BIOGRAPHICAL REPORT
Prescott Renstow
Special agent for Transcope
Investigations Agency,
Interstellar Homicide Specialist
1.78 m, 77 kg (5'10", 180 lbs).
Born: January 26, 2316 CE Halifax, Georgia, USA.
Graduated: 2340 MS in Criminal Justice, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
- Top Secret Sensitive Compartmented Information clearance in 2342.
Married: Single (courting Mristen Bellens; see Systems Offline novel for additional details).
Career: Editor for McFeron Reports, Maryland (2337-2340 CE); Developmental Editor for Trascope Investigations Agency, Fairfax, Virginia, USA (2340-2342 CE), Field Agent (2342-2345 CE); Special Agent -Interstellar Investigations - Homicide (2345-2352).
Significant Details: To what extent can moral justification stem from domestic influence? As an organic species filled with genetic heritages we did not choose and often don't understand, to what degree are we genetically culpable for our actions? As a sexual species raised to self-awareness by parents with dissimilar and often divergent views and values, we're raised with confusion and contradiction all our lives - so again, to what degree can we honorably hold each other accountable for our actions? For SA Prescott Renstow, answers to these questions have plagued his mind since his earliest years. Raised in a home and family where justifications determined legitimacy, leading to both financial abundance and private misery, a career in criminal justice was inevitable - if only to settle the nauseating illness that he'd witnessed and endured.
These inspiring images were provided courtesy of: "Midjourney 6464" by Javier Lluesma, "Earth 4K Stock" by Hameed.
PERSONAL FILE
"At the end of the day, I determine what goes into my reports - any report I submit is a reflection of me every bit as the suspects named in the record." As loyal as he naturally feels to his career, he answers to his conscience before he reports to anybody else. Any decision worth acting on has to square with his personal convictions first.
Prefers focus and understanding to speed and convictions during his cases. SA Renstow learns that too many people are accused and sentenced without understanding the full story first - and unlawful incarceration is stolen life.
Penchant for discovery, for understanding, for completing the whole puzzle - not just parts. "Good enough" doesn't exist in his vocabulary.
Deeply cares for honor - even more than justice. While determined to hold wrongdoers accountable to the law, he never feels vindictive against convicts. When he's lured into actions that defy his own rules and ethics, he learns that sometimes it's not so easy to discern what is "right" from what "needs to be done".
Deeply unsettled by the pet-servants powers, he's surprised to find that he can and does actually admire Princess Seleata - who by full honorable rights is a legislative heir, with legitimate authority over her loyal following.
Acting in full conscience to himself first, SA Renstow can easily face the public without a shadow of fear or insecurity. While perhaps not a "life of the party" like some, people can count on his solidarity in any storm, and his moral compass under any circumstances.
No one is a specialist over all sectors. Every participant in any worthwhile endeavor brings their expertise to the table. The more experts in a team, the more accurate the results.
"I'm used to seeing people at their worst - suspects, victims' loves ones, even the authorities from time to time. But I'd never imagined the fluency, the precision, the outright slaughter a team of cut-throats could inflict- against the best of the best, on planet after planet. But at least I had her by my side. To keep my wits, my sanity intact. Until I had to leave her to the hands of faith and fate and face my own demons."
SA Prescott Renstow, Transcope Investigations Agency, Clifton, Virginia, Earth
CONTRIBUTIONS TO A LIFEFORM DETECTED
Book 1:
A Lifeform Detected - Not featured.
Book 2:
The Tomb of Dur Kaetin - Not featured.
Book 3:
Divided We Fall - Not featured.
Book 4:
The Hunter's Shadow - Protagonist. En route to his first vacation in over a year, serial assassinations strike Earth. Due to the M.O. of the attacks, Special Agent Renstow is alerted as soon as he touches down on Stearsat. Within two days, the deaths spread to Hynor, and Renstow is pulled into active-status. His investigation on Hynor turns up rocks hiding all kinds of secrets - but the web gets sticker the deeper he digs. When he and Agent Bellens are themselves attacked during a stakeout, they realize they're in way over their heads - and it's too late to back out now. Deeper and deeper he digs, unable to discern friend from foe from perfect mystery. By the time he's buried in red herrings, someone's returned to pay him a visit. How can he survive against demons who can't be seen, hurt, or killed?
