Boomtown Application

[famouslytough]

Player's Name: Kristi
Are you over 16? Yes
Characters Played Here: The EMH

Character: Sarah Harding
Series/Canon: The Lost World
From When? Post-novel

History:

Sarah was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Gerry and Donna Harding. Her parents divorced early on in her life. Her father was, until the 1980s, a veterinarian specializing in birds for the San Diego Zoo until he was hired by InGen to work on-site at Jurassic Park. Sarah knew nothing of this, and was told his injuries (from a velociraptor attack) were from a construction accident – InGen’s official explanation for most incidents of that nature. Her mother, a rather tough woman, herself, had sole custody after the divorce. There wasn’t a lot of money to be had, and Sarah grew up in a generally poor neighborhood. Between the poverty and her mother’s constant claims that Sarah would never amount to anything, she pushed herself to study and do exceptionally well in school, at the cost of social interaction. She graduated second in her class and attended the University of Chicago on a full scholarship.

She moved on from there to Berkeley, where she studied ethology, focusing on large mammalian carnivores in the African grassland ecosystems. It was there that she met Ian Malcolm, who was one of her thesis readers. Upon completing her studies, she went on to become an assistant professor at Princeton, specializing in hyenas and lions – and, in her time, became one of the world’s foremost experts on hyenas.

After the incident at Isla Nublar as related in Jurassic Park, wherein Ian Malcolm was nearly killed by a tyrannosaur, Michael Crichton wrote, “The two had been close since Malcolm's surgery. Harding had been on a sabbatical year in Austin, and had helped nurse Malcolm back to health, after his many operations. For a while it seemed as if a romance had blossomed, and that Malcolm, a confirmed bachelor, would settle down. But then Harding had gone back to Africa, and Malcolm had gone to Santa Fe. Whatever their former relationship had been, they were now just friends.”

Beyond Malcolm, there were few other romances. She never seemed to find the time to date, much less catch herself a husband – and wasn’t particularly interested in doing so.

While visiting Malcolm in Sante Fe, Harding was present to hear Richard Levine’s proposal to fund an expedition to find a literal lost world. She returned to Africa the next day, but several months later received a call from Jack Thorne, who was designing and building the equipment to be used for the trip. He told her Richard had gone missing, likely trying to find this lost world without waiting for the others. Sarah decided to join the expedition and left Africa, flying fifteen hours to reach Costa Rica only to be told no one would take her to Isla Sorna (or Site B) due to the weather. This was how she met Lewis Dodgson. Unaware that he was representing BioSyn in an attempt to pilfer dinosaur eggs from Site B and not in any way attached to Thorne and Levine’s expedition, Sarah accepted an offer from him to reach the island. When they were nearly to the cave entrance, Dodgson pushed her overboard.
Sarah managed to swim to relative safety.

After reuniting with Ian, Thorne, and the others, Sarah was involved in an attempt to assess what sort of damage Dodgson and his crew had done to a tyrannosaur nest during their attempt to steal an egg from it. Upon discovering that one of the men had stepped on the leg of an infant rex, another member of her own group – Eddie Carr – brought said infant back to the research trailers Thorne had built. Against Sarah’s better judgment, she helped make a splint for the baby’s broken leg. However, the adult tyrannosaurs tracked the infant and subsequently viewed the land on which the trailers were situated – a high area near shear cliffs - as part of their territory. Once the infant was back in their care, the tyrannosaurs proceeded to push the trailers, with Sarah and Ian inside, toward the abovementioned cliffs. One trailer (the one containing Sarah and Ian) did go over the side, hanging to the second by a mere thread of accordion passageway, before Thorne managed to frighten them off and hook a cable between his jeep and the undercarriage of the trailers. He climbed down to help his companions to safety. Sarah made the climb from the hanging trailer to the top of the cliffs, then pulled up Ian, who was seriously injured, and Thorne using a nylon rope. When Thorne seemed about to fall, she hauled him the rest of the way by his hair.

