words was a drawing of a symbol—the same inexplicable design branded on Athena's chest. Yet the biggest shock was when Athena picked up the pen, as the note's writer had clearly intended—for the handwriting on the note matched Athena's own.

Confused and disoriented, with only some basic downloaded knowledge of the world she'd just been born into, Athena did as the note instructed, doing her best to disappear into Aballon's bustling android population. It was here that, among other things, she first met other androids. But the questions raised by the note continued to plague her. Who had worn her body before her? Who was she running from, and why? What was the mysterious symbol? Eventually, Athena worked up the courage to begin making surreptitious inquiries into the planet's infosphere. All of these searches failed, yet in curious ways, as if the information was being actively scrubbed and redacted. Worse, Athena began to get the sense of being watched, faces in the crowds that seemed strangely familiar. After a month of tentative forays into the city's silicon underworld, Athena at last tracked down someone who claimed to recognize the mark, but who insisted on meeting in person at a nearby virus bar.

Athena was almost to the tavern when it exploded in a massive fireball, the blast consuming an entire city block.

Thoroughly spooked, Athena fled Aballon, taking passage on a ship to the Diaspora. Yet as she worked there, quickly finding herself a deft hand at piloting rock-hopper shuttles and mining tugs, Athena's fear turned to anger. Wider Pact Worlds society proved far messier than Aballon's orderly machine culture, and Athena was first confused and then disgusted by the prejudice and jealousy androids still encountered from some humans (and other races). She met android escapees from illegal colonies in the Vast, bearing blatant symbols of corporate ownership and scars from cruel disciplinary implants, and began to suspect what her own mark might say about her origins. Incensed, Athena made contact with the Android Abolitionist Front learning to fly more combat-oriented craft, ancient martial arts, how to use a variety of weapons, how to sneak through the shadows, and to put down the enemies of their people with ruthless efficiency. Under the AAF's guidance, Athena became a black ops expert, until a disagreement with her handler over a messy job led her to go independent, although she retained ties and still did jobs for them as she believed in the cause - she just chose to freelance and decide what jobs to take and how to do them, rather than be under the foot of the handler - although this also meant losing regular access to the AAF's facilities and resources.

During her time with the AAF, she developed an interest in the popular sport of Brutaris, which she played with her few friends both for recreational purposes and for physical training. This served her well as, shortly after leaving the AAF whilst doing independent jobs on Absalon Station, she saw an advert for the Absalon Buzzsaws brutaris team that were auditioning for possible new prospects. She auditioned for it and was not only accepted but soon became one of the first-string line-up and not just a reservist as had been the expectation when she applied. She enjoyed training with the Buzzsaws and had a good season with them, taking the Starstone Cup league trophy once again. Although she was not the best player on the team, mostly due to her lack of experience, she was considered a rising star in the Starstone Cup league and starting to become famous, when tragedy struck again. Her seclusion in the Diaspora and being constantly on the move had made her complacent. It had been so long since she had fled Aballon and had any issues with her mysterious enemy that Athena had come to believe they had forgotten about her. Worse, with all the glitz and enjoyment of her new life, she had forgotten about them. Returning to her room to find three assassins waiting for her reminded her of the reality of her situation. Surviving the tough fight, she realised she needed to move out of the limelight and keep moving, and used some of the assassins' grenades to fake her death and go into hiding.

For a while, she laid low, working as a dancer at a nightclub in Absalom Station for a couple of years, before both her paranoia and the itch to travel and experience new things got to her. Athena has most recently been officially hiring on with freelancer crews, typically as a pilot, gunner or science officer specializing in dangerous transport or exploratory missions — and if those jobs sometimes require a little infiltration or a bullet from the shadows, well, that costs extra. Although she is sometimes sad about the constant need to look over her shoulder, as a follower of Weydan Athena enjoys travelling and exploration - the feeling of freedom, the relative safety against persecution, and is content overall. She seeks to uncover more about those that wore her body before her, both for the sense of discovery and in case it might shed some light on who her mysterious enemy is and why they want her dead.

