Ruri Hoshino

The 12-year-old science officer on the spacefaring battleship Nadesico (and captain of the Nadesico B in the movie set three years later), Ruri is a quiet but brilliant girl. Very much playing the "straight man" of the Nadesico's quirky crew, Ruri is very quick to call people out on what she perceives as idiocy. "Baka" is practically her favorite word! Her role on the ship is reading out data, and issuing commands to Omoikane, the shipboard AI (who would later become essentially her best friend, and she would go to very great lengths to protect it later in the series)- she has a variation of the Image Feedback System that pilots use to control machines in Nadesico's setting.

She is actually royalty by blood, as she would find out in episode 18, but after meeting her biological parents she decided to stick with the Nadesico, as it felt more like home and family to her.