Vivianne Laurent - La baby-sitter chaude
« Il y a une dépendance grave au jeu au sein de cette unité qui doit être réduite », a observé Vivianne en faisant un coup de pied en haut sur le tableau de bord et en se mettant à l'aise alors qu'elle utilisait son module à longue portée pour scanner la zone que Katya et Evangelienne avaient apparemment pilonné - avec au moins un fantôme d'uppite toujours sous le vent.
C'était comme Evan d'aller en métaphorique-cock-premier et commencer à avancer comme l'impénétrable juggernaut qu'elle pensait être, mais commencer à ouvrir le feu avec Matryoshka alors qu'il y avait encore d'autres mercenaires danger-fermer était mentalement stupide. "Et vous devez arrêter de dicter les termes de tous les paris. Les livres ont besoin d'être capables de maths."
S'il y avait quelque chose comme des manuels sur Frame combat, Viv serait assis avec Evan la nuit jusqu'à ce qu'elle sache jouer un rôle défensif avec quelque chose d'autre que les yeux de chiots et ces gros seins.
Peut-être qu'elle devrait en écrire un dans son temps libre, demander à Camilla de consulter. Cela peut aider à avoir un état d'esprit plus militaire au sein de l'équipe. Viv savait que son style était un peu long et grungy. Tout le monde n'aimait pas se battre sale. Quelqu'un devrait s'occuper des petites salopes; Camilla était juste l'option qui serait la moins douce à ce sujet.
Mais ce petit concert de côté pourrait être déposé pour une autre fois.
Les yeux vifs du sniper dansaient le long du périmètre d'Evan et Kat s'était installé près du Racer qu'elle avait descendu, à la recherche de Kawal dans l'une des dunes. Elle l'a trouvé relativement vite et s'est cognée la tête. Son cadre semblait relativement intact, du moins d'après ce qu'elle a vu, mais... elle n'a pas beaucoup vu.
"Je suppose que cela dépendrait de votre définition d'enterrement. Kawal, espèce de sale petit bâtard, tenez-vous de votre propre volonté si vous le pouvez. Vous gaspillez tous le temps qui pourrait être passé à enquêter sur ces choses - donc Evan, ne soyez pas gentil avec lui. Katya, tu es sur le Racer. Vous pouvez enquêter sur un cadre sans trébucher les auto-destructions indésirables. J'espère."
Name: Vivianne Adrienne Laurent
Aliases: Viv
Age: 27
Birthday: November 10th
Gender: Female
Appearance
Height: 5'11"
Weight: 60.3 kgs (133 lbs.)
Build: Lean and toned
Eyes: Ice blue
Hair: Black, green highlights (dyed, originally dirty blonde)
Skin Tone: Olive / Tanned / Freckles
Tattoos/Scars/Piercings: Viv often wears henna tattoos, changing up the patterns after every three months. The only two that adorn her skin permanently are on the inside of either ankle - she has a Spartan's helmet on her right and a bloody guillotine on her left. She has a series of irregular, jagged scars on the inside of her right torso and biceps, where she semi-successfully caught a beer bottle being swung at her that promptly shattered in her grip. Two diamond studs in the right side of her nose.
Personal Style: For anyone lulled into into a false sense of comfort by the relatively conservative style of Evangeline Sparr, her best friend (and long-term sofa parasite) is a decidedly more loud, punk affair. Her hair is short and has been dyed several colors over the course of her teens and twenties, and whether she wears spandex or skinny jeans you can always count on patches being torn away from her pants to reveal her legs. A black leather flight jacket, always smelling faintly of old swishers and beer no matter how often it's thrown through the wash, is always on her person, either worn or slung over her shoulder or hips. It's decorated with a variety of cuts, burns, and patches with the initials CGS or GFG, for the mercenary companies where she's spent her life.
Thanks to her runaway heiress friend, however, Vivianne has learned the basics of how to look respectable. She's capable of rocking a black turtleneck and heels when she needs to, or even a tuxedo for special occasions where she needs to accompany Evan places. Dresses are out of the question. So is any jewelry short of the diamond piercings in her nose, or any makeup besides copious eyeliner and some foundation and blush to cover up those ridiculous freckles.
