Igni Irae
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
Intent: Sub a friend and student for Elpsis. She also provides more insight into Tephrike and its warring factions.
Image Credit: Here.
Role: Student for Elpsis and fellow Tephrike survivor.
Permission: Can use Abregado-Rae Guild of Hammers equipment due to Firemane gaining access to ARGH tech in this thread. Can use Firemane stuff because I own the company.
Links: Adjudication, Into Darkness, After Darkness, Tephrike. Communion, The Long Road, Disciples of the Vader, Republican Guard, Tephrike, Dominion of Light, Battlemaster Mahtara.
PHYSICAL INFORMATION
Age: 19
Force Sensitivity: Apprentice
Species: Rattataki.
Appearance: Rhea is a Rattataki female with the typical features of her species. She has pale skin and a bald head. She does not tan well. She has tattoos on her chin, cheeks and forehead. Her mistreatment at the hands of the Grand Inquisitor has left its mark on her looks and so she more mature than her age, and thinner than normal. She likes to cover herself up as much as possible. This is partly due to the injuries on her torso, but also because of her past abuse. She has intense yellow eyes. Rhea is agile and quick on her feet. She always carries a weapon her person.
SOCIAL INFORMATION
Name: Corporal Rhea.
Loyalties: Elpsis Kerrigan-Alcori, Tephrike, Inferno Platoon, Champions of the Flame, The Unchained.
Wealth: Low. Rhea is not wealthy at all. She is being supported by Elpsis and receives remuneration from Firemane. Someone of her rank does not get paid a lot, but it is enough to get by and she is not interested in accumulating wealth. It is pertinent to note that even the concept of credits is new to Rhea, since the Dominion abolished money and introduced a harsh command economy.
Notable Possessions:
- Force Imbued Blade
- Cylix Bolt Pistol. Gifted to her by Elpsis.
- Racket's Bite.
- Taozin Amulet
- Stealth Field Generator
On the combat front, Rhea has been trained in the use of melee and ranged weapons, especially blades, staffs and slugthrowers. She is an Apprentice level Force-User. Her combat skills are a mixture of stealth and then frenzied, relentless attack. This manifests itself in Force abilities driven by anger and hatred. She can utilise Lightning, Telekinesis, Force Rage and can use basic physical enhancement techniques to augment her body. She can alter the pain she and others feel from a wound. Moreover, she can conceal her Force aura and use Force Cloak to turn invisible.
Rhea is not trained in the use of a lightsabre. These weapons are extremely rare on Tephrike and someone of her low status would not have been given one or taught how to use it. Instead she uses a Force Imbued Sword. It has the standard qualities of Force Imbued weapons, resembling those used by the ancient Je'daii Order millennia before the rise of Jedi and Sith. It has greater cutting power than a conventional blade, is resistant to lightsabres and can damage or destroy dark side spirits, demons and so on.
Personality: Rhea is a deeply troubled, disturbed individual who has suffered a lot of pain in her short life. Her background is a rough one, to say the least. She grew up on a war-torn planet, was manipulated and abused. Rheae has a very deep seated combination of anger and shame. Her master, the Grand Inquisitor of the Dominion of Light, was a sleazy manipulator who concealed his selfish desires by paying lip service to the Dominion's ideology. The girl was moulded into believing that she had no worth outside of her service to the Dominion and that she must his orders without question, lest she fall to the Dark Side. Rhea has escaped his clutches, but she has deep mental scars. One could compare her situation to that of someone who was raised in a cult and abused by a false prophet.
There is a sense of helplessness to her, a sense of shame for allowing herself to be manipulated and controlled. This results in a fear that it might happen again and an anger which manifests in trying to prevent it. Rhea is suspicious of others and slow to trust. She would be extremely loyal to those who have earned her confidence, but getting there is difficult. What she endured has also made her resentful of those who are well-off and who, from her point of view, were handed everything without effort.
Unlike many in the Dominion, Rhea experienced something close to family life. The austere theocracy abolished family units a long time ago, believing that citizens should only have bonds to the Dominion and that procreation was sinful because lust led to the Dark Side, which was why the miracle of life had to take place in a medically sanctioned way in a laboratoy. However, Rhea was born in a rural area in a remote border province, where central authority was weak. When she was inducted into the Order, it was drilled into her skull that the circumstances of her conception were sinful and that familial bonds represented selfishness. The fact that she submitted is a source of shame for her. It has left her vengeful. At the same time she is looking for a place to belong.
