Allie

Sam is a Mercurian fixer who operates out of Titan Garden. One of the relatively small percentage of bounty hunters who actually holds a license, Sam does not hunt outlaws for some idea of justice or glory or revenge or fame or what have you. Sam is actually an agent of the android S41NT, who uses the bounty system as a way to discretely dispatch problematic villains who would cause larger problems for S41NT's employers. She stays out of trouble herself, remaining in good standing with the law and not involving herself in any kind of smoke; she just happens to chase the specific bounties who fall outside the favor of S41NT's employers. Sam has a bit of a standoffish personality but she really opens up to people if they share her interest in Terran television media, particularly the 久しぶり！僕は斬鉄日向です！ (Hisashiburi! Boku wa Zantetsu Hinata Desu!) franchise. You'll get her attention if you recognize the charm on her rifle, but you can really impress her by revealing you're up to date on the Hinata manga.

Being a Mercurian means Sam naturally has some innate talent which plays into her chosen career. Sam's Gift of Sol is the purview of Guilt- she can see the weight of sleight and misdeed like a corona of color around a person who knows they've brought harm to another. Everyone carries a little guilt with them, and Sam can infer a lot about a person's conscience by the color and intensity of their corona, figuring what sort of thing they know they did to someone else and how much sleep they lose over it; most people dwell upon some minor slight which has been long forgotten, for example, and this reads as a bright color with a thick intensity around that person's silhouette. The people Sam tends to carry dark colors about them, having brought severe harm to someone else. These dark colors often appear thin or thick in their intensity depending on whether they feel justified in their actions or if they know they crossed a line, respectively. In her Firewalker form Sam can manipulate these feelings of guilt, temporarily alleviating them from someone or intensifying them to a debilitating degree. If a target of hers has an exceedingly thick and dark aura about them, like they did wrong and have tremendous regrets, she might grant them the mercy of an unburdened soul before shepherding them along their way. For a target whose guilt is heinous and their conscience is clear, she might intensify that weight upon their conscience and let the problem resolve itself.

Most bounty contracts are listed as "Dead or Alive", and S41NT's employers often send along their wishes as to how they'd like to see a given problem resolved. Sometimes an associate needs a time-out in Terran custody, bring them in alive please. On rare occasions an associate's actions are severe enough that they risk exposing S41NT's employers to harm, and those problems are better off not creeping back up when they're eventually released from the brig. To reflect this dichotomy of orders Sam prefers to use an adjustable magrifle in her trade, an electric rifle with a sliding toggle bolt which can be set to fire light debilitating shots, medium-intensity knock-out shots or, if the bolt is fully pulled back, high-intensity lethal shots. Working from long range and the cover of stealth helps keep Sam out of trouble, since her usefulness to her contractors depends on her keeping her nose clean and working the bounty system by the books, to the letter. One clean shot crackles out from nowhere, her target falls down and she collects the target to bring to the marshal's office, no drama and no chase scenes and ideally, no retribution from the target's friends. Her beloved Zantetsu Hinata dangles from her rifle's barrel- it doesn't do anything special, it just makes Sam feel better while on a job.

The whole point of Sam working for S41NT is that her contracts are discreet, no one knows she is hunting these specific bounties for the specific purpose of lawfully removing problematic villains at the behest of a larger organization of villains. She's a licensed agent of the Terran court and it just seems like she's cleaning up a couple bad eggs, so occasionally she gets other bounty hunters seeking her out and asking to team up and she will have to decide whether to take advantage of them or decline their offers without breaking kayfabe. Ace Lightstorm presented himself as one such hunter, inviting Sam to join him and his party- the steadfast Professor Gloob and the enchanting Talia- on their quest to claim the bounty on the legendary Devil's Fang. Before she could decline them offhand her attention was caught by Talia's aura of guilt. Here was a woman who had hunted Sam's people specifically, hunting Mercurian bounties out of some deeper jealousy for their innate magical talents. She, like any Mercurian, has heard the legends of the Devil's Fang and the stories about their captain and the crew behind her, so she has an idea about the fate this group, and Talia in particular, may soon encounter.

