Character Name: Ringo Noyamano Age at the Reunion: 36 Backstory I've Worked Out So Far: After graduation, Ringo went back to her world and got involved pretty early in the "professional" AT scene. She spent five or six years as part professional athlete, part advocate, and part spokesperson as she turned out to be popular on TV.
Just as AirTrek is making the cultural transition from "that weird thing those kids do" to "kind of interesting, but not popular like baseball or soccer", there is a major terrorist incident using AT technology (it was originally developed for the military after all). This led to a global crackdown on the technology, with governments worldwide tending to classify AirTrek as military technology, and trying to keep it out of the hands of civilians.
Given that the AT community basically evolved from something like street punk culture going mainstream, they were pretty much prepared to just ignore the government and do what they'd always done. Ringo was publicly active at this point, doing the talk-show circuit and basically arguing that AirTrek was too important a technology to try to keep it out of peoples' hands.
Unfortunately, the government responded as they sometimes do be cracking down on the tech and those who had it even harder, and over a period of five or six years began deploying more and more "tactical" law enforcement teams to shut down AT gatherings, confiscate gear, and arrest participants. Ringo tried to stay active in public discussion, but got fewer and fewer invites from the networks as they came to fear being associated with the "radical AirTrek movement".
Then, about five or six years before the reunion, a government raid got violent and a bunch of AT folks, some kids, got killed. One of them happened to be Ringo's youngest sister. Which is when Ringo basically disappeared from public life, and Crazy Apple began seriously organizing an underground movement.
They're not really a resistance. Nothing that strong. There's not open conflict with the government, but things have been escalating back and forth for a while now, with the AT folks graduating from civil disobedience to nonviolent sabotage of law enforcement equipment to vigilante attacks on particularly corrupt anti-AT agents. On the other side, the government has stepped up anti-AT rhetoric, claiming that AirTrek criminals are responsible for most of society's ills, and mounting bigger and flashier raids with agents armed with tear gas and tactical armor to show how effectively they're combating the "problem".
How Your Character Can Fit In: Ringo was super-social during those first, good years. Her schedule involved a ton of travel, so she took advantage of that to see her old high school friends quite often. As tensions rose after that first incident, her traveling cut back, but didn't stop. In the five or six years since her sister died, she's been a lot harder to get in touch with. Crazy Apple doesn't value those old relationships the same way Ringo does, after all. Still, if you've actively sought her out, she's been findable, it's just not a high priority for her these days.
If anyone wants to have participated in any of this, that'd be totally fine! I figure that early on Ringo would just be excited to have people show up for AT fun, and once things went really bad, Crazy Apple can always use some extra hands to stick it to the Man.
no subject
Age at the Reunion: 36
Backstory I've Worked Out So Far: After graduation, Ringo went back to her world and got involved pretty early in the "professional" AT scene. She spent five or six years as part professional athlete, part advocate, and part spokesperson as she turned out to be popular on TV.
Just as AirTrek is making the cultural transition from "that weird thing those kids do" to "kind of interesting, but not popular like baseball or soccer", there is a major terrorist incident using AT technology (it was originally developed for the military after all). This led to a global crackdown on the technology, with governments worldwide tending to classify AirTrek as military technology, and trying to keep it out of the hands of civilians.
Given that the AT community basically evolved from something like street punk culture going mainstream, they were pretty much prepared to just ignore the government and do what they'd always done. Ringo was publicly active at this point, doing the talk-show circuit and basically arguing that AirTrek was too important a technology to try to keep it out of peoples' hands.
Unfortunately, the government responded as they sometimes do be cracking down on the tech and those who had it even harder, and over a period of five or six years began deploying more and more "tactical" law enforcement teams to shut down AT gatherings, confiscate gear, and arrest participants. Ringo tried to stay active in public discussion, but got fewer and fewer invites from the networks as they came to fear being associated with the "radical AirTrek movement".
Then, about five or six years before the reunion, a government raid got violent and a bunch of AT folks, some kids, got killed. One of them happened to be Ringo's youngest sister. Which is when Ringo basically disappeared from public life, and Crazy Apple began seriously organizing an underground movement.
They're not really a resistance. Nothing that strong. There's not open conflict with the government, but things have been escalating back and forth for a while now, with the AT folks graduating from civil disobedience to nonviolent sabotage of law enforcement equipment to vigilante attacks on particularly corrupt anti-AT agents. On the other side, the government has stepped up anti-AT rhetoric, claiming that AirTrek criminals are responsible for most of society's ills, and mounting bigger and flashier raids with agents armed with tear gas and tactical armor to show how effectively they're combating the "problem".
How Your Character Can Fit In: Ringo was super-social during those first, good years. Her schedule involved a ton of travel, so she took advantage of that to see her old high school friends quite often. As tensions rose after that first incident, her traveling cut back, but didn't stop. In the five or six years since her sister died, she's been a lot harder to get in touch with. Crazy Apple doesn't value those old relationships the same way Ringo does, after all. Still, if you've actively sought her out, she's been findable, it's just not a high priority for her these days.
If anyone wants to have participated in any of this, that'd be totally fine! I figure that early on Ringo would just be excited to have people show up for AT fun, and once things went really bad, Crazy Apple can always use some extra hands to stick it to the Man.