It is clear to an outside observer that Rhea has some deep seated anger issues. The oppression she endured has made her guarded and jaded. She feels strong hatred for the Sith and Tephrike's Windian Jedi Order, which governs the Dominion. Ever since being freed, Rhea has tried to educate herself about the outside Galaxy. She has learned that there are other Jedi Orders who categorically reject the Dominion's beliefs and, in fact, would probably be horrified by the distorted Jedi Code that is practiced on Tephrike. However, she is deeply unimpressed by them, regarding them as cowardly and lacking in resolve. She has a strong hatred of what she perceives to be injustice and is quick to punish it. With the right teaching, Rhea could become a formidable weapon for whoever teaches her. But she is given to ungovernable rages and furies, whereby she loses all control. The trauma resulting from the abuse she endured means she is a very angry girl.
Rhea chooses not to use her very good looks to seduce others to get information or gain and advantage, choosing to conceal herself where possible with heavy clothing. This relates to a dark time in her life, and the memory fuels her anger. Rhea is not asexual, but reacts poorly when people try to seduce her. Tephrike has been isolated from the rest of the Galaxy for centuries and so Rhea has little experience with galactic technology. She is a bit introverted and not a social butterfly. However, she is very observant and learns fast.
Recently, she has grown attached to Elpsis. She was the one who set her free by slaying the Grand Inquisitor in combat. Rhea recognises her as a kindred spirit. She has learned a bit about the offworlder's past and can draw parallels with her own experiences. Both have been through the school of hard knocks, to put it lightly. Rhea has a strong Force connection, but has not received a lot of formal training. The Grand Inquisitor strung her along by tossing her small scraps of knowledge, but deliberately held her back to make sure she did not get strong enough to challenge him and free herself. Elpsis has agreed to teach her the ways of the Force and show her how to be strong. However, her attachment to Elpsis does not extend to Firemane as a whole. She does not see herself as the corporation's servant and is loath to take orders from its officers.
She has formed an unlikely friendship with Nyssa Vykaris. This might seem strange at first since Nyssa is a practicing Sith who believes in Pureblood supremacy. However, Purebloods are all but unknown on Tephrike, where being a Sith is mostly identified with being a human supremacist space wizard. Moreover, Nyssa hates most other Sith, is direct and does not lie, which Rhea appreciates. However, Rhea is also a supporter of the direct democracy her fellow refugees, the Unchained, have implemented. She sees freedom as a valuable good that must be defended with blood.
COMBAT INFORMATION
Weapon of Choice: Rhea carries a Force imbued blade and a concealed vibroblade hidden in a wrist sheath. In addition, she tends to carry a sidearm of some sort. She also, of course, uses the Force, as detailed in skills and combat function.
Combat Function: Rhea's combat tactics are a mixture of stealth and frenzied attack. She is the sneaky type who uses her stealthy skills to evade detection and get close to the enemy. However, once she is in range she transitions into a brutal, rage-filled offence. where she draws upon her anger and rage to strengthen herself. She is agile and very quick on her feet. Thus her tactics represent a hybrid of assassin and berserker, with some of their strengths, but also their weaknesses.
Rhea has a strong Force connection. This manifests in her ability to conceal herself, her command of Telekinesis and Lightning. However, she is still an Apprentice and a lot of what she does with the Force is more impulsive than trained, as the Grand Inquisitor deliberately held her back to make sure she could not challenge him. This can put her at a disadvantage against more experienced, disciplined Forcewielders. She is not very skilled in the use of defensive powers, which can be disadvantageous if she gets pinned down, encircled by enemies with heavy blaster weapons and so on, as she cannot tank that well. There is also the danger that she loses herself to her rage and becomes a threat to herself, lashing out instead of conducting a tactical retreat. Rhea has not been trained in the use of a lightsabre. Until recently, these weapons were all but unknown to her. She now seeks to rectify this under Elpsis' guidance. However, for now she lacks proficiency and would not be good at using one. Rhea can operate alone, but will usually be part of a team. She holds the rank of Corporal in Inferno Platoon.