Psychology
Aggressive * Driven * Inventive * Persuasive * Vulnerable
Sexuality: Repressed (Bisexual)
Relationship Status: Single
Personality: Viv is not an easy person to withstand. What manifests to others as cold courtesy is, more often than not, a barely-contained attempt to disguise her impatience with wasting her time talking to someone instead of being up and accomplishing a goal of hers. Like her best friend, she has a certain attractive swagger, but whereas Evangeline Sparr acts like the dumb, loud brute of the pair, Viv Laurent is a mercurial tempest, a demanding workhorse with a fierce charisma and impatience for slacking. This focus has served her well in her life as a mercenary and given her both the wariness and hunger of a predator; Vivianne is ambitious but cautious, and will not let her love of a good high-octane fight get in the way of her resolve or any standing orders, and actively demands the same self-control from others in turn.
This intensity is a double-edged sword, however, that has left Vivianne constantly seeking new outlets to release some of her pent-up energy. This, combined with a pathological need for constant focus and clarity, has left her vulnerable to the allure of an ever more dangerous life and an ever more exciting party. It is telling that the majority of Viv's sabbatical from mercenary work in her teens was spent at punk concerts or as a club kid. Vivianne is capable of recognizing the hypocrisy that stems from an Apollonian work ethic and a Dionysian night life, but justifies herself by telling herself that the excellence she demands from herself can only be achieved by venting all her chaotic energy when possible off-duty.
Like many thrill-seekers, Vivianne can be incredibly persuasive. Her charisma and determination to set and reach a series of clear goals, one right after the other, is clear, and with that sort of ironclad will comes the ability to persuade people to always give her a little bit of extra slack. Nowhere is this more evident than with her only true friend. Evan is the only person who can both inspire a greater fire in Vivianne and prod gently at her handful of soft spots. Fully aware of her friend's loneliness and desire to be loved above all else, Viv often leaves some of her typical sting from the rebukes she gives her friend - and, though she grouses endlessly about the girl's stupidity, will direct acidic verbal bombs at any who question Sparr's worth.
Habits: Vivianne exercises alongside Sparr once a day, often to a greater extent than even her best friend is capable of so early in the morning. This is done both to keep herself disciplined and as a method of recovery from her chaotic nights. Vivianne is a habitual user of several illicit substances; before joining the Ghosts she smoked cannabis frequently and could go through a twelve pack in a night, but after her extraterrestrial tour with Sparr first began she successfully gave up drinking. Despite this improvement, she is still open about a semi-regular cocaine habit she picked up upon her return to the Jupiter Sphere, as well as several occasional dalliances with MDMA. Neither of these have devolved into a full-blown addiction, though she uses both for recreation fairly often.
Hobbies: Despite her notoriety as a club kid, Viv's non-partying activities are downright docile in nature. She's spent many quiet nights tending to her housemates, whether it be keeping an eye on Evan through action movie marathons (Evan's choice) or art house romances (her preference) or playing with her kitten, Robespierre. Vivianne is also an avid fan of exercise, and despite her dabbling with various drugs has avoided alcohol and (most) forms of smoking to keep herself in fit and fighting shape.
Fears: With the notable exceptions of a few people and one kitten, Vivianne has no concern one way or another for human life. The mercenary is possessed with a certain type of courageous, near-suicidal free spirit, and walks without fear of danger throughout all aspects of her life. What scares Viv is the way those under her perceive her - she has a need to be seen as a valued and admired comrade, not an obstacle or a shackle on her team.
Nowhere is this more plainly seen than with Evangeline Sparr. The Frame designer's decision to leave behind her parents' company and a comfortable life in order to follow Vivianne on a quest for adventure through the solar system weighs on her constantly, and the fact that Evan tends to her and nurtures her throughout her myriad of blurry nights and dalliances with substance abuse with such tenderness and affection is maddening to Viv. Viv is terrified of repaying this blind loyalty in the wrong way, and struggles to project an image that would maintain Evan's pride in her and prove herself as a worthy influence on her best friend.
Likes:

 Evan
 Robespierre
 Being drunk
 Being high
 Punk rock
 Hip hop
 Movies
 Exercise
 Flying
 Conflict
Dislikes:

 Being drunk
 Being high
 Evan's mood swings
 Being disturbed while coming down
Cards On The Table
General Skills: Viv has never received any in-depth hand to hand training, but has the quick instinct and dirty mind of many a punk and brawler. This, coupled with her physical fitness, makes her an unpredictable, if raw, hand-to-hand fighter. She's much better trained in the usage of her firearms, and is one of the few Ghosts to have extensive training in flight as well as Frame combat.
Viv also will gleefully reluctantly indulge in karaoke or a good open mic night, sometimes with her beaten old acoustic guitar.
