Igni Irae
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
Intent: Expand on Tephrike.
Image Credit: Here.
Role: Tephriki Jedi Knight, fallen paladin. The basis for this character is one of the Jedi NPCs Elpsis fought. As part of an ongoing storyline, Elpsis was captured by the Dominion of Light. Aside from being an enemy, foil and eventual ally for Elpsis, Diona provides a cultural insight to explore Tephrike.
Permission: Permission for all ArmaTech gear and all other subs made by Laira Darkhold's writer here
Links: Into Darkness, After Darkness, Tephrike. Communion.
PHYSICAL INFORMATION
Age: Appears to be in her late twenties.
Force Sensitivity: Knight
Species: Cloned Human.
Appearance: Diona is a tall human female with a sturdy physique and strong body. Her blonde hair used to be pulled back, with the sides shaved to better fit under a helmet. Since leaving Tephrike she has cropped her hair short but let it grow evenly. She has discarded the more ostentatious armour of the Dominion and instead wears more regular Firemane battle armour. She prefers practicality over frivolity. Her face is tanned and weathered. She has steely blue eyes. Her duel with Elpsis has left her with some nasty burns, as her opponent is a strong pyromancer. Diona commonly wears a suit of armour or robes. Her movements are economical and measured. She speaks in a low-pitched contralto.
SOCIAL INFORMATION
Name: Diona. When she still served the Dominion, she was called Jedi Diona. Her present rank in Firemane is Private.
Loyalties: Elpsis Kerrigan-Alcori, Tephrike, Inferno Platoon, Champions of the Flame. Formerly Dominion of Light.
Wealth: Poor. The Jedi of Tephrike are faithful to the old ways - or their interpretation of them at any rate - and thus adhere to a vow of poverty. Vanity and materialism lead to the dark side. As a Jedi Diona had no personal holdings, no bank account or shares. However, the Order took care of her basic needs. Now that she is a rogue she is cut off from the Order's resources. She receives remuneration from Firemane, but her salary is that of a Private. Diona is of the belief that she needs to atone for her crimes, so she does not seek out or want material riches. Outside of a few personal items she was able to bring with her from Tephrike, the clothes, and armour Firemane has given her, she has few possessions. Her small apartment is sparsely furnished.
Notable Possessions:
- Force imbued blade. Has the standard attributes of a Force imbued weapon.
- Meditation band.
- Her old Armour. The armour has a helmet to cover her face and protect her from chemicals. The helmet features a voice modulator, HUD and other basic systems. Firemane has provided her with a suit of ACS-004 Olympian Battle Armor.
Moreover, she is skilled in drawing upon the Force to augment her already potent physical capabilities such as strength, endurance, speed and pain tolerance. Finally, she can use Vongsense. This ability is the result of exposure to Vong biotechnology after being captured by rebels. The renegades tried to turn her Force Dead. The experiment was a failure, but left her with a connection to the 'demons'. Diona is conflicted about this. On the hand she treats it as a cause of shame, but the other she recognises its utility in combat since it means she can help protect her comrades against the Force Dead abominations.
Unlike the typical Jedi, Diona is not above using guns and other ranged weapons when needed, often carrying a sidearm, sub-machine gun or carbine into combat. This is not considered strange among Tephrike's Jedi Knights. Blasters are not very practical on her homeworld because they are harder to maintain in the jungle due to metal-eating fungi and more complex to make, so she uses slugthrowers. She has a good memory and some skill as a mechanic. She is rather knowledgeable about the flora of her homeworld. This is very useful because several Tephriki plants are carnivorous, poisonous or contain mind-altering substances.
Personality: Diona is the product of a harsh, unforgiving environment. From an early age she was taught that she had to be strong in order to survive and that obedience to the Dominion of Light was the sole path to salvation. Long before she was born, Tephrike was torn apart by a multi-sided civil war. When the outbreak of the Gulag Virus brought civilisation to its knees and sent the planet spiralling into chaos, the local Jedi enclave decided to take control. Acting as latter-day Jedi Lords, they sought to wrest order from the chaos. Their original intent was benign, but over time they were corrupted by their power while still being adamant about being a force for truth and justice.
Their idols are Grandmaster 'Soda', Lord Hoth and Mace Windu, though their interpretation of their ideals is extremely warped. Many of their leaders would make Joruus C'baoth, Atris and the Jedi Covenant proud. The culture of the Dominion does not espouse personal happiness as the highest goal in life. Instead, the credo is 'you are nothing, the Dominion is everything'. A Jedi's life is sacrifice and so martyred heroes are turned into idols.
Diona has grown up in an isolated, totalitarian theocracy, where there is no privacy, no freedom of expression or thought. Very few records of the time before the Dark Age have survived, so her knowledge of the past is very limited. She does not have a mother or father, for the Dominion has taken the old Jedi order's policy of nonattachment to its extreme conclusion and applied it to muggles and Force-users alike. Rather than leave reproduction to chance and allow individuals to indulge their passions, the miracle of life takes place in a medically sanctioned way in a sterile laboratory. Intercourse is criminalised. After all, passion and lust lead to the Dark Side.
