Igni Irae
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
Intent: Codify a character established in rp. Expand on Tephriki lore.
Image Credit: Here.
Role: Phoebe is a former prisoner of the Dominion of Light, a government Firemane recently fought. She led the prisoners of Serene Springs in revolt against their captors, thereby aiding Elpsis' escape. Now she acts as one of the main leaders of the Tephriki fugitives who have sought refuge with Firemane.
Links: Into Darkness, Dominion of Light, After Darkness, Republican Guard, Elpsis, Red Coral City, Rhea, Diona, Cassius.
PHYSICAL INFORMATION
Age: Mid-twenties.
Force Sensitivity: Untrained Force Sensitive.
Species: Nautolan.
Appearance: Phoebe is a rather thin and scarred Nautolan female. She is dressed in somewhat threadbare clothing. Her greenish skin is marked by scars and burns. These are the fruits of disobedience, rebellion and punishment. While a prisoner she was forced to wear a collar to keep her from using the Force. When triggered it caused electrical shocks. This has left her with burn marks on her neck. Her back is also scarred from lashes. But she carries herself with confidence, almost arrogance.
She looks grizzled and older than her years, but well and truly capable of getting down to battle if needed. Her face is surrounded by a mass of darkening head-tails. She generally wears them wild, though she will pull them together into a heavy band when practicality demands it. She has golden eyes. Prison and back-breaking forced labour has hardened her body. Phoebe is never unarmed, and favours a blade in combat. She speaks with a soft voice. Like all Nautolans, she has multiple hearts, which are capable of beating separately.
SOCIAL INFORMATION
Name: Phoebe. Her surname is Callas, but she does not use it anymore, as she holds a grudge against her family.
Loyalties: Tephriki refugees. To be precise, she is one of the leaders of the Tephriki prisoners who rebelled against their Jedi captors and freed themselves with Firemane's help. She is associated with Firemane, but not beholden to it.
Wealth: Low. Phoebe is not wealthy at all. Her people are fugitives who have sought refuge on the arkships of the off-worlders. Even if she were one to flaunt her wealth, she would lack the means to do so. Phoebe is new to market economics, currency and banks. This is due to the fact that the Dominion has a command economy and abolished money, while the Republican Guard is an insurgency.
Notable Possessions: The collar she was forced to wear while a prisoner of the Dominion. A Force Imbued Blade she took from the corpse of a Jedi guard after rearranging his skull with a pickaxe.
Skills: Phoebe is Force-Sensitive, but has received very little formal training. The Republican Guard criminalised Force-use and she spent many years in incarceration while she lived in their territory. The Dominion offered her training, but tried to turn her into a drone, which she rebelled against. As a result, her knowledge of the Force is haphzard. Her use of it is instinctual rather than practiced, since she has not been taught properly.
It mainly manifests in form of precognition and extrasensory perception. She has good senses. Phoebe has a rare power called Shatterpoint, though she does not know it under that name or even really understand it. It is an innate talent that allows her to perceive fault lines, similar to different pathways of action. Shatterpoints are perceived like flaws in a Corusca gems. A single strike or action can have an impact it otherwise would not have. They can also be discovered in objects and the physiology of living beings. She has a minor talent for Force Persuasion and some empathic abilities. These make her good at reading people and anticipating their motivations. She has Telekinesis, but struggles with sustained use because she has not been properly trained. Short bursts of intense activity are tiring for her.
While not formally trained, Phoebe is skilled in melee and ranged combat. She is particularly adept with the blade and has a preference for melee in combat. A lifetime of hardship has made her body strong. She had to be in order to survive the concentration camp, as the forced labour she was subjected to was gruelling and both the medical care and the rations woefully inadequate. Phoebe is used to surviving with very little. Moreover, she is good with improvised weapons. She is well-versed in escape artist stuff and has some skill at slicing. Being a Nautolan, she is an excellent diver and swimmer and able to breathe underwater.
Phoebe is not an exceptional orator. Flamboyant performance is alien to her. When she gives speeches, she does so with striking simplicity. But her plain manner of speaking has a way of reaching an audience. The Nautolan is adept in the art of dissimulation. She uses simple, down-to-earth language instead of rhetorical flourishes that might fly over the head of her audience or make it suspicious. Her speaking style is simple and clear. She speaks Galactic Basic, but as typical for Tephriki she has a strong brogue. She is fluent in the Nautolan language, which is maximised for use underwater and not fully pronounceable in a gaseous atmosphere. Phoebe has some artistic talents and is a good painter. This helped her survive her time in Serene Springs, as one of the commandants made her do paintings for him.
