Ref: Marion Montaigne

 

Marion Montaigne, he/him, late 40s?

[In which Beverly attempts to draw someone who isn't a young adult femme]

Marion's life story is largely that of his career. Born to a well-off family, Marion has enjoyed some of the highest quality education to be found in the developing society of the Rosa system. Throughout his studies and eventual employment, he's been a part of the sweeping industrial revolution that's catalyzed the recent population boom. Marion's exceptional talent gave him a ringside seat for some of the most influential technological rediscoveries in recent memory.

Somewhere along the way, perhaps at one of the foremost academies of his time, Marion met his (now estranged) husband Elias. A soft-spoken, sage, and artistic type, Elias' personality was a stark foil to Marion's rather more detached nature. Despite several happy years, their union would not last, grounded more in prospects and practicality than in mutual support. Marion still grapples with this failure, finding it difficult to understand exactly what went wrong.

While working part-time aboard Ark Royal as a senior technician, Marion began to mentor Noira. After its destruction cost her a job, and nearly her life, Marion created a position for Noira at the mining company which governs Orus, where she continued to learn under him as an apprentice engineer. However, when she discovers the true nature of their work, their subsequent schism - and her dramatic departure - leaves him questioning his place in the world.

Marion is stoic, reserved, and more than a bit broody. Though his steadfast commitment to his work as an engineer has carried him to success, it has also driven away those who might otherwise have been closer to him. Marion tends to lose himself in his work, finding it an effective distraction from the doubts that often plague him. Though he has trouble showing it, he does form deep attachments to people in his life, making it all the more difficult for him to come to terms with his own antisocial tendencies. The growing revolutionary crisis on Orus will drive him to places he could not have expected in his search for a truer purpose.

Ref: Clare Prescot

 

Clare Prescot, they/them, ~23

Clare has spent their entire life on Orus, living in the shadows of the bustling interworld spaceport in its capital city. Their family is small but tightly-knit; during times of hardship, Clare has been particularly close with their younger brother Jaqui, looking after him while their parents work long hours in industrial processing.

They've frequently lived in poverty and on the knife edge of survival. Recently their family has finally begun to thrive, and Clare's taken up a job working at a local café, while Jaqui is even able to attend a small trade school. Clare feels a strong pressure to make the most of their newfound opportunities in life, and this comes with its own anxieties.

Clare is friendly, outgoing, and adventurous. They love to try new things, but they rarely stick to a particular habit or interest for very long. They've accumulated a lot of small skills - some mechanical tinkering, artistic abilities, acting, identifying vehicles, picking locks, reading people scarily well - but have never found anything they feel comfortable pursuing as a career. In truth, they avoid settling out of a fear of choosing wrong, thereby locking themselves into a particular pathway forever.

Clare's life experience has shaped them into an emotional rock for the people in their life, particularly Maliyah. Their calm and levelheaded perspective makes an invaluable reference point, when others need grounding or a second opinion. However, this role quietly weighs on Clare, as much as people like Maliyah do their best to return the favor. When tangled in rebellion, Clare seeks comfort from more experienced mentor figures, learning to better balance their own needs with the support they provide to their friends.

Ref: Maliyah Toran

 

Maliyah Toran, she/her, ~24

Maliyah was born on the lush capital world of irid'An, but a political crisis drove her and her parents to Orus when she was very young. There, they started a small glassblowing business, which has given them a fair amount of stability. Maliyah developed strong artistic talent growing up in this environment, and took well to the craft, though she yearns to get out of the inner city and make her own career.

She is an aspiring pilot, having acquired a small flying boat from a family friend, which she uses to skim the icy waves around her home. The sea - or the air just above it - is a perfect escape for her, particularly when she's upset and needs to step away from the world. She often dreams of piloting the great passenger liners on irid'An, flying low over its picturesque archipelagos.

She's been good friends with Clare for some time, frequently visiting them at the café where they work. Beneath their sarcastic banter lies a strong relationship of mutual support and respect. Though Maliyah perceives Noira as somewhat naive, she conceals a quite strong affinity for her, which Clare is all too amused to help her navigate.

