CHARACTER:
Full Name: Rosemarie Shayl
Familiar Name: Rosie
Call Sign: Cupcake
Rank: Ensign
Position: raptor pilot
Age: 21
Gender: female
Ht: 5'7"
Body type: athletic, somewhat boyish
Hair: dark brown
Eyes: brown
Other Physical Characteristic: Rosie has a large tattoo of an octopus, orange in color, on her right side and hip; also, a simple black infinity symbol on the inside of her left wrist.
Portrayed By: Zoë Kravitz

Place of Birth: Echo Point, Scorpia
Home Colony: Scorpia
Education: BS Meteorology, Aerelon Fleet Academy

Personality:
In a few quick words, Rosie is impulsive, headstrong, and altogether too intelligent for her own good. She's a bit of a Jill-of-all-trades, and knows a little about several things, but not really a lot about anything. Still, she has a cool confidence (some might call it arrogance...) and a way of handling herself that makes people take what she says seriously. She's quick to make acquaintances, slow to make friends, and while she can be boisterous and wild, she hides behind her outgoingness in order to protect her "true" core.

Family:
Parents: Orion and Lucy Shayl (both Scorpian natives, both teachers)
Brother: Erick Shayl (corporate attorney, resides in Caprica City.)

Life History:

Rosemarie Shayl was born to a pair of secondary school teachers in Echo Point, a quiet but fairly prosperous community on Scorpia. Her life was fairly ordinary. She did well in school, earning quite good marks but not really excelling at any particular area of study. She played on her school Pyramid team for a season, but quit because she found it to be fairly uninteresting. For awhile she took up painting, but didn't create anything of much importance. Her entire childhood and adolescence continued much in this vein.

There was quite a bit of pressure to excel in her family. Rosie's brother Erick, her elder by 6 years, impressed the parents by going on to study political science on a pre-law track at Caprica University. Soon after he earned his law degree with honors, and left Rosie to try to pick out her own way in his shadow, however she could.

At age 17, she entered the Aerelon Fleet Academy--partly because she hadn't yet decided what she wanted to be when she grew up and she'd heard the military could be good for figuring that out; partly to irritate her liberal-minded parents. Predictably, they railed at the thought of her entering the Academy. She declared her major as Meteorology by closing her eyes, opening up a course catalog, and picking whatever her finger landed on.

Her years as a cadet were one of the most difficult adjustments in Rosie's life. She'd been used to having her own way, doing whatever she'd wanted, and skating through life. In the Academy, she felt stifled and repressed, and occasionally lashed out. Still, she managed to make it through, cultivated a newfound sense of responsibility, and found the greatest love of her life in flying.

Rosie was awarded her call sign of Cupcake by her flight instructor as a sarcastic comment on her tomboyishness and her rash nature. She doesn't like it, but she knows better than to argue, lest she end up with something worse.

Rosie has just graduated Academy, in a ceremony on board the Battlestar Avalon, in Aerelon's orbit. She qualified on Raptor, Viper, and a couple of atmo fixed wing aircraft.