Reference Sheet of OCs and Key Terms and Concepts [WIP]

This is a WIP because I've been working on it for a long time lmao and there's still lots of stuff to be added.

OCs I will probably use:

Abdullah Adams
(Cape Malay Community / Muslim history in Cape Town)
35
5'11" / super thin/ lean muscle
Male / Heterosexual (on the Asexual side of it though)
Mixed Oratoan / Human
BG: His father is Citra's father, and his mother was an Indian (mixed Bengali/Goan of Portuguese decent) laborer/slave* who was contracted to work in Oratoa - she worked in the palace, had a son with the leader (without consent), and then sent that son (Abdullah) to a school set up by Osman's company. When Abdullah is in his early teens, he is sold in the slave trade, who sell him to a contractor, who sells him to Diederik's company. He falls in love with Mieke's mom after he had sex with her when he was a teen. They have been in a genuine relationship since then, (of which is unknown) and he has promised to marry her once he can buy his freedom.
Occupation: technically a janitor for the ship, but bc he is very competent and knows the ship and the way the captain works better than anyone else, functions as first mate/copilot


Ali al-Basri
(Basra, Iraq)
34
Half Arazind**, half Oratoan
6'0" / muscular build
Male / Heterosexual
His father was an Arazind slave trader and his mother is an Oratoan settler to Kamer. He knows very little about his father - but he grew up to be just like him and became a really renown traveler/slave trader. He came back to Kamer ever so often - where he started a romance with the daughter or the man his mother remarried. He has a lot of kids and has a lot of 'wives' throughout the universe. He and Reem both joined the underground radical organization that Kakali is in, and he's really into ideas of social justice and dismantling the system he works for.
Occupation: Slave trader


Arash Rezavi
Iran (Constitutional/Republic)
25
Male / Heterosexual
5'7" / narrow build / thin
Human
Iranian (Azeri and Persian, claims Iranian nationality)
His father is a Persian traveler who abandoned Arash's mom (who is Iranian Azeri) with her two kids when Arash was young - only to return back occasionally and irregularly. Arash was born with really bad asthma and breathing problems (due to the pollution on Earth) that prevented him from being able to travel much or even leave his home. His mother is Osman's sister, and their family has always been close to Osman's family. When Arash was young, Osman helped Arash's family move to 'Kamer'***, the moon colony. Arash was able to lead a normal life there. He went to a good university - where he joined a radical student group, and during the crack down on that organization Arash was sent to prison. He was barred from finishing his schooling for a two year probational period. His father kicked him out of his home for a few months and he was homeless. He was able to go back home when his father left – however, he knows that unless he does something to redeem himself, he'll be homeless again when his father comes back. He has been unemployed since prison and trying to find ways to get his life back together – until he came up with the idea that he should forge his degree, and work on the ship going to Oratoa. Recommendations from Safiye (who has a very good relationship with Osman's family, has the power to erase Arash's criminal history, and incentives in getting people from Osman's family who are loyal to her on the ship) got him a position as engineer on the ship.
Occupation: underqualified engineer

Askar Bamiyani
(Hazarajat)
11
Male / Heterosexual
5' 2" / lanky af
Mixed Oratoan and Cirqulgu****
Role in RP:
The son of Shirin and a Cirqulgu raider (rape). After marrying Shirin, Timur claimed that Askar was his son – but he looks very distinct from both of his parents – so people have been suspicious about this. He had been captured on a recent Cirqulgu raid and sold into slavery. He ended up working as a smuggler. He felt bad for doing it, tried to run away, and met Arash while they were homeless. Arash brought him on to the ship with him, and now he's trying to return to his family.
Occupation: cabin- boy / waits on people and cleans up


Auguste de Bourbon
(Versailles, France)
25
Male / Heterosexual
Human (French)
BG: From a relatively poor area, grew up really close to his older brother (Jean), but was taken/adopted as a charity case by a very rich family. He was reformed and forced to totally transform his character and personality very quickly, because of that he's become fairly mentally unstable. He married Franzi. His son is comatose and brain-dead – but Auguste is convinced that he will fully recover. He was convinced that going into space and getting away from his son would be better for him, and would help 'heal' his and Franzi's strained relationship.
Occupation: Government official

Azar Rzayeva
(Azerbaijan)
24
Female /
5'5" / narrow build / not very curvy
Human
Azeri (claims Azerbaijani nationality)
BG: Arash's younger sister. Same childhood backstory as Arash, except she never had the medical issues he had - so she had to do a lot to take care of her older brother when they were younger. A lot of their mother's attention went to Arash, so she really grew up in his shadow. She went to Arash's university. She was able to finish her schooling while he wasn't. She had always been very good friends with Safiye, and she began to work as her assistant.
Occupation: Safiye's assistant/confident - on the ship to report back to Safiye, trained as an engineer, helps her older brother a lot.

