ERIS Blade – An Erisian-designed and produced longsword modelled after an antique human design. Its curved, single-edged blade is constructed from high-density nano-reinforced titanium and can cut and thrust competently, but it is most often noted for the length of its wire-sealed handle. This abnormal construction provides a greater deal of finesse and control over the weapon, but also houses a closed loop power cell which feeds constant alternating current through the blade. This electric current weakens the particle bonds of what it cuts, amplifying its cutting power and allowing it to compete or exceed the strength of modern blade designs despite its antiquated construction. This weapon is most often identified by the blue-purple coronal discharge that surrounds its blade when drawn. Carried in an electric-insulated sheath crosswise across the back. (Property: Sharp)
Spoiler (click to show/hide):
The story of Gwyn begins long before her birth, on the planet of Erisia.
As humanity expanded its reach into the stars and conformed into the ranks of the Galactic Federation, trade and expansionism became priority. While most all expeditions to map and colonize unknown sectors of space were funded and undertaken by the Federation, the discovery and settling of Erisia was one such exception. A privately-held group financed and equipped the exploration of the Autum System, which mostly blockaded from the surrounding rim of far northern Federation space by a black hole, had yet remained untouched by government hands. The trip yielded the discovery of a single habitable Earth-like planet ideal for sustaining life and also incredibly rich with natural resources and room for heavy industry. Seeking to settle their legal right to the planet before the GF could dispute it, the group sent four thousand colonists to break ground.
While most of Erisia's surface was water, its ideal climate, primarily oxygen atmosphere and Earth-like orbital period allowed initial development to proceed with a breeze. The initial resources and scientific wealth of the colonists went far thanks to the planet's plentiful natural wealth. They quickly established the first settlement of Marche upon one of the landmasses on its equator, and a self-sustaining cycle of fledgling natural and technological industry was laid down. The Federation, meanwhile – distracted by a 360 degree sphere of priorities – saw little interest in but a single planet and regarded the rapidly developing colony with apathy. The colony was soon named Erisia after its initial astronomical designation, ER-1S, and an autocratic planetary government composed of high-level officials from the private group supplying the colony was established to keep a tight reign on the rapidly apparent economic potential.
Felix Grunstein was named the first official governor of Erisia, and by legal gray area, the surrounding Autum System. Supported by his cabinet of ministers, he would spend many decades advancing the industry, population and legislative functions of Erisia, following Galactic Federation treaties on the matter to ensure fair and civil treatment of the populace. An independent police force, healthcare system and other governmental functions were also laid down with the passing years, and mounting interest in the planet attracted skilled settlers by the thousands. Many years later, Erisia boasted a population of approximately 250,000 people (virtually all humans) and thriving domestic industry supported by advanced energy and environmental technology. However, the private group which had settled Erisia – and thus had legal claim to it – were less than pleased. The planet had been a massive investment, but its returns over the years had been minimal.
Assembling Erisia's economy had been laborious and expensive, so exports of resources and technology back to the Federation had been low. However, the planet had been bountiful enough for it to become self-sufficient and persist without extraneous aid. A long argument persisted between Grunstein and his superiors. The people of Erisia had attached to Grunstein, who had developed into a true political leader during his tenure and also had a son with his wife Amelia, whom he had named Travis. After many years of infighting, Grunstein mobilized the coffers of Erisia and made a powerful purchase: to placate the private group, he purchased the contract to Erisia itself, thus severing their obligations and granting it political and legal independence. A political and economic revolution swept across the planet soon after as boasting new powers, the government enacted new legislation to accelerate development and rectify long-standing issues.
Erisia was free, and all without the interference of the apathetic Galactic Federation...
The government was redefined to a full appointed cabinet of secretaries and ministers, and democratic votes were established in municipalities to elect local officials to represent Erisia's many independent areas. But Grunstein was aging. Now in his fifties, he needed to plan ahead for the future leadership of the planet. His final choice was his son, Travis Grunstein: a politically smart young man, and also one of the very first children to be born on Erisia. Both practically and symbolically, he was the right choice. And so, as the years passed and Grunstein eventually died from a spaceborne illness, Travis Grunstein was officially elected governor of Erisia.
And joyously, it was not even a day after the first celebrations of the new regime that his newlywed wife, Sylvia, announced she was pregnant.
