Cecil Skye Background

Cecil "Valkyrie" Skye
http://i.imgur.com/A5hfNRj.jpg

Background: In a world of mecha and wunderwaffen, the humble fighter airplane still finds ways to stay relevant in modern conflict, whether by being cheap or by freeing up mechs for other areas of battle. Some people, like Cecil Skye, even volunteer for the role, instead of washing out from mecha flight programs. Even horror stories of fighter craft being shot down by the squadron by the first mecha did little to dissuade him; it just made him hit the books, sims, and live trainers on defensive maneuvering a little bit harder. The callsign? He looks like a girl, even with his head shaved, and he flies, and he sings pretty well too.

For one fateful training test late in his cadet training, Cecil simulated a one-person air patrol over a number of populated islands over the Pacific. The test was intended as a procedural training--proper requests for takeoff, proper radio doctrine--but had a reputation among cadets for pulling out the strangest tricks, from an absolutely uneventful but still nail-biting sortie to another AUG flight in the area attempting to defect. In this case, Cecil ran into a full invasion force--ships, fighters, and mecha--all headed directly for one of the populated islands. Standard Operation Procedure would have been to radio in the contacts and remain at standoff distance for reinforcements. Cecil elected to radio in the contacts and dive in to intercept. He literally ran out of ammo engaging and stalling the invasion force before being "shot down" and "killed". And while his immediate instructing officer berated him for not following procedure, further analysis from other trainers revealed that (a) the simulated invasion force was being remotely piloted by other instructors and guest aces, and would definitely have made landfall without outside intervention, (b) Cecil neutralized one third of the enemy all on his own, (c) reinforcements would have arrived well before Cecil had been "shot down", and (d) if it were a real battle, Cecil would have been a shoo-in for the Medal of Honor...most likely posthumously.

On one last leave before deployment to an AUG base somewhere on the borderlands, Cecil met someone who said they were from a group called the Ideal Guardians. He talked about aliens and calls for Earth to surrender and the need for heroes to save the earth. Cecil didn't believe much of it at first, but even after he was convinced he asked: Why me? I'm an AUG pilot, not a superhero. I don't even fly mecha, I fly a fighter plane. A second line fighter plane. And I've never actually flown in combat! I'm not the man you want!

And the other man said: Perhaps it is fate. Perhaps you're the man we need.

And perhaps having "a chooser of the slain" as a callsign will turn out remarkably accurate...

High Concept: AUG Trained Rookie Fighter Pilot
Cecil Skye's been down a number of AUGAF training tracks at the academy, from air superiority doctrines to near-space edge operations, and while he's never actually been deployed to frontline combat yet, he's theoretically capable of engaging in any airborne project you please.
Sample Invoke: Hey, they covered this in flight training!
Sample Compel: Hesitate under pressure of live combat; make AUG-centric assumptions

Trouble: "It's Not My War!"
Cecil had expected to deploy against the HJS and run interdiction missions over Gibraltar and the English Channel, or against Tawantinsuyu and defend the Gulf of Mexico. Instead he's fighting for the whole world against literal aliens from literal outer space. Alongside mecha with weapons and power plants he can't possibly begin to understand. Flown by royalty and holy warriors and top-level generals and people with fire for blood. He's barely made 2nd Lieutenant! He doesn't belong here!
Sample Invoke: Keep a clear head during emotional investiture
Sample Compel: Be apathetic at a bad moment

Aspect: Laugh So You Don't Scream
Humor is a natural defense mechanism in tense situation, and Cecil can call on it in spades. Usually he aims the jokes at himself, but he can make an irreverent comment even under heavy fire.
Sample Invoke: Relieve pressure in a tense moment
Sample Compel: Offend someone by being too jokey

Aspect: The Perfect Wingman
Everybody in a flight is theoretically able to handle command, but Cecil always liked the wingman position for some reason. Maybe it's a personality thing, or maybe he figures the commander position is the one that always plays bait in flight engagements.
Sample Invoke: Happy to get that guy off your six!
Sample Compel: Cede command to someone...less capable of it.

