User:Taln Fan/Spensa Nightshade

{{character
|image=Spensa.jpeg
|parents=[[Zeen Nightshade|Zeen]] & [[Spensa's mother|mother]]
|ancestors=[[Becca Nightshade]], [[Spensa's great-grandfather|great-grandfather]], [[Spensa's great-grandmother|great-grandmother]]
|abilities={{tag+|cytonics}}
|profession={{cat tag|DDF pilots|Pilot}}
|groups=[[DDF]], [[Skyward Flight]], [[Flowers of Night's Last Kiss Flight]]
|titles=Callsign: Spin, Hero of [[Battle of Alta Second|Alta Second]]{{book ref|starsight|4}}
|aliases=Alanik{{book ref|sky2|9}}
|world=Detritus
|universe=[[Cytoverse]]
|books=[[Skyward (series)]]
}}{{update|book=Starsight}}

“When this is done, Jerkface, I will hold your tarnished and melted pin up as my trophy as your smoldering ship marks your pyre, and the final resting place of your crushed and broken corpse! ”

—Spensa to Jorgen Weight

Spensa Nightshade, callsign Spin, is a Defiant Defense Force pilot from Detritus, the daughter of Zeen Nightshade, and a cytonic.

Appearance and Personality

by taratjah

For more images, see /Gallery.

Spensa is seventeen years old with brown hair and is 151 centimeters tall (4'11" in feet). Spensa's favorite color is blood red and she prefers simple but flavorful food.

As the daughter of "The Coward of Alta", Spensa was looked down upon by her fellow Defiants. As a result, she acted fiercely when confronted by others and used intimidation as a defense mechanism. Spensa would often lash out at people who threatened her and even those who didn't, using a wide and somewhat graphic vocabulary inspired by stories of glorious heroes from Earth that her grandmother told her. She was certain that her father was not a coward like everyone thought, and she was bent on proving it by seeming as 'brave' as possible. However, she believed that bravery was about being the most daring warrior and to never show fear. She thought that anything less would make her a coward and prove that the DDF had been right about her father.

In her time in Flight School, she came to realize that being brave wasn't as simple as she thought. People she respected, like Cobb, were guilty of doing things that she would consider cowardly if she did them herself. As she loses flightmates to the Krell, she realizes that true bravery isn't just about sounding heroic and what other people think. Instead, bravery is about her own confidence in herself and knowing that, no matter what anyone else said, she was not a coward. She becomes embarrassed by how she acted before and realizes that it's okay to get scared sometimes.

Attributes and Abilities

Spensa is an excellent pilot and also has cytonic abilities. So far, she has demonstrated the ability to intercept the Krell's faster-than-light communications with their drones and to react to those orders faster than would be humanly possible. On one occasion, she was also able to activate M-Bot's cytonic hyperdrive.

History

Spensa lived in the Glorious Rises of Industry with her mother and grandmother, who she referred to as Gran-Gran. Gran-Gran's mother was the "engines" of Defiant, enabling its faster-than-light travel.

Spensa went to school and did reasonably well, but occasionally skipped classes to go exploring or hunting. She skipped class on the last day of school when a sanitation worker was giving a presentation. She accidentally found an old ship in a cavern, seemingly high tech and unfamiliar in appearance. She was told she could take the pilots exam, and was confident in her knoweldcdge. To her horror, she found her pilots test to be all questions about city sanitation. she failed the test, having skipped class that day. She sat in the exam room for hours, then picked up a blank regular test and filled it out. Cobb, her father’s old wingmate and a First Citizen, entered the room and looked over her test. He asked her some questions, and told her to show up at flight school the next day.

“The rules of this classroom are simple. I teach. You learn. Anything that interferes with that is likely to get one of you killed.”

—Cobb

Spensa went to Flight School the next day, befriending a girl named Kimmalyn. The training room had several flight simulators, and Spensa met the rest of her flight. She instantly disliked Jorgen, who is rich and priveleged. Cobb made Jorgen flight leader, which outraged Spensa. The cadets spent hours practicing takeoff and landing in the simulators, and afterward an alarm went off. They were called to head towards the battle because Nightmare Flight was down in the caverns. They weren’t supposed to engage in combat, just hover near the city and look threatening. But when a Krell ship went towards the city they engaged. Kimmalyn managed to snipe the Krell fighter and destroy it, and Skyward Flight went back to the surface.

