Name: Cedar Scully
Species: Human
Affiliation: Cybercommand
Occupation: Field Technician / Scientific Analyst
Status: Active
Cedar Scully is a field-deployed technician and scientific analyst for Cybercommand, known for her unorthodox methods, razor-sharp intellect, and abrasive but endearing personality. Often compared to a 20th-century “Q”-type figure, she specializes in high-risk deployment zones where traditional science officers wouldn’t survive five minutes. Scully is as capable of rigging a compound to explode as she is of decoding alien biology or reverse-engineering black-market biotech.
She is not particularly warm, but fiercely competent and quietly loyal—especially when lives (or data) are at stake.
Role in “Sphinx Rising”
Scully assists in analyzing the giant automaton discovered on Aphrodite, identifying it as a billion-year-old non-human construct with primate-like structure and a corrosive biological interior. Her findings provide the earliest clues about a long-lost precursor species—and her irritation when ordered to abandon the site becomes a recurring character beat.
Role in Another Way to Die
Initially, Scully prepares Eric Yuwono for his infiltration of Hosh as “Cody Revix,” outfitting him with surveillance-enabled black-market wrist chips, a hidden subdermal tracker, and access to the AI support assistant Effie, who was modeled after Scully’s sister. She warns Yuwono about field mission risks and the seduction of moral compromise.
Scully later travels to Hosh herself as part of a Cybercommand forward team. She is present during the Campsite blast, a Juno-orchestrated attack that kills Frumentarius, Naomi Maxwell, and much of the senior field cadre. Initially believed to be the sole survivor, Scully plays a critical role in both cleanup and continuation of the operation.
Uploading Effie to Cassandra
After the blast, Scully salvages Effie’s core data and transfers her into a Cassandra clone body—an advanced construct originally designed as part of Juno’s resurrection-tech project. The fusion of shipboard AI and bioengineered form marks a turning point in Cybercommand’s tactical capabilities and solidifies Scully’s place as a bridge between conventional field science and emerging transhuman tech.
Despite initial doubts, Scully helps stabilize Effie’s new embodiment, creating an uneasy but effective hybrid between AI and resurrected biology. Her technical improvisation and willingness to work outside standard ethical bounds are instrumental in bringing Effie back into action—and turning the tide against Juno’s operations on Hosh.
Personality and Traits
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Unapologetically Smart – Brilliant across multiple disciplines: biology, engineering, explosives, and systems integration.
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Dry and Acerbic – Communicates in quips and deadpan. Her humor is a defense mechanism as much as it is a personality trait.
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Socially Distant – Prefers machines, data, and solitary hobbies like rock climbing to any form of social interaction. Possibly on the neurodivergent spectrum.
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Morally Flexible – Doesn’t blink at transferring an AI into a clone body if it keeps a mission running or an operative alive.
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Emotionally Tough, But Not Unfeeling – Clearly rattled by the Campsite blast but buries grief under engineering work and sarcasm.
Author’s Note: Scully is named for Cedar Leiter, the daughter of James Bond cohort Felix Leiter in a latter-day Bond novel, and Dana Scully from The X Files.
Appearances: “Sphinx Rising,” Another Way to Die