Melanie Rivera

Started by PurpleRiver, April 26, 2018, 03:22:19 AM

PurpleRiver

Name: Melanie Rivera
Age:  35
Gender:  Female

Occupation:  Head of Security
Secondary:  Quartermaster
Requested Ship:  Nautilus



PlayBy Name:Michelle Rodriguez

Appearance:  Melanie has built herself a strong and limber body. She has arms that look like they pack a punch, a slim waist, strong abs, and sculpted legs that can push and keep going. She has a wide smile made up of full lips and sparkling teeth. She has dark eyes and long, wavy, dark hair. Her hair is always about her; even when tied back pieces fall loose to frame her face. Cargo pants and tank tops are her usual attire, covered by a black leather jacket whenever off ship. She doesn't show cleavage or her legs above the knee.

She has a number of scars but none too obvious. Scars here and there, a burn along her left shoulder blade and shoulder, and she bruises easily so there's always something on her somewhere. Interestingly enough, no bullet wounds.


Equipment:  Sniper rifle with ammunition. Standard-issue handgun with ammunition. Assault rifle with ammunition. Pistol with silencer. Grenades. Trip wire mines. Knife. Swiss army knife. Body armour. Binoculars (with laser range-finder). Night Vision scope. Infrared scope. Strobe light. Bug repellant. Ear protection. 2 ghillie suits (one desert, one green). Water canteen. 3-day food rations. First aid kit. Set of leather-bound, well-read scriptures. Laptop. PDA/Cortex link. eReader.


Initial Personality:  On the surface, there seems to be two distinct sides to Melanie. As a soldier she is professional, dedicated and supremely loyal to her unit. She shows no fear for herself in the face of battle and shows a huge confidence in her own abilities. As a woman she is caring and kind, more often than not to be found saying something positive or doing something nice for other people. She loves to laugh and, even more so, loves to make others laugh. Sometimes, she can be goofy and maybe, a little too loud.


Underlying Personality:  Melanie felt indebted to the Alliance. They gave her family support and opportunities, not least of which was her university education. She gave everything she had to the military; pushed her mind and her body to the extreme so that she could be the best she possibly could be. And she benefited from it; she'd be the first to attest to that. However, they crossed a line with Miranda. Now she is a soldier without someone to fight for; except that she chooses to fight for Brandt. She is absolutely loyal to Brandt and Galen and would follow them almost anywhere. She follows orders but believes that she is always accountable for her own actions and choices.

The other side of her is the young woman of deep faith. She has a strong testimony of the Saviour and though she is not active in her church she still lives by it. She holds herself to high standards of morality including chastity, clean language, sobriety, service to others. She will say nothing rather than tell you a lie and strives to always be honest. She does not impose her beliefs on anyone, nor does she expect others to maintain the same standards. If you ask her about it, she'll talk to you candidly about her faith with enthusiasm; she really tries not to preach though sometimes it can come out that way. She is proud of who she is. She respects the rights of others to live their own way. Freedom of choice, or free agency, is the most crucial element of God's plan for his children and as such it is sacred and should always be defended. That's part of why what the Alliance did to Miranda is so bad, it took away that free agency.

She's got a big, wacky sense of humour, including about her faith. She's got so much energy for life and on rare occasions she can get rather hyperactive, running around, climbing the furniture, bouncing off the walls; all in the hopes of making herself, or better yet someone else, amused. Perhaps it's got something to do with the discipline of a sniper: she is trained to last for days in one spot waiting for a target if necessary so when she's got the freedom to run around like a crazy person having a laugh, she will!

She loves to learn, whether that's a new skill, a piece of information or the story of someone's life. She loves new experiences and (as long as it doesn't go against her church's teachings) she'll try anything once. She loves a thrill. She loves travel and has a long list of places around the 'verse to see before she dies. She admires art and science but doesn't have any talent in either. She believes that anyone can achieve greatness in anything with enough perseverance; she chose to focus on her physical abilities over learning.


Known History:  Melanie grew up on Beaumonde and went to university on Osiris. She joined the alliance military at age 18 (in exchange for her university education) and served with them until the Miranda broadcast. She was awarded a medal of valour for bravery.