by Ralf Melevo

Admiral Ironside despised Spensa and thought her to be a coward like her father, and forbade her from sleeping or eating at the Flight School. Spensa was forced to sleep in her cave with the broken ship, and to make the long commute between there and the Flight School. Because she was forbidden to eat at the Flight School, Spensa was forced to hunt for rats and mushrooms in the caves to feed herself. Still, she didn’t complain, knowing that Admiral Ironsides would take any chance to see her ejected. She tried to connect power to the ship, but her light line’s power matrix was too weak. When she arrived at flight school the next day, she found that her friend Rig was quitting. Spensa and the other cadets spent hours upon hours practicing maneuvers before letting them try destructors, as well as teaching them to use light-lances. Spensa also discovered that her helmet contains sensors to monitor her bioreadings. They engaged in a competition with their light-lances organized by Cobb, in which Spensa and Jorgen competed fiercely. They grew angry at each other after Jorgen revealed that Spensa’s father is Chaser, the infamous coward. At the end of the day, Spensa stole the power matrix from Jorgen’s hovercar.

The next day Spensa hooked up the power matrix to the ship, and it powered up. She discovered that the ship could talk, as it harbored a very advanced AI. It introduced itself as M-Bot, a long-distance stealth ship. M-Bot’s data banks had been mostly corrupted, but he knew his last orders, which were to lie low and not get into any fights. Most of his systems were offline, with only a few like communications still working. Since Spensa couldn’t fix M-Bot on her own, she recruited Rig to help her, who was still deciding on what he wanted to do, now that he wouldn’t be a pilot. He was amazed and energized by the sight of the ship, and decided to get a job at the Engineering Corps so he could help fix it.

“Sometimes I don’t feel like a teacher. I feel like a munitions man, reloading artillery. I stuff you into a chamber, fire you into the sky, then grab another shell…”

—Cobb after Morningtide’s and Bim’s deaths.

When Spensa was in her cave, M-Bot’s sensors picked up a large force of Krell inbound, and Spensa hurried back to Alta Base. She arrived late to the battle, and joined the dogfight with the Krell. Morningtide died in battle, and soon after Bim got shot down as well. Spensa and the others in Skyward Flight were still in shock the next day, and Cobb pushed them hard in training to keep them busy. Spensa later found Cobb watching a replay of the battle, and learned that Cobb had been the one to shoot down her father. He retold the story of her father’s cowardice, but his attitude hinted that the official story is false.

Once Skyward Flight was proficient with the light-lances, Cobb had them move on to learning how to use the IMP. During the course of their training, M-Bot created a private communication to Spensa using his abilities as a stealth and reconnaissance ship, and allowing them to talk privately during the course of her training. Tensions between Jorgen and Spensa grew, until Spensa grew so enraged that she attacked him, shocking the other cadets. Spensa quickly fled, dreading her imminent expulsion as soon as Jorgen told Ironsides of her actions. She eventually went to Ironside’s office to confess, but then found that Jorgen didn’t turn her in. Jorgen told her that they couldn’t afford to lose another pilot, and apologized. After that, Spensa’s view of Jorgen changed, realizing that he was always putting the flight before himself.

Spensa participated in a large skirmish over a large falling shipyard, which was home to many large sources of acclivity stone. In the course of the battle, two of Nedd’s brothers from Nightmare Flight died. The next day after flight training, Kimmalyn pulled Spensa into a hallway, then took her to the girls dorm, where the rest of the girls waited with stolen food for Spensa. They hung out all night, talking and eating. They had a great time, and Spensa enjoyed the acceptance as they bonded.

With Spensa’s help, Rig managed to get some of M-Bot’s basic functions to work, and Spensa used her light lance to open up the cavern ceiling. She flew M-Bot out into the open, and was amazed at how incredibly sensitive and incredible the flight was, even though M-Bot didn’t have a booster. At training, they practiced defending against lifebusters, using a modified recording of a previous battle. Spensa realized that the DDF must have the recording of the true Battle of Alta hidden away somewhere. A large force of Krell came down through the platforms, and Skyward Flight was called into battle again. During the course of the battle Hurl’s shield was overwhelmed and her ship was severely damaged. She went into an out of control descent, and was supposed to eject per Cobb’s instructions. She refused to be a “coward” however, refusing to eject and crashing. After the battle, Skyward Flight was given mandatory leave, and Kimmalyn quit Flight School. Spensa found out where Hurl crashed, and decided to go give Hurl a proper pilot’s funeral. Jorgen joined her, recovering Hurl’s pilot pin and giving her a short funeral. Spensa took the booster from Hurl’s ship, and Jorgen figured out that she is building a starship.

