CHARACTER INFO (warning for t;dr)
May. 19th, 2010 11:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
under_redrockDeanna Rayne was born in Whitefall Haven, to a mother who was away more often than not on diplomatic trips to Earth and a father who was a childcare specialist, and often more concerned with other people's children than his own. Rayne herself grew up as any Martian child -- communally. So, in a sense, Rayne was both one of more than a hundred brothers and sisters, and an only child, as her mother and father never conceived again.
Rayne's mother believed firmly in a person paying their own way, in life (though she fully expected that Rayne would become a diplomat, like her, after graduation from college). So, once she reached legal age, her mother cut her off from the family finances, telling her that she needed to get a job to support herself through school. Rayne turned to what she knew best: schoolwork. She tutored and gave violin lessons enough to pay her way through school, specializing in military history and teaching. After graduation, her mother offered him an assistant job in her staff. She turned it down, and went to teach eight-year-olds at a grade school.
The rift that opened between mother and daughter, as a result of this decision, never fully closed.
As Rayne threw herself more fully into teaching, the world around her started to fracture. The relations between Earth and Mars were getting strained, painful, most especially over the issue of corporate-owned mines on Martian territory -- and then, with the advent of the Declarations, which closed Martian ports and shut down the mines. In a fury, Mars claimed independence, and declared war.
Rayne could never say what it was that made her volunteer to become a soldier. She had a boyfriend that she loved, and was planning to marry. She had a steady job. She had an education, putting her very low on any draft list. And yet, some sense of duty drove her on.
Rayne used her contacts in Whitefall Haven (which had a disproportionately high number of military veteran inhabitants) to get a position as an officer. Four weeks of hypnosis training later, and she was dispatched to the front.
For the most part, Rayne did clerical work, logistics, and intelligence. Tracking movements, keeping things together and organized. She wasn't exactly a combat officer, even though she saw brief skirmishes in the front on Luna, and in one of the Stations. He didn't really get into combat until the tide of the war turned, and Earth forces started landing on Mars Prime, the capital. The fighting turned nasty, street-by-street, and given that Mars Prime had a population of three hundred million, this was a lot of streets. Martian soldiers were outnumbered by Earth soldiers who were outnumbered by Martian civilians. Detachments were sent into the middle of the fighting with no backup, no clear goals, and not enough weaponry.
This was the first time Rayne really showed how strong she could be.
She stepped up to the plate, organizing the soldiers under her command, giving them direction and orders. She saved hundreds of thousands of civilians by gathering them in collective, easy-to-defend locations, and by putting people in between the drones in the sky and their supplies of food. Civilian shields, yes, but she knew that Earth wouldn't willingly fire on non-fighting population, and it worked.
Nonetheless, the battle of Mars Prime turned into a stalemate, and Martian forces were withdrawn. The end of the war came with the Battle of Toridia, a rough clash of military on military in a crater above the oh-so-precious mines, where the Martian army had set up their headquarters. In this battle, Earth fought dirty. They bombed, they dropped soldiers, they sent everything they had at the Martians -- but it wasn't enough. And so Earth took one last desperate measure. They dropped a heavy cruiser straight through the Martian atmosphere and landed it down on the planet, knowing that it would never be able to take off again.
The Earth soldiers flooded in. And with much of the Martian forces crushed under the ship, and disoriented and demoralized, Earth took an easy victory.
They also happened to kill almost the entire Martian command staff.
The freshly promoted Colonel Deanna Rayne ended up in charge of the base underground. She held out for as long as he could, but the Earth hero General Angilo routed her, gassed her base, and killed nearly everyone inside. This was widely regarded as the last battle of the war, and the crucial one, even though there was some mop-up in a naval battle at Callisto days later.
Rayne was taken off for 'debriefing', which, in her case, meant extensive use of techniques that didn't quite qualify as torture coupled with hypnotic drugs designed for interrogation. Rayne showed incredibly strong resistance to the drugs, to the point where it shouldn't have been biologically possible. After nearly killing her with a dose that was too strong, Earth forces backed off, and Rayne was sent to a prisoner of war camp in the United States of America, outside Chicago.
In the wake of their victory, Earth passed laws making it illegal for Martian officers to hold official citizenship, vote, or have freedom of movement. On top of that, every officer ranked captain or higher in the Navy or colonel and higher in the Army was ordered to surrender themselves, and were subsequently ordered to Earth. For them, unemployment was illegal, and the only employer was the Earth government; they were forced to wear the Martian uniform until and unless they signed a surrender agreement renouncing all ties to Mars.
