#Pheodra Dyartes

[depizan]

anyone from imp int that appears semi regularly in the agent story (watcher two/shara jenn, keeper, etc?) mayhaps?

They're both characters I find really interesting. I'd say it's surprising they haven't put any fic appearances (other than Keeper informing Kyrian over holo that he's being arrested for treason), except that I haven't done that much with Kyrian's career when he's not out in the field actively coloring outside the lines.

Well, I do have a couple of Keeper mini-fics. LIke I said, interesting character. He's not a character type you often get on the "bad" side, being more of an "M" or...what's his name on Stargate SG1...Hammond than the sort of leader you normally see in the Empire. He clearly cares about the people who work under him, even if he's able to send them into deadly danger, exile them to Shadow Town, or worse...when necessary. He's a very effective combination of "good authority figure" and "did what I had to do/made the hard (but necessary) decisions."

If I do go back and fill in more of Kyrian's career, or write any Pheodra fics, he's likely to put in more appearances. Getting a little insight into why he ignored concerns about Kyrian for as long as he did (besides that Kyrian tended to succeed where it really mattered) could be fun. The game writing suggests that Keeper sees something of himself in a light side agent, and I've carried that over to ficverse. Of course, Keeper remained loyal to the Empire, despite its flaws, and gained the hardness and big picture thinking that Kyrian...did not.

Watcher Two is...hm, how to phrase it... She's more unquestioningly Imperial than Keeper, but that's unsurprising considering she was literally designed by the Empire. That she still came out a decent coworker/boss is more surprising. Her soft spots are different from Keeper's, and somewhat more personal, but she lacks his experience (I'm pretty sure he was Imperial military before his Imp Int career. Or is that just my headcanon?) and she rises in the ranks at nearly the worst possible time, given how quickly the Sith wreck everything.

Hm, actually I think the most interesting stuff with her, as far as the game story goes, comes later. Which means that if she were to appear in fic beyond giving mission info or taking a post-mission briefing, it'd probably be if I fic stuff with Pheodra. (Who, to her irritation, inherits Kyrian's designation and mission. She is cypher agent material; it was clear in training that he would never be.)

Then again, Watcher Two is so much more what a member of Imperial Intelligence should be than Kyrian, it could be interesting to give them a chance to interact around that. Especially as it's clear Kyrian did trust her (and Keeper) more than was wise. That means some discussion of methods is possible, or other concerns. Hell, she's observant enough--and close enough to being a coworker, rather than a superior--that she might pick up on his doubts about whether he is cypher agent material. (Okay, he knows he's not, he's just trying to do the job anyway. And dreading the eventual training he's certain he'll fail.)

Which raises the question of what Keeper (and Watcher Two, for that matter) thought of their skilled but squeamish field agent who'd been promoted way too soon. Did Keeper think that field experience would eventually file off his soft edges and make him cypher material? Are there aspects of cypher training that would make his flaws irrelevant? Was Keeper going to quietly demote him back to normal field agent once the crisis was over? Let him continue indefinitely as an untrained, field promoted cypher agent? (I mean, obviously, he had field agent training. But that's not the same thing.)

Was part of Watcher Two's job deciding what would be best to do with Kyrian once the crisis was over?

[depizan]

I suppose if it had just been Pheodra, I wouldn't have bothered coming up with another designation, since she is absolutely proper cipher material. But Kyrian could never truly be Cipher Nine.

Though, there's really no reason to bar Pheodra from being Cipher Nine, should I decide to write fic about her or have her show up in other people's fic. (Whether the usual trio's or if I do any fic about Tevin. She's his mirror universe counterpart, after all.*)

So I guess a more accurate answer to whether or not I use Cipher NIne for my agent is that Kyrian's designation is unknown, since it never gets used in his fics, and Pheodra...might be Cipher Nine?

*Yes, that's mixing my Star Things, and no, she doesn't have a goatee of evil. Nor does she dress sexy evil. (In fact, she's far more likely to stab you than sleep with you.)

[depizan]

@empire-at-war

Defection Headcanons

Well...that got long.

1. what would it take for your characters to defect from the Empire? Would they do it in order to protect their family/loved ones? Force apparition calling them out on their atrocities? they were left to die and got rescued by a Jedi?

Kyrian did leave the Empire, but I don't think you can call being rescued from being executed for treason "defection," exactly. Though, if he'd known he'd been found out, he would have fled. Or, more likely, tried to talk his way out by holo and then fled. (Now, one could make an argument that his increasingly treasonous approach to his job was defecting, just without the leaving part. In which case, it all came down to morals. Or squeamishness. It wasn't that he opposed the Empire, exactly, he's just opposed to bad things happening to people.)