Other History:  Melanie grew up in a big, loving family with a strong religious faith. They struggled to get by but their trust in the Lord at all points of their life saw them through. The Alliance was there to help them too.

Melanie finished high school with some excellent grades; good enough to get her accepted to every university she applied to but not enough to get her the academic scholarships she needed to cover the cost. The Alliance Military had a program that offered to put her through university in exchange for her service. It was peace time then, and seemed like a pretty sweet deal, so Melanie went for it. She failed the fitness test the first time around. She trained twice as hard after that, and hasn't stopped pushing herself since.

At some point in her late teens, Melanie had started to like guns. It began with video games and just kept blossoming from there. In university, there was a rifle club, she joined, and found she had a natural talent. Combine that with a willingness to listen to and learn from more experienced shooters and a commitment to train as much as possible, she started developing a great skill.

Mel excelled as a sniper. Her marksmanship skill is extremely high. She wasn't half as good at the stealth part of the job and relied heavily on her spotter to navigate through terrain and get them safely where they needed to be. But once she was set up in a good spot and had him to call out her targets, her hit accuracy was breaking records among the Alliance military.

That professional reliance on her spotter became a profound, deep friendship. There was never anything romantic – he was happily married anyway – but she definitely and absolutely loved him. She saved his life once and received a medal for it (where that medal is now, she can't even remember). He kept her alive every time they went out. He was killed in action by one good shot from an enemy sniper they hadn't seen. Melanie completed their mission and carried his body to the extraction point.

It took a long time for Melanie to open her heart again. In terms of her skills from then on, Melanie wanted to be able to rely on herself rather than other people so she focused herself on a range of general fighting skills, and trying to improve her stealth skills. She requested a transfer to a different unit. There she came under the command of Brandt Grayson and has been with him since.


Skills:  Marksmanship. For several years, Mel focused on developing this skill above all others. During the war and before, she was breaking records within the Alliance military and quietly made a name for herself as one of the best. She is less practiced than she was, say, seven years ago, but still maintains a supremely high level of skill, combined with an ability to remain calm under pressure. She knows how to read and apply the wind-speed, humidity, temperature and so on; she has a high level of awareness, and a generally sharp eye for detail. When she pulls the trigger, she knows she's going to hit her mark.

Fighting. In the past ten years, her primary focus and skill development has been on becoming the best all-round fighter she can be. She has dedicated herself to being tough and hard. She is very capable in hand-to-hand combat and is proficient with a variety of hand-held weapons as well.

Athleticism. Melanie is very fit and flexible; an all-round athlete. She is an excellent climber, scrambler, crawler, balancer and jumper.

Well-read. Melanie studied literature in university and is an avid reader for pleasure.

Baking. This is a hobby of Melanie's. When she's got real ingredients she can create delicious desserts with intricate decoration. When she's not got real ingredients she can be quite ingenious with substitutes and can seem to make something sweet and tasty out of practically nothing.

Sewing. A minor skill - she can repair and make simple alterations to clothes.


Weaknesses:  Fear of empty space. Looking out the viewports of a ship at the expanse of space gets her heartbeat racing in irrational fear. And the thought of doing a space-walk would terrify her. She is also frightened being in large expanses of bare land, for example a sparse desert.

Piloting. She tried it once but the above-mentioned fear of space kicked in and she had a mini-panic attack. She hasn't been in the cockpit of a ship since.

Sense of direction. Melanie gets lost easily and finds it quite difficult to get her bearings. She can follow directions if they're given to her clearly; the trouble is usually finding the starting point. She can give you good directions; she'll just probably point you in the wrong direction while she's doing it. Basically her mind works step-by-step rather than with a mental map.

Maths & Science. She's made little effort in the pursuit of knowledge so she's not got much in the way of understanding of the sciences. The exception to this is the physics of a bullet but even then she wouldn't be able to explain why it acts that way, just that it does. Chemistry and medicine would be far beyond her.

Prideful. She can be a little cocky when it comes to her physical abilities because she is proud of the immense effort she has put and continues to put into it.


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