Though there were several more incidents on the island, including a chase of a velociraptor and an attempt to signal a helicopter, the most notable one in Sarah’s history is her second encounter with Dodgson. While attempting to restart an electric jeep, Sarah was obliged to hide beneath it to escape a herd of pachycephalosaurs. When they thundered off, hearing the tyrannosaurs on the approach once more, Dodgson attempted to take the car. Sarah yanked him to the ground, and his response was to express frustration that he hadn’t finished her off like he’d thought. Sarah went red with rage, having thought it was an accident that she’d gone overboard. When Dodgson saw the tyrannosaurs, he tried to scramble under the car with her. Sarah kicked him back out into the open and, when he tried to hold on to one foot to keep from being dragged off by the dinosaurs, she slammed the other into his face to free herself, then watched remorselessly as the tyrannosaurs dragged him from under the vehicle and carried him off to a rather nasty death.

The group managed to escape the island on a boat, though whether they reached Costa Rica safely was left to the reader’s imagination. For all intents and purposes of this history, Sarah did reach the mainland and subsequently returned to her work.

Personality:

Psychologically, Sarah Harding is an exceptionally tough person. She is extremely confident, independent, and tenacious. This is the backbone of her entire character; she literally never gives up, and hates to see others do so. Given the circumstances in which she was raised and the hard work she has put into achieving the things she wants, it’s no surprise then that she can be very persistent. This behavior can often cause her to be a source of irritation for others; she has often stepped on the wrong toes. She is very much a leader, and will butt heads with others if she thinks they’re wrong – and she’s of the opinion that ninety-five percent of the time, people are wrong.

She has a tendency to be very no-nonsense and practical; a bit of a realist, she does what needs to be done, whether she likes it or not. This means that she will push others to the breaking point and become commanding if it helps to get their attention, and that she has a complete lack of squeamishness. Her attitude is matter-of-fact and without a lot of romanticism or idealism. Sarah is intelligent and has a lot of common sense – however, she also has an insatiable curiosity that will often win out over her better judgment.

With a very genuine personality, she might prove to be the sort of person who others want to impress; she offers approval only when it's deserved and, similarly, doles out chastisement when it's necessary. When she wants someone to understand her point of view, she doesn't explain it, but rather engages them in a conversation which will lead them around to her way of thinking. In this regard, she has a good deal of patience, and has the potential to be a good teacher. She sees the potential in others and wants to encourage it, and it's a good attitude to have in the realm of academia. This may have more to do with her sentiments that the library stacks and museum cases are not her territory, however: she's more willing to communicate when it comes to critical thinking. Unfortunately, when it comes to a situation which requires thinking on her feet, or which needs immediate action, she can be impatient and pushy with others - and thus come across as an asshole.

In a casual or field setting, she's pretty informal; she generally dresses for work, exhibits only perfunctory care for her own appearance (to the point that she will use dish soap to wash her hair if shampoo isn’t available, and will wear whatever clothes are on hand), insists on being called by her first name, and unless specifically asked not to do so, will address others by the same. The exception is, of course, when she dislikes someone, in which case she will insist on being referred to by her title. She’s not much of an academic, and prefers to be a bit more down to earth than many of her colleagues at Princeton. She has had an extensive education and is very protective of her own achievements; she's a woman of very strong opinions, and while she isn’t one for pontificating, she does tend to voice them if she hears something she doesn’t like. In particular, she loathes when a women are dismissed or marginalized simply for being women. For example, a teenage girl told her girls aren't good at mathematics; the tone of the conversation went from pleasant interest to ice cold disapproval immediately. This attitude has earned from her contemporaries in the scientific community the accusation that she has an “overbearing feminist perspective”. She doesn't view it as an insult.

Sarah will not allow anyone to get in her way and proves to have a self-righteous vengeful streak if someone deliberately attempts to do her harm. During the incident with Dodgson at Site B, Sarah sacrificed him to a tyrannosaur with a lot of rage and absolutely no remorse. She was extremely dispassionate about the whole business, and lost no sleep over it later. Similarly, she has no issue with lying if she feels it’s necessary to keep people calm or make them do what needs to be done. On a religious level, though not an atheist, Sarah is disinterested in the existence of a supreme deity or any other form of the supernatural, all stemming from her belief that the only things that really matter are the things she can touch with her own two hands, or see, or smell.

