4 & 10 for Maia and/or 8 & 24 for Morgan (once awake)
sorry for the delay in answering (from this) I never got notified of this one for some reason? Tumblr, you are such a terrible website why even.
4. What’s their personality like? How do they feel about being Pathfinder? How do they change, if at all, over the course of the story?
Maia is very emotional, makes a lot of decisions based on instinct and insight and impulse, but she comes across as a bit reserved and formal because she’s careful with how she expresses her emotions; she’s been surrounded by Not Emotionally Expressive people her entire life. She is kind of horrified at being Pathfinder in terms of command structure and responsibility, because that is NOT HER JOB and she has no idea how to be In Charge Of Everything and really wishes Cora had gotten it like she was supposed to; what IS the point of a 2iC if you DON’T PUT THEM IN COMMAND AFTER YOU? WTF DAD
But she really loves the in the field part, the talking to people and seeing new things and helping figure out how to get all the pieces to fit together so Heleus is better for everyone. Eventually that enjoyment gives her more confidence in regards politics and command too, because she’s seen how people are really living, her opinion on how to run things is valid. And spending time with the Angara loosens her up a little, because it’s an entire people who value her emotional strengths so she feels much more comfortable expressing them overtly.
/and I’m only about half way through, so I’m not sure what else will change? So far she’s still ridiculously optimistic and driven.
10. How have they dealt with the aftermath of Habitat 7? How deeply does this effect them?
She’s kind of not dealing? Like, the planet itself is a mystery to be solved, and she’s fascinated by the Remmant so that’s kind of just fine. Dad though ... she’s not sure what Dad was doing, or why, and his plans and decisions and the shadow of his influence is so heavy over everything in Andromeda, and she keeps seeing/feeling what he was going through with the memory fragments via SAM so he’s almost not gone.
She’s still kind of just in a holding pattern? She’s convinced her sibling will be fine, because otherwise she’d just shut down completely, and will probably only really start dealing with her Dad’s choices and his death once she has to deal with Morgan’s situation too.
Unlike most any other character I’ve ever made, she’s perfectly well aware she’s in a sort of holding pattern and not dealing, but she’s pretty sure that’s what she needs to do right now, considering how she still has to perform as Pathfinder no matter how she’s feeling.
AND NOW MORGAN!
8. Its all in the family. Explain their relationship with Alec, Ellen, and their sibling. If you changed anyone’s names or added a different sibling in your canon, explain why.
Morgan never had the same ability as Maia to read people’s emotions whether they knew what to do with them or not, so they always felt much more isolated and deserted than Maia did, in regards their parents’ inability to Stop Working and Be Parents. This is why family dinners were always more uncomfortable for them, and they were completely unable and unwilling to cut Alec and Ellen any slack when they made their periodic awkward attempts to reconnect.
Not that Alec or Ellen deserved any slack, they really were terrible at engaging with their kids, but Morgan always felt like it was their fault, because Maia always seemed so much better at handling their parents without getting hurt.
So Morgan loved his family and resented them, even Maia, their best friend, because Maia got something out of it those relationships that they never could.
Joining the Alliance became much more important to Morgan much more quickly than it was for Maia, because there at last they were appreciated in a way they understood, that they could feel, every day, not just logic their way into realizing was probably true, so Alec’s blacklisting felt like such a personal attack from their father, destroying Morgan’s second (and arguably much better for them) family for no good reason. They never really forgave Alec for that, but they did want the Adventure that Andromeda promised, that they weren’t likely to get from the Alliance anymore, and a second chance with Maia was worth putting up with Dad.
Probably.
In a lot of ways Alec’s death hits them harder than it did Maia, because they never got to resolve anything, while Maia was much more free to just grieve. (It might do them more good to relive Dad’s memories than it did Maia, just to know Alec really did have the feelings he was so bad at expressing.)
24. Do they ever wish they could just return to the Milky Way? Do they miss anything in particular about their old home? Did they bring anything special with them?
The only way Morgan could handle Andromeda was to make a clean break. They didn’t bring anything, no family mementos, not even pictures or letters from their squads, not their dogtags, nothing except a gigantic back-up of music, a very high end player with expanded memory to increase the quality and quantity both. Songs from their childhood, from school friends, from vids they’d watched, even songs they hated ... but that people they’d known had liked.
