Brainstorming Meme Link | Somewhere far outside the Quad exists a space station, built deep into a rather large asteroid and floating peacefully in space. It's sustainable, open to anyone and everyone who would wish to visit (though why would you want to is the real mystery) and even host to a variety of natives -- people born on the station dating a few generations back. Initially the station was called "Emerius" by whoever put it there but over it's long and strange history, the station has picked up the name "Kirkwall" and even less favorably, "The Chained Satellite" referencing the giant chains tethering the station into the asteroid and making it impossible to separate.
Kirkwall has a pretty storied past, the station itself dividing itself up from the top of the station (Hightown, they refer to this area as, where the rich live in decadence and without worry) to the bottom (Lowtown, where the criminally poor and poorly criminal live, where those who aren't native to the station are sent until they "earn" a place among those who already live there). Even worse is Darktown, buried deep among the maintenance tunnels of the station and where the dark and twisted underbelly of the station can be found. Now, aside from the geography of the station itself -- there is it's history. Kirkwall was originally founded as a place to barter and trade slaves, a neutral ground to sell your "goods" as you wanted without interference from the laws of other planets and systems. It went on for decades and never quite exactly stopped so much as people used the station less for trade and more for living. Too many families, rich and poor, too many travelers, too much attention on the station as an actual place rather than a stop made the location fall out of favor with the wider known of slavers across the galaxy.
Instead, Kirkwall was just Kirkwall. A very messed up place that had a history no one quite knew what to do with. Thus, they ignored it and turned the station into a real place to live, a city of sorts. At least, that's what the natives call it.
Hawke is one such native, though she wouldn't quite know how to explain it. One day, Malcolm Hawke, a man with a rather complicated history himself, fell in love and tried to married, Leandra Amell, the daughter of a rather long line of native Kirkwallers who thought their station ought to go back to how it was before -- shuffling slaves along and independent to everyone outside of it. Naturally, this didn't fly too well with the Amells and Leandra picked love over lineage and left. She left-slash-was exiled along with Malcolm for his not being quite politically "right" for the Amells and their newborn daughter, Marian.
Of course, this left them a little... not so well off. The Amells were rich, the Hawkes weren't. Tie that into twins being born a few years later, the Hawke family ended up leaning a little too much on the not quite legal side of things -- Malcolm and Marian becoming near partners in crime when it came to finding things to keep their family warm and safe and happy. They ended up living most of their early years on a ship that Malcolm acquired at one point before eventually settling on an agriculture based planet called Ferelden. They stayed there for quite a while, until Hawke and the twins grew up, until Malcolm passed happily in his sleep and surrounded by loved ones, until Hawke and her brother, Carver, joined the local "King's" army to protect their lands from an attack from a nearby planet.
It didn't help though and the initial wave of destruction was... brutal. It caught them all by surprise and when their "King" (who wasn't quite a king, formally, since it was a little odd to call it such, but he was in spirit) fell, it was all Hawke and Carver could do to run and find their family. They caught up to them eventually, fleeing to the south and trying to find where exactly they could go when Leandra suggested returning to Kirkwall. It was a hard decision to make, an even harder decision to do, but in the end they made it back to Kirkwall.
One would think that would be enough for Hawke but that, unfortunately, was only the beginning. Her life began to take severe turns from there. First, she spent a year as a slave to pay off a man who helped to allow her and her family back into the station in the first place. After that, it was digging into one of the caves in the asteroid, further than anyone else had before in order to find some riches that would help keep her family back on track. She found the riches, but at the same time unleashed a sort of disease that made people on the station act more unhinged than usual.
Eventually that passed too but in the process, Hawke ended up not as close anymore to her siblings -- both wanting to stay far away from her after what had happened. It was fair, she presumed, but then after that things began to get worse. A passing ruthless general from another planet unleashed an attack on the station in other to take Kirkwall as his own. Hawke, somehow, ended up dueling the man for the rights to the station entirely. She won the duel, the respect of the station, and was proclaimed the "Champion of Kirkwall". She didn't quite like the title.