by cccrystalclear

Spensa asked Cobb about the old battle recordings the next day, and he gave her his authorization code to access them. On her way back to M-Bot after getting the recording, FM brought Spensa to a restaurant with some members and former members of the flight. Spensa found the food to be amazing, since she had been eating rat meat and mushrooms her whole life. Afterward, Spensa went to M-Bot, who told her he could show her the battle using his holoprojectors. Spensa watched the battle, and saw her father break off from the flgiht and fly up through a hole in the debris belt, saying that he could hear the stars. When he came back, saying that he would kill everyone. Chaser fired on his own flight mates, and Cobb shot him down. Shocked, Spensa spent an entire day in M-Bot’s cockpit, trying to process the information. Cobb told her the next day that if she ever saw “the eyes” or could hear the stars, she should tell him immediately. Spensa had seen the eyes before, but didn’t tell Cobb for fear she would no longer be allowed to fly. After the flight school doctor had been tipped off about Spensa’s living condition by Cobb, Spensa was given permission to stay and eat at the Flight School with the rest of Skyward Flight.

“Then those pinpricks opened. A million white eyes, like stars, all turning directly on me. Focusing on me. Seeing me.”

—Spensa seeing the eyes

With the booster installed, Rig finally had M-Bot ready to fly at full capacity, though some of his advanced features were still inoperative, like his cytonic hyperdrive. Spensa took him out for a flight, amazed at his incredible speed and GravCap capability. M-Bot projected a holographic battle onto her windshield, providing a realistic simulation, and she had him do the Battle of Alta. She noticed that her father almost seems to anticipate the Krell’s movements, acting just before they do. She heard the stars singing, and suddenly the cockpit went black, and Spensa saw millions of white pinprick eyes focusing on her. She screamed for M-Bot to turn it off, but he said that he didn’t project what she described. M-Bot feared that Spensa might make him participate in battle against his original pilot’s orders, and so powered down to wait for his pilot to return.

Spensa visited her grandmother, who told her that their family had been the engines of the ship Defiant. They could hear the stars and power the ship to far away places. Gran-Gran thought of Spensa’s ability as a gift, not a curse. When Skyward Flight was out scouting, when a large chunk of valuable debris fell along with a large swarm of Krell. They engaged, and during the course of the battle Spensa was shot down. Her ship began to go down, and she reluctantly ejected, blacking out in the process. She woke up on the ground, and Admiral Ironsides dismissed her from the flight school for ejecting. This left Skyward Flight with only two graduating members, FM and Jorgen. Spensa attended their graduation ceremony, filled with conflicting emotions. Afterward she went to a restaurant with the other of her flight, and listen to a radio as a huge contingent of Krell, a full hundred of them, are making an attack on Alta. A bomber flew in, but was shot down. The anti-aircraft emplacements were damaged, and a force of Krell flew towards the weak point. Spensa realized that there was still one ship on Alta Base she could use.

The Battle of Alta Second

Spensa got permission from the ground crew to use Arturo’s broken down ship, whose shield system was inoperative. She took off anyway, and announced her arrival on the flightleader channel. She spotted a second bomber, and tried to take it out. It was guarded by ace pilots, and her destructors became damaged. She planned to ram the bomber as it grew close to the death zone, but her acclivity ring failed and she fell into a dive. She crashed, but survived. Cobb arrived, flying M-Bot, who had re-written his programming to accept Spensa as his pilot. She entered M-Bot and flew after the bomber. After a brief dogfight, she heard a command sent to make the bomb detonate in one hundred seconds. She had Kimmalyn shoot the bomber’s clamps, releasing the lifebuster. Spensa grabbed the lifebuster with her light-lance and flew away from Alta at full speed, bomb towed behind her. Right as the countdown reached its end, M-Bot noted with surprise that the cytonic hyperdrive was online. Spensa engaged her cytonic abilities, teleporting her and M-Bot out of the explosion.

by Mikaela Bell

Spensa entered the place of the eyes, and they focused on her. She jolted back into M-Bot’s cockpit, and he reported that the cytonic hyperdrive was now offline again. She found that she was one hundred kilometers away from the blast site, and that almost no time had passed. Spensa called Alta Base, and heard cheering. Ironsides told her to return to base and that she’ll pardon Chaser, but Spensa saw a hole in the debris belt. She flew up through it, where she discovered that the belt was a series of organized defense platforms. She saw a large space station beyond them, and could hear the Krell communication. They tried to overwrite her vision like they tried with her father, but M-Bot jammed the signal and kept her safe. M-Bot translated some Krell communications, as well as downloading some of their data. He discovered that the Krell are effectively there prison guards, keeping the humans contained on Detritus.

