#scorned by the natural born troopers and clone troopers

[inky-for-a-bit]

The Bad Batch creators making Crosshair suffer more every time he appears:

[inamindfarfaraway]

My Star Wars OCs

*VERY, VERY LONG! ALSO, READ THIS FIRST!*

Name

Caspira Plaven. Her parents nicknamed her Spira and her Rebel friends may also call her that. They do not, however, use her stormtrooper nickname, Nova, after her radiant personality and treasured nova crystal ring. Her operating number is GH-470, but she is scornful of it and finds it degrading. Speciesist bullies derogatorily call her “spikehead”.

Gender

Female.

Sexuality

Pansexual.

Species

Theelin.

Age

Twenty-six in 2 ABY.

Appearance

Caspira has teal skin covered in darker teal dapples and straight, thin coral hair in a plaited ponytail skirting her upper back. It’s tucked under her helmet when she has it on. She has three sharp protruding horns on either side of her head, the tips of the highest pair slightly chipped from years of wearing a helmet designed for Humans, and hoofed feet. Her almond eyes are shimmering silver. She is average height, slender, yet as firm and fit as you’d expect from an elite soldier, with muscular arms and shoulders. Her face has angular features, a pointed chin and high forehead and cheekbones, but a smile looks natural on it. Her posture is straight and dignified. 

Undercover she wears standard white stormtrooper armour over a black body glove. The boots are tailored to her hooves. It is a stormtrooper convention to subtly modify your armour to distinguish yourself to your fellow soldiers. Hers has transparent, plastic faux gemstone shards stuck below her helmet’s integrated earpieces and along the lower edges of her forearm guards to mimic earrings and bracelets. They wouldn’t catch your eye unless you knew to look for such a modification. Her casual wear not undercover is shabby Rebel fatigues, but she makes an effort to be pleasing to the eye and has a knack for colour coordination. Accustomed to armour, she prefers stiffer fabrics like leather and denim. She wears cobbled-together, mostly metal jewellery items in her Rebel outfits and fiddles with them to stim. Chains are her favourite pieces to use (they feel nice and rattle). Her favourite colours are red and silver.

Backstory

Caspira was born in 24 BBY to her loving parents Iupe and Firthil Plaven in Kuat City, the Core World Kuat’s capital. Firthil was a ship mechanic, Iupe a police officer. She believes herself fortunate she has little to no memories of the Clone Wars. Then when she was five the war ended, to her parents’ relief, and Republic was restructured into the Empire. Iupe got promoted to a patrol trooper and the demand for warships gave Firthil more work than ever. Times were good.

But this sentiment wasn’t universally shared. Iupe was a rapid responder to a terrorist bombing in protest of New Order policy that same year and evacuated the site of civilians, but was badly burned in the explosion, though not to the extent she couldn’t work again after a long recovery period. Caspira idolized Iupe and watching her heal from her injuries (some of her earliest linear memories of events) was harrowing, instilling a strong need for order and fear and distrust of rebellion and chaos. The stigma Iupe would receive because of her scars didn’t help. Caspira became set on being some form of trooper too. She was diagnosed as autistic at nine. Firthil grew more protective of her as the years passed and used their close relationship to gently try to dissuade her from her dream, hoping to at least stop one of the two most important people in his life regularly endangering hers. She attended the Kuat Imperial Academy nevertheless. She briefly dated a Human classmate called Orst Eidol until the speciesist atmosphere pressured Orst to leave her. Human supremacist and ableist attitudes and bullying aside, her youth was overall reasonably happy. She graduated to be a promising soldier in Lightning Company, GH Battalion of the Stormtrooper Corps, despite discrimination keeping her somewhat a social outcast.

Two years ago Firthil took a job on the Death Star. Months later Alderaan was destroyed, throwing her into turmoil. The people she trusted, admired, believed in, had just killed billions of innocent civilians. The justifications the Empire offered seemed hollow and contrived, certainly nowhere near able to justify the scale of death and destruction that had occurred. So perhaps even the mighty ideals of the Empire weren’t immune to corruption? The Human supremacy already proved that. Perhaps not all, but a fraction, of the Rebels had... a point? Before she could reach any solid conclusions, her world was shattered again along with the Death Star. She helplessly watched Firthil be obliterated. She spent the following weeks in a listless haze of grief, shock, internal conflict, and fear of how that conflict could affect her future, to her mother and friends’ concern. This allowed her to be captured by a Rebel cell after getting separated from her squad and knocked out in a battle.