Book 5:
Critical Mass - Not featured.
Book 6:
Systems Offline - Security resource tracker aboard the Yew Kah Seyli. Called in for an assessment following the disaster at Rockberg. [Details pending.]
Special Agent
Prescott Renstow
BIOGRAPHICAL REPORT
Adil Wukesan
Memory Keeper to the
skywatchers at Dorfast
(Dur Faestin), Castis Majestic
1.93 m, 99.8kg (6'4", 220 lbs).
Born: N/A (Radically different calendar concepts. Estimated age: 56; circa 2296 CE).
Graduated: N/A (tribal mentoring).
Married: Sunarica, circa 2334 CE, Dorfast (Dur Faestin).
Career: Chosen as Memory Keep to Dorfast after decades of devoted care to the ancient ruins and artifacts.
- Until the Armed Escort Company arrives, with vast knowledge of orgalin history and culture, Wukesan never spoke orgalin. Attuned to sensing life, not ancient, broken technology, he could never learn their language to learn their full, true history. But he admired their legacy and accomplishments, and inferred as much as he could about their people from the treasures they left behind.
Significant Details: The skywatchers have hidden in orgalin ruins across Siltik (their name for Castis Majestic) for centuries. To prevent detection, they preserved small family-clans in many cities to prevent overcrowding, and restricted architectural additions beyond preservation and care for the ruins. While this sheltered focus has minimized their influence and social evolution, most of them have riveted to this reductionist lifestyle and scorned opulence and spread from races like the gensic. Learning to work with the land and weather instead of beating them into submission and destroying ecosystem balance, the skywatchers are fully confident about recovering from natural disasters.
These inspiring images were provided courtesy of: "Midjourney 6458" by Javier Lluesma, [searching].
PERSONAL FILE
"Words are worthless - the echoes of desires. Truth beats, in the heart, the pulse. True life is action - and many are dead men walking."
Prefers any activity that helps his people in Dorfast (Dur Faestin) - particularly landscaping. As a fairly small clan in the vast and wild forest, there is always plenty to do to clear back the jungle, let alone optimize the grounds. The fastest way to Wukesan's heart is by helping his people.
Penchant for thriving life across the ancient city and surrounding forest. He truly sees Dorfast (Dur Faestin) as a crown jewel of the best in life - technology, space travel, metropolitan cities are cluttered distractions and disappointments.
Deeply cares for preserving the orgalin relics and ruins as lessons and inspirations for every skywatcher in his clan. Never too busy to hear them out, or too weary to team up and resolve their concerns.
He's perfectly alarmed at the thought of a tafchas princess like Seleata visiting. Once he learns her story, though, and realizes their parallel peril with royal Escorts buzzing about nearby star systems, he realizes they might have more in common than he'd ever imagined.
The skywatchers matter; little else truly does. Any more than clay in a sculptor's hands, anyway. Public events or holidays around Dur Faestin are highlights in his often heavy contemplation.
Every member of his clan is precious, and valuable. Just as a hand or a foot could never claim independence from one's body without soon dying, he reinforces his people's sense of unity, duty, obligation, and accomplishment every time he spreads his hands to the surrounding ancient city and surrounding jungle that they have repaired and preserved - when nature would've swallowed it whole ages ago.
"You have no business here. Your species is a pollution to the land, to life, a blight to our communities. You know you have no power over us, yet still you persist? Well, we shall have to do something about these buzzing flies at our feasts - no matter the cost."
Adil Wukesan, SkyWatcher and memory keeper of Dorfast, Castis Majestic
CONTRIBUTIONS TO A LIFEFORM DETECTED
Book 1:
A Lifeform Detected - Not featured.
Book 2:
The Tomb of Dur Kaetin - Not featured.
Book 3:
Divided We Fall - Not featured.
