Character Ceria Kesyk

[Ceria Kesyk]

Name	Ceria Kesyk
Species	Human mix
Age	35
Gender	Woman
Homeworld	Froswythe
Hair	Dark brown
Eyes	Dark amber
Skin	Light
Height	5'8"
Weight	148lbs
Affiliation	The Sith Covenant
Rank	Vice Admiral
Force Sensitive	Force-Attuned

SUMMARY

Ceria Kesyk is the commander of the Tyranny, Mercy's flagship. A dead woman walking, Ceria is driven by nothing except her twisted, unfallible loyalty to the Empress of the Core. She is that woman's instrument of war.

CHARACTER TRAITS

Driven: All great leaders need that 'something.' For Wilhuff Tarkin, it was a clinical brutality. Soontir Fel had prodigious talent and a charisma that drew in the men around him. Gilad Pellaeon, a meticulous intellect and good instincts. For Ceria Kesyk... It is drive. An unrelenting, uncompromising drive. She will not hesitate. She will not pause to reflect on her errors. She will continue until she is stopped.

Spacer: Though not born into it, Ceria was quickly taken by life among the stars. She has a natural gravity towards the skills, mental landscape, and instincts necessary to thrive out in the black.

Unpersoned: There's really no better way to put it. Kesyk doesn't think, act, or behave much like a person anymore. It is exceedingly difficult for her to make connections. At least the healthy kind. It is unlikely she will ever bring out the sort of loyalty in others that Mercy commands in her. It also means she is not foiled by attachments or bothered by the arithmetic of war.

Unstable Mind: Kesyk may've survived torture, but she didn't walk away from it. Those are scars that will not fade, and some might argue that they've never healed. They can manifest as fits of psychopathic coldness, or they can simply be the thoughts that keep her awake at night. However, those experiences have left her with a peculiar net gain: Kesyk is highly resistant to mentalist techniques. She can resist brainwashing and spot even a masterful illusion. The tools used to break her became the tools she could intimately recognize - and deny. It would take a prodigious sicko to break those walls again.

BACKGROUND

Ceria Kesyk was born on Froswythe to a family of nerf herders. She grew up on the plains, raised to hunt, survive, deliver calves, and master the livestock trade. However, she always dreamed of the stars, vowing one day to have a ship of her own - a common dream. Eventually, she lucked out. A recruitment drive for the Alliance found its way to Froswythe, and a young Ceria enlisted against her parents' wishes. After a few years of training and a stint as a crewer aboard a supply ship, Kesyk earned her enrollment into the Naval Academy on Anaxes.

She proved capable, sound of mind, and somewhat popular. It didn't take her long to earn an officer's commission, then quickly rising to the rank of Captain. It seemed as if she had her whole career ahead of her, but then an Imperial insurrection arose in the Core. Many worlds defected, and Coruscant was conquered in short order. By the time of the Battle above Atrisia, Kesyk was in command of a meager deep space outpost at the edge of Alliance space. She was powerless as she watched her whole life and the Alliance disintegrate before her eyes. Yet, perhaps this was where she found her spite, because Kesyk refused to abandon her post. Despite protests. Despite dwindling supplies. Despite the onslaught of probing attacks from Imperial forces, she held firm. She held defiant.

It took a costly boarding action to take her station down. She expected death. But of course, the enemy had other plans...

Captured and imprisoned on Coruscant, Kesyk was subjected to months of terrible torture. The kind that was meant to break spirits. The kind that kept you on the line between life and death. It was to be her punishment. A statement that defiance meant you would suffer, rather than die. There was no heroic story of resolve. She didn't summon great willpower. The Force didn't call to her. She endured when she wanted to die. She waited when she wanted it to end. She lost track of time. Lost track of her own thoughts. Somewhere in that span, as weeks felt like years, she broke.

Then cannons roared overhead. A great siege found its way to Coruscant for a second round in so little time. Rebels? Imperial infighting? The Republic in the South? Speculation found her before hope ever could, but all her best guesses were wrong. It was a Sith Lord named Mercy who breached the prison, her graspborn in tow. It didn't take long before the guards fled or were killed. Mercy found Ceria, pressed against the corner of her cell like a dying animal. Hell, when Mercy looked into those amber eyes, she saw a shell of a woman. But not a weak one. The newly mantled Empress of the Core took Kesyk, tested her, and gave her every opportunity to claw back an existence.

A corvette posting turned into a flotilla command. That grew into a task force. And eventually, Kesyk - ever Mercy's project - was given an assignment that made every man in the room violent with jealousy. Seasoned commanders, veterans of great battles, strategists who had theories named after them. All were passed over by this meager captain, given the vice admiral's bars and command of Mercy's own Tyrant Squadron, and at the head, one of the galaxy's most powerful warships.