Where relationships are concerned, Sarah is a generally affable and pleasant person, though she can be one of those people you either immediately like or immediately hate because of her pushy nature. She doesn’t feel she has much time for men, but has had romances in the past (particularly with Ian Malcolm) which, while she might have been in love, cooled and ended on congenial terms because her work came first. When she is in a relationship, she acts indulgent and doesn’t push her partner – at least, to a point. However, if she feels they’re putting her, themselves, or anyone else at risk, she can be commanding and impatient. She is the sort of person who will abandon everything she holds important to help her friends, as evidenced by the fact that she left Tanzania to join Thorne and Malcolm on their expedition to Site B.

Aside from her work, Sarah enjoys being around other people. She likes to read and occasionally watch television - mostly older films, particularly musicals. She's equally as comfortable having a beer in a relaxed setting as she is hiking or attending formal events.

Why do you think your character would work in this setting?

I think Sarah would see Boomtown as an opportunity to study new species, not only as a representative of her own world, but for the APS, as the host planet for New Dodge is relatively unexplored. Also, I think she would work well with the current line-up of folks in the game; many of them are scientists or have similar personalities to her own, and those who don't might prove to be interesting for a little controlled chaos.

Inventory:

Clunky old 90s video cameras, a Nikon F4 with three lenses, enough rolls of film and batteries for six months, some rechargeable batteries, night-vision goggles, blank notebooks, a notepad that straps to her wrist and refills, a tape recorder, a tranquilizer gun and darts to accompany it, some animal tracking devices, and a Lindstradt rifle with its accompanying ammunition.

She'll also bring two changes of clothes, a spare pair of boots, some toiletries, and some currency which may or may not prove to be completely useless.

Watch her carry it all, too.

Samples: And now for the hard part! If you need a prompt for your samples, refer back to the Applications Page.

Third-Person Sample:
(From Scorched)

Sarah stood on the deck of the Victoria, peering over the side. Not to suggest, of course, that there was anything in particular to see over the side: just dark water and mist swirling about the ship's hull. Still, it was better to peer into murky water than glance back and acknowledge the crew behind her; ghouls and ghosts were a little more than she wanted to deal with at the moment.

As Wynn slowly came into view ahead, she frowned to herself; perhaps this Order of Erebos venture had been a bad idea. Isla Sorna had been a bad idea from start to finish, and indeed, it had started precisely this way: on a ship, with an unpleasant and untrustworthy crew. She was getting the same sort of feeling now, despite how eager she'd been to embark.

She cast a surreptitious glance in Isley's direction. If he took notice of her scrutiny, she couldn't tell: he didn't seem to be looking her way.

Perhaps she was simply being oversensitive to the situation, but he reminded her forcefully of Lewis Dodgson. Charming, affable enough, and yet something seemed off. And something had been off with Dodgson, hadn't it? What was he hiding, if anything? The more she thought about it, the more her unease grew. Perhaps she could turn back when they reached Wynn, thank Isley for his time and -

But she had to eat, and not many shops in Anatole were searching for an expert on grassland predators. (Which led to her wonder to herself about the usefulness of ethology in the grand scheme of things, which, in turn, led her to stubbornly refuse to be anything else.) In short, beggars couldn't be choosers, and Isley was footing the bill.

Still.

She didn't like it. She didn't like it at all.


First-Person Sample:

Mundane,

I think it's great that you want to see me - this me, yes, I get it - in a setting somewhere. Just great.

I'm flattered.

I really can't, though. I have a life. I have my work. You know as well as I do that it's a very competitive field of study. You can't just expect me to drop everything and come running whenever you call. I'm not going to tell you it's unfair; it's just irresponsible and silly.

I know, I know. Richard and Ian and the Doc might be there (wherever there is) and even if one of them is a royal pain in the ass, that's very tempting. I'm not telling you anything new, though, when I say it would make things really complicated for me.

Listen, it's not just me, here, anyway: there's you. You don't have a place for me to go. Even if you did, it wouldn't matter anyway because you don't have time.

Like I said, it's flattering - but let's just leave it at that and forget about it, all right?

- Sarah

P.S. - Happy holidays.