Sic transit gloria mundi
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
Intent: To flesh out Siobhan's staff and retinue a bit.
Image Credit: Found here, on denofgeek.com. Image of Vanessa Ilves, played by Eva Green, from the TV show Penny Dreadful.
Role: Vice President of Firemane Industries, adviser for Siobhan and Tegaea.
Permission: Permission for subs made by Laira Darkhold's writer here and here.
Links: Aftermath, The Limits of Glory, Liavondra, Royal, The Genocide of Eriadu.
PHYSICAL INFORMATION
Age: 36
Force Sensitivity: Non-Force User.
Species: Human
Appearance: Kaylah is a human female of average height and with attractive looks. She has pale skin, blue eyes and raven hair. She wears subdued makeup. When at work, she is always professionally dressed in the manner one would expect from a sophisticated businesswoman and member of high society. Her clothes are always of the highest quality. However, she prefers plain colours and patterns and dislikes frivolity. She likes high heels well enough, but does not wear them all the time.
SOCIAL INFORMATION
Name: Kaylah Danton.
Loyalties: Siobhan, House Kerrigan-Alcori, Firemane Industries, Tegaea, Firedawn, Board of Control, The Inner Circle.
Wealth: Very High. Being Firemane's Vice President and a member of the Board of Control pays extremely well. When Kaylah eventually retires, her retirement will be extremely comfortable.
Notable Possessions:
- Two pet Vornskr
- A Sarix gifted to her by the Eldorai for her work during the Eldorai Exodus.
- Phrik Vibrorapier.
- Luxurious space yacht.
- Corvette on par with the Tantive IV and a Noble Class Star Yacht.
- Preserved animal bodies and insects.
- A holocron that would teach basic Force techniques and Theran Listening...if Kaylah were able to access it and Force-Sensitive. However, she isn't. So she uses it as a paperweight. This is unfortunate because Theran Listening is the sort of skill she would like to have.
- Apartment on the Arx Aeternae.
- Holdout Bolter.
- Silver ring with a fossilised insect.
- SSK-5 Icon Blaster Pistol.
Combat Skills:
- Fencing
- Ranged weapons
- Highly talented bureaucrat, logistician and administrator.
- Spycraft and intelligence analysis.
- Scuba diving
- Basic piloting skills.
- Good diver.
- Extensive knowledge of interstellar macroeconomics, bureaucracy, personnel management, and galactic politics.
Among the Firemane principals, she's considered old guard since she has history with Siobhan and Tegaea that stretches back to the glory days of the Omega Protectorate. Kaylah started her career with MICO, the Protectorate's military intelligence bureau. While this was many years ago, she is familiar with clandestine intelligence work and has some skill as an interrogator. Kaylah has an excellent memory, can master a complex brief within a short span of time and keeps meticulous records. She coldly despises sadistic or chaotic beings. A private person at heart, she comes across as a bit aloof. All in all, she lives a fairly low-key life. She is not fond of wild parties and the like. In her own words, she prefers relaxing by the fire with a glass of wine or a good book. Overall, she is more grounded and a lot less flamboyant than Siobhan.
The Eriaduan is by no means chaste or cold, but prefers to keep her relationships out of the limelight. She does not want her loved ones to be forced to deal with the media circus. She is a very demanding taskmistress who expects the best from her subordinates. Those who cannot keep up with her indefatigable work rate do not last long in their positions and can look forward to unemployment. It is no secret that she is a very ambitious woman and it is widely believed that she would like to succeed the 'Lady of Fire' and become Firemane's new CEO one day.
Her experiences during the Tarkin dictatorship's reign on Eriadu have endowed her with a deep disdain for Imperialist and humanocentric regimes. She holds Human High Culture in disdain. This mind set was reinforced when, many years after the Protectorate's dissolution, the First Order bombed the planet from orbit. One of Kaylah's siblings, her older sister Petrice, was one of the many innocent civilians who were killed in this atrocity. Since Petrice's young son had lost his father as well, Kaylah assumed guardianship for the boy. She is a strict, but loving foster mother. Fortunately, the rest of her family survived. Her mother has retired from civil service, but they are still in contact and she's eager to give her daughter maternal advice - though not always the sort Kaylah wants. Kaylah's brother and one of her cousins are also employed by Firemane. One works in marketing, the other is the captain of a Star Destroyer.
