My college is doing a Firefly RP, and I was hoping to get some feedback on this character background that I wrote. Thanks! ^^

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Morgan’s Bio and Background

Morgan was born and raised on Shadow. She volunteered for the independent army along with nearly everyone her age that she had grown up with in her small settlement almost as soon as Shadow first took its stand against the alliance. She was placed in a small unit made up of the youths from her settlement and the few homes surrounding it, and was looked up to as the unofficial leader by the others that had known her since childhood.

Morgan was tireless in her service to the independents, to the point that her immediate superior had to force her against her will to take some time on leave, out of concern of her burning out completely. While taking her forced leave off-world, the rest of her small unit was killed in a skirmish. The news of it struck her deeply, and she blamed herself, feeling that she had somehow abandoned her men. She felt too ashamed to return to Shadow and face the empty homes of her former allies. She felt that she was unsuitable and unable to serve without causing more deaths, and requested and was granted an honorable discharge.

Morgan was glad to leave Shadow and its memories, but feels constant guilt for abandoning the fight. The experience left her with a bitter hatred for the alliance, and she lashes out at anything that is related to it. Soon after leaving Shadow, she began smoking and drinking heavily. She is still fiercely loyal to the independents, and is rarely if ever seen without her brown coat, which is a point of pride for her. She takes any words against the independents as not only a personal insult, but an insult to her entire home planet. She is very averse to opening up about her past, but is more than willing to rant about the “gorram alliance�, or any other subject that she feels passionately about.

After leaving Shadow, she threw herself into work out in the black as a hired gun. She is adept with knives and pistols. She prefers fighting in fairly close quarters, with either her knives or good old fashioned brawling, which she has become rather good at from her tendency to start bar fights. Her tendency to start fights wherever she goes, along with her distinctive knives and tattoo of a knife with her former unit number on the back of her neck tends to make her fairly memorable.

She generally disregards people, and has no qualms over killing, but if she is ever given people to work under her in a job that she comes to consider crew, she will be extremely protective of them. She is loathe to reveal such protective feelings openly, as she is unwilling to risk experiencing what happened on Shadow again, but her actions make it fairly clear to anyone looking close enough for it.

I think it's pretty good. Working with the character's personality and traits a bit more may make her seem even more real. It'll be good for the author to know exactly how his/her characters look like as well, but I guess that's another thing for another day, being that this is primarily about the character's history.

I, as a reader, would be delighted to know more about the character's heritage before her admission to the army, as well as the history of the Alliance and Shadow.

The death of so many comrades will most certainly leave a profound impact on anyone. Capitalize on that factor.

Keep up the good effort! : D I look forward to future updates.

Ps: Why the name Shadow, though? I find names such as Blade, Shadow, Samurai, Lightning, etc quite common in fiction. Is there a reason behind the name?

Oh, you're right! I should work on her previous life, and mention something about her appearance.

I'm working within an established 'verse, since this is for a RP that over 20 people are creating characters in. It's based off of the show Firefly and the follow-up film Serenity that Joss Whedon, the creator of Buffy and Angel, made. The RP takes place years before the show began, though, so we have a lot of creative freedom.


It is taking place during the war between the alliance and the independents. Basically, earth was no longer able to sustain life, so humans left and terraformed many other planets to make them able to sustain life. The core, central planets were terraformed the best, made into beautiful, thriving planets full of culture. The planets further away, called border planets or outer rim planets, were just terraformed enough to have an atmosphere and a bit of water and vegetation, and settlers were dropped on the planets pretty much blind. They got some tools, maybe a herd. Some made it, but some didn't. The alliance is the main government based in the core, and despite pretty much ignoring the rim planets completely, still tries to tax them and control them, without giving anything back. Think "Imperials" from Star Wars. Many of the border planets banded together to rebel, and formed the independent army.

Shadow is an actual planet in the Firefly 'verse. It was one of the first to rebel. The main character from the show was born there. Later in the war, past the time that the RP was set in, the alliance carpet-nuked the entire planet of Shadow, making the planet unable to sustain any form of life. The entire planet was wiped out as an example to the other independents. If the RP reaches this point, it should really evolve the character that I'm working on. ^^