Book 4:
The Hunter's Shadow - The tafchas species has remarkable natural power. For thousands of years they've been known for their remarkable social order. But do all tafchas see their accomplishments as admirable - as a living paradise? Or do some view it as inescapable bondage? When James Renstow travels to forbidden cities of the skywatchers, he learns that not everything is garden green or flourishing with health among the lifebringers. Some are in fact terrified of their cousins' return - and willing to do anything to prevent capture.
Book 5:
Critical Mass - Not featured.
Book 6:
Systems Offline - Not featured.
Adil Wukesan
BIOGRAPHICAL REPORT
Tokwil
Cosikri guide to Camp Julican,
Castis Majestic
1.78 m, 77 kg (5'10", 170 lbs).
Born: N/A. (Radically different calendar system.) Age 24 (2326 CE) Camp Broad Fern, Castis Majestic.
Graduated: N/A Tribal culture, diverse apprenticeships.
Married: N/A (tribal custom).
Career: A guide to all cosikri in her tribe, and their guests. (Similar to a public-relations adviser to their chief.)
- Particularly skilled with herbalism.
Significant Details: Cosikri are a hybrid of natural-born tafchas and human parents. While they innately possess increased bio-fields beyond humans, they are never attuned like tafchas or their servants, which limits their natural powers. Viewed with pity and suspicion by their full-blooded parents, they are typically shunned - if not simply cast out. As a result, they form tribal camps of their own design and build, preserve peace when possible with herbal tonics and incenses, and, when needed, have become expert defenders with camouflage, stealth, bows, arrows, javelins, and spears. Primitive to many cultures, but enriching to all "neighbors" (civilized people) who enter their camps.
PERSONAL FILE
"Enjoy life! Enjoy friends! Enjoy all we have to offer! Relax from your travels and travails - at least for a few hours, and then we can talk about trade, concerns, or 'business'."
Prefers meeting and brightening all "neighbors'" visits - but on cosikri terms. We might share the jungle, but this is our home within it and we will preserve its inviting atmosphere no matter the cost.
Penchant for wanderlust, adventure, artistry and beautification. Delights in stories as much as herbs, and won't hesitate to combine the two for an unforgettable hour or two around the campfire.
Deeply cares for her tribe and each of its members. While generally gracious toward others, strangers or friends, she's as fast with a hunting dagger as she is with honeyed words.
She views tafchas and humans with equal disappointment - but not grudge. Rather, she views them as ignorant or shortsighted, too covetous of their own traditions to accommodate both valuable worlds.
As a guide to her tribe, appointed by her nature as well as deep personal desire, she does all she can as best she is able to make everybody feel welcome and enriched.
When it comes to teams, all are invited - even if not all can stay. So long as the party goes on, she won't interrupt it, and she'll accommodate every contribution that strengthens harmony.
"We share the blood of the tafchas and the culture of the humans - the best of both worlds. How many have languished in jealousy, in fear or contempt, and ignored the possibilities they could share - if they only learned how to live, laugh, and love."
Tokwil, cosikri guide, Camp Julican, Castis Majestic
CONTRIBUTIONS TO A LIFEFORM DETECTED
Book 1:
A Lifeform Detected - Not featured.
Book 2:
The Tomb of Dur Kaetin - Not featured.
Book 3:
Divided We Fall - Not featured.
Book 4:
The Hunter's Shadow - When James Renstow and his matron hostesses yearn for new adventures, forbidden or not, he has no choice but to visit the nearest cosikri village - Camp Broad Fern. During his first visit with Ariseta, with his guard up and his suspicions high, he requests a flask of his own brew - and wakes up back home having missed the entire encounter. When he returns for his second trip, to Camp Julican, this time with Desonia, he accepts their traditional drink and the cosikri take him into full trust and fellowship. Unfortunately, when her father learns about his drug-indulgent escapade at the cosikri camp -behind Altfather Brightsun's back, no less - James loses every ounce of respect at the plantation - and is banished to the man-eating jungles that smother Castis Majestic. Uncertain where else to turn, at least he's made a few new friends...
Book 5:
Critical Mass - Not featured.
Book 6:
Systems Offline - Not featured.
