Maia

Maia's (infrequently used) codeform.

D-Per, aide to Sediryl and friend of Uuvek.

Appearance and Personality

Her original design was a normal-looking Seersa. Sediryl has asked her to choose avatars to suit herself, and she usually chooses to look like a more magical version of a Seersa. Her manifested forms all tend toward shades of lilac or purple, with purple eyes. And glitter.

Biography

The fifth D-per to be successfully coded; her development was interrupted by the Crispin/Acron affair, which put everything relating to D-pers on hold for 10 years. For this reason, she needed 27 years to be completed, rather than the fifteen the team expected from their creation of Troy.

"I’m an old D-per, alet. When they made me, the creation of one of us was arduous enough that when we were “born” we had substantial indenture contracts to work off. When my coders finished making me, I was put to work in Fleet—most of us worked in Fleet initially, since they had money to finance our creation—and I spent thirty years serving in various capacities, mostly on starbases or supply depots. I was manumitted twenty years ago, and have been spending most of my time suspended, until I heard your Queen’s request.”

Involvement with the Eldritch

After leaving Fleet, Maia spent a decade in stasis/hibernation while her employment advertisement for "a military contractor seeking a position with a private company" was read 52 times. She woke for the single inquiry, from Liolesa. At this point, Liolesa hired her to manage various tasks off Escutcheon, since there was no network sufficient for Maia to base herself there, including but not limited to:

• Overseeing several financial concerns and identifying and suggesting new investment opportunities;
• Interfacing with exploratory elements seeking a new planet for colonization;
• Tracking the Eldritch currently offworld and looking for the ones that went missing prior to Liolesa's reign
• Helping to purchase and maintain (legally and physically) the various vessels used by Liolesa and her Tams

Since it was not necessary to inform Maia of the location of Escutcheon for her to undertake these tasks, and since there was some risk to Maia learning it due to the censors, Maia was not told about the Eldritch homeworld's location; she was informed after the coup made it clear that the Veil was no longer intact. The non-disclosure agreement in the contract made it difficult for Maia to keep in contact with other D-pers until that shift in policy.

Liolesa did the paperwork necessary to have Maia declared a dual citizen of both the Alliance and the Eldritch Empire (because being an Eldritch citizen grants her rights that being an Alliance citizen doesn't, like the right to operate a ship alone) at that point. Maia didn't realize she held this citizenship until after the Chatcaavan war, when she "left" Escutcheon to pick up Uuvek and purchase another personal vessel for Liolesa. Maia figured that she had been working for Liolesa for about a decade (depending on which calendar you used). This would put her hire date at 471 BA; Jahir was already abroad, but Reese was still three years from being saved by Liolesa from insolvency, suggesting Maia was involved in finding her.

Events of the Chatcaavan War

Only the Open (PG4)

Maia met Sediryl on the RGRV Visionary, at the Fleet base on Starbase Ana. As the ship's pilot, she accompanied the Eldritch to Sharsenne, and from there to where Jahir's ship had been attacked. Then she tracked the attackers to the hand-off with the Chatcaava, and helped Sediryl make the agonizing decision to abandon Jahir and track the pirates.

In Extremis (PG5)

Maia and Sediryl tracked the pirates to their base and decided to reconnoiter rather than run for help. Maia helped Sediryl prepare her persona of Baniel Sarel Jisiensire's successor, and armed her with a gun. When the pirates discovered them, Maia secretly accompanied Sediryl onto their base, using telegems disguised as a pair of earrings. Maia discovered that the pirates blocked every communication route to the Alliance, but not to the Empire, and thus she got some messages through from and to Lisinthir, via the palace contact on the Throneworld, most crucially the information about the pirate force being far larger than they were reporting to the Twelveworld Lord.

From Ruins (PG6)

When Crispin discovered Maia and kicked her out of the pirate base, she fled for the Fleet hub, where Samson told her that Crispin was not confined by a key: he was free, and acting on Kamaney's behalf by his own choice. Maia found Uuvek (using the data tablet that Sediryl had given him on Sharsenne) and begged for a shell with which to spread herself into the Chatcaavan skein. He wrote her a sheath, for insertion, and a coating, for navigation without detection, and she made her way toward the Twelveworld system, where she jumped onto the Twelveworld Lord's flagship. Thus she was listening (very carefully) when the Senior Ranger reported to the Twelveworld Lord about the aliens who brought The One, who is the Slave Queen, and Maia rushed to Sediryl on the Vault of the Twelveworld. She accompanied her to the Throneworld, then to the Alliance, and back to the pirate base. She also helped Uuvek get in touch with Liolesa to ask for a job.

Post-Chatcaavan War

Jubilee Summer

While running Liolesa's electronic security and helping with Uuvek's projects on the Peacemaker, Maia also became one of Sediryl's close advisors, along with Qora Paunene Zela and Liliarana Delen Galare. At Lili's request, she secretly tightened surveillance on Bethsaida Emil Galare, which was something that Sediryl felt she could not do without undesired repercussions. But when Amber Seni Galare deployed anti-surveillance technology for Beth's secret meeting with Ulurith's heir, Maia and Lili were forced to reveal their activities to Sediryl, and the plan to insert the Twelveworld Lord's Attendant as a spy was hatched and implemented instead, with Maia's assistance.

Maia monitored the communication posts that Sediryl left behind at her village visits, so she gave the alarm when native monsters unexpectedly attacked one of the former Asaniefa villages. Her broadcast of Sediryl's actions to save the villagers -- especially the bit at the end, where the heir-to-be said that all Eldritch are her people -- awoke the nascent Eldritch communication network. Maia also helped coordinate the taxi service that was a natural outgrowth of the increased communication.

Timeline

• Code-birth/launch in 431 BA.
• Manumitted in 461 BA.
• Hired by Liolesa in 471 BA.

Quotes

• "I only look like a Seersa. What I actually am is a terrifying number of lines of code spread all over a galactic network. Don't forget that."

• "But I encourage you to consider the power of 'and', which is often a lot more interesting than 'or'...." (Said to Sediryl on the topic of choosing between Lisinthir and Jahir.)

• "Spying on you with drones? What do you think I am, an expert system in someone’s bread toaster? No one’s getting a drone into a ten mile radius around you. And before you ask, not around Liolesa either. She’s the one who hired me, remember? The Swords might manage her physical security, but I manage her electronic."

• "You don’t need a body to get nervous. Ask me how I know."

• "The fidelity of data is important to me, Sediryl. Without it, people like me can't exist. I feel really strongly about people using their networks to share the truth, not distortions."

Trivia

• swears by the god in the stream