Kaylah has zero ability to use the Force, being as Force-sensitive as a plank. To a degree, she is a little bit resentful and jealous of those who were born with this gift, comparing them to a genetic aristocracy that believes it has a divine mandate to rule over the 'mundanes' due to a fluke of nature. At the same time, she's aware that she probably would have never become a member of Firemane's leadership council if she'd manifested significant Force potential. Her boss is quite adamant about being the only Force-sensitive board member. Nonetheless, she maintains a keen interest in scientific attempts to understand, replicate or counter Force powers from a scientific perspective. On a more obscure note, she is interested in taxidermy, entomology and pursues scuba diving.
Kaylah has a rivalry with Royal, Siobhan's Chiss majordomo. She regards the other woman as a sycophantic court favourite who has attained favour by sleeping with Siobhan and intriguing against her colleagues. They have to be cordial to one another in public, but it is a very frosty sort of cordiality that just about conceals how much they detest each other. Siobhan is aware of their mutual antagonism, but finds both useful.
COMBAT INFORMATION
Weapon of Choice: Kaylah is trained in basic hand-to-hand, the use of bladed weapons and firearms. She favours a vibrorapier and is a capable fencer. She carries a practical sidearm such as a shattergun or blaster pistol, with a hold-out bolter as concealed backup. However, overall she is not a combatant and so her goal is to avoid combat or find cover, fire her gun and wait for backup to arrive.
Combat Function: Kaylah is a bureaucrat, not a warrior, and she knows it. Combat is not her speciality, especially considering all the space wizards Firemane employs. Her workout regime is that of a civilian who keeps in shape to stay fit and trim, not of a soldier or martial arts savant. She prefers to let the soldiers to the fighting because her skills are best used elsewhere. That is why she has bodyguards and pays them well to keep her out of harm's way. However, failing this, she is able to defend herself if needed. As said above, she is skilled in the use of bladed weapons, favouring a vibrorapier due to its elegance and precision. This tallies well with her combat philosophy since she is no physical powerhouse and thus cannot overpower an opponent through brute force. She's also able to use sidearms and rifles, though she has no training in the use of heavy weapons. Kaylah is no general and knows it. Thus she lets professionals do their job and lead troops. However, she is an incredibly talented logistician.
Strengths:
- Kaylah is good with a blade and a good pistol shot. She is quite good at dual-wielding both. She favours a vibrorapier.
- She has a background in military intelligence. Though she is a bureaucrat now, she has retained her knowledge of spycraft, intelligence gathering, escape and evasion.
- Kaylah is a civilian and a bureaucrat, not a soldier, and so her fighting skills are poor against heavily armoured enemies or Force Users. She does not have the reflexes or physical conditioning of an elite soldier or martial arts savant.
- Not very skilled in the use of heavy weapons.
Kaylah was born to middle-class parents on the planet of Eriadu, close to the end of the Four Hundred Year Darkness. While her father was an officer in the military, her mother was a civil servant who worked for the government. Since their jobs kept her parents away from home a lot, she grew up to be independent and self-reliant, while also giving her a questioning attitude.
At the time, Eriadu was under the control of a neo-Imperialist dictatorship led by Regulus Tarkin, who claimed to be a descendant of Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin. Revisionist historians have cast doubt on this ilustrious lineage, but either way as every loyal Eriaduan was concerned, he was the Glorious Generalissimo who would lead their world to greatness. Obviously all those who disagreed were enemies of the people, wreckers and sloths.
While her family was not wealthy, they were well-off, benefiting from their government jobs. To a significant extent, Kaylah was raised by a Twi'lek servant called Aola, who taught her how to read and write and provided a window to a life outside of the confines of Human High Culture. The young girl had a sharp mind and proved to be a good student, but manifested a questioning attitude that would soon bring her into trouble.
When she was older, the girl was inducted into the Young Patriots, the youth movement of Generalissimo Tarkin's New Order Party. She experienced the regime's vile side when Party bosses instigated anti-alien pogroms in the capital and several other cities. Aola, who had relatives in the Alien Quarter and tried to help them, was badly beaten by government thugs and disappeared. When Kaylah tried to find out what had happened to her, she was only told that she would not be coming home anymore.