Her aggressive, intense style of combat and her traumatic experiences can make her susceptible to mental attacks. A canny mentalist could use this to their advantage, especially if they used more subtle applications instead of brute force mentalism. Manipulating her perception of reality could leave her vulnerable, if one can avoid being cut down by the screaming banshee. Due to her past abuse, Rhea reacts poorly to uses of telepathy, even from allies, as hearing a voice in her head that is not hers triggers her. Rhea has limited skill with galactic technology and while she can pilot ground transports, she has not been taught how to fly a starship. The fact that she is not very experienced with galactic standard technology means she may trouble assessing dangers when confronted with something she is not familiar with.
Strengths:
- Stealthy prowess. Rhea is good at sneaking, remaining undetected and striking from the shadows. Her stealth-based Force abilities help in that regard.
- Warrior. Rhea has a strong Force connection and can use her rage to augment herself. She is a relentless, aggressive fighter in combat.
- Rhea has suffered a lot of mental trauma that could be exploited in combat. Her intense, aggressive style of combat also means she neglects defensive abilities.
- Lacks experience with a lightsabre.
Virtually every world in the Galaxy was affected by the Gulag Virus. Galactic civilisation crumbled, interstellar trade collapsed and trillions died. The Dark Age lasted for about four centuries. Tephrike was hit especially hard. Isolated from the rest of the Galaxy, the planet regressed. Though rich in raw materiels such as precious ores and alloys, the planet had been dependent on trade to sustain itself. Now there was no one who could buy their ores and sell them food.
Countless died due to starvation, ecological disasters, riots and civil war. Tephrike's fragile democracy collapsed as the federal government proved unable to resolve the crisis. Its party system was fractured along lines of class and species. The Jedi of Tephrike were forced into a protective role. Believing themselves to be the last Jedi in the Galaxy, they held their Order responsible for the Long Night, as they had been unable to prevent the release of the Gulag Virus.
Finally, the Jedi staged a coup to topple the governments after its troops gunned down peaceful protesters. It was supposed to be a provisional emergency dictatorship that would restore order and then step down to enable a transition to democracy. However, over time it evolved into a totalitarian theocracy. Corrupted by their power and scarred by the horrors of never-ending bloodshed, the Jedi became the very thing they were sworn to destroy, while remaining adamant in their belief that they served the Light. They called their new state the Dominion of Light, a nation where every citizen would be controlled from cradle to grave.
Two factions rose to oppose them. The Disciples of Vader venerated as the long-dead Dark Lord as a God and preached a gospel of human supremacism, Dark Side worship and enslavement of all non-humans, drawing support from fallen Jedi and humanocentric portions of society. The other group was the Republican Guard, a secularist faction run by a military junta that idolised the Old Republic and opposed the Force theocracies, believing that the Force itself was a disease that led those sensitive to it to evil. It received the backing of aquatic alien communities and of Yuuzhan Vong, who were targeted for extermination by the Vaderites and the Dominion.
Pervasive low-intensitiy conflict was followed by phases of intense battles and violence. The Dominion remained the strongest and largest nation, but could not unite the planet. All the while Tephrike bled. This was the world Rhea was born in and shaped by. The young Rattataki was born in a remote border province of the Dominion, far from its capital Nexus City. Her family lived in an agricultural cooperative. Officially the Dominion had abolished family units. Instead of being defined by class or the status of their parents, all citizens were supposed to be part of one classless, national community where everyone served the greater good and was assigned a place by the benevolent state.
Citizens would be raised by the state and assigned a role in accordance with their talents. Indeed even natural procreation was supposed to be done away with, for intercourse was regarded as sinful as list led to the Dark Side. Thus all citizens were expected to submit to mandatory harvesting of sperm and eggs, after which they would be sterilised. Thus the miracle of life could take place in a medically sanctioned way. The worthiest and most talented citizens would be cloned, spawning lines of clones. This especially applied to Force-Users and soldiers, but also essential professions such as doctors, engineers and so on.