An Alderaanian who’d lost his home and young daughter Zattah to the Death Star, Rebel Intelligence officer Dolu Qeen volunteered to guard Caspira to take out his anger on the “Imperial scum”. Instead he found a disenchanted young woman seeking nothing more than answers. He came to realize she didn’t deserve to be the subject of his wrath and gradually, as he and his friends taught her the Rebels’ side of the story she was all too desperate to learn and she told them of her past, they began to build a rapport. Eventually she swore to aid them in opposing the Empire and earned her freedom. In fact, the Rebel Alliance’s history, policies and structure is a recent special interest. She doesn’t enjoy breaking the law, but her morals outrank it. However, she may have renounced all ties to the totalitarian government, but she refuses to abandon the citizens it misleads and manipulates. Citizens like her mother, her siblings in arms. So she was ‘abandoned’ by the Rebels evacuating a captured base and infiltrated her old company as a spy. Her goal, besides intel gathering, is to sneakily counter the propaganda and spread dissent. A division of Rebel Intelligence agents have the same mission, with differing cover stories and Dolu overseeing everything. Hopefully they’ll set off a chain reaction and enough troopers and workers will be convinced to desert the Empire or, better yet, actively fight it, destabilizing it while reminding the Rebels it’s their duty to defend these ordinary people too to preemptively oil the social transition to a new republic.

Personality

In spite of her occupation, Caspira is not naturally violent. Had the galaxy been without war, she might easily have turned out a pacifist. She is willing to fight swiftly and decisively, but strictly in self-defence, defence of others or as a last resort, follows an honour code in combat and has a special contempt for cheating and kicking enemies who are down. Iupe’s scars and tales of her gritty battles against crime taught her that violence is not to be glorified, and frontline combat only reinforced that. She prefers blaster rifles because they’re quick and put distance between her and the harm she causes. Her motivation for joining the Imperial Army and the Rebellion was the same: to lower the casualty rates and duration of the Galactic Civil War to the best of her ability. Ultimately, her dream is a galaxy where another version of her family could live long, untroubled lives together. Where neither Firthil Plaven nor Zattah Qeen need die. She’s a very idealistic person unafraid to stand up for what she thinks is right. She does ask big questions, she’s just believed for most of her life that it wasn’t her place to answer them. Safety, security and justice are most important to her in a society, but freedom is close behind. Safety includes being protected regardless of your identity or beliefs (provided they aren’t inherently immoral or flawed), after all. That starts with recognizing every sentient being is worthy of protection and fairness. On that note, she’s always been kind to droids and is particularly fond of mouse droids.

She is pragmatic in other areas of life however. Caspira knows nothing in the galaxy is free and treats every interaction like a transaction. She still deeply values her bonds; positive feelings and understanding are her favourite goods to trade! Empathy is a rare and precious commodity in today’s galaxy, and she deals in it. Even an altruistic act grants the doer a sense of accomplishment. Everything she does is under the preconception she must give something to get anything that her history of overcoming hardships has drilled into her, but that doesn’t always apply. She’s slow to trust people who help her before she’s given them any justification, placing her in their debt. That’s why she always tries to make the first move. Whether it’s information, skill or simply obedience, she can only thoroughly relax when secure in what she’s bringing to the table. This has given her lurking insecurities, because what if she isn’t contributing enough to earn her and her loved ones what they need? What is she isn’t enough? This is her worst fear, and more immediately that one of her deals or gambles will fall through or backfire and hurt people.

It’s also meant she subconsciously amplifies her genuine strengths such as compassion, confidence and resilience so people will like and value her. Not always understanding social rules is another reason for this, and for creating a rigid system of internal rules. Sociology is a lifelong special interest. She is an extrovert and eloquent speaker able to put on a brave face. Offering emotional support comes naturally to her. She works best in groups following someone else’s lead. Like her fellow stormtroopers have to discern each other and their emotional states, Caspira has learnt to read mannerisms, voice inflections and body language and control hers extremely well. Her code can condone lying for a good cause (her conscience objects though) and she’s proving to do it masterfully. She’d much rather talk than fight and pigeonholes herself into the role of diplomat within her social circles. When she’s agitated, she rambles and says more filler words. She vocally stims by humming and clicking her tongue. Being speechless or inarticulate is a sign she’s depressed, terrified, enraged, or shocked and combined with frantic stimming can signal a meltdown. Her social philosophy is thus: everyone has their own agenda. The more of those agendas align with yours, the better chance it has of being achieved. Friendship has tangible benefits. And spiritual, of course, but you can’t survive on spirit alone. Isolation is dangerous, especially for a non-Human in the Empire. Her cordiality is a survival mechanism.

