Midori Milan

Midri Tarae Ilenpter (a.k.a. Midori Milan)

Midori Milan (formerly Midri Ilenpter) is a Lepidosian pop singer and, at present, the Department Head of the Entertainment & Shipboard Culture Department aboard the ESCI Revelation.

Mental characteristics

Personal history

Midri Ilenpter (roughly translating to Rose of Stone River) was born to Keil and Merin Ilenpter in the small town of Stone River Hollows in the Great Ilmenite Desert on Lepidos. Stone River Hollows was a small town known for its mining operation and proximity to the lucrative Stone River trade route, but it soon became known for a less savory trait: radiological pollution dating back to the Midnight and chemical pollution dating back even further. As a result of these environmental pollutants, Midri's mother Merin suffered complications in her pregnancy, ultimately causing her to die in childbirth. For her part, Midri's exposure to teratogenic compounds in the womb caused her arms not to fully form, a birth defect which would require subsequent cybernetic intervention to fix (see sidebar).
Despite this difficult start, young Midri was raised by Keil, her loving father who did his level best to nurture his daughter's burgeoning musical talents. Keil recognized very early on that his daughter was not destined to follow in the family's footsteps with regards to careers in mining and geology, and, though it pained him, did what he could to connect her with teachers who could help her develop her other talents instead.

Education

From ages 14 to 19, Midori was sent each season to Steel Mill Corners to attend the College of Masks, an academy known for producing some of the best performers on Lepidos. Towards the end of her time at the College, Midori, with the support of her father, decided that she wanted to chase her dreams of interplanetary stardom. At 18, she began taking night courses offered online through the Execution Hill Launch Complex, learning everything she would need to know to become a Cobalt Protectorate citizen. Working with Evermornan talent scouts in Steel Mill Corners, her application to sponsorship through House Harukiin on artistic merit grounds was approved. At 19, she began gene therapy injections to prepare herself for cryosleep while finishing the training modules on passenger space flight.
After her flight to Evermorn, Midori spent much of her free time indulging in her ongoing hobby: custom cybernetics. While by no means a cybersurgeon, she was in touch with the latest and greatest models of augments and prostheses. To the present, she remains surprisingly well-versed on cybernetic mods of all types for someone not otherwise educated in a technology or medical field.
After marrying Enzo, Midori realizes that she needs to diversify her skillset. This has as much to do with a desire to be near her love as it does with the need of all citizens of the Revelation to become qualified in secondary or even tertiary departments to ensure total redundancy. As such, she channels her family history and starts studying to be an asteroid miner, learning about geology, remote sensing techniques, and drone piloting from the Revelation's public education archives. This takes the better part of six years, but once done, Enzo trusts her enough with these skills to take her along in CKV Mercury Sable to perform preliminary resource scouting in the Falconer's Eye System.

Employment

Up until the time she boarded the Revelation, Midri made her way in the world as famous musician. Multitalented in terms of music, proactive in terms of seeking and preparing for events, and with a keen sense of her target audience, Midri outshone her peers even before she left for Evermorn. She took up the stage name 'Midori Milan' out of a desire to appeal to the ethnically Evermornan audiences at the Execution Hill settlement - as Cobaltic has more vowels than the famously breathless Tae na Lepidesn tongue. This decision factored heavily into the growth her fame among young Evermornan expats and, ultimately, her sponsorship by one of the Great Clans of Evermorn for naturalization and importation to the Protectorate Core region.
The League of Lepidosian City-States intelligence services made overtures to cultivate Midori as an intelligence asset during her time aboard the Lepidosian Naturalization Flotilla. Recruiters noted that her talents in both the performing arts and the related Game of Masks would put her in proximity with fans which might speak unguardedly in her presence about criminal, military, or diplomatic affairs. She agreed and spent much of her time among the community of Lepidosian immigrants on Evermorn as a joint intelligence effort with the Cobalt Protectorate against possible Cinnabar Hegemony insurgents. Unfortunately, her identity as an informant as such was eventually exposed in a data leak, leading to her being at risk for physical harm if she remained on Evermorn. This would ultimately lead to her choosing to 'retire' as an asset of the LCS/Protectorate intelligence apparatus by being sent away aboard the Revelation - (hypothetically) beyond the reach of the Hegemony and their Aniki Labs allies.
The limited boundaries of a colony ship, combined with the ever-present danger of an interstellar mission, has the potential to break the psyche of long-haul starship crews if some form of diversion is not provided. Aboard the Revelation, Midori's experience and talents made her a top choice to head the Entertainment & Shipboard Culture Department to prevent this fate. In this role, Midori oversees activities designed to entertain, culturally enrich, and educate the crew. As an added benefit of her position, she can continue to work on her own creative projects and promote them through a label owned by the Evermorn Strategic Colony Initiative for mutual profit. Of course, nothing about the ship's whereabouts is rebroadcast by the ESCI, but her many fans on Lepidos and Evermorn are kept happy with a stream of fresh content nonetheless.

