Name: Dr. Itxaro Ibarra
Species: Human
Age: 35
Appearance: Dr. Ibarra stands at 6'1 and weighs 165 pounds; tall for a woman, but not unusual in the 23rd century. Itxaro begrudgingly exercises, the motto "A corpo worked out today, did you?" still burned into her brain from primary school. As such, she is in good shape, but by no means an amazing athlete. Itxaro's left arm and shoulder are noticeably more toned than the other from lugging around the weighty prosthetic; which begins at a stump just after the elbow. Her hair, which had been going prematurely grey at 25, has since been dyed a muted white. Dr. Ibarra's wardrobe is decidedly less college professor, more college student, a mixture of loose casual clothes and form-fitting athletic wear. However, when on duty in the engineering bay, she wears the typical jumpsuit and ties her hair back to avoid getting caught in any machinery.
Augmentations: It can hardly be called an augmentation, but Itxaro's dominant hand and forearm have been replaced with a bionic metal prosthetic. Though significantly stronger than her organic limb, the replacement is heavier than modern, cutting-edge augments, and suffers from the occasional breakdown. These glitches can be easily resolved by Dr. Ibarra, which is part of why she keeps the older model. That, and being grafted with expensive prosthetics is something of a cultural faux-pas in the USASR.
Occupation: FTL Specialist
Key skills:
- Mechanical Savant: Dr. Ibarra is a titan in her field, one of the leading engineers in the entire USASR. Her knowledge of all things mechanical is vast and deep, and Itxaro is able to quickly pick up on abstract concepts she has never encountered, which is largely why she was chosen as the previous FTL specialist’s replacement. Itxaro specializes in theoretical FTL drives, and was pretty pissed when the Yenge blew up her spot with their vastly-superior tech. Dr. Ibarra thought she was damn close to a breakthrough. While she has spent much of her career as a researcher and designer, Itxaro is still comfortable wrenching on a ship's drive deep in a crawlspace or in an EVA suit. Still, she finds the entire field of engineering horribly boring.
- Medieval Enthusiast: While Dr. Ibarra is a genius when it comes to anything mechanical, her true passion is medieval European history, with a specific focus on how common peasants lived in their day-to-day life. In her spare time, Dr. Ibarra reads massive tomes on ancient blacksmithing techniques, cooking methods, architectural plans, and any other literature she is able to obtain from that distant time and place. Itxaro also joined a medieval European martial arts club in school, dueling with a variety of weapons, and even now occasionally competes in local amateur tournaments when her schedule allows. She placed 5th in the last one, and was pretty happy about it.
- Socialist Philosopher: Like all Cubans in the 23rd century, Dr. Ibarra is extremely knowledgeable concerning Marxian economics, eco-socialism, Ziotiomatian interplanetary class dynamics, Falcónist markets, and so on. This is a useful skill in space, right?
Personality:Backstory: Dr. Itxaro Ibarra was born in Havana, Cuba, the heart of the 150-year old Union of South American Socialist Republics (USASR). The federal union was formed after the People's Republic of China capitulated to the United States in 2113 after a 30-year cold war between the two superpowers went hot. The proxy wars were largely fought in resource-rich Africa, with both countries redirecting most of their economies toward the conflicts; their allies made only a token contribution, instead opting to watch the superpowers burn themselves out. The war came to a conclusion after a brief but brutal direct confrontation between both countries in Alaska, followed by a decisive cyber-attack by the United States, which paralyzed the Chinese military and the country's infrastructure. China was balkanized into a variety of smaller puppet states controlled by corporations and European countries, while the US was forced to privatize most of its economy to private enterprise. The end of US hegemony gave way to the age of the megacorporation, which saw the hyper-exploitation of most of the global south. Cuba, one of the last countries without a megacorp presence, was able to back a series of revolutions over the next 30 years in South America to expunge the megacorporations, leading to the creation of the USASR.
Dr. Ibarra grew up in Cuba's countryside, the daughter of an agricultural worker and a philosophy professor, surrounded by siblings in their modest home. At a young age, it became apparent that Itxaro was a mechanical genius. Both of her mothers gently encouraged her to advance her education in engineering, but it was Itxaro who made the decision to study engineering at the Universidad de la Habana. While her interests lay practically anything else, Itxaro knew she was given a gift, and to instead spend her life writing awful poetry or studying picked-over ruins somewhere in Europe would be a total waste. She had the chance to help her country, and she took it without regret or hesitation.
Itxaro quickly became Dr. Ibarra, flying through university at a pace rarely seen. Itxaro chose to specialize in faster-than-light travel, the Holy Grail of technology, but also developed a deep familiarity with multiple ship systems, since an FTL drive would work in tandem with many. Since the 22nd century, Cuba had been a leading innovator in space travel, more out of necessity than anything since the tiny island nation was isolated from the corporate world and had few natural resources available; the only way for them to access the raw materials they needed was to go up. The USASR had established a variety of colonies throughout the solar system, but their ships were beginning to lag behind, so the government began subsidizing further breakthroughs in space travel. Dr. Ibarra left the university with a PhD in theoretical engineering and FTL physics, joining the USASR's robust space program.
Because so many of their space-faring resources are off-planet, Itxaro was immediately shipped to a shipyard hidden in Saturn's rings, far from prying corpo eyes. She spent the next several years with a team of engineers, scientists, and pilots testing, testing, and failing. It seemed like there was a missing piece to the puzzle, but the collective wisdom of the human race couldn't find it. Dr. Ibarra advanced to the head of the team, and after what seemed like a lifetime in cold space, they were on the verge of a breakthrough. The moment of truth was cut short when breaching pods shattered the thin skin of their habitat, sending in squad after squad of corporate mercenaries who grabbed whatever crew they could and executed those they couldn't. Dr. Ibarra and a few others managed to reach an escape shuttle, but the mercenaries had rigged the shipyard to blow; just before they cleared the blast zone, Itxaro's former home exploded, disabling their shuttle with shrapnel and sending it hurtling into deep space.
Dr. Ibarra spent the next countless days clutching her crudely bandaged bloody stump of an arm, watching helplessly as her friends slowly succumbed to similar wounds. They didn't send out a distress signal until a week had passed, knowing the mercenaries would come to finish them off. By then the shuttle had traveled so far that it took the nearest USASR patrol ship another three days to recover them. Out of the nine survivors, just two had survived.
After recovering, Dr. Ibarra returned to Havanna just in time to learn that their efforts were wasted; a spacefaring species called the Yenge had beaten them to it, crashing into their solar system and promising to share their secret of faster-than-light travel in exchange for a safe harbor. Somewhat disillusioned, but not dissuaded, Dr. Ibarra returned to the Universidad de la Habana as a professor now, sharing her successes and failures with the next batch of scientists, as well as researching whatever scraps of Yenge technology the USASR's spy network could gather.
Just as Dr. Ibarra became content with her position, she was contacted by an agent of the USASR's space program; a corporation, Tamerlane, had fused Yenge and human tech to create the first drive capable of faster-than-light travel. The previous FTL specialist had vanished, either picked up by a competing corporation or disappeared of their own accord to sell the secrets, and Tamerlane was desperate to fill the FTL specialist slot before their deadline. So desperate that they were willing to accept a USASR citizen.
