Name:Dr. Aspen Charles Harlow Aliases:"Trouble", "Theresa Rubble", "Squirrel", "Lyssa","TheSapling" Species:Sirian Human (Psionic) Gender:Woman (She/They) Date of Birth:February 14th, 800 AS (34 years old) Place of Birth:Rock Creek Township, Planet Erie, Pennsylvania Protectorate Affiliation:Freelancer (formerly Zoners) Occupation:Explorer Pilot, Adventurer Studies:Social and Cognitive Psychology (Columbia University, Liberty University Manhattan), Field Science Officer Training (SLRC)
Marital Status:Unmarried Notable Family:
Father:Henry Harlow - alive
Mother:Teresa Harlow - alive
Brother:Jacob Harlow - deceased
Uncle-in-law:Col. Eckhart B. Donahue - unknown
Cousin-in-law:Spc. Jerron P. Donahue - unknown
Physical Details:
Hair Color:Auburn
Eye Color:Amber Brown
Skin Type:Sun-kissed light skin
Other Features:Scattered freckles on cheeks and forehead.
Height:5ft 10in
Weight:161lbs
Scarring:A small faded scar at the top of her spine from a prior surgery. A shallow scar on top of her head, running forward just barely past the end of her hairline. A surgery scar near the lower lateral ribs. Very faint and scattered laceration scarring on her left arm.
Physical Characteristics:
Fitness:Within healthy ranges. Common morning exercise and a rounded diet.
Muscularity:Slightly understrength for average. Thin musculature.
Capability:Basic training in working smarter, not harder. Good for light field work and traveling, not much use for heavy labor. Decent endurance.
Skills:
Specialties:Knowledge, Insight, Perception, Survival, Piloting, Social Skills
Born in 800 AS in the vast wooded wilderness of Planet Erie to a pair of Zoner physicians and settlers. Aspen enjoyed a childhood of relative freedom in the rustic living standards and mild danger of the Erie outback. Social and intrepid, Aspen's eyes were aimed at the stars from this young age while she and her childhood friends tore throughout Rock Creek and the surrounding glens and lakes. On coming of age, she begrudgingly agreed with her parents towards a plan to enroll for university on Manhattan, paid for with her mother's old spacer wealth, though she'd change her course of study after only two years and contact with her parents would become strained. The many years of study on Manhattan, while demanding, instilled in Aspen a sense of distant identification with Liberty.
After graduation and several years of private and public consulting employment on Erie, her restlessness lent weight to a call to the space beyond Pennsylvania pulling her away from her day-to-day. Against the warnings of her experienced mother about the dangers of spacer life, Aspen spent her credits to take a dive on flight school in 829 AS looking for a potential career change, or at least a more thrilling hobby.
Achieving her permit from Valley Forge, Aspen served as crew on a jointly-owned Pelican Cormorant for many months, gathering Helium-3 until affording her own basic exploration vessel. Eager to see new stars on her own initiative, she cut her teeth cataloguing planetary bodies and visiting stations in the Independent Worlds. Before long, though, a shapeless need to follow a distant call would strike her during a routine flight, drawing her into a mental haze she only emerged from after having stumbled on the secluded Shrine. Indirectly through the explanations of other pilgrims present, she first learned of the plight of the Nomads and of the species' tragic standoff with humankind.
This spark set her on a course of discovery towards more esoteric knowledge hidden throughout the sector. She flew for a time as a member of the Starlight Research Consortium and participated in perilous test trials of the Carrier Dreamscape that thrust it into the lost Alberta system, within a deadly dark matter storm. Concurrently, she also survived several consequential encounters with the Nomads alongside the Technocracy of Auxo.
In the course of these events in space, Aspen's reaction to unusual stimuli suggested a latent psionic sensitivity in the Zoner pioneer. Initially both intrigued and unnerved by this revelation, she was eventually drawn towards an opportunity to stimulate that sense by a selfish fascination with the unknown. A voluntary subjection to psychic phenomena near the Shrine supposedly awakened her to the unseen landscape that thought carves onto reality, which Aspen continues to try to understand. Her personality since this occurrence doesn't seem to have shifted drastically on the surface, but she did soon begin exhibiting a ritualistic bent as well as spurts of nebulously motivated behavior unbecoming of her prior self, possibly as a result of the stress of what came afterward.
Liberty's launching of Operation Pesticide against the Pennsylvania Protectorate saw Aspen abandon her pursuits abroad and return to her home system, organizing supplies and support alongside other Zoners for the rebel Pinnacle Outpost. Her spacecraft was destroyed over the planet by LSF interceptors, though she survived the shootdown and continued to aid the resistance as an organizer and scout for several years. By the time of Liberty's eventual change in edict towards detente with Zoners sector-wide, Aspen had ended her association with the remaining rebels, having slowly grown weary of the bloodshed and the fading hopes of the cause.
Present (834-)
Following several close calls after departing Pennsylvania, she has appeared in a relatively quiet position on Gran Canaria in the far Omegas, putting her prior experiences behind her. After a short stint working in the private sector to return a few favors, Aspen restarted a humble career in space for the Canarian Survey Corps. Slotted into Wing 9 of the Corps' freighter roster, her missions for them typically involved deep space reconnaissance, jump hole mapping, deploying satellites, resource probes, and other small informational infrastructure in space. To her enjoyment, they would also occasionally land on planets to take atmospheric readings or collect data on local features, life and points of interest to catalogue for further study.
Near the end of 834, Aspen departed on a volitional mission to track down a lost spacecraft in the far Omicrons. She returned intact, but noticeably troubled from this mission, sharing the details of what she saw at the furthest edge of Sirian space with no one on her return, instead being met with disappointment at Zoner political developments. Strained further as the Survey Corps buckled under the human cost of its missions and the rapid rise of militancy among the Zoner society altering its priorities, Aspen's association with the society at large has grown distant. She now pursues goals wholly her own, and shared with few.