Mental Trauma

Midori discovered that her cover was blown as an intelligence asset because she was attacked outside of her apartment my mobsters paid off by Hegemony agents. She killed one of the mobsters with a blow from her cybernetic arms. While she is grateful for having survived the attempt on her life, this encounter shook her enough to consider leaving the comforts of the arcology for the mission to Ibren.

Personality Characteristics

Virtues & Personality perks

Midori is a social butterfly who nevertheless doesn't forget her roots and stands firm on matters of principle. Her perceptiveness, charm, and empathy for others make her ideal for her role in helping to keep the crew of the Revelation sane in their self-imposed isolation. The shared quality of empathy is ultimately what draws her and her future husband, Enzo, closer together.
Midori is well-traveled and, as such has a broad cultural view, adopting the honorable parts of Evermornan and resourceful parts of Lepidosian culture in equal measure. At the same time, leaving both Lepidos and Evermorn has finally given her an opportunity to finally live what she feels to be an authentic existence - in other words, one separate from her stage persona.

Vices & Personality flaws

At the outset of her journey aboard the Revelation, Midori has come to feel alienated from herself. She has undertaken radical cybernetic implantation and a break-neck schedule of recordings, rehearsals, and appearances, slowly breaking her down until all she feels people can see in her is a persona confected for public consumption. Indeed, she tells Enzo at one point that she doesn't remember what her original, organic voice even sounded like.
This fear of losing herself is ultimately alleviated when she realizes that many people on the Revelation have also been working so hard to get there that they haven't dug deeply into her carreer, meaning that she has an opportunity to reinvent herself. Her arc as a person is one of reinvention and the search for belonging among her new 'adoptive family' on the ship.

Personality Quirks

Somewhat ironically for a two-time interstellar traveller, Midori can barely contain her fear when she thinks about the possibility that something might strike the ship in transit. Enzo once describes the energies involved in relativistic collissions when the two are trapped in a residence GPM during the meteor crisis; Midori has recurring nightmares of finding herself ripped out of bed into the vacuum of space for months afterwards. Still, she strives to keep up a straight face, knowing that showing fear will only inspire fears in others.

Social

Family Ties

by Artbreeder

Though her first encounters with Knight-Airman Enzo Salt were awkward - as he was still somewhat fresh from his trauma at the hands of Aniki Labs commerce raiders - Midori found herself growing more and more fond of the gruff Evermornan man. She was particularly attracted his bright mind and strong hands, traits he'd aquired from years of working in the rigors of space; she also found some kinship in the fact that he was similarly heavily cybernetically augmented. Out of respect for the man's relationship with Sara - as she rightly understood how much Enzo valued loyalty - Midori didn't make her blossoming feelings known. Instead, she framed spending time with him as being part of the department leader 'social club,' befriending him on a professional level even though it stung her to think about him with another woman. Once Sara died, however, Enzo himself started to see Midori in a different light, as she'd been an attentive friend even before the tragedy and was no less so during his grief. Eventually Midori worked up the courage to confess her feelings and discovered that Enzo shared them. The two entered into a relationship and were soon married. This marriage produced a son and twin daughters, all of whom followed in their father's footsteps to some degree.