Their child, a daughter, was born in the midst of the new Grunstein's efforts to reconnect Erisia with the Federation and cement itself as a new player in the galaxy. She was named Gwynivere, for she had the intense amber-yellow eyes of her namesake – who was her aunt. She would grow up alongside this new era of economic expansionism, closeted among the elite educators and politics of Erisia as she looked down below upon the many varied people who as she aged, began to rile with anxiety over the new wave of plague beginning to sweep the galaxy. The Space Pirates, and all of the problems and crises that followed in their slipstream, had entirely ignored Erisia during their attacks on the Federation – the black hole which hampered the planet's ties to the Federation served as an ironic shield against the Pirates' attention.
Thus, Erisia was allowed to prosper in peace, even as planets just lightyears away were sacked by whatever terror was unfolding across the galaxy, etching out new trade deals with a galactic government so urgent for victory against their enemies that those low-level officials in charge gave no political considerations to exchanging technology and finances for Erisia's economic power. The maturing Gwyn, meanwhile, had regarded the continuing war with a sense of detachment. She was cloistered among the social privilege and powers granted to the First Daughter of a powerful governor, and explored the world only through her intense education, the tutors assigned to teach her the practical ways of politics and the military and – when he had time – her father, who, just as his father before him, seemed intent on passing down his title to his child.
And yet, the Federation could only remain disadvantaged in its dealings for so long. Erisia had assembled an excellent racket: it had managed to extract much economic benefit from the GF without any particular obligation to its government or even humanity as a whole, allowing it prosperity while the rest of the galaxy suffered to combat countless crises in between Metroids, Space Pirates and Phazon. It was in the wake of the closure of a major crisis some years before the present that at last, the long-held apathy of the Galactic Federation toward such an anomaly of a planet in the universe came to an end. The Federation, very suddenly, approached Erisia with maximum legal force, citing the countless inter-species agreements and treaties that governed the formation and even existence of such governments as Erisia's.
The planet was thrown under immense pressure as Gwyn's father and Erisia as a whole recoiled under the sudden force of scrutiny. The severing of pre-existing trade deals was the first step in the encroachment of the Federation onto Erisia's sovereignity, triggering a heated diplomatic standoff that came to involve Gwyn all too quickly. While the girl, at this time, remained without any official power in the Erisian government, years of listening to her father lament and debate his ideals had instilled a certain sense of patriotism for Erisia that was threatened by the sudden attitudes of the GF, especially when insulated through the logic of their non-involvement even in the worst crises. Even as thousands died, the planet did not send a single soldier of its own independent security force to bolster the Federation.
Worse was that the quality of life on the planet quickly became to be affected by these sanctions. The economy long since branched out and persisted not on self-sufficiency but rather on its industrial mainlines to the broader Federation economy. It sparked a reflexive ire inside Gwyn, who urged her father to take an aggressive stance, even as the Federation made demands of Erisia to acknowledge the authority of their galactic government as they already possessed many of its significant economic and technological properties. Grunstein, who rather obviously had come to value the idea of Erisian independence passed down to him by his father, remained unrelenting, and the standoff escalated into physical force. The Federation, fearing a rebellion against humanity and the galactic government, dispatched warships to the Autum System.
Erisia responded by sending up several of its own ships, sparking a cold military confrontation that escalated into a military blockade of the Autum System thereafter, sealing off all immigration, exports and imports. The stress of these tactics caused the infrastructure of Erisia to slowly buckle within weeks, but Grunstein held on and Gwyn stubbornly supported him.
And yet very suddenly, what once was, was not.
Many weeks into the blockade, Grunstein – impatient, tired and desperate -- ordered his warships to attack the GF fleet early one morning in an impulsive effort to break the blockade. The fighting was intense, but brief; the superior Federation firepower forced the Erisian fleet to retreat into the atmosphere soon after, and as soon as word reached the High Command, the military campaign against Erisia was authorized. Gwyn awoke one morning to the cacophony of ships descending from the sky, aiming to crush the Erisian military with the obvious intent of overthrowing the government so that it might be substituted with Federation rule. She fled for her mother, but it was her father she found first. Pale and resigned, he admitted to her that he had made a mistake, and that the downfall of this world – but not Erisia – was inevitable. Her mother, he told her, was of the same opinion, and despite Gwyn's objections, maintained that they would soon surrender.