Tokwil
These inspiring images were provided courtesy of: "Midjourney 5991" by Javier Lluesma, [searching].
BIOGRAPHICAL REPORT
Tolchasu Urdiwa
FineSenser pet-servant to
Princess Seleata; corporal in the Hynor Army,
1.7 m, 61.2 kg (5'7", 135 lbs).
Born: classified (Age: 26, circa Year 33-Hynor, 2326 CE).
Graduated: N/A (royal tutelage).
Married: Single (open to prospects, but they are few, due to her telepathic senses).
Career: classified.
- Indentured service to Princess Seleata, with duties involving profound discernment with extraordinary senses. Currently employed handling tactical recon in the Hynor Army's Armed Escort Company.
Significant Details: When she reported to her parents and siblings that Ester Manquela had arranged for her to step-in and cross-train with the Hynor Army for a time, Carlos, Santali, Blanca, and Roccolo were guarded, but accommodating. Over the past two years, Urdiwa has won winning relationships with each of them. While they question their daughter's and sister's absence, they could hardly ask for a more sensitive and caring soldier-exchange to help and care for their family. When the offer for Friends of Takra was extended, they anxiously accepted, but are now firmly fixed in their decision.
These inspiring images were provided courtesy of: "Midjourney 6829" by Javier Lluesma, "The Anomaly" by Art by MorganCMorgan.
PERSONAL FILE
"'I don't understand'? You might be surprised just how well I do understand." A soldier by trade, Urdiwa faces a constant battle between duty and awareness. While protocols are set up assuming situations, she understands that not every situation is the same - and sometimes rules really do need to be broken.
Prefers helping people solve their own problems. While equipped with powers and abilities to "take care of business" the blunt way, she recognizes that for lasting change most people need to learn from personal experience - where it's fast or not, or hurts or not.
Penchant for probing into the beating hearts of secrets. The more mysterious, the tougher the shell to crack, all the sweeter the treasure once the safe is cracked!
Deeply cares for struggling people, because she realizes that so often, people create their own struggles. Eager to lend helping insight and a helping hand, she might serve the military, but she's not a slave or robot to it.
Deeply sympathetic to her Mistress' private pains, Urdiwa is still sensitive to her need for a courageous front - especially among her pet-servants. Understanding far more of the specifics behind the princess' antics, she's able to often provide more specific healing or optimism than most to bolster Seleata's drooping spirits.
Able to easily sense people's true struggles, intentions, and motives, Urdiwa is smooth as oil when navigating social circles and leaving people admiring her Mistress.
Teamwork is essential for success. While she can sense many things unseen or unsaid, for example, these abilities don't always generate solutions - especially not automatically. Only by teaming up with chastesis to heal, lurasepans to design, sokaskis to build, and haseltis to network can her intuitions and awareness be put to practical use and make rewarding differences in people's lives.
"Humans say 'desperate times call for desperate measures.' Desperate times are only for desperate people. If desperation comes from disconnected people, imagine what might happen to you - to your entire species - if you pooled your strengths to solve problems. No one can ascend to any throne in isolation."
Tolchasu Urdiwa, pet-servant FineSenser for Princess Seleata
CONTRIBUTIONS TO A LIFEFORM DETECTED
Book 1:
A Lifeform Detected - Not featured.
Book 2:
The Tomb of Dur Kaetin - Not featured.
Book 3:
Divided We Fall - Not featured.
Book 4:
The Hunter's Shadow - Reeled in to a sealed trap on a sealed world during a sealed murder investigation, it couldn't get much hotter or deeper for Tolchasu Urdiwa.
With her FineSenser prowess, she very well might peel back the onion layers to its core - but at what cost? And worse still, what can she possibly do with this truth, once it is uncovered?
Book 5:
Critical Mass - Not featured.
Book 6:
Systems Offline - Haselti Ekelesa's right hand and reality-check in guatanas, Tolchasu Urdiwa is once again enlisted - this time, under Capt. Jamirez' command aboard the Yew Kah Seyli. While Ekelesa takes care of the talking, Urdiwa probes shields and armors technological, organic, and psychological to find the truth Ekelesa can then share.