But things just kept happening for Hawke. Now that her family was back in favor, she thought it would be a good thing, good for her mother. That wasn't to last when a lone madman who thought the idea of killing those on the upper floors of the station would allow him to pass came after her mother. Leandra was killed, drained of blood, and body found by Hawke. Hawke wasn't quite the same after that. Nothing really matches up to cradling your dead mother's body in your arms.
Yet, the politicians still asked her for things. Hawke was in a unique position where while she wasn't exactly a Kirkwall native, she had enough sway to convince the people one way or another. She was known as a force of goodness, as someone who got things done. The pressure was insurmountable. The people of Lowtown wanted Hawke to get those in Hightown to treat them more like people. The people of Hightown wanted Hawke to convince those in Lowtown that they were best where they were. The local law enforcement wanted her to wanted her to be stricter while the "rebels" wanted her to spit in their faces. Hawke spent every day wanting out of that, just wanting to be left alone.
It all came to a head when one of the rebels blew up a place of worship in Hightown, leaving hundreds dead. Hawke hadn't quite expected that and when the blame for the deaths and destruction was starting to land firmly on Hawke's shoulders -- she left. Her mother was dead. Her siblings were who knows where. She was being pulled into a political shitstorm and viewed both as guilty for doing it and guilty for not stopping it. She couldn't win.
So, she left. She heard about the Quad, the RAC. She thought it wasn't quite different from Kirkwall but the anonymity was tempting. She had nothing but a lonely house and a solid fortune sitting in a bank for her in Kirkwall. She didn't need the money. She didn't need the house.
Fast forward to five years later, Hawke has settled into an apartment in Westerley and a strange sort of routine for herself. She takes warrants and completes them, does the odd job here and there, loses and finds and loses her dog again and again. She feels lighter, with Kirkwall out and sight and out of mind -- the only real hiccup being a warrant gone wrong a few months back, where she tried to help out these two agents and nearly left to die when the plan went to shit. A last minute decision and while two still made it out of there alive, she wasn't the one left behind.
She's being more careful now, about who she works with and what sort of jobs she takes. She has a bit of a name for herself, always getting out of dangerous situations with slim odds and lucky breaks. Hawke doesn't quite like it, of course, wishing people would just leave her alone entirely but there isn't much for her to do about her own reputation. Instead, she tries very hard not to think about it and very hard not to think about Kirkwall either. It's working, kind of.
marian hawke | dragon age | reserved
Kirkwall has a pretty storied past, the station itself dividing itself up from the top of the station (Hightown, they refer to this area as, where the rich live in decadence and without worry) to the bottom (Lowtown, where the criminally poor and poorly criminal live, where those who aren't native to the station are sent until they "earn" a place among those who already live there). Even worse is Darktown, buried deep among the maintenance tunnels of the station and where the dark and twisted underbelly of the station can be found. Now, aside from the geography of the station itself -- there is it's history. Kirkwall was originally founded as a place to barter and trade slaves, a neutral ground to sell your "goods" as you wanted without interference from the laws of other planets and systems. It went on for decades and never quite exactly stopped so much as people used the station less for trade and more for living. Too many families, rich and poor, too many travelers, too much attention on the station as an actual place rather than a stop made the location fall out of favor with the wider known of slavers across the galaxy.
Instead, Kirkwall was just Kirkwall. A very messed up place that had a history no one quite knew what to do with. Thus, they ignored it and turned the station into a real place to live, a city of sorts. At least, that's what the natives call it.
Hawke is one such native, though she wouldn't quite know how to explain it. One day, Malcolm Hawke, a man with a rather complicated history himself, fell in love and tried to married, Leandra Amell, the daughter of a rather long line of native Kirkwallers who thought their station ought to go back to how it was before -- shuffling slaves along and independent to everyone outside of it. Naturally, this didn't fly too well with the Amells and Leandra picked love over lineage and left. She left-slash-was exiled along with Malcolm for his not being quite politically "right" for the Amells and their newborn daughter, Marian.