Thus she was raised in a laboratory. She was the sixteenth in her birthing pod. She was raised alongside the other Younglings in a government-controlled nursery. Even before she breathed air, it was clear that she would become a Jedi, following in the footsteps of the paladins who defended the good people of Tephrike against the Great Darkness. She was taught to oppose the servants of evil - Yuuzhan Vong, rebels, warlords and Sith. The fact that many of these forces are actually heinous gives her some justification.
Diona is steadfast, loyal, brave and generous. While she is polite, she keeps a tight rein on her emotions. She is outwardly aloof and a bit cold. Very rarely does she display emotion in her body language. In some ways one could consider her emotionally stunted due to the invisible shackles imposed on her. She is quite firmly in Knights Templar territory. She was raised to believe that the Dominion is the sole island of civilisation, surrounded by an ocean of chaos and savagery. Only unyielding resolution can protect the lives and souls of its people. There was good, there was evil. Years of service taught her that victory cannot be attained without sacrifice. She was certain that her own cause is just. This produced a large amount of black and white thinking in her mind. In that regard, she was a good drone because she believed that she is averting great evil. Diona feels strong distaste for Vong, regarding them as abominations.
Yet sometimes she had moments of doubt. Was the rest of the world truly evil? Were the Lords of Light really infallible? She kept these secret though. The mind that let doubt enter it was already straying from the side of righteousness. And once you walked down the dark path, forever, it will dominate your destiny. The encounter with Firemane agents strengthened these heretical doubts. It had been drilled into her skull that they are demons, and yet they look and act human and seemed to come in peace. Ironically, Diona has probaby fallen to the dark side but is in denial about it. The best kind of fall is the imperceptible one. The one where you keep telling yourself that you are doing good and fighting monsters, without noticing that the monster you claim to oppose is staring back at you in a mirror. Diona is not power-hungry and does not pursue vainglorious ambitions, but her moral compass is warped.
Now Diona is a renegade. She has rebelled against the Dominion, the Windian Jedi Order and her family. She considers herself a Fallen Knight. She has manifested a brooding, somewhat depressed personality. She is serious and does not have much of a sense of humour. Her whole world has collapsed. Diona has left Tephrike with Elpsis. Once the offworlder was her prisoner, now in a way Diona is hers. There is a strange bond between them. Diona was Elpsis' jailer and protector.
Elpsis has refused to kill her because it would be too merciful, though maybe also because part of her does feel sympathy with the Rogue Knight. On a certain level, Diona would have preferred if it Elpsis had killed her. But since she was spared, she considers it her duty to soldier. She does not feel guilty about defending her country or the innocent people in it. She believes many of the actions she took were justified by necessity. But she does feel guilt about standing by and letting atrocities happen or participating in them. This includes what happened to Elpsis and Aliura. She is deeply troubled by her actions. Diona takes the view waiting for the moment where she will forgive herself is pointless, because you never will. She cannot erase the past. But that doesn't mean herr life has to end: actively doing good and helping others is a far nobler way of dealing with the situation than sitting down in despairing self-pity.
Diona has realised the folly of blind obedience, but has not found a belief system to replace the one she has rejected. Hence while she has turned on the Dominion, she still has many of the values it drilled into her skull. Diona now knows for certain that there is sentient life beyond Tephrike and that the Jedi have returned. However, what she has found out about non-Tephriki Jedi does not impress her. She finds them irresolute and weak. It should be noted that most of her information comes from Elpsis.
Diona does not act out of malice or lust for power. Nor does she does not enjoy meting out violence, but she has reached the point where it does not bother her. Nonethelss, she abhorrs sadists and wanton cruelty. She is capable of being utterly ruthless against those she perceives as tainted. Ironically, she would have big trouble understanding most non-Tephriki Jedi if she ever managed to leave her homeworld. She still doesn't quite understand the differences between her Jedi and the space Jedi. She expected or rather hoped for them m to be non-corrupt version of the Dominion of Light's Jedi. That is, righteous paladins. Instead they seem like confused and indecisive monks who cannot seem to commit.
She would disagree with Mace Windu's assertion that Jedi are not soldiers. This is ironic since she has been taught to regard her as an idol and one of the forebears of the knightly order she serves. She is a soldier and was thus trained to fight, best and slay her country's enemies. Now Diona seeks to do penance for her crimes, as much as possible at any rate. However, she resolutely shoots down the concept of forgiveness. She would not want Elpsis' forgiveness even if she gave it, for it would be a cheap way out. What troubles Diona deeply is that her remaining clone siblings are still servants of the Dominion and see her as a traitor. She knows that she has to return to Tephrike one day, but is extremely reluctant to fight her twins.
Presently, Diona is a bit isolated. Her past colours her interactions with the Firemane crew, though it is easier to socialise with members of the corporation who were not involved in the Tephrike campaign and have no stake in it. The Unchained, a group formed by Dominion concentration camp inmates, view her with suspicion. For her part, Diona has become very introverted and is reluctant to socialise. However, she is helpful to those in need and has a strong sense of responsibility. Though new to the greater Galaxy, she is a lot more combat-experienced than many members of Elpsis' unit and considers herself honour-bound to aid and protect them.
