This is a document compiling several characters I intend to develop throughout this project. I’ve decided, I suppose, that I’ve reached the point in this project that appending an socio-emotional aspect to the mish-mash of commentary on governance, economics, and trains would be a wise choice. These characters were made up now1. There is little precedent, at the moment, to these characters, and I basically just pulled them out of my ass with a little help from fantasy name generator. Without further ado, the character list:
Genziano Noce
A renowned senator, amateur economist, and orator. He is deeply opinionated and well-spoken, and enjoys study and debate. Retiring from the senate alongside his associate senator for Tuvaya (and future wife), Alma Sposato, he now enjoys watercolor painting and reading the newspaper.
Name: Genziano Pasquale Sposato Noce2 Occupation: Retired Residence: Venirno, Tuvaya, Rosen Commonwealth Age: 71 Date of Birth: January 16th, 1983 Spouse: Alma Sposato
Appearance
Genziano has brown eyes and very little white hair, and is of primarily Tuvayan heritage. His maternal grandfather is Hanan, but he didn’t inherit any of his features. He has a round head and is mildly overweight, though he was reasonably athletic during his early years in politics. Tuvayan is Genziano’s first language, but he speaks Sennan and Standard Helsayan serviceably as well. Genziano also knows some Rosen Median Language (RML) from his time in the senate, but he can no longer speak it coherently as there is little use for it outside of the federal government. Despite his commitment to equality and socialism, Genziano enjoys the finer things in life and usually wears semi-formal clothing since his retirement. He likes wearing sweaters, but for most of the year Tuvaya is too hot to wear anything other than a cotton button-up with the sleeves rolled up. He likes to wear loafers and sunglasses.
Personality
Genziano was raised conservatively and never considered entering politics until college. His personality often conflicts between Tuvayan conservatism and the brash, loud, and masculine figure he became during his time in Rosen politics. Genziano has grown to be confident and measured, but he still is forced to confront the difference between his political self and his home life. According to his wife, his time in Rosen politics means he views his life in two parts: his pre and post-political life, and his political life. Genziano is fascinated by literature and art, and he considers himself an amateur painter. He enjoys learning and arguing (which he jokingly calls “spirited debate”), the latter of which he practices regularly with his wife, who he loves very much. Genziano is agnostic, though he has considered himself a Demeian in some times of his life. Alma has commentary on this aspect of his personality also; she says that “Genziano believes God died in late 1989, but that was when he was six and he seems to have moved on from that ideal.”
Life
Genziano Pasquale Noce was born in the outskirts of Venirno, Tuvaya, on January 16th, 1982. He was born in a refugee camp during the latter years of the Second Rosen Civil War, when it was clear the Socialists were winning but the Nationlists had yet to surrender. He grew up at the bottom of the top-down economic planning of the First Commonwealth; his parents worked in farming collectives until the Nuclear Crisis began in 1989. Genziano’s parents were in rural areas during the first part of the Crisis, and the both of them survived. However, Genziano’s father suffered from a severe episode of manic depression about two months after the war, and he died after getting tangled up with a Sennan warlord, Caio Morais. Genziano and his mother were forced into work for Morais until he was captured and killed by IU peacekeepers. The two moved back into the refugee camp system, which Genziano stayed in until he was 13, in 1995. Genziano’s mother moved to Sasei in September 1995, and Genziano attended formal education for the first time in his life, enrolling in Piosko School in Sasei when he was 14. During his time in Piosko, Genziano discovered his love for debate and literature, intending to obtain a degree in Rosen classical literature in college. However, one of Genziano’s friends convinced him to attend basic military training after graduation, which he completed in 2001. Immediately following his basic training, he wasted no time in leaving the military and resuming his education in classical literature. However, his brief time in the military exposed him to the politics of the Commonwealth, which fascinated Genziano. In 2002, Genziano began studying for a degree in political science, which he completed in 2006. In 2008, Genziano and his mother both returned to Venirno, where Genziano was elected chair of his neighborhood worker council. Following the end of his chairmanship in 2010, he ran for a position on his Worker Assembly Administration Committee, which he won. With convincing from his mother, Genziano left labor politics in 2013 and chose to run in the next senate elections alongside his half-Sennan coworker, Alma Sposato. After two years of spirited campaigning, supported primarily by his hometown of Venirno, Genziano and Alma were elected as senate pair one for Tuvaya (pair two was Battista Tirva and Aida Savoia) in 2015. Genziano’s early career in the senate was characterized by the fierce debate and controversy that the senate grappled with in its early years. As the Rosen economy began to take shape, Genziano joined the Senate Finance Committee, becoming an important voice on new fiscal policies, especially when the Rosen Central Bank began operation in 2018. Genziano was reelected in 2019, on a platform of strong regulation for foreign corporations in the Commonwealth and expanding the RCAF. Genziano’s most famous speech was in 2031, when, during a meeting of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, he declared a “Renewed Cold War” between the Rosen Commonwealth and the State of Saya. This speech came to set a precedent for the Commonwealth’s foreign policy and is still referenced today, for better or for worse. The remainder of Genziano’s tenure was comparatively uneventful. While his status jumped to a highly credible and regarded figure within the senate, his actual political action dropped significantly with his age, especially as he entered his fifth and sixth terms. His continuous associate senator, Alma Sposato, married Genziano in 2041, during his final term. The two chose to retire and move from São Cedillo back to Genziano’s hometown of Venirno, where Genziano chose to try to quantify his complex family history. He now has taken up watercolor painting and likes to read. Occasionally, he attends events hosted by younger Tuvayan senators, and he has retained his gift for public speaking.
