side characters

I enjoyed incorporating the character Karinne into Beyond the Wall. I still have some difficulty in cultivating related characters in science fiction and know it is an inappropriate bias: the future, spece, the world of science, more "appropriately" has strong, intelligent, not-so-feminine characters as those in fantasy, where classic ladies in silk gowns, gentle manners, and all the actionable aspects of lady-like feminin flavor are almost assumed except for the worst or wildest women.

But really, we have some pretty feminine women these days with gentle, good manners, even if they can rarely lay the perfect table, and nervous as well as bold women. Why shouldn't the distant future? The question becomes, where do they fit? Mxyra in E-ships offers something of the question, but she is about as far as it goes in her world as I've built it, at least outside the mountains. In flashbacks, I could offer something of her fellow village women, and there's the Chancellor's daughter... easily sliding into the negative connotations rather than the positive, bright personality of Karinne. Karinne is one of those characters that fits her world well, I think: at least I can't quite picture her handling Mxyra's world very well. I wonder, though, is that a weakness for Karinne, or a problem with my expectations for the future?