Personality: Driven, confident, wounded. Much of Phoebe's life has been one spent in chains. She had the misfortune of being born on Tephrike, a war-torn, impoverished planet. She grew up in Republican Guard territory. The Guard claims to stand for freedom and is the lesser evil compared to its rivals, but also discriminates heavily against Force-Users due to all the destruction they have caused.
The rebel junta put her in an asylum - a high-security facility meant to protect Force-Users from themselves by isolating and brainwashing them. Phoebe organised a breakout with the help of Dominion agents, only to realise that the Jedi were even worse than her original captors. She endured brainwashing, forced labour and torture in a concentration camp. She became a leader among the prisoners and helped spark a revolt against their oppressors. She has learned much from her time in prison, such as investigating, calculating and confronting in order to establish which prisoners are stool pigeons, double agents or the genuine article. She also became adept at exploiting corruption, trading small favours with camp guards and functionaries. She has done many things she is not proud of to survive. Sometimes they are the cause of sleepless nights. But against all odds she survived.
Now she is a free woman, and one of the leaders of the Tephriki fugitives who have sought refuge with Firemane. It is something she is still adjusting to. Her people are those who have suffered at the hands of Tephrike's rulers. Her experiences have left her with deep mental and physical scars. She is determined to never again be in the same position. She resents her family for giving her up to the Republican Guard. From her perspective, they abandoned her.
The sacrifices she has endured have also nurtured her ambitions. To be free, her people need to be strong and they need a leader. Some of the prisoners see her as overly ambitious or even accuse her of being power-hungry. Phoebe counters this with the argument that she is ready to assume responsibility. Someone has to, after all. Without leadership, they will crumble and forfeit their freedom. However, her position among the fugitives is as a member of a collective leadership rather than uncontested leader. She just so happens to be more equal than many others. The Nautolan is determined and very passionate about her goals. She has a keen sense of humour and can laugh at herself, but is not a graceful loser when thwarted. She is loyal and hard-working, but can be vindictive.
Phoebe has agreed to work with Firemane, but does not view herself as their hireling. Firemane troops freed her people, but the reason the corporation went to war against the Dominion was to free the daughter of their leaders and avenge the treacherous attack on their delegation. They were motivated by a desire for retribution, not altruism. If the Dominion had not betrayed them, Firemane would not have unleashed storm and fury upon it. Once they had achieved their objective and given their foe a bloody nose, they left.
Moreover, Firemane has an accord with the Republican Guard, a group Phoebe is hostile to. However, she does not expect their agreement to last. To her, the corporation has its own agenda and it may not necessarily be in line with hers. Her present goal is to give her people a safe haven away from the bloodletting and craziness. Her long-term goal is to return to Tephrike. Many people are still living in oppression and she has scores to settle.
Phoebe is a hard woman, but able to inspire her followers. She does not have a lot of formal training, but is brave in a fight. Her goal is not to be beholden to the outsiders. Rather she wants to be like them - in the sense of being independent and in command of her destiny. For this reason, she has a negative view of those Tephriki refugees who have gone native and fully assimilated into the company, since she believes that they are supplicating themselves before the off-worlders.
Phoebe's relationship with Elpsis is complex. The two are not friends or particularly close. When the young Firemane was brought to the Serene Springs concentration camp, Phoebe realised that she would be important in some way. In that regard she was probably seeing a Shatterpoint, though she did not understand it that way.
But unlike Rhea or Mara, Phoebe does not see the 'Fire Princess' as some kind of saviour. True, Elpsis slew the Grand Inquisitor of the Dominion, which was the catalyst of the revolt. She slew countless guards and Jedi Inquisitors. But a rebellion had been planned for a while, as the prisoners feared that the Inquisition would 'evacuate' the camp out of fear of the off-worlders. Moreover, rather than passively wait for rescue, the prisoners rose up in revolt and fought. Phoebe was the first of them to strike at a guard. As a result, she sees herself as a partner rather than a supplicant.
She has started learning the ways of the Force in order to gain greater control over her powers, though she is reluctant to seek training from Firemane instructors like some of her people have done. This due to her concern that this might make her indebted to them. Phoebe is pretty focused on her political and social agenda. It takes precedence for her. She has a good work ethic and expects subordinates and colleagues to keep up with her. The Nautolan is sterile, but she has sought medical treatment to cure her infertility.
COMBAT INFORMATION
Weapon of Choice: Sidearms | Melee Weapons.
