Zelara
Zelara T'shan is an alien, a part of the Anthari race. The Anthari are a dying species whose last disparate remnants wander the galaxy in a great nomadic fleet. Their planet was destroyed several decades ago at the hand of the intergalatic supervillain known as Valak. By her own reckoning, Zelara is an unremarkable example of her species, not 'super-powered' at all in any sense she understands. However, her instincts, drive and mastery over powerful alien technologies as well as a knack for tinkering have time and time again been an asset to Earth and the super-heroic community.
Contents
History
PLEASE NOTE: The Anthari are technically a canon species. They have a wee little blurb in Champions Beyond, a throwaway bit about being blue and having their planet's shit wrecked by Valak, and that's pretty much it. Everything else I just made up. If you like the concept of the Anthari race as I've pulled it out of my ass, feel free to use it. For more information about the Anthari species and more detailed backstory/history, see Anthari.
Zelara was a small craft pilot in the Anthari fleet who was picked for a dangerous away mission, using salvaged skimmers with extremely fast FTL drives to scout ahead of the fleet's main body. Her skimmer encountered serious mechanical trouble near Alpha Centauri, and she was forced to make an emergency jump to the nearest system on their charts - Sol.
Zelara's crew-members did not survive the journey. Her escape pod was picked up by UNTIL's space defense station, and she was held for several months. Though quiet and unresponsive for some time, eventually she realized she was not a captive and began opening up to her rescuers. She told them of her situation, learned English (remarkably rapidly), and received a basic crash-course in Earth society and culture from her liason and handlers. Now out of mourning, she began to adjust to her new surroundings and desired to explore this rich, lush, diverse planet she found herself on.
As soon as she decided on this, she made another decision that confused her UNTIL guides - she offered straightaway to volunteer for Earth's 'planetary defense militia', the Champions Response and Protection network. It was not the Anthari was to sit idle, or to leave a good deed unrepaid. Earth had taken her in, taught her their ways, and seen to her survival without asking anything in return. With little more than her void suit and old shipboard tools, Zelara vowed to defend her adopted homeland with all that she had (or at least until she could hitch-hike back home).
Skills/Abilities
- Anthari Traits: The Anthari possess a high muscle tissue density far in excess of that seen in humans. Although Zelara looks thin and athletic she weighs in excess of 200 pounds. This tissue density gives the average Anthari strength a little above an average human's and far higher durability and damage resistance. They're not natural bricks in any sense, but it takes a bit more to keep them down. While a rifle bullet may pierce an Anthari's skin and organs, for example, it may be stopped mid or a quarter way instead of pushing all the way through. And while a human might fall to a double tap, it may take 8 to 10 rounds to kill an Anthari properly dead.
- Swift Learner: Though by no means a genius nor possessing an eidetic memory, Zelara is very bright and tends to grasp new concepts quickly. Case in point? Learning idiomatic English in two month.
- Militia Training: The Anthari have a small regular force of shipboard soldiers called Space Marines, but all Anthari are expected to defend their ship in case of boarding or piracy. The Antari are trained from childhood to be able to use their tools (like the ones above) as weapons.
- Engineer By Necessity: Zelara is not a scientist or technologist by any stretch. Owing to her experiences in the fleet though, she has a knack for dealing with most sorts of machines - taking them apart and figuring out their basic workings, incorporating foreign tech into her own gear, and keeping what she has running on a shoestring budget.
Equipment
Void Suit
The suit itself: Zelara's 'armor' is actually a space suit designed for void-walking and repairing starship hulls in deep space. It is fully sealed and designed to withstand micro-meteoroide impacts, and thus halts conventional lead bullets with ease. A hololithic visor worn inside the helmet provides a HUD display, complete with object tracking and thermal or infrared sighting. It serves as highly effective and flexible armor. Pictured above.
Hull-Cutter: A blade of contained plasma for hacking through ship plating. It essentially doubles as an energy sword in the right hands and can cut through most man made materials, excluding solid questionite or refined neutronium.