Of course, this left them a little... not so well off. The Amells were rich, the Hawkes weren't. Tie that into twins being born a few years later, the Hawke family ended up leaning a little too much on the not quite legal side of things -- Malcolm and Marian becoming near partners in crime when it came to finding things to keep their family warm and safe and happy. They ended up living most of their early years on a ship that Malcolm acquired at one point before eventually settling on an agriculture based planet called Ferelden. They stayed there for quite a while, until Hawke and the twins grew up, until Malcolm passed happily in his sleep and surrounded by loved ones, until Hawke and her brother, Carver, joined the local "King's" army to protect their lands from an attack from a nearby planet.
It didn't help though and the initial wave of destruction was... brutal. It caught them all by surprise and when their "King" (who wasn't quite a king, formally, since it was a little odd to call it such, but he was in spirit) fell, it was all Hawke and Carver could do to run and find their family. They caught up to them eventually, fleeing to the south and trying to find where exactly they could go when Leandra suggested returning to Kirkwall. It was a hard decision to make, an even harder decision to do, but in the end they made it back to Kirkwall.
One would think that would be enough for Hawke but that, unfortunately, was only the beginning. Her life began to take severe turns from there. First, she spent a year as a slave to pay off a man who helped to allow her and her family back into the station in the first place. After that, it was digging into one of the caves in the asteroid, further than anyone else had before in order to find some riches that would help keep her family back on track. She found the riches, but at the same time unleashed a sort of disease that made people on the station act more unhinged than usual.
Eventually that passed too but in the process, Hawke ended up not as close anymore to her siblings -- both wanting to stay far away from her after what had happened. It was fair, she presumed, but then after that things began to get worse. A passing ruthless general from another planet unleashed an attack on the station in other to take Kirkwall as his own. Hawke, somehow, ended up dueling the man for the rights to the station entirely. She won the duel, the respect of the station, and was proclaimed the "Champion of Kirkwall". She didn't quite like the title.
But things just kept happening for Hawke. Now that her family was back in favor, she thought it would be a good thing, good for her mother. That wasn't to last when a lone madman who thought the idea of killing those on the upper floors of the station would allow him to pass came after her mother. Leandra was killed, drained of blood, and body found by Hawke. Hawke wasn't quite the same after that. Nothing really matches up to cradling your dead mother's body in your arms.
Yet, the politicians still asked her for things. Hawke was in a unique position where while she wasn't exactly a Kirkwall native, she had enough sway to convince the people one way or another. She was known as a force of goodness, as someone who got things done. The pressure was insurmountable. The people of Lowtown wanted Hawke to get those in Hightown to treat them more like people. The people of Hightown wanted Hawke to convince those in Lowtown that they were best where they were. The local law enforcement wanted her to wanted her to be stricter while the "rebels" wanted her to spit in their faces. Hawke spent every day wanting out of that, just wanting to be left alone.
It all came to a head when one of the rebels blew up a place of worship in Hightown, leaving hundreds dead. Hawke hadn't quite expected that and when the blame for the deaths and destruction was starting to land firmly on Hawke's shoulders -- she left. Her mother was dead. Her siblings were who knows where. She was being pulled into a political shitstorm and viewed both as guilty for doing it and guilty for not stopping it. She couldn't win.
So, she left. She heard about the Quad, the RAC. She thought it wasn't quite different from Kirkwall but the anonymity was tempting. She had nothing but a lonely house and a solid fortune sitting in a bank for her in Kirkwall. She didn't need the money. She didn't need the house.
Fast forward to five years later, Hawke has settled into an apartment in Westerley and a strange sort of routine for herself. She takes warrants and completes them, does the odd job here and there, loses and finds and loses her dog again and again. She feels lighter, with Kirkwall out and sight and out of mind -- the only real hiccup being a warrant gone wrong a few months back, where she tried to help out these two agents and nearly left to die when the plan went to shit. A last minute decision and while two still made it out of there alive, she wasn't the one left behind.
She's being more careful now, about who she works with and what sort of jobs she takes. She has a bit of a name for herself, always getting out of dangerous situations with slim odds and lucky breaks. Hawke doesn't quite like it, of course, wishing people would just leave her alone entirely but there isn't much for her to do about her own reputation. Instead, she tries very hard not to think about it and very hard not to think about Kirkwall either. It's working, kind of.