Maliyah is headstrong and confident. She can be hotheaded when she feels strongly about something, and is quick to speak her mind, sometimes against better judgement. Nevertheless, she is still very empathetic, and her fiery demeanor is often motivated in defense of her friends and family. A natural leader, she has some trouble accepting outside authority. When she and her friends are caught up in a revolution, she must learn humility and introspection to earn the respect of others.

Ref: Noira Isabel

Noira Isabel, she/her, ~21

Noira was raised on a small farm on the twilight prairies of pr'Sefone, the innermost world in the Rosa star system. Her mother always wanted the best for her, and encouraged Noira's knack for working with machinery from a young age. Her career eventually took her to Orus, an icy ocean world, the most distant in the Rosa system. There, Noira spent some time as a mechanic aboard an enormous flying cargo ship, Ark Royal.

When Ark Royal was destroyed in an attack by aerial raiders, Noira was left physically burned and emotionally traumatized. Her old mentor, Marion, helped her get back on her feet, hiring her as an apprentice engineer for the mining company that controls Orus. There she explored Orus' capital city, meeting her new friends Clare and Maliyah and slowly coming into her own.

However, the three of them gradually begin to uncover dark truths about their world, and about the company which dominates every facet of their lives. A terrible revelation about her own work causes Noira to break away from Marion and the company. The ensuing moral crisis will lead her and her friends to be caught up in a mysterious rebel organization.

Noira is introverted and shy, but desperately lonely. She is a very skilled mechanic, and takes to engineering design work just as well. Her work gives her a steady sense of purpose and a meager income, but she's still sorely missing those personal connections. She struggles with finding a sense of belonging, and has trouble being so far from her home and her family. She loves her new friends dearly, and blossoms with their support. When the three are ultimately swept up in revolution, her newfound family helps Noira to forge her fears and anxieties into a fierce passion for change.

Noodling about Stakes

Mmm, steaks.

No, I've been thinking about stakes, in a narrative sense: what makes them effective, what makes them relatable and engaging, and the implications thereof on the story of Roselight.

I have big, grand plans for the conflict in this story. Perhaps a bit too grand, at least for the short term.

When I talk about "stakes" here I'm talking specifically about the stakes of the conflicts and engagements in the narrative - what do our characters stand to lose? What does their society or world stand to lose? What happens if they fail? How weighty are the tasks and battles they're undertaking, and do they make sense?

An illustrative example is the Star Wars universe. In the so-called "Skywalker Saga," basically every character is highly influential over the fate of the entire galaxy and its trillions of citizens. The main characters are godlike space wizards and chosen ones, prophetic mythological heroes, and the villain is literally evil incarnate. The fate of the entire universe hangs in the balance, and that gets...pretty boring, sometimes. I know the sequels are easy pickings, but they wrote themselves into a big circle where the only meaningful conflict they could think of was to bring back the evil space wizard and have him be literally every evil space wizard put together, with the goal of annihilating the entire universe or something with a vast navy of enormous planet-sploding spaceships.

Contrast some other spinoff media like the extremely engaging Andor series (no spoilers within). Andor focuses on a much smaller scale; our heroes aren't godlike space wizards, they're drifters and washouts and nobodies, people picked up off the street; their objectives are small and local. We know eventually this story will feed into a more high-stakes plot that, in turn, supports the Skywalker Universe Saving Saga of Destiny. Nevertheless, what feel most impactful are those small stakes we can directly relate to and understand - none of us have saved the universe from pure evil before, but we know what it's like to have arguments and complicated relationships with people, or to be in tough situations in life that we can't seem to find our way out of.

As a window into the overarching plot I'm looking at for Roselight, I can offer a quick and dirty outline of what's outlined so far:

• Noira gets new job after Ark Royal incident, meets friends
• Friends help Noira come out of her shell
• On a trip with friends, Noira discovers the company (ASMC) is razing villages and other bad things
• Noira and friends are hunted by company law enforcement
• They take refuge at a hideout with a resistance organization (Roselight)
• Roselight attacks ASMC's razing operation
• ASMC obliterates Roselight's hideout
• Roselight flees on a desperate mission to run an exposé on the Company
• Many more unknown future events?????

This of course largely excludes any interesting character arcs that take place during the story, in favor of highlighting only the most essential points and events.

So the question I arrive at is: what do I want to get out of this story? How high should the stakes really be here?