Combat Function: A lot of Phoebe's combat skills are self-taught, but she is a capable fighter. While the Nautolan is Force-Sensitive, she is largely untrained. Her Force use tends to be instinctual rather than practiced. As a result, she cannot draw upon many of the devastating powers Force wielders make use of in combat.
However, she has good extrasensory abilities. Her battle precognition and Force Senses are pretty good. Moreover, she has an innate talent for Shatterpoint, an unusual ability that can give her an edge in dangerous situations and grant her insight into other beings. But she uses these abilities on instinct. Phoebe is skilled in the use of conventional weapons, with a preference for melee weapons. Her favoured weapon is a blade, but she is also good with an axe. She is particularly potent in close quarters. Furthermore, she is a good pistol shot.
Phoebe is skilled in stealth, evasion and dissembling. Having been raised in two oppressive environments, it was a survival mechanism for her to be able to hide her thoughts, for one wrong move could spell her doom. Phoebe has leadership skills, but has not had the benefit of proper formal training in a military formation. However, the Nautolan is inspirational for her followers and able to rally them when the situation is dire. Indeed, her ability to lead and inspire her people is probably her greatest strength.
However, she has limited experience with galactic technology and has not been trained in the use of a lightsabre. These weapons are incredibly rare on Tephrike and someone of her low status would not have been taught how to use one. Indeed, she had never seen a lightsabre until Firemane's arrival on the planet. She is good with a Force Imbued blade though.
Strengths:
- Skilled fighter, especially in melee and close quarter combat.
- She has strong extrasensory perception and Shatterpoint, though her use of these abilities is instinctual due to her lack of formal training.
- Nautolan racial strengths. She can breathe underwater. Her people possess exceptional olfactory and pheromone-sensing skills, enhanced by head-tresses. These tendrils are used to detect the emotional state of another being, but are most effective underwater.
- Only a limited command of the Force and repertoire of powers, as she has little formal training.
- Not trained in the use of a lightsabre. She is used to melee weapons with actual weight behind them. If she were to find a lightsabre on a battlefield, pick it up and try to use it against an actual opponent, she would not perform well with it.
- Limited experience with galactic technology, including space travel, starship piloting and modern computers. Phoebe is not particularly tech-savvy. Until Firemane evacuated her people, she had never been in space. She learns fast but many high-tech applications off-worlders take for granted will be new to her.
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 a 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 Republican Guard rose up in revolt against the tyrannous Jedi and Sith. It proclaimed himself the spiritual successor to the Rebel Alliance and the heir to Tephrike's pre-collapse government. Its intent was to topple the mages who had brought so much misery, crush the warlords and unite Tephrike under the banner of a republican government of Non-Force-Users by Non-Force-Users for Non-Force-Users. Its intentions were noble and it did much to protect the common people. Refugees fleeing the Dominion's oppressive theocracy and the Vaderites' genocidal policies towards aliens found refuge in its territory. But owing to its weakness in terms of territory, material and manpower, its methods were that of a terrorist insurgency.
Centuries of brutal warfare, insurgency and counterinsurgency begot hatred and atrocities. Regarding the Force as a curse, the Guard concluded that the only way to prevent Force-Users from doing harm was to isolate and indoctrinate or cure them. Otherwise even the most innocent child who had been afflicted with the curse would one day risk succumbing to it. Phoebe grew up in Republican Guard territory, She was born in Red Coral City, the armed underwater settlement that served as the closest thing the Guard had to a capital.
Founded by Gungan and Quarren prior to the collapse, Red Coral City had been catapuled to prominence during the tumultous years that saw the rise of the Dominion. Here the Republican Guard arose and from here it conducted an all-out irregular warfare campaign against foes. Fear of enemy spies and closeted Force-Users was widespread. For this reason constant vigilance was the order of the day. Phoebe's parents were supporters of the Republican Guard. It was the government they knew and it protected them against the Sith and the Dominion, both of which would have forced them into servitude.
Her father had served in the militia, but been wounded in action. On the battlefield he had seen many of the evils perpetrated by Force cultists. Phoebe's parents were kelp farmers. The farmers were organised along syndicalist lines and both belonged to the local union. Her mother was one of the local elected representatives. She had her own bad experiences with Force-Users. Her sister had been Force-Sensitive. However, her parents had wanted to protect their daughter, fearing what the authorities would do to her. Thus they kept her Force affinity a secret and forced Phoebe's mother to stay silent on the subject.