Making a Plan

Over the next six months, Detritus progressed much, and so had Spensa’s skill. She grew adept at listening to the Krell communications and moving before they did, and as a result the Krell started sending aces in manned fighters to kill her. In the midst of a dogfight, two Superiority battleships arrived, and Spensa was told by command that they were capable of possibly bombarding the planet. After returning to Platform Prime, Spensa was informed that the engineering team had discovered an old recording from the platform. After Spensa, Cobb, and a few others arrived, they played the recording. The recording showed a command room, with a woman panicking and saying that their defenses had failed and a delver had come. The delver enveloped them, and the screen went black, but Spensa saw an image of herself staring back at her in the screen, which nobody else in the room saw.

After watching the recording, Cobb pulled Spensa aside and told her that they needed to find a way to get off Detritus, such as figuring out the secret of Superiority hyperdrives. He suggested that Spensa and a team could hypothetically infiltrate the Superiority space station, but didn’t know fully how to go about it. Spensa felt an odd sensation as a solitary ship appeared outside Detritus and began to make its way through the platforms. Spensa and Kimmalyn went out in their fighters to check out the ship, which they found hurtling towards the ground, out of control. They slowed down the ship’s descent with their light lances, and brought it to a mostly controlled crash. Inside they found a humanoid female alien, with pink skin. She was badly wounded, but used a translator pin to speak to Spensa before passing out. She told Spensa not to trust the Superiority, and cytonically implanted Starsight’s coordinates in her mind. M-Bot hacked the alien Alanik’s records and found that she was going to Starsight to join their star fleet. Spensa realized that it was her perfect oppurtinuty to go to Starsight in Alanik’s place, using holographic technology that M-Bot had to disguise her as Alanik. The coordinates began fading from her mind, and she had to make a rushed decision. She discusses the idea with Jorgen, who tells her she should go. She climbs into M-Bot, then uses the coordinates to hyperjump just outside of Starsight.

At Starsight

“My chronometer indicates no time has passed. You engaged the cytonic hyperdrive…or, well, I think you are the cytonic hyperdrive. ”

—M-Bot to Spensa after her hyperjump

Spensa made it to Starsight, which is around 40,000 light years away from Detritus. She and M-Bot manage to gain entry into Starsight, her disguise and M-Bot’s faked information holding up. At Starsight, she was greeted by Minister Cuna, who showed her where she was staying and explained the workings of Starsight. She went to tryouts for the Superiority fighter force, in which the Superiority used drone ships with live fire. The Pilots had to survive for thirty minutes. Spensa saw a large ship floundering, and rescued it with the help of Morriumur and Vapor. The four ships worked together during the exercise and passed, and afterward they were put together into one flight, including Brade. Spensa met Mrs. Chamwit, her housekeeper. Spensa was highly suspicious of Chamwit, believing her to be a Superiority spy despite her kindly nature. Spensa talked with Cuna a lot, learning about Starsight and its politics. Spensa and her flight boarded their carrier ship, the Weights and Measures, which hyperjumped them to their training location. As they hyperjumped, she heard a shrill scream that nobody else appeared to have heard.

“What do you idiots think you’re doing! That was the most embarrassing excuse of a hostile approach I’ve ever seen! Grade, you were ordered to clear the firing path, not fetch a fist of enemy nose hairs!”