However, like any dictatorship the Dominion is not omnipotent. While its totalitarian control was near absolute in Nexus City and other parts of the heartland, it had trouble enforcing its more extreme decrees on the fringe of its territory. These areas were often contested by its enemies. Local Dominion officials often had to make pragmatic compromises to maintain order, turning a blind eye to practices officially forbidden by law in return for bribes or native support. Of course, this was often followed by phases of militancy, religious fervour and purges, especially when Dominion agents were dispatched from the centre.
Thus Rhea experienced something many Dominion citizens would have never known: Something resembling a normal family life. It was a hard life, but not an unkind one. She had an older brother, but he died from disease when she was very young. The Dominion practiced collective farming. Thus her parents did not own their land and livestock. Rather it was communal property. A paramilitary organisation called the Peasants' Labour Army was responsible for agriculture. Its policies had resulted in the seizure of private landholdings and their amalgamation into collective farms run by the stw. The collective ran its holdings as a joint enterprise and had to meet production targets set by the planners of the Ministry of Plenty in distant Nexus City. Needless to say far away bureaucrats generally had little clue about local conditions, especially since the officials tended to be chosen for political reliability.
As a result their quotas often deviated from reality. Overly optimistic planning targets were a great burden for the rural folk. The level of state procurement and prices on produce were often oppressive. The government would take the majority of the produce and give little in return. Since hard currency had been done away with, citizens were issued coupons. These economic policies could cause starvation. At first, the local boss in charge of the collective was a pragmatic fellow. He was a native and thus understood the problems the peasants faced. So he covered for them and sent feigned reports to the Centre. He also allowed them to retain a generous surplus and tolerated the black market, realising that it was needed to get essential tools they could not acquire through official channels.
This gave the peasants incentive to work well and thus increased productivity. Their lot was not an easy one, but it was bearable. However, when Rhea was still very young, he was denounced by jealous employee as a 'counterrevolutionary' and sent to a reeducation camp. He was blamed for failures in agricultural production that had resulted in famine in certain areas. She saw him get dragged out by Dominion minions and suffer beatings. A number of peasants were arrested as well. They were forced to perform public self-criticism, which the members of the collective were required to attend. Families of 'wreckers' were broken up. His replacement was a Dominion bureaucrat from the city who lacked knowledge of or interest in local conditions.
Searches were conducted to requisition agricultural products. Locals accused of wrecking faced punishment. This forced the farmers to become ingineous. Many hid their products and sold them on the black market. It helped that the bureaucracy was very corrupt. Rhea had to help out on the fields and with the animals from an early age. She was also taught how to forage and defend herself. The area was not safe due to bandits, the presence of enemy partisans and wild animals. She learned how to protect herself using primitive slugthrowers, a knife and farming tools. After a particularly bad harvest, her family had to steal to survive. New farmers were settled in the collective. The new newcomers were city-dwellers who had transgressed against the Dominion's laws and been deported to reforge themselves through toil. As a result, they lacked any knowledge of agriculture. The locals disliked the newcomers, seeing them as competition for scarce resources.
The new headman of the collective tried to enforce the Dominion's 'purity laws'. Rhea and other children were separated from their families and put in an agricultural labour unit. Rhea resented the separation and was punished after running away. However, the headman soon had other worries because the war was reaching his bailiwick, so he rescinded his decree. But her joy at being reunited with her parents did not last, for the village came under attack. Vaderite forces had clashed with the troops of the Dominion over the past months. On a macroscale, these were just skirmishes, but they had terrible consequences for the locals.
The Sith were able to overrun the Dominion troops in this district. Wherever they went, they burnt, pillaged and enslaved. Supposed Dominion sympathisers were often butchered in the cruellest fashion. The rest were enslaved. The Sith warlord in command of the force of marauders was a student of Darth Impaler and did his best to impress the Dark Lord through acts of cruelty. As the Sith forces drew closer, the inhabitants of the village were hastily conscripted by the militia. The headman of the collective urged them to fight, but fled when it became clear that the battle would go ill. He was later arrested by the Inquisition and punished for his cowardice.