Wrist Blasters: Miniature railguns first used to drive nails and bolts through starship hulls. The power settings can be modified to reduce or increase velocity; her blunt projectiles can travel just fast enough to knock someone down or break ribs, or fast enough to punch through brick walls.
Repulsor Projectors: A new technology at the time of the Anthari homeworld's destruction, Repulsors use directed beams of force to grasp and manipulate matter. Zelara's suit's is fairly primitive, but she's working on improving its capabilities for combat. Ins ome respects it is comparable to Gadroon gravitic tech, but much more primitive and with more limited applications.
Marine Armor
Mark 3 'Warmaster' Powered Combat Armor: Standard issue to the Space Marines of the Anthari Fleet, Zelara discovered this equipment while salvaging the wreckage of her crashed starship, formerly belonging to one of her crewmates. Unlike the void suit, this armor is purpose-built for combat. Designed to withstand sustained fire from a variety of personal weapons, the Mark 3 also affords its user considerably more agility than the clunk void suit. Internal fiber bundles mimic the function of muscle, allowing the armor to 'carry its own weight' without fatiguing while providing modest increases to physical strength. The repulsor generators it incorporates are geared entirely towards shielding. Visor systems include a sophisticated sensor suite, and targeting assist linked to the suit's arms. It's most intimidating feature is a rotary multi-barreled pulse weapon on the shoulder, feeding off the suit's internal power supply. Oh, and there's a jetpack.
There is a reason that the Warmaster system is so feared and appears so advanced compared to their baseline tech level - it is not a native Anthari design but in fact reverse engineered from the species who conquered them. The Warmaster's automated systems and neural interfaces actually form a kind of primitive AI that the marines refer to as the armor's (rough translation) 'war spirit' that assists them in combat. Often it takes years of exposure and acclimation training for a recruit to properly sync with this near-feral intelligence, to say nothing of extensive cyber-augmentation and hardplug interfaces. The War Spirit retains fragments of the memory and skills of its previous users, and thus the oldest suits or with the most honored prior owners are considered he most valuable and effective. Conversely, the AI's single-minded savagery often unconsciously bleeds into its users though patterns to one degree or another.
Zelara is one of a very rare breed of Anthari, either by virtue of genetic mutation or unique bio-neural patterns, who can interface with the armor naturally and with almost no complications. She is unaware of this; she is unaware the war-spirit even exists, as the details of the armor's functionality are kept secret from all but the Marines and their technicians themselves. It has only recently come to the fore in any visible or dramatic way during periods of overwhelming stress or fear, but she's so far written it off as simple automated defense subroutines.
Assault Carbine: A powerful energy weapon, recovered at the same time from the same place. It's chief advantages over 'primitive Terran slugthrowers' are its power, versatility, and magazine capacity. Variable rates of fire and near pinpoint accuracy allow a soldier to use the same weapon as a powerful sniper and marksman rifle on single shot, a 'shotgun' on wide disperson, or utilize rapid-fire settings for close-quarter spraying or heavy support. On it's mid-range power settings it can easily penetrate kevlar or other conventional defenses. Lower ones are used for stun rounds or just to ensure hulls aren't breached in shipboard firefights; higher settings are for anti-armor, though this consumes considerably more ammunition. On standard power discharge settings, each magazine is good for 300 pulls of the trigger. In a pinch the carbine can become an effective melee weapon, projecting a 'bayonet' from its under-barrel.
This weapon and the Warmaster armor have both contributed to the Anthari Space Marines' reputation as fearsome warriors, and are highly prized.
Weaknesses
The Laser Knight has a few weaknesses that may be exploited:
- Green: Well blue, but you know. Zelara has been through quite alot but she is not a trained soldier.
- Illegal Alien: Being an extraterrestrial comes with its own set of social and legal issues.