COMBAT INFORMATION
Weapon of Choice: Force Imbued Blade | Sidearm or Carbine | The Force.
Combat Function: Diona is a Jedi Guardian type, capable of leadership and participating in the fury of combat when necessary. She combines skill in small unit tactics with courage, physical strength and potency in the Force to fight her enemies in combat. Her skills with a blade allow her to function in part as a duelist or against a number of enemies. She has a preference for a Force imbued sword. Such a weapon is resistant to lightsabres, has superior cutting power than conventional blades and can hurt spirits and apparitions. However, its cutting power is inferior to that of a lightsabre, preventing it from say cutting through a blast door such as Qui-Gon did, nor can it be used to melt through a solid wall or vehicle plating. The weight and mass of the blade gives it greater kinetic energy in combat. At the same time, as a physical blade, it is slower than a lightsabre in a duel.
Diona is experienced in fighting Yuuzhan Vong, as the Force Dead aliens happen to be the elite troops of the Republican Guard, a Tephriki rebel faction that opposes the Force cults. Exposure to Vong biotechnology has enabled her to use Vongsense. This allows her to sense a Vong telepathically. However, she has to temporarily abandon her connection to the Force in order to use this ability. This can potentially leave her vulnerable. Diona is a good team player and is capable of initiating or entering a Force meld. Through the meld, she and her squad members can join their minds together through the Force, drawing strength from each other.
This is a strong ability, but a double-edged sword. A great disturbance in the Force could overwhelm the melding participants as they receive the pain through their enhanced senses. If the pain is caused by the minds the melding participants are touching, it could have very negative repercussions for the participants.
If she is in the middle of a mind meld and is suddenly deprived of the Force through say ysalamiri, the sudden loss will not just be very disorientating, but also painful. This is something a canny opponent could exploit. She is a capable officer, but her training and experience covers small unit leadership, not battlefield command over large forces. In other words, she is a tactical, not a strategic leader. Diona is not above using guns. In her case it's usually a sidearm or a carbine. She is a good shot at short to medium, but less capable at long range. She is not suitable as a sniper.
Spaceflight is extremely restricted on isolated, technologically regressed Tephrike. As a consequence Diona has no experience in piloting a starship. Indeed, she has never been in space, let alone hyperspace. Hence spaceflight would scare her. Lightsabres are also extremely rare on Tephrike and Diona is untrained in their use. She is used to melee weapons with actual weight behind them. If she were to find a lightsabre on a battlefield and try to use it, she would be awkward and clumsy. She only has limited skill with galactic technology and is not very tech-savvy.
Strengths:
- Force warrior. Diona is a very tenacious, capable fighter of the Guardian type. She is skilled in small unit leadership and very experienced fighting other Force-Users and Yuuzhan Vong. She is strong and very good physical shape.
- Vongsense enables her to sense Yuuzhan Vong.
- Limited skill with galactic technology, no experience or training in piloting a starship. She has not been trained to use a lightsabre.
- Diona can use ranged weapons, but is mainly focused on melee and close quarter combat combat. Not a good choice in a sniper role or in long range combat. Limited skill with galactic standard technology.
HISTORICAL INFORMATION
It has been observed that galactic history moves in cycles. There are always certain patterns, as if the Galaxy is locked in a state of stasis. Jedi and Sith are locked in a seemingly never-ending holy war for supremacy. There is always a Republic or a variation thereof that purports to represent democracy and individual rights and tends to be tied to the Jedi in some manner, despite their nondemocratic, authoritarian structure.
Said Republic has a tendency of succumbing to corruption, which might not be too surprising given the myriad of interests in a galactic confederation. For a while Sith and imperialists are ascendant, before falling to their internal contradictions and external crusading forces. Sometimes the Mandalorians act as a third power or a wild card aligning with either side for their own benefit. The pendulum swings this way, than that, but though technology marches on, the fundamental makeup of the Galaxy does not change.
On Tephrike this state of affairs has been pushed to its extreme conclusion. The planet 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.
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.
This was the world Diona grew up in. She was born in Nexus City, capital of the austere Dominion of Light. This was the nation her Jedi forebears had established in their bid to bring peace to Tephrike. It was supposed to be a bastion of the light, a city on the hill that would be a shining example to all Tephriki. By the time Diona drew her first breath, it had degenerated into a repressive, totalitarian theocracy. The Jedi masters of the Dominion imposed their warped interpretation of the code not only on their fellow Jedi, but on the entire population. They believed that the entire Galaxy had been consumed by the Gulag Virus and blamed this on machinations of the Dark Side. Believing that the Jedi had failed in their duty to protect the innocents of the Galaxy, they resolved to never let the Dominion fall. Over time, this became a convenient rationalisation of the fact that they had created an enormous prison camp the size of a country.
In the glorious Dominion, there are no natural births - officially, at any rate. Sexuality is criminalised, for passion and lust lead to the dark side. Family bonds are viewed as selfish, for each individual should devote themselves to the community and the propagation of the Light. Thus Diona was born in a laboratory. It is mandatory for all fertile Dominion citizens to submit to mandatory sperm and egg harvesting, followed by sterilisation. If the Dominion had the means, they would do away with this process entirely and move to a population composed solely of clones, but the limitations of the cloning technology do not allow this.
