Molotov

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It is the 7th of October, 2279. After nearly a century and a half aslumber, the Earth sleeper ship Copernicus has finally arrived at a system deemed supportive of life by her sensors. Dormant programming begins to reactivate key personnel from the near 9000 passengers, as they wake up to the 23rd century and an uncertain future. Before them, a tightly packed series of planets orbiting 4082 Mensae A - snappily named by the on-board computer - and her distant companion star.

The Copernicus is one of several sleeper ships launched from Earth during the 2130s, as the Solar System became overdeveloped and tensions between the Coalition and Alliance forces soared across the Earth and her colonies. Some made for specific star systems nearest to the Sun, with rival vessels racing for candidate planets, aided by advances in cryofreezing and suspended animation. Such expeditions could take decades, even centuries, due to the lack of FTL travel. Thus the Alliance sleeper ship Copernicus launched from Jovian orbitals in 2137, bound for a distant reach of the local spiral arm, crewed by Alliance citizens of Russian and Northern European descent.

Yet, as the initial system engines were discarded beyond the Kuiper Belt and the Copernicus' ion engines were activated, the last crewmembers to enter cryosleep may well have dreamt uneasily. For the aft sensor array detected thermonuclear explosions throughout the Inner Solar System, just as they left range. Who knows if there is an Alliance, or even an Earth, left behind them...

Position:
Name:
Age:
Ethnicity:
Brief Bio:

• Born to a prominent political family in Warsaw, the third child and eldest daughter of a Sejm member.
• Gained admission to the Land Forces Military Academy in Wroclaw, studied and trained to earn a commission in the Land Forces.
• After graduation, began to build a reputation as a model officer. Fully dedicated to her career in the Land Forces, eventually earned a Master's degree in the study of Logistics from the National Defence University in Warsaw.
• Served several combat tours in western and central Africa as Alliance operations in the region intensified, eventually rising to the rank of Major and being assigned to command of forces responsible for a number of Alliance desalinization plants.
• Married a fellow officer, from the South African Military Health Service, Captain Joseph Dlamini.
• Following a transfer from active command due to medical issues, assigned a teaching position at the Indian Military Academy where she served for two years, along with lecturing on her experience with desalinization efforts at nearby Doon University while pursuing a second post-graduate degree in urban planning. Noted to be estranged from her husband during this period for undisclosed reasons.
• Reconciled with Dr. Dlamini, at this point retired to civilian practice. Assigned as military consultant to Pioneer project, contributing to project's development of plans for water purifiers and efficient irrigation systems.
• Death of Dr. Dlamini, along with Dombrowski's elder brother Wiesław and sister-in-law in automobile accident.
• Following recovery from injuries sustained in same accident, accepts prior offer to be placed on Copernicus, on condition of a place on the ship's colonization roster for niece adopted in accordance with wishes of Wiesław Dombrowski.
• Considered as a candidate for commander of Marine forces on Copernicus, consideration withdrawn as a result of political decision to appoint only general-rank personnel to command of military forces on Pioneer missions. Assigned as XO at discretion of Major-General Leonid Frolov and promoted to Colonel.
• Acting commander of Copernicus Marine following death of Major-General Frolov (cause: bronchial pneumonia, suspected as stemming from an undisclosed autoimmune disease aggravated by cryostorage).

Position: Unitarists
Name: Dr. Oswald Amsel
Age: 45
Ethnicity: German
Bio:
[*]Born to a downtrodden family in southern Bavaria. Overcame frequent truancy charges and constant family turmoil to attend university, by adulthood studying internationally in preparation for a doctorate.
[*]Returned home to take up a position as a professor of experimental psychology at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.
[*]Became moderately well-known as an author of "pop psychology" books as well as a series of more serious lectures on "socio-psychology and pre-millenial political systems", to say nothing of his public persona as a mild-mannered, well-cultured Old World 'gentleman'.
[*]Retired briefly from public life after an accident from which he healed, but was left with a permanent limp
[*]Found employment with an Alliance think-tank promoting the consolidation of government for further exploration and settlement of space
[*]Before volunteering for the Copernicus in a semi-advisory capacity, regained some public attention for his work on the relationship of experimental psychology and political theory, although this acclaim's brilliance was marred by Coalition circles deriding it as propaganda and "questionable in..fundamental approach".