Rhea's father was killed in combat while trying to protect his family. The Vaderites were human supremacists and felt a particular antipathy for near-humans, as they regarded them as a pollution of the gene pool. Indeed, their holy book proclaimed that near-humans were the product of an alien conspiracy to exterminate all 'pure' humans through racial mixing. This was absurd, but they believed it quite fervently. A villager denounced Rhea's family as Dominion supporters to save herself and her kin. When the Vaderites grew frustrated by the fact that the agricultural output of the collective had been less than expected and they lost soldiers to Dominion partisans, they took it out on the villagers. Mass executions of innocent civilians took place. Villagers were led to a ravine, then lined up to be shot. Many of them were already bloody from beatings. When the order was given to fire, Rhea hit the ground just before the first slug rounds were fired. Perhaps it was the Force at work. Her mother fell upon her to shield her. The young girl hid beneath corpses. She almost choked, but dared not move while Vaderite soldiers went about, shooting those who had not perished yet. She survived in the only way that possible in that situation: by pretending to be dead.
She bore the weight of Stormtroopers walking across her body, remaining motionless. Perhaps this was an unconscious manifestation of her talent for body control. When she struggled to breathe, she instinctively drew upon the Force. She imagined herself as being as small as possible, and the fact that she was alive escaped the notice of the Sith since they could not sense her Force presence. She was able to keep open a small air hole as the dirt fell down around her. Villagers that had been spared were forced to bury the dead and then sold into slavery. She began to talk to herself, urging herself to get out and survive. Perhaps words made the difference. The last words her mother had told her kept being repeated in her mind. She dug her way out, and crept away quietly. This was for the best since the bodies were later exhumed and burned on pyres.
Young Rhea hid in the wilderness, drawing upon the survival skills her father had taught her. Her rudimentary Force skills, though untrained, helped her survive. For a while she was alone. The Vaderites scoured the countryside for partisans, so she hid from them. Her first kill was a Vaderite Stormtrooper. She managed to sneak up on him and give him a concussion by flinging a rock at his head. Then she got close and stabbed him with a knife. Driven to a frenzy, she stabbed him till he stopped moving.
By the time Dominion troops retook the area she was almost feral. Indeed she attacked the first Dominion patrol that found her, believing them to be Vaderites. The soldiers were able to pacify her and took her with them. She was given food, clean clothes and medical care at their camp. A healer took care of her. The Vaderites were in retreat again, but had left scorched earth and broken lives. Having been reunited with 'her' people, Rhea was put to work. First she helped out in the kitchen and assisted healers in taking care of the wounded. Then she was conscripted by the labour corps that helped supply frontline troops with food and ammunition, performed infrastructural and agricultural work.
Its role was not limited to support function. During a Vaderite air strike she and others Labour Soldiers manned flak cannons. When some Vaderite TIE pilots were shot down and taken prisoner, the labour corps unit was charged with guarding them. Rhea unleashed her anger on one of the pilots, beating him. This brought her to the attention of the Jedi. Anger was the path to the Dark Side, after all. She was forced to stop her assault and brought to the local Jedi commander. There she underwent a standard test, which revealed her Force-Sensitivity. Under Dominion law, all Force-Sensitives had to be trained by and join the Windian Jedi Order.
All alternate Force religions were regarded as blasphemous, for the only true way was the Jedi way. Rhea had no choice in the matter. She was inducted into the Order. At the time she was a willing convert. She still remembered how her parents had suffered under the Dominion, but like many citizens, her parents distinguished between the local petty tyrants and the government. It was common to say 'if only the Grandmaster knew, he would put an end to these abuses'. It was the good czar, bad advisor syndrome. Of course, this was also a way to criticise the régime without being seen as disloyal. But the Grandmaster of the Dominion was a distant figure and centuries of propaganda had left their mark. Though her parents grumbled about abuse of power and petty bureaucrats, they had raised Rhea to worship the Light. Moreover, the memories that drove her were those of her parents and friends being butchered by Sith. She wanted to bring their murderers to justice.
Thus she pledged herself to the teachings of the Windian Jedi Order. Rhea left the countryside that had been her home. By now, a lot of the green had vanished, consumed by the flames of war. She was brought Nexus City. The first time she saw the capital she was in awe. By the standards of Tephrike, it was enormous. The builders of the city had done their best to emulate Coruscant. The fact that the swampy ground the city had been built upon was unable to support the colossal monuments had not deterred them. The same applied to their ruinous cost. On the surface the capital looked glorious, but scratch the surface and it was anything but.
