Dia
People
DiaDiNelendriaNelendria Kamaka

Dia is a woman preoccupied with tech and for good reason. She has a gift that allows her to understand it in a way no one else can. Consumed with a driving desire to learn and create, Dia often ignores her friends, her own needs, and often just ignores reality itself to focus on whatever project she's working on. She's a woman in her head, but the real problems arise when what's in her head begins to make their way into the real world, a world not ready to handle what she's ready to create.

Medium height and build, a little weight but not considered overweight, dark brown (almost black) straight hair. She has light brown skin, slightly slanted brown eyes with a medium-sized, straight nose and thin lips. She would be considered somewhere between Asian and Puerto Rican on Earth. She unremarkable. She fits in and can be mostly ignored, which is how she prefers it.

She generally wears well-made but as ordinary clothes as possible, preferring outfits that don't draw attention. Cardonians prefer long sleeves, an affectation due to living inside a mountain. Women generally wear palazzo pants (pant legs fashioned like a long flowing skirt), with varying flairs, often more colorful than their male counterparts (who stick to slacks, though using the same flowing fabric). Dia does as well, though she prefers muted colors with less flair to draw attention.

Cardonian women are known for their long black, silky hair, and hers is no different. But where most women would accentuate their beauty, often adding subtle braids or weaving ribbons, Dia's hair is normally pulled back into a ponytail or a bun to keep it out of the way, both as a practicality, which would be more noticeable with her hair down (something her mother is constantly on her for). She would cut it if she could but her mother would kill her if she tried.

Born to a lower, middle-class family, daughter of Akai and Shea Kamaka. Her father works as a low-level arms broker that worked his way up from a low-level analyst matching buyers to manufacturers. After some time, he made enough connections to broker his own agreements, but these were, while lucrative, infrequent and far between. More recently, he's begun to make a name for himself matching custom designs with the appropriate manufacturers, even going so far as converting specs, ensuring quality, and suggesting improvements. His grasp of both fundamental and even advanced design has earned him a reputation as the go-to for custom work, from both clients and manufacturers. This is much more consistent and lucrative work, though his firm retains most of the profits.

Cardonia has thousands of manufacturers in the arms sector, ranging from one-person custom shops, to multi-billion chit plants churning out endless copies of lances or casters for the many armies of the Empire's provinces along with the Empire's own army. Each manufacturer has their own strengths and weaknesses, and finding the best manufacturer can have a drastic effect on the end product. Navigating these manufacturers is a matter of tact and connections: thus brokers. And this is where Shea comes in.

Shea is a socialite, endlessly consumed with her (and her husband's) rising social status. She constantly plans dinners and parties, arranges lunches, etc. She's responsible for choosing their home which, in truth, is less home than a showcase for whomever she's invited over. Her social arrangements are the primary driver behind Akai's success. Without the connections he's made from her arrangements, he would still be an overlooked paper pusher who submitted often brilliant, yet mostly ignored analyses.

Shea and her daughter have a tense relationship. Shea loves her daughter but doesn't understand her. She tries very hard to provide Dia with the same kind of opportunities she does for Akai, and for a teenage girl, Shea can think of nothing better than to find Dia a suitable husband. In her mind, she wants Dia to have what she and Akai have. Dia does not see it that way. Preoccupied mostly with her projects, Dia resents her mother's constantly trying to force on her "suitable mates", wasting precious time she could use to further her projects. She finds it "gross" to even attempt to facilitate (or in her mind, force) a relationship like that. She normally looks for every opportunity to avoid or, in the case that's not possible, undermine the opportunities her mother arranges for her.

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