Regular life supporting planet in a galaxy far far away. A little closer to its sun than we are so it's brighter and hotter. Very little surface water but lots and lots of it in underground caverns. Best agricultural land is where it's closest to the surface, best land for building towns and cities is where it's furthest. The planet is referred to by its inhabitants as 'Bena' - the Chromatian word for 'soil' ('earth'...).
It was under the control of the Empire before the dawn of the New Republic and still is for now.
The sun is probably a little too hot for most humanoid species if they stay an extended period of time, but the Chromatians have evolved to deal with it. By day they are a nice reflective shade of white.
Then there's the moon but it's just reflecting sunlight... actually, it's doing more than that. The moon is made of some kind of compound that has a healing property for excessive heat exposure. Cool rocks. So the light that bounces back to Bena contains energies that counteract any damage that might have been done at day and cools people down again. Don't want to be reflecting that away, so the skin turns very black and absorbs as much as possible.
They've also discovered that wearing moon rocks on the body during the day can achieve the same effect - very important for travellers.
The change works on a kind of circadian rythym/sun-moon cycle type thing. It adjusts to the planetary cycle of where you happen to be, but it can take some time. So a Chromatian travelling from one side of their planet to the other will find that for about a week they're black by day and white by night until their bodies readjust. Jetlag's a killer. Moon rocks and wearing the right colour clothes can help. The change probably takes about an hour at sunrise and sunset and goes through various shades of pinks and browns and other fleshy colours. Hair colour changes too.
Not sure what happens if not on a planet with a sun-moon cycle. Or one with more than one sun or moon! But I think it should be fascinating to find out. I reckon if they do a lot of space travel their bodies will probably settle on a mostly black shade while in transit. They might even find that after a while fluorescent lights will produce the same effect as the sun!
The eyes don't change and they tend to have very distinctively coloured eyes. Also, they have an inner eyelid that's tinted so it acts as a sunshade when walking around with all the other shiny reflective people.
They've seen a lot of natural disasters in their time - the planet in many ways is still geologically quite new and settling itself. The flock would seem to get culled regularly. So a few social structures have fallen into place to combat this.
Their life cycle stages are very clearly defined.
0-15 years children are raised by one of their grandparents (most often maternal grandmother, frequently maternal grandfather (though usually only the boys), very occasionally paternal grandmother, very rarely paternal grandfather) on the family property in the agricultural expanses. They are highly educated in agriculture, sciences, sociology, etc.
15-20 they further their education in the city, maybe even spending some time with their parents learning what they can from their experiences. They take up a career to which they will devote the next 30 odd years.
20-30 is the mating stage. Since pologamy yields a higher return of children - plus if all your children have different genes, the chances of some of them having the necessary ones to survive the next disaster are higher, this is the way to go. There's no marriages as such, but if romance gets involved they do have a kind of bonding ceremony that holds two people faithful together until a child is conceived or a year passes. All newborns are paternity tested and added to the genetic database as a matter of course. For four days before childbirth and five days after, the mother and grandparent perform a private ritual of bonding between the three generations. After the five days, the infant is weened off its mother's milk and given to the grandparent to be raised. The mother then returns to her career and duties without distraction.
30-50 they continue their work in the city. They may visit their parents and children as seldom or frequently as they wish. This usually dictates how much time their children will spend with them when they grow up and move to the city.
50-70 is child rearing time. They've now passed their mental peak but have an extensive range of experiences by now with which to teach their grandchildren. They also become farmers and thus are still productive to society as a whole. By stepping out of their city careers they make room for the new talent that is emerging - talent that still carries all the experience of the grandparent that taught them plus the fresh approach of the young at their mental peak. This is also a time for developing the arts - a practice most common in those without grandchildren to raise so it tends to be more male dominated.
Religion has a strong planetary focus. Life comes from Bena, the sun, and the moon so this is what should be worshipped. Alright, they're Wiccan.
Family lines and names are traced along the female side since before the advent of genetic testing it was the only parentage you could be sure of!
They're very advanced scientifically with the high degree of education and optimising mental talent they have. Most of it is focused on taking control of their planet and preventing the next disaster.
That's the society in general, now for the character...
Kane de Garria had very much the standard childhood. She was raised in the agricultural plains by her maternal grandmother who taught her everything she knew - she was a physicist involved with developing warning systems for earthquakes, volcanoes, and other crust activities. Her mother was involved in much the same thing except with a focus on preventative methods. So when Kane went to the city at 15, she fell into that niche in the scientific community but developed as a meteorologist working on some Empire-sponsored government weather control projects.
Her father was an Imperial soldier (at least that's what he told her) and never spent much time on the planet but when he did come home, he'd always go see his firstborn. They got on reasonably well.
She was about 20 when the human rebels crashlanded on Bena after a daring cargo raid. They were hiding out in the city when they met. She and the rebel leader fell madly in love. He wanted to take her off this Empire run planet and bring her with him to where her skills could be better used. She was reluctant at first but he managed to find some prove that the project she was working on wasn't so much for the good of the Chromatians as for its applications holding other nations to ransom if the Empire could withold weather conditions. She got caught up in the romance of it all, agreed to go with him and marry him.
Over the next few months they showed her the truth about the Empire and what they were trying to do. She realised it was highly unlikely her father was the soldier he claimed to be. She learned to pilot and turned out to be pretty damn good - especially in atmospheric conditions. Did a bit of research for the Rebellion too. Then her husband found her with another man. She didn't really get why he was so upset - not really understanding what marriage means to some people. As far as she was concerned, he would be the one to father her first child and that was commitment enough. He divorced her and disappeared off to some other resistance cell. She stayed where she was continuing her research and piloting with the rebellion.
She was there at the Battle of Endor. Her cockiness led her to second guess her Wing Commander. She disobeyed orders - sincerely believing her way was better, but her Wingman and best friend doubted her at the last minute, hesitated, and got killed. She found herself in a heap load of trouble with hearings and trials etc. Some people are even inclined to accuse her of treason. It makes her all the more cocky now as believing she can't possibly be wrong is the best way to defend herself. It doesn't mean the guilt isn't there somewhere.
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