Not surprisingly, many Martians were roughed up or killed under this program, as they were a visible symbol of the enemy living amongst the Earth population.
Rayne was a part of this program, and the Earth officer that had her in custody? Was General Angilo, the man who beat her at the Battle of Toridia. Rayne was tangled in post-traumatic stress disorder, full of self-loathing at what she perceived as her own failure to make Mars win the war, and, despite herself, drawn to her captor. Unlike Rayne, Angilo was the kind of person who always did the right thing, not who always did his duty. Angilo's moral compass was right, Rayne's pointed due Mars, but they cared about one another. In a way that they shouldn't have.
Rayne tried suicide, but Angilo wouldn't let her die, and, finally, in a kind of emotional self-defense, she turned to Angilo for comfort. The two of them fell into a relationship, twisted as it was, and, when the time for it came, escaping was one of the hardest things Rayne ever did.
Rayne managed to pass the Martian resistance's standards for trustworthiness -- hell, she'd failed to sign the loyalty pledge, after two years of being captive, and that put him in the minority -- and they elevated her to command level. The Battle of Toridia gave her the unlikely status of a Martian war hero, a martyr who miraculously returned from the dead. Rayne wasn't happy with this, and wasn't happy with the way the Resistance snuck around, playing at spies more than doing any real damage. It seemed futile, pointless, and finally she realized that she was the one in the right position to change it.
She walked right into the Senate chamber and declared it dissolved, calling down martial law on Mars, and taking over the government herself. The occupation's government was expelled or imprisoned, and Rayne, in a matter of weeks, took the planet back to war.
She'd be the first to admit that she just took advantage of social forces that were already in place. The people on Mars wanted new leadership. They wanted a second chance at war. All she did was give it to them. And yet, there was something strong about her. Something made of fire and steel. Not everyone could have done what she did, could have united a planet around her, but she did it. She was willing to take the responsibility of going back to war on herself.
After the war was won, she put herself in place as a military dictator, and proceeded to ruthlessly yank the planet through post-war depression and into a stunning economic revival. Nearly a decade later, prematurely gray, she abdicated power to a democratic government, amidst incredible approval rating numbers. The democratic government didn't work as well as the dictatorship under her authority, and the Martians didn't want just any government. They wanted her back.
But Rayne was done. Finished. She didn't have any more fight left in her, and she was educated enough to know that she had to leave something stable behind, for when she died. And that was how she did die -- years later, alone, on a ranch on a dwarf planet outside the orbit of Pluto.
Rayne's mother believed firmly in a person paying their own way, in life (though she fully expected that Rayne would become a diplomat, like her, after graduation from college). So, once she reached legal age, her mother cut her off from the family finances, telling her that she needed to get a job to support herself through school. Rayne turned to what she knew best: schoolwork. She tutored and gave violin lessons enough to pay her way through school, specializing in military history and teaching. After graduation, her mother offered him an assistant job in her staff. She turned it down, and went to teach eight-year-olds at a grade school.
The rift that opened between mother and daughter, as a result of this decision, never fully closed.
As Rayne threw herself more fully into teaching, the world around her started to fracture. The relations between Earth and Mars were getting strained, painful, most especially over the issue of corporate-owned mines on Martian territory -- and then, with the advent of the Declarations, which closed Martian ports and shut down the mines. In a fury, Mars claimed independence, and declared war.
Rayne could never say what it was that made her volunteer to become a soldier. She had a boyfriend that she loved, and was planning to marry. She had a steady job. She had an education, putting her very low on any draft list. And yet, some sense of duty drove her on.
Rayne used her contacts in Whitefall Haven (which had a disproportionately high number of military veteran inhabitants) to get a position as an officer. Four weeks of hypnosis training later, and she was dispatched to the front.
For the most part, Rayne did clerical work, logistics, and intelligence. Tracking movements, keeping things together and organized. She wasn't exactly a combat officer, even though she saw brief skirmishes in the front on Luna, and in one of the Stations. He didn't really get into combat until the tide of the war turned, and Earth forces started landing on Mars Prime, the capital. The fighting turned nasty, street-by-street, and given that Mars Prime had a population of three hundred million, this was a lot of streets. Martian soldiers were outnumbered by Earth soldiers who were outnumbered by Martian civilians. Detachments were sent into the middle of the fighting with no backup, no clear goals, and not enough weaponry.
This was the first time Rayne really showed how strong she could be.
