Tilly is a Martian Steelframe pilot and a proud environmental conservationist who works closely with organizations aiming to protect Saturn's moons from colonization. Standing at an even 200 centimeters, Tilly's size gives her a strong friend-shaped aura, projecting the vibe of a crackling hearthfire in a chilly Martian lodge- it's easy to feel drawn to her presence, and feel comfort in her company. She welcomes people from all walks at her table, and believes that a good community draws from all of its members, with each person adding a bit of their roots to the mix. More than good company, Tilly loves a good drink, ordering tall glasses of local spirits in any port town she finds herself in. While she's a big lady with a big appetite for liquid bread, Tilly's Martian physiology helps prevent her taste for ale from interfering with her duties as a Steelframe pilot; her segmented liver does a great job in filtering the undesirable effects of a night at the tavern out of her bloodstream and out of her neural-implanted brain. Drink well in good company, but drink responsibly and know your limits, even if those limits happen to be sky-high.
As a Steelframe pilot, Tilly's primary interest is using her Frame, callsign Mama Bear, to aide environmental groups who monitor the health of indigenous wildlife on or around colonized worlds, ensuring that early warning signs of negative impact by the encroachment of technology or industry can be caught and addressed before any lasting damage to a local ecosystem is sustained. When asked in what ways her groups plan to "address" the influence of corporate powers, she will just smile and laugh. Ha ha! Oh, you know the ways. Tilly uses Mama Bear as a mobile base of operations for ecowatch groups to touch down in an uninhabited environment, set up camp around its feet, observe and leave quickly and quietly, with as small a footprint as possible. Compared to landing a starship as a temporary operational base, a Steelframe emits much lower quantities of ionized gas into an atmosphere, and can be fired up and moved on much shorter notice. The tall stature of a Steelframe allows it to serve as a watchpost not unlike the high-rise firewatch outposts found on other worlds, enabling a ground crew to climb up onto a Steelframe's higher vantage point and more easily survey a surrounding area. Additionally, where changes to an environment are required- like moving large stones, fallen timber or technological debris- the large, dexterous hands of a Steelframe can perform a job that an industrial crane or lumbering machines could without needing to transport that kind of heavy equipment to a remote location, and having a much lighter impact on the surrounding environment as well. Being a big friendly giant is extremely useful when you're trying to be a good custodian to natural wildlife.
As you might expect, Tilly's journey into environmentalism began with a career as a well driller. Outfitted with training and a neural implant by Horizon Adaptive Technologies Partnership, Tilly and Mama Bear came up working in the Martian asteroid fields, following survey teams and setting up scaffolding for core-tappers and extended drills to be fitted for nimble resource extraction. Martians have long depended on resources harvested from the Asteroid Belt, and heavy industry provides a lot of easy work opportunities for young Martians hungry for credits or a direction in life. At night, after a long shift, when it came time to rest on board the space rigs that serviced these asteroids, Tilly soaked in the culture of her teams- these were often honest, salt-of-the-soil folk who came to the Asteroid Belt out of lack of choice, want for direction or, sometimes, following a family legacy of hard work providing for the people of Mars. Folks brought their hometowns onto those rigs; their songs, their stories, their traditions and their superstitions, every hand present adding their bit of regional flavor to the cauldron of living stew that bubbled in the mess halls and crew. Tilly enjoyed her time around these folks, and their influence can be seen in her smile, in the proud way she carries herself. Her appetite for a good drink came from these roots as well. It's a rich social tradition.
After cutting her teeth drilling shale oil in the Asteroid Belt, Tilly and Mama Bear were assigned to a new project- Horizon had opened up a contract with Ganymede's Ministry of Forests, allowing Martian lumbering crews to set up on the Jovian forest-moons under Ganymedean control. Lumbering was dangerous work in a gravity-rich environment, but it was work that was well-suited to assistance from a Steelframe. While she initially found the work to be interesting, Tilly soon learned that lumbering was a bit different from asteroid mining, and she soon found she didn't really have a taste for those particular differences. In the space rigs she and Mama Bear were hopping from rock to rock prepping a big straw to extract the good stuff from tumbling mineral husks, but here in the Himalia group of Jovian moons she found herself felling canopies and uprooting homes that local wildlife depended on for survival. It was no longer just extraction of what's there, there was something else living here that her industrial extraction was upturning and impacting as well. She felt a pang in one of her hearts for the creatures that scattered from the trees or the brush she would prune, heft and load onto trucks- these creatures, did they have their own songs, their own stories and their own traditions? Was she in her towering Steelframe entering their lives as a new superstition, as a new story to tell the next generation in caution or fear? These thoughts weighed on her, and when she'd talk with her crewmates they were mostly soft with her, but some would insist that the local wildlife didn't think or feel much of anything, so she shouldn't worry herself about them. Try as she might, she couldn't sit with that idea, and so she resigned her post with Horizon, and decided to take Mama Bear with her as part of her severance. To thine own self be true.
These days Tilly can be found in port towns throughout the Outer Belt, raising a drink and stewing in the local cauldron of starfarers. She doesn't need to do much job hunting, she's built a reputation and conservationist groups come to her when they have need for a Steelframe. She'll take up jobs throughout the myriad of Saturnian moons, assisting groups in monitoring and preserving areas under threat of industrial encroachment. She sees a fair amount of work come from Callistan groups, where negotiations with local megafauna are difficult and a large-but-gentle hand is helpful in managing carnivorous creatures with more compassion than a game hunter would afford them. Tilly is friendly with Savannah, and through her contacts with Cliff she is occasionally contracted to pilot Mama Bear in some of the more proactive work being done to prevent industry from upturning Saturn's uninhabited frontier worlds. What kind of work, you ask? Tilly smiles that big smile and laughs that big laugh. Oh, you know the kind. Prost!