My Grand Plan, at a glance, reads like Noira being at the spearhead of a planetwide (small nation-state?) rebellion, which can't happen overnight. The story is naturally about her experiencing the world; we follow her narrow perspective pretty closely until we meet Roselight, where we really see the bigger picture of the issues she's been seeing. There is room, when we meet the revolutionaries, for major events to not include her, and for the story to exceed her direct experience.

However, I do really want to have her and her friends be in most of the main arc. The only one of these bullets that I feel comfortable leaving them out of is Roselight's strike on an ASMC razing operation - this doesn't have to include them for its impact on the story to work. By contrast, the subsequent bullet point - ASMC retaliating by annihilating Roselight HQ - should have our heroes front and center to witness and really internalize the consequences of that event and how those impact their character development.

Furthermore, to get exactly into the issue of today, I have a lot of really big steaks stakes written in there right now. The big one I'm having trouble with is Roselight's very existence being threatened, to the extent that people like Noira and her friends - who are pretty new to this whole thing - being involved in the last-ditch effort to save the group. It implies that the org is at a point of having like 12 people left over, with the goal of those 12 people being to save the entire cause and bring down the giant of ASMC.

There's a couple ways I can deal with this, and a lot of them are mostly just "think about the logistics of the story for 5 more minutes." Some points that could help:

• Roselight is not down to like 12 people. The base of operations that is razed catastrophically is a huge loss of power, but mostly leaves the group homeless rather than decimated. There will certainly be significant casualties, but there's still a structure and chain of command and groups of people doing different things. There are also other places they can operate out of - they've just lost a lot of equipment and their big foothold. They're scrambled and lost, but they can regroup with a lot of work.

This is also important for them to even be able to execute their exposé plan; I'm envisioning a lot of infiltration and espionage that means you still need some deep connections and good hardware available. To this end, I think the island of Cantor, which is what I've been calling the Roselight HQ place, is primarily an airbase, the place they stage the interdictors and some combat ops out of. It's the obvious strategic target for ASMC to eliminate, it's most easily traceable after the attack, and it cripples the organization, but it's not like.....the hideout where the entire resistance lives.

Also, the "last-ditch" exposé plan is probably not that critical, in the sense that it's not the only shot they have left at survival. When I originally conceived of the idea, I thought the destruction of Cantor was a great way to up the ante for the exposé - now they have to succeed, as it's all they have left, fleeing directly from the ruins of Cantor to ASMC headquarters on irid'An. Realistically, a resistance group like this, though not swimming in personnel and capital, has the ability to do multiple things at once; the exposé is a very important mission for their future, and will still be the centerpiece of their activity after the razing of Cantor, but it's not quite a desperate dying breath.

• Remember that the goal is not to save the world. We're focused on one planet, Orus. And, we're not trying to save it from destruction, or even to bring down the big bad company ruling over it, ASMC (although a healthy dose of trust-busting may be in order). Roselight learned from the destruction of Cantor that it can't handle everything on its own. The resistance is hoping to run this exposé on ASMC, which is really just meant to bring its crimes into the public eye and force the hand of the Rosarium government. They're fighting to be treated like people; the degree to which that changes the status quo is up for negotiation if ASMC can at least just NOT RAZE ENTIRE TOWNS.

•  The plot doesn't happen overnight. As I mentioned before, Noira and friends aren't going to end up on the front lines after being at Roselight for a week, but I can give them more things to do, more intermediate steps. It will take them some time to grow acclimated to the environment and to the cause; they need to gain experience and get more involved in the group before they would ever feel comfortable volunteering for that mission, let alone actually be allowed to participate by the chain of command.

Those interim plot points can occur in multiple places; prior to the destruction of Cantor, Noira and friends might be helping with gathering intel and equipment for the attack on ASMC, or otherwise laying the foundations for that work - or, as above, for other things that Roselight might be working on at the same time. It can also be before the destruction of Cantor, to allow our characters to contribute to the big mistake that has big consequences. Room for development!

I think those are definitely the big notes for now. It's worth noting that high stakes are not necessarily a bad thing in a story, if they can be tempered and contextualized. What I don't wanna do is to drop my characters abruptly into a situation where they're responsible for saving the world - they have to naturally develop into that role. Really, I don't have a great idea of the time scale of the overall story (or, for that matter, how that's even measured in-universe), and I think the things I want to have happen lend themselves to a longer story duration.

