Zsofia Backstory

Order of Nova Ardere
As Vanen's infrastructure slowly collapsed upon itself, so too did many of the old believers. The moons were on fire, and there was no shortage of blame to go around. Many died. But while some in crisis turn against faith, others turn more deeply to it. Believing that they had lost their way to the true cosmic singularity and with little power, the Vanen Illuminata church reformed into a humanitarian organization seeking to save as many lives as they could. For their efforts, the clergy was appointed as a regional order of knighthood and separated from the church proper, taking the name of the Nova Ardere.

Nova Ardere are recruited at a young age and trained for a life of service. They are overwhelmingly genderqueer as a matter of custom, reflecting their belief that they have melded with many souls beyond their own; somewhere between the ages of six to twelve, they become squires and must choose a new name, which is encouraged to be from a different gender. While all names are subject to presentation to and approval by the Council of Moons, names are only rejected if they do not reflect an appropriate virtue for the Nova Ardere. Higher ranked Nova typically use plural pronouns as they advance towards the cosmic singularity.

An open secret among the survivors of Vanen -- but little spoken of, particularly around strangers -- is that the Knights of Nova Ardere are also overwhelmingly psionic, at a rate that greatly exceeds the background rate of psionic talent. This is seen as proof of miracle, but given the chaos that was wrought by outsiders and their views before, they do not like to speak of this, and children are not told.

They are commonly referred to as the Nova Knights, with a single one referred to as a Novum. Although well-liked by the general population, much of the old theocracy's nobles do not like the Nova Knights for their faith, in a twist of cosmic irony; they know how much it cost the planet in the end.

Sir Zsofia
A child was born to two miners, followers of the Illuminata church; they displayed strong psionic talent from a young age. When the Nova Ardere asked if the parents would turn the child over for training, they did not hesitate to agree. While the child was frequently brought back to see their parents, at the age of five, they were killed in a cascade life support failure that took the lives of their entire claim's mine team. Consequently, the child had little ties to the past, and has forgotten her birth name. Only her moon name remains: Zsofia. Wisdom.

Betrayal
Zsofia frequently crossed paths with a fellow squire by the name of Agnes; the two were inseparable and fell in young love. It was short lived, however; Zsofia later discovered that Agnes was not only betrothed to one of the Moon Lords who ruled crumbling Vanen, but passing information to him to avoid scrutiny for the exorbitant fees he pressed upon his tenants. The two had a telekinetic duel on a zero-G mining platform, and Agnes was thrown into space. However, her body was never found when Zsofia returned with a Senior Knight.

Separation
While on Naka, Zsofia's squad of Knights won a high-stakes game for an incredibly large supply of atmosphere. However, they were caught cheating and thrown in prison; their psionic powers weren't detected per se, but the group's successes were far too statistically improbable. They had no proof, but they knew the foreigners had to have cheated, and so they were all assumed to be psionic. By virtue of the fact that Zsofia had been separated from the rest of her squad when all this happened, she avoided prison, but she was stranded on Naka.

Fortunately for her, she had a good way with people and a talent for the arts, and spent the next few years drifting around the casinos of Naka scrounging money together before running into the Baroness Firenze Zaranya.

Baroness Firenze Zaranya
A consummate and childless hedonist, Firenze is the head of a prosperous courier corporation and one of the finest patrons of the arts in the sector -- and also a black market baron. She took a shine to Zsofia after Zsofia won a game and took as her prize only a shipment of atmosphere back to Vanen. Zsofia remains unaware of Firenze's black market involvement, but Firenze has grown quite fond of her, legally adopting Zaranya as her future heir for that distant decade when she finally bites it. Thanks to Firenze's involvement, Zsofia was finally able to get back in contact with the Order.