Igni Irae
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
Intent: Codify an NPC established in rp.
Image Credit: Here. From A Royal Night. One must imagine her uniform as grey.
Role: Kyriaki's secretary and personal assistant.
Permissions: N/A.
Links: Prosperity Quarter, Hope Falls, The Valkyrie's Diary, Adlerberg, Dominion of Light, Republican Guard, Into Darkness, After Darkness, Glorious Conflict, Castle Maysaf, Tephrike, Firemane, Darth Vader, Yuuzhan Vong, Humanity's Blade, Cordé, Padmé Amidala, Anakin Skywalker.
PHYSICAL INFORMATION
Age: Mid-twenties.
Force Sensitivity: Non-Force User
Species: Human.
Appearance: Cordé is a human female in her twenties, with neat conventional hair and appearance. She has long, almost angular features, and is quite thin. She keeps her brown hair at a practical length. On duty, she wears the standard uniform of the Amidala Corps. It is a rather dowdy grey, with a shirt, skirt, cap, jacket and practical boots. The jacket has an armband with the group emblem - a small, delicate hand offering a sword to a larger one. The uniform is always well-maintained. Cordé does like to look fashionable outside of work, but in accordance with the conservative ideals espoused by the Humanist movements. These empathise that 'women should look like women' and have a 'natural look'. She wears a bit of lipstick, but does not use a lot of makeup. Her demeanour radiates cheerfulness and she smiles a lot.
SOCIAL INFORMATION
Name: Cordé Tycho.
Rank: Maiden. The standard rank in the Amidala Corps and a rather ridiculously named one at that.
Loyalties: KEC, Amidala Corps, Humanist People's Party, Disciples of the Vader, Darth Lachesis, Tephrike, Darth Eisen, Kyriaki.
Wealth: Limited. She is a low-ranking member of the Amidala Corps, a labour and support group for the military, and an auxiliary member of the KEC, the secret police and paramilitary of the Vaderites. Thus she receives remuneration, but is far from wealthy. Tephrike is an impoverished, war-torn third world planet. Shortages of consumer goods are endemic in Vaderite society, and she is not a privileged member of the elite.
Notable Possessions: Owns heavily annotated copy of Glorious Conflict. Cordé knows entire sections of the 'good book' by heart. She owns a copy of what purports to be the memoirs of her namesake. Cordé keeps a diary to organise her thoughts and record events that have made an impression on her. Moreover, she owns a hunting rifle. It was a gift from her father. Like every Party member, she has a Humanist People's Party membership card. Has a subscription to 'Tephrike Awaken', a Humanist Party weekly magazine that caters to more 'sophisticated' readers.
Skills: Skilled at organisation and filing. Exceptional memory. Good with basic consumer technology. Very well-versed in bookkeeping, accounting, Humanist law and doctrine. She loves learning and reading. Cordé is a bureaucrat who fulfils the role of a secretary, not a soldier. She has basic self-defence skills and can use a knife or pistol when needed, but combat is not her speciality. She has the 'conventional' hobby of knitting and sewing. This is something she has been able to bond over with Kyriaki, since the Disciple is a seamstress and an embroiderer who makes her own clothes. However, Cordé is a bit of a hunter and knows how to skin a deer. Growing up in a rural area has given her familiarity with weapons, even if she has never killed a person before now
Personality: When Cordé met a Twi'lek slave who spoke flawless Basic, she said she spoke good Basic...for a Twi'lek and asked her whether her human Master had taught her. Later she was surprised by the fact that the Twi'lek had good computer skills. The thought that the alien might be an equal to her did not occur to her. When she and the Twi'lek had to study files in an archive, she insisted that she wear gloves because she had read that her pigmentation could stain the documents.
When Cordé witnessed supposed wreckers and sloths being hanged, she complained about it not only being unhygienic but inhumane...for the killers. She was sincerely worried about it causing psychological damage to them. In her view, it would be far more humane to use gas or poison. She did not object to the killings; she just wanted them to be carried out 'cleanly' and out of the public's eye. It is worth noting that she is an auxiliary member of an organisation notorious for genocide and slavery.
Cordé is gregarious, helpful and well-liked by her colleagues. She values principles such as duty, and honour highly and likes things neat and tidy. She has a tendency to ramble when she gets excited or nervous. The Maiden disapproves of profanity and lewd language. She is also an unrepentant racist, but not someone driven by psychotic urges or sheer hatred. Nor is she mindlessly following orders like a robot. She is one of many ordinary men and women who have become perpetrators in a machinery of death and exploitation. It is Cordé's honest belief that non-humans are mentally inferior to humans. It is the human woman's burden to 'civilise' the 'savages'. The alien is half beast and half child, and it is her duty to kill the beast and enlighten the child. This is, ironically, seen as a liberal view among the Vaderites.