"Thank you for the offer, but I have other obligations", she would reply with a friendly smile. "Good luck, though. I'm sure you'll make the system a slightly better place for all of us".

Talia is an unusual bounty hunter. Hailing from Terra, Talia draws from the deep wellspring of arcane energy native to her homeworld, wielding it as her primary weapon in pursuit of outlaws and her next paycheck. She's a smug little bug, known to jeer at or taunt her targets before slinging spells at them- she knows full-well she has a rare talent and she loves to leverage that over the magically-inert people of the Sol system. Fed by this sorcerial smugness, Talia has a tendency to chase Mercurian outlaws in particular, believing her Terran sorcery is more than a match for the many Gifts of Sol her Mercurian neighbors effortlessly wield. She's developed a battle plan for facing an outlaw Firewalker and, to her credit, she is still alive to ply her trade so that plan must have some merit to it.

People are often surprised to hear about it but there is, in fact, magic in space. Believed by some to be a contributing factor to Terra's verdant bounty, deep within the heart of Terra's iron core is a wellspring of arcane energy, pulsing like the beating heart of a great stag. Terrans from all corners have a long history of sorcerers, spellcasters, weavers of the ars arcanum; people who have learned to extrude this energy, shaping it into expressions of their will. The arcane arts take many forms and each requires rigorous discipline, so practitioners are a rarity in an age ruled by technological wizardry. The advent of public space travel, incidentally, has turned Terra's many schools of arcana completely on their heads.

There is a problem with magic in space that has demanded solutions from its practitioners. You see, on Terran soil a practitioner could draw from the infinite wellspring of arcane energy beneath their feet, and for generations this element of sorcery was taken for granted. Magic of all disciplines from all corners of Terra is, ultimately, a shaping of this energy in some form or another, so when a sorcerous starfarer leaves Terra for the cold depths of space, they are in fact leaving the arcane wellspring behind, and while they may have knowledge of their art and how to weave their spells, when they are far from home they simply don't have the raw material to express their will and their magic fails. A deep-space spellcaster must add a material component to their spells- some way to bottle and carry Terran essence with them on their journey beyond the clouds. Talia has devised a solution to this problem, and is thus able to bring her craft into the broader Solar melting pot.

Talia is a vitamancer, specializing in the study of living energy. She has learned to use the Terran arcana to shape, swell, draw out or redirect the many forms of living energy in organic life, her coven using this knowledge to help plants grow and wildlife thrive. Talia thought being a gardener was boring so she took her knowledge and applied it to bounty hunting, healing herself and her allies when they are injured and- as a favorite trick of hers- sapping the energy from her bounty targets so they become winded and tired and thus easier to catch. This is a key part of how she hunts Mercurians, knowing if they are hungry or fatigued they can't sustain the Firewalker form which allows them to project their will onto their surroundings in that enviously weird way they seem able to, so effortless and free.

Talia's solution to the space problem is to become a literal spell-slinger: she wears a hemispherical crystal on a gloved hand, and from this crystal she draws out motes of stored Terran energy, shaping it into a plasmid sphere containing a whisper of her will. When she places this sphere of energy into a simple cloth sling she's able to lob it considerable distances, the energy landing on and seeping into whoever she hits. This could be a wounded teammate, her spell weaving their flesh back to wholeness or filling them with vigor; or this could be her bounty target, sapping them of their stamina or taking the wind from their sails. Long-range spellcasting is difficult outside of Terra itself and requires immense mastery or incredible reserves of arcane energy to achieve in space, neither of which are at Talia's disposal, so her solution is one born of efficiency and necessity. She needs to return home to Terra to re-imbue her crystal with energy between jobs, but so long as she carries that energy with her she can sling her spells at will.

The bounty hunter Ace Lightstorm has heard rumors of a spellcasting do-gooder, and has tracked Talia down all the way to Terra, meeting up with her at her coven's garden home. He explained his plans to Talia, that he was gathering a party to take on the Devil's Fang, and that their crew numbered several Mercurians, and rumors were the captain herself was a Mercurian woman, and how Talia's special talents would ensure his party's success. One of Talia's elders overheard the conversation and warned against pursuing the Devil's Fang, that they were born of a calling to protect their own planets' unique environments from terraforming, that they were in spirit not unalike their own coven. Her cocky nature getting the better of her, Talia wouldn't let any Mercurians scare her off a job. She believed the pirates would not expect to see magic in space and thus she was the one to finally claim their bounty- they'd never see her coming!