Badr ibn-Yahya
(Hadramaut, Yemen)
26
Male
6'1"
Arazind
BG: His father (Yahya) is a big tribal leader in the mountains. Badr sought to seek independence by becoming a space sailor and trader. He has a lot of wives and families in various different planets and lands - which unlike Ali, he does tend for and care for. Unlike Ali, Badr doesn't have moral issues with what they're doing and is fine continuing the slave trade.
Occupation: Slave trader, space sailor on Ali's ship


Batool Bandari
(Bandar-e Abbas, Hormozgan, Iran)
26
Female /
5'3" / curvy
Arazind
BG: Paternal half siblings of Ali
Occupation: Slave and singer/performer in Oratoan courts


Elia Adams
(Cape Town, South Africa)
4
Male
Mixed human, !xulab'gi***** (and Oratoan, though this is unknown)
BG:
Mieke and Noah's son, though Noah doesn't take responsibility for him or accept that he is the father. He was born after 7 months of gestation while !xalab'gis and those of !xalab'gi descent generally spend 11 months in gestation. There were some genetic complications that occurred. Mieke's (although puberty occurs for most !xalab'gi women before the age of 11) body was not fully developed at 16. Elia was born seriously premature, and at a time when his eyes had not finished developing. Because of modern technology most of his organs were able to develop outside of the womb, but his eyes were not. He does have some emotional development issues as well. He was blind for most of his life as Mieke worked to get money for him to get bionic eyes. She was sent to prison and Elia was placed in a foster care for disabled children. (He developed serious separation anxiety in that process.) Mieke got money with the help of family to pay for bionic eyes when she's out of prison. They are really cheap and always break – and she's looking to get him new eyes.


Fahd al-Saud
(Najd, Saudi Arabia)
36
Male / Heterosexual
Oratoan
6'2" / used to be super muscular now kind of fat
He is the tribal leader and his people own the land where some of the largest fuel deposits on Oratoa exist, as a result he is in a process of selling off that land. He's become extremely wealthy in the process. He's been working with Osman recently, as many members of his tribe had been studying in Osman's schools. Is currently looking for the best offer between the government and Osman. Known for being  fickle, dogmatic, unreliable and untrustworthy. People are trying to figure out what to do with him.
Occupation: Tribal leader / owner of extensive fuel deposits.

George "Bulbul" Black
(Anglo-Indians /British Raj)
5
Male
Human (Half Bengali, half English)
Average height and weight
Kakali and Anthony's son
Wants to be just like his dad

Jahangir "Bulbul" Chaudhury
Originally Jagadish
(Dhaka, Bangladesh)
30
Male / Heterosexual
Human (Bengali)
5'5" / really skinny
Occupation: Economist, works for Grameen (or some future version of it), part of a project funded by the World Bank, looking at the prospects of extending microcredit to poor communities in Oratoa.
BG: Kakali's older brother, converted to Islam after working for a wealthy Pakistani family. He had a good relationship with the grandfather of the family - who payed for him to go to school. Jahangir went on to get his phd in Economics. He married the daughter of that family - the marriage was not approved by anyone in his family or hers (except her grandfather.) It was a very rough marriage - and they divorced a few years after marriage. His ex-wife and her family has custody of their child from the marriage.

Kakali "Kali" Chaudhury-Black
(Kolkata/Calcutta, West Bengal, India)
28
Female /
Human (Bengali)
5'1" / chubby hourglass (Vidya balan in dirty picture http://im.rediff.com/movies/2011/nov/23sld9.jpg )
Occupation: Literature professor, novelist, coming as a translator, on a grant to explore Oratoan literature, actually has ulterior radical anti-imperialist motives
BG: Comes from a poor Hindu Bengali family living in one of Earth's slums. Her parents were active in an underground politically radical organization – and as a result, Kakali is very politically radical. Her older brother helped her start her education. She met Anthony at some point, who she initially just intended to use as a sugar daddy. (Though she grew strong feelings for him pretty quickly.) He was already married but they started an affair. She eventually convinced him to divorce his wife - they got married, had a kid, she finished school and  with the help of his connections got a good job at a good university. Now she is on a mission to assist the masses of Oratoa and spread her ideology amongst them.