This isn’t to say her relationships are shallow, they’re anything but. She’s passionately loving and loyal to her family and friends, having stated her her friendships near and far have been her only reserve of strength these difficult last two years. Iupe taught her all she knows about justice and morality. She is eternally grateful and unconditionally protective of her, and hated being unable to contact her as a prisoner and non-undercover Rebel. Her personal goals are to tell Iupe the whole truth and sway her and all her friends to the Rebels’ side. In particular she’s invested in her best friend Stygand Fieretti, who she loves like a brother but is a staunch Imperial. She misses her father every time she’s building or fixing something. His death still gives her nightmares. Explosions and thunderstorms can trigger flashbacks. The homogeneous, evil Rebel perception of Imperial citizens annoys her. She tries not to lash out when angry to avoid offending others, instead bottling her emotions up and acting passive aggressive, but disrespecting either of her parents even unintentionally will have her drop all pretences. It’s one of few offences she deeply struggles to forgive. Unrestrained, her anger can lead to brutal verbal attacks and she often fails to handle it responsibly due to her unfamiliarity with expressing it. Loneliness is possibly the least bearable ordeal for her psychologically and she began befriending her captors just to have people to talk to. Her and Dolu’s relationship now approaches father and daughter. They depend on, respect and care for each other and have an implicit trust. He gave her her second chance to truly serve the galaxy; she helped him let go of his bitterness; together they’re learning to live past mourning.

Caspira isn’t traditionally intelligent, but both socially perceptive as described above and street smart. She’s resourceful, innovative and good at thinking on her feet. Even serving the Empire, she rejected the mindless stormtrooper stereotype. She takes pride in her ingenuity. The downside emerges when her strengths are legitimately insufficient to solve whatever problem she’s in. Her optimism and persistence become increasingly illogical and stressed denial and desperate attempts to find a way out, to the point of sabotaging herself in her haste. She doesn’t know when to quit. She thinks she can bargain with the universe, that the right price can settle anything. She expects good deeds to be rewarded and therefore blames her actions for being inadequate when she can’t find a reward or silver lining.

Theelins are known throughout the galaxy for being drawn to artistic expression in some form. Caspira is no different. Her chosen medium is metal, crystals and glass. Her time in the conformist Stormtrooper Corps have made her consider the recreational aspect of this talent frivolous though and she downplays its importance to her. She’s hypersensitive to light, so while she appreciates her helmet’s tinted lenses in brightly lit places, she loves all things sparkly and shiny. She would assist Firthil repairing speeders and speeder bikes in his workshop. In her teen years the special interest turned to jewellery and trinkets. Kuat society is highly classist and she wanted to fit in with her richer peers. She developed a materialistic side to bolster her reputation. Firthil was the first to notice this - scrap pieces would repeatedly disappear from the workshop and reappear polished around her wrist or on a neck chain - and saved up to buy her an expensive red nova crystal ring. It was her first real jewellery item, and is kept in a safe beneath her bed in the Rebel base containing her dearest possessions. She is neat and organizes her belongings according to shape, colour and other aesthetic patterns. Watching bright and spinning things is another stim.

While her core ideals are non-negotiable, beyond that she often falls for the appeal to novelty fallacy. She buys the newest, most sophisticated tools and equipment and all the status symbols she can afford... and maybe a few she can’t. Yes, she’s impulsive. She’ll jump onto ideas presented as original and/or advanced. The Clone Wars were bad, so the Empire must be better. The Empire is bad? Join the Rebellion! This risky strategy has never been done? It hasn’t been proven not to work then, has it? The moment she obtains a means of bargaining, her instinct is to spend it. It doesn’t help that being a fugitive constantly on the move she tends to lose things pretty regularly. Rebellion life is forcing her to manage these habits and be more frugal. She dislikes the bland taste of army rations and enthusiastically indulges in spicy, flavourful exotic dishes. If a local food seems weird or disagreeable to most, she’ll be the first to try it.

Caspira has felt attraction to several individuals male, female and of other or unclear genders. She’s rekindling her friendship with Orst and there’s much sexual tension between them, both regretting the breakup. She wouldn’t mind having a serious relationship. But she knows romance shouldn’t be on her priority list and, except playful flirtation, doesn’t pay these desires any mind.

*Note: her story starts in 0 BBY with her a naive stormtrooper, the Alderaan-Battle of Yavin double whammy being the inciting incident, and ends with the Great Stormtrooper Mutiny of 4 ABY, at the time of the Battle of Endor, and the immediate aftermath of Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader’s death. These bios represent her and her friends in the middle section of the story, not featuring further character development.*

***

Name

Stygand Fieretti. His operating number is GH-959, but he disdains it for being boring and stifling. He likes his stormtrooper nickname Firewater, after his love of alcohol and loosely fitting his ‘fiery’ surname, much better. Sometimes, for example in a hurry, by good friends or patients who are having difficulty speaking, it’s shortened to F.