There's tons of room to incorporate all kinds of fun character interactions and arcs into this. It's one thing to have big obvious story points, and it's another thing entirely to stitch those together. I don't want the overall story to be a vessel serving no purpose besides transporting the plot from A to B to C - again, the events should progress naturally in between, and it's going to be the much smaller-scale stuff that makes that happen.

One last bit before I forget - I'm in the early stages of formulating new characters that our trio of kids will meet when they first take refuge with Roselight. We need to have some known members of the resistance, and I'm looking forward to developing them in time. Some names have popped into my head: Donner (he/him) and Kierstyn (she/her). These two might be closer to peers of our protagonists, or they might lie higher in the command structure, occupying leadership roles - I'm not sure yet, but the structure and details of Roselight itself are a whole new can of worms that I'm not going to open right now.

That's all for this one - mostly a log of my own storymaking process. Also, happy 2023! Here's to many more posts in the new year.

Roselight Outline: Part 5

The passengers of the lifeboat are stranded, sitting apart in defeated silence, for several hours. Ark Royal was able to get a distress signal out during the attack, but the nearest emergency vessel, Haven, still took some time to fly in. Haven is a small, fast, ground-effect ship equipped for rescues just like this, and is able to recover the crew members quickly once it finally arrives.

Aboard Haven, Noira’s worst fears are realized. Theirs was the only lifeboat recovered intact, and only about 10-12 of Ark Royal’s original crew of 40 survived. Marion is drawn away immediately to report to ASMC and AM about the incident, focused on lost assets and damage control; Noira is painfully alone during the flight back home. Her physical injuries are major, but will heal; her arms and hands are treated and bandaged by the medical staff aboard Haven.

When Haven arrives back at Ark Royal’s home port, Marion approaches Noira during the slow docking process. He apologizes for his blunt treatment towards her during the attack and for his absence during the voyage home. He informs her that he’ll be ending his part-time work aboard Arcturus Meridian’s various support vessels and return to working full-time as a lead engineer for ASMC. Noira is distraught by this, but he makes her an offer: he can open an apprentice engineering position in his department for her. She would come with him to Orus’ capital city (on a separate island/continent from where she’d been working), and receive generous compensation from the company for her losses. Tearfully, she accepts, and begins to look again to the future.

~ ~ ~

Author's note: this is a bit of a shorter one, but this is a good stopping point for now. I have a lot of plot stuff that I need to develop and flesh out some more - there's a lot already written up after this point, but a lot of details need to be worked out in the middle, so I'm going to try and take some time during this winter break to do some brainstorming and worldbuilding and get some of it more developed. Stay tuned!

Roselight Outline: Part 4

(Author's note: buckle up, this one's a bit of a doozy.)

Noira is finishing a maintenance shift near the leading edge of Ark Royal’s enormous wing, where she tends to hydraulic systems that keep the vast control surfaces running smoothly. As she completes her work, she is relieved by a telegraph-like pattern of sounds that emits from a device on the wall – the tone means SHIFT CHANGE, and accordingly she packs up her things and heads up towards the door. On her way out of the maintenance room, she passes Kori, her new friend from the previous round, and they exchange brief pleasantries. Kori goes on to take up her shift, and Noira starts down the long corridors of the ship.

Meanwhile, Marion is out on a balcony near the tail of the great ship, taking in a bit of fresh air after his own management shift has ended. He gazes idly out over the horizon, almost dozing – until a glint of light over the dark sea catches his eye. At the same time he notices it, he hears crews behind him – from the defensive platform near the bow – scrambling and calling urgently to each other. Ark Royal’s two deck-mounted turrets begin to mobilize, and as he looks back out to see, Marion has a sudden realization – something is very wrong. He turns and runs inside.

Noira is only a third of the way through the ship when she is stopped in her tracks by a new tone from the telegraph – AIR RAID. Briefly immobilized by panic, when the tone sounds again she sets off bolting down the hall.