Nonetheless, as paranoia over being hunted by her mysterious enemy makes Athena something of a loner, Athena secretly desperately craves companionship and is fiercely loyal to those few who prove themselves trustworthy. As a result of her early days on Aballon and personal experience as an android in a largely biological society, Athena questions or rejects many aspects of mainstream Pact Worlds culture, and enjoys exploring the countercultures on different worlds. Athena believes the ends often justify the means, yet strives to only take on jobs she thinks will be enjoyable or give her the opportunity to experience new things, or jobs that fit with her vague sense of morality, especially if it helps the AAF or similar causes. An initial focus on android rights has broadened into a tendency to identify with oppressed people and underdogs everywhere, no matter how alien, and to dislike any form of slavery. While Athena finds the most joy in travelling on any manner of ship or vehicle, her operative abilities remain as sharp as ever, and she has no objections to wielding them again when the need arises. Seeing an Infosphere ad for the Starfinder Society prompted her into thinking that the life of a Starfinder might appeal to her - always on the move, which would make it harder for her mysterious enemy to get to her, and feeding both her religious beliefs and sense of adventure. But also, perhaps, she may make some new friends she can grow close to, trust, and share adventures with.

Personality

Androids are often considered to be quite unemotional and aloof by non-androids due to their flat affect - but even though Athena struggles with expressing and understanding emotions as much as any android, it is usually easy to at least determine her mood. Most of the time, Athena appears happy, excitable and gregarious - quick to laugh loud and heartily, smiling easily and commonly, and her voice tending to pitch a little high when excited or happy. Some have noted a slight accent similar to the southern regions of Cheliax on old Golarion. Most who spend enough time with her to befriend her when asked about her personality traits will add that as well as smiling a lot, Athena is a hugger, especially when happy or excited.

She is renowned to be friendly and cheerful most of the time. She enjoys meeting new people and races and is quite gregarious. For an android, she is quite self-confident too. She loves dancing and listening to music (especially live) as well as participating in sports - especially brutaris.

All this tends to make people mistake her for a "silly companion android" as there is a more serious (some would say darker) side to her that, when it comes out, typically means someone is about to have a very bad day. Born in an illegal renewal creche and "growing up" penniless, scraping to survive and on the run on the streets of Aballon, then hiding out and on the move in the Diaspora, then predominantly in various districts in Absalom Station, Athena is a survivor who knows the reality of life in the Pact Worlds. She has seen both the best and the worst of the Pact World species', and has extremely strong feelings about slavery of any form (and to a lesser degree, dictatorial oppression). Whilst she appears to judge everyone on their own merits, species with known tendency towards slavery (such as the Vesk or Azlanti) are likely to be met with wariness or coldness at first, and anyone directly associated with slavery is likely to end up in a bullet-led conversation with her. She is known to speak her mind so she is not usually the first person to throw a punch, although she is often the instigator (and the final person to throw a punch). As she prefers to avoid fighting when possible and is friendly, it is easy to forget that her formal training and most of her life has been as a black ops agent for an abolitionist group, then freelancing as a hired gun (and, sometimes, assassin). When the proverbial switch is activated, she becomes a lethal killing machine. Whilst generally seeming kind-hearted and doing what she feels is morally correct, is it quite shocking how ruthless and extreme she can be to do what she feels is the right thing.

Other Notes

Athena's name is based on the number of renewals her body has undertaken. That first letter she found, whilst fairly brief, did mention what she was and that she would be the seventh soul to inhabit her body, and was signed by Athena-VI. She kept the tradition, having no real reason at first to do otherwise (and by the time she may have had need to consider it, had been using it too long to change). Most of the time, she simply uses "Athena" but a station guard once made the mistake of pronouncing her name "Athena-Vee" by misrepresenting the Old Chelaxian numerical symbols for text, and some of her friends have come to simply nickname her "Vee" ever since. She has also been called "Theena" by some friends. Generally, when she is around with a group for some time some alias/nickname will get attached to her, and she will use that for casual usage, using her full name only for official purposes.

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Gallery

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  Athena fighting

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  Athena laughing

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