Daska also thinks she can make a difference in the Empire, and, being Sith, has a bit more power to do so. But only a bit. She would definitely defect to protect the people she cares about, or if it were the only way to protect a large number of other people. (Not that she doesn't care about individuals, it's just easier to imagine a situation in which the only way to protect a bunch of people would be to defect than it is to imagine a situation in which it'd be the only way to protect a person or a few people.)

Lysara hates the Empire and is sticking around as a Sith so that she can find her sister and her mother (or what happened to them) and once she has, she's out. And the Force help anyone who stands in her way.

Pheodra... Pheodra is Mirror Universe Tevin (my Trooper). The Eberels have always served the Republic, and the Dyartes have always served the Empire. And, like Tevin, she believes in the ideals of the country she serves. She believes in power and strength and order and that the Empire is a meritocracy that will save the galaxy from chaos, nepotism, injustice, and crime. The galaxy is a wretched hive of scum and villainy and the Empire is here to fix it. It would take either something that broke her view of the Empire or a slow erosion of her faith in it for her to decide to defect.

2. would they actually join the Republic military/Jedi/SIS or go neutral?

Oddly, the one who definitely would if they defected is Pheodra. She's the sort of person who needs to believe in/be working for something greater than herself, which means the Republic military or the SIS if they'd have her. (Goes back to that whole being Mirror Universe Tevin thing.)

Daska... miiiight. It would depend a lot on the exact hows and whys of her defection, but it's not impossible that she would join the Jedi. She'd be a terrible Jedi, mind, but under the right circumstances, I could see her giving it a try. (Whether it would work out is a different question entirely.)

Lysara wants freedom, and the power to maintain it. Her most likely future career, should she succeed at her goals and leave the Empire and the Sith behind, would be as a quasi-benevolent crime lord or space pirate.

Kyrian has no objection to helping the Republic through Jezari's freelance SIS work, but he doesn't want to attract any official attention. (For one thing, he doesn't know what the Republic would do with him, and doesn't want to find out.) Even assuming the best case scenario, he'd much rather stay a mercenary (or whatever the hell he is now) and not go back to having to weigh his morals against threat of death or punishment.

3. what do you think the Jedi do with Sith they capture, who refuse to give up the dark side? Is there a Sith prison somewhere out there?

Yes. There must be. From what we see in game, there has to be either a place where the Jedi Order sticks the Sith they captured, but couldn't turn and tries to forget about them, or there's a place where they keep Sith that they captured and are still trying to turn. Or both.

I can only imagine that the imprisoned Sith are a matter of recurring debate, since killing them would be wrong, keeping them is dangerous, and Jedi Masters are all over the place on how confident they are that Sith can be turned.

4. what do you think the Jedi do with Sith who flee from the Empire and don’t know where else to go and knock on their door and ask for protection because they had nowhere else to go (yes THAT trope again, I know)…

That would depend wildly on the Jedi in question. I can't imagine that the Jedi Order has an official policy on Sith turning up like lost puppies. In general, I rather imagine it being a case of "please give me your lightsaber and go sit politely in that holding cell while the Jedi Counsel has an emergency meeting."

As far as my Jedi go, I think that would give Ianya such a bad divide by cucumber error that Kira or Doc would have to ask the Sith to go sit in a holding cell while they called Satele or someone and tried to figure out how to reboot Ianya.

Novani would internally panic and offer them tea and call Master Cereb and be all "What do I do?!?" And Master Cereb would be all polite and sensible and try to figure out if the Sith were telling the truth and possibly confer with other fellow Jedi regarding where to put a Sith in need of protection. And try to slowly, kindly, turn the Sith to the light. Or at least the less dark. (Or failing all else, to the good? Force Alignment and morality gets complicated.)

5. What actually makes a GOOD redemption arc in your eyes?

At it's core, an actual redemption arc/atonement arc/heel-face turn involves a person who was doing bad things deciding to now do good/better things. Personally, I'm not sure you can sell that without some acknowledgement on the character's part that they were doing bad things, or at least that they are now actively changing what they're doing. (If a puppy kicker gets promoted to puppy petter and just...does that now, with no internal journey or consideration of the two jobs, I feel like you just have a career change. And also a character who would go back to being a puppy kicker with equivalently little thought if that were asked of them.)

Also, you can't start retconning the character's prior actions to sell the redemption arc. If we don't know what their actions were, it can turn out that the character hadn't really done much bad, they were just on the side of bad, or whatever, but if we've been told - or, worse, shown - their bad actions, you can't just go "nope, we lied before, they're actually fine!" and not have me want to throw things.

But mostly it boils down to it needing to be a decision. Sure, you can have a situation where the arc is kicked off by something outside of their control - they're captured by the good guys, or whatever - but at some point, there needs to be an "I want to do this now, not that." for it to really work. At least for me.