A trio of light, nimble aircraft are bearing down on Ark Royal, holding a tight formation. While the deck cannons are still seeking their targets, the raider aircraft are already firing, bullets skittering across the top deck. The turrets finally find their mark, downing one of the raiders with ease – but they regroup immediately, firing with greater precision and destroying the offending turret. As they close on Ark Royal, the remaining turret can’t track them both quickly enough, firing futile shots into the sky. A concerted effort from the raiders brings an end to the second turret, leaving no impediment to their arrival. Matching Ark Royal’s airspeed, they alight upon the deck and sweep their wings forward; large panel doors slide back on both aircraft, and their occupants – the raiders – drop down onto the surface, bundled in thick cold-weather clothing and armed with malicious-looking weaponry.

Noira continues through the ship’s passages, struggling to open its heavy nautical bulkhead doors fast enough – she’s nearly to the crew quarters when she opens a door and runs straight into one of the raiders. She stumbles back, cornered in fear; the raider follows but doesn’t seem interested in killing her. When he speaks, it’s almost taunting – that she doesn’t understand what’s really happening here, that she doesn’t see what she’s really a part of. She’s still struggling to understand these confusing words when Marion arrives, taking the raider by surprise and dispatching him in short order. Noira is happy to see him, and he’s obviously concerned for her safety. He urges her to follow him to the lifeboats in case the ship falls, but she’s adamant about retrieving more of her belongings, just a few doors and decks away. He acquiesces, telling her to hurry, and she’s off again down the halls.

Noira finally reaches the ladder up to the crew quarters, and is already partway up when an enormous explosion rocks the vessel, knocking her down from the ladder, incidentally saving her from a jet of flame that bursts from the deck overhead. She stares in disbelief for a moment before irrationality sets in; fire and smoke actively pours from the deck above but she desperately tries to climb again, burning her arms and hands on the metal, her face and clothing singed. Abruptly she’s pulled away – Marion followed the explosion and is now forcefully pulling her off the ladder, away from the inhospitable upper deck. She kicks and screams and cries, inconsolable; he sternly reprimands her enough for her to come to her senses, and she reluctantly follows him towards the lifeboat bay, the ship shuddering and straining around them.

Only a handful of other crew members have made it to the lifeboat bay when Marion and Noira arrive; Kori is not among them. The remaining crew board one of the vehicles, strapping into their seats. Marion sets off the deployment sequence – the lifeboat slides backwards out of Ark Royal on rails, firing a parachute behind it to arrest its airspeed. The lifeboat half-glides, half-plummets into the sea, plowing to a stop in the icy water as Ark Royal sails on ahead. Jumping up from her seat, Noira reaches the window in time to watch the raiders depart. Her home rolls leisurely to one side, catching on the jagged sea ice before tumbling into the waves. The waves finally quenching her fires, Ark Royal slips silently into the sea.

Roselight Outline: Part 3

 Ark Royal begins its journey, stopping at a number of small logistics centers on its way out to sea, many hours passing as Rosa’s light fades from the empty sky. The most exciting part of their mission is still to come: a visit to one of the most productive open-cast mines still in operation. We learn that the largest and least resource-rich islands on Orus were settled, leaving the innumerable smaller mountains as the prime targets for extraction; however, many of these are beginning to shut down as their resources are exhausted, leaving ASMC in search of new sources and new extraction methods. This particular voyage is carrying tech demos for some of these methods, intended to qualify their use prior to deployment.

Dozens of hours later, as the sky darkens and home grows distant, Noira and the rest of the crew gather on the balconies atop Ark Royal to see the spotlights of the mine appear on the horizon, casting their cold beams into the night air. The anticipation is palpable as Ark Royal approaches, pulling up to the dockside at a servicing platform anchored to the island's steep rocky walls. An enormous chute descends from over the rim of the crater, snaking down the dark mountainside as crews align it with Ark Royal's bulk cargo bays.

While this happens, Noira and other members of the crew not directly associated with mining operations take a service pathway up the mountainside, winding alongside the cargo chute - maybe a light vehicle to make the drive. They're all anxious to get a glimpse inside this historic mine, to see with their own eyes what's only been poorly reproduced in images. Drawing nearer, they can hear the sounds of machinery from within, mingling with a noise Noira can't quite place. As they arrive at the top, they all flock to an overlook platform to see inside...

Robert W. Smith's Inferno is a good representation of what Noira sees.

