周安莉 - Zhou Anli AKA Anli Jo

Zhou Anli was space-born in 2452 on one of the orbital manufacturing facilities operated by the conglomerate that employed her parents. Standard aptitude testing led the company to select her for its Applied Science and Technology School, followed on graduation by assignment to the asteroid mining division as a geologist. Anli spent two years as a 岩鼠 (rock-rat), receiving cross-training in field medicine, because rock-hoppers don’t have room for a dedicated medic, but was then attached to the 新上海矿务局 (New Shanghai Mining Bureau) expedition to Mars of 2475.

This attempt to establish a tritanium mining colony collapsed in 2479 through a combination of the hostile environment, D’naa sabotage, and political infighting among the members of the Central Committee back on Earth. By that time, Anli had spent many sols prospecting and surveying on the Martian surface, growing to love the rugged solitude of its ochre mountains and deserts. She became determined to stay on Mars rather than return to the teeming hives of New Shanghai and the inevitable company-arranged marriage that would be waiting for her since she had passed her 25th birthday. When the announcement came that the Martian operation was to be abandoned, Anli was assisting Chief Geologist Wang on a survey deep in Vallis Mawrth, and he ordered an immediate return to base. Shortly after, Wang suffered a sudden fatal pressure-suit malfunction, and the locator beacons on their crawler and suits went off-line...

Anli now roams across the Martian surface, exploring, prospecting, and scavenging anything with salvage value. She keeps a low profile and tries to stay out of sight, but lacking the stealth technology of the D’naa, she has to resort to simple camouflage to conceal herself and her equipment. From time to time, she slips quietly into settlements to trade for supplies and spare parts, offering in exchange salvage, biological and mineral samples, and coordinates of previously-undiscovered ore deposits or biologicals. However, some of her most valuable trade is in information, things seen in her travels and recorded by her helmet cameras. Though Anli adheres to the typical Nomad’s policy of neutrality in the conflicts of her adopted home, her love of the raw Martian environment makes her sympathetic to the D’naa, and her dealings with them have earned her a modest degree of wary toleration.