Inventory/Possessions:
-Personalized CGS Sidearm
-.338 Magnum sniper rifle
-Portable phone
-Roniq Pressman cassette player
-Formal wear
-Four-string Martin acoustic guitar
-Robespierre, a feisty eight month old Calico
History
Years of Combat Experience: 13
Background:
Unlike her best friend, Vivianne was born into a life of combat - and she never stopped to regret it.
Her parents were the founders of Callisto Guerrilla Solutions, a PMC on the Galilean moon of Callisto that performed mercenary work throughout the independent worlds, and even ITA territory as far as Mars. Rather than stay sheltered for the majority of her life by her mercenary parents, By the time she had grown into an adolescent, Viv was being taken along on some of CGS' more mundane jobs, which soon evolved into her providing direct assistance from her parents' cruiser. Her parents were careful never to let her actually perform any combat roles, but she longed for the day she could prove herself as a fighter in their eyes. When an insurgency broke out in an attempt to wrest control of Mars away from the ITA, Vivianne had just turned 14 - and she saw her chance.
Her parents saw that there was no dissuading her, and gave her exactly what she wanted - a chance to watch the fight from planetside. That was where they toed the line.
Vivianne was relegated to support for the duration of the war, ferrying wounded soldiers to safety or driving trucks of ammunition; it was a dangerous job, like she had pleaded for, but still contained a note of concern more for the young Viv's well-being than she would have liked. When the war was over and they were returning to Callisto, Viv decided to plead with her parents again to be allowed a more active role in CGS affairs. She was told, point blank, that someday the entire organization would be hers - but not as a teenager, and not without experience outside of the small, privileged life she had lived as the only daughter of the PMC's founders. If she wanted to make a living, she had to do it on her own for the time being and then come back, seasoned, for her parents to re-evaluate her place in the family business.
Viv found that agreeable enough, and had soon found her way all the way to Earth. She was too young, too Jovian, and too independent to get a roll in the ITA military anywhere, and when she had detailed her experiences in the Martian war she was either mocked or disbelieved by the mercenary companies she attempted to enlist in. With no outlet for her ambitions in sight, the discontent and depressed Viv briefly fronted a punk rock band and found a brief respite in the grungy touring life, before that fell through due to a handsy bassist and the depletion of her bank account in civil court after paying for lawyer fees and the man's teeth. Fucking bassists.
Now stuck in a dead-end and increasingly more destitute life, Vivianne found herself at a fateful concert one night that, as was the case with most concerts she attended, evolved into a brawl. Unlike many other concerts she had attended, there was an heiress present that night who had pulled Viv from the carnage after an unlucky blow to the temple.
When Viv woke up the next morning, she was appalled to see that she had been rescued by a drooling pug in human form, desperate for affection and already proclaiming herself Viv's best friend. Over the course of two days, Viv was slowly nursed back from her concussive state by the clingy girl, who finally introduced herself as Evangeline Sparr (but only after about another fifty instances of the gut-wrenching words 'best friends,' and a prolonged, wide-eyed, cheerful ignorance of any protests to the contrary) the heiress to a tech conglomerate that manufactured workhorse Frames for a variety of purposes. Without any prompting from Viv, still unable to escape thanks to the ringing in her head and weakness in her legs, her kidnapper/host detailed her lack of enthusiasm with running the company and her differences of opinion with her parents. As she went on, the ambitious Vivianne quickly realized that, in the unenthusiastic Sparr, perhaps she had found the perfect apostle and wingwoman on her quest to meet her life's goals.
And so, reluctantly at first but with considerably more zeal as the years went on, Vivianne accepted the mantle of 'best friend.'
However, gaining her first friend had not tempered Vivianne's resolve or spirit in the slightest; on the contrary, her desire for experience out in the solar system and a lifetime of adventure had quickly rubbed off on the impressionable young Evangeline, and within a few years of being hosted by the Sparr family Viv had convinced her to leave Earth behind and head further into the solar system, where Viv had spent her formative years. After striking some unholy devil's pact with her parents, Evangeline agreed, pulling her personal Frame out of storage and agreeing to follow anywhere Viv led. There was only the matter of Viv acquiring a Frame of her own.
That problem was solved, much to her chagrin, by good old nepotism. Cajoling a prototype (and revolutionary) transformable frame out of The Powers That Be at Spartan Industries filled Viv with self-loathing, but once she had her customized prototype unit to herself, she had to admit that it was one detour that, while not earned, was nonetheless a net positive. The two girls, now armed and ready, struck out through space, eventually coming to rest once again in the Jovian colonies and joining the Ganymede Ghosts on Sparr's request.