Cordé disdains cruelty, but believes 'stern measures' are necessary to keep the 'xenos' from becoming 'uppity' and 'naughty'. She believes that it was an alien conspiracy that unleashed the Gulag Virus, but does not hold present generations responsible for the 'crime of their ancestors'. However, they must stay in their place and learn from their human masters. The human species has a moral obligation to civilise the non-human species, whose culture is heathen and primitive. For instance, she believes the Twi'lek blood libel theory, which claims that uncivilised Twi'leks drink the blood and eat the flesh of humans to change colour. When 'xenos' must be killed for the 'greater good', it should be done 'cleanly' and 'without malice'.
It is only just that Twi'lek, Gungans and other alien species repay their debt to mankind by providing them with labour. In doing so they can learn from their 'betters'. Yuuzhan Vong are the exception to this. Cordé is genuinely disturbed by and afraid of these 'demons' and believes it would be a mercy to kill them. She views clones with somewhat patronising pity because they grow up without a family or an identity of their own. For a Vaderite she has 'moderate' views on near-humans. They are are part-xenos, but casting them aside means 'abandoning the part of their blood that is human'. However, those who cannot be 'redeemed' should be sterilised so that the xenos are not strengthened by the 'infusion of human genes'. This is absurd pseudo-science, but she rejects wholesale murder. Cordé is a racist bigot, but out of ignorance rather than malice.
On a social level, Cordé is polite, cheerful and friendly. The Maiden makes regular donations to charity and does volunteer work for the Humanist People's Welfare, where she helps organise relief for the poor. She is helpful to comrades and brings great enthusiasm to her work, even to a point of coming acros as an overeager puppy. She is a bit star-struck by the Disciples and admires them greatly. To her the Supreme Leader is something akin to a demigod. He is a unique genius who saved the nation, yet also a man of the people. The real Darth Eisen is a narcissistic cleptocrat.
However, she is no pushover. Cordé is resolute in standing up for her principles and very legalistic. Casual, random beatings of 'indentured assets' are wrong because they are against the law and detrimental to their 'education'. They also reflect poorly on the character of the person administering them. Cordé's attitude towards aliens she interacts with is, by Vaderite standards, 'friendly', but still patronising and authoritarian. She can be both complimentary and deeply patronising in the same breath. At the end of the day, all her talk about mankind having a civilising mission amounts to a lot of purple poetry that justifies oppression, segregation, enslavement, murder, cultural genocide and systemic speciesism.
Cordé is named after one of Padmé Amidala's Handmaidens. The Vaderites view Padmé in a very different light than most people. In their view, she was a Humanist before Humanism existed. Indeed, it was she who opened Anakin Skywalker's eyes. Thanks to her, he realised that humans are destined to rule over aliens so that civilisation can flourish. Far from dying of a broken heart, she willingly sacrificed herself so that Anakin could fulfil his destiny. Her faithful Handmaiden did not die in a bomb explosion, but instead settled on Tephrike to teach the natives about Padmé's ideals. Cordé admires her namesake - or rather her warped interpretation of her - greatly.
However, she does not aspire to be her. She aims to be a missionary. Cordé is an ambitious woman who aims to rise in the hierarchy. The Vaderites are a sexist society and she has had to put up with her share of misogyny, but this has not deterred her. Cordé accepts that it is her 'duty' to marry a 'good human man' and bear children for the fatherland, but she also wants to have a career instead of being relegated to a purely domestic role. It is no accident that she has tried to attach herself to a Disciple. She was assigned to assist Kyriaki in an investigation, but has been quick to recognise the opportunity this presents. The Maiden does her best to make herself useful to her new boss. After all, said boss is the ward of the Imperium's Leader.
COMBAT INFORMATION
Weapon of Choice: Is trained in the use of basic hand-weapons and side-arms. Combat is not her speciality, especially since her boss is a Force-User.
Combat Function: Her namesake might have been a bodyguard masquerading as a servant girl, but Cordé is no fighter. Her primary tactic is to hole up in cover, fire her pistol and wait for backup. She is not a soldier, though her hunting experience has given her familiary with weapons. She can, however, be brave and bold - perhaps sometimes more than she should be.
Strengths:
- Decent self-defence skills, can act under pressure. She is inexperienced, but not a coward. When put into a position where she has to defend herself or someone, she will act.