Gender

Male.

Sexuality

Heterosexual.

Species

Half Mirialan, half Human.

Age

Twenty-six in 2 ABY.

Appearance

With above-average flexibility and agility due to his Mirialan genes, his body is toned, svelte and lightweight. He’s nimble and a good sprinter. He has light green skin; soft, handsome boyish features; and inviting, wide-set light brown eyes that have been said to instantly put people at ease. His fingers are mottled with accidental scars from his blades and laser tools. His bouncy dusty brown curls do not respond well to being compressed under a helmet all day. They tangle together and he can’t be bothered to brush them out properly anymore. He fidgets with his hands and adjusts his clothing reflexively, moreso feeling anxious or stressed. 

He wears white stormtrooper armour over a black body glove, a bulky first aid kit strapped to his back and usually a flask of alcohol clipped to his utility belt. To signal that’s he’s a medic, his pauldron has a red medical cross symbol emblazoned on it, similar to the one the Grand Army of the Republic employed. His cuirass has shallow notches on the lower sides made with his vibroscalpel, where his arms would naturally hide them. His off-duty clothes are comfortable and loose, but conservative to hide his skin. His favourite colours are purple and green.

Backstory

Stygand was born in 24 BBY to a Mirialan mother, Noorani, and Human father, Bexx, in a poor town on Mirial. Noorani was forced to resign from her job in local politics when the Empire annexed Mirial. He barely passed the mandatory midichlorian test given to all children, and probably would have failed had the hospital had more sophisticated equipment. Alarmed by this and aware of Noorani’s family history of Force sensitivity, his parents were rather overprotective of him. They never told him why for fear he’d tell people and get tested again. They held subversive political views, remembering the Republic, Jedi and the important role of the Force in Mirialian culture fondly. This forced the household into constant secrecy and seclusion. Whenever Bexx and Noorani got too vocal, they moved to a new town and covered their tracks. Outgoing young Stygand resented this and came to conflate those views with their restrictive, apparently  paranoid attitudes and dangerous, uneasy lifestyle. He didn’t understand what their problems were. Imperial youth group was fun and he made friends there, on the occasions he could sneak out to attend; the Empire’s gentrification improved the Outer Rim backwater’s economy; the Imperial Academy was his best chance to see the galaxy and be consequential. Imperial institutions were the same worldwide. The galaxy was doing fine without the Jedi, right? There was no point clinging to the past and wild conspiracies. Every argument pushed them further apart. Bexx was the coldest. The family did love each other nonetheless and Stygand wanted them to drop their radical beliefs so badly for their own safety. He decided to be a medic partly because of all the jobs in the Imperial Army, how could his parents disapprove? He was literally saving lives! Surely once, just this once, they’d be proud of him. Noorani claimed she was, but they wouldn’t stop asking him to rethink it. Finally at eighteen he snapped and gave them an ultimatum: show up to his graduation ceremony, the biggest day of his life, or prove they didn’t love him. They promised they’d be there.

They weren’t. Angry and crestfallen, he messaged and called them to hear their excuse for hours... no response. He stormed back to the Fieretti home. They were missing. He asked around. No answers. Until while rifling through the house in a panic he discovered a recorded hologram: Noorani and Bexx apologized, confessed that they had affiliated with the planet’s Rebel militia and begged him to trust them and meet them at their hideout, where he’d receive a proper explanation. According to the government he’d sworn an oath to serve, the right thing to do was betray his family. But his parents seemed to genuinely wish to make amends. They were criminals. They had raised him... or had they? The Empire had really been there for him, supported him, all these years. If he ignored this chance to stop the terrorists, he’d bear the innocent blood they’d go on to spill - his parents may have been too afraid to be see they were doing harm, but he wasn’t going to make their mistakes. So he turned over the holoprojector to the Imperial Security Bureau. The militia was ambushed and his parents were imprisoned (little does he know, they were later broken out and joined the Rebel Alliance). That night he drank for the first time, and got blackout drunk.

In adulthood he threw himself into stormtrooper life. He made many more friends, the closest being Caspira Plaven aka GH-470. In 0 ABY he was distraught to watch her be captured and missed her terribly. He ended up bonding with paragon stormtrooper Commander Orst Eidol in the following two years, since he grew sloppy in his grief and worry over her and she pushed him back onto his feet out of concern that eventually became an unlikely friendship. Recently, miraculously, he got the chance to rescue Caspira during the siege of a Rebel stronghold. Now things can be just like before, maybe better! But trouble is brewing in the Stormtrooper Corps. Whispers of dissent are growing louder and more widespread. And he doesn’t want to believe it, but Caspira appears to be at the heart of it...