However, the family did not have the knowledge to train Phoebe's aunt in the Force or teach her how to control her powers. Lacking control or guidance, the girl started to abuse her powers, using mind tricks on other kids and teachers. Her power soon went to her head, as she discovered she could bend others to her will. The strange things that kept happening around the girl eventually brought the militia to their doorstep. When she saw them, she lashed out and channelled the power of the dark side. Several people died. One of them was Phoebe's grandfather, who was stuck by lightning when he tried to defuse the situation. The soldiers had to kill his wayward daughter. This experience gave Phoebe's mother a harsh view on Force-Users, and why she thought that they had to be treated as people with a curse.
Phoebe fell victim to this view. Ironically, the act that caused her to be locked up was one of protection. She had known for a while that something was...odd about her. Sometimes she could see things happen before they did, at others she got vague impression of what other people thought or felt about her. But she kept quiet about this. Then one day she saved her family from being buried by a rock slide caused by the crumbling of sea cliffs. Her neophyte talents in the Force enabled her to hold back the avalanche. But it also meant that her powers were revealed.
She had saved her parents and condemned herself. Her parents were shocked, but to them there was only one way they could respond. Other farmers had seen the display and would report her if they did not. Moreover, they had an unborn child that was still growing her mother's womb to think of. When the lawmen came, Phoebe's tearful mother hugged her, apologised and exhorted her to be brave and good. What was inside her was not her fault. It was a curse the Guard would help her overcome. Then she would be able to return home. Until then, she would live in the Amidala Asylum.
It was a tremendous gut punch for the confused, frightened and angry child. She was put into the care of the Extraordinary Commission for Preternatural Regulation and Control. This body was responsible for enforcing the Guard's Force-User policies, including running the asylum, incarcerating or eliminating Force-Users judged too unstable. It also decided which Force-Users would be 'cured', in other words, turned Force Dead.
Officially it was the only body authorised to make decisions about the fate of an individual Force-Sensitive. It was policy to focus on rehabilitation and treat the Force as a medical condition, rather than retribution. However, the Guard's control over its cells varied and hatred of Force-Users ran deep. As a result, many a commander took matters into their own hands and often made arbitrary judgements. In any case, Phoebe was brought to the asylum. It was a depressing, foreboding place. In all fairness, the Guard was poor, and resources were scarce everywhere, but the lot of the inmates was a harsh one. Many of the guards were Yuuzhan Vong, since being Force Dead made them immune to mental manipulation.
The inmates were subjected to brainwashing, drugs and a good bit of mental trauma to associate the Force with bad things. This included electrical shocks for the undisciplined. They were told the story of the asylum's namesake. Padme Amidala had loved Anakin Skywalker but his curse consumed him and driven him to evil. He had used the Force to hurt his pregnant wife, choking her. This had caused her death. She died giving birth to two Force-Sensitive babies, Luke and Leia, who were separated at birth. Both were good people, but would be manipulated by the Jedi into perpetuating the cruel war. After going into exile, Luke tried to prevent the legacy of oppression from being passed on to future generations by burning the sacred Jedi texts. But Rey continued the misguided ways of the Jedi and fought the Yuuzhan Vong, who had come to liberate the Galaxy from the tyranny of Jedi and Sith.
There was a teaching staff that was supposed to teach them skills in order to help them integrate into normal society, but the quality of the teachers varied. Submission to authority was rewarded, and disobedience penalised. Phoebe found it depressing and oppressive. In her view, she had done nothing wrong. She had protected her family. She had never hurt anyone. Yet she was being treated like someone who was a public menace and her every move was being monitored. Her confinement fed her anger and resentment. Initially her parents were allowed to visit, but these visits soon stopped. Phoebe was angered when she heard that her mother had a new daughter. This made her rebellious and she was punished for her behaviour.
Ironically, the director of the agency, Jagat Gosir, had once been a Force-User. Unable to control her powers she was turned Force Dead. The medical procedure had nearly killed her, but she was free of her 'curse'. Her empathic powers had caused her to suffer greatly, so she came to see the Force's loss as a blessing. However, the loss of her Force empathy had also stifled her ability to express emotion.
The Republican Guard believed Force-users were dangerous, but that they could be cured and turned into productive citizens. However, some extremists were not content with collaring Force-Users. Hardened by the brutal fighting on the front lines and the atrocities committed by Jedi and Sith, they distrusted any cure other than a slug round. Phoebe suffered from abuse at the hands of overzealous guards. Her stubbornness did her no favours.
