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(BIO ONLY) Thoughts on a backstory

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SnowDragon

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« on: <11-30-14/1046:47> »
Got bored. Wrote backstory for Titanium (from Shadowrunner's tale up in fiction.) Have played the character for maaaaany years. Lemme know if everything flows (Or just read to entertain yourselves, I suppose!). I'm also looking for errors in timeline, errors to do with the game world, etc. Thanks chaps! OH, aside from the helicopter, something my GM gave me back in the day and it's just been a staple ever since.

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Where do I start? I had a good life. I had a really good life. Everything I wanted as a kid, really. The stories of those who grow up in the stormdrains fighting devil rats for their once a day feed, all those were just myths. That couldn't really happen to actual *people*, could it? Those that it happened to were just that, not people. If they couldn't support themselves, then they did it by choice. Willingly let themselves suffer. It sounds cruel, I know. Every child who grows up the way I did, in their pampered, staffed apartments, anyone willing to tell the tale when they learn the real truth of the real world tells the same story. It's almost like brainwashing, like the rich and the elite are trying their best to pretend that they are the only ones allowed to be called alive, allowed to be referred to as actual lifeforms. And that anyone below them not rich enough, or able enough, was less than alive. Less than human. Garbage, to be used and then disposed of once its usefulness had been expended.

Yes, I grew up a pampered private school kid. I got a proper education. Hell, I even got access to sports, on real grass, too. We all have our past lives, you know that. You know that better than most. Get driven to school, by one of those less than human employees my parents hired for minimum wage. Get taught the corporate line your parents fed you from the cradle. Learn to do things in a coporately accepted way. Learn to speak in a corporately accepted way. That teacher is long dead now. Heck, she was living on borrowed time when I went through the system. People like us, we learn, eventually. Something opens our eyes to the lies around us. And compared to you, I'm young. Oh so young. You've lived the lives we in the ivory tower of the mighty Nuyen were taught to hate, fear and despise. You don't want to hear that though, do you? It's all an echo chamber. The parents give the kids the ammo, and the teachers in their echo chambers add parts and training to that. And before you even know it, you're ready to become a brand new corporate highliner, in a position they picked for you, of course. Those in the ivory towers always knew best.

So why abandon the life that would have been perfect so long as I had kept my eyes closed forever, racked in the big bucks and lived happily ever after? I don't think I could ever answer that question. It was the first day, the big day, the beginning of the rest of your life. I stood in front of the Ares Central Division building, you know the one with the black and the lobby made of crystal and glass? Yeah, that one. Soon to become Vice-Chair of Accounts Receivable. Can you believe that? It would've been my job to sit on the 63rd floor, and order debt collectors to kick in doors? That was the job description, I am not even kidding. I can't explain it. I was in a tight jacket and a skirt for power that only went down to about... heeeeere. High heels, the lot. Four steps past the Knight Errant boys who didn't even know who I was yet and we'd have never met, let alone speak about my life. I turned, and I ran. And I ran, hard. By the time Ares realised I'd skipped my first day, I'd run to the UCAS armed forces. I always think back to the man who signed me up. I wonder if he's still got his job. He must've known I was running, and whom it was from. It wasn't like I stopped to tear off the Ares badges, or stripped to something less formal and powerful. He knew. And he got me out of there quicker than policy dictated.

When you're out from underneath your parents and the choking atmosphere of the megacorp you were born into, it's like a different world altogether. Boot camp. That was hard. It's hard because I went from a girl who never lifted a finger in her entire life to being expected to run four miles carrying your entire life each and every day, while some crazy man in his forties screams at you constantly. It was harder because that same man had to decondition me from years of shit the corp world feeds their kids, stuff they don't realise. Stuff you don't even think about. Like how looking at a mess on the floor and searching for a lower class slave so you could order him to clean it. Snarl if you want. That is what they teach you. That you're better than the scum around you. Those in my unit hated me, and I'm thankful for it. And, maybe, somewhere, they're happy they were able to introduce a brainwashed corporate slave to the reality of the real world. You learn to hate those who taught you everything with every fibre of your being for the lies you were told. You don't even think that they themselves were the victims of generations back. To breed and to make better employees for the company that hardly even needs them.

