HISTORY

Maria Vega is an independent scout, jumping from Aleph to Aleph, ranging far ahead of human advancement simply to see what's there.

Vega was born on Mars, the middle child of anarchist domesteaders, during the Second Lunar War. She grew up on the rough Martian Frontier and learned how to survive in low-G and hostile environment at an early age. She discovered she loved stories about Earth's Age of Discovery and read about the European explorers whenever she could, and was riveted by tales of the Aleph and the worlds begin discovered across the galaxy. Initially anxious that the worlds of the galaxy would be all discovered without her, she was relieved when her mathematically-inclined brother pointed out that it would take ten thousand scout ships exploring ten systems a year each about a million years to explore the whole galaxy.

Maria worked for years to gain pilot certification, got a job on a Free Luna survey ship, and saved enough to buy a small scout ship, the De Gama. For the last five years she has happily jumped from edge systems to unknown systems, always looking for a great discovery and financing herself by selling her routes and initial scans. She has scouted 15 uninhabited and unexplored systems, surveyed two dozen planets, and discovered three Alephs -- returning each time to re-supply intact. Every year the frontier spreads and every year she returns to new stations, some in systems she discovered. Although she might see as many as four rich new systems a year, she has never been tempted to turn prospector, preferring exploration above mining. Competition is fierce, sometimes dangerously so, but Maria's never been happier.

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE

Maria Vega is a slim 35-year-old woman with short black hair, and light brown eyes. Since she spends much of her time in microgravity, she works to maintain muscle mass via isometrics, but finds she is losing ground every time she returns to gravity wells and is forced to remain grounded until her fitness returns to baseline.