Approaches
Clever: +3
Careful: +2
Quick: +2
Flashy: +1
Sneaky: +1
Forceful: +0

Stunts
Dicta Skye: Because Cecil is a conventionally trained fighter pilot, he gets +2 to Clever Maneuvers when he uses his training to shape the battlespace to allied advantage (e.g. identification of tactics, weaknesses, or priority targets).

Neo-Aggressor Program: Because Cecil is well versed in space-combat maneuvering, he can treat Full Defense (+2 to block) as an obstacle (-2) to an action on the same turn, instead of disallowing an action.

SSF-01A "GEIRDRIFUL" Prototype Space-Capable Multirole Fighter

http://i.imgur.com/XM1togJ.jpg
Theme: Ride of the Valkyries (Dramatic), Dogfight (Macross Plus) ("Standard") or Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (Comedic)

The "GEIRDRIFUL" (old Norse, "Spear-flinger") Space Superiority Fighter shows what happens when the best and brightest ideas of fighter planes from around the world get stolen and put into a single frame with the objective of controlling outer space. Namely, a rather expensive craft that would be a challenge for a mech, provided the pilot was particularly skilled. The result may be neither fish nor fowl, especially in the era of the mecha, but it is a fighter craft with a number of advantages compared to others of its kind. Its use of multiple directed energy lasers as the primary weapon system and a micro-missile manufacturing system in an external pod allow it a very long "time in combat" without sacrificing punch, and its unique cockpit design and multiple thrust vectoring systems allow for sustained 15g+ maneuvering in both atmosphere and vacuum, with no special precautions required beyond the standard skintight g-suit design for the pilot. (Admittedly, such an arrangement would result in very low survivability were the cockpit ever breached, especially since it uses the high-visibility "bubble" canopy standard on Western fighter craft for centuries.) Its fuel requirements are similarly minimal, as it is equipped with a new prototype fusion drive power plant, which powers all engines (main thrust, retros, and maneuvering) and all onboard electronics, and can be theoretically fueled by the residual hydrogen in space. (Admittedly, said power plant has never been fully vetted for this use.) And while not strictly as heavily armored as a mech, the fighter is lighter and faster than any humanoid design could hope to be, and even has room for some active point defense to compensate for its lack of RHA-equivalent thickness, a rarity on mecha designs. One minor compromise is that the craft is also designed to operate at full efficiency in atmosphere; as such, all of the control surfaces expected on a terrestrial plane are still there, even in space where they do nothing.

Aspects
It's a FIGHTER PLANE?!
Sample Invoke: Be faster and harder to hit than the average mech
Sample Compel: Be undergunned and underarmored compared to the average mech

Onboard Micro-missile Maker
Sample Invoke: Weapon pod bays to spare!
Sample Compel: Sitting on a munitions dump...

(Laser) Guns, Guns, Guns!
Sample Invoke: Power up the light show
Sample Compel: Fry a capacitor, have shots bounce...literally

Power Source
"Perfectly Safe" Onboard F999 "New Sun" Fusion Engine Generators
Sample Invoke: This is rocket science...known rocket science
Sample Compel: Not be as safe as advertised

Powers
Tactical Laser Defenses: Once per scene, after blocking, reduce an enemy attack's degree of success by one (e.g., from success with style to just success)
Full Afterburner!: Whenever you roll your Quick approach to traverse multiple zones, you may add a number of shifts to your next attack equal to the number of zones moved. This effect stacks with itself.

Signature Attack
Star-Blazer Circus Blossom: With a deep breath and a scream to keep from blacking out, Cecil takes the Geirdriful well outside its stated performance envelope in all aspects, putting the fighter through supermaneuvers that would cause any other fighter to spontaneously disintegrate in midattack from the Gs being pulled, while simultaneously putting as much ordnance, laser and missile, into the bandits around him as possible. The dancing craft, missile vapor trails and laser light shows evoke a supernova, a blooming flower, and an aerobatics show all in one move.