Personality

Stygand is a warm, affectionate person. He’s cheerful, optimistic and if not carefree, can certainly pretend he is. His driving desire is to belong, to be wanted and accepted. He’ll go through hell and charge into anything to protect people he considers his responsibility, but especially his friends, forming attachments very hard and fast. His one-on-one social competence fluctuates according to how accepting of his emotional dependency people are; if they can handle it or clearly set their boundaries, he’s endearing; if not, he can get annoying. He does eventually recognize when he annoys people and wishes he knew what he’s doing wrong. He swears a lot, but doesn’t come across as vulgar because he has a way of making curses sound like every other word. If anything, his friends sometimes forget he isn’t younger.

He’s an entertainer, healer and idea guy, not a leader. To be honest, the thought of being in charge makes him nervous; too much could go wrong and it would all be his fault. He loves the feeling of sharing an identity and being part of a movement bigger and more important than himself. In his and Caspira’s friendship dynamic, he often alternates between being her partner in bending rules to have fun and raise morale and the responsible restrainer of her impulsiveness to protect their jobs. He prefers to live in the present and is uncomfortable thinking too far ahead. That leaves his long-term goals and plans subject to outside suggestion. But once he does commit to a judgement, it’s next to impossible to shake. His stubbornness can be heroic or harmful depending on the context.

His past affects him far more than he lets on. He is ashamed of his Mirialan heritage and poor background. He mostly refuses to acknowledge his past. Only Caspira, who’s like a sister to him, has heard the basics that he lived on Mirial and had an unhappy home life. Even she doesn’t know his deepest, darkest secret - his parents’ fate and his role in it. His haunting guilt over it and that they could never be a normal family is buried deeper to the point of denial. He clings to the Imperial dogma to evidence his rationalization that his parents (and everyone else he’s hurt since) deserved whatever happened to them, at the cost of shame he ever has doubts, internalized speciesism and fanatical hostility toward ‘the enemy’ and all associated with them. The lingering worry that he made the wrong decision back then terrifies him. His absolute worst nightmare is being a bad person, or that he already is, because then his life and all his choices, all the harm he’s done, predicated on his moral righteousness would have been for nothing. For reasons he doesn’t want to think about, he can’t bring himself to get rid of a happy holopicture of the Fierettis taken when he was seven. Not that he ever looks at it.

Abandonment is a close second worst fear, and generally losing loved ones to estrangement and emotional rifts. He’s always defined himself based on external expectations - he doesn’t know who he is on his own. While innately trusting entering a relationship and taking people at their word, he’s wary of unpredictable or precarious situations and choices. He hates uncertainty, the inability to truly trust something or someone. This combination means he can be easily manipulated through fear by a person or institution he has faith in. He loathes and is badly hurt by betrayal and deception more than other wrongdoings and believes lying for any reason below survival is never justified. If he’s angry with you, he won’t hesitate to show it. He’ll hurl insults and taunts, refuse to let you forget your offence, and possibly even resort to violence. He can nurse grudges for years.

In contrast to his disownment of Mirial, Stygand loves stormtrooper culture and immerses himself in it. It fills the void of connection and validation he never got from his family. He knew he didn’t need to modify his armour because his medic gear identified him, but he wanted to take part in the tradition. Having found his lonely childhood unbearably tedious whenever it wasn’t rife with anxiety, he greatly respects the “art” of having group fun and raising others’ spirits. He runs a trading market for desired items; has mastered all three main coded stormtrooper languages; enjoys playing cards and gambling; makes fun of his superior officers behind their backs; and frequently confers his siblings in arms’ nicknames (such as Caspira’s Nova and Orst’s Idol). He’d rather use practical methods to improve his likeability than work to solve his flaws. Alcohol is one of them. Wines and distilled spirits like gin and brandy are his favourites. It enhances his infectious laidback air and allows him to escape the ghosts of his past. He has a remarkable tolerance for it and rarely actually gets drunk in everyday life, never on duty, so tends to treat it casually yet is always careful not let it impair his duties. Should he ever drink with the intention of severe intoxication, he’s really upset.