The first warden, a Yuuzhan Vong, who was responsible for the group she was in was stern, but decent. The fact that most aspects of the Force could not affect him might have contributed to him being less paranoid. However, he died under mysterious circumstances and was replaced by a radical zealot with a strong grudge against Phoebe's kind. Only later would the Nautolan learn that his predecessor had been murdered by a Dominion agent. Phoebe made the mistake of keeping a secret diary. It was a coping mechanism that helped her stay sane. She hid it, but one of roommates found it and ratted her out. For a while Phoebe was isolated from her fellow inmates. After being let out, she was publicly shamed and forced to undergo a self-criticism session, during which she had to confess her errors and affirm her renewed belief in the Guard.
She began to look for a way out. A few of her fellow inmates gravitated to her. However, she knew she was being watched. Phoebe did her best to keep head down. Ever since the incident with the diary, she had had her suspicions about another prisoner. She started feeding her false information, pretending that she had been turned herself. This proved that her roommate was a rat. When the time came, Phoebe used a sharpened toothbrush to shiv her and made it look like an an accident.
However, it was not only the Republican Guard that was watching her. A Dominion agent had infiltrated the Amidala Asylum. He was a Nautolan Phoebe knew by the name of Ner Kadi. Outwardly he was a dedicated member of the asylum's staff and convinced of the righteousness of the Republican Guard's cause. In reality he was one of the Dominion's Non-Force-Using agents. Using Jedi would have been a bad idea, so the Jedi Shadows used Non-Force-Users. Ner had gotten himself into a position of trust in order to be able to cherrypick the best 'recruits'. Now he cast her eye on Phoebe.
Their contact was a gradual one. At first Phoebe was hesitant. But Ner pulled some strings to make life easier for her. He did her a favour by getting rid of the cruel guard who had tormented her. Little did Phoebe know that the Dominion agent had been responsible for him being put into a position of power in the first place. The agent started working on Phoebe, using seduction as well as persuasion. First she posed as a dissident, then she revealed her true nature to Phoebe.
The young Nautolan knew extremely little about the Dominion. All she knew was the Guard's propaganda, which painted it as an evil empire. But Aola presented it as a place she would not be persecuted for what she was. She would be respected and free. Slowly, Phoebe and her comrades began to plot. Some were hesitant, but Phoebe took the lead. She grew even more resolved when a fellow prisoner, who had been particularly defiant, was subjected to the 'cure' and was crippled by the procedure.
The Preternatural Commission was starting to get suspicious and Ner implied that he would have to leave soon, and that Phoebe and her friends would be either in or out. Fearful and yet hopeful, the Nautolan decided to act. Ner organised a 'prison transfer' to another facility for testing or turning the group of prisoners Force Dead. She was able to smuggle in a weapon. When everything was ready, she, Phoebe and the prisoners hijacked the transport.
Pursued by the Guard, they managed to escape, but one of Phoebe's comrades died. Phoebe mourned his loss, but they had no time to waste. Militia and specialists from the Commission hunted them. They had to abandon their transport after it was damaged. Ner set it to blow to hold off pursuers. They had to hide in the wilderness before meeting with a clandestine Jedi Shadow team. It was led by Jedi Cassius, a rising star in the Dominion's Jedi Order. Eventually Phoebe would learn that he had organised the operation. When she was introduced to the man she was impressed by him. While stoic, he radiated poise and control. He also dispatched rebel soldiers pursuing them.
The seemingly freed prisoners were smuggled out of Republican Guard territory and brought to the Dominion. Until now Phoebe had never wandered beyond the sea her home city was submerged in, so she was rather impressed when she beheld Nexus City. By Tephriki standards, the city was enormous. The architects had did their best to recreate Coruscant, right down to a grandiose Jedi Temple and a (never used) Senate Dome. There was also a spaceport, though commercial space traffic did not exist.
She and her friends were fed a rosy image of the Dominion as a land of plenty and equality, guided by wise Jedi Masters. Upon landing, they were given a hero's welcoming. Younglings dressed in brown Jedi robes and wearing a lapel bearing the Grandmaster's image greeted them warmly and the Barsen'thor congratulated them on their successful escape. They were taken for a tour of the Jedi Temple and of the city. Among other things they got to some of the shops, behold shelves filled with goods and even take some home.
Later Phoebe would learn that these were special shops only accessible to members of the elite. Common citizens had to stand in line for loafs of bread and other essentials. They were given rooms and Phoebe gave a few interviews, where she denounced the Republican Guard. All seemed well. Then it turned out that they had exchanged one nightmare for another. And their new one might be even worse. First the Dominion started pressuring them into accepting Jedi training.