- When Life Gives You Lemons, Make Lemonade (Or Just Swell Up And Die): Like many Anthari she is deathly allergic to citrus. You could kill her with a grapefruit if you were trying really hard, and also an asshole.
Personality
Zelara can seem oddly.. cheery for someone who's lost a family, a homeworld, a mentor and two of her best friends in her short life. However she has had plenty of time to mourn far from the eyes of her fellow heroes, and it's not the Anthari way to dwell on tragedy or fall into despondence. It's not so much that she's 'over it' than that she's begun to accept it. Earth isn't just some backwater refuge for her like it is for many other aliens, it's a place of absurd abundance, riotous diversity and and an incredibly complex multifaceted culture.
In other words for someone who's spent their lives aboard leaky freighters, cramped tugs and darkly cavernous asteroid breakers.. Earth is paradise. One that she's taken as her duty to defend. Like most Anthari, she possesses an ingrained sense of obligation and duty to her home. She is intensely curious and can devote inordinate amounts of time studying or taking in things that native Earthers find mundane or commonplace - her occupation leaves her with more free time than she's ever had in her life.
As part of her UNTIL cultural education she briefly studied the way humans perceive extra-terrestrials in popular culture and imagination. She finds alot of it pretty funny and thus an average conversation may be populated with jokes about probing, motherships and mind-worms to amuse herself and see how many people take her seriously.
Notes/Trivia
- Anthari are mammals. ...Probably.
- Zelara currently attends Millenium City University as a freshman engineering student. While it may seem odd for a member of an advanced species to be studying science with a less advanced one, it makes a certain amount of sense to her. She wants to be able to actually -understand- the tech she works on at a more theoretical level, and the bleeding edge of Terran super-science actually surpasses Anthari advances in certain areas.
- Anthari have nothing like Earth's mass media. They did when they had their own planet, but now all that survives of it are old holo-recordings and fragmented data archives.
- The Anthari have encountered the Elder Worms on an outpost cored into a dead moon. Zelara was part of the expedition that investigated the place. What they saw disgusted them so much that the Fleet Council passed an edict obliging all Antari to kill members of that species on sight. The thought of the creatures makes her physically ill and fills her with rage.
- The Anthari have poor relations with the Malvans, after an Anthari security detachment murdered a travelling Malvan slave-trader involved in procuring 'recruits' for the planets arenas and/or nobility on a backwater space station. Since then, a relative of the murdered man has placed a bounty on any Anthari brought to him dead or alive. While the Anthari have grown to despise the Malvan race as a whole, the Malvans themselves are barely aware of their existence beyond the deceased's immediate relations as he was not particularly well-liked. Which is probably good for the Anthari, as the Malvans could easily wipe out the refugee race if properly antagonized.
- Anthari fear death by spacing or void exposure more than any other fate, to such an extend that they store their dead on an unpowered deck of the flagship rather than 'bury them at sea'. Thus shooting someone out of an airlock is an enormous "Fuck you" reserved only for the worst crimes.
- Trophy Case
In the martial tradition of the Anthari space marines, especially post-collapse, it has become custom to keep mementos of great battles or particularly tenacious foes. Some are simply displayed in private quarters as reminders of past obstacles overcome. Others might be fastened to armor as tools of intimidation: necklaces of enemy military insignia, skulls fastened to belts or a large creature's teeth made into bracelets, etc. As she wears the armor of their number, Zelara has started a similar collection in her apartment, on nothing more complicated than an unused bookshelf. Currently it contains:
-The remains of a primitive, heavily damaged rotary cannon.
-One hat-and-mask combo with Black Wyvern markings, with cracked eye lenses, with a very, very broken high-tech pistol propped up against it.
-A Corinthian-style helmet of a Greek hoplite from the Classical period. It is rusted green and encrusted with barnacles in places, and bears slight scorching at the bottom edges.
-A featureless golden sphere that produces a vague sense of unease when held.