Furious and hopped up on her pride, Gwyn stormed off, even as the soldiers around her scrambled to prepare for her father's orders. She donned the power armour and weapons of war in which she had been tutored to use by instructors of the military, and fled to the spaceport – alone – where Federation troops were already touching down. It was running there that a message of surrender was proclaimed over the many loudspeakers of the capital city of Marche, and very suddenly, the cannon fire exchanged by the ships in the sky and the guns on the surface faded into silence. Erisian soldiers threw their hands up in surrender and their rival Federation troops overtook them immediately, while in the distance, the Governor's Palace was swarmed.
It was as she stood, watching this spiteful scene, that a squadron of soldiers descended upon her like hyenas. With guns raised, they demanded her surrender, and Gwyn, after a pensive moment's thought – over pride, over patriotism, over bitter hate for the planet she knew she would one day be entrusted to guide and direct – responded not with compliance but with a draw of her blade. Gunfire tore open the relative quiet of the spaceport as Gwyn cut and thrust with her blade, striking down countless soldiers and dispatching those she could not with shots from the cannon she kept at her side. Though they were not dead, they lay in agony, and Gwyn, over her impulse of hate, simply fled. There was no place on this planet to go, other than away.
She ran with tears glistening on her eyes, the many reinforcing soldiers on her heels firing wildly in pursuit of her as she dashed through the spaceport, searching for a way out. With beam bolts shredding the air next to her, she eventually found her way into a small Erisian military ship that had been docked there, and departed with all haste into the atmosphere. The pursuit that followed was intense; the Federation forces quickly dispatched interceptors to corral her back to the planet, clearly not intending to kill her as they knew her parents had already been captured. She fled high above the blockade, avoiding the massive warships there thanks only to the concentration developed by the raw and primal emotion that stemmed from knowing one's life had just been shattered.
The thrusters of her ship burned and wailed and her instruments wailed technical warnings as she screamed out of the Autum System. It was many hours before the Federation interceptors drifted from radar view, not willing to take the notoriously lethal path within reach of the black hole that Gwyn travelled.
Without the predictable rise of a sunset to greet her eyes in the morning, even time – definable only by a tiny digital screen in the cockpit of her commandeered ship – seemed irrelevant, and Gwyn fell asleep that night – or perhaps day, who knew – drifting in orbit around a gas giant several systems away.
And then she awoke, and from the face of history, she was gone.
Erisia fell into a predictable fate. Travis Grunstein was arrested on countless charges of treason and other such violations of galactic law, and the many apparatuses of the government were dissolved and subsituted for Federation resources, which very quickly after the surrender moved in to take control of Erisia's faculties. Their military and weapons manufacturing sectors were disassembled, and countless more arrests were made. Erisia's populace fell into a state of chaos as their ideology and way of life was entirely annihilated, replaced by the more broad and unfriendly rule of the interim Federation government. While no lives were lost during the very brief military campaign, dozens of civilians were thought to have been killed during the months of riots that followed when they were subdued with martial force.
Years passed, and Erisia was left in a near-permanent state of social and political upset. Eventually, a new democratic government was formally established and Erisia and the Autum System were legally integrated into the Galactic Federation, becoming yet another gear in the Federation's machine, but the legacy and history of the planet had left such an impression upon its populace that it was clear the planet would never be the same. As for Travis Grunstein, he was eventually allowed to go free, as politicians often were, as part of a deal with a Federation court. He was exiled, and along with his wife, drifted off for a quiet area of the galaxy, while the remainder of the Erisian government either integrated into the new Federation regime or disappeared.
And as for Gwyn... she was gone.
The search for her trailed off after a year's time, the Federation having decided she as unimportant as a priority considering the goal of toppling the Erisian government had already been accomplished. For many months, the brief war received incredible media attention, but Gwyn's name was only mentioned once or twice. From there, she faded away into the darkness of space. Not dead, but alive – and surviving. Armed with Erisian military equipment, a ship and the practical experience in the art of combat, she had set off for other obscure areas of the galaxy, regarding herself as a fugitive and subsisting off of a dwindling account of credits until she at last acknowledged the Federation would not care for her. Her face was not recognized among the seedier areas of the galaxy, but it was rarely seen. Most often, Gwyn lingered inside her ship at various spaceports, thinking.
