Elise Maschenny is candid, analytical, and irreverent. Blunt to the point of cruelty, she discards propriety for progress, joking and insulting freely except at the expense of those she loves. Her skills in reactor, electrical, and atmospherics engineering makes her invaluable in crisis, but her competence is held hostage to her alcoholism and resleeving desensitization syndrome have taught her to treat her body as consumable. With cloning technology available, she chases injury, and without it she chases death.

Born on Altam II but soon finding her family transferred to a distant and secretive NanoTrasen mining outpost, she survived a bombing when her father Sage shielded her and fell into a coma. After her mother, An Ten De Zara died to an epidemic, Elise trained as an engineer to fund Sage’s care. Sage’s return found Elise addicted, disabled by sleeving trauma, and unable to afford more than a cramped dorm. Their intense codependence slowly turned sexual as Elise pressured Sage for a year before Sage relented on the journey to their cradle world.