Tolchasu Urdiwa
BIOGRAPHICAL REPORT
Haselti Ekelesa
ClearSpeak (communications
specialist) to Princess Seleata; Hynor Army sergeant; Point Destination lieutenant aboard the Yew Kah Seyli.
1.75 m, 68 kg (5'9", 150 lbs)
Born: classified (Age: 31; circa Year 26-Hynor, 2319 CE).
Graduated: N/A (royal tutelage).
Married: Single (but open to the idea; suitors have to meet her Mistress' approval).
Career: classified
- Indentured service to Princess Seleata, with duties involving communications. Currently employed coordinating communications in the Hynor Army's Armed Escort Company.
Significant Details: Ekelesa can't help but admire the human soldiers in the Hynor Army. Anybody willing to mobilize and fight to defend building projects like a colony of 2 million on a desert planet hostile to their species is bound to raise eyebrows. Qualifying as a sergeant over the 3rd platoon's technical-support squad, she's proven herself as a heart-blood ally with many tafchas powers to boost successes across the Armed Escort Company. Commanding the admiration and loyalty of both the troops under her and those around her, she's one of the younger soldiers to earn the Distinguished Flying Cross at age 29.
These inspiring images were provided courtesy of: "Midjourney 7004" by Javier Lluesma, "The Anomaly" by Art by MorganCMorgan.
PERSONAL FILE
"Bring it on." A relentless taunter and teaser, Ekelesa wouldn't know the meaning of the term humble pie. No, for her spicy personality, she's got far more an appetite for cake and eat it too.
Prefers helping people over controlling them, even though the tafchas powers entrusted to her forms a constant temptation to take charge - by any means necessary.
Penchant for success - whether it's time for beers after-hours, innovating point-projection shatter-shields to protect inbound freighters, or talking friends into smart decisions or out of bad ones - Ekelesa just loves polish on her work.
Deeply cares for her brothers and sisters in the Hynor Army. Rejected by the family of Alessandra Steiner who she represents, she buries the resulting sense of loss and vulnerability with unusual devotion to anybody in her squad or platoon - though she's willing to spread her arms to invite others, too as the case may arise.
Mistress Seleata is the enduring mystery to both heart and mind, for Ekelesa. Endlessly fascinating beyond measure, Ekelesa certainly admires her - but doesn't really want to emulate her. Serve her - even bring honor to her name and fame? Certainly. But never "hang out" with her, or inject herself into her Mistress' inner circle or world. Some rocks are better left unturned.
As a symbol of her Mistress' nobility, Ekelesa holds herself with regal confidence in public - but her spicy core is rarely suave, and sarcastic rather than cordial.
When it comes to teamwork, Ekelesa is the networking hub. She loves to talk with people, never hesitates to speak her mind, and instinctively leaves a lasting impression - if not always the intended version...
"We were good. Everybody knew it. But we'd had no idea what all we were missing. Until Mistress showed us. Talk about upping your game. Big time. Never had a better record. Helps to be on the winning side. Only problem now is not flaying the humans alive when they push our buttons."
Haselti Ekelesa, pet-servant communications TurnSender for Princess Seleata
CONTRIBUTIONS TO A LIFEFORM DETECTED
Book 1:
A Lifeform Detected - Not featured.
Book 2:
The Tomb of Dur Kaetin - Not featured.
Book 3:
Divided We Fall - Not featured.
Book 4:
The Hunter's Shadow - One of Sa Renstow's first contacts with Princess Seleata's pet-servants, she's as defensive as she is cocky. However, as pressures tighten and surveillance crosses line after forbidden line, their true colors emerge - for better or worse.
Book 5:
Critical Mass - Communications support on Hynor as the Point Destination fleet and crew amass with the Friends of Takra, and all hell boils over across Overture.
Book 6:
Systems Offline - A Point Destination lieutenant over the Surveillance Platoon, under Capt. Jamirez, aboard the Yew Kah Seyli, Haselti Ekelesa provides technical support for the exploratory colony - particularly eyes and ears in unexpected places.