When Phoebe attended a session, she was disturbed by the emphasis on blind obedience. When she spoke with Jedi at the Temple, she was even troubled as it turned out that few of them had had anything resembling a family life. Indeed, appeared to have trouble grasping the concept. They had been grown in laboratories and raised by the Order. The clones, who considered themselves 'Pureborn, called 'normal' born people like her 'Randoms'. As one of them told her "you never know what aberrant traits or features you might get, you don't even know how many might come out! It's all so very disordered and chaotic!" Phoebe deeply resented her family, but this seemed wrong to her. They had been good to her once. She had dismissed the claim that the Dominion raised its Jedi to be emotionless drones as Republican Guard propaganda, but now it did not seem far from the truth.
One of her comrades, who had been in a relationship with another prisoner, was particularly defiant. One day he simply disappeared. When Phoebe tried to find out what had happened to him, she was told he had been unmasked as an enemy agent. This was absurd, to say the least. All her attempts to help him were rebuffed and when she had an outburst she was warned to know her place, for anger was the path to the dark side. Her friend eventually returned, but now he was a changed man. They had just been tools in a political game and would have to conform or pay the price. Cassius blackmailed Phoebe, forcing her to make propaganda appearances by implying her friends would face consequences otherwise. Soon she heard rumours that she and her friends were supposed to be separated.
The group managed to come together for a covert meeting. Their comrade was lost. However, Phoebe made the mistake of still trusting Ner. After what she had endured, she wanted to genuinely believe that the Dominion was better and that there were just a few rotten apples spoiling it. She did not think Ner knew about the bad conditions. This was something the Dominion, for he had been assigned to investigate abuses and promised to protect her and her friends. Phoebe and her friends tried to escape through the extensive catacombs of the Jedi Temple. At first everything went well, but then things went awry. Realising that they could not overcome the Temple Guards pursuing them, Phoebe made a choice. Urging her cormades to go on, she tried to draw attention away from them, sacrificing herself for them. Several of her friends managed to escape.
However, the Nautolan was caught. Phoebe fought as hard as she could, defending herself with a stolen blade, fists and her weak, instinctual Force skills. But she could not overcome them and was captured. She was now in the hands of the Jedi Inquisition. Cassius was annoyed by this setback, but the Dominion used old recordings and a compliant clone to maintain the fiction of the Republican Guard prisoners who had seen the Light a while longer.
Meanwhile, Phoebe was brought to Serene Springs, an euphemistically named brainwashing and forced labour camp run by the Inquisition. There she was subjected to physical and mental torture. Among other things, she was tortured with electrical cattle prods, beaten and subjected to water torture. Her stubbornness and rebelliousness caused her interrogators to be very harsh with her. For a while she was largely deprived of food and drink as well as sleep.
Under pressure, she tried to divert attention from her friends by signing all manners of absurd confessions about being party to conspiracy against the Light and the glorious Dominion. Of course, her interrogators were using torture to force a confession they had already written out of her. She had to perform forced labour in a mine. Phoebe tried to reach out to some of her fellow prisoners, but being a newcomer she was distrusted. Moreover, she soon learned to be cautious, as there was the pervasive threat of informers. Her sanity was severely tested during her time in the camp.
The goal of the Inquisition was to stamp out any hint of an independent personality inside the prisoners, reducing them to drones that would perform as ordered and could be remoulded. She got a brief taste of freedom during the Netherworld Event. All of a sudden many of the guards and prisoners had vanished. Phoebe used the chance to make a run for it and escape. The camp was far from civilisation, but she hid in the wilderness. She hunted, stole and foraged to survie. The Nautolan had to hide from Vaderite marauders who had come to burn and pillage, for the Sith considered aliens like her lesser beings and murdered or enslaved them.
For a while she worked in a rural settlement under an assumed name, after helping the locals fight off bandits. It was a collective farm, but with most of the local administration raptured and the locals were more focused on survival. According to the stories she heard, the Dominion was being invaded by the Republican Guard and the Vaderites. For a while the war seemed far away. But Phoebe could not escape it for long. A force of Dominion soldiers arrived to carry out requisitions. The farmers had very little, but were being forced to hand over their produce for the war effort. This spell death for the farmers.