Regardless, the Jedi Temple was now her home. Rhea was older than most initiates. Moreover, she was from a border province and had been raised by a family. This made it difficult to fit in. Many of the apprentices were clones who had been grown and raised by the Order. Their templates tended to be distinguished Jedi and a good number of them had a tendency of looking down on non-clones. The Windians' teachings vilified the idea of a normal family life. Her teachers declared that the way she had been raised was sinful. Love outside of the embrace of the Order was prohibited. All this made it hard for her to adjust. She was torn between her love and devotion to her family and her desire to bring the Sith to justice.
She was disciplined after having an altercation with a fellow apprentice who had a 'proper' pedigree. Rhea had grown up illiterate and only learned to read and write after being inducted. Her rustic manners set her apart from the city folk and made her seem less sophisticated. But she had a lot of drive and did well in her training. She was eager to learn and a quick study. One thing that did not work against her was her species. The Order was a multispecies institution and found the Vaderites' human supremacism abhorrent.
Her days were characterised by combat lessons, Force training, meditation and religious indoctrination. From early on it was decided that she would pursue the path of a soldier of the Light. The Windians were a heavily militarised Order that believed Jedi were supposed to be warriors who smote those who served the Darkness. She was trained in the use of Force Imbued swords, halberds and so on. This was accompanied by forced marches, endurance training, fasting and so on. Once she had passed her trials as an initiate she was assigned a master. Her trainer was called Jedi Dianda. Unlike Rhea, Dianda was a human and a clone. Her template was a famous Jedi who had been martyred in battle. Dianda trained her hard, but also showed her empathy. However, she also cautioned Rhea against her recklessness and aggression.
It did not take long for Rhea to see action in the field. She proved herself in a skirmish with Vaderite forces when the Dominion launched an assault into Sith-held territory. When her squad came under heavy machine gun and mortat fire fire, she used her stealthy prowess to get close while her comrades returned fire. Then she attacked the Stormtroopers ferociously. Though injured in battle, she managed to cut down the Sith with her blade and a ferocious display of telekinesis. She was commended for her actions.
However, Tephrike would soon be turned upside down by the Netherworld Event. Akala's madness touched many worlds, even one as isolated and forgotten as Tephrike. In the blink of an eye countless souls had been raptured. The Dominion was thrown into chaos. Unrest broke out in Nexus City and the Jedi had to suppress the disturbances. Moreover, Force-Users found that their ability to use the Force had been impaired. Taking advantage of the Dominion's weakness, the Republican Guard launched a grand offensive. After going through a civil war that saw the 'Light Sith' temporarily ascend to power, the Vaderites joined the attack. They obviously experienced the same difficulties as the Jedi when it came to using the Force, but they were not the ones fighting a two-front war.
For a long time the Dominion had been the dominant power on Tephrike. But now it was in a state of crisis. Rhea volunteered for a force that would confront the Vaderites. During a battle to hold a border town against the enenmy, she managed to slay a mutated Rancor by throwing a heavy duty grenade down its mouth after it grabbed her.
However, her aggression proved to be her undoing when she faced one of the Light Sith. Unlike many of those who bore the moniker, this one was sincere in her beliefs. Seeing the Light Sith cut through her comrades, Rhea attacked her recklessly. Her assault was ferocious and unrelenting, but she was outmatched. The Sith managed to withstand the whirlwind and momentarily blinded her, before launching a strike that crippled her arm. Unable to use her blade well, Rhea still attacked her, using the Force, whatever weapon she could grab, her feet and fists. However, she was beaten. By the end of the duel she was a bloody mess. But the Light Sith refused to kill a helpless opponent and instead left her. Since she was apparently not even worth striking down, this made Rhea feel even worse about herself.
