APP

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OOC INFORMATION

Player Name: Chris
Are you over 18?: Y
Contact: sharknado
Other Characters in Game: n/a

IC INFORMATION

Character Name: Laura Hawley
Canon: Original
Canon Point: Approx. 18 months post-invasion
Age: 20
Background:
WORLD INFO — cw: world-ending events, mentions of genocide, forced labor, suicide
(there is an extensive breakdown here but the cliff's notes version:)
Everything on Earth runs as normal until an alien invasion in 2018 by a species that came to be known collectively as the Judge. Once the aliens determined Earth's inhabitants as 'undeserving' they began to mine the planet for resources, using the surviving humans as labour to do so. Anyone with any kinds of imperfections, down to glasses or a cough, was killed, and the remaining survivors were given two options — labor camps, or voluntary suicide. These aliens have no interest in humans, no interest in communicating. They cannot be reasoned with, bargained with, or compelled to mercy.

Two years later, there is very little of the population still living. The major cities have been mined, humans rounded up and resources processed, survivors only really exist in the rural areas and fringes of society, and they are fighting a losing battle. Eventually their world will be decimated, and the Judge will move on. All they can do until that happens, is do their best to survive.

CHARACTER HISTORY —

Before the invasion, Laura's life is largely uneventful. Born to a family of crop farmers in Colorado, Laura is raised in the family business with the expectation that her and her siblings will take over when the time is right. Despite a brief rebellious phase in her teen years, Laura is largely ready to assume her share of the responsibility once she's older. She never considers a different life for herself, she likes the work well enough, and she's content to follow the plan. Her ambition is localised to her little corner of the world, to keep the family business thriving, and to build it on for when they eventually pass it down to the next generation.

And then the world changes.

Laura loses her whole family in the initial invasion. Both her parents, her older brothers, younger sister, and the one on the way. They're all wiped out, Laura only survives because she was picking up groceries, and next follows a year of isolation. She moves alone, never pairing up with anyone as she enters a state of existing. Laura doesn't settle anywhere, just struggles along from day to day with close calls from aliens and other survivors alike. there are a few violent incidents scattered throughout her time alone, each time she draws too close to other survivors for comfort, but largely she's very lucky. One of the benefits of being alone is that she's quick, and quiet. There's no one keeping Laura from moving as fast and as often as she needs to in order to stay undetected, from all of the threats in this new, post-invasion world. And that's all she does for months on end, until her aimless movements lead her to Crater Lake and she crosses paths with a group of survivors there.

By all accounts they shouldn't have seen anything in her. Half-starved and a little feral, injured and struggling, she doesn't make a great first impression. She's in no state to defend herself by that point, it would have been easy pickings to wipe her out for her small cache of supplies, but instead they do something surprising — this group take her back to their camp, and they take Laura in.

There's a place for her with their group, a chance to finally use her pre-invasion skills. They have to go back to basics with low-tech tools and machinery, but Laura quickly assumes control of the food production for the camp. With a group of people around her and a dedicated role to commit to, Laura is starting to thrive once again.

All of the survivors know that their fates are sealed, that eventually they will be caught, or maybe they'll run out of ways to keep themselves alive, or another group will get the best of them -- there are any number of ways that the Crater Lake survivors will die, but they all know that it's coming sooner or later. Still, they've found a hard-fought peace there, as much as they can manage in this world at least, and as part of a community once more, Laura is dedicated to doing everything in her ability to keep them alive for as long as possible.

Arrival Scenario: Free Cities

Suitability:

Due in part to the world that Laura now lives in, she has shown herself to thrive when part of a community. While not especially politically minded and not inclined towards war efforts, she works best as part of a team and is likely to fall back on that habit in order to best get by in the game setting. While her skills are primarily agricultural, her general survival skills developed by necessity make her something of a jack of all trades, and one that will gravitate towards a group and a leader sooner rather than later. She's proven herself capable of assimilating into a new community, of contributing to a cause for the good of the group rather than the individual, and will not want to give up that sense of stability in a new setting. Her desire to toe the line and ability to take orders could easily see her ending up somewhere in the Free Cities military, and she'd probably do relatively well there too. While her heart might not always be fully committed to whatever cause she ends up falling into, Laura won't be any less dedicated.

She has also managed to hold onto a kind of optimism — albeit a slightly nihilistic, laissez-faire sort of attitude towards life and her part in it all, but despite the sometimes dark leanings she is still a surprisingly upbeat person given all that has gone on around her. Laura is facing the end of her world, but she still manages to put a smile on her face every day. Given the atrocities that she is leaving behind, once she adjusts to being in Abraxas there won't be an awful lot that she misses from her own world.