Relationships

Midori Milan

Wife (Vital)

Towards Enzo Salt

5

4

Frank

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Enzo Salt

Husband (Vital)

Towards Midori Milan

5

4

Frank

---

Alignment

Lawful Good

Currently Boarded Vehicle

ESCI Revelation

Species

Lepidosian

Conditions

• Cryoprotectant Therapy
• Cybernetic Augmentation
• Cybernetic Prosthesis

Ethnicity

Northern Lepidosian

Other Ethnicities/Cultures

• Evermornan

Age

22 (unfrozen age) as of arrival aboard the Revelation

Circumstances of Birth

Born to a mother who died due to complications of environmental toxins in childbirth; raised by father

Birthplace

Stone River Canyon

Spouses

Enzo Salt (Husband)

Siblings

Current Residence

ESCI Revelation

Gender

Female

Eyes

Teal

Hair

Black, generally in a bob cut; white ears with black tips

Skin Tone/Pigmentation

Pale tan, with some freckles across the bridge of her nose.

Height

5'0"

Weight

110 lbs

Aligned Organization

Cobalt Protectorate

Other Affiliations

• League of Lepidosian City-States

Ruled Locations

• Club Milan

Related Historical Events

• 1993 CE
  Enzo Salt Marries Midori Milan
• 1944 CE
  Midori Milan is Born

Cybernetics

by Hero Forge

Midori Milan as she appears during performances with the Revelation's house band, The Revelators. The device on her right hand is a fretted controller for holographic desplays and synth instruments, allowing her to perform with a minimum of bulky equipment.
Teratogenic compounds found in the drinking water of the Stone River Valley on Lepidos affected Midori's mother during her pregnancy. As a result, Midori was born without functioning arms. As part of a health care outreach program operated by the Cobalt Knights diplomatic mission out of the Execution Hill Launch Complex, an itinerant Evermornan doctor fitted her with her first set of prosthetic arms. This was a formative experience in Midori's life, as it granted her a degree of personal independence that she had theretofore lacked. Later, when Midori set about the process of becoming a Protectorate citizen at the Complex, she had mounting anchors, bioelectric chargers, and supports installed in her upper torso to facilitate the attachment of truly cybernetic limbs. As of her assignment aboard the Revelation, she has opted for enhanced artifical arms over basic cybernetics, meaning that her slaps have the power to down grown men should she choose to do so - and, in the case of certain over-zealous fans, has already tested them in this capacity.
As a singer, song writer, and multi-instrumentalist, Midori is constantly experimenting with the sound of her acts. To advance her creative work, she has had an artificial voicebox installed which, while also capable of emulating her normal voice, can also simulate other voices, vary in pitch with more fine control than most professional vocalists, and can even connect to external audio inputs for more unusual effects (i.e. talk boxing). A series of I/O ports at the back of her neck and a few lines at her throat are the only external evidence of this implant.

Gene Therapy

by Hero Forge

Midori Milan at 22, upon boarding the Revelation. While able to survive cryogenic freezing, she also hails from the equatorial zone of a relatively arid planet - and, as such, doesn't enjoy the cold per se.
Lepidos is approximately 7 light years away from Evermorn, meaning that those wishing to travel from one to the other must undertake some serious preparations for the journey. Like all Lepidosians seeking to emigrate to the Cobalt Protectorate aboard sleeper ships, Midori underwent a course of gene therapy to grant her body's cells the ability to produce cryoprotectant compounds in preparation for the long freeze. While fully 10% of all such travelers perish along the way, Midor was lucky enough to survive the journey relatively unharmed. Even so, this ability to produce endogenous cryoprotectants persists throughout the recipient's lifetime. This means that Midori is preternaturally resistant to injuries from extreme cold, though she does still find it uncomfortable; aboard the Revelation, she is fond of a particular parlour trick involving holding a piece of dry ice in her mouth or against her lips to shock unsuspecting patrons.