BarrierMoss
Member
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2025
- Messages
- 33
- Thread Author
- #1
Hello! As directed, this is a page that will contain my character's authorized backstory for ease of access by staff and the authorization team. You can also expect story updates to be posted here when significant things happen in her life.
Doctor Harding at a bar, circa 2003.
Onto the story:
Doctor Evelyn Harding was born in 1970 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, to a family of academics. Her father was a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Michigan, and her mother was a software developer specializing in early artificial intelligence systems. Growing up in a household that encouraged scientific curiosity, Evelyn demonstrated an early aptitude for problem-solving and mathematics.
She pursued her undergraduate studies in mechanical engineering at the University of Michigan before advancing to earn her PhD in systems engineering. Her research focused on complex aerospace systems and failure analysis, earning her recognition in both academic and industrial circles. Upon completing her doctorate, she was recruited by Boeing, where she became a key contributor to several next--generation aircraft and military drone projects-- all very secretive as the long years of the portal storms dragged on and tensions between the ailing nations of the world grew.
By 2004, Evelyn had established herself as an expert in large-scale integrated systems, working on improving avionics reliability and automation. Her work often placed her in collaboration with military and government contractors, though she maintained a firm belief in the ethical responsibility of engineers to prioritize safety over profit.
In 2004, the world changed forever. The war shattered human civilization. Seattle, where she had been working as a systems engineer at Boeing, fell within the first hours. In the aftermath of the war, she quickly- not as part of any organized escape, but simply as an instinctive response to the collapse. Like so many others, the once highly respected Doctor Harding had become one of the countless displaced survivors wandering the ruins of a world they no longer recognized. She was just another nameless refugee, moving from place to place, scavenging for food, avoiding patrols, and trying to stay off the radar.
In a short matter of months after the war, she was caught in a sweep—rounded up with hundreds of others and forcibly processed into one of the cities now under the Combine’s control. The vast, dystopian machine that now ruled Earth had no interest in who she had once been. They didn’t ask about her doctorate, or her work at Boeing, or if she'd worked for the government. It was doubtful that records of these things even still existed. To them, she was just another human to be cataloged, stripped of identity, and placed into the rigid system of oppression they had established.
For years, Evelyn was shuffled from city to city, transferred between different sectors with no explanation, no pattern she could discern. She adapted as best she could, learning to keep her head down, to avoid attracting attention, and to let go of any sense of control.
By the time the good Doctor Harding had been transferred to City 24, she had long stopped asking why. Years of being shuffled from city to city, from one sector to another, had numbed her to the process. The relocations were arbitrary, mechanical—another layer of control in the Combine’s intricate bureaucracy. She learned early on that searching for patterns in their methods only led to frustration. The system didn’t need a reason. It moved people because it could.
Geneva, once a symbol of diplomacy and international cooperation, was now a cold, gray husk of its former self. City 24 was known among refugees as a place of strict order and quiet suffocation—not as overtly violent as some Combine-controlled cities, but no less oppressive. The old U.N. buildings stood in eerie silence, now repurposed as administrative centers for the new order. The grand halls where world leaders once debated the future of humanity now served as checkpoints, Nexuses, and surveillance hubs for the Combine’s enforcers.
Evelyn had no idea why she had been sent here. Maybe there was no reason at all. Maybe it was just another transfer, another cycle of disorientation designed to keep people unmoored, unable to form connections or resist. Or maybe, after all these years of obscurity, something—or someone—had finally taken notice of her.
She kept her head down, as she always had. She avoided the wrong kind of attention, kept her thoughts to herself, and tried not to dwell on the knowledge still buried in her mind—the knowledge that, if revealed and properly utilized, could change everything.
But in City 24, whispers traveled differently. The tension in the air was different. There were murmurs of something stirring beneath the surface. Something unseen, but growing.
And for the first time in years, Evelyn felt something unsettling deep in her gut.
A feeling that she was no longer just another nameless refugee, but had inadvertently stepped into something much bigger than herself....
Doctor Harding at a bar, circa 2003.
Onto the story:
Doctor Evelyn Harding was born in 1970 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, to a family of academics. Her father was a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Michigan, and her mother was a software developer specializing in early artificial intelligence systems. Growing up in a household that encouraged scientific curiosity, Evelyn demonstrated an early aptitude for problem-solving and mathematics.
She pursued her undergraduate studies in mechanical engineering at the University of Michigan before advancing to earn her PhD in systems engineering. Her research focused on complex aerospace systems and failure analysis, earning her recognition in both academic and industrial circles. Upon completing her doctorate, she was recruited by Boeing, where she became a key contributor to several next--generation aircraft and military drone projects-- all very secretive as the long years of the portal storms dragged on and tensions between the ailing nations of the world grew.
By 2004, Evelyn had established herself as an expert in large-scale integrated systems, working on improving avionics reliability and automation. Her work often placed her in collaboration with military and government contractors, though she maintained a firm belief in the ethical responsibility of engineers to prioritize safety over profit.
In 2004, the world changed forever. The war shattered human civilization. Seattle, where she had been working as a systems engineer at Boeing, fell within the first hours. In the aftermath of the war, she quickly- not as part of any organized escape, but simply as an instinctive response to the collapse. Like so many others, the once highly respected Doctor Harding had become one of the countless displaced survivors wandering the ruins of a world they no longer recognized. She was just another nameless refugee, moving from place to place, scavenging for food, avoiding patrols, and trying to stay off the radar.
In a short matter of months after the war, she was caught in a sweep—rounded up with hundreds of others and forcibly processed into one of the cities now under the Combine’s control. The vast, dystopian machine that now ruled Earth had no interest in who she had once been. They didn’t ask about her doctorate, or her work at Boeing, or if she'd worked for the government. It was doubtful that records of these things even still existed. To them, she was just another human to be cataloged, stripped of identity, and placed into the rigid system of oppression they had established.
For years, Evelyn was shuffled from city to city, transferred between different sectors with no explanation, no pattern she could discern. She adapted as best she could, learning to keep her head down, to avoid attracting attention, and to let go of any sense of control.
By the time the good Doctor Harding had been transferred to City 24, she had long stopped asking why. Years of being shuffled from city to city, from one sector to another, had numbed her to the process. The relocations were arbitrary, mechanical—another layer of control in the Combine’s intricate bureaucracy. She learned early on that searching for patterns in their methods only led to frustration. The system didn’t need a reason. It moved people because it could.
Geneva, once a symbol of diplomacy and international cooperation, was now a cold, gray husk of its former self. City 24 was known among refugees as a place of strict order and quiet suffocation—not as overtly violent as some Combine-controlled cities, but no less oppressive. The old U.N. buildings stood in eerie silence, now repurposed as administrative centers for the new order. The grand halls where world leaders once debated the future of humanity now served as checkpoints, Nexuses, and surveillance hubs for the Combine’s enforcers.
Evelyn had no idea why she had been sent here. Maybe there was no reason at all. Maybe it was just another transfer, another cycle of disorientation designed to keep people unmoored, unable to form connections or resist. Or maybe, after all these years of obscurity, something—or someone—had finally taken notice of her.
She kept her head down, as she always had. She avoided the wrong kind of attention, kept her thoughts to herself, and tried not to dwell on the knowledge still buried in her mind—the knowledge that, if revealed and properly utilized, could change everything.
But in City 24, whispers traveled differently. The tension in the air was different. There were murmurs of something stirring beneath the surface. Something unseen, but growing.
And for the first time in years, Evelyn felt something unsettling deep in her gut.
A feeling that she was no longer just another nameless refugee, but had inadvertently stepped into something much bigger than herself....
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