Styand takes his medic career extremely seriously and is well respected among his comrades for it. It’s hard not to admire the man who risks his life daily to save others’ and does everything in his power to bring your friends and allies back from the brink of death. He’s been by most of their sides at their most vulnerable and embarrassing, while they cried for their parents or were delirious on painkillers, so an underlying trust and intimacy is inevitable. This is why no matter how much he flirts with insubordination, he’s never court-martialled. He always has a grateful platoon looking out for him. In relationships and military politics alike, he may mess around but he’s loyal where it counts. He’s skilled with vibroknives and a blaster pistol to protect patients he’s treating on the battlefield. He isn’t squeamish about gore and the like whatsoever, but has a moral aversion to killing. He avoids using the aforementioned weapons as much as possible and when he does use them, hates watching the victim die. He’s shaken to see the life flicker out of a random soldier’s eyes and devastated a friend’s, but a person he just fatally injured’s distresses him even more. He jokes that he’s deadlier than the average soldier despite this because he knows exactly what the Human body can’t survive. The thought of his own death doesn’t especially frighten him. He doesn’t cry easily.

His intelligence is primarily academic and technical. Stygand spent many a free moment of his adolescence studying on his computer and datapad. He needed to be in the topmost echelon of his junior academy graduates to earn his way out of the Outer Rim. He has a keen memory for facts and figures. His thought process isn’t as logical as he believes it is, but he still holds reason in high regard, hence his problem of rationalizing inappropriately. Knowledge is another thing that attracts others to him and keeps his reputation in good stead, having the army rules memorized. He instinctively tries to help his friends by offering theoretical solutions to their problems and ideas for moving forward.

Unbeknownst to anyone, he is faintly Force sensitive. It gives him enhanced reflexes, physical and mental endurance, a gentle subconscious attraction to people and objects that are strong with the Force and a heightened awareness of people’s temperament. It also bolsters his alcohol tolerance. He has an uncanny intuition that doesn’t help his habit of relying excessively on feelings and not reasoning enough. He believes the Force is a superstition or myth and the Jedi his parents spoke of were overdramatized and romanticized at best.

***

Name

Commander Orst Eidol (pronounced A-dol) Her operating number is GH-638. She doesn’t mind it and prefers it in formal contexts over her stormtrooper nickname Idol, derived from her surname and reputation as a model soldier, which she considers improper and mildly embarrassing. She’d really prefer to just be called her name.

Gender

Female.

Sexuality

Homosexual.

Species

Human.

Age

Twenty-seven in 2 ABY.

Appearance

She has a towering, heavyset build with a large torso, rippling muscles and a strong jawline; cinnamon brown skin with coppery undertones; and thick, wavy black hair just on the edge of curly in a ruffled bob. Her baggy eyes are the brown of her beloved bitter caf, streaked with uneven rings. Her features have been likened to a bear’s and show her emotions transparently and intensely as she rarely removes her helmet on duty, so when she’s angry or stern she can look very intimidating, but when she’s happy her face can light up a room. She habitually crosses her arms, and crosses her legs seated. A beating from an IG-RM enforcer droid a year ago damaged her liver to the extent it would have killed her, had she not got a complex system of cybernetics inserted to replace it. The prosthesis creates a dull humming noise that increases under strain and her black bodyglove has extra padding below her ribs to protect it. She has permanent surgical scars. 

She wears stormtrooper armour that’s always polished to a gleaming white. On her right shoulder she wears an orange pauldron, representing her rank of stormtrooper commander. She’s never modified her armour and doesn’t intend to. Off duty her clothes are stylish and elegant and she’s partial to long skirts, short sleeves and bold solid colours, never exposing her midsection. Her favourite colours are blue and black.

Backstory

Born in the capital Iziz in 25 BBY to an aristocratic lineage with a proud history of military service on the Inner Rim world Onderon, Orst had a luxurious early childhood. Her father Major General Raiph and mother Jyell were earnest Separatists who believed the Republic was hopelessly corrupt and authoritarian, and the assassination of Jyell’s friend and beloved public figure Senator Mina Bonteri, apparently by the Republic, only fuelled that fire. When Sanjay Rash usurped King Ramses Dendup they were disappointed in his capabilities, but grudgingly closed ranks with him against Saw Gerrera’s Republic-backed rebels. They saw Onderon’s switch to the Republic in the Clone Wars as traitorous and disgraceful. And the Empire was its predecessor’s worst flaws amplified. Though Orst was sheltered from the carnage of the Clone Wars, these events taught her at an early age that war and politics were complicated and it could be difficult to know who to trust. She also received a superb education her parents eagerly pushed her in.