While she excelled in her studies, her attitude became more questioning and rebellious, especially after one of her few friends ran afoul of the regime's eugenics policies. She became involved in a nonconformist youth group that was seen as undermining the 'Eradiuan people's community'. Its heretical actions included listening to 'decadent' music, and spreading anti-regime slogans via grafitti and leaflets. When the members were arrested, her parents had to pull strings and pay a significant bribe to keep the lid on things and save the family from being stained. After being suitably disciplined in a rather brutal manner, she was sent off to do compulsory military service. Kaylah was not happy as a soldier, but smart enough to keep her head down.
Eventually, her life took a profound turn. Increasingly paranoid and unstable, Tarkin started to suspect he was surrounded by enemies, who were sabotaging his bold campaign to conquer Eriadu's neighbours and build an empire. He was not entirely wrong, since a number of his subordinates were plotting against him. A new player, the Omega Protectorate, had arrived on Eriadu's doorsteps, and sought to incorporate the isolationist planet.
Concerned about his policies, a cabal of disaffected military officers, bureaucrats and former politicians tried to remove Tarkin from power. However, the dictator managed to survive the attempt and rally loyalist forces. Kaylah's parents were implicated in the plot. Her father was executed during the purge, and while there was no evidence linking her mother to the conspiracy, she disappeared. Kaylah herself was unable to flee Eriadu, but was able to elude the secret police. Ironically, the survival skills she had learned during military service probably helped her in that regard. So she went underground, linking up with anti-government dissidents. Vengeful, she engaged in minor acts of sabotage against the regime, which included illegal broadcasts meant to stir up resistance.
Conveniently, the Protectorate was on the war path. Accused of espionage and conspiracy, their ambassador to Eriadu had been shot. Realising her chance, Kaylah linked up with the Protectorate invasion force when they seized the capital. During the course of this, she also came across and shot a secret police officer who'd been responsible for tormenting many of her friends. At the same time, she secured important documents that would later be used to prosecute Tarkinist officials. She was reunited with her mother when she was freed from the secret police's dungeon. Tarkin himself evaded capture or execution by committing suicide.
The Protectorate assumed control over Eriadu, putting a transitional authority in place. Kaylah's actions brought her to the attention of MICO, the Protectorate's military intelligence service. She accepted a job, helping a military intelligence officer question captured New Order Party leaders, who were eventually put on trial for the crimes they had committed. Kaylah was not a field agent, but displayed great ability as an analyst, interrogator and administrator. She was eager to take advantage of the new situation and worked closely with the transitional authority.
Eventually, she was introduced to Exarch Tegaea Alcori, who had moved her Exarchate from Malastare to Eriadu and was second-in-command of the Protectorate, beneath Lady Protector Cira. The Exarch took a liking to the young woman, and so Kaylah joined her personal staff, climbing the bureauctic ladder. This gave her significant experience as an administrator and allowed her to work with a variety of government departments that answered to the Exarch's Executive Council.
It also put her in close contact with Protectorate figures such as the notorious Colonel Siobhan Kerrigan. Kaylah and Siobhan first met at the latter's wedding to Tegaea. Relations were good overall, though Kaylah considered Siobhan to be a bit too reckless and impetuous. Eventually Tegaea became Lady Protector following Cira's disappearance. Kaylah also moved up in rank since Tegaea's chief aide, Anya Venari, joined Exarch Kerrigan's team.
Kaylah stayed with the couple when Tegaea stepped down as Lady Protector after being savagely tortured by the Sith Assassin Kaelin Isandros, who was slain by a rather rage-filled Siobhan. This made Kaylah part of the core cadre of old OP hands that would form Firemane's leadership team. Over the years that followed, Kaylah worked her way up the corporate ladder. She acted as a troubleshooter, and shifted between being a department head at HQ and running external outposts.
Kaylah made her mark when she was appointed director of Firedawn, a humanitarian organisation charged with providing basic necessities, homes, jobs and education to freed slaves. At first its remit was limited to Arkas, a planet Firemane had recently liberated from its corsair overlords. Most of its inhabitants had been slaves and someone needed to help them get a leg up if they were not supposed to be left destitute.
