Post by Beriadan on Feb 18, 2023 17:30:30 GMT
"I can go anywhere. Do anything. Be anyone! And there is nothing to hold me back!"
General Information
Full Name:
Astra Zappon
Codename or Alias:
Phantasm!
Anonymity
Secret Identity
Gender:
Female
Race:
Human
Age:
24
Place Of Birth:
Bristol, England
Occupation/Status:
Cosmic Ambassador for Earth
Research Assistant for Sue Storm
Intergalactic Adventurer for herself
Alignment:Lawful Good
Factions:
Planetary Corps
Canon Or Original?:
Original
Powers/Abilities:
Astral Projection
Astra can project her consciousness from her body. Unbound by natural laws and untethered from her mortal form, this allows her to travel incredible distances at amazing speeds. She can travel across the solar system in a matter of seconds, to other planets within hours. Astra's intangible form means she doesn't have to worry about gravity, about space debris or the vacuum of space. She can go wherever, whenever, and be back in her own body by the end of the day.
Astra can take on any appearance when astral projecting, and rarely uses her corporeal form. Who or what she can become is limitless and only bound by her boundless imagination. She can change appearance during her astral projection as well.
Astra's only time limit is her physical body. Without her conciousness, it slips into a coma-like state and relies on external forces to feed and hydrate it. She can project for an indefinite time, theoretically, but without someone watching her body and looking after it, Astra can't be untethered for longer than a few days at a time.
When astral projecting, she has an idea of her body's condition. Astra is tethered to her corporeal mind, and therefore is always linked to it. She can hear (but it sounds like being underwater) and sense things like touch and pain, though it is dull and numbed. This link becomes very faint the further away she is from her body until she can just hear quiet whispers if someone is speaking close to her body.
Astra can't normally interact with anything in a physical manner. Her astral form is entirely intangible, which also means nothing can touch her. She can, however, through an incredible mental strain, make her form tangible for a few seconds. This is so much effort on her astral projection that, no matter what, using this ability will send her conciousness soaring back to her body. Astra has only tried this twice, and both times left her mentally, and physically, drained for days afterwards.
Astral Blast: An entirely theoretical idea that involves weaponising Astra's astral form into a high energy attack. It has been proposed that she could blast her conciousness at someone, or something, and cause significant damage or destruction. Astra is entirely opposed, however, on the basis that she isn't a weapon, and isn't working for Planetary to fight anyone. Even if she knew what would happen to her consciousness if she tried this, it would be entirely against her ethos to use an attack like that on any living thing.
Intelligence
Astra is a highly intelligent person, especially in the realms of astronomy, physics and extraterrestrial beings and objects.
Polyglot
Astra has taught herself many Earth languages, in order to understand otherworldly speech better during first contact.
Cosmic Navigator
Astra can guide her astral form through the cosmos to find stars and planets that can be viewed from Earth. She has a knack for directions in a 3D void, navigating with stars and celestial objects to reach specific points in space.
People Person
A lot of Astra's teenage years were spent coming out of her shell. She is a highly charismatic person, able to hold conversation for hours at a time without the other participants losing interest. Astra has learnt a lot about talking to people, reading lots of studies about social behaviour. This also helps her when meeting new civilizations for the first time, or maintaining relations with other species.
Weapons/Items:Astra is a true pacifist, and won't lift even a finger against another living creature. She has no use for items when in her astral state, as her being is entirely projected from her consciousness.
When she does astral project, Astra makes use of Planetary equipment to keep her body in a safe coma, allowing her to travel for far longer than she could on her own. She is also fitted with a universal transmitter, which receives what her astral form hears and transmits it back in as good English as it can manage. Astra does meet new species and hears new languages, which means the translator has to adapt quickly to new speech before it can fully translate.
Appearance
Image:
Physical Appearance:
Astra is young, short and slender, with pale skin decorated by sporadic tattoos of various patterns and designs. Her eyes are a mossy hazel, flitting between greens and browns depending on the light. Her hair is short and fluffy, naturally mousy but always dyed in vibrant and vivid colours, her favourite being a shock of pink.
Clothing and Armor:
Astra is a bohemian, a hippy and a counter-culture girl. She wears anything and everything, favouring the colourful, the clashing and the zaniest fashion choices she can find. Fashion for her means very little.
Personality
Bad Habits:
Astra has no filter, and will say what's on her mind.
Sexual Orientation:
Pansexual
General Personality:
Astra is a cheerful, bubbly girl with a positive attitude and an upbeat personality. She loves meeting new people, exploring new places and travelling across the world and the cosmos to find both, and more.
Astra has a sharp mind and keen intuition. Her training in astral projection require a fierce focus, and has honed her brain to be able to meticulously complete tasks and percieve what others might not pick up on.
Socially, she is a butterfly. Astra can talk for hours with anyone, melding and morphing as conversations go on so that she is always asking the right questions, balancing the other person's words with carefully placed queries and statements. She loves to talk, and equally loves to listen.
Astra is a girl full of tenacity and determination. She came from very little, and wants to prove that she can do anything that she sets her mind to. The best way to get Astra to do something is to tell her it's inpossible, or that she won't be able to. She will find a way to prove that statement wrong!