Unfortunately for the Eidols, Onderon’s Imperial Moff cracked down on their criticism. The family quickly lost popularity and were subject to suspicion. If they continued campaigning, they’d be named enemies of the state. With their lives and the custody of their six-year-old child at stake, the couple argued about what to do. Jyell was willing to relent and keep her beliefs private, for Orst’s sake; Raiph vehemently refused to cooperate with the Empire on moral grounds and proposed they flee to a safer environment to raise Orst, even suggesting collaboration with Gerrera’s civilian-killing rebels to a point if necessary. Horrified, she accused him of picking and choosing his principles and not caring about his family. He retorted she preferred her privileges to any principles at all and enabling the oppressors. The conflict was long and ugly. They didn’t divorce, but both threatened it. Orst, for her part, thought that if staying together and keeping their home meant doing what the government said in public, so be it. The Empire didn’t seem to doing anything that bad and the terrorists were obviously worse. Eventually Jyell won. Gradually they slunk back into the Moff’s good graces. Though they made efforts to repair their relationship, Orst could tell it would forever be strained. She got the impression her parents didn’t understand how observant she was. The rest of her youth she remained doted on, perhaps to compensate for that stressful period, but the looming tension of the Empire and countless ‘what-ifs’ never quite left.

She always wanted to uphold the Eidol legacy and join the army, so the Imperial Army would have to do. She was the top of her class and journeyed to Kuat Imperial Academy, one of to the galaxy’s best, to further her training. There she had a deep friendship and romance with her classmate Caspira Plaven. But Caspira wasn’t Human. Their Human classmates ridiculed them both and their teachers disapproved. Orst couldn’t bear the thought of failing her goal and letting her family down after working so hard. Reluctantly, she dumped Caspira. Her heart wasn’t in it (or was, rather) however and she avoided her and minimized their interactions for the remainder of school to smother her feelings. She again graduated at the top of her class. Within six years she rose to the captain of Lightning Company, then the commander of GH Battalion, unusually young.

Two years ago the Empire committed its most heinous act of cruelty yet, killing a densely populated planet. Orst’s faith in it was totally gone. Caspira losing her father in the Death Star’s explosion brought her back to her attention and she attempted to console her. The Rebels captured Caspira shortly afterward. Orst missed knowing she was okay and worried about her. She formed her first real friendship in the corps with Caspira’s longtime friend Stygand Fieretti aka GH-959, and has been letting her guard down, even revealing some of her past to him. Now that Caspira’s been rescued, the women are reconnecting and finding closure. But Orst isn’t deluded or stupid. She can tell the Rebel sentiment has stuck with her old flame... and she looks to be a valuable ally.

Personality

One of Orst’s most defining traits is her cynical ideology: that sentient beings are inherently selfish, regardless of good intentions or moral affectations, and trying to pretend otherwise will only lead to pain. Being principled put her parents’ lives and marriage on the line. It put her future in jeopardy. It motivates trillions of her fellow soldiers to march to their meaningless, miserable deaths on a daily basis. She just doesn’t think it’s worth the cost. Everyone prioritizing personal gain - the majority actively and consciously - means they’ll jump to abuse, exploit and discard those who aren’t prepared to do the same. She isn’t merely selfish, she’s afraid not to be. In this galaxy, bad things happen to good people and vice versa. That leads to a negative self-esteem, since she thinks herself a bad person for her willingness to sacrifice others to succeed. She has a grim view of life and the future overall, but being an unwavering pragmatist resolves to improve her life as much as possible. This resolve is almost all-consuming. Her drive to survive is all that’s sustained her through multiple near-death experiences. She’s misanthropic and distrustful. She keeps people at a distance with a frosty disposition and has a curt, blunt, formal manner of speech. She’s been in ‘business mode’ for so long she’s unsure how to act in relaxed social situations.

Her self-esteem may be low, but her self-image is another story. Orst is very proud of her physical and mental skills. She’s ambitious and goal-oriented, with the deep-seated idea that things can always be better and she deserves them to be, and hardworking and conscientious to facilitate that. She’s intelligent, perceptive, analytical, reflective and calculating, used to feeling like the cleverest in the room. Not being challenged for too long bores her. Whatever she sets her mind to, she’ll push herself to excel in. She is a believer in natural aptitude and handles skills not clicking soon with jarringly immature sulks and fits of frustration. That said, she’s ashamed of this and is working on getting her emotional responses to match her realistic mindset. She thrives in a structured atmosphere. Having her routine disrupted makes her irritable. If she’s angry or upset with you, she’ll plot to humiliate you in ways that reflect well on her. She abhors pity and reacts to it defensively.

