Astra (Amanda Warren) PL10Abilities 32 + Advantages 7 + Defenses 17 + Skills 11 + Power 83 = 150
"I can throw you into orbit. Do you still feel lucky, punk?"
APPEARANCEWith her curvy and very fit body clearing 5' 7", her long, straight platinum-blonde hair, her clear, unblemished skin and an almost perfect heart-shaped face sporting a french nose, almond-shaped baby blues and naturally full ruby lips, Amanda Warren would have been the ideal supermodel or Holywood actress if not for her powers.
Having no trouble with skin cancer, gravity or frigid winds, she gravitates towards bold, skimpy outfits more for the challenge and to make a statement than to attract male attention. She often goes for the punk/anarchist look rather than slutty or cheap, a point driven home with the help of her trademark scowl. Oh, and the occasional incineration of overly adventurous males.
PERSONALITY"Astra", as Amanda calls herself now, is a social, outgoing young woman with a strong personality and charisma that easily becomes the center of a situation. She is demanding of others and herself, persistent, always working on one thing or another and seizing the moment, letting no opportunity go to waste. Natural wit and awareness combine with her presence and a bit of stubborness to make her a decision-maker in any situation. At the same time, Astra is an opinionated, self-centered, over-acheiver. She often ignores morality in favor of her own acheivement, glory and pleasure. She does things to benefit others as long as they also benefit herself and the only people she feels a strong empathy for are her few friends and other mutants.
Respect, friendship and other emotionally-charged relationships are slow to grow on her and she naturally gravitates towards capability and power. Her relationship with law and order is... flexible. She believes in an orderly society as the best way for people to fulfill their potential but she also believes that society should include her, and at a high place at that.
RELATIONSHIPSAmanda's relationship with her mother and father is a cold, business-style one. Her father Antonio being a major shareholder in overseas trading companies (and rumored to have once been a druglord in Mexico), he is rarely at home and the anti-mutant hysteria in third-world countries is far more limited than in advanced ones so even when he sees Astra, he still measures her with calculation, how her beauty and more recently her powers can help the company. Her mother Elizabeth is a socialite trophy wife, and where Astra got her good looks from. Contrary to expectations, she happens to be a better parent and taught Astra how to be a social girl but recently has started to oppose Astra's "dangerous" forays in the business world where she uses her powers.
Amanda has a bad relationship with mutant response division leaders - she has trashed quite a few Sentinels and military vehicles after being attacked. She has a far better relationship with the soldiers in those vehicles for various reasons (hey, she's a beautiful young woman in a skimpy outfir after all) the most important her being very careful not to kill of main them and occasionally transporting them to hospitals after the action. It would not do for actually legal charges like "murder" to be added to her resume; it would hurt her business prospects. Plus, it's polite and causes division among enemy ranks.
She has better relationships with other mutants. She does not buy into Xavier's spiel of complete non-violence (do even the X-men themselves?) but does hope for peaceful (and profitable) coexistence and while she likes Magneto's strong attitude and supports his attempts to organize mutant-kind into a powerful force, she does not condone attacking first; nonviolent power use in society is more advantageous in her opinion. She has met her share of both the "good" and the "bad" guys and rumors say she's friends with the Juggernaught for some weird reason (though they don't specify why). Among the few mutants she openly respects is Emma Frost and she is known to actually listen to the other woman's advice. But maybe that's just ms Frost's psionics at work.
BACKGROUNDAmanda Warren was once a fairly normal "popular" girl in a fairly normal New York school. All of thirteen when she first displayed her first mutant ability -the ability to project light from her eyes like a small torch- she had still been perceptive enough to hide the fact from her parents and fellow students. Around that time the public opinion turned against mutants and things were becoming ugly between the Brotherhood and the X-Men, not to mention politicians first proposing registration acts that would later lead to wars.
Cute, highly perceptive and quite athletic, Amanda had no interest in joining the "losers" group (as she called them) and focused instead on becoming her school's most popular and successful girl, a goal she achieved with looks, practicality, bitchiness, and her parents' generous allowance.
Over the years, she grew to become a forceful, poised, socially active young lady while her powers slowly matured. Becoming stronger and faster than normal was a nice perk in situations where intimidation served better than diplomacy or to show those simple-minded jocks who was boss. But her powers weren't nearly as advanced as that of other, more well known mutants until the day the Fantastic Four first fought Galactus. That fateful day, Amanda was sixteen, the prom queen and had just gotten her learner's permit. She had a cute date and got to drink as much as she could stomach (which was surprisingly much given her size). That perfect date was ruined when a stray blast from Galactus' Power Cosmic traveled over thirty miles and smashed into her school. The school collapsed. Eight students were crushed and over a hundred were injured. Amanda, being at ground zero of that blast, survived without a scratch. She passed out as her body momentarily overloaded but soon woke to find herself under a ten-ton broken support column that felt as light as a feather. Pushing it aside, she walked to the school's parking lot to find her father's porsche crushed and continued towards home on foot.
