Zilda Marn

Zilda Marn was a prolific Vusinor researcher and explorer, having written thousands of research reports on hundreds of subjects across dozens of worlds. She was able to accomplish this by living hundreds of lifetimes in various clone bodies across many thousands of years. She met her ultimate end when on a mission to the planet Ablabok in the Siltauxen system, giving her life to save her starship crew. She is survived by her latest clone, designated Clone ZM-C-616, or Sharla Anri.

Personality

Like all early Vusinor, Zilda had a behavior chip installed in her brain when she was a child. During the vast majority of her life, she kept this chip in her brain, including over 600 clone bodies. As a result, Zilda, as well as almost all Vusinor, were seen as cold, uncaring beings, only interested in their fields of expertise. The only emotions Zilda often showed was joy or dissapointment related to her research.

This changed around five hundred years ago when contact was established with the Regalti species. Emotions were foreign to Zilda, so starting with Clone ZM-610, despite warnings this would degrade the quality of her research, she didn't have it installed. In this state her emotional range was much more open. While her research was generally all that mattered to her still, she was more caring and less indifferent in other matters.

Early Life

Very little is known about Zilda's early life, considering she predates the Vusinor's spread to other star systems, well over twenty five thousand years ago. It can be safely assumed that she ws born on the Vusinor homeworld Kunwold, in the Venjint Star System. She is said to be one of the founding members of the Vusinor Research Corps (or VRC), one of a dozen divisions of the original Kuna Empire that now autonomously controls dozens of its own star systems.

When Zilda was about five years old, her brain was scanned like all Vusinor children. These children were then separated according to an algorithm and sent to be educated and trained in specific jobs. For Zilda, she was to be a biologist. Her education was said to have had relatively few issues and when she was around twenty years old, she recieved her designation as a researcher and was sent to another star system.

Full Name: Zilda Marn
Birthday: 7th of Irtha (5th month)
Age: 25,000 _Eyears
Species: Vusinor
Ethnicity: Ilnorna
Birthplace: Planet Kunwold

Sex: Female
Height: 1.9m
Weight: 65kg
Build: Skinny
Appearance: neat and focused
Algae Color: Blue-green
Eye Color: Aqua
Complexion(neutral): Translucent green skin with healthy undertones

Languages Spoken: All of them (Zilda has a language chip installed that allows her to speak and understand over 5000 languages.
Licenses/Degrees: Too many to list.

Early Assignments

Completely by chance, Zilda discovered a sentient species on her very first assignment. It was a sentient colony of mushrooms that was able to learn complex equations within a week. Zilda had other successes in her first century as a researcher.

Her methods were always seen as odd by other members of the Research Corps. She was the first person to successfully make contact with the aquatic Maenor. She did so by using metallic packets of jelly. The Maenor loved the stuff so much they offered to tell the Vusinor whatever they want, so long as they have jelly packets to trade.

It wasn't long before Zilda started getting promoted to higher ranks within the Research Corps and the empire as a whole. Once she reached the level of Class M, she was authorized to create a clone body and upload her mind into it. The Kuna Empire encourages its people to achieve higher and higher levels of prestige to gain access to this technology and potentially live forever.

The highest rank Zilda achieve was a Class B Researcher. This was the highest rank aside from the head of the Research Corps himself. This gave Zilda access to very large amounts of funding, her own crew, her own ship, and many other perks.

A001

A001.2

A001.3

Research Log: A-001

When there are so many Vusinor scientists, I guess it was more than possible I would get a dumb job. There are three thousand researchers combing the planet Renthia for any and all possible scientific knowledge. I got assigned to a patch of mushrooms, and was left here with a week of food, shelter, and little else. This was going to be boring, or maybe not...

These mushroom patches seem to grow all over the planet. Most are tiny clusters a meter or so across. The colors vary, but this one is blue and white and pulses like a mass of ooze. I plucked off a chunk for genetic analysis and the entire colony seemed to move slightly. It grew blackened pits that looked around the area and once it saw me, it started approaching. In surprise I dropped the sample and it was quickly reabsorbed into the oozing mass.

Research Log: A-001.2

Turns out I discovered the intelligent species of this world! I'll call them the Sherenth until the research heads figure out a better name. Getting a sample without being attacked was difficult, but once I got one, I learned quite a bit about them. Each Sherenth as we know them is actually a colony of several hundred thousand individuals, each with the brain power and ability of a jellyfish. When linked together, they share neural networks and individuals become specialized, some aiding in digestion, others aiding in vision, movement, or defenses.

The mass communicated with me by flashing different colors and the colors were arranged in prime numbers. I held up my fingers in front of the creature's eyes in sequence to see if it understood: 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, then it repeated the flashing.

Research Log: A-001.3

By the time the other researchers came to pick me up, I had taught the Sherenth several complex equations and got it to write letters on itself to communicate with me. I had to tell it I was leaving, and it offered a piece of itself to "Integrate" with me. I accepted the piece but bottled it up to be studied later. I offered the Sherenth a piece of my hair. It's literally just algae but I do wonder how they will "integrate" it in their mass?

-Zilda Marn, Class Y Research Agent

Research Log

((Click the Above Tabs to View Zilda's very first research log))











((Credit for CSS tabs goes to Stormbril, From his Spoiler Button Tabs article))

The last thousand years

Roughly twenty-five hundred years ago, and twenty-three thousand years into her life, Zilda came across a mudball planet in a star system several sectors removed from her empire. This planet was what we now refer to as Earth. While the majority of Vusinor were busy with other planets in the system like Uranus and Neptune, two planetary candidates for a Switchboard World, Zilda's concentration was solely on Earth.

After gathering genetic material from several dozen species, humans included, Zilda ran several tests. Most alien DNA has several markers, anomalies in them telling of interference from an elder species such as the Aesperi or much older species like the Sarlar. The anomaly found in Earth's DNA was that there was no anomaly. While her colleagues insisted that there was an anomaly somewhere, Zilda would visit Earth several more times over the next five hundred years. trying to find the secret of the life there.

Zilda visited the world many times, but finally gave up on Earth around seven hundred years ago and started research on a new world, Planet Collena, the homeworld of the Regalti. This was also the world where Zilda stopped installing behavior chips in newer clones of herself. Other than the occasional off-world assignment, Zilda made her home on Collena and mostly stayed there.

Planet Collena

A Daughter and Death

Around twenty years ago, Zilda uploaded herself into a fresh clone body. Instead of keeping her latest clone on ice until she was ready to take it over, she raised the clone as her own daughter, giving her the name Sharla. About a decade later, Zilda discovered that her current clone body had a defect that would lead to cancer and death. She could upload her mind into Sharla and wipe the child's memory, or wait for a new suitable clone to be grown which would take years.

Zilda refused to wipe her daughter's memory and take over. She would rather take her own life than do such a thing. Zilda went on one final mission and died eight years ago. Her mind chip still exists. She gave it to her friend Kaline Serna with instructions to never let Sharla know about it. Kaline took the mind chip and locked it in Zilda's room aboard the Starship Void Chaser. There it still sits with Zilda's memories intact.