She agreed to join Ace Lightstorm's party. He smiled and shook her hand. Her elder lit a candle in her name, so her soul might find its way home through the freezing gloom of space.

Professor Gloob is a Martian inventor who loves to make all kinds of gadgets, gizmos, doodads and thingamabobs. To test his inventions Professor Gloob works a side job as a bounty hunter, deploying his arsenal of tricks and tech to safely subdue outlaws in his orbit. He's a very focused, analytical personality and tends to be more concerned about the performance of his creations than he is about the men he sets out to catch, often to the bafflement of the bounties he's hauling in to the marshal's office. On the ride to collect his bounty credits Professor Gloob will make small talk with his targets, asking them what they thought of his inventions, if they defied their expectations or if there's anything they think they could have done to get away- most outlaws captured by the Professor end up thinking like, what's even happening, this guy is nuts, but some will answer his queries to pass the time. The Professor will sometimes let them go if they provided genuine, helpful feedback that helps him fine-tune and perfect his inventions, although this is somewhat rare since so few people take these questions seriously.

The centerpiece of Professor Gloob's inventions is "Professor Gloob's Gloopy Goop Cannon", a large pneumatic cannon which fires globs of fast-hardening polymer in various configurations designed to handle many situations. The main polymer cartridge loads in the breach of the cannon and a special bright red hardening agent controls how fast a projectile turns from gloppy wet goop into a smooth, solid structure. Adding a small amount of hardener lets Professor Gloob create delayed-action foot-ensnaring goop traps; a medium amount of hardener can fire a gob of gloop directly at a bounty target, hardening around them to subdue and capture them; and a large amount of the red agent can harden polymer globs in mid air, turning them into solid slugs capable of pounding down doors or other obstacles.

In addition to this degree of control Professor Gloob can control the size of his gloop gobs, firing small fast-hardening slugs, mid-sized ensnaring globs or- at great expense of his polymer cartridge- fire a steady stream of gloopy goop. With a small amount of hardening agent this lets Professor Gloob hose down the floor, preventing a bounty target from making an easy escape, and with a large amount of hardener he can create protective walls, crossable bridges, climbable ramps or sealed-shut doorways when he or his teammates encounter a particularly challenging bounty. Needless to say, Professor Gloob's Gloopy Goop Cannon is a versatile and finely-tuned instrument and Professor Gloob takes great care in perfecting its design.

Professor Gloob has just collected the bounty on Sizzlin' Sally, an outlaw accused of blowing up Terran Star Naval power stations with a dazzling array of incendiary explosives. It was an encounter marked by many close calls, with the Professor narrowly protecting himself from a series of blasts by creating quick hemispherical walls of fast-hardening goop, and then firing off a lucky shot in between the blasts to catch and ensconce Sizzlin' Sally's torso in a thick blanket of delayed-onset gloop calcification. After cashing in her substantial bounty and making some new adjustments to Professor Gloob's Gloopy Goop Cannon, the Professor picked out his next target to test the alterations on: a band of planet-hopping thieves believed to be responsible for a string of professional burglaries and the theft of several high-profile jewels and objects of interest- unbeknownst to him, that's our very own Red Raven crew! In order to catch the uncatchable, to trap the unknown, Professor Gloob has devised an ingenious new feature for his beloved cannon: it can now fire a clear coat of polymer glop onto the floor and, with a separate trigger, fire a gob of red hardening agent, hardening the trap and ensnaring the feet of any would-be thieves in their tracks. There's rumors going around of a credit vault transfer happening between Terra and Titan- a layer of clear goop around the room holding such an enticing target would be sure to stop these mysterious thieves once and for all.