Firedawn was created to supervise the process. At first the organisation lacked sufficient funding, as Firemane was busy with the Eldorai Exodus. Corruption was also an issue, as some officials took advantage of former slaves. After learning of this, Siobhan had several corrupt officials court-martialled. She also sacked the organisation's head and put her old colleague Kaylah Danton in charge. The new boss applied her usual no-nonsense attitude and organisational skills, introducing Eriaduan efficiency. Firedawn worked closely with Firemane and various humanitarian groups to improve the lot of the freed slaves under its care. She also secured funds to operate Firedawn-run schools.
Firedawn began to publish its own textbooks for freed slaves. They emphasised the bootstrap philosophy, encouraging their charges to believe that each person had the ability to work hard and to do better in life. Aside from practical and theoretical knowledge, the educational materiel also included a somewhat idealised depiction of the lives of Siobhan and Tegaea. After all, both had come from a life of abject poverty, but managed to rise out of the gutter and get to the top. The group also taught plantation works technical skills and sought to supply them with machines that could help them improve their output. The discovery of Tygara caused its remit to expand.
However, the situation was a good deal more complicated on the lost elf world. Firstly, the planet was split between various, often internally divided races; the Qadiri, Vashyada and the Xioquo. All practiced slavery to a varying degree. While slavery was very rare among the Vashyada, who deemed it inefficient and generally only applied it as a punishment for felons unable to pay reparations to their victims' families, it was a way of life for the other two. Indeed the Xioquo's entire society was built upon the bedrock of slavery. The Xioquo were also led by darkside cultists who abused their slaves and often worked them to death.
It was also part of Qadiri culture in all main states and regions. While some slaves could eventually purchase their freedom, most were exploited by their owners until the day they died. Secondly, Firemane was engaged in helping the Eldorai to establish a new home on the planet. Thirdly, Firemane soon found itself at war with the Xioquo, who menaced the new settlements with raids to secure slaves, and allied itself with the Amikarase Empire, the largest Qadiri state on the planet, ruled by Shahbânu Semiramis.
Thus abolitionists could not go in guns blazing. Using force to compel the local rulers to abolish slavery might free the slaves, but it would cost many, many lives, collapse the planet's economy and cause widespread devastation. All things considered, the slaves would probably be worse off than before. So Firemane elected to pursue a policy of gradual abolition. The Xioquo, being the most aggressice race and led by dark despots, would be subdued, the others encouraged to give up the practice. In the long term, technological progress and machinery would render it inefficient and self-defeating. However, Firedawn would continue to aid escaped slaves. Thus if a slave managed to escape from say the Amikarese Empire, reach Firemane or Eldorai territory and spent a night on free soil, he or she would be considered free.
With Firedawn on a solid footing, Kaylah handed over the reins to Brigadier Frida Veldtgan and moved on to other tasks. Her organisational and administrative skills were on display when she supervised logistics during the Exodus from Kaeshana. Shortly thereafter, the Eriaduan joined the Board of Control, She soon realised that the name was a bit ironic since many of the board members were in control of little and dependent on the flame-haired Lady's favour. Indeed it resembled a monarch's Privy Council more than a Board of Directors. However, she was determined to make her mark and rise to the top.
She began to work more closely with Siobhan once the so-called battering ram began to assert herself as a corporate executive. While Kaylah initially welcomed Siobhan's decision to take the reins and become more sophisticated, both women also quarelled. Siobhan had something of an insecurity that stemmed from her Omega Pyre days and so she surrounded herself with pomp, ceremony and majesty. Increasingly, she expected subordinates to treat her like a queen and though Kaylah made some compromises to advance her career, she was unwilling to bow and scrape, acquiring rivals among some of Siobhan's new favourites. One them was Royal, an ambitious Chiss sycophant who was skilled at ingratiating herself with her superiors.
For a while, Kaylah was out of favour with the Lady and dispatched to act as Firemane's chief administrator in the territory of the newly conquered Xioquo, 'advising' the vassal Queen Liavondra. This was a rather undesirable post with many pit falls and interpreted as an exile. However, Kaylah did very well in her new position, using her own brand of administrative efficiency, incorruptibility and common sense. She displayed courage when a war band of Kraal attempted a raid. In time, she returned to the Court of Fire not the least due to her good relations with Tegaea. Eventually, she and Siobhan reached a modus vivendi.
