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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Davies" data-source="post: 8567151" data-attributes="member: 30538">Esther Hoshino<img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/My-First-Gallery/i-Tf6WRxB/0/15a730c3/M/Natla2-M.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />To slightly misquote someone, "it ain’t so much the things we don’t know that get us into trouble. It’s the things everybody knows that ain’t so." The background of Esther Hoshino is one such case. Her official history is that she is the adopted daughter of the late Hoshino Kiichi, who inherited his fortune following his death twenty-six years ago. This is well known to be a pack of lies, however, and everybody -- or at least everybody who pays attention to this sort of gossip -- knows that Esther was actually the biracial daughter of Kiichi and his mistress, adopted by him after his sons disappointed him. Unfortunately, everybody knows things that are not so.The woman who now calls herself Esther Hoshino was born around sixty years* ago on Bogoin, a heavily industrialized world in the core of the Technate. By the time she was an adult, using the name Atara, she was heavily involved with the Vaskhane crime syndicate, as they offered her the opportunity to develop her scientific talents as she pleased, where the supposedly legitimate authorities would have worried about ethics and consequences and that sort of rot. However, her career with the syndicate was undistinguished, and while the Bureau of Law Enforcement maintains a still-open file about her activities, it is fairly slim.That would likely change if they were aware that she was dispatched on a mission to Earth in 1989, to investigate the activities of Kuklafron, the primary Vaskhane operative on that planet. Some of the accounts that had reached them about what he was getting up to seemed disturbingly eccentric, and Atara was under orders to eliminate him if necessary. While she had already decided that it would be necessary as soon as she received her instructions, she was a bit surprised at the competence Kuklafron demonstrated despite his eccentricities, and ultimately chose to work with him rather than oppose him.Having done so, she was in a better position to discover some of the intriguing plant life on Earth, something that previous Vaskhane operatives, even Kuklafron, had overlooked. Her major discovery was that the primary ingredient of boosterspice, a plant known to Terrans as "silphium", was growing in the wild here, with the Terrans apparently oblivious to its useful properties. (Or were they? Some of those supposedly wild growths showed signs of deliberate cultivation in the not-so-distant past.) Regardless, she was able to acquire a large crop of them and refine them into a useable form, and promptly started using her own product to slow her age as well as black marketing it.Shortly after that, the operations of Vaskhane as a whole were dealt a lethal blow by a coordinated effort between JSOT, the Scavengers, and the crew of the TSV Adventure. Atara was able to avoid death or capture, but had to go underground with the assistance of one of her best customers, Hoshino Kiichi, who agreed to let her pose as his daughter under the name Esther. That lasted for the next four years, until the old fool passed away. Despite what you might expect, she did nothing to speed that up, and apparently genuinely mourned his death for a while.By 1996, however, she had recovered enough to start considering some new schemes, focused on seizing various ancient relics to be found on Earth, especially those she suspected to be of extraterrestrial origin. Her first major plan to do so involved manipulating a certain adventuring archaeologist into gathering them for her, only for Penelope Jones to prove more resourceful than she expected. This was the ruin of her scheme and came dangerously close to ruining her personally, but she survived to plot revenge.Unfortunately, the countless times their paths crossed over the next decade all went exactly the same way. Esther always survived and escaped exposure. But she failed to gain the assets that she wanted and her attempts at revenge on Jones herself were always thwarted, for all that she sometimes inflicted great harm on the friends and associates of her nemesis. (She never went after Virginia Jones, however, less because of any limits she might possess than because she entertained ambitions of one day turning mother and daughter against each other.) Ulimately, however, when Penelope Jones did disappear from the scene it had nothing to do with her, which was extremely vexing.She continued her schemes, opposed by the Sea Dragons or the Discovery Company, among others, and though she actually enjoyed some successes, now, it failed to really satisfy her. When Virginia Jones followed in the footsteps of her mother, she perked up a bit, but the younger Jones lacked something that had made her mother so frustrating, even after she started working with that mystic boytoy of hers. Esther was seriously considering packing it in, gathering up her assets and leaving this dull world to its own devices, when something wonderful happened.Shortly after Penelope Jones started teaching at the Futurian Academy, a letter was delivered to her there. It was unsigned. The author congratulated her on escaping from death once again, and for successfully hiding for all those years. But I have been watching you since your return, and it's obvious that you are a very unhappy woman. And despite everything, I find that I really do hate that, Penny. (Penelope Jones enjoys being called "Penny" even less than her daughter likes being called "Ginny".) I want you to be happy ... because my own happiness, when I finally destroy you once and for all, will be lessened if you're not. There is no sport in ruining you as you are now.Enjoy your last few days, Penny. See you real soon."So what's this, then?" asked Naru Hasegawa, as she watched her co-worker reading the letter."Form letter," Penelope replied, and threw it in the trash. "I think I need some aspirin."Esther Hoshino -- PL 7Abilities:STR 0 | STA 1 | AGL 0 | DEX 2 | FGT 0 | INT 8 | AWE 4 | PRE 3Powers:Boosterspice: Immunity 3 (aging, disease, poison) - 3 pointsShielded Mind: Impervious Will 8, Limited to Mental Effects - 4 pointsTranslator Implant: Comprehend Languages 2 (speak, understand) - 6 pointsAdvantages:Benefit 5 (billionaire), Connected, Inventor, Languages 2 (English, Japanese, others, [Technate Standard is native]), Well-informed.Skills:Deception 7 (+10), Expertise: Business 3 (+11), Expertise: Criminal 3 (+11), Expertise: Galactic 2 (+10), Expertise: Science 4 (+12), Insight 5 (+9), Perception 4 (+8), Persuasion 8 (+11), Technology 4 (+12). Offense:Initiative +0Unarmed +0 (Close Damage 0)Defense:Dodge 3, Parry 2, Fortitude 3, Toughness 1, Will 9.Totals:Abilities 36 + Powers 13 + Advantages 10 + Skills 20 + Defenses 12 = 90 pointsOffensive PL: 0*Defensive PL: 2*Resistance PL: 6Skill PL: 7Complications:Power--Motivation. Hatred/Obsession (Penelope Jones.) Power Loss (Boosterspice, must take regular spice doses.) Secret (alien, criminal.)</blockquote>

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