Moreover, civilians were supposed to be conscripted into the army or labour corps. The head of the community protested. When the locals were unwilling to cooperate, one of the Jedi, a woman called Diona, shot one of them to coerce the others. This led to the deaths of nine more. Phoebe fled during the massacre. She was angry at herself for running and being helpless, and at the Dominion. She would remember the face of the woman who had pulled the trigger. In the aftermath of the massacre, the locals were interrogated. Eventually word got out about the stranger who had sought shelter among them.
Ner was dispatched to find her and bring her in. He had run afoul of the Byzantine politics of the Dominion and been removed from the spy service and ordered to track escapees. His masters was capricious, so he himself was not sure why he was being punished. He made the mistake of thinking he could trick her. But Phoebe now knew that he had just used her, so she killed him. Phoebe managed to remain underground for a while, but eventually she was recaptured. She was put through re-education. However, she had learned that escape was possible. But she needed to be smart about it. So she said what her captors expected her to hear and accepted the punishment due to enemies of the Light.
Phoebe was able to root out some spies among her fellow forced labourers. This involved pretending to be an informant herself. Corruption was widespread among several guards and functionaries. Their pay was not the best, after all, and the fact that they wielded absolute power over the prisoners encouraged them to abuse it. Indeed, some of the officers used the prisoners as their personal labourers. Most of the time the labourers were not compensated for this, or just received things such as cigarettes. Phoebe was able to gain the favour of a senior camp officer. The commandant used prisoners to make carpets, vases, paintings, and even furniture. Some he kept for himself, others he traded for favours or sold on the black market.
It helped that Phoebe had an artistic streak. She made a painting for the commandant, who also put her to work cleaning his robes and those of his officers. For a while she was able to get out of working in the mines and toil in the garden. The officer who favoured her was later hanged for corruption. He had gone too far by illegally seizing a patch of land and ordering the prisoners to build the house of his dreams there. In addition, he had covered for Inquisitors who systematically stole provisions from the camp kitchen, storeroom and garden. A disgruntled guard denounced him. Phoebe was punished as well for having 'seduced' the Inquisitor, but their brief closeness helped her get access to some medical supplies. This proved crucial when disease broke out in the camp. She shared what she had been able to procure with some other prisoners.
Due to good behaviour, Phoebe managed to reach the position of a camp elder, which made her responsible for the conduct of a group of prisoners. This gave her the ability to help her people in small ways. Her knowledge of their corrupt dealings allowed her to blackmail some minor functionaries. She knew that some prisoners were smuggling provisions into a labour company that was under a particularly strict regimen, but tolerated it and covered for them. She also helped get frail or sick prisoners get removed from labour duty.
However, it also made her complicit in the system of oppression. It caused her a lot of internal turmoil. But if she did not discipline lazy inmates, they would have been tortured by the Inquisition and the rest of the forced labourers would have suffered as well. Sometimes she needed to be cruel to some in order to save the many. When she was ordered to murder a fellow prisoner, she refused, and was subjected to beatings. For a while she was removed from her position, but eventually promoted again because she had been effective at it. However, then she learned that another inmate was planning to run away, she was forced to thwart the attempt. The inmate was sent away for re-education. She hated herself for it and felt like a hypocrite, but she knew that if one prisoner managed to break out, the whole camp would suffer. The only way out, she reasoned, was to save the whole group. Thus she began to plot and reached out to trusted prisoners.
When the Ministry of Enlightenment sent a team to make a 'documentary' about Serene Springs, Phoebe and other camp elders were responsible for making sure that the prisoners gave the right answers, looked clean and motivated and that the least presentable ones were hidden away. The documentary was a propaganda film. It showed remorseful inmates who were being re-educated by vigilant, but benign Inquisitors. Smiling prisoners thanked their captors for teaching them about the Light. The Inquisition oversaw filming and censored the film's contents.
It was difficult to get any reliable news about what was going on outside the camp. When Phoebe heard that 'Sithspawn demons' had arrived in outer space and attacked the glorious Dominion, she dismissed it as a tall tale. She was both right and wrong. In actuality the 'Sithspawn' were humans from a foreign corporation called Firemane. It had sent a delegation to negotiate with the Dominion, but the fanatical Grand Master, encouraged by Grand Inquisitor Antonius, had ordered his followers to ambush them. Phoebe did not see any of the outsiders until Elpsis Kerrigan-Alcori was brought to the camp.