Anything ElseFaceclaim: Kailee Morgue
Character's History
Siblings:
Europa Zappon [Younger sister, alive]
Zenith Zappon [Younger brother, alive]
Mother:Elara Starchild Zappon nee Snowdrop [alive]
Father:
Ziggy Zappon [alive]
Other Family:
Marley Zappon [Uncle, alive]
History:
Astra has always been a social outcast. Her family didn't help, with both of her parents still living out the sixties in a big way. She never got along with other kids, and the fact that the Zappons were always on the move, across the UK and Europe in the back of a pink Volkswagen camper, meant she never had friends, only her two younger siblings. Astra always felt tethered to the Earth, knowing that she didn't really belong to the same planet as the rest of humanity. Where was her true calling? Was it somewhere in the cosmos, beyond the stars?
Astra was a smart kid, but bouncing from schools and across countries meant that she had to find her own knowledge. Her parents were kind souls, when they weren't stoned into another reality, and on her seventh birthday Astra received a book on astronomy and stars.
Astra found herself enamoured with the universe beyond Earth. Book after book was eaten up, digested and spat back in the form of knowledge. She studied everything she could find about space, astronomy, cosmic physics and the stars. She lapped up talks by major scientists across the world; Reed Richards, Victor van Doom, but especially a woman called Dr Susan Storm. To Astra, this woman was basically an idol.
Her parents took her to America when she was twelve, to meet her uncle, Marley. Astra fell in love with the man, a grounded version of her father who loved space as much as she did. He knew just as much, and even more! Astra and Marley spend long evenings together with his high-spec telescope, viewing the stars and constellations, taking incredible photographs of distant galaxies and planets.
One night, Marley told Astra that she was ready to learn the Zappon family secret. They had an ability passed down through generations that allowed them to astral project their conciousness out of their physical bodies and into the world beyond, untethered by the laws of gravity or anything beyond. He began to teach her, seeing in her a fierce and intelligent desire to explore the worlds beyond Earth. Slowly at first, but soon they were above the clouds, then in the atmosphere, then orbiting the moon itself. Astra stayed with her uncle even after her family moved on, begging him to let her stay. She was enrolled in a local school, cramming in all the knowledge she could. At sixteen, Astra was approached by a college renowned for its astronomical department. She had been recommended highly by her teachers, an incredible bright spark that would flourish in a higher education.
Flourish, she did. Astra was a young prodigy with a mind that adapted quickly to her surroundings. Her lecturers were impressed, and her peers enamoured by this young braniac who spewed information about space and the cosmos like it was basic knowledge. Astra became a social butterfly, able to talk for hours about anything on her mind and have people listen, communicate, understand.
Astra spent whatever downtime she had practicing her Astral Projection. She managed to reach Jupiter at her furthest journey, but her body held her back as it was. Frustrated, Astra worked on flying faster, trying to push her limits without burning herself out. What use was exploring space if she couldn't even escape the solar system? She had to reach beyond that.
In her second year, Astra began applying for internships. She stumbled upon one for someone she knew all too well. Dr Susan Storm was looking for young and energetic physicists to assist her work. Astra spent all evening writing a long email, explaining how this was everything she had ever wanted in approximately twenty thousand words.
Astonishingly, a few days later, Dr Storm replied. She had been charmed by Astra's word vomit and her love of astronomy, and invited her to the second stage of the internship interview. Astra met Dr Storm and obviously did something right, because a week later she was offered a place as her research assistant, not the role that had been offered but something that allowed her to work even closer to her idol.
Working with Dr Storm, studying for her college course and practicing her Astral Projection soon took its toll on Astra. Dr Storm noticed that this energetic young girl seemed to be flagging constantly, running off coffee most days, and sat her down for a frank talk. Astra didn't take long to crack. Who better to talk about her abilities, than to Dr Susan Storm herself? She told her that she was trying to push herself further and further, but was limited by her own body... to which Dr Storm said she knew the answer.
That was how Astra stepped through the door of Planetary. Susan explained what they were, a collection of people dedicated to humanity's outreach for civilizations beyond the stars. To explore the galaxy and roam the cosmos, looking for anything that could help, or harm, Earth. Astra didn't believe it at first. It was like her dream come true!
For the first year, Astra continued as Susan's research assistant, though more into the fold of Planetary. She graduated college and came on full-time, where she could begin to expand her own abilities. With Susan's help, and Planetary's resources, Astra travelled beyond the solar system. Each day she reached further, and further, until... Astra found her first inhabited planet. She had been instructed not to engage whatever living beings were down there, but...
Astra returned after a basic conversation with real, tangible aliens. She told Susan all about it, and it was from there that Astra's role began to expand.
She has been with Planetary for five years now, and Susan's assistant for seven. Now she works as what she delightfully refers to as a Cosmic Ambassador, using her far-flung astral projection to reach planets and civilisations well beyond the scope of normal human contact. Astra expands her knowledge daily, pushing her limits as she has ever done. There is nothing that can hold her back!
Role Play Sample:
The dark void passed around her like an ocean of ink, dotted with stars that seemed so far, yet entirely within her grasp. Astra was travelling at speeds entirely inconceivable to her normal mind but here she was untethered, unbound. Her conciousness soaring through the great cosmic depths like a shooting star across the sky. Ahead, some million miles forward, lay a tiny planet, insignificant and unknown. Her eyes focused, glittering with starlight. Time and distance passed her by like insignificant things. She saw the ball of rock approaching. Slowed herself down...
Astra landed, her form some graceful thing, tall and elegant but unmistakably human. Before her was a mighty civilisation, a city of beings that would be alien at first, but... she stepped forward, approaching the first being she saw. Bowed, low and graceful, a smile on her form's mouth.
"I come in peace... take me to your leader!"