Haselti Ekelesa
This inspiring image was provided courtesy of: "City II by Okwa.
Welcome to Stearsat!
Homeworld of the Carliyles, and an unforgettable world for the finest in resorts, entertainments, dining, commerce, and your dreams come true!
Rumored by some to be a human colony, the Carliyles view themselves as a distinct echelon in the evolution of the species. Discontent with the stifling burdens imposed by their Paleo-lithic distant relatives on Earth, the distinguished Carliyle family ventured out to the stars in search of a new home.
Using the revolutionary technology of their space-folding stardrives, they were able to reach destinations further than any any of their competitors, and - since finders keepers - they secured their presence first, proving yet again, first come, first served.
Since 2152 CE, they've spread their name, wealth, and influence across five worlds formerly beleaguered by war. Stepping in to resolve the tragedies, in true Carliyle fashion they finished off the strongest of the quarrelsome survivors, and gathered the devastated natives or colonists into treatment centers and hospitality colonies in order to spread their noble wings and power and introduce order, stability, and prosperity under Carliyle leadership in each society.
Accused by the envious to stand as watchful profiteers preying on the weak and vulnerable, the Carliyles challenge all such outcriers to show when in those worlds' histories, did they ever enjoy the luxuries now available to all who will reach and work for them?
These inspiring images were provided courtesy of: "Temple Meditation Space" by Priestess of Light 777.
Behold, Castis Majestic!
A model of life, timelesss splendor, and endless promise.
Home and haven to the gensic, this glistening emerald in the cosmic crown is as exclusive as its residents. Genetic purists bred from the best in human potential, by 2128 CE public outcry against a super-race convinced them to leave Earth. Searching the stars for a more worthy planet and home, in 2166 CE they finally found the dream they'd longed for.
Enraptured by the planet's prolific biosphere, they realized that to establish homes, they'd need to clear forests, dry marshes, and canal rivers. But in so terraforming their claims, it was swiftly decided that this was most certainly not Earth - and its natural treasures needed to be preserved as much as possible.
Even so, the gensic families established plantation estates, with a manor standing as a capital home for the most established family, surrounded by a ring of fields with the service homes, and again by a ring of orchards before the jungle wilds loomed for endless kilometers in every direction.
Currently at 212 plantations, they've carefully guarded population sizes to prevent crowding, and limited technology to prevent urban metropolitan areas from destroying the natural charm.
The skywatchers were discovered in 2186. A reclusive, tribal species, the gensic at first traded with them, and some even mingled with them. But as soon as their first offspring were born, the skywatchers were dismayed by dramatic loss of their children's bio-fields, and the gensic majority felt these cosikri crossbreeds corrupted their genetic purity. As a result, all three races now live in isolation from one another (to preserve a general peace).
This inspiring image was provided courtesy of: "Stargate Sacred Geometry 25" by Riverfox1.
The gensic weren't the first intelligent race on Castis Majestic. Within their first week of exploring its lush fruits and foliage under its Amazonian canopies, they discovered stone ruins clotted with mud and sagging with vines and ivy.
The skywatchers were soon discovered among many of these ruins, bristling with anxious glares. It was soon decided that these statues and shadows were forbidden territories - and whatever treasures they might hold weren't worth the toll to be paid to explore them.
But within the ruins of Dorfast, skywatcher Adil Wukesan entrusted these secrets to a most unexpected visitor from the distant stars - Luesa, a human fluent in the ancient orgalin language and culture, With his guiding eye and careful hands, the long dead and dark laboratory lit up for the first time in centuries - and bean spilling its secrets with an untold splendor.
By far the greatest surprise were the star-maps. Coded puzzles designed to test the intelligence, the cunning, the moral fortitude of any who dared trespass. The maps spoke of a world hidden from the unwise and unworthy, bearing the greatest treasure a gravedigger could uncover - the location of their long-buried treasure, Gar Don Kin.
Behind every transpheric sky-shield is a planet filled with surprises - and secrets...
Now entering: Dur Faestin, The Laboratory of Unlocking.
Did we miss anything (or anyone) you'd like to see?
Click the Contact Us button and let us know!
.