Viv remains a Ghost to this day with her best friend, hoarding experience and honing her skills until the day she can return proudly to her parents and claim her own birthright, with her best friend at her side.
Extras
Character Quote: "Evan, you fucking moron."
Theme Song: Motorhead - Enter Sandman
Anything Else: N/A


Technical Data
Model Number: SIS-Y20XX-02 (Spartan Industries Swan - Year 20XX - Unit 02)
Code Name: White Swan Thermidor
Manufacturer: Spartan Industries
Dimensions: 8.1 meters tall (Hybrid Mode), 18.31 meters long (fighter mode)
Weight: 14.6 metric tons (13244.9 kg, empty), 19.6 metric tons (17780.8 kg, loaded)
Armaments
Armaments:
-Bastille 30mm Autocannons x2: Fixed to hardpoints in fighter mode.
-CHI-Z "Scapino" 100mm Long-Range Frame Sniper: Unable to mount in fighter configuration. Can only be carried in Hybrid Mode and must be abandoned to transform.
-IRIS Rockets x8: Mounted on shoulder pod over right shoulder in Hybrid Mode.
Equipment & Design Features
Design Features: The clearest innovation that Thermidor brings to the table is its transformable frame, able to transform from a Hybrid mode of Frame and fighter jet into a small-scale fighter and back. While seemingly marvelous on paper, the prototype comes with several problems.
Though Spartan Industries advertises that this process can be done in 1.5 seconds, the fastest transformation Viv has ever been able to eke out of her machine took 1.9 seconds. Thermidor is capable of very limited VTOL in Hybrid mode thanks to thrusters on the back of the arms and legs, but only a mere couple dozen meters off the ground - only enough space to allow it to transform into fighter mode. In addition, an entire third mode - that of a normal, humanoid Frame - had to be excised entirely due to the limitations of Spartan Industries technology, a cut that Vivianne was not happy with even when Evangeline herself told Viv it wouldn't be possible. Though she eventually warmed to the smaller, stubbier Hybrid mode, Viv never referred to the machine by its in-house name again; she now uses the codename Thermidor, after what she feels is a retreat from the machine's full innovative potential.
Though several additional configurations and packs are on the development slate for the eventual mass-production model, including an armor pack, a speed pack, and an atmosphere-escape booster pack, the prototype, obviously, comes with none of these.
As an aerospace Frame, Thermidor is armored with layers of ceramic composite armor typical to Frames, as well as an experimental titanium alloy typical of most aircraft.
Miscellaneous
Technical & Historical Notes: The Swan model is one of several potential centerpieces of the Spartan Industries Year 2000 Development Initiative, an effort for the Sparr family to corner the market with both a variety of upgraded classic models and several new Frames. Chief among the myriad of developments that the company made throughout the 1980s was progress on one of the world's first transformable Frames, an air-capable machine that could still function on the ground. In 1985, two prototypes were successfully constructed from the high-end Spartan Musketeer frame and codenamed Black Swan and White Swan respectively. The project stagnated, however, when the data mined from the two Swans proved inconclusive after Spartan Industries treated both prototypes with kid gloves and stunted their development. The Musketeer frame was put through several more stress tests, with various different takes on the transformable frame design, and by 1988 the Swans were competing eight other potential transformable Frames that could be marketed for the Year 2000 Initiative instead.
It was around this time that Vivianne Laurent, a part-time test pilot for the company and companion of the Sparr family heiress, was doing a tour of one of the company's R&D facilities looking for the Matryoshka unit prototype when the Swan caught her eye. Viv instantly requested one of the two prototypes for her own use, which the R&D squints steadfastly refused to surrender. A fiery argument ensued, and the passions of the young mercenary seemed to be locked in a stalemate with the protective instincts of the Swan's engineers before Evan Sparr made calls to her parents. Through a series of arcane promises - the likes of which Evan has cheerfully refused to inform Viv of, aside from vague promises that "now we'll definitely be best friends forever!" - Sparr had pulled on just the right strings.
When the two girls left Earth a few weeks later, the Spartan Industries Swan Unit 02, the White Swan, haughtily nicknamed Thermidor by its pilot, went with them. It has been Viv's personal unit in the five years that the girls have spent with the Ghosts.
Color Scheme: The Frame keeps the same white primary color it had through its testing phase, but the yellow-gold coat that the R&D department gave it for a secondary color has been replaced with Viv's personal jade green.
Anything Else: "Sparr, your fat ass crowds the cockpit. Get out."