The template of Diona and her 'sisters' was a recently deceased Jedi Knight called Lea. Lea had been declared a heroine of the Dominion and Paragon of the Jedi for leading a heroic last stand against the Sith. She was selected for criteria such as loyalty, ideological reliability, combat aptitude and physical fitness. The Dominion wanted to clone those who were useful and had good skills, not really understanding that the process could not create a complete copy. She was the sixteenth in her birthing pod. Not all of those who were raised alongside her survived. Some died of disease due to the primitive medical infrastructure, two were purged for being consumed by heretical thoughts since they did not respond well to indoctrination and three would die on the frontlines.
However, Diona was among those who survived. From the moment a standardised test revealed that she had an acceptable Midichlorian count and was Force-Sensitive, she was destined to become a Jedi Knight. The girl had no choice in this matter, for the leaders of the Dominion believed firmly in the evils of free will. They had seen the Dark Side ravage the entire Galaxy and turn vast swathes of Tephrike into a wasteland because people had been allowed to choose evil, placing their base desires above the needs of the community.
Thus she was subjected to a thorough indoctrination process. Her teachers taught her to regard the Jedi of the Dominion as valiant heroes. The Army of Light was a great dam meant to stem the tide of darkness. To be selected to join the holy order was a great honour. The Order had given her life, fed, clothed and educated her. Past generations of Jedi had fought, bled and died so that she would have a chance to live. It was her duty to repay the Order's kindness.
She was soon inducted into the Order as a neophyte Jedi. Because she was meant to become a Guardian, her training focused on martial aptitude and spiritual indoctrination. Her education on subjects that would have little bearing on her service as a warrior of light was rudimentary. The Dominion operated on the basis of the belief that every citizen should be assigned a place and stay in his or her place. Lectures and combat training were accompanied by periods of fasting and contemplation. Young students would often be cloistered in small cells, where they were expected to meditate and connect with the Light.
Of course, children inevitably test their boundaries. The forbidden is attractive precisely because it is forbidden. Once she was caught fooling around with a fellow student. Such amorous urges were considered to be a step towards the Dark Side, so they were separated and punished for their transgression. Undoubtedly it was a frightening experience for a young child to be told that she had almost let evil into her heart. If allowed to take root, it would transform her into one of those vile abominations who had taken up arms against all that was good and right in the world.
To give her some perspective, Diona and other members of her class were brought to an inquisitorial trial, where dangerous heretics confessed their sins and thanked the Inquisition for reeducating them. The supposed darksiders confessed to all manners of crimes, such as plotting to poison the milk given to Younglings, contaminate the water supply of Nexus City and murder the High Council. They told tales about conducting nocturnal rites where they consorted with demons from the Netherworld and allowed them to possess abducted Jedi. It was great theatre, but left its mark on the girl. She scored well in her combat training and showed an aptitude for team work, looking out for others during manoeuvres instead of seeking personal glory. An older Jedi called Aliura took the neophyte under her wing, teaching her combat and survival skills.
Because the Dominion was a nation of war, her training placed a great emphasis on squad level tactics, live fire exercises and so on. Lightsabres are extremely rare on Tephrike since the suitable crystals do not grow on the planet. Thus only a select few Jedi and Sith own them. Diona was obviously not one of them so instead she was taught how to use Force imbued blades and halberds. Her training also included a survival course in the jungle. Her pursuers staged a mock capture and she was subjected to intense interrogation, which included a battery of mental attacks.
It did not take long for Diona to see combat against real enemies. The Dominion of Light and the Vaderites clashed. She was part of a Jedi task force that supported the Dominion's clone troopers in an assault on a Sith stronghold. The battle was a bloody one, where neither side gave quarter. It was characterised by brutal fighting in foxholes and underground bunkers. Diona distinguished herself during a nightly raid, displaying initiative and vigour. The Dominion commandos dug a secret tunnel to get beneath their enemies, using explosives to blow a hole. The enemy had trenches at the bottom of a hill and near the top. One time she and her comrades took a trench and the enemy launched a furious counterattack and swept around the Dominion forces. Luckily, the Jedi had a trench to give them some protection. Intense artillery fire shook the earth as both sides lobbed in shells. The Sith also made use of gas to flush out their enemies.
Diona's Force meld abilities helped her comrades rally, drawing strength from one another. In the face of Sith warriors and their slave-soldiers seeking to surround them, she maintained a cool head and did not lose her nerve. Her calm confidence and zeal had an effect on her comrades, steeling them against the assault. Joining, they pushed the gas away and rallied, smiting the enemies of the Light. Still, the fighting was vicious, though they were able to liberate several slaves from the clutches of the Sith, who had used them to mine Agrocite ore.
