Omega (Wo)man and Hippie Chick
Caitlin Nakayama Perkins grew up in Rand Station, on Io, raised by polite middle-class parents who died of workplace mercury poisoning when she was seventeen. Caitlin wrote a scathing essay on the subject, Why Capitalism and Industry Suck So Very Much, which won her a small amount of local celebrity and several death threats.
It also won her a scholarship to the Ralph Nader Superiority Complex, a private university founded by the estate of the famed 20th-century political philosopher located on Venus. Caitlin was on her way to the commencement ceremony in San Francisco (having sealed herself into stasis to avoid the dull six-month trip from Venus to Earth) when a dreadful catastrophe transported her from the 23rd century to, probably, the 312,345th. When the ship’s AI revived her she was somewhat startled to see that Earth was missing and the rest of the solar system appeared abandoned. Landing on Mars, she found the long-abandoned ruins of an advanced civilization, and a handful of functioning skutters.
Fortunately, Caitlin never traveled anywhere without several years’ supply of hemp, including seeds. She quickly assumed command of the skutters and has dedicated herself to building a new civilization, freed from the errors of the past, like all that smog and patriarchy.
That was four months ago. Caitlin started talking to herself shortly after the time slip, and has begun to hallucinate between her bouts of clinical depression. She is, in short, very homesick for the Superiority Complex. Heck, even another human being would be pretty nice. Most days she lies in her bed, playing Pictionary with herself.
Name: Caitlin Nakayama Perkins
Rank: Omega Woman
Serial #: XYZZY-314
Age: 21
Sex: F
Height: 1.43 m
Weight: 50.1 kg
Smoker? Y
Eyes: Watery
Hair: Hair-colored
Place of Birth: Rand Base, Io
Distinguishing Marks: Pierced navel, deep tan
Race: Human
Connections: Several hundred skutters
Goals: Build a new enlightened civilization, that’ll show those industrialist fat-cats!
Assets: Dumb Luck (2), Charisma
Liabilities: Addiction (hemp tea), Fanaticism (ecology), Gullibility, Intolerance (conservatism), Manic-depression
Behavior Tags: Talks to plants and self, halfassed Wiccan.
I Want to be Remembered For: Leading the skutters in the establishment of a non-patriarchal leftist tolerant culture, hopefully with a big statue of me in it somewhere.
Tagline: “No! Put down those knives and settle your dispute like civilized sapients! …I think they’re getting better, don’t you? (Not really, no.) Shut up! (You shut up, you dumb cow!) Make me!”
Agility 3
Athletics 1
Dance 1
Self-Defense 1
Dexterity 3
Craft (Art) 2
Sculpture 4
Instrument (Wind) 1
Clarinet 3
Strength 2
Endurance 2
Perception 5
Aesthetics (Art) 2
Awareness 1
Con 2
Empathy 2
Passive Games 2
Pictionary 4
Social 2
Intelligence 3
Language (Esperanto) 1
Life Sciences 3
Botany 5
Mathematics 2
Philosophy 2
Naderism 4
Willpower 4
Cool 1
Resist 1
Gear: Loose-fitting skirts, gardening equipment, hemp seeds, copy of Manufacturing Consent