The mine is an enormous pit - staggeringly high, a vast column bored far below the waterline. The spiralling steps along its walls are themselves vastly high, dwarfing the still-massive mining vehicles trundling along their worn paths. At the floor of the mine lies a terrible colossus, the monstrously large Founder-Processor, breathing laboriously as it rests against the near wall. It's a machine larger than Noira can possibly wrap her head around, its groans and strains echoing nightmarishly up and out of the mine, lost within the dark void above. Those gargantuan mining vehicles are but ants at its feet, bringing their offerings to deposit at its conveyor entrance. Slowly, violently, and eternally, the Founder-Processor melts down and purifies the ores in its dark burning heart, belching waste material down into the sea. It struggles perpetually as it heaves thousands of tons of processed minerals and alloys up the impossibly high pit wall, finally vomiting them over the ridge and down the long chute into Ark Royal's bays. Noira finds herself petrified by the scale; what she sees is horrifying and alien to her.

The whole scene is illuminated by several clusters of spotlights overseeing the operation. Tipped off by one of the visiting officers, a nearby set rotates around to illuminate our crew members, turning night into day as its blinding gaze sweeps over them. Noira feels the spotlights, the eyes of the machine, piercing into her heart; they see into the depths of her soul, into parts of her she herself has not yet discovered. The experience haunts her.

The crew descend down the mountain at their leisure; Noira hurries back to the ship. Others continue to mill about as Ark Royal continues to take on bulk cargo; some old mining equipment and such is also transferred aboard. Noira encounters a few of the crew members she’s gotten familiar with, in particular a woman named Kori. They spend a moment in the night together, mostly making small talk about the voyage and the mine. Kori is looking forward to her return home, her wife and children waiting for her. Noira, by contrast, prefers her life on the ship; she has little at home to go back to. She pretends to relate all the same; Kori is friendly and Noira appreciates the company.

After some time, Ark Royal has taken on all it can from the mine, and its crew board once again for the return journey. They have a few more stops ahead of them, particularly to deploy the experimental equipment they carry, but the crew knows they’re in the home stretch of their voyage. Home is on the horizon, as they enter the deepest, darkest round of the night…

Characters!

 So! I've developed a lot of the general story behind Roselight so far, and I promise more of the vague summary is coming soon!

But I wanted to take a moment to develop some of the character relationships that will become important in the rest of the story - and showcase these characters to begin with!

So here is the diagram I made for myself, which several sources report is illegible but pretty:

In fact, it's even less legible after the blogger compression, so don't even bother reading the tiny text - I'll just transcribe it below.

The four main characters we have so far are Maliyah, Clare, Noira, and Marion. Each arrow depicts one direction of a relationship between two characters, with a little associated text blurb to describe some of the main attributes of their dynamic. The text mostly describes how the starting point of the arrow feels/acts towards the endpoint of the arrow.

(Note that Marion only knows Noira, while the other three develop close friendship with each other.)

MARION -> NOIRA

Mentor

• Mostly professional, work-related
• Limited emotional support
• Wants the best for Noira; recognizes her potential and skill, but has a bit of a "vision" for her career
• Some inaccurate social views bleed over into a misguided protectiveness

NOIRA -> MARION

Student

• Looks up to Marion for guidance, primarily career-oriented
• Very impressionable, and tends to value his opinions on other matters more than is perhaps justified
• Perceives - mostly correctly - very high expectations, both as a professional and just in general as a person.
• Frets quite a bit about disappointing or letting him down, failing to meet his "vision"
• Will begin to pull pretty strongly from said vision as she learns more about who she is, culminating in The Big Revelation of Doom^TM

NOIRA -> CLARE

Confides

• Gets along very naturally despite very different overall demeanors
• Noira finds them very approachable & trusts them with more insecure feelings than Maliyah
• Admires their sociability/extrovertedness, tries to learn some self-confidence
• Somewhat envies their pretty clear sense of what they're doing in life - namely, having fun! Clare has ambitions, but doesn't depend on meeting external goals to enjoy the journey

CLARE -> NOIRA

Advises

• Clare is very good at helping people talk through their feelings, which Noira struggles with.
• Admires her apparent focus & interest in a particular niche, as they have difficulty finding specific interests
• Serves as a sort of grounding/reference point - am I being unreasonable? Clare will be honest with you.