Diona was able to slay a Sith Warrior in her first fight. She took her defeated enemy's Vader mask as a trophy. However, when the mask was discovered to be in her possession, she was punished for this as it was attachment and thus represented the sin of pride. This angered her, but she was heartened by the fact that her actions had helped save the lives of comrades. She participated in several skirmishes with Sith and rebels. While the Sith threw themselves at the Jedi with reckless abandon, the rebels proved more elusive and blended in among the civilian population. Dominion soldiers would be killed by sharpshooters or improvised explosive devices. Diona herself was assigned to guard duty in a Dominion convoy when it was suddenly ambushed by rebel warriors from the Republican Guard.
Most of the rebels were Nautolans or rebellious clone troopers, but there were a few Yuuzhan Vong among them. Through clever teamwork, Diona and one of her comrades were able to flush out a Dominon sharpshooter. But then the Jedi was engaged by a Vong warrior. Diona fought bravely, but was injured by the bite of an amphistaff. Feeling a horrible pain, she was incapacitated. But before the Vong could land the killing blow, her comrade leapt to her aid, blocking the way. However, the Vong overpowered and slew her friend. Angered by this, Diona was able to rally and used the Force to throw her blade towards the Vong's neck, piercing it. The partisans would retreat, but not before having forced the Dominion to pay a high price in blood. Fortunately, Jedi healers were able to save her life.
Later she and her comrades would come across the bodies of Dominion loyalists, who had been crucified by rebels. Others had been disembowelled by wild beasts. Thus door-to-door searches had to be conducted in the villages that lay in between the frontlines. Homesteads were searched, civilians questioned about their affiliations. Villages were often burnt down during these search and destroy missions and their inhabitants were relocated to Jedi-controlled territory. Because their loyalty was considered suspect, these villagers were often concentrated in makeshift camps for reeducation. Parents were separated from their children, who would be raised in government-controlled care centres.
Diona was charged with chasing down stragglers and 'keeping order'. She detested her work, considering it dishonourable. However, her views hardened when her squad came under fire from hidden snipers and some rebels who had seemingly surrendered blew up comrades of hers with concealed hand grenades. Blaming herself for their deaths, she became very harsh. When civilians demonstrated against being uprooted and stones were thrown at the soldiers, she and her squad were tasked to go in and arrest rioters. What happened afterwards is tragic.
Diona claims that they used reasonable means to quell the riot, but came under fire from sharpshooters hidden amongst the allegedly peaceful protesters. Indeed, there were snipers firing at the soldiers, though many protesters were unarmed or only had stones and bottles. They might have been provocateurs. Regardless, things escalated and the soldiers fired into the crowd, killing several people. She was among those who fired. After the crowd had been dispersed, the soldiers carried out arrests. Diona took out a hidden sniper, but the dead civilians lining the street meant she felt no exaltation. She rationalised her actions, but they scarred her. After the crowd had been dispersed, the soldiers carried out arrests. Diona rationalised her actions, but they scarred her.
However, she was soon pulled into the hornet's nest that were the internal politics of the Dominion. Aliura, an older Jedi who had mentored her in her younger days, was accused of heresy and impure intentions. The Jedi Master had defied a no retreat order and yielded ground to the Sith, electing to prioritise the lives of her soldiers and hep civilians escape. She had made herself several enemies.
Thus she was arrested by the Inquisition. Diona found herself in a difficult position, for she was pressured to provide information on her friend and sell her out. Failing to do so would indicate that she was involved after all. Diona tried to stall and avoid incriminating her friend, but in the end gave in when she was told that she could help Aliura, who would be given a second chance. What her masters told her was true...from a certain point of view. When Diona met Aliura many months later, she had rejoined the order. However, there was no trace of the old Aliura. Having been reprogrammed by the Order, she was just a drone, an empty shell. She did not even seem to remember their friendship. Diona was wracked with guilt.
What frustrated Diona was that while she was a very skilled Jedi among her age group, everything was handled by seniority and outright ideological compatability. In other words, favouritism. Thus she was held back for promotion and often placed under the command of senior Jedi who owed their rank to political connections instead of merit. A number of battles she fought resulted in her comrades suffering unnecessarily high casualties because political agendas were placed above military ones. For someone who had been raised to believe in the greater good, this was deeply troubling.
Things came to head with two incidents: The Netherworld Event and the Republican Guard's Hundred Day Offensive. Virtually every world was affected by Akala's mad rampage in some manner. In the blink of an eye, trillions of people from across the Galaxy were raptured. Moreover, the Force was thrown out of balance. For a while Force-users were unable to call upon it without risking unpleasant side-effects. For a short while they were unable to use it entirely.
On the day of rapture, Diona and her unit had been in battle with Sith warriors, pushing into Vaderite territory. The fierce fighting ceased when suddenly people from both sides disappeared. Diona herself had been duelling a Sith when her opponent vanished right before her eyes. Deeply confused, she at first wondered whether this might be attributed to the intervention of the Force. However, this hope was short-lived when she realised that many soldiers on her own side had disappeared, too. Because the enemy had been affected as well, she did not believe that this could be the work of the Sith.
