Palia

Palia is a xenobiologist from the Hegemony who chose to study the kariassid species on Everatus IV.

Early life

Palia was born to a family under the patronage of a non-Empyrric noble. Both her mother and father were agricultural consultants. They travelled The Hegemony in a large family unit, helping worlds with their food production chains and collaborating with researchers to improve food yield, quality and transport.
Thanks to this extensive travelling, Palia got to see a lot of worlds growing up. She was always enthralled with the wildlife and decided to pursue a career in xenobiology, with her education sponsored by the family patron.
She chose to use her patres, Tennic, as her primary surname on the advice of her mother, to open more doors for her in her career. Tennics are highly regarded in the research community.

Derren

During her education, when she was nineteen, she began dating her lifelong friend (Fabien). They enjoyed their time together, but found romantic involvement strange and uncomfortable, so went back to just being friends again with no particular regrets over the experiment. Unfortunately, the brief period of dating was enough to get their two families interested. Palia's mother asked about children and mistook Palia's disinterest as acceptance. She floated the idea to Honeras' family, who assumed Palia had given her approval, so agreed to the union.
So Palia ended up having a small baby dropped on her with little prior warning. So could have terminated it while it was in the vats, but despite her anger, she chose to keep it. Honeras felt incredibly guilty for the whole misunderstanding even though he'd known very little of it himself, so offered to take care of the child for her, but Palia pointed out that she'd be able to offer more stability. Palia's mother also offered to look after it, but Palia flatly refused and hasn't spoken to her since, despite many attempts to apologise. Palia also saw the event as her mother's interference, so didn't weant the burden to fall to Honeras. Incidentally, they broke up when Palia was twenty and the boy came out of the vats when she was twenty-four, so her mother clearly didn't get the memo.
Legality

The actions of Palia's mother were highly illegal, as she forged Palia's signature on the forms required by the vats. By law, signatures must be obtained from all those whose genetic material is being used and at least one person must sign a parentage contract. Palia's mother forged both and included her own signature on the parentage contract. Palia was going to have her mother arrested when she found out, but both Fabien and several relatives convinced her to have her struck from the parentage contract instead. The contract is exclusively in Palia's name now, and this probably wouldn't have been approved had it been the state of the contract when originally submitted.

They named the boy Derren Caelis Nessus, after a distant but well-regarded relative of Fabien's.
Palia was terrified about the consequences of losing Derren despite the fact that she never wanted him. She thought it would prove her weak and undeserving. She felt constantly guilty that she didn't love him and tried to hide it, even from Fabien, although he could see right through it and did his best to support her.

Living on Everatus IV

Following her graduation, she chose to research an unusual, air-dwelling species – the kariassid – on the planet of Everatus IV. The kariassid seemed to have a unique connection to the Empyrean, each acting like a miniature nexus and keeping themselves aloft using it. Palia theorised that they had some way of generating the energy and wanted to see if they could be bred for use as a sustainable fuel source for Empyrrics.
A convenient side-effect of choosing Everatus IV was that she would be the only person there, besides Derren and an Ado-model assistance robot. After everything she had been through with her family, she wanted to escape and stay away from society until she had had time to recover. Her isolation didn't aid her path to recovery, however, and she refused to admit how desperately she missed others' company. The only other people she met while living on the orbital platform were transitors bringing supplies.
She kept herself from boredom by jogging around the platform, immersing herself in virtual-reality simulations and throwing herself into her research.
Unfortunately, she never completed her research. The Hegemony's flagship trawled through the system and the Magister devoured every living planet in it. Palia just managed to escape Everatus IV, but Derren died as the Ado was carrying him to the shuttle.
Click to show spoilers for The Empyrean

Rescued by the Protectorate

After the destruction of Everatus IV, Palia was picked up by two Protectorate free agents, Ferrash and Bek. They brought her to Hesperex, where they reported their investigation of The Hegemony flagship and the events of Everatus IV to a subcommittee. While the subcommittee wanted Palia to remain in Protectorate custody, Ferrash struck a deal that let her travel with them to find the culprit for the disaster.
Shortly before this, Palia had realised that the Hegemony flagship might in fact be responsible for the desctruction of Everatus IV – and therefore the death of her son. This made finding answers her top priority. The fact that being so close to the planet's destruction had made her empyrric through a process known as empyrric shock, however, was a problem. Unable to control her new ability, Palia barely made it off Hesperex without being discovered.

On the trail of the flagship

Palia went with the two spies to Munab, where Ferrash claimed there may be more information on what the flagship was up to. Deep in the Munabi Wilds, they came across Fabien, who had been working with the Kept on the Magister's orders to secure a piece of prototype technology. She also accidentally bonded with a Siggerith while Ferrash was teaching her to control the Empyrean, taking the creature off the planet with her to later leave on Sirat.
As they travelled to Sirat, where Palia would convince Austela Arsaeria and her troupe to join them against the Magister, Palia experimented with the prototype. She discovered that it could create a feedback loop within empyrrics that would eventually either kill them or strip them of their ability. She also theorised that it might be possible to create such a feedback loop without the help of any device.

Assaulting the prison station

When Ferrash was kidnapped by Hegemony empyrrics, Palia was devastated and furious in equal measure. She left Sirat in pursuit with Bek and the troupe, following Ferrash's trail to a prison station. She successfully led a team to break him out of prison, but lost control of the Empyrean and killed most of the troupe as a result.

Facing the Magister

Once she had recovered from her guilt, Palia joined her remaining allies aboard Fabien's ship, the Memnet Horasin, and prepared for a coup against the Magister. While they had hoped to take the ship and topple the Magister without bloodshed, they ended up battling their way to the Eye of the flagship to confront him. Palia tried to put her theory into practice by drawing on a loop of her and Ferrash's feelings for each other to strip the Magister of his ability, but the Magister clung too tight, his energy overcame him, and he disintegrated.
Palia had drawn too much during her feedback loop. When she regained conciousness, she had lost all her memories of Ferrash, and all that remained was a loose thread of emotion reaching out for something no longer there. Ferrash himself had disappeared on seeing she didn't recognise him.
When Fabien took the Magister's place, Palia reluctantly accepted the Consulate's offer of becoming a pestor. On paper, her role would be to provide scientific insight into the technology the Magister had integrated into the flagship and his plans for it. What it really gave her was the reach she needed to search for Ferrash, which she promised to do alongside Bek.

Full name
Palia Caelis Tennic

Year of Birth

23989 SRB

Birthplace

Asana, Sellen

Gender

Female

Eyes

Green

Hair

White (formerly hazel)

Height

5'5"