—Spensa trying to whip her flight into shape

They trained on a delver maze, but were wildly disorganized. Vapor recognized Spensa’s flight experience, and made her assistant flightleader so she could lead the group in doing drills. She found herself falling into the role easily, unconsciously copying Cobb’s mannerisms. After learning the basics of fighting against delvers on the delver maze, Spensa worked on assembling a drone at the embassy, with M-Bot’s assistance. She learned more about Superiority, and about the taynix. After M-Bot programmed it, Spensa released the drone aboard the Weights and Measures. After practicing with her flight, her drone was discovered, and Spensa was forced to hide it after much ensuing chaos. Spensa was discovered by Vapor and Cuna, who assumed her to be a generic UrDail spy. Spensa watched the drone’s video of the engine room, taken before they hyperjump, and saw that they were using taynix to hyperjump. Cuna reveals Winzik’s plans, which are to use delvers to control rebellious planets, likely including Detritus. Spensa revealed herself to Cuna, who is amazed rather than angry. After the flight gets called into action, Spensa decided to reveal herself to Brade, who immediately started sounding the alarm, announcing that she had found the human spy. Spensa was forced to escape in her Superiority starfighter, hyperjumping back to Detritus but leaving M-Bot behind on Starsight, who was trying to re-write his programming. After going to Platform Prime and briefing Cobb, then heard Brade screaming into the nowhere. Spensa realized that Winzik was attempting to summon a delver to attack Detritus, and she hurried to her starfighter.

Fight against the Delver

“Why should you believe them?” I asked. “You know I’m not the monster they say I am. You flew with me. Our people were allies once, long ago. You know the Superiority doesn’t care about your kind. Come with me. Help me. ”

—Spensa trying to convince Hesho to help her

Hesho was angry at Spensa’s betrayal and wanted to shoot her down, but his crew overruled him, joining with Spensa. Spensa told Cobb to power down all comms on Platform Prime, and she, Vapor, and Hesho’s ship chased after Brade. They were able to disable Brade’s ship, but not before she succeeded in summoning the delver, which emerged into the system. Spensa, in a moment of desperation, redirected the Delver, getting it to go destroy Starsight instead of Detritus. Hesho’s ship had taken damage from their dogfight with Brade, and Kauri told Spensa that Hesho was dead. Spensa hyperjumped Vapor and Kauri back to Starsight, though Kauri’s ship had sustained too much damage to be able to fight. Spensa and Vapor entered the delver’s maze, chasing after Brade, and evading the embers it shot at them. Spensa and Vapor got seperated, but Spensa was rescued by the arrival of Morriumur, whose dual nature allowed her to combat the hallucinations the delver projected. Morriumur carried Spensa to safety, dropping her into the heart of the delver alone.

“The thing trembled with emotion I understood without needing interpretation. Horror.”

—Spensa describing the Delver’s realization

In a completely white room, Spensa communicated with the delver, who took her own shape before her. She saw the delver’s point of view, which saw the humans on Starsight as annoying noises. Spensa showed the delver her own point of view, how the humans cared for their children and had friends and families. The delver was horrified at the revelation, not having realized that the noises were alive. It promptly disappeared, returning to the nowhere and leaving Spensa floating in space. After being rescued and treated in a Superiority hospital on Starsight, and was greeted by Cuna, who had begun making overtures of peace with the humans. Winzik’s soldiers came for Spensa and Cuna suddenly, Spensa helping herself and Cuna escape, hiding Cuna in a closet. Spensa ran into Brade, who saved her from a Superiority aircraft and asked her to join with Winzik’s coup. Spensa ran instead, finding M-Bot, who had been completely destroyed by Superiority scientists. She found that M-Bot had managed to slowly changed his programming, copying himself into the body of a cleaning drone. With more of Winzik’s soldiers on the way, Spensa lead M-Bot and Doomslug towards the location of Starsight’s nowhere portal, which she had seen before., she touched it, pulling herself and them into the nowhere.

Relationships

Jorgen

From the first time she meets Jorgen, Spensa despises him. She hates how priveleged and smug he is, and often defies his authority on several occasions. She is the one who comes up with his callsign, Jerkface, a name he hates. One time when he was disparaging her bravery, she attacked him, despite him being her superior officer. Jorgen doesn’t report it, and sincerely asks Spensa to stop challenging his authority. After that they grow in mutual respect to each other. After Hurl’s death, Jorgen and Spensa go to retrieve her pilot’s pin together, Jorgen letting Spensa ride to the site with him in their car. Spensa realizes that she actually likes Jorgen, and they continue to bond. When Spensa leaves to infiltrate Starsight, he initially doesn’t want her to go as he fears for her safety.

Trivia

• Spensa's race was intentionally left ambiguous.
• The first ideas for her character were developed in 2012.
• If she was a Knight Radiant, she would most likely be a Dustbringer, "with small arguments for Stoneward, Skybreaker, or Edgedancer."
• Spensa would find a lot of modern-day foods to be overwhelming.

Notes

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{{Skyward}}
[[category: viewpoint characters]]