The young Firemane officer had been captured during the fighting. In response, Firemane declared war. The people in the camp were told that the Dominion was victorious on all fronts. According to propaganda broadcasts, the 'Hammers of Light' had destroyed the Sithspawn's warships. Elpsis was accompanied by Jedi Diona, who acted as her jailer. Phoebe gave little credence to stories about outsiders, but the Force told her that this girl was important. The Inquisition seemed fixated on her to the point of obsession. This helped take the heat off Phoebe and her group. Phoebe chose not to approach Elpsis or involve her in the plans for a rising. This turned out to be a smart decision.
However, their plans for escape assumed greater urgency because rumours said the camp might be 'evacuated'. Camp guards spoke in hushed whispers about how the Jedi Temple had been levelled. Phoebe slowly began to realise that the war was real, and that it might not be going the way the Dominion claimed it was. One of Phoebe's friends, a Mirialan called Mel, came under suspicion. She had been an important contact. A fellow prisoner called Harald denounced her and Elpsis, who had tried to destroy her Force collar after a harrowing brainwashing session. Mel was locked up and Elpsis was physically and mentally tortured until she gave in and was reborn as Jedi Roxane. Then one of Phoebe's fellow prisoners, who regularly cleaned one of the Inquisitor's offices, reported that the Grand Inquisitor was due to arrive.
The group had to accelerate their plans. But when the revolt happened, it did so spontaneously. Phoebe was labouring in the mines when she felt an eruption of Force power. Elpsis had turned on her captors after being ordered to start brainwashing Diona, who had stopped believing in the system. The pair attacked the Grand Inquisitor and his minions. Phoebe saw guards approach her and her crew. It was sensible to assume that Mel might have broken under interrogation.
All of Phoebe's anger, frustration and rage exploded and she beat a guard with a pickaxe. Other prisoners followed suit. Meanwhile, a Firemane assault force led Major Tempest had engaged the Inquisition forces outside of the camp. The camp guards were caught off-guard. Many prisoners were malnourished and only a few had combat training, but they fought nonetheless. Phoebe managed to rid herself of her collar and grab a blade from an Inquisitor. The prisoners suffered heavy casualties. Phoebe herself was injured, but fought fanatically. Elpsis joined the fight after slaying the Grand Inquisitor and breaking Mel out.
So did Diona and the Grand Inquisitor's former apprentice Rhea, who had been cruelly abused by her master. None of the camp functionaries, guards and Inquisitors were spared. Battlemaster Mahtara, a high-ranking Dominion leader who had defied the Grandmaster and gone rogue, had dispatched a task force to retrieve Elpsis and use her as a bargaining chip. However, they found themselves caught in a cauldron and surrendered to Firemane. Phoebe and the surviving prisoners were evacuated by Firemane. For the first time, Phoebe left Tephrike and ventured into space.
It was rather daunting for her, but she swallowed her fear. Upon arriving on the outsiders' flagship, she learned that the rumours of an accord between them and the Guard were true. Their armies had worked in tandem to seize Fortress Purity, a major Dominion fortress. She had to restrain herself when she came face to face with Mezha Krazhmir, an officer in the Republican Guard's special forces. Phoebe, Mel, Mezha, Rhea and some other Tephriki were received by Tegaea Alcori, Elpsis' mother and the director of Firemane's Exploration Corps. However, the meeting left Phoebe disappointed.
Tegaea thanked them for helping her daughter and offered them resettlement. Firemane would als continue to support insurrectionary activity against the Dominion, but it was withdrawing its troops. This angered Phoebe. "I'm glad you rescued me to save your daughter's life. What about the other daughters down there still imprisoned?" Phoebe was disgusted, though Mel calmed her, reminding her of her responsibility to her people. Firemane did bomb the headquarters of the Vaderites.
Castle Maysaf was levelled by the Firemane warship's cannons. However, during the bombardment the Sith Lords tried to retaliate by performing a dark ritual. Demons manifested aboard the flagship. Many of them possessed crew members, others remained shades, invading the minds of those not possessed. Phoebe fought alongside the Firemane soldiers and Mezha, using her Force Imbued blade to dispatch demons. Her example rallied her fellow Tephriki, who had been watching the bombardment with her. Ultimately the spirits were banished after Tempest, Karrigan'Xalda and Hikari Saito slew the demons controlling them. After the crisis was resolved, Phoebe consulted with other leaders among the freed prisoners from both Serene Springs and the Liberation Education Centre, another propaganda gulag Firemane had liberated. She pushed for getting a ship from the outsiders and a place where their people could settle and recover from all the craziness. However, she has not given up on her desire to eventually return home. Presently he acts as the representative of the Tephriki fugitives and is thus Firemane's main contact.
Approved.