Alma Sposato
A former literary critic, labor representative and politician. Half-Tuvayan and Half-Sennan, she, like her husband, Genziano, considers herself socially progressive and draws her traditions from the two cultures she descends from. She is generally open-minded and polite, but, also, (like her husband), she has a “politician” side that contrasts with her more diplomatic home life.
Name: Alma Braga Noce Sposato3 Occupation: Retired Residence: Venirno, Tuvaya, Rosen Commonwealth Age: 72 Date of Birth: December 7th, 1982 Spouse: Genziano Noce
Appearance
Alma has brown eyes and curly black hair, and is of mixed Tuvayan-Sennan heritage. Her mother was Sennan and her father was Tuvayan; she has the hair and skin tone of a Sennan but the eyes and height of a Tuvayan. Since her retirement, she wears simple, neutrally-colored pleated dresses, though she is partial to brightly colored clothes. She wears pants only on formal occasions, usually accompanying her husband. Alma is fluent in Tuvayan and Sennan, and she can serviceably speak RML and both kinds of Helsayan. She enjoys learning languages and is currently learning Velese. She hates wearing hats and tends to freeze if she goes down south in the winter.
Personality
Born half-Sennan, she was primarily raised in a progressive household led by her mother. Her father died when she was young, a kind of trauma she didn’t come to terms with until much later in her life. Alma is well spoken and diplomatic, and considers herself a counterbalance to Genziano’s somewhat erratic and contradictory personality. She lived with Genziano (platonically) for six years until they chose to get married. She considers their marriage to be more of companionship and convenience than anything else, which is why Genziano often claims that “my damned wife will never let me have any kids.” She is neat and clean to the point of compulsiveness and believes she represents, for better or for worse, much of the “housewife” stereotypes still present in the more conservative cultures of East Aya. She is a strong advocate for workplace democracy and is credited for devising the labor representation system now present in every major Rosen corporation, private and state-owned.
Life
Alma Braga Sposato was born in Trapacca, Tuvaya on September 7th, 1981. She was the youngest of three children and the only daughter in her family. When she was four, her family moved to Szczezębie, near the Tuvayan-Sennan border to be closer to her mother’s family. While her family was able to avoid the Civil War, she lost her childhood home as a result of the Burning of Trapacca. In 1987, shortly after the assassination if Julian Rybicki, the Sposato family sought refugee status in Gor, which had begun to accept immigrants fleeing the Commonwealth. Their application was accepted, but the WSPRC’s Politburo Executive Committee, which was ruling after Rybicki’s death, banned international travel, trapping the Sposatos by the Rosen-Gor border, homeless. Alma’s family bounced from family friend to family friend’s houses throughout the next two years. During this time, Alma’s father’s health began to rapidly deteriorate due to constant stress and hunger resulting in his death in April 1989.
Roberto Araújo-Thomasson
A politician and author at the highest level of Rosen politics. Fully Sennan, he is like one-third of Rosens; and Roberto won his position as Secretary-General due to his command of the convergence of everyman/country charm with a politician’s charisma and cunning.
Name: Roberto Alves Araújo-Thomasson Occupation: Secretary-General of the Rosen Commonwealth Residence: São Cedillo, Sasei, Rosen Commonwealth Age: 52 Date of Birth: February 1st, 2001 Spouse: Unmarried
Appearance
Roberto has been described as looking both old and young at the same time. He has relatively dark skin compared to many Sennans, with relatively straight black hair he keeps closely cropped. He has never been considered particularly attractive, but he takes great care in his public appearance, and has been known to spend copious amounts of time perfecting his fashion and makeup habits. He wears well-tailored suits in his professional life, and is often seen wearing chinos and a polo in his downtime. He is fluent in Sennan and RML, which he learned in high school during a government course.
Personality
Roberto is more or less fully Sennan; his hyphenated surname is a product of a half Helsayan relative long ago. He speaks with constant authority and surety, giving the impression of high education despite the fact that he dropped out of university to write history books. One cannot describe Roberto without acknowledging he has never quite been a good person. Roberto is consistently selfish, intolerant, and annoyingly infallible - the Secretariat-Directory often feels it has to “babysit” him until his term expires. Roberto has many friends but is close to none of them. His only ordinary and legal romantic experience was a brief tryst with a classmate at the University of Wallaceburg, and he believes he’s been chasing the high of that one incident ever since. Roberto is something of a womanizer that’s incapable of reaching home base, so instead he’s devoted his frustration to making inappropriate comments to female coworkers.
Life
Roberto Araújo-Thomasson was born in downtown São Lola on February 1st, 2001 after a long and treacherous C-section. He was born in the slapdash construction placed upon the ashes of the Crisis, and his life was defined by the stark contrast between
Footnotes
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At that time, it was probably around 22:00 on 2/18/25, at the Indianapolis International Airport, when my flight was delayed. ↩
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A note on Tuvayan name systems: In Tuvaya, you have a given name, a middle name, a married name, and a patronymic name. Genziano’s given name, “Genziano,” comes first. Next is his middle name, “Pasquale,” and then his married name, or his wife’s last name, “Sposato.” Finally, his patronymic name, or surname in the traditional sense, is his father’s last name, “Noce.” ↩
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See note 2. ↩