Galactus was beaten. The world rejoiced. Mutants eventually became a target for even worse discrimination and hatred. But as Amanda discovered, the development of her powers had advanced by a good ten years at least. She was stronger than a locomotive and could fly faster than a speeding bullet. Her gaze could incinerate its targets, disintegrate atomic bonds and emit various types of radiation. Instead of being dismayed at having fully developed as a mutant, the young socialite decided to make the best of it; these powers were given to her for a reason and if she could no longer live as a human girl, she'd become the most successful and powerful mutant.
POWERSAstra's power is the ability to project and control the natural phenomena and conditions of a star. She could apply a star's immense gravity to move around and crush objects for example, or project high-energy neutrons and microwaves as if from a fusion reaction, decay the integrity of atoms like in a collapsing star, sense visible radiation even through objects or great distances or take on aspects of the solar wind.
She is still a teenager about to be a full adult but since a stray cosmic blast jump-started her powers, her powers have developed years ahead of her body. So far, she has learned to control only a small part of what she can do and take on only a very tiny portion of a star's aspects or their magnitude but that might soon change. The one drawback of her powers is that she occasionally emits surges of radiation in random frequencies. Those aren't strong enough to harm people or objects but may cause interference in any number of communications.
CURRENT AFFAIRSOver a year has passed since Amanda's powers were forced to develop early. Astra, as she chose to be named, was a seventeen year old girl that could rival in power all but the strongest mutants. Her forceful personality leading to her viewing her powers as her gift and right, Astra leans towards Magneto's ideas rather than Xavier's. Astra likes her expensive lifestyle and since she's only borderline adult still (and has not completed her education yet), she occasionally hires out her powers to corporations and individuals for one third what it would cost to do the same job with technology. So far, she has launched two communication satellites for countries that lack their own space program, has performed several abyssal depth retrievals of sunken cargo and helped with deep-bore mineral drills.
She has also helped in disaster relief several times, especially in cases of massive damage where her high mobility and apparent strength can clear the area, transport supplies and relief teams, rescue trapped people or move the earth to block floods or volcanic lava. The reasoning behind those attempts is fairly straightforward and mimicks that of major companies; help a country with a relief effort now, build up goodwill and display your capabilities, and when the time comes for a job instead of relief efforts, they pick you over others. It's like advertising, only better.
COMPLICATIONSMotivation: Advancement - personal and for the human race as a whole. Astra believes in the middle ground between Xavier's utopian optimism and Magneto's radical aggression. Mutants (and thus Astra herself) are better -evolutionally at least- than common men but she sees no reason this should be treated different than the differences between those born high society and those that have no prospects. And if the future is to be better, then those best able to rule must do so.
Prejudice: Mutant Mutants are persecuted in much of the world and while Astra comes from high society and has learned how to navigate her way socially into business with people that do not care she is a mutant, she still has to face those that intentionally hunt her down.
Once a bitch, always a bitch: Due to both her high society origins and assertive personality, Amanda rarely sees others as equals (not unless they prove they are) and is highly agressive in pursuing her own opinions over those of others. She sometimes comes off as unreasonable, condescending or coldly emotionless.
Static Surge: Astra's growing powers send out surges of energy at random times in random frequencies. These seem to happen more often when Astra is under pressure of some sort, to the frequency of once or twice a day. The surge is not strong enough to cause damage but can play havoc with communications; it has disrupted television and cellphone signals, private communicators, radar in nearby planes, even psychic links when it comes off at the same frequencies as the mind's bioelectric field. The first obvious drawback of these static surges is that Astra never knows if her phone, tv, comm gear and the like are going to work every time. Another drawback is that blocking tv signals during a football match broadcast live is going to annoy the neighbors and disrupting radar signals if you go to the airport might give pilots and airflow controllers a good scare. And while the surge only comes once or twice per day in a random frequency and rarely lasts over a minute, someone with the right devices could still pinpoint Astra's location.
ABILITES [30 pp]
Str: 0/10 Agi: 1 Dex: 0 Fgt: 2 Sta: 4 Int: 0 Awa: 5 Pre: 3
ADVANTAGES [5 pp]
Very Attractive, Favored Environment: Aerial, Power Attack, Move-By-Attack
DEFENSES [17 pp]
Dodge 5 Parry 4 Fortitude 12 Toughness 4/15 Will 8
SKILLS [6 pp]
Athletics 1(+11), Insight 1(+6), Perception 5(+10), Persuasion 5(+8/+13), Unarmed Attack 8(+10)
POWERS [88 pp]
Stellar Power [38 pp variable array, quirk: noticeable (glowing eyes)]
. . Gravitic Strength Field: Enhanced Strength 10, Power Lifting 10, Impervious 16 vs nonenergy
. . Implosion: Multifire Blast 4 (extra range 4, vs fortitude, affect objects, accurate 8, secondary effect)
. . Nuclear Vision: Blast 6 (extra range 11, accurate 7), Senses 8 (extend vision 4, ignores concealment)
Sunfire Body: Protection 11, Immunity 11 (life support, own slam), Regeneration 5
Forcefield Flight: Distracting Flight 18 linked Protection 2
OFFENSE
Initiative: +1
Unarmed: +10, DC 25
Implosion: +16, fort DC 19
Nuclear Vision: +14, DC 21