After this humiliation the Rattataki threw herself into battle, seeking to go out in a blaze of glory. However, she survived, slaying a Sith sorcerer and several soldiers. Rhea was wounded in the process. Her Master reprimanded her for her recklessness and losing control. However, her actions made her an ideal 'hero of the people' for the Ministry of Enlightenment, the Dominion government body responsible for propaganda. Word spread that she had stormed a Sith bunker and single-handedly smote the heretics with the power of the Light. This earned her the attention of none other than the Grand Inquisitor Antonius. The Grand Inquisitor was one of the major power brokers of the régime. Outwardly he was an affable man completely devoted to the ideology of the Dominion. Forces that resented the authority Battlemaster Mahtara had possessed for centuries backed him. However, in truth Antonius was a leecherous, conniving sociopath who feigned devotion to the Light to conceal his ambition.
He saw a useful tool in Rhea and decided to meet her. The young Rattataki was shocked and felt honoured when a leader so high-ranking as the Grand Inquisitor stood face to face before her. Little did she know his true agenda. He found her foibles and weaknesses very easy to manipulate. Dianda disapproved and tried to keep her apprentice away from the Grand Inquisitor. She was acting out of concern and a better understanding of the man's character. But Antonius managed to twist it by presenting himself as an honest friend who understood Rhea's struggles, whereas her master was trying to hold her back out of jealousy.
He hinted that Rhea could be included into the Blessed Lineage Project and thus become the template for a new line of Force clones. This was considered a great honour in the Windian Jedi Order. After Rhea had a confrontation with her teacher that went poorly, Antonius convinced her to denounce Dianda as someone who had strayed from orthodoxy. Dianda was arrested and sent to a 'reeducation camp'. Meanwhile, Rhea was praised for having 'saved the soul of a lost Jedi' and joined the Grand Inquisitor's entourage.
He promised to complete her Force training and did indeed teach her a few things. However, he soon revealed his true face. Their interactions were characterised by abuse. When he judged her to be 'uppity' he used his mental powers to torment her, all the while proclaiming that it was her own weakness that forced him to be harsh with her. Outwardly she was his student, but in actual fact she was a tool. Once she lashed out and attacked him. He was surprised by her attack and despite her inexperience she was a better duellist, so she managed to wound him. But then he unleashed the full power of the Force and she was smote.
Badly injured, she ran away. She was able to hide for a while, but the Inquisition found and captured her. She was taken to Serene Springs, an euphemistic name for a Dominion brainwashing camp run by the Inquisition. There she was subjected to a mixture of gruelling physical labour, mental indoctrination and outright torture. The goal of the camp was to strip its inmates of personality, stamp out independent thought and then reforge them as obedient drones. When the Grand Inquisitor came for a visit, he presented himself as a friend. The Dark Side had corrupted her and she had succumbed to its demonic influence. This had forced him to be hard to her. He disassociated himself from the worst forms of torture and even made a show of punishing guards who had been cruel to her. Having been broken by the torture, she submitted and returned to his services. He tossed her small scraps of knowledge, but made sure that her Force training remained incomplete.
Then the star people came. When a Firemane fleet showed up in Tephrike's orbit, Mahtara and her supporters urged caution. They believed the outsiders could be used and that diplomacy was the Dominion's best options. Some of them might have also hoped that their arrival could be used to push through vital reforms and liberalise the nation. Antonius sided with those who viewed the outsiders as Sith abominations and proclaimed that the Dominion needed to wage a holy war. Antonius himself did not believe this, but it was convenient for him. He managed to gain the support of the paranoid Grandmaster, who was obsessed with apocalyptic visions and resented Mahtara for isolating him from the machinery of government.
A Firemane delegation that had come to negotiate with the Dominion was attacked by extremists. The result was war. After levelling the Jedi Temple, Firemane deployed ground troops. Rhea was not part of these battles. However, Battlemaster Mahtara had gone underground and Antonius declared her a traitor. Rhea was one of the agents Antonius dispatched to assassinate the renegade Battlemaster's allies in the Grand Army and the government of the Dominion. To this end she worked with the Temple Guard, who had been bribed to support the Grand Inquisitor. The victims included clone commanders, ministers and Jedi Knights loyal to Mahtara as well as some of her apprentices.
