101: Prisoner of Youth

ENTRY 101: Prisoner of Youth

Fads don’t last. Every generation learns that the hard way. Clothes, vehicles, jewelry, philosophies, religions, politics, attitudes; those can all be discarded, tucked away, or changed as public opinion shifts, latches onto the ice-hot new thing. Technology is very fad-driven, dependent on the early rush of interest to generate wide adoption, spur development, get investors to throw their credits at you. Early adopters take on a lot of risks, and none moreso than those who put their faith and their resources into body modifications and morphs. It’s an old story: the dye job you couldn’t wait to grow out; the tattoo you got that was just an embarrassment later; those hologram dermal inlays on your eyelids that were all the rage for about two weeks before the basilisk hack hit people when they were sleeping… Fads hit morphs even harder. A body or a shell doesn’t quite come cheap or easy in most places; there’s too much infolife and not enough bods to go around.

Of course, that’s cold comfort if you’re born in one. Prisoner of Youth was a Luna kid just when neotenics was taking off like wildfire; their parents actually had to buy into a lottery for the procedure. Hypercorps were scouting the fetus in utero, promising scholarships and guaranteed contracts for smallships in the half-size colonies they were planning. By the time Prisoner of Youth hit full growth at six, the opportunities had dried up; the mass exodus from Earth meant there were too many full-sized bodies, no need to muck about with pint-sized habitats. So PoY didn’t get the world they were promised, the world they were built and trained for, a walking talking fashion disaster a decade out of date with the rest of the ‘verse. Others handled the transition better; immortal “child” models and actors and sex workers who could always find a market for what they were selling, but Prisoner of Youth knew they were meant for the stars, and that’s where they’ll be some day.

COG	COO	INT	REF	SAV	SOM	WIL	MOX
18	17	18	16	14	12	16	-
INIT	SPD	LUC	TT	IR	DUR	WT	DR
7	1	32	6	64	30	6	45

Morph: Neotenic (Neuter)

Skills: Academics: Astrophysics 45, Academics: Physics 55, Deception 35, Fray 33, Free Fall (Microgravity) 67, Gunnery 55, Hardware: Aerospace 50, Infiltration 33, Infosec 45, Interests: Gatecrashing 55, Interests: Spacecraft 55, Kinesics 45, Kinetic Weapons 55, Language: Native Korean 90, Language: English 55, Language Japanese 50, Language Javanese 50, Language Swahili 45, Language Urdu 45, Navigation 80, Networking: Autonomists 35, Netowrking: Hypercorps 55, Perception 50, Persuasion 40, Pilot: Spacecraft 65, Profession: Navigation 60, Profession: Pilot 65, Unarmed Combat 30

Implants: Basic Biomods, Basic Mesh Inserts, Cortical Stack, Medichines, Oracles

Advantages: Eidetic Memory, Hyperlinguist, Limber (1), Rapid Healer

Disadvantages: Morphing Disorder (3), Social Stigma (Neotenic)

Using Prisoner of Youth

Priz to friends, Poi to workmates, full name for formal situations. Prisoner of Youth looks about nine years old, in that androgynous way where primary sexual characteristics haven’t hit yet, and will remain looking terminally prepubescent for the rest of their life, no matter how much war paint they put on their face and arms, or how many beads they weave into the waist-length dreads that they wear. PoY isn’t precisely an adult in a child’s body, the genehacking that goes into neotenics is a lot more involved than that. They heal quick, like a kid, bouncing back from scrapes and even broken bones easier than an adult; and they’re bright like kids are at a certain age, picking up skills easily, but Prisoner has the attitude of a pissed off teenager whose physical reality denies them the opportunity to make full use of their skills. PoY faces discrimination as a fact of life, and will meet it head on when they perceive it; but give Prisoner a chance to shine as a space pilot or navigator and they’ll slip into the zone.