Zakey Dogono

Zakey Dogono (pronounced /ˈzeɪki dɵˈgoʊnoʊ/) is a physicist of Kadis, currently notorious for her development of the phenomenon that has come to be known as retuition. While Dogono is employed by Trang Krep Technology, her work on retuition has made her enough of a celebrity that she makes much more money on lecture circuits and endorsements than she does at her "day job". Not all of the attention her work has brought her is so positive, however, and she also has to be on guard against those who want her for more nefarious purpose. Some extremists who irrationally oppose the very idea of retuition plot against her and in some cases seek her life, but for the most part they are disorganized and pose little real threat. More dangerous are the crimelords who want Dogono working for them and for their own ends, whether she wants to work for them or not.

Description

Zakey Dogono is the sort of person often described as "ageless"; she could pass for anywhere from her twenties to her fifties. While of course modified duplication allows people of Kadis and other worlds of the Dupliverse to look more or less however they want, Dogono comes by her agelessness honestly; she hasn't bothered to alter the appearance of her duplicates. She is slightly built and just below average height.

Dogono's cheekbones and chin are sufficiently pronounced to give her face almost a subtle cross shape, her nose is stright and sharp, and her eyes are large and merry. Her skin is dark brown, and her curly hair even darker; while most often she wears her hair in a thick braid in back, she frequently changes her hairstyle on a whim, though the changes seldom last long.

History

The fourth child in a large family of writers, poets, and artists—it was the renown of her mother, Imaki Zuren, that led to his being wealthy enough to have such a large family in the first place—, Dogono was the first of her immediate family to show a proclivity for the sciences instead of the arts. While her parents initially downplayed her interests, eager to preserve the family reputation for artistic greatness, her tenacity finally convinced them it was best to let her have her way.

After earning her degree from Zivas Tinia University, where even as a student she showed great promise, insight, and originality in her studies in spatial physics, Dogono began her postpergular career as a professor at the University of Northern Skama and other institutions. It was at that establishment that she made the discoveries that led to her development of retuition, the event for which she since became best known.

Among those who took an interest in her work in retuition, however, were various crimelords and other unsavory individuals who saw possibilities to turn retuition to their own ends. After withstanding various attempted abductions and intimidations, Dogono investigated her tormentors and, discovering that many of them came from the corruption-ridden world of Kadis, made the perhaps counterintuitive decision to move her operations there where she was close to them and could best monitor and anticipate their activities. While maintaining some of her professorial duties via her duplicates, Dogono took her primary employment with a start-up company called Trang Krep Technologies, founded by wealthy and legendarily insubornable entrepreneur Kathan Rophayalin. Since then, she has resided primarily in Kadis, studying retuition and other matters, and resisting the scelerats' attempts to recruit her to their causes.

Studies

Dogono's interest and the focus of her studies has always been spatial physics, the study of the structure and manipulation of spacetime itself. Her earliest studies involved the geometry of intersecting wormholes, and while her contributions to this field were not as notable as her later discoveries, they still showed some indication of her idiosyncratic thought processes and her unique approach to problems and to situations. She later did some work on procosmogony and spatial wave dynamics. It was with retuition, however, that she truly made a name for herself.

The development of retuition began with Dogono's realization, in he research, that events anywhere in the universe left traces, not on the observable universe itself, but in surrounding dimensions, which could in principle be measured and interpreted and used to determine the events that led to them. This meant that, theoretically, it should be possible to reconstruct past objects and events, within certain limits. While the practical difficulties in the reconstruction have yet to be worked out to effectively perform such reconstructions, the potential is widely recognized.

Goals and personality

While her discoveries have brought Dogono considerable renown and resources, her primary focus remains her studies. She feels it necessary to perform something of a balancing act, however; perhaps more than anyone else she recognizes the potential for misuse inherent in retuition, and is always considering how she can best ensure that, when retuitive processes are finally made workable, they are not turned toward untoward termini. Still, she continues to pursue her work, convinced that the knowledge about the principles behind retuition, if applied responsibly, can ultimately better humanity, and that in any case knowledge in and of itself is a worthy pursuit.

The fact she didn't follow her family's artistic footsteps does not mean that Zakey Dogono has no artistic impulses. On the contrary, she enjoys light sculpture in particular, though she pursues it as a hobby rather than a career; to a lesser degree, she has also dabbled in poetry, preferring short poems heavy on complex metaphors. Inevitably, the celebrity that she came by through her scientific work has lent popularity to her artistic pursuits as well, though Dogono is sufficiently realistic to realize this reflects little, if at all, on any innate virtues of her artwork.

Despite her formidable intellect, Zakey Dogono comes across in person as down-to-earth and unassuming. She's perhaps a little too fond of puns, but sufficiently self-effacing to admit it. Her tendency to be thinking about many things at once does, however, occasionally take a toll on her interpersonal interactions, as her interlocutors find her frequent abrupt changes of subject or apparent non sequiturs somewhat confusing.

Relations

Dogono's relationships with her parents and siblings are distant but cordial; she bears them no ill will, nor vice versa, but they are too different from her for her to go out of her way to spend time with them. In more recent years, she's been exaggerating the distance in those relationships, not because of any growing dislike of her family but more to protect them from the criminals who are after her genius. Until recently, Dogono did not have any known romantic relationships; the rumors of her being erotically involved with Kathan Rophayalin were unlikely to have ever had any real foundation behind them, nor the similar rumors attached to her coworkers Margus Dail or Philyderi Delacre. Within the last year, however, Dogono has publically admitted to having a lover, a sculptress named Iona Shen.

Dogono is known to have two children, but both were generated at the fathers' request, and raised by the fathers. One, Tari Dogono, has his primary residence on Evemore, the other, Qualen Cyce, on the wildworld of Dunsaol.

Also playing a significant, if less wanted, role in Dogono's life are of course the various malefactors who seek to turn her brilliance toward their own purposes. Among those most active in this pursuit are Naven Urio of the Urio Syndicate, Darip Rakama of the Mahajati, and Ennera Glae of the Free Collective.