- Little combat experience. Cordé is a civilian, not a trained soldier and certainly not a combat veteran. She knows basic self-defence and is a decent shot, but no warrior. She lacks genetic or cybernetic enhancements or Force powers.
Tephrike has been isolated from the rest of the Galaxy since the outbreak of the Gulag Virus. Originally colonised during the twilight years of the Old Republic, it was subjugated by the Galactic Empire. The human supremacist regime established by the Empire was overthrown with the aid of the Rebel Alliance and the planet emerged as an unstable, multi-species federation. Then the Gulag Virus sent the Galaxy spiralling into chaos. Warlords, Jedi, Sith and rebels vied for power. Prolonged warfare and the use of primitive weapons of mass destruction brought great devastation to the planet. Benign intentions turned to evil over time. Jedi who sought to restore order and reunite the planet fell to the darkness they claimed to oppose, while still believing that their intentions and actions were good. In so doing, they followed in the footsteps of Atris and Joruus C'boath. Believing that they alone could lead Tephrike out of the darkness, they created a theocratic dictatorship.
Renegade Jedi established a Sith cult called the Disciples of the Vader, for they idolised the long-dead Vader as a god and believed it was his will to enslave all those who could not wield the Force and were not human. The Republican Guard, a faction that glorified the Old Republic and staunchly opposed Force-users, was founded by disgruntled clone slave-soldiers and racial minorities that declared war on both Force cults. In between these three extremes, several smaller factions tried to carve out a niche for themselves. The planet was locked in stasis, divided by riven groups trying to recall a past they did not remember. Here, the dark age never ended.
The Disciples of the Vader were rounded by a fallen Jedi Knight called Cade Seward. Thrust into command at a young age, he fell to the dark side. A vision convinced him that Darth Vader had chosen him as his champion to eclipse the light. For Vader had experienced apotheois and was now a Dark God. Indeed, the Gulag Virus had been a machination of the dark side to cleanse the Galaxy of weakness. Cade chose the name Darth Malitia, though his enemies called him Darth Menace, and was able to assemble an army that became a serious threat to the Dominion. His dark crusade was halted at Palmyra, Tephrike's old capital. But victory came at a staggering cost for the Dominion, for the city was turned into a cursed, dark side nexus.
But the Vaderite threat did not vanish. The Sith managed to carve out their own state. It was built upon a foundation of slavery, human supremacism, and tyranny. Humans who professed faith into the Vaderite religion were coopeted as a new middle class and given preferential treatment. They became the soldiers, officers, administrators and technicians of the new regime and were organised in the Humanist Party, a political machine responsible for the promotion of Vaderite ideology. Meanwhile, aliens were enslaved, confined to ghettos or exterminated. Rule of the strong was enshrined in the Vaderite's Sith ideology, for there could be no place in the New Order for those deemed weak, mentally or physically defective. The Sith remained at war with the Dominion and the Republican Guard, seeking to bring all of Tephrike under their jackboot.
Cordé was born and raised in area called the Arkylos, supposedly one of the first human settlements way back. Truth on this disputed. It was a mountainous area of small communities and mainly populated by farmers. Most importantly it was a long way from anywhere too important and there were not many aliens there. The population was overwhelmingly human. The inhabitants of the village she grew up in maintained that it had been founded by Padmé Amidala's loyal handmaiden Cordé, who had settled on Tephrike following her mistress' sacrifice.
Born into this area she was raised and indoctrinated to the Vaderite creed without seeing any of the ugly side. Taxes were high but the government was generally pretty good because it kept out of their way except for drafting soldiers and materials for war. But that was all explained as wartime necessity. The regiment which was raised in the area had some family members who came back to show off their medals when discharged. Of course some never came home, but they died bravely for the fatherland. Naturally the settlements had a local branch of the Humanist Party, but the officials were locals and content with letting the people live their lives. The Supreme Leader was a distant figure Cordé knew from schoolbooks, propaganda posters and official broadcasts. At school she was told that the Leader was benevolent, omniscient and the embodiment of all that was good and just.
Her father was a soldier who reached NCO rank in the Humanist Protection Army and been decorated many times for his bravery under fire. Her mother worked as a teacher, and so taught Cordé a love of learning and reading, even if most of what there was to read was propaganda and nonsense. Little Cordé was a gregarious, precocious child. As a young girl, she was active collecting for a charity organised by the Humanist People's Welfare. When Cordé was in her early teens, the family received an invitation to move on to 'new settlements' on the frontier.