She pulled her soldiers back to a more defencible position, but this order was countermanded by a superior officer, who proclaimed that the disappearances were the result of dark side machinations and ordered a death charge on an entrenched Sith position. Diona protested, but was overridden. The attack was a bloodbath. Neither side was able to reliably use the Force, but the Sith had the advantage of being dug. When Diona tried to use her Force meld ability, the backlash gave her a severe migraine. She was lucky that a Sith who tried to strike her with Force Lightning was blasted by his own attack. The Jedi commander who had ordered the attack was fragged, which gave her the leeway to order a tactical retreat. She let the soldier who had dragged the Jedi commander live, blaming her superior's death on the Sith. For a while Diona and her comrades were alone, for they were unable to reach central command.
Diona tried to make the most of it, ensuring that her soldiers got supplies and medical treatment. At the same time, she punished those who preyed on civilians, even those among her own men. Maybe she was trying to atone for her past deeds. Eventually contact was reestablished with headquarters. Diona learned that the disappearances were not an isolated incident. Rather they had affected all of Tephrike. Fighting had broken out in Nexus City. Seizing the opportunity, the Republican Guard had launched a massive offensive to knock the Dominion out of the game. Rebel agents infiltrated the capital to cause havoc.
Diona herself was injured when bombs laid by Republican Guard partisans blew up a Jedi Academy. Though wounded by shrapnel, she helped clear away the rubble and search for survivors. The sight of the bodies of dead Jedi Padawans and Younglings caused her to swear vengenace on the terrorists. Though lacking in rest and materiel, Diona and her men were quickly deployed to the front lines. Jedi Battlemaster Mahtara assumed command of the Dominion forces. Being more rational than many of her peers, she sacked several of the political hacks and introduced a more flexible strategy. However, the fighting was still brutal and the Dominion was in retreat.
Things got worse when the Vaderites experienced a régime change. Some of the Sith had come across the 'true' history of Vader's life. In reality, it was a 'The Galactic Civil War for Dummies' book. But it told the story of Vader's redemption. Thus these Sith concluded that since Vader had turned to the Light, they must do so as well. Others decided that since Vader was a false Sith, Sidious was the true Dark God. The result was a civil war. Darth Krieg, leader of the 'light' Vaderites emerged victor. At first, he extended an olive branch to the Dominion, declaring that it was time for the Jedi to unite. Naturally he expected them to submit to him. Unsurprisingly they refused, so he declared that they had fallen to the dark side and made a secret pact with the leader of the Republican Guard. Thus the Vaderites entered the fray as well. They were just as weakened by the Force being wonky as the Jedi, but the Dominion was the one fighting a two-front war.
Realising that the Dominion's enemies would have trouble maintaining a long supply train, the Battlemaster initiated a scorched earth policy. Anything that might be useful to the enemy was destroyed. These measures targeted food sources, transportation, communications and industrial resources. Even civilians were rounded up and removed from areas bound to fall to the enemy. Diona was part of such operations, destroying rice fields with herbicides to deny food to the enemy. When she and her soldiers were dispatched to requisition food from a settlement and conscript villagers as labourers, things escalated. When the civilians were unwilling to cooperate, Diona shot one of them in order to coerce the others, which led to the deaths of nine more.
Diona sphearheaded several raids directed against the enemy forces and their supply train. She also led a mission to rescue Force-Users who were being rounded up by the Republican Guard. She played an important role during the battle for a strategically important bridge. Despite ferocious resistance, the enemy was winning. Ordered to prevent their crossing, Diona insisted on staying behind. She sent the Padawans and the wounded away from the fighting and set off the explosives. In so doing she saved many lives. But some of the clone troopers had mutinied and betrayed her, resulting in her being captured by the Republican Guard. She was brought to a prison camp inside rebel-held territory. Here Vong Shapers conducted experiments on her. Ironically, these mirrored experiments Jedi and Sith performed on Vong.
In the case of the latter, they wanted to find out what made Vong tick and how being Force Dead worked. By contrast the rebels wanted to understand how the Force worked so that they would find ways to reliably cut off someone from it. The rebels criminalised Force use and used conditioning to compel Force-Sensitives in their ranks to suppress their talents. As it turned out, one of the scientists who experimented on Diona was a Force-Sensitive who had rejected his talents and now tried to show her the way. However, the experiments were crude and very painful. Like ther counterparts, the Rebels' technology was primitive and so their attempts to turn her Force Dead caused Diona great pain. Their research was a failure, but gave her a mental connection to the Yuuzhan Vong. In other words, she could use Vongsense.
In the meantime, the anti-Dominion coalition fractured. Using guile and deception, Battlemaster Mahtara cannily exploited divisons within the ranks of the Vaderites and the Republican Guard. False flag attacks encouraged forces from both sides to fight each other. The Republican Guard's leader was overthrown by a vote of no confidence in their parliament. Angered, Darth Krieg withdrew his forces. His marauding hordes burnt and looted anything in their path, for they did not seem to care much for their leader's official commitment to the way of the Light. His attempts to discipline them created resentment. Krieg himself ended up being betrayed and murdered by more orthodox Vaderites, who wanted to return to the true Sith ways.