CLARE -> MALIYAH

Assures

• Similar to relationship with Noira, but Clare knows Maliyah's tendencies much better by now & tends to know how she's feeling already
• Lots of friendly banter that stems from this mutual understanding
• Gently guides when she & Noira have trouble understanding each other

MALIYAH -> CLARE

Supports

• Maliyah's known Clare a long time, and they've both helped each other through rough times
• Provides a lot of just consistent support & company. Clare isn't specifically unhappy with their current job, but Maliyah visiting & hanging out often goes a long way
• Much like Noira, Maliyah often confides her insecurities to Clare, particularly when that barrier with Noira appears

MALIYAH -> NOIRA

Shares

• Wants to help make Noira feel at home, understood & supported
• Quietly knows Noira needs to see more of the reality of Orus, but is more than happy to explore with her...
• Sometimes has trouble relating to Noira's understanding of the world; occasionally inclined to dismiss views she perceives as naïve
• Still, ultimately comes to care strongly for her...

NOIRA -> MALIYAH

Learns

• Again, Noira is deeply impressionable, swept up in the excitement of discovery - exploring Orus and making new friends
• Really enjoys learning from & listening to Maliyah, even if much of her perspective is foreign
• Desperately wants to impress well on Maliyah, and to reciprocate the support that means so much to her...

Roselight Outline: Part 2

The time comes for Noira to return to Orus; her family sees her off, as they take one of the older land carriages up to Eterna, the capital city and spaceport of pr’Sefone. Telma is wary. We don’t know where the father in this family is…but Telma worries for her daughter. They exchange their sincere goodbyes, and there’s an unspoken feeling that neither understands; that somehow, things are going to be different…

Noira boards a shuttle carried high over Eterna by a large, double-hulled airship. Upon release, the shuttle ignites rocket engines to power its way free of the planet, chasing down an interworld cycler. As the shuttle docks to its new home, Noira takes a moment to look back down at the world she’s leaving behind, city lights glimmering in the perpetual dusk; far below, her family watches the brilliant star of the cycler sail away, off into the deep open sky.

The trip only lasts a few days, owing to the compact nature of the Rosa system, close-packed worlds whirling close to their mother. Noira explores some of the luxurious faculties of the cycler; it’s a permanent space station, furnished on the inside something like a vast ocean liner. The cycler coasts between worlds, catching and releasing transient fleets of passenger shuttles. Other passengers are more prone to socializing and partaking in extravagant recreation to pass the time; Noira mostly keeps to herself.

Arriving on Orus involves a violent and somewhat harrowing reentry, culminating in a balloon-arrested descent. In fact, the shuttles don’t “land” at all — the deployed envelope brings them to a halt high above ground level, allowing the safed vehicles to be towed into port by tug balloons.

Disembarking is its own ordeal. Life on Orus is controlled in totality by ASMC, which views the world as one big mining village and claims the right to police it accordingly. They form a sort of paragovernment agency that, among many other unpleasant policies, maintains an intrusive transportation security force. Noira isn’t surprised by this, having been through the process before, but we note that the screening makes her very uncomfortable, and she is relieved to make it through and get on with her life.

Her life on Orus is not nearly as peaceful and idyllic as the farm on pr’Sefone. Noira lives in dense, decrepit tenement housing, the only living standard she can afford even with her pretty strong qualifications. She lives on an island named Kaldus, which is fringe even by Orus standards — it’s near the edge of the more populated island chains, serving as a staging point to mines situated far out at sea. Overall, Noira’s not too fond of her life ashore, and views Ark Royal as her home while she’s on Orus.

While we’re with Noira, she witnesses the vessel Ark Duchess limping into port, apparently after some significant catastrophe. Depending on exactly how I want to spin the narrative, Ark Duchess may have fallen victim to an air raid, sustaining significant damage from gunfire and losing many crew members in the process. Alternatively, it may be returning from an open cast mine which suffered a catastrophic seawall collapse, damaging the ship and killing many mine workers. In either case, the incident reminds Noira (and the audience) of the hazards of her occupation, and the image of body bags being carried off the stricken vessel leaves her wary ahead of her upcoming voyage.