Since they only had their little farm and hard life on the frontier but were offered generous incentives to move they upped stakes. The father had also been garrisoned nearby so they would have a chance to see him, too. It should come as no surprise that these settlements were seized from xenos. The Vaderites claimed that it was an ancestral human land and that the aliens 'being sub-sentient, didn't have proper government so they didn't own the land.'
The survivors were forced into reservations, where they lived in poverty. Young Cordé was brought along to tour them. Her father's garrison was located nearby. Her mother got a job as a teacher and worked with the aliens as well. She passed on a serious desire to 'civilise the xenos' to her daughter as she completd her schooling. At school Cordé learned all about the Twi'lek blood libel and how a conspiracy of alien bankers and Jedi had conspired to unleash the Gulag Virus and destroy mankind.
However, the aliens she encountered in the reservation were wretched figures and her mother stressed that they could become productive if guided by the stern but fair hand of a hearty human woman. When Cordé joined the Imperial Youth Corps, some of her peers called her soft for not wanting to participate in the beating of a alien child labourer who had been caught stealing a loaf of bread. Regardless, she was an enthusiastic participant in the activities of the Party's youth movement. As an adult, she would cherish the memories of singing songs around the campfire and participating in sports such as running and gymnastics. As was typical for Corps members, she helped out on the farm.
Growing up as a country girl, Cordé learned how to use a gun and shoot. Her father took her hunting. The two had a close relationship. Familiarity with weapons was considered important on the frontier. There were not only wild beasts, but 'barbaric savages' to worry about. Paramilitary exercises were compulsory for Youth Corps members, and so she had to participate in them. Her mother's 'civilising' efforts drew the attention of an Amidala Corps representative. Cordé befriended her daughter and they decided to join when they were sixteen. Since the only xenos she saw were servile survivors she saw it as necessary to educate them to the benefits of human dominion. Cordé enjoyed the camaraderie of the Corps. With the recommendation from her patron, her application to join the Humanist People's Party was soon accepted. In her free time, Cordé got involved with a local charity initiative.
Organised and good with paperwork, she found employment as a clerk. For a while she worked in a sanatorium that mostly catered to soldiers recovering from injuries or trauma on the frontline. However, there was a darker side to it. Some of the soldiers and police officers were there because they had experienced a mental breakdown after participating in mass shootings of alleged partisans and alien civilians for having 'terrorist sympathies'. While not her job per se, Cordé spent a lot of time talking to these men. She came to the conclusion that giving them these orders was cruel...for the shooters, since it had taken such a psychological toll on them.
She soon got assigned to do the bean-counting for an agricultural production unit. Instances of cruelty to xenos were also noted by her. While she was touring the fields, she saw an unfortunate Ithorian being torn apart by dogs whilst the others were forced to watch. She reported it to their supervisor but was brushed off. She took it to her patron but in retaliation she was menaced and threatened by the local commandant. Again she raised the issue to her mentor and those involved were punished, the cruelty was stopped and productivity improved.
She drew two important lessons from this: Arbitrary cruelty and corruption were bad, but if resolved they led to harmony. The xenos would be loyal and compliant if not treated savagely, like a dog should be trained and not mistreated. Humans were superior, but they needed to set a positive example. It was not the system that was wrong, only people who were abusing it for personal gain. In the eyes of Cordé, people were fallible, but the state was just and if only the Leader knew he would set things right. To her the good aliens were obedient servants who were loyal to their masters and abandoned their 'savage ways'. Independent aliens were villains who needed to be shown the light. The fact that oppression was systemic and her ideology was evil escaped her. It never occured to her that she and her family were living on stolen land, whose original owners had been deported, dispossessed and enslaved or murdered.
Cordé protected a Twi'lek from the beatings of a soldier. The soldier claims he was 'searching her for contraband' but Corde quoted the regulations and he reluctantly departed. Naturally she expected the alien to be grateful to her. The Twi'lek became a servant who was put to work on the family's farm. At the same time, Cordé reported a fellow sister of the Amidala Corps for having a secret relationship with a Twi'lek worker. Her comrade felt betrayed, but Cordé told her: "The beasts and the human work together, they do not play together, and they do not lay together. To do so is to defile not just your body, but your spirit, too. A true human must be disciplined and strong to resist the temptations of the flesh." Her friend's lover was publicly hanged, while the woman publicly humiliated by being marched through the streets with her head shaven and a placard around her neck detailing her 'crime' and proclaiming she had 'sullied the honour of human women.' Cordé considered this an appropriate punishment. She only found the hanging unhygienic because the body was left dangling in the air.