A number of changes took place in Firemane after the Battle of Kaeshana and Tarissa Cadalthor's unsuccessful coup against the Eldorai Queen. Tegaea stepped down as joint CEO to focus on another project, namely her passion for exploration. By this point in time, her position had largely been ceremonial. Siobhan appointed herself Executive CEO and a week later appointed Kaylah as Vice President, partly acting on Tegaea's advice. Due to the First Order's bombardment of her homeworld, she was very supportive of Firemane's actions against it.
With Siobhan devoting most of her attention to the war between the Galactic Alliance and the First Order, Kaylah was given significant responsibilities on the domestic front, chairing a number of board meetings in her chief's absence. She implemented some administrative changes to streamline Firemane's bureaucratic apparatus, shifting personnel, amalgamating or dissolving departments. In some cases she overstepped her bounds and Siobhan reversed her changes, though at times Kaylah had the impression that the Lady was just displaying her dominance. However, many of her reforms remained in place.
When Siobhan suffered a stroke shortly before the start of the Contingency's somewhat strange Incursion, there was speculation that she might die or step down, opening up the succession question. However, the Lady recovered and eventually began to take the reins of power again, though in a physically weakened state. To this day, Kaylah remained with Firemane, always close to the centre of power.
When the elf leaders of Tygara grew concerned about possible foreign invasion, Kaylah helped Siobhan organise a summit aboard the Arx Aeternae. This gave her the opportunity to have a reunion with Queen Lia. At the summit it was decided that the elves would move into space and expand. Firemane would help them go off to colonise in the stars by providing them with advanced tech and leasing its arkships to them. Shahbânu Semiramis, the most powerful ruler of the Qadiri, had to pledge to give up slavery, a practice that was common among her people. Kaylah was charged with overseeing the implementation of the agreement and ensuring that the elf leaders kept their word. Moving so many people into space, getting them acclimated to their new surroundings and ensuring they had the necessary tools and education was an enormous task, but one she succeeded in.
Kaylah was one of Siobhan's key advisors during the Tephrike campaign. Commanded by Tegaea, the Scarlet Destiny had embarked on an exploration mission to discover new worlds and connect them to the greater Galaxy. It was supposed to open up new markets for Firemane and enable them to trade with and uplift civilisations that had been cut off by the Gulag Virus or never been part of the known Galaxy to begin with.
Unfortunately, their first encounter turned out to be anything but peaceful, for the Firemane exploration corps came across a war-torn planet called Tephrike. This tropical world had been turned into a post-apocalyptic battleground during the Dark Age. Three factions vied for power and influence. One of them, the Jedi-led Dominion of Light, a totalitarian theocracy, at first seemed amenable to diplomacy.
However, an extremist faction within the government of the Dominion opposed negotiations and attacked the Firemane delegation. Elpsis Kerrigan-Alcori, adoptive daughter of Siobhan and Tegaea, covered the retreat of the delegation and slew several Dominion warriors, but was captured and brought to a secret brainwashing camp. In response, Firemane declared war. Siobhan dispatched large forces to Tephrike to punish the Dominion and find - or avenge - her daughter. To her, any retreat or hesitation would be a sign of weakness. If her own daughter could be held captive with impunity, then Firemane was vanished. She also suspended the rules of engagement, authorising her troops to do whatever they deemed necessary. Firemane entered an alliance of convenience with the Republican Guard, a radical anti-Force-User faction that opposed the Dominion.
Publicly Kaylah supported Siobhan's stance. She applied her skills as an organiser to ensure that the task forces would have the necessary resources to conduct a successful campaign against the enemy. However, she was concerned that Firemane might get trapped in a quagmire they could not extract themselves from. A protracted campaign would be a huge drain on resouces and their allies were considered untrustworthy.
Things came to head when one of Kaylah's proteges, the head of the Department of Production, criticised Siobhan's policy after they received word of high casualties and morally questionable actions on the part of Firemane troops. This obviously angered Siobhan. Kaylah presented herself as Siobhan's loyal second in public, but privately managed to steer her chief to a more productive course than going on a vengeance crusade without giving the future any thought. Once the Board of Control received word that a large Dominion army had been defeated and Elpsis had been able to destroy her captors, Kaylah began to support a policy of disengagement from Tephrike, arguing that Firemane had achieved its objectives. She supported making a deal with the Republican Guard, based on which the corporation would provide modern weapons and medical supplies in return for resources, as Firemane had found out that Tephrike was rich in raw materiels.
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