At the time Rhea knew very little about the outsiders. Dominion propaganda proclaimed them to be demons who had attacked innocent civilians. When she raw that the Jedi Temple had been reduced to a smouldering ruin and saw the burnt bodies of Padawans and Younglings, she felt anger. She might have toyed with escaping, but the Grand Inquisitor was still alive. When they met up again, he gloated, claiming that final victory was in their grasp for the Dominion would soon unleash 'superweapons' the likes of which no one had ever seen before. He also informed her that a powerful 'Firemane Sith Lady' had been captured by the Dominion and seen the Light.
When he travelled to Serene Springs, Rhea and a large entourage accompanied him. There Elpsis Kerrigan-Alcori had undergone a process of indoctrination quite similar to Rhea's, though more thorough in some ways. When the Grand Inquisitor arrived, he received the red carpet treatment. Rhea was uncomfortable when she ran into Jedi Diona, Elpsis' jailer, for the clone had the same template as Dianda. Elpsis now called herself Jedi Roxane. Antonius gloated over how obedient and pure she was and congratulated Jedi Inquisitor Lea for turning her into a weapon of the Light.
Then he revealed that Roxane had denounced Diona for heresy. Diona fought bravely but was overpowered by the guards with help from Lea and Antonius. Diona had been Elpsis' jailer, but come to feel sympathy for her after realising that she was not a Sith and that they had been lied to. Now the Grand Inquisitor ordered Roxane to start the process of purging her mind so that the renegade could be rebon as she had. At first Roxane complied, but then she snapped. Proclaiming herself to be Elpsis, she set the building on fire. Diona managed to free herself and slew Lea after taking out some guards.
Meanwhile, Elpsis engaged Antonius in a brutal duel. Duty compelled Rhea to step in and aid her master, but she resisted. When she emerged from the rubble, the only left of the Grand Inquisitor were ashed and a skeleton. Rhea was incredulous, for the possibility that her master could be beaten had seemed unthinkable to her. She drew a gun, but then instead of attacking Elpsis she shot a guard taking aim at her former master's killer. Then she fired several bullets into Antonius' skeleton. Amidst the chaos, the prisoners of the facility had risen in revolt against their tormentors. Rhea joined Elpsis and Diona when they aided the rebellious prisoners, freeing those still in captivity and taking revenge on the Dominion guards. It was a brutal slaughter. Driven by an intense fury, Rhea cut down guards and Inquisitors. No Dominion minions were spared. The few that surrendered, proclaiming they had been just obeying orders, were immolated.
Meanwhile, a Firemane task force had been able to break through. Elpsis was reunited with her people and the prisoners were evacuated. It was the first time Rhea left the planet and saw space. She was in awe and a bit frightened. In the aftermath, she received medical care and had time to think of the future. She learned that the Grandmaster was dead and that Mahtara had probably staged a coup to take over. Fortress Purity, an important Dominion citadel, had fallen to a combined force of Firemane and Republican Guard troops. The Dominion had suffered a blow, but still stood. Firemane seemed reluctant to commit a large force to a prolonged campaign. She did not care for or trust the star people. However, she felt a growing attachment to Elpsis, for the slightly older woman had set her free. For the first time Rhea had a real choice and she chose to ask Elpsis to take her on as a student so that she could learn to be strong and punish the unjust. After some hesitation, Elpsis agreed, despite herself being traumatised by what had happened to her in the camp.
Now Rhea seeks to learn all she can from her new teacher. Time will tell whether she will be able to focus the burning rage inside her or it will cause her to burn out. Rhea has joined the Unchained, an organisation of Tephriki refugees and former prisoners who have banded together for mutual protection and build a new, more democratic society. She belongs to their more militant members, who want to free more of their people on Tephrike and take the fight to the tyrants. At the same time she has joined Inferno Platoon, Elpsis' unit, to further her understanding of the Force. This makes her a member of the Order of Fire. She has been given the rank of Corporal. However, while this makes her a Firemane employee, her focus is on her people.
Since leaving Tephrike, Rhea has learned a lot about the outside galaxy and participated in Firemane operations against Imperial Remnant groups. For instance, she saw action against a First Order Remnant faction that had enslaved Qadiri scouts from one of the independent worldships. The Qadiri and Firemane launched a joint operation to eliminate the slavers and free their captives. Rhea distinguished herself during the mission and struck up a friendship with some of the Qadiri, who belong to a group of freed slaves called the Stardriven.
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