Kakali and George:


Matthieu Paulus Viljoen
“Paultjie”
(Bloemfontein, South Africa)
20
Male / Heterosexual
6'5" / swimmer's build / broad shoulders that narrow down
Human (French-Dutch Afrikaaner)
BG: Born from Diederik and a human settler woman/ missionary on New Mars. He had a troubled and rebellious youth, in which he ran away from home and joined an extremely xenophonic/ racist settler separatist movement. He's over that now, but still has not totally wiped that poisonous ideology out from his mind. Currently studying law.  He's the lover of a married !xalab'gi woman who is much older than him, and is trying to prove his worth to her so she'll marry him.
Occupation: Legal intern for Niels

Mieke Adams
(Cape Town, South Africa)
20
Female / Bisexual
5'1" / bony, skinny and angular af but wide hips and nice butt
(Thinks she is half human and half !xalab'gi*)
(Actually half !xalab'gi, 1/4th Oratoan and 1/4th human)
Her mother took Abdullah and Diederik as her lovers. They grew up pretty poor but Mieke got to go and travel on Diederik's ship all the time. After having a brief romance with Noah, she became pregnant with his son. Doctors said it was likely she would die in pregnancy and almost certain her son would die. Noah left the planet, Elia was born extremely premature and Mieke became seriously ill. She recovered in half a year - though she still does get really bad pains in her stomach sometimes. She became a schoolteacher for a large !xalab'gi school afterwards. However, after teaching for a few years she was imprisoned under false pretenses. She started using a synthetic drug – very similar to meth in prison. She got Elia back after prison, but her life has been a mess. Recently she's been more or less forced by her siblings and Diederik (who she had not been on speaking terms with since the birth of her child) to work on the ship – as a hope that it would straighten her out.
Occupation: Technically a cleaner, functions as all purpose mechanic/ will help her father with working the ship / etc. as she grew up on the ship and knows it better than almost anyone.

Pic of Mieke and Elia (this is what it looks like when one of Elia's eyes stop working) (Mieke should be more red but I messed up)




Noah Black
(Perth, Australia)
20
Male
Human (Australian)
BG: One of Anthony's kids. He studied mining technology, and he had experience working in mines for summer work as a kid. He studied at New Mars for a bit, where he met Mieke, promised to marry her if she'd have sex with him. However, after she became pregnant he left New Mars, and went to work at his home. He denies any responsibility for Elia, though Mieke is trying to get him (by talking to his dad, harassing him, etc) to take responsibility. Currently on the same ship as Mieke and Elia. He's supposed to look at the potential for mining fuel in Oratoa.
Occupation: Government intern

Orhan Murat
(Turkey)
11
Male / Heterosexual
Human (Turkish (of some Greek and Italian descent))
5' 0" / lanky and awkward
BG:
Romulus' legitimate grandson, and is currently being trained by both Romulus and Osman to take over their business empire. Romulus' family has been the center of media attention. He was always compared to his cousin, Franzi and Auguste's son. Because he was closer to Osman, his cousin was preferred over him. The media also liked his cousin better, who was very beautiful / angelic looking, while Orhan started looking really awkward/ kind of ugly after like 6-7 yr old. Orhan didn't really care though, because he loved his cousin, and always planned to help run his father's company, not his grandfather's. During a ceremony for Orhan and Louis-Julien, there was an attempted assassination on both of their lives. Louis-Julien was put in a coma and the bullet missed Orhan.
Safiye has not allowed him to leave the home since the assignation attempt. He teleports between Osman's palace and Romulus' home. He's very cloistered off and interacts with people who don't have permission to visit him (there is an intense screening process for those besides trusted friends or family who want to visit him) through holograms. His mother pushes him very hard and has inflicted a lot of emotional/psychological abuse on him. As a result he has a lot of emotional issues and is prone to throwing fits and biting/hitting his mother, however, because interviews of him are permitted once a year, and photos are only released a few times a year - the public doesn't know about this.
Occupation: Heir to two business empires.