Noira prepares for her next voyage out on Ark Royal. On the way out, the ship will carry supplies and logistical support equipment out to a number of open-cast mines; in exchange, Ark Royal will pick up thousands of tons of bulk cargo and raw materials harvested from the mines, delivering them back to port to be processed in ASMC’s various plants and facilities. As a first for Noira, this voyage will take place primarily during the long night — Orus has a lengthy day/night cycle, so darkness will last what we would call about a week. This makes the voyage inherently more hazardous than those Noira has been on before; the seas are fraught with shifting floes of ice, and Orus’ place at the fringe of the Rosa system means not even the other worlds can illuminate its midnight skies.

Preparations begin around dusk, with Rosa’s disk lingering over the far horizon. Noira brings the majority of her belongings with her in luggage to board Ark Royal. At the port, we meet her mentor from the company, Marion Montaigne.

Marion is a senior engineer at ASMC who’s been helping to represent company interests as part of their partnership with Grand Ark Aeromarine. Arcturus Meridian, the supply line operator that Noira works for, requires input from both its parents to run smoothly: while Noira helps maintain GAA’s vehicle hardware, Marion ensures the machines support ASMC’s broader logistical needs. However, Marion has considerable technical prowess, and mentors Noira as she takes on more responsibility at AM. The night voyage is a part of this, as the environmental conditions are significantly more demanding as vehicle maintenance is concerned: lower temperatures, more turbulent air conditions, and a general inability to alight on the water in emergency situations.

They both know Noira is ready to shoulder the additional responsibility, even as she’s a bit nervous about the new situation. They talk about this at the gangway as the ship is prepared for its long voyage….

Roselight Outline: Part 1

I've got a lot of notes I've written on the general storyline for Roselight. So far they've only been maintained as a vague bulleted list, but I think a good exercise will be to convert this to prose. This isn't like proper written novel format, but will help organize my thoughts better, while introducing you, my dear blogreaders, to the story. So here goes!

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Noira comes from a Sefones family who’ve been sustaining themselves on a small farm for generations. Small, family farms like these are starting to be outcompeted by growing industry; unsustainable practices mean creeping desertification further threatens smaller farms that can’t afford to repair and maintain the land. Noira’s family’s future is uncertain; her mother Telma presses her to follow her own path and pursue a career to support herself, to escape the worsening situation on pr’Sefone. Noira has many younger siblings, who are needed to help keep the farm alive. Although Telma hopes to help them all succeed, the proverbial eggs are sort of in Noira’s basket.

Noira learned some mechanical work from maintaining farm equipment. She got her first job beyond farming at Wollstone Air Freight, the operator of pr’Sefone’s ubiquitous airship lines, shipping passengers and cargo simultaneously across the plains. She deliberately shied away from working for the big industrial farming corporations, since they directly threaten her family’s livelihood.

Eventually, Noira’s connections at Wollstone landed her a more promising position working for Arcturus Meridian: a joint venture between Arcturus Steel and Mineral Company (ASMC), the preeminent mining corporation on Orus, and Grand Ark Aeromarine, the manufacturer of enormous airborne ground effect cargo ships. Leaving home was difficult, but she’s found her work enjoyable and made something of a home aboard the bulk cargo carrier Ark Royal. She’s been working this job for some time now, having participated in several week-length voyages servicing open-cast mines across the planet.

The main line of the story picks up when Noira visits home on pr’Sefone between voyages aboard Ark Royal. We see vast farms cultivating hardy crops which are, in a fantasy sort of way, vaguely recognizable but rather distinct from what we’re familiar with on Earth (the idea being they’re genetically engineered for the environment and output). Much of the world consists of small homesteads linked by long roads, although aerostat travel is common, creating a role similar to earthly sailing ships for transporting goods. However, those enormous corporations are carving roads and rails into the landscape, wearing out the soil and subjecting the world to ever-worsening dust storms. This only furthers the struggle of small farms which can’t afford to fight through the difficult conditions.

Noira spends time at home with her mother and siblings, admiring/envying the simple joy and purpose with which they work the farm. She has a conversation with her mother about how she struggles with a sense of belonging; she doesn’t have much in the way of “family” on Orus, and feels very lonely a lot of the time. These ideas of family and belonging will be major themes throughout the rest of the story…

As a keepsake to help remind her of home, Telma gifts Noira the old wooden kalimba on which she used to play lullabies for her daughter. She also gives Noira an heirloom —  a small, beautiful moon-shaped necklace, carrying a relic gemstone from the old world…