The breakup of the alliance turned out to be a boon for Diona because Vaderites attacked the lab. Amidst the fighting, Diona was able to escape and save some of her fellows. When she eventually managed to return to friendly lines, she was at first awarded a decoration for her actions, but also treated with suspicion. Her mental connection to the Vong made her a bit of a freak, despite its utility in combat. Thus she was put under observation and questioned by the Inquisition to ensure that she had not been tainted. It was around this time that the Inquisition made her an offer. Grand Inquisitor Antonius used carrot and stick to coerce her into being his shock trooper. When one of her 'sisters' got in trouble with the authorities, the Grand Inquisitor used his influence to ensure she got away with a slap on the wrist and that it left no mark on her record. This indebted Diona to him. On the one hand she would get responsibility and quicker promotion...on the other hand there were some shady things which needed to be done.
She was recalled to active duty when the Dominion clashed with the Vaderites again. During a raid on a Vaderite base to destroy chemical weapons, Diona found out that the Sith were using aliens as slave labourers and 'human' shields. The Jedi wanted to rescue the people but was told that they were expendable. Their fate was in the hands of the Force. So she blew up the entire facility, Sith and slaves alike. It only added to her guilt and doubts. Haunted by her actions, she tried to cope by taking drugs.
Diona's life was changed forever when, for the first time in four centuries, outsiders arrived in the orbit of Tephrike. They were members of Firemane's Exploration Corps, led by Tegaea Alcori. Their mission was to explore new worlds that might have been lost during the Darkness, initiate contact with natives and establish trade routes. The initial contact between them and the Dominion was awkward. After a clash with Dominon starfighters in space, Firemane soldiers occupied a Dominion base on one of Tephrike's moons. Some Masters wanted to go to war, believing the outsiders were demons or Sith.
However, Battlemaster Mahtara thought differently. She had become less and less enamoured with Dominion orthodoxy over time. Being a member of Yoda's species, she had a long life span and had thus known the Dominion's original founders. Realising that the intruders were human beings and possessed advanced technology, she decided to negotiate in good faith. If things went well, they could be useful, for the outsiders had professed animosity towards the Sith. So a Firemane delegation met with Master Airla, the Dominion's representative.
However, other forces were at work. Seeing a chance to undermine his rival, Grand Inquisitor Antonius conspired to torpedo the negotiations. Jedi Knight Diona was among those who were ordered to arm themselves. They were told that the outsiders were demons who had come to destroy their utopia. Rogue Dominion soldiers opened fire on the delegation. Master Airla was caught in the crossfire and wounded. Firemane soldiers took her captive. The Firemane diplomat was saved by the intervention of Elpsis Kerrigan-Alcori, who blocked the salvoes with a Force shield but was injured in the leg by a bullet. A furious battle ensued as Dominion soldiers and Jedi swarmed the Firemane transport, trying to keep it from taking off.
Elpsis fought a rear guard action to provide cover, but when she tried to reach the transport herself she was attacked by Diona and two of her Jedi brethren. Working in tandem, the three Jedi coordinated their attacks through telepathy and their Force meld abilities, with Diona being the focal point. Thus they were able to corner Elpsis and cut her off from escape. She was a powerful master, but their relentless attacks took their toll on her. However, the empath realised that the mental link could be used against them, after the three used it to summon a barrier to shield themselves against her elemental fire abilities. Launching a powerful mental attack, she struck Diona. The pain was transferred from her to her comrades. Then Elpsis blasted them with fire and telekinesis. Burnt by the strong fire assault and smashed by the shockwave, Diona was knocked out.
Elpsis managed to two of the Jedi, but the transport was under heavy fire and she was too far away to reach it. As the Dominion deployed artillery, she made the choice to stay behind, urging her comrades to leave by lifting the transport with the Force. Then Diona came to and strike her with her blade before knocking her out with the pommel of her sword. A mob of soldiers and civilians grabbed the girl to abuse and lynch her, but Diona stopped them, declaring that Elpsis was a prisoner of the Inquisition. On paper, the Dominion had defeated the outsiders, but it was clear to Diona that they would retaliate. She delivered her prisoner to the Ministry of Harmony and was appointed her jailer. Deep down, she was silently doubting the virtues of her cause.
At the Ministry of Harmony Elpsis was tortured by Inquisitor Lea. Diona insisted that her prisoner's injured leg needed treatment, but was overruled. During the night Elpsis used the Force to extract the slug round and cauterise her leg. This caused her great pain, especially since the collar she was forced to wear caused electrical shocks any time she used the Force. Fortunately, medics reached her in time. Diona realised that this had been part of the Inquisitor's plan. She continued to obey her orders. When Firemane started bombing the capital, Elpsis was brought to a Dominion black site called Serene Springs. There Diona became her jailer, while Lea supervised her brainwashing. Elpsis was imprisoned in a small, squalid cell filled with rats. There she was shackled.