Ultimately Laura is a team player, but she's also a survivor. Despite her friendly demeanour and casual approach, she's capable of great ruthlessness in the protection of herself or the people that she considers hers. Who she connects with in her early stages will largely dictate the direction that Laura ends up taking in terms of plot, however she has the potential to be a fierce and loyal ally. She wants those close bonds, consciously or not she will be seeking them out, and if that leads to joining faction wars, NPC conflicts, or dangerous explorations, Laura will go--because she wants to help her community. Without the Crater Lake survivors by her side, she'll have to find a new one. The last thing that she wants is to end up alone again.

Powers:

Laura is a bog standard human, with some moderate self-defence skills, an extensive knowledge of agriculture and farming, and a bit of a sharp shooter, but completely baseline human.

PERSONALITY QUESTIONS

Describe an important event in your character's life and how it impacted them.
After the arrival of alien life on Earth, after Laura had been separated from her family and before she came across the Crater Lake group, she was surviving on her own. It's a rough world to be travelling alone in but Laura is lucky and manages to avoid trouble for a while -- right up until she doesn't. She's ambushed in the middle of the night by another survivor, by a stranger just as desperate as she is. A fight breaks out, bloody and brutal, and somehow, inexplicably, Laura wins. A fight to the death, and Laura won it with a rock slammed into the skull of the stranger.

This moment marks a shift for Laura, who managed to go an unusual length of time by herself, unchallenged and untested in the end of the world. Before that incident, she knew in theory that people were capable of great violence, she'd even seen it from afar, but Laura never thought herself capable of it. That night she learns that she is just as capable of that violence as the people she has been vilifying as 'evil' or 'monstrous' all this time. This event marks a dramatic shift in Laura's understanding of the world that they now live in, as well as her understanding of the people living in it.

Does your character have a moral code, or other set of standards they try to live by?

Morality has become a complicated issue in the wake of the apocalypse, but Laura has done her best to hold onto a personal sense of right and wrong. Despite the world continually trying to prove her wrong, she tries to believe the best in people and generally would rather assume good intentions than malicious ones, until proven otherwise. There is a reason that Laura is only sent out on supply runs as minimally as possible — she has developed into a shining optimist since settling into a community, and she struggles to remember that not everyone is interested in building something at the end of the world.

That said, there is a ruthlessness to laura that is often hard to see and is easily overlooked. Despite her desire to avoid serious conflict, when it comes down to it she is willing to do what it takes to survive in this world, even if that means taking a life. As much as she can, Laura tries to be nonviolent, she tries to be helpful, and she tries to both be and see good in the world — but she isn't a fool, by any means. She has spent years living in a world where all rules are off, and she's only survived this long by adapting. As much as she detests it, Laura understands that a certain level of aggression is required to stay alive, and she can make her peace with the actions taken in order to protect herself or her community.

What quality or qualities do they admire most?

In herself, it's her hard work and commitment. In part because of how the community that she lives in now is built on everyone pitching in and doing their part, and in part just the ethics of how sh was raised. Laura has always been very dedicated to whatever cause she ascribes herself to — in earlier years this was the continued success of the Hawley Family Farm, her own feelings on the matter irrelevant in the face of a commitment. Regardless of how Laura felt about the point of survival in the wake of the apocalypse, she still works hard to keep herself alive. Now, that dedication is being given to her camp, and she'll be damned if her area of responsibility is going to be what lets them down.

In other people, it's leadership. Laura is many things but a leader is not one of them. She's too compliant, too agreeable, too much of a people pleaser. Laura doesn't even especially want to be liked, or have trouble saying no, but why bother? Laura has never held leadership skills and she's never particularly wanted to, but it's something she holds in high regard for others. Especially now that she's seeing what strong leadership can do for a group of people in as hopeless a situation as theirs, Laura has never admired the quality more than she does now.

Do they have a part of themselves they dislike?

Her complacency. It is the attitude that led her to never seek out anything beyond the family business, and while she is good at farming, she's never tried to strive for anything further. She might have other interests or talents but Laura just doesn't know, because she never tried for anything that wasn't expected of her -- and now it's too late.

It's the same attitude that saw her alone for almost a year, not willing to try to do anything more than survive in the new world that she found herself in. Laura simply existed, and even now that she's found a place in a community, there is a part of Laura that is simply complacent. She does the job that she is good at, she goes where she is told to go, a model citizen of her new community, because striving for anything else just simply isn't in Laura's nature. If she's truly honest with herself, Laura's always been disappointed in herself, dissatisfied by her lack of efforts to create any kind of path for herself — it's just gotten a lot easier to ignore that disappointment, when compliance has become such a useful survival tool.

What is their sign, and why?

A good fit for Laura would be Death. She was raised to be steadfast, dedicated and hard-working, and her efforts at farming for her small survivor community now are almost entirely dedicated towards building resources for a future that she might never see. Patience and diligence are both vital to the role she once held as a job on a family farm, and that she now plays in a smaller part in their camp.

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