Karo Farooq, also known as Syrup, was a female Rodian. A slicer and mechanic by trade, Karo joined the crew of the Rhythm Divine in 2,184 BBY to escape an abusive relationship. She developed an emotional attachment to Dalek Crade and acted as his primary technician.
Biography[]
Early life[]
Karo Farooq was born on Rodia, the youngest of six children. Due to the strain that a large family had on the finances, Karo, along with her siblings, were required to take jobs and apprenticeships as soon as they were old enough. Karo worked as an apprentice to a mechanic after school, becoming rather proficient. Unfortunately, mechanics were not in high demand after she completed her schooling and Karo instead trained for and worked as a computer network administrator for a local company.
Karo's flighty and carefree nature led her to her city's active nightlife, where she frequented various clubs after work. At one of those clubs, she met an older Rodian military officer named Joohan. Somewhat naive, Karo moved in with the officer with promises of being well taken care of.
The situation gradually changed as the relationship soured. Joohan became more and more controlling, restricting Karo's social life and other activities and became rather cross when she did not readily comply to his demands. Karo originally chalked it up to Joohan being in the military, until things got worse. Karo was ordered to close her bank account and have her paychecks deposited directly into Joohan's, from which he would further control the finances, essentially giving Karo an allowance. The couple erupted into often-violent arguments almost daily, the Rodian officer would tarnish Karo's name to keep her under his control. Public humiliations were almost routine. It was only after a vicious fight that left Karo with a broken jaw and dislocated shoulder that she worked up the courage to escape.
Having learned a thing or two about slicing from her job, Karo hacked into military records, changing them to ruin Joohan's reputation and earn him a dishonorable discharge. She then drained his bank account and fled, relocating half a continent away to Equator City, where she hoped to disappear. It was there, during a community-wide swap meet, that Karo met Septavious-pratsutagus and begged to join his crew, offering her skills as a mechanic and slicer in exchange for travel offworld. Only after the Rhythm Divine left Rodia did Karo tell the crew exactly why she was so desperate to flee.
In 2,182 BBY, Karo gained access to government archives concerning a Dalek invasion and subsequent galactic war centuries earlier, learning of an abandoned space station in the Pkowik system. Lured by the promise of valuable equipment and materials, Karo and the rest of the crew plotted the course to the Pkowik system, using the spare time during the year-long trip to reorganize and categorize the cargo they already had in preparation for what they expected to be a large and profitable find.
Upon docking with the space station, Karo donned an enviro-suit and set off to explore the station with the rest of the crew. Keeping in contact via commlink, Karo searched a section of the space station containing several sealed laboratories full of valuable equipment and cryogenic units, finding one of the laboratories to be accessible; the door had apparently been blasted open during battle, however the equipment inside was intact— including the cryogenics pod. The pod contained a Dalek, in suspended animation. According to the attached computer terminal, the Dalek was undergoing reconditioning while in stasis. Radioing her crewmates for help, Karo alerted them to the find.
Travel through time[]
After the crew looted the station, Karo and the Bith engineer Markov J'ost activated the recovery features of the cryogenics unit, bringing the Dalek out of stasis. Immediately Karo found herself on the business end of the gunstick, the Dalek demanding to speak with "The Mentor" under penalty of extermination. However, the disorientation and agitated state subsided as the programming that was being fed into the Dalek's brain while in stasis kicked in. To Karo's relief, the Dalek stood down and fell silent.
Karo Farooq
After the ship disembarked from the station and went underway, Karo attempted to get the Dalek to talk, but to no avail. It was only after Karo told it of her past did the Dalek finally divulge some information. Known as "Dalek Crade," a science officer for the Alliance Dalek forces prior to the Great Catastrophe, he had sustained damage during an accident in transit from its dimension. Karo didn't hear the rest of Crade's story as Septavious entered the repair bay, alerting her, Markov, and a third crewmember, the Jawa Getzreifogl, to something strange about what was expected to be a routine—albeit blind—hyperspace jump; the vortex. The appearance of it was unlike the usual hyperspace vortex they were accustomed to seeing. An off-hand remark from Crade provided a possible answer, but they would still need to wait out the two months for the trip to end to find out what was going on.
During the trip, Karo repaired and refurbished Crade, developing an emotional attachment to him. She viewed the Dalek as essentially an armored protector, someone she could rely on to keep her safe if her ex-boyfriend, Joohan, ever found her again. Though she never expressed it, her crewmates could tell from how she seemingly never left Crade's side.
When the Rhythm Divine came out of hyperspace, the answer to the crew's question was answered; the vortex they had witnessed at the start of the trip was indeed different. Crade had remarked that it resembled the time vortex for which he designed craft to traverse. And Septavious confirmed it to Karo and the rest of the crew—they had traveled through time. The Rhythm Divine had unknowingly entered a dimensional rift in 2,181 BBY and engaged the hyperdrive, traveling 2,209 years into the future in the span of just over two solar months, exiting outside of Coruscant's orbit in 28 ABY.
Karo was utterly shocked. However, she felt a mixture of relief as she realized that Joohan was long dead by now, and therefore would never be able to find her and get even. Despite that, Karo still sought out Crade for assurance.
There was a degree of culture shock that came with dimensional travel, the most notable being the government and societal changes. The Galactic Union had never existed, Daleks never were such a major threat, and of course technology had progressed enough to render Karo's mechanical skills down to a basic level of understanding. However, along with the shock came the exciting promise of adventure. And thus, as soon as she and the crew had settled into their new surroundings, Karo began to explore Coruscant's club scene.
Her comfortable routine was interrupted, however, during a salvage meet in 30 ABY. During a trade, thieves sneaked onboard the Rhythm Divine and smuggled Crade off of it, using a restraining bolt to disable his motive and weapons units. Karo was devastated and determined to find him. Knowing that most salvagers she had met mistook the Dalek for a droid, Karo assumed that Crade would most likely be sold as such and began to track the sales on Eport, hoping that she would be able to find Crade again.
Personality and traits[]
Karo Farooq was a flighty party girl. She preferred the club scene over the cubicle, and even after leaving Rodia, she would make time to attend raves. Caught up in the moment, Karo was sometimes a casual user of the drug Crude. Usually cheerful, Karo has no qualms with hugging her crewmates or even Dalek Crade. However, due to her abusive relationship with Joohan, Karo was hesitant to get close to anyone else, her emotional attachments directed to Crade's unyielding metal form.
Karo had several tattoos, the most visible ones being on the nape of her neck, right bicep, and the small of her back, which she referred to as her "tramp stamp." She wore her flexible head-spines long and dyed a bright blue. Dressed in the style of most club-going youths, Karo certainly did not look the part of a mechanic and, unlike some offworld Rodian females, was not afraid to flaunt her physique.
Behind the scenes[]
Karo's wardrobe and aspects of her personality were loosely modeled after the character of Abby Sciuto from the series NCIS.