Alexis Padgett
Gender: Female (For the record, her sex is female, too.)
Age: 28
Species: Human, as far as she is concerned
Appearance: (The thing I am most bad at. :S)
Alexis was born with black hair. She went through phases of dying it other colors, experimenting with highlights and layering and gradients. At the end of it all? Black hair was really what suited her. It is cut at a medium length - long enough to be tied back in a few different ways and left hanging. It is naturally straight, but she used to curl it on a semi-regular basis to give it some waves.
Her eyes are a plain brown, just as common a color on her world as it is on Earth. As far as skin-tone goes, it is on the paler end of the spectrum. She has stronger thighs and calves from riding, but for the most part, she is very weak. This shows in her body structure. She does not look fit or toned, and she has a light coating of fat - not enough to be called overweight, though; she has to maintain appearances. Still, she could better be described as 'average', not 'thin'.
Personality:
Alexis is a very analytical person, having trained for most of her life to be a scientist. It really is her defining feature. She has a passion for using the scientific method and for discovery. She's smart and witty, but somewhat oblivious to the effects of throwing her intelligence around - tendency to correct people or give unwarranted advice based on her experiences or even blind guesses (that are not really that blind). She does not really have much of a physical presence, but she commands an aura of respect - the 'project manager' type. You start working on a project with her and end up working for her, though it's unlikely she will lead you astray in the sciences, at least. She takes long to do relatively simple tasks, displaying an unnecessary level of perfectionism for things like cleaning dishes/glassware/equipment - hence why she tends to delegate those tasks to someone else.
In normal conversation? Overly rational, a bit difficult in the 'having fun' department. She will let loose occasionally, but not around people she considers her underlings - consciously or subconsciously. She has had her flings over the years, but her partners generally find her to be somewhat difficult to live with, as distant as she can be at times. A few stuck around for a good amount of time, and, though the passion was incredibly strong to begin, it quickly dissipated as if a void existed for it to expand into. That's just how she is. She can keep friends, but they must have some sort of use to her to hold her attentions, as terrible as it sounds.
As far as morals go, it's a tricky subject. She had no problem seeing the lower caste as sub-human, but that was completely normal on her world. There was a growing middle-caste full of people with mixed blood, and they tended to speak out against the mistreatment of the new worlders, but, having grown up privileged in an old world family, she is not too quick to throw out the ideals that got her started. She can simplify the sacred (on Earth) idea of 'life' to nothing but a molecular machine. As soon as something or someone is viewed as a subject or patient in her eyes, it is hard to look at them as anything else. On the spiritual side of things, she enjoys the stories offered by the old world religion of the deity giving the world to them to enjoy, use, discover, etc. and certainly does not speak out against them, but she lacks any true faith in the religion.
In a sense, Alexis is spoiled. She never had to build a life for herself since there was always one waiting. She always knew what obstacles needed to be overcome and what steps needed to be taken to do that. She never had an issue with money, and she never had to prove herself completely on her own merit. She is not bratty about it, but she certainly does not know how to be poor - nor can she, at this point, sympathize with those who are. She does not know what to do without opportunities being handed to her.
Appearances are important to maintain in someone of her pedigree. Although it is not completely analogous to the high society of Earth, it is quite similar. She knows how to dress nicely enough. Her perfectionist tendencies force her to always put an effort in to her appearance, and she judges subconsciously the appearance of others.
History:
Her world involves a fairly rigid caste system with three major tiers to it: the old worlders, the new worlders and the growing middle class between them, the mixed-breeds. Her world used to be split into two major continents with their own cultures on it, blissfully (sort of) flourishing in peace without knowing the existence of the other. This planet is much bigger than Earth, so a voyage to the other side of the world was impossible until at least the industrial age. The old world, as named by the conquerors from the old world, of course, was quite barren. It was more fat than it was tall and contained a wide band of desert right through the middle. Civilization built up around the coasts and rivers, but there was only so much expansion that could be done there until greater technology came along. To the north were temperate forests that were in limited supply, but plenty of metal abounded in the rockier areas of the deserts. The scholars knew the world was round, and, once they could, funded expeditions to find better places to live.
Now, this was all framed in the context of the old world religion which was based more on knowledge than typical Earth religions. The old world culture was in such desperate need of resources that encouraging technological advancement proved more prosperous than anything else. The world was given to them by their deity to be used to the fullest extent. The intellectual challenges along the way were just that - challenges it put there for them to conquer, constantly advancing as a culture to better utilize its world. Sure, there was some strife (especially against the nation in the temperate forests in the north that were much less advanced and took up valuable foresting territory).
The discovery of the new world was hailed by many as a gift from the deity. It was situated more towards the south, towards the humid bands of the equator. There was some desert in the south of the continent, but it was actually a bit milder and benefited from occasional coastal storms working their way into it to bring forth a myriad of life. The old world culture was so eager to get to the relative paradise - both for manifest destiny reasons and, well, it was much more convenient - that it steamrolled over the people living there. The new world culture was much more spiritual and had not industrialized yet, having everything they needed already provided. Once they figured out how to effectively defend from predators, most progress stopped altogether. They were seen as savage by the old worlders, akin to a lower lifeform. This stigma never went away, and the two castes were born.
Alexis Padgett was born to a family of pure old world blood. This afforded her ample opportunity. She was given the best schooling to start out and ended up excelling in the sciences. Her parents pushed her towards her talent, sending her to different schools that emphasized the subject, feeding her curiosity. The child Alexis basked in the attention it drew and worked harder at it as she grew up. She graduated school early and went on to specialized education. Her status and the financial support that came with it were still propelling her forward, but she also distinguished herself as a good budding scientist on her own merit. Eventually, she graduated and began researching at a private institution. Her major was genetics, though that also involved a lot of biology/medical knowledge on the side. Since the lower caste could be used for experimentation, the medical/biological field was actually a bit more advanced than on Earth despite the same level of electronic technology. She also experimented on the lower caste, studying the development of the body both in the womb and out. Now that the old culture had settled into paradise, they began fighting a lot more between themselves, creating a very tense situation that had her investors paying for research in physical enhancement. Attempting to combine animals was her last project, both by grafting and by genetic manipulation. As her number of projects grew alongside her reputation, she began to manage a whole team of people, sometimes not even observing the experiments happening under her name.