The bounty hunter Ace Lightstorm has heard tale of Professor Gloob's incredible inventions, and one night he caught up with the Martian at a noisy pub in Titan Garden's A-District. Why settle for small fries when you could test your inventions on a real big fish? Ace is recruiting teammates for a raid to catch the fabled Devil's Fang, and he believes this job would be a perfect test of the Professor's creations, and the payout would fund his work for the rest of his life. Thinking it over as he sips his drink, the Martian agreed: Professor Gloob will join the party, and lend the power of his Gloopy Goop Cannon towards catching the most notorious outlaws of them all. With such a feat to his credit, Ace insisted, Gloob Creations will surely become a household name throughout the Sol system. It was an offer that was hard to resist.

Valerie is an Android bounty hunter operating out of Titan Garden. She is a HAL-4 Astronav droid manufactured by Delta Astronautics, meaning she is built to integrate seamlessly with computer systems designed to track real-time positional data of known celestial bodies and starship traffic for the purposes of plotting courses that are least likely to collide with the hazards of space. As a bounty hunter this feature makes her very good at tracking runaway outlaws once she can figure out the Hull Identification Number of their current starship, allowing her to map its course and intercept them at their destination port. Valerie has a very no-nonsense personality, going about her business like it was any other day job. She doesn't glamorize or valorize her work, it's just the thing she does to pay the bills, and as a Delta android her bills are substantial.

Being a HAL-4 model Delta droid means Valerie is the middle child of the active generations of Human-Astronav Liaison androids. HAL-3 droids like Red Raven's Haley are last-gen models who are considered obsolete and HAL-5 droids like Timberwolf's Alan are next-gen models who are regarded as the new standard in performance. A HAL-4 chassis is the current-gen and most common model of Delta android- there are still a few HAL-3s and the HAL-5s are slowly starting to show up, but many older androids have upgraded from HAL-3s to HAL-4s and a fair few are still paying off loans to afford the new chassis, so not all of the older droids can afford a HAL-5 yet.

As far as features go, HAL-4s were considered a step up for the skeuomorphic design of the HAL-3, meant to emulate a Terran presence on the bridge of a starship and get along more easily with Terran pilots. Their comms antennae have been scaled down and shaped into the outer curve of more organic-looking ears and the soft polymer synthetic skin used on the face and torso of HAL-3s now covers the mechanical joints of their limbs, giving them an overall more complete humanoid appearance. They have faster processors and more advanced astronav computer software and are more or less considered higher-performance versions of HAL-3s, although a good mechanic can upgrade the above features in older model Delta droids just as well. Valerie opted to upgrade to a HAL-4 chassis and she's been paying down her debt to Delta ever since- this is, in fact, what led her to become a bounty hunter.

Valerie initially earned her pay as an astronav droid on a long-haul cargo ship and everything worked out just fine until the crew ran afoul of a particularly nasty group of space bandits- the Starcutter Boys of Venus. Carrying Venusian crystal swords, the crew boarded Valerie's ship and cut down most of the crew, stealing anything valuable they could get their hands on. Valerie hid from the bandits in an airlock and when one of them found her and approached to attack she used her connection to the ship's computer to lock them in and open the airlock, freezing the organic Venusian thoroughly. She managed to grab hold of the bandit's sword as they drifted off into space, and after evading the rest of the crew and hiding out until they left she found herself somewhat out of a job, but in possession of a rather sharp cutting instrument, so her logic circuits determined the next step for her was to use this sharp new thing to earn a living hunting the bandits and outlaws who put her out of work, and paying off her debt to Delta with their bounties.

Valerie has since developed considerable skill with her Venusian crystal sword, pairing it with a magcaster sidearm to subdue her targets at range. She has built a reputation among Sol's bounty hunters as a relentless tracker, able to zero in on the most elusive targets once she's found a shred of information to work from. She has been known to team up with other bounty hunters on occasion but she tends to be somewhat cold and a bit of a loner- people believe it's because of what happened to her old crew but the truth is she just wants all the bounty money for herself so she can pay down her Delta debts quicker and believes she's more than capable of handling many bounties herself.

Ace Lightstorm has invited Valerie to join his party in pursuit of the Devil's Fang Pirates, believing her tracking abilities would prove a valuable asset. Valerie considered how old and how large the bounty is and how many hunters had vanished in pursuing it to date. She respectfully declined the invitation.