Biographic Information
Character Name: Aidan Woldt
Alias(es): Nemo
Age: 33
Gender: Male
Classification: Cyborg
Affiliation(s): None
Physical Characteristics
Height: 1.8m
Weight: 77kg
Colors:
- Hair: Brown
- Eye: Blue-Grey
- Skin: Pale
Aesthetics or Distinguishing Features: Facial scarring - left forehead, right cheek
Description: Of slightly above average height and medium build, Aidan Woldt does not generally stand out in a crowd - unless you know exactly what to look for. His pale skin, messily-healed scars, and rattling cough mark him out - to those in the know - as someone who has spent a lot of time in unhealthy and unpleasant zones back on Earth. He sports thick, curly brown hair and a close-cropped beard, though, so clearly the environmental contamination from down there hasn’t completely fucked his health.
Woldt keeps his head down and his shoulders squared when he moves, leaning forward as he walks, as if accustomed to fighting a headwind - or maybe just to keeping a low profile. His cyberware isn’t outwardly obvious, but a keen eye or a scanner will show he’s had quite a bit of work done; his eyes are chrome, and there’s integrated circuitry in both arms from shoulder to palm, among other mods. Apparently he couldn’t afford new lungs, though, or his chest wouldn’t rattle like that with every labored inhale.
Personal Details
Personality
Woldt is driven - that’s how anyone who’s met him, even briefly, would describe him. There’s an intensity to him that can be offputting, even when he’s being friendly. He’s got a clear list of goals, short term and long term, that he’s always working his way down, one checklist step at a time. Patient, methodical, and stubborn, he wears away at any obstacle in his path like some ancient glacier gradually carving a canyon. He never seems to relax or slow down, and gets restless if he can’t be actively working on something.
In truth, Woldt’s relentless drive is the only remedy he knows for his high anxiety, low sense of self-worth, and depressive tendencies. When he’s working on something, or being useful to someone, he can hold those feelings at bay - and even find satisfaction, as close as he ever gets to peace or contentment. Woldt would rather work himself into the ground than spend any time alone with his thoughts; exhaustion spares him from having to reflect on his life, and keeps him from second-guessing if he’s doing enough.
Woldt keeps his circle small; he’s outwardly polite and courteous, but deliberately avoids cultivating deep relationships. The few people he does get close to enjoy deep loyalty and care; Woldt’s love language is acts of service, and he will push himself to his limits and beyond in order to serve those he’s close to. It’s partly because of this tendency that Woldt doesn’t go looking for new friends; he can only go that far for so many people. An introvert at heart, he can navigate social interaction, but finds it exhausting.
Outside of his few deep relationships, Woldt has learned to suppress his natural empathy and adopt a necessary level of callousness. He has seen death and suffering up close with great frequency, and he knows all too well that there’s usually nothing he can do to help the people involved - trying to solve every problem he encounters will only get him dragged down alongside the victims. Woldt holds little hope for the future, and is cynical about the prospect of any real change. All he can do is look out for him and his.
Flaws
- Sickly Constitution
- Perpetually Restless
- Depressive Tendencies
Skills
- Scavenging
- Small Arms
- Infiltration
Equipment
Possessions
- Woldt arrives on the moon with little but the clothes on his back.
Cybernetics
- Neuroport
- Cybernetic Eyes
- Forearm Omni-Tool
Background
History
Aidan Woldt was born into better circumstances than the vast majority back on Earth. His parents - father Hugo, who worked in water rights management, and mother Elise, who worked in climate analytics - lived in Chicago’s arcology district, drawing comfortable enough salaries for a spacious apartment in a climate-controlled residential tower with filtered air. Aidan and his sister Claire received a STEM-focused, AI-mediated education, preparing them for stable technocratic jobs in the Great Lakes Compact.
But the illusion of middle-class safety collapsed when Aidan was twenty-one. His dad suffered a coronary condition that led to open heart surgery, leading his employer’s insurance assessment AI to label the family as “high-risk” relative to the value their roles generated. The Woldts’ citizenship tier plummeted, and with that came consequences. Their housing costs skyrocketed, their healthcare and schooling detached from their contracts, and their legal protections vanished. Their comfortable lives collapsed.
The Woldts were forced out of the arcology, and into the Unprotected Districts that surrounded it. Out there, industry was king… and that industry was fully automated. Secure full-time jobs were a thing of the past; gig work was the best anyone could find, and competition for each low-paying contract was fierce. Hugo, Elise, and Claire stuck together at the edge of their former home, taking what scraps of work they could find, dreaming of being allowed back inside. Aidan ranged further in search of work.
He drifted across the old Midwest - the Detroit Reclamation Zones, the Cleveland Terminal Ports, the Minneapolis Wind Corridors, the St. Louis Trade Trenches. He was a scavenger, a plastic miner, a freight wrangler, an algae farmer, an ocean sweeper… and also a smuggler, a hacker, and a thief. A decade of hard labor out in the Unprotected Districts, and the even more polluted lands between them, wreaked havoc on his health. Treatments were far too expensive. Cheap cyberware only barely compensated.
But by scrimping and saving, pushing himself to the limit day after day for ten long years, Aidan managed to scrape together enough money for a ticket to the moon - a one-way rocket journey to Celeste 7. That megacity might just be a place with enough opportunity for him to do more than just scrape by; it might be the kind of place where he could get himself enough Mohs to recreate the comfortable life he’d been forced out of, and to bring his family up out of Earth’s misery to enjoy it too.
But many others have had that dream.
Most of them don’t make it far once the lunar reality sets in.
Mechanics
Story Purpose
Woldt is a newcomer to Celeste 7, untethered to any existing factions and eager to earn the Mohs he needs to accomplish his goals. He fits easily into street-level stories, and can work as a hired corporate agent or a paid agent of criminal groups. He is not particularly political and can interact with characters from virtually any social stratum and belief system. His experiences on Celeste 7 will shape his direction as a character.
Stats
- Muscle: 1
- Grit: 3
- Savvy: 2