Here is a pic of him w/ Louis-Julien before he died:


Osman Murat
(Ottoman Empire/Ottoman legacy)
46
Male
Human (Turkish)
BG: Originally came from a rather poor family on Earth. He launched a real estate business on the moon and it really took off and he became very wealthy. He married Safiye. She runs his business and campaign for him because she's much more intelligent, cunning and adept.
He gets his friend Sabri, who runs Osman's school system to homeschool Orhan. He gets very worried for his son, but Safiye controls almost everything so he can't do much about it.
Occupation: Leader of large real estate empire/ politician

Paiman Durrani
(Abdali/Durrani Pashtun Tribal Confederation)
39
Male /
6' 5" / Muscular and imposing
Oratoan
BG: Tribal leader of a community traditionally hired as warriors by Shirin's people. His sister is the leader of his tribe, but he often fills in her space in primarily male spaces. He and Shirin have fallen for each other - and maintain a secret romance.
Occupation: Warrior

N. Ram Padayachi
(Durban, South Africa)
24
Male / Heteroflexible
Mixed Arazind / !xalab'gi
5'10” / average build
His mother was an Arazind slave sent to work on New Mars. Ram was told that his father was also Arazind (because his mother was very xenophobic), but he was actually a !xalab'gi worker. Ram's mother and her son were eventually manumitted. Manumitted Arazind slaves do tend to have a better position on New Mars than the 'natives' do, so he was able to enter school, especially after Jozi kind of helped teach him to read. Was briefly engaged to Mieke when she was a teacher. Ram contracted a incurable mutation of HIV (assuming HIV is cured at this point, but a certain mutation of it exists amongst the !xalab'gi population that does not have a cure yet, and because the !xalab'gi are treated as second-class citizens there hasn't been much of an effort to find a cure, or find anything that can relieve the symptoms of the disease.)
Occupation: Med-student in residency on the ship



Reem al-Baghdadi
(Baghdad, Iraq)
26
Female /
Human (Iraqi)
5'4" / average build
Her father is a very wealthy academic. She comes from a very academic family and is working on a phd. She was in a radical student group (the one Arash was in, and the one Kakali and Ali support) however, her father's position prevented her from getting kicked imprisoned, but she was put on academic probation. She has been in a relationship with Ali.
Occupation: She is currently working to study the customs of Ashlultum's court and people.

Rustam Rahimov
(Tajikistan)
16
Male / Heterosexual
Oratoan
5'1" / still has some baby fat / looks 12
BG: He and Shirin's family are part of a very traditional and very conservative, anti-reform movement. Rustam is a student in one of the schools with this ideology. Timur is in love with him, and Rustam is tightly controlled by Timur. As a result, he knows nothing about the outside world and he's very xenophobic, traditional and naive.
Occupation: Prince, student

Safiye Murat
Originally Sophia
(Istanbul)
28
Female / Flexible
Human (Turkish nationality, mother is Greek, father is Italian)
5' 5" / Very curvy
BG: Daughter of Romulus, raised in the spotlight. She's always been the media's favorite (though of course – that doesn't stop magazines from airing a lot of articles about her weight, as she's known for going on ridiculous diets.) She currently runs Osman's company and she's waiting for the moment to grab power from her father.

Pic:


Shirin Balkhi
(Tajik Afghans/ Northern Afghanistan)
21
Female / Flexible
Oratoan
5'3" / thick thighs, wide hips / pear shape
BG:  She came from a royal family, and her mother was the Queen of a large Empire. Cirqulgu raiders attacked her family's palace when she was 10, her mother was killed and she was raped and impregnated. Timur, a mixed Cirqulgu/Oratoan, and the son of her mother's sibling (who ruled a smaller Empire) married her. Her rule has been seriously weakened, and her lands are still often the subject of raids. She has become part of a xenophobic millenarian movement that is convinced that the end of times are near - and blame the issues of the time as a result of the human presence on Oratoa and technological advancement.
Occuption: Local Oratoan ruler and wife of Timur.

Timur Azizov
Uzbekistan
29
Male / Homosexual
Oratoan / Cirqulgu
6'0" / Broad shoulders and narrow waist, (think of Hrithik Roshan in Jodhaa Akbar but less perfect) lean muscle build
BG: The son of a Cirqulgu raider and an Oratoan princess. He's very passionate about the arts and sciences (he loves astronomy and has dreamed of space travel). Unlike Shirin, he does believe in reform and is passionate about bringing technological advancements into his territory, but he's very hesitant of allowing it into his court - because he doesn't want Rustam to become independent of him.
Occupation: Local ruler and husband of Shirin.

Concepts:

*Contracted Migrant Labor: Think the kafala system in the Gulf mixed with the slave trade and indentured servitude. Very coercive, akin to slavery - a company sells the rights to a laborer, the laborer signs a contract, is bound to the person or company buying them, and that person or company gets the right to the laborer's identification. The laborer can't terminate the contract. Has become increasingly popular amongst Humans due to extreme overpopulation and poverty in Earth. There is a recent trend of people being brought over by contractors and sold in the Oratoan slave trade.