Position: Captain
Name: Kosta Jovovich
Age: 54
Ethnicity: Serbian
Brief Bio:

• Graduate of the Peter the Great Naval Corps - St. Petersburg Naval Institute, where he also studied mechanical engineering.
• Became a pilot aboard Russian aircraft carriers, was briefly seconded to the École de l'air and served with the French Navy.
• Selected as part of the European Space Agency's astronaut corps, served on space stations for lengthy period, eventually commanding and gaining expertise in long-duration space operations.
• Served variously upon the Champollion, the Galileo, and the Isaac Newton - various classes of vessel operating on various missions.
• Served first command of the Suvorov, before returning to Earth and taking a leading role within joint European-Russian space operations as ties intensified.
• Selected as commander of the Copernicus Colony Ship as the most experienced officer willing to take up the command. Has been intermittently in-and-out of cryosleep throughout the mission to oversee operations.

• Born in a French ghetto, fourth son of a French server maintenance [1] professional. Worked in various low level tech positions in his youth for various companies for next to nothing. His family barely made ends meet and he never had the chance to go into higher education. Always had a knack for money, from an early age he would make additional income doing some weird things, like selling water in the IT sweatshops.
• Took out a small loan from BNP, which he couldn't really repay to invest in a business idea, which fell flat quickly afterwords and he lost everything again. He was never able to repay the loan and had to reschedule payments all the time. He resorted to robberies, he managed to steal enough money to pay the loan off, instead, he invested the money in a water purifier for the Ghetto as it was struck with a cholera epidemic and the government was totally unresponsive. He realized he can charge people for usage of the purifier and out of desperation they would pay him. Soon enough he made enough money to repay BNP and invest in another purifier to be installed in another ghetto.
• 10 years later, he was the head of a multi-billion dollar water drilling company, finding fresh water or desalinizing salt-water deposits. In a world where water was becoming increasingly scares, he easily moved his operations up, before selling out to BP.
• Inside BP, he headed the water division, but that wasn't enough for the ever greedy Duval who wasn't content with running a subsidy, he wanted an Empire. And an Empire he built, weaseling his way into the board of directors of BP, he worked with inside information to break up the BP Empire, so he could carve out his own out of it. The BP collapse was a massive hit on the economies all over the world, but Duval couldn't care less, he had acquired a large part of it and returned to his old days of dominating large water drilling facilities all over the solar system, while Duval's family continued to languish in poverty back on earth.
• It all came crashing down, the Kuiper wars caused billions in commercial losses and ultimately cost Duval his extensive corporate empire, as his main asset, water, was lost. As creditors raced after him while the world collapsed around him, he had one place to go, he bought a place for himself in the Copernicus, to start a new life off world.

• Educated at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala, Dr. Arvidsson wrote his thesis on the possibilities of sustainable production of vegetable proteins in a weightless environment, conducting experiments at the Estrange Space Center in the northern town of Kiruna. As a post-doc, he looked further afar into the stars, and was a frequently cited author of articles on subjects ranging from the construction of hypothetical ecosystems in microgravity to the practicality of exoplanetary aquaculture.
• Considers himself somewhat of a neo-Linnean scientist. While recognizing the many flaws of the "Prince of Botany" Linnaeus, including an at heart entirely lacking scientific system and his deeply colonialist-mercantilist ideology, Erik's fascination with the early pioneers is clear. As a child he read about the many travels of Linnaeus' disciples across the globe, foremost among them perhaps Anders Sparrman (who sailed with Captain James Cook, and whose long scientific voyages to Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceania and South America inspired him to become a life-long abolitionist). Their travels all sought to discover new useful plants, animals and mineral, and bring them back to Sweden for domestic reproduction to benefit the nation. Regardless of the nationalist motivations for these legendary missions, and the in truth poor outcome, it was an admirable effort.
• Wife Aisha passed away in cancer at age 46, sustained due to exposure during her own radiological research. Erik, valued as an experienced agriculturalist, left behind two adult children - Cecilia and Marwan (members of the Columbus and Ganga missions, respectively, having lived abroad for many years as part of their own research) - to join the crew of the Copernicus. While a difficult decision to make, a combination of a will to explore and a perhaps somewhat troubling desire to escape his personal troubles through cryosleep guided him to make this choice.

Position: Pioneer
Name: Cole Partridge
Age: 33
Ethnicity: English
Bio:

• Studied Geography at Campion Hall, Oxford
• Spent several years off-grid as a Christian Missionary in Zimbabwe
• Resurfaced ~2132, returning to Oxford to undergo a short spell with the Officer's Training Corps
• Sponsored by several factions as a clergy representative to the Copernicus after failed attempts by the Church to take a more central role in the sleeper ship program