Because she values her thoughts so much, her greatest desire is to have power and be heard, significant. She hates feeling weak and ineffectual, against either external factors like her parents’ troubles or the internal insecurities that allow her to cave in to peer pressure. So she seeks stable power even at the expense of her integrity and present happiness. For example, in Imperial history lessons as a girl she was quick to question logical discrepancies in the propaganda. Her classmates were jealous of her engagement with the subject and thought the teacher admired it, especially considering she got extra advanced classes; truthfully the teacher punished her and ordered her not to ask so many questions, and the advanced classes were supposed to drill in the revisionist version of history. She didn’t tell anyone this, not even her parents. Her whole life has been a balancing act between trying to get ahead in a conformist system and preserving the individuality she treasures, having her cake and eating it, and frankly, it’s exhausting. But she keeps it up - the one instance she’s unable to make a decision.

She’s a born leader and can control and coordinate her battalion of eight hundred stormtroopers effectively through example and presence as well as strategy. Her decisiveness is important here, although it can foster stubbornness and impatience when her decisions are opposed. War is a lot less glorious than her father and grandfather’s bedtime epics made it out to be. Her ranged marksmanship is of course fantastic, but she has a slight preference for close combat. It’s a consequence of leading from the frontline and engaging foes directly. She loves the thrill of a good battle. However, she’s snubbed stormtrooper culture to preserve her immaculate reputation to her superiors, not expecting her comrades to take it so seriously. She dislikes her nickname due to it implying her fellow troopers put her on a pedestal and worship her, just reminding her how little they know who she truly is, a ‘bad person’ only in it for herself she’s uncomfortable being looked up to.

Contrary to her preachings that amorality is wisest, Orst does have moral standards and reservations. She’s disgusted by the incompetence and/or callousness of the army leaders and the general attitude that the stormtroopers and infantry soldiers are expendable. She may not be the nicest, but she acknowledges her soldiers are thinking, sentient people! Intellectually, the excessive prevalence and inefficiency of the ‘throw stormtroopers at the problem until it stops being a problem’ battle plan insults her strategic mind. Personally, it inflames her secret doubts about her own leadership ability. When she was in hospital being treated for her liver injuries a year ago, she was crushed that Stygand alone visited her for a reason beyond professional interest and obligation (he later assured her Caspira would have too upon hearing this, which also stung), and realized how lonely her chosen path was. Since then she’s trying to be more attentive and caring to her subordinates and regrets relying so much on intimidation. Befriending the popular Stygand was a key step in this development. She’s also well aware of the damage that war and tyranny does to children and families. She is completely unwilling to hurt a child.

Orst believes the Empire is undoubtedly corrupt, but opposing it overtly is suicide. She’d rather be a cog in the machine than one left on the floor. She respects competence in any form, including from her enemies, and does what she’s good at simply for that reason. Her time in school and the Imperial Army has built up a cesspool of spite toward the government and military management. On the other hand, she used to believe the Rebel Alliance wasn’t much better because they aim to restore the Republic (“Empire lite”, in her words). What mattered was that they at least could be fought. She’s inwardly pretty apolitical, mainly wanting to be on the winning team. The destruction of Alderaan confirmed to her that the Rebels were the closest the galaxy was going to get to heroes in comparison to the Empire. It’s a shame martyrdom isn’t a viable career. Caspira is having her rethink that and wonder if the limited benefits of serving a government she hates is worth contributing to its oppression.

Her and Caspira’s relationship is complicated. She’s drawn to her positive outlook, cunning and charisma, and respects her work ethic and philosophy of enlightened self-interest that compromises her idealism with Orst’s self-interest. Dating her was a respite of excitement and freedom in her carefully regulated adolescence. Due to the hasty, messy nature of their breakup she never properly processed and let go of her feelings, and may be a tiny bit still in life with her. Her devotion to her loved ones’ wellbeing knocks Orst’s walls flat. Orst uses her nickname just to see her delighted expression. Caspira meanwhile has learned not to use hers. Orst and Stygand have a strong friendship. She admires his humility, patience and kindness. He teaches her to let her guard down and have fun, she teaches him to heed boundaries and is challenging him to face his flaws and demons. Unlike everyone else she’s seen, Caspira and Stygand seem genuinely happy having convictions and acting on them. They both inspire her to be more selfless. They’ve been added to her short list of other people who deserve better - and she’ll fight the galaxy tooth and nail to give it to them.

Orst loves her homeworld and parents and as invested in her job as she is, she looks forward to going on leave. Growing up she was surrounded by nature and enjoyed hiking jungle trails. She’s fond of plants, particularly trees, and has a hobby of making notes on and taking photos of interesting plants on other planets. She likes Onderon cuisine, its prominent bitter and sour flavours, fruits and nuts. Though she drinks gallons of caf due to her poor sleep cycle, her real favourite drink is traditional Onderon black tea which she saves for special occasions. She shares tea only with her family and most trusted friends.