297: Jane Starware

ENTRY 297: Jane Starware

"You see an orphan. I see an undeveloped personnel resource."
- Nicky Blackstone

Hypercorporate life can be tough on families. Along with the hustle and bustle of work, meetings, training camps, seminars, conferences, and all the other events that fill the business portion of the calendar, hypercorps are also societies with their own holidays, teambuilding events, birthdays, and parties, and have to incorporate transhuman events like weddings, funerals, births, resleeving, augmentation and sick leave, and office sex. Employment in a hypercorp, as opposed to freelancing, is a serious commitment for both the hypercorp and the employee and their families. There are health, financial, and educational benefits to be sorted out, and each employee represents a massive investment in time and resources. So on occasion when an employee dies or chooses to give up their children for whatever reason - or, in some cases, when unauthorized fraternization leads to an unexpected and undesired pregnancy - the hypercorp will adopt and raise the child as its own. (Some hypercorps tried the whole clone-worker approach, but after the debacle with Moletronics Amalgamated Genetics, it's a hard sell.)

Jane Starware is one of the adopted children of Starware hypercorp, born and raised by the Starware community, educated through their Pre-Professional Trainee Program, and slotted to advance into their Advanced Internship (Remunerated) program next semester if she can keep her grades up. Individual orphans' relationship to their parent corporations is determined by corporate law and their respective contracts with the hypercorp in question; Jane is currently operating under a "pre-majority contract" which can expire when she reaches legal majority, unless she chooses to transition into a full employment contract.

COG	COO	INT	REF	SAV	SOM	WIL	MOX
11	14	12	9	9	7	10	-
INIT	SPD	LUC	TT	IR	DUR	WT	DR
4	1	20	4	40	35	7	50

Morph: Menton

Skills: Academics: History 16, Academics: Physics 16, Art: Singing 14, Deception 13, Free Fall 13, Hardware: Robotics 14, Interests: Hypercorps 15, Interests: Kid Fashion 14, Interests: Starware Lore 16, Interfacing 17, Investigation 16, Kinesics 15, Language: Native German 78, Language: English 70, Language: French 63, Networking: Hypercorps 15, Networking: Scientists 15, Perception 15, Profession: Student 15, Profession: Intern 15, Programming 16, Protocol (Corporate) 15, Research 15, Unarmed Combat 16
Implants: Basic Biomods, Basic Mesh Inserts, Cortical Stack, Eidetic Memory, Hyper-Linguist, Math Boost

Using Jane Starware

Being an orphan doesn't always mean being an unloved, unwanted brat. Jane Starware hasn't received a traditional upbringing, but just because she can't identify a specific prime parental figure (she's never met the donors of her genetic material, but for her birthday she was allowed to view their personnel records and noted they both scored very highly on the standard evaluations before their untimely deaths, though those records are still sealed). She's young, and rather optimistic about her future, but curious about the outside world. Her place in the corporate hierarchy isn't confirmed yet, but she already has a rather large indenture hanging over her head (sunk costs from raising her), and Starware aims to recoup those resources one way or another.

Seeds

• Jane has a teenage rebellion stage scheduled, and the hidden sensors in her living facility have picked up evidence of outside communication and a likely runaway attempt. Starware is already aware of this, and plans to let her go for a few weeks or months to experience the outside world. However, Jane's Personal Manager is worried about her safety, and approaches the player characters to keep an eye on her and keep her away from any real threats to her future. If the PCs are up for a little ninja chaperoning, they'll earn a sizable favor from a Starware exec.
• Jane Starware approaches the PCs. She wants them to uncover the sealed files on the death of her parents/genetic donors from the Starware corporate archives, and can provide a limited amount of assistance. All she has to pay is her "piggy bank" - a secret cache of Starware coupons that can get the PCs up to 20% off on any single purchase.
• A group named the Comprachicos approaches the PCs, asking them to help extract Jane from her indentured status so she can be placed with a more traditional transhuman family. After the extraction goes off, the PCs are approached by Starware, and find out that the Comprachicos are a gang of corporate headhunters aiming to sell Jane to a microcorp with less stringent ethical standards toward their juvenile employees and corporate wards.