Friends/Allies
- All-Star: Constant flirtation aside (which she doesn't know whether to find flattering or off-putting) All-Star's been pretty decent to the space-girl and helped make her feel welcome. By her own measure she's learned more about human culture and life-ways from listening to his bar-room ramblings than she ever did from her UNTIL handlers.
- Impsblood: Zelara empathizes with her as a fellow misfit and 'the-only-one-of-those' and finds her antics and chattiness amusing.
- Riptide: The Anthari are highly organized and lawful, while the Voltexian bounty-hunter is a marked man and galatic rogue. Not precisely the recipe for fast friendship, but that's sort of exactly what happened anyway. Zelara knows what it's like to be hounded and looked down on by the galaxy at large, she admires his resourcefulness, and finds him just plain fun to be around. Oh, and he saved her life once, there's that.
- Sparrowhawk: Zelara's come to look at Sparrow of something of a role model. Zel is painfully aware she's an amateur at this, and Sparrowhawk's professionalism and skill give her a goal to aspire to.
- Starfighter: Even as a fellow alien, Zelara finds him a little.. much. But in a good way. Ever since participating in the takedown of the space pirate Conquerah with the Klendarii warrior, Zelara has followed his career. It was him who christened her "Laser Knight" and she's since adopted the title as her own.
- Thundrax: As one of the few beings who has fought Valak and lived, Zelara's view of Thundrax borders on hero-worship.
- Vivi: Zel thinks she's pretty cool and she gave her a faux-hawk that made her the happiest little blue space-person ever.
Nemeses
(Lovingly compiled by UNTIL GATEWAY Liason John Harker.)
Blackfire (Leeham Connor)
Powers/Abilities: Ace pilot, stealth jet, high-tech control system
Occupation: Mercenary Pilot
From an early age, Leeham Connor was obsessed with flying and the legendary aces and dogfighters of the World Wars. Connor followed his father's footsteps into the RAF and became a highly decorated pilot and captain, though he was incensed at being set mostly against ground targets with no enemy fighters to speak of to test his skills. He retired to the private sector about three years ago, becoming a 'security contractor' with ARGENT's airborn wing.
Having an expert pilot on ARGENT's payroll would be bad enough, but the real trouble came when he decided to go freelance. needless to say he didn't exactly put in two weeks notice; Connor absconded with a prototype, long range stealth fighter we have on good information that ARGENT was planning to sell to North Korea. Having adopted the mantle 'Blackfire' after his jet's color scheme, he hires out for whoever's willing to pay the bills, be it VIPER, Euro-Star, or Destroyer himself.
Threat Assessment: Blackfire's combination of incredibly personal skill, an advanced aircraft and even more advanced haptic interface system makes for a dangerous combination. So far he's been responsible for up to 14 allied aerial kills against PRIMUS, UNTIL, USAF and Steelhead air assets. A single man is threatening the air superiority of legitimate governments, and that cannot be allowed to continue. Consider Blackfire a high priority target.
Addendum: The only reason I include this individual in Zelara's file is because an interceptor matching the description of Blackfire's buzzed her during a flight certification test. This is a 'challenge' behavior of Connor's when he finds an enemy pilot who takes his notice. I do NOT under any circumstances recommend deploying Zelara against this target. Even with her natural aptitude, he badly outclasses her.
Trogg
Powers/Abilities: Super-strength, heavy armor, seismic gauntlets
Occupation: Bounty Hunter
Trogg is an alien bounty hunter and hitman of the Gorkal race. He possesses super-strength far in excess of his confederates and sports a pair of 'seismic gauntelts' which allow him to split the ground, produce localized earthquakes and lift impossibly heavy objects. Zelara has intimated that he may be pursuing her - or any Anthari he can find - in relation to a dispute several years back that the Anthari fleet had with a Malvan traveler on some backwater space station. Seems unlikely he'd come all the way here for her, but then again, Malvan bounties are said to pay well; from what we can tell they can pretty much print whatever they use for money out there at will.
