Chali Sooto
Character
CHALI SOOTO
Age: 19
Species: Pantoran
Gender: Female
Height: 1.70 meters
Weight: 59 kilograms
Force Sensitive: Yes — Chali was identified as Force-sensitive while young and received formal training within the Kainate. Her abilities are particularly useful in conjunction with her skills as a pilot.
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION
Chali is a young Pantoran woman with a lean, athletic build developed more through the demands of flight training than any desire to appear physically imposing. Her skin is a rich blue characteristic of her species, contrasted by amber-gold eyes and the intricate golden-yellow facial markings she wears as part of her Pantoran heritage.
Her natural hair is strikingly white and usually worn long. Exactly what she does with it, however, is considerably less predictable. Chali regularly changes her hairstyle, ranging from practical flight braids and ponytails to elaborate buns, messy waves, punk-inspired cuts and heavily layered emo styles. She has also developed a habit of temporarily dyeing it whatever color catches her interest, including crimson, pink, cobalt blue, violet, black, green and multicolored combinations. Some choices are genuine experimentation. Others are made with the knowledge that her father will hate them.
On duty, Chali generally wears the black-and-crimson flight equipment associated with her service in the Kainate Fighter Baronry. Off duty, her tastes become considerably more eclectic. She gravitates toward spacer streetwear, punk and emo influences, oversized squadron clothing, racing fashion, heavy boots and whatever else appeals to her at the time.
She does own the expensive formal clothing expected of a daughter of House Sooto and knows perfectly well how to present herself as a Sith noblewoman when circumstances require it.
That does not mean she enjoys doing so.
INVENTORY
- FAE/A-09 Anti-G Suit
- Personalized flight helmet
- Sythra-class Ultralight Starfighter-Interceptor
- Red-bladed lightsaber
- House Sooto signet and assorted family jewelry
- Datapad
- Personal flight charm
- Extensive collection of civilian, spacer, punk and alternative clothing
- An arguably unnecessary collection of hair dyes and styling products
- Starfighter models, tools and assorted aviation memorabilia
PERSONALITY AND BELIEFS
Chali is rebellious, competitive, sarcastic and possessed of the confidence of someone who has not yet accumulated enough years to appreciate all the ways confidence can go wrong.
Her rebellion is most obvious in her relationship with House Sooto. Chali was raised among Sith nobility, but her family occupies only a relatively minor position within that hierarchy. Her father nevertheless possesses tremendous pride in their status and places considerable importance upon the dignity, reputation and traditions of House Sooto. This attitude has always irritated Chali, particularly because her uncle, rather than her father, is actually the head of their household.
Chali does not hate her family or even genuinely reject her noble heritage. She simply refuses to believe that being born a Sooto is an accomplishment.
Flying is.
Her membership in the Kainate Fighter Baronry therefore means considerably more to Chali than simply another privilege of noble birth. Her ancestry made her eligible to join the Baronry. She is determined that her ability will be what proves she belongs there.
Chali's relationship with discipline is similarly selective. She is capable of extraordinary commitment when discipline provides something she wants. She will train until exhausted, study flight telemetry, repeatedly practice difficult maneuvers and endure demanding military routines if they make her a better pilot.
She has much less patience for obedience simply because someone expects it.
This creates particular friction with middle-ranking authority. Junior officers, instructors, minor nobles, bureaucrats and others with enough authority to inconvenience her but insufficient power to impress her frequently encounter Chali's argumentative side. She questions orders, challenges assumptions and has an unfortunate talent for obeying the exact wording of an instruction while ignoring its intended spirit.
Her attitude toward the upper echelons of the Kainate is very different. Chali respects genuine power and accomplishment. Those who have risen to the highest positions within the Sith hierarchy have, in her view, demonstrated their ability to acquire and retain power. That earns a degree of respect which a uniform or inherited title alone does not.
Despite her rebellious personality, Chali is not ideologically rebellious against the Sith.
She believes in the Dark Side.
Passion, ambition, competition and conflict are natural forces that should be embraced and directed rather than suppressed. Chali sees fear as something that can sharpen her senses, anger as something that can provide focus and ambition as the motivation to become greater than she presently is. The Sith ideal of gaining the power necessary to determine one's own destiny appeals strongly to someone who has spent much of her life being told what her destiny ought to look like.
Away from family expectations and military authority, Chali is much more relaxed. She enjoys music, fashion, gaming, street food, tinkering around starfighters, building fighter models and simply spending time with other young pilots. She can be playful and easygoing when nobody is attempting to tell her what Lady Chali Sooto is supposed to be.
STRENGTHS
- Natural Pilot — Chali has a strong instinct for starfighter flight and three-dimensional combat. She is aggressive, quick-thinking and particularly comfortable in the chaos of a dogfight.