**Arazind: Live on a archipelago of space islands called Zinaadt, based off of cities and islands of the Indian Ocean, and the Persian Gulf. Men wear clothing similar to izaar/futa (this is from Yemen) or dhoti or sarong (this one is javanese) /lungi (this one is bangladeshi) , women wear bright masks and clothing similar to baati (somali),  dirac (somali) . The colors indigo and purple are prized, and most people wear clothing dyed this color.

They are group of people known for their connection to the slave-trade. Many have been taken as slaves, however, the most prominent slave traders tend to be Arazind or of Arazind descent. Known for their music. (more about them later)

They look very similar to humans, but they have blue lips/finger-nails and the whites of their eyes are yellow-ish.

***Kamer - the moon colony
(meaning Moon in the Turkish spelling of Arabic)  a reference to the 54th Surah of the Quran.

Osman began a real-estate business on the Moon, (which was somehow made live-able for people.) Overpopulation on Earth led many to need to relocate elsewhere. Similarly, many very popular Turkish dramas had started to film on their moon - communities who watch these shows (dubbed) have begun to view the moon as a very live-able place. There has been heavy investment - mostly by upper-middle class Muslims.

Initially, only the elite could move to the moon - however, rapid construction led to the growth of a huge contracted labor population (many of whom were very poor, some were human and some settlers from other countries.) They created their own enclaves, and were given the rights to permanently settle on the colony. Osman's company has set up a variety of charities that these communities have become dependent upon.

Osman's business exists within the tradition of pious neoliberalism. His company is neo-Ottoman in the way it utilizes symbolism. Much of the population does come from formerly Ottoman ruled lands, so this symbolism is portrayed as creating an order that is more culturally authentic. It is very similar in policies to that of the AKP in Turkey, and Osman rules his colony as an Erdogan-esque figure - a very popular and democratically elected authoritarian leader.

Also, Osman has begun to set up schools, which teach his ideology throughout different planets, similar to the Gulen Movement. Many people settle in Kamer after attending his schools.

****Cirqulgu: A group of people based off of Turkic and Mongol history. They have mixed heavily with Oroatoans, some scholars classify Cirqulgu as a separate species, but most hold the belief that they are just a separate ethnic group. Known for their nomadic lifestyle. They have historically conducted raids on Oratoan courts and settled communities. (more to come later)


*****!xalab'gi:
A group of people. Name translates to 'people of the red dirt' due to a creation myth that the first man was built from the red dirt of their planet. (Called New Mars by humans, called this for the red color of the soil. Called !xalaab or 'red dirt' by the people native to it.) History is based off the Khoi people, though also using some Bantu African (Xhosa, Sotho, Zulu) history and customs. Language, like Khoi is distinct by the predominance of clicks.

They used to largely walk around with see-through red cloth over their breasts,  but most currently dress like human settlers. Their skin is a dark reddish color.  Dental modification is a common cultural practice.

They live on one of the closest planets to Earth. They're very similar to humans, and can mate with humans, though they have longer gestation periods. Many have died off from disease or mixed with/ adopted cultural practices of humans (who have formed large settler colonies on their land.) Many live in urban, settler environments and work with humans and have second class status amongst human society. Some do live outside of human society - and those have significantly lower status than the one's who have adopted human practices do.  They all face discrimination and stereotypes primarily surrounding: 1) the sexuality of their women 2) poverty and the symptoms of poverty 3) intelligence

1) Because of longer gestation periods, and longer period from which children can become independent of their parents  !xalab'gi women tend to have wider hips/larger breasts and butts, etc. Also, society is matriarchal, women are relatively independent and able to take 'lovers' to support them economically. The breast is not traditionally covered as it is viewed as a sexual object, so there are laxer rules on clothing - as compared to humans. As a result their women are stereotyped as being over-sexual, and rumors exist about the uniqueness of !xalab'gi female genitlia. Many foreigners engage in sexual tourism to !xalab'gi populated cities and sexual violence towards women is alarmingly widespread.

2) Because of their lower status in human society, and the fact that many are forced to live in human environments, many lack the ability to escape poverty. Unemployment is rampant. In these environments drug addiction and alcoholism has become rampant.

3) There are many restrictions on !xalab'gi entering education, so few can go beyond the secondary level of education. Schools are segregated and !xalab'gi schools are underfunded and very poorly managed. Stereotypes of lower intelligence have started during the first years of colonization, when there were perceptions (later proven wrong scientifically) that !xalab'gis were biologically mentally inferior to humans, these perceptions exist to the day and are reinforced by the uneven distribution of educational resources.

People of mixed descent also deal with these stereotypes and experience a lot of discrimination, however, they do have a higher status than those who are non-mixed.