Threat Assessment: Neutralized (Deceased)
Xeno Hunter (Robert Graves)
Powers/Abilities: Cybernetic enhancement, spec-ops training, pulson and laser weapons
Occupation: Alien killer
Robert Graves was actually a former special operations officer with GATEWAY. He was severely injured in an incident involving Gadroon saboteurs, and was only saved from death or permanent incapacitation by extensive cybernetic rebuilding. Graves was discharged from UNTIL service to to his wounds, after being diagnosed with traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Graves completely disappeared after his discharge. He first resurfaced on our radar after the heads of a dozen Qullar stay-behind troopers was deposited at a Stateside GATEWAY office with a note reading, 'You're welcome.' A series of long, rambling letters to PRIMUS and UNTIl offices and local newspapers seem to indicate a paranoid, conspiratorial belief that every extraterrestrial race is allied in a galaxy-wide conspiracy against the earth.
Threat Assessment: It didn't stop with Qullar and Gadroon infiltrators. Graves, under the moniker Xeno Hunter, has assassinated several innocent extraplanetary refugees and is even known to have taken a shot at Ironclad. Graves has a leg up on us in that he already knows our training, tactics, and tech inside and out. He's highly skilled, highly motivated, and very well armed.
For obvious reasons many in GATEWAY would prefer that Xeno Hunter be brought in alive if at all possible. While I can't in good conscience ask UNTIL personnel to use less than the appropriate amount of force to bring him down, the fact remains that Graves is obviously sick, not evil. Zelara seems to take this case rather personally. Given her relationship with this office it's only a matter of time before she appears on his radar.
The Returned
**CASEFILE ACCESS DENIED
Comments
Leave notes or comments about Zelara here.
"Sweet girl. She's friendly, polite and she's got a good sense of humour for an alien. Plus, she's a smoking babe. That's really important too." - All-Star
"Zelly! She's neat and from space! And I like space people because they look cooler than normal people and have cool stuff like lasers!" - Impsblood
"A fellow blue offworlder. Such pretty eyes and her blush is rather cute, isn't it?" - Greymist Wanderer
"How cool is it that we have aliens on the team!~ I can tell she's going to be a huge asset already, both with her skills and style! That pink armor is just too cute not to use!." - Ada Clover
"Zelara, I think, has more of a warrior spirit than she might initially let on. I can always count on her to come up with something when it looks like hope has been lost. She's strong, capable and incredibly intelligent. Probably one of the best pilots I've seen, as well. " - Sparrowhawk
"Zelara is steel wrapped in silk, like the rest of the Anthari. It's hard not to admire a people who've carried on after all the devastation they've faced, and Zel's no exception. Friendly and nice to talk to, but willing to pull the metaphorical trigger when it comes down to it, and knows her way around a workbench. I wouldn't have minded a partner like her back in the day." - Riptide
"She's a good pilot, and what I know of her, she's a good person. I always admire extraterrestrial heroes. It doesn't take much to want to defend your home. But it takes a special kind of person to want to protect someone else's. - Blockade
"I can definitely say that Zelara is a fine teammate and soldier. You should have seen her take on a 100 meter monster from space! It was pretty cool." - Artifist
Art Gallery
Art by Kenpudiosaki
Art by Shis-drim
Art by chou-roninx
Art by Wansworld
Art by Lady Largo
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|---|---|---|
| Team Leader Sparrowhawk | ||
| Field Leaders: Captain Adamant • Peacemaker • Razira • Thundrax | ||
| Protectors Charter Members: African Violet • Atomac • Blue Cyclone • Blue Pheasant • Citizen 13 • Cosmic Glory • Fahrenheit • Gold Rush • Hydro Light Of Being • Lucky Shot • Marauder • Mercuriel • Oni • Sinsonte Azul • Tesseract • Wildeye • Witchery Way | ||
| Protectors Reserve Members: Aura • Noble • Psion • Wolfgirl | ||