Then came the Netherworld Event. Cordé had grown up far away from the war that had engulfed much of Tephrike, though of it had affected her life. More and more women had been drafted to work in armaments and munitions production to free up men to serve on the frontlines. Moreover, Dominion bombing raids and terrorist attacks had increased in frequency. But this calamity affected virtually everyone. She was one of the Corps members who were chosen to help human refugees settle into their new homes. Some were humans from territory that had been 'reclaimed' from the Dominion or the Guard or people from Vaderite cities that been bombed by the Dominion. Cordé was disgusted by stories about Vaderite cities being firebombed by the evil Jedi. Of course, Vaderite pilots who carpet bombed enemy cities in 'retaliation' were heroes. She volunteered for service in a flak unit, but her request was denied. She used her mother's training to help evacuated children adjust, putting in extra hours to serve as a substitute teacher.
Her father was snapped away and her mother had to seek shelter from a rioting band of xenos labourers, who had risen up against their oppressors. Again this taught her that they must be dealt with firmly but fairly. The rapture caused the Vaderites to descend into civil war. This was exacerbated by the discovery of a book that purported to tell the true story of Vader's redemption. A heretical movement of Light Sith embraced this revelation, and extended an olive branch to the slaves, promising freedom and equality. They were opposed by the old guard under the incumbetent Supreme Leader and another heretical movement that declared Darth Sidious was the true Sith'ari.
Naturally, Cordé and her people supported the old ways. This led to a siege. The loyalists had to barricade themselves and withstand the assault of rebellious alien servitors. Cordé was no fighter, but she put her organisational skills to good use by organising the distribution of supplies, weapons and all that. Moreover, she put her life on the line to save her mentor from a burning building that had been set aflame by the rebels. One of the rebels was the Twi'lek Cordé had protected many years ago. The human felt betrayed, and never considered the fact that the alien had still been a slave with no rights who was treated as less than sentient.
The siege lasted for several weeks until the 'savages' were driven back by an arriving relief force. An explosion of violence followed, as the masters took 'revenge' on their servitors to put the latter back in their place. The 'traitorous' Twi'lek was among the victims. This was something Cordé did not oppose. The rebels had risen up against the 'benevolent' state and the natural order, so they needed to be punished to show them the proper way. She disdained the sadism that was involved, but did not dispute the necessity of 'making an example'. Cordè's role was noted and she was promoted for her loyalty. With the Light Sith overthrown, Darth Furcht, a conservative hardliner, restored the old order, enacting a series of brutal purges directed both against xenos and perceived rivals in the Party. He also promoted a cult of personality around himself and his might.
Following the Netherworld Crisis, she was assigned to audit an arms factory to understand why so many of the shells were not exploding. The obvious assumption was alien sabotage, but she found that in reality that it was poor quality materials and corruption where the good components were being sold off. Now because the state had an interest in proper shells and tanks being made the situation was corrected and she was praised. A few alien workers were still punished because they had been 'uppity'. However, her father never returned. This was a grave blow to her, but she threw herself into work to try and deal with it. She spoke out in favour of a near-human who had provided the loyalists with supplies during the siege. This helped the 'cooperative near-xenos' secure what amounted to second class citizenship. Naturally he had to prove his allegiance by being extra cruel to xenos in the reservation.
By now Cordé was getting a reputation as a dependable 'fixer' for situations who could be relied upon to report accurately and not take bribes. At the suggestion of her mentor, she requested a transfer to the branch of the Amidala Corps that acted as an auxiliary service for the KEC, the praetorian guard and secret police of the Vaderite regime. There she worked as a secretary. She was soon assigned to the staff of Darth Lachesis. Famously brave and not afraid to defy orders from high command she judged to be stupid, the Sith Lord was beloved by her troops. She was also a genocidal butcher responsible for the Chios genocide.
Cordé was intimidated by the Sith Lord, but also star-struck. Moreover, she sensed an opportunity to advance her career. The Maiden had reached an age where human women in the Imperium came under pressure to marry and have children - and assume a subservient role where they deferred to their husbands. Cordé wanted to eventually have a family, but she also hoped to continue having a career instead of being relegated to a purely domestic role in the household.
Cordé accompanied Lachesis and her men when they were sent to Hope Falls, an 'autonomous alien reservation', to investigate why it was lagging behind on meeting the state's oppressive grain quotas. There she was assigned to assist Kyriaki, the Supreme Leader's ward, and more importantly observe her performance. Cordé was excited about working with a Disciple, even though her new boss was a clone. Moreover, she realised that this could be a great opportunity for her.
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