Andrea is the Martian owner of Planet of the Tapes, Titan Garden's leading media rental outlet. An artful woman, Andrea is fond of a good story, and has been known to write a poem or a novella in her spare time. She's a pretty grounded personality as well, her writer's soul bearing the distinct patina of someone who's done her share of menial work. This duality makes her a pretty effective video store owner, allowing her to appeal to the discerning tastes of the Outer Belt's on-the-go film snobs while also being a fair and empathetic boss to her staff.
Planet of the Tapes, as you might expect, is an outfit specializing in long-term media rental agreements. Movies, music albums, games, audiobooks and more are available for the people of Titan to rent, enjoy and return at their earliest convenience. A variety of modern formats are offered to meet the needs of starfarers from all corners of Sol, whether that's disc-based, tape-based or cartridge-based, with the latter being the most common format available for their rugged durability. If you want something to keep you entertained for a variable length of time, but you don't want to clutter your limited living space with an expensive media library collection, stop by Planet of the Tapes and rent something you've never seen before. Andrea and her staff are happy to provide recommendations that will fit your tastes.
One of the big secrets to the success of Planet of the Tapes is its media library. Andrea seeks out and curates a rich library of rare, out of print or otherwise-inaccessible films from any world that produces them, maintaining a vibrant archive of classics. It'd be foolish to rent out the originals, you'd never see them again, so what Planet of the Tapes does is it flashes a few copies of these rarities and rents those out instead. She'll keep modern films in stock as well as her games and music offering- it's just good business, after all- but her interest isn't in shilling the latest big-budget spectacle from Terra. The heart of Planet of the Tapes is the good stuff, the pulpy stuff, the cult classics and the weird. If you know, you know, and if you know, Andrea's got you covered. If you don't know? The staff are happy to show you.
In a lifetime before she became a tape store owner, Andrea worked as a deep space shipbreaker and salvage hand- she keeps a very old and well-used boarding axe on the wall behind the desk in her office, which most people dismiss as a nerdy prop, but which tells a story of its own to shiphands in the know. She knows the kind of idle boredom that can sour a stint on an orbital rig or a long-term job on a starship, and she's worked hard to build Planet of the Tapes to serve the needs of people who are going to be far from home for a little while. She keeps a stock of blank cartridges to flash for long-term rentals, if a starfarer is going to be away for a long time they can opt to rent some movies, have them flashed to carts, take them up into space and then return them at their next call to port- this practice allows a customer to enjoy movies up in space without worrying about incurring late fees, and Andrea doesn't need to worry about film stock if a copy of a particular film is up on a space rig for a few months. Also, as a former salvager herself, Andrea understands there's a possible third outcome that could result in her never seeing her tapes again. It's tragic, but that's why we flash the long-term rentals to blanks.
Andrea is a good friend of the Red Raven crew. After she closes up for the night she likes to pop by the office to hang out, chit-chat or watch TV with the gang, often having the foresight to bring a box of pizza and a few cans of Fruit Nice! to share. Amy, Haley and their crew will keep an eye out for videos when they're salvaging old shipwrecks- they've found a few very rare films aboard an old smuggler's ship, shepherded to their resting place in the ship's lounge by a silent ghost with holes for eyes who, to the team's best assumption, didn't want their collection to become lost or destroyed forever. It's a fun story to tell, but those films and others the crew have found now reside in the central library at Planet of the Tapes. Andrea's business has been doing well- she's looking to open up franchises at other star ports, in fact, so starfarers can drop off their long-term rentals at ports other than Titan's- but she still has that old shipbreaker's fire in her. She'll occasionally hire on as a part of the Red Raven crew for a particularly big job, and when she's away from the shop the boarding axe will be missing from the wall behind her desk.