She felt bitterness. The feeling of loss and regret – of hate – was intense, and yet not overpowering that she thought to act on them, other than squeezing away what grams of like she had for the Federation. Isolation was the answer she decided upon for a long time; she languished in cold areas of the galaxy, purposeless and repeating the same memories of watching Erisia burn and soldiers descend upon her over and over again. It was a time capsule, thinning her once sociable personality into quietness. It was without thinking that she came to understand why space forged so many people of such character: in it, they were alone, with nobody to lean on. Her parents were gone, her social privilege and her life overthrown. And Erisia was little more than a speck upon an infinitely large map – a stain of time that the universe would not slow for.
And she had nothing, other than the tools of war which had already tasted blood, but not yet death.
With no past to return to, she took upon her shoulders the only free pathway offered by her circumstances. Conflict and death did not scare her, but nor did she desire the subservience and closeness to the galactic government offered by the life of a soldier. And so it was that she found herself drifting on the wake of a galaxy in where even life could be put to a price tag. The Space Pirates, though in decline, were still valued as corpses, and countless other opportunities existed toeing the line between isolation and residence among her much-hated Federation. Such exploits, she knew from reading tales of famous individuals, was known as bounty hunting. It was not the life she wanted, but with her funds languishing, it was the life she needed.
The very first time she took a life was when she stood upon a barren moon some time later, entreated to finish off a crashed Space Pirate vessel which had landed upon its surface. It was the first time she had met the ugly, almost reptilian beasts, other than witnessing them through pictures and literature. But when they surged toward her in open defiance of life and death, there was no time to be curious; in that end, they were no different from the Federation soldiers she had once fought. Her blade and her gun flashed, and soon, they had fallen dead. It was later, seeing credits flow into her account for this work, that she came to terms with the validity of this work. She was no killer, and yet it was simply what one did – the swing of a sword or the blast of a gun was a cathartic effect for the sense of purposelessness that came from wandering a purposeless universe.
And it was for months and months, and then years, that this cycle repeated itself onwards. Gwyn crossed the galaxy back and forth, taking on contracts to eliminate the enemies of the Federation just for subsistence. It was not opulent, but it had a purpose, and that purpose slowly helped to distract from the memory of Erisia. Even her ship, a relic of those days, was gradually refitted for a new and nomadic life, and while it pained her still, the current events of the galaxy and the politics of the Federation became more important than past grievances. She slew many – Space Pirates, criminals – and her body and mind bore marks that she both treasured and despised, accepting or hating them not for how they stacked up to the past, but how they complied with the definitions of the present – her present, anyway.
It's been years since then, and Gwyn has long since grown into a full woman. The tale of Erisia is now a distant memory on the edge of her mind, displaced by the pragmatic reminders that she lived a life different from so many years ago. Her ship and her gear has long since become not artifacts, but tools for an end – for the perpetuation of the cycle that had become her normal.
It was for this reason – the weave of this tale – that Gwyn found herself travelling to Desprin VII, riding a rumor of a Space Pirate base on its surface.
A knight, as it were, for justice.
>Bio: The Rosencrantz is Gwyn's given name for the Erisian-built Hamlet-class ultralight cruiser she commandeered during her escape and exile from Erisia some years ago. Designed and constructed with both common Federation technologies and unique Erisian methods (thus making it an excellent example of the planet's unusual economic past) the rather stealthily shaped Hamlet-class was designed as a comfortable, efficient and low-observable gunship for atmospheric environments and unhampered space travel. It lacks the mainstay energy weapons of most gunships, instead relying on torpedoes for offense and aerial mines to waylay its pursuers.
Rather clearly, it was outfitted to ensure the survival of its pilot over being a combat juggernaut.
Gwyn has long since remodelled and recoloured the Rosencrantz's interior with a more civilian setting for comfort's sake, but has maintained the ship diligently and updated its firmware repeatedly. While the Hamlet-class design was discontinued after the fall of Erisia, those who see it and know of its technical specifications generally hold it as one of the most polished and sophisticated ship designs in the galaxy. Its unorthodox quadruple vented thruster arrangement conceals its thermal signature while providing excellent mobility and advanced Erisian avionics automatically direct its torpedo guidance suite with tremendous effectiveness.