She stepped up to the plate, organizing the soldiers under her command, giving them direction and orders. She saved hundreds of thousands of civilians by gathering them in collective, easy-to-defend locations, and by putting people in between the drones in the sky and their supplies of food. Civilian shields, yes, but she knew that Earth wouldn't willingly fire on non-fighting population, and it worked.
Nonetheless, the battle of Mars Prime turned into a stalemate, and Martian forces were withdrawn. The end of the war came with the Battle of Toridia, a rough clash of military on military in a crater above the oh-so-precious mines, where the Martian army had set up their headquarters. In this battle, Earth fought dirty. They bombed, they dropped soldiers, they sent everything they had at the Martians -- but it wasn't enough. And so Earth took one last desperate measure. They dropped a heavy cruiser straight through the Martian atmosphere and landed it down on the planet, knowing that it would never be able to take off again.
The Earth soldiers flooded in. And with much of the Martian forces crushed under the ship, and disoriented and demoralized, Earth took an easy victory.
They also happened to kill almost the entire Martian command staff.
The freshly promoted Colonel Deanna Rayne ended up in charge of the base underground. She held out for as long as he could, but the Earth hero General Angilo routed her, gassed her base, and killed nearly everyone inside. This was widely regarded as the last battle of the war, and the crucial one, even though there was some mop-up in a naval battle at Callisto days later.
Rayne was taken off for 'debriefing', which, in her case, meant extensive use of techniques that didn't quite qualify as torture coupled with hypnotic drugs designed for interrogation. Rayne showed incredibly strong resistance to the drugs, to the point where it shouldn't have been biologically possible. After nearly killing her with a dose that was too strong, Earth forces backed off, and Rayne was sent to a prisoner of war camp in the United States of America, outside Chicago.
In the wake of their victory, Earth passed laws making it illegal for Martian officers to hold official citizenship, vote, or have freedom of movement. On top of that, every officer ranked captain or higher in the Navy or colonel and higher in the Army was ordered to surrender themselves, and were subsequently ordered to Earth. For them, unemployment was illegal, and the only employer was the Earth government; they were forced to wear the Martian uniform until and unless they signed a surrender agreement renouncing all ties to Mars.
Not surprisingly, many Martians were roughed up or killed under this program, as they were a visible symbol of the enemy living amongst the Earth population.
Rayne was a part of this program, and the Earth officer that had her in custody? Was General Angilo, the man who beat her at the Battle of Toridia. Rayne was tangled in post-traumatic stress disorder, full of self-loathing at what she perceived as her own failure to make Mars win the war, and, despite herself, drawn to her captor. Unlike Rayne, Angilo was the kind of person who always did the right thing, not who always did his duty. Angilo's moral compass was right, Rayne's pointed due Mars, but they cared about one another. In a way that they shouldn't have.
Rayne tried suicide, but Angilo wouldn't let her die, and, finally, in a kind of emotional self-defense, she turned to Angilo for comfort. The two of them fell into a relationship, twisted as it was, and, when the time for it came, escaping was one of the hardest things Rayne ever did.
Rayne managed to pass the Martian resistance's standards for trustworthiness -- hell, she'd failed to sign the loyalty pledge, after two years of being captive, and that put him in the minority -- and they elevated her to command level. The Battle of Toridia gave her the unlikely status of a Martian war hero, a martyr who miraculously returned from the dead. Rayne wasn't happy with this, and wasn't happy with the way the Resistance snuck around, playing at spies more than doing any real damage. It seemed futile, pointless, and finally she realized that she was the one in the right position to change it.
She walked right into the Senate chamber and declared it dissolved, calling down martial law on Mars, and taking over the government herself. The occupation's government was expelled or imprisoned, and Rayne, in a matter of weeks, took the planet back to war.
She'd be the first to admit that she just took advantage of social forces that were already in place. The people on Mars wanted new leadership. They wanted a second chance at war. All she did was give it to them. And yet, there was something strong about her. Something made of fire and steel. Not everyone could have done what she did, could have united a planet around her, but she did it. She was willing to take the responsibility of going back to war on herself.
After the war was won, she put herself in place as a military dictator, and proceeded to ruthlessly yank the planet through post-war depression and into a stunning economic revival. Nearly a decade later, prematurely gray, she abdicated power to a democratic government, amidst incredible approval rating numbers. The democratic government didn't work as well as the dictatorship under her authority, and the Martians didn't want just any government. They wanted her back.
But Rayne was done. Finished. She didn't have any more fight left in her, and she was educated enough to know that she had to leave something stable behind, for when she died. And that was how she did die -- years later, alone, on a ranch on a dwarf planet outside the orbit of Pluto.