Diona spent a lot of time with her prisoner. In a way she was both protector and tormentor. She forced Elpsis to recite the Code, making this a condition for her to get nourishment. She made sure she performed forced labour and was ready for her brainwashing sessions. She also protected her against abusive guards. Despite herself, she began to feel some empathy for her. When Lea and a cadre of mentalists started altering Elpsis' memories, Diona was pulled into the ritual to provide more energy. She ended up seeing some of the memories that were being altered. These told her that Elpsis was not a Sith and in fact wanted to help the Tephriki. Shaken by this, Diona sought refuge in drugs. But these provided her no solace, for instead she saw flashbacks of her encounter with Aliura, who had been turned into a brainwashed drone. She could not help draw parallels between what had happened to her friend and what Elpsis was enduring.
She alternated between being chilly and protective of her prisoner. But she still could not escape the machine. When a panicked Elpsis used her pyromancy to burn the hinges of her collar, she was betrayed by a fellow prisoner, who feared that her actions would spell doom for the other prisoners. Upon being confronted Elpsis snapped and attacked the guards. Diona blocked her attack on Lea. Given her confused, physically frail state, Elpsis was overpowered by the guards. Diona almost wanted her to succeed, but also did not want her to die. As punishment for her actions, Elpsis was hung by her hands from a tree until she broke. Then Lea and the other Inquisitors proceeded to rewrite her memories and alter her very personality. Diona was present while the ritual took place.
Close to the end of it, Elpsis was drowned and then revived. She was now Jedi Roxane - docile, subservient and willing to do whatever the Dominion ordered her to. Ironically, Roxane was fond of Diona, seeing her as her saviour and sister. She was declared a Jedi, given a room and clean robes. Diona put a guard who tried to take advantage of Roxane in his place. The girl was to put work in the garden, and then proved her loyalty by murdering a captured Firemane soldier. Later Diona brought Roxane and some other Repentant to a run-down field hospital maintained by the Dominion. Here victims of Firemane's bombardment were treated, including injured Younglings. Under Diona's watchful eyes, Roxane assisted the Chief Healer. However, things took a bad turn when Roxane ran into an injured clone sister of Diona.
Diana injured by Elpsis during the initial fighting, suffering nasty burns. Needless to say she reacted angrily when she saw Roxane, for she regarded her as an enemy, and was also enraged when Diona tried to calm her. The encounter left Diona very conflicted. When she met up with a very shaken Roxane, the latter wanted to report herself for having had heretical thoughts. Diona tried to talk her out of it, for she knew what awaited her charge if she did. But this motivated Roxane to report herself and Diona to Inquisitor Lea.
On the next day, Grand Inquisitor Antonius and his entourage, including his servant Rhea, arrived at the camp. After grandstanding a bit and gloating over Roxane being his crowning success, he revealed that he knew about Diona's heresy. Diona faced his guards, refusing to go down without a fight. She took down several of them, but was overpowered when Antonius and Lea added their might to the onslaught. After Diona had been restrained, Roxane was ordered to start the process of reconditioning. Diona urged her to resist. At this point she accepted and indeed death, but wanted to do something right before she perished. At first Roxane obeyed the Grand Inquisitor's orders, invading Diona's mind. But what she saw there caused her to snap, as she perceived the woman's guilt and regrets. Declaring that she was Elpsis, she unleashed a blazing inferno. Diona was able to free herself. Driven by fury and rage, she cut down several guards before engaging Lea in a duel. She overpowered the Inquisitor and seemingly struck her down, but then it turned out that she had faced an illusion. The real Lea turned up behind her and injured her.
Furious, Diona lashed out with her rage but the Lea she struck down turned out to be another illusion. Diona was wounded and then the Inquisitor used her own guilt against her, using illusions to force her to face the massacre in the villages from so many years ago. Diona had to face her own crimes and admit she was no real paladin and that she deserved death. Then she let go of her rage, used the Force to see and slew the real Lea. Meanwhile, Elpsis had been able to kill Antonius. All that was left of him were ashes and a charred skeleton.
Diona tried to get Elpsis to leave, but she insisted on helping the captives, some of whom had used the chance to rebel against their tormentors. Resigned to her death and determined to at least do one thing right, Diona joined her. Rhea, Antonius' apprentice, joined them, for her master's treatment of her had been abusive. They aided the rebellious prisoners, freeing those still in captivity and taking revenge on the Dominion guards. It was a brutal slaughter.
No Dominion guards or functionaries were spared. The few that surrendered, proclaiming they had been just obeying orders, were killed. Meanwhile, Firemane troops had been able to break through. Elpsis was reunited with her people and the prisoners were evacuated. Much to her surprise and perhaps her disappointment, Diona was not killed. Indeed, Elpsis would not allow her allies to kill her. Instead she was locked in a cell. However, as Elpsis told her when she came to visit her former jailer, this was not an act of mercy. Death would be too easy. Instead she would be forced to live, do penance and face her crimes every day.
For a while Diona was kept in solitary confinement. Eventually she was allowed to leave her cell and put to work doing menial chores. After an interview with Brigadier Leonina Varkathras, she was allowed to work for Firemane as part of her penance. Because Diona is not interested in becoming a mercenary, she was assigned to Elpsis' unit. Their relationship is an awkward one, but Diona is earnest and proved a valuable asset during a Firemane raid on a First Order Remnant group. Only time will tell where her quest for redemption will lead her.
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