- Force-Assisted Reflexes — Chali's Force sensitivity complements her piloting. Heightened awareness, danger sense, precognitive instincts and enhanced reflexes allow her to react to developing threats extraordinarily quickly.
- Trained Sith — Growing up Force-sensitive within a Sith noble family aboard Malsheem meant Chali did not go unnoticed or untrained. She possesses a formal foundation in Dark Side philosophy, Force control, telekinesis, physical enhancement and lightsaber combat, even if flying remains her primary focus.
- Competitive — Chali hates losing, but failure usually motivates rather than defeats her. If someone proves better than her, she wants another opportunity to face them after she has improved.
- Pressure Junkie — Chali tends to become more focused when situations become dangerous. The adrenaline and heightened emotions of combat can strengthen rather than disrupt her connection to the Force.
WEAKNESSES
- Authority Issues — Chali has a bad habit of deciding whether someone deserves her respect rather than accepting that their position already gives them authority over her. This is particularly troublesome with the middle ranks of military and noble hierarchies.
- Prove It — Suggesting Chali cannot accomplish something is an excellent method of convincing her to attempt it. Pride and competitiveness can lure her into unnecessary risks.
- Target Fixation — Chali loves the contest of a dogfight. A sufficiently challenging opponent can tempt her to focus too heavily upon winning the individual engagement instead of considering the wider battle.
- Selective Student — Chali has received broad Sith training, but her enthusiasm is heavily weighted toward abilities that complement flying and combat. Esoteric Sith knowledge, ritual practices and scholarly Force disciplines have considerably less appeal.
- Privileged Blind Spot — Chali wants to believe her accomplishments belong entirely to her. She sometimes has difficulty acknowledging just how many opportunities were available because she was born Force-sensitive, wealthy and noble within the Kainate.
- Young and Certain — At nineteen, Chali possesses enough skill to justify much of her confidence but not necessarily enough experience to recognize when that confidence has become recklessness.
HISTORY
Chali Sooto was born and raised aboard Malsheem as a daughter of House Sooto, one of the lesser noble families within the Kainate. The Sooto name carried genuine status, but theirs was hardly one of the great Sith houses whose decisions shaped empires. Chali's father nevertheless took tremendous pride in their position and raised his daughter with constant reminders that even minor nobility carried expectations.
Chali learned etiquette, history, politics and all the other lessons considered appropriate for a young Sith noblewoman. She learned how to dress for formal occasions, how to address those above and below her station and how to represent House Sooto without embarrassing her relatives.
She also learned that she disliked being told what being a Sooto required of her.
Her Force sensitivity was discovered early enough that there was little possibility of it being ignored. A Force-sensitive child raised within a Sith noble household aboard Malsheem was an asset to be cultivated. Chali consequently received formal instruction from childhood, learning to understand and intentionally call upon the Force rather than discovering those abilities accidentally later in life.
Her training also exposed her to Sith philosophy at an early age.
Ironically, Chali found considerably less to rebel against there.
The Dark Side taught that passion could become strength, strength could become power and power could free an individual to determine their own path. To a girl increasingly irritated by the path her family seemed determined to choose for her, that philosophy possessed obvious appeal.
What Chali lacked was any great desire to follow the traditional path of a Sith warrior, courtier or scholar.
She found her passion elsewhere.
Starfighters fascinated her.
Malsheem provided no shortage of them. Chali grew up around one of the greatest military machines in the galaxy, and the vessels moving through its immense hangars captured her attention far more effectively than noble gatherings ever had. Flight offered something she felt aristocratic life lacked. A family name might secure access to a cockpit, but it could not fly the fighter once the canopy closed.
Skill mattered.
Results mattered.
Chali pursued aviation with an intensity that finally gave all that discipline she supposedly disliked somewhere useful to go. Her Force training naturally became intertwined with her development as a pilot. Precognitive instincts helped her anticipate threats. Awareness through the Force expanded her perception of the battlespace. Physical enhancement sharpened reflexes already honed through relentless practice.
Her noble birth eventually allowed Chali to pursue a position within the Kainate Fighter Baronry, whose ranks were drawn from the aristocracy.
For once, Chali was perfectly willing to make use of House Sooto's name.
She simply intends to make certain that no one can credibly claim it is the reason she succeeds.
Now a young Fighter Baronry pilot, Chali occupies an unusual position between the worlds that shaped her. She remains Lady Chali Sooto whether she likes the title or not. She remains a trained adherent of the Dark Side and loyal subject of the Kainate. Yet she has increasingly constructed an identity that belongs to herself: pilot, competitor, troublemaker, music lover, fashion experimenter and occasional nightmare for whichever unfortunate officer has been assigned responsibility for her.
Chali has no particular desire to overthrow her family, abandon the Kainate or reject the Sith.
She just intends to decide for herself what all three mean for her.