Turning into a bit of a sob, isn't it? Don't feel sorry for me. I know those of you who lived it tough are sneering. Good. I learned the joys of flight. They say I was gifted, and they wisked me away to flight school in an instant. I *learned* to fly. And I was good at it. Better than I ever would have been pushing papers and riding a desk. They stuck me in a helicopter and I could make magic with it. They gave me the stripes and I flew anywhere. Techincally invaded dozens of countries. Brought military might and put fear where-ever I was ordered to send it. For years, thats what I did. And then, something went wrong. And, no, I don't want to talk about it, so you can just sh*Beep!*

Anyway. Everyone onboard the helo was listed as Missing, likely dead. Hell of a tagline to get put on your resume. We were dark, sent to one area and given orders that contradicted the first to ensure that no one knew what we were doing. As far as Command was concerned, we were burned. Offically, we all died in a training accident. It gets blurry. You're in shock. You head to what you know. I broke into my parent's apartment late at night using the backup swipe they kept hidden. I tell you, I ain't never seen anyone as surprised or as happy to see someone else in their lives. The military had clearly written in the time it took me to get back. I don't know what the corp told them while I was gone about what I'd done, and they never said. But, it's nice to know that no amount of corp programming can override those parental instincts. Risked everything to help me survive. And I mean it. You love and then learn to hate and then you love all of a sudden once again. Messes with your head. I left that morning, never to return. We knew we'd never see each other again.

Shadowrunning was almost second nature. Compared to the army, smuggling crates of guns and people over border lines was easy. It was so easy to hop one border infact, I helped myself to a helicopter. Don't raise your eyebrows at me like that. You think I bought that thing? You have any idea how much a Lockheed Martin Starwind costs?! You've no idea how long it took me to get it wiped down, either. I roughed it in the outlands after that pinch. Can't land a helicopter in Seattle without someone knowing about it. Some camo netting, a bag of clothes and gear, that was it. Hearing about how the so called lower classes lived was one thing. To actually live it, that was another thing entirely. Money meant nothing out there. Defended your holdings with firearm and sheer strength. Sleep with one eye open. Get paid in jet fuel and food, and sometimes some money. Word gets out that you've a chopper and you're for hire. Some big ass trolls start coming your way, asking to be flown to place X, no questions asked. Form a working relationship. Start running dual jobs. Form a timetable. Schedules. Freight runners to and from on the condition they collect Y for your life. Find out about towns you never even knew existed. Go there, and meet people. Take a contract, start running supplies.

Now that, that was my first shadowrunning gig. First true one, really. Go to some big warehouse, break in, knock the drek outta the guards, load a truck with as much food, water and medical stuff it could physically carry. The more expensive the target the better, they didn't need it, they wouldn't miss it and the town needed it more. Deliver it home and get your payday. But it wasn't the payday. First night I made that run, I realised how much I really helped. Nowadays we look at some offers, low pay, but high karmic reward. Feel gooders. And anyday we shoot a humanis member is one of those days. It almost became a regular thing. Stuff the town needed that meant they didn't have to starve for days at a time to avoid exhausting what supplies they could create. Eventually, they like you so much they stop thinking that you living in the desert alone is a good idea. They give you an ancient fort to set up shop in. Courtyard surrounded by four walls, just big enough for a 'chopper the size of my girl. Expand a little more. With walls, you can afford to be away a little more. Go out. Steal some things. Extract someone.

And before you know it, you're here on ShadowSEA or Jackpoint or lord knows where-ever else taking job hits like everyone else you've never known. Hire those first shadowrunners you met with a permament contract to protect your home. Give them a way of getting out the business while they're still alive to do so.

Would I ever take that chance if it rose?

Not a chance.

~~Titanium