Saika Vucora

Saika was born during the dawn of the Empire, grandaughter of a planetary governor and daughter to one of the Zygerrian queen's favored advisors and relatives.  Despite having fought with their troops barely a year before her birth, the Vucora family taught her to love the Empire practically from birth; and why wouldn't they?  They legitimized the Zygerrian way of life and allowed them to continue their slave trade without fear of being intercepted save by the usual vigilantes; certainly there were taxes now, but Saika's family always taught her to think of it as a protection tax.  She grew up in the lap of luxury, sometimes spending weeks at a time in the royal palace, though mostly within her own family's manor.  Her mother Yora technically had a husband whom was a fellow noble, but in practice he was simply the other half of the genes needed to make Satra and her brothers; she was raised in a one-parent household.  She didn't particularly find herself lacking for it, however, as her mother provided all the nurturing she needed and the slack was taken up by slaves and underlings, which was fine by her.  As a little girl she was often taken to slave auctions and political summits, whether this was as assassin repellent or trying to introduce her to the realities of life early, it succeeded in desensitizing her to the cruelty and violence of the Zygerrian Slave Empire and instilled in her a simple truth.  The weak are meant to be dominated by the strong.  If you become dominated, then you are weak.  She took to it incredibly well, going out of her way to establish her picking order above her brothers and, of course, above the slaves.  However, she also discovered that others didn't take well to it and her mother of course saw to it that she was taught the proper ways of handling people without brute force, physical or verbal, but rather in simply making them believe you to be a threat, regardless of whether you are or not.  Perhaps because of this, Satra developed a powerful lust for knowledge and tests of mental acuity, intentionally getting into debates with fellow nobles even when she knew she would lose them just for the practice.

Her grandmother died when Saika was ten, and as such her mother inherited the family flagship, Fragile, a veteran Marauder from the Clone Wars.  Not long later Yora became the governor of Therritha.  While Saika's preferred pass-times were watching the slave conditioners do their work and honing her diplomatic edge on anyone she could come across, she soon found a new love when her mother took her for a maneuver in Fragile on her twelfth birthday.  A trandoshan slaver party decided to pirate one of their transports, but made the mistake to stop at another starport.  The Vucora's had informed a bought-off Imperial official to delay their prey, but asked them to let Fragile and her attendant ships handle it personally... and so when the ship was finally let out of its berth, a Marauder with fighter escorts was awaiting them.  After crippling the ship and boarding it, the vast majority of the trandoshans were captured (via large numbers of stun blasters and shock whips)... and it was as her mother debated what to do with them that Saika hit on an idea.  For many hours she worked on breaking one of the trandoshans, not just into being a slave, not just into kneeling at her feet, but into cursing the Scorekeeper herself and used him to break the other lizards in much the same way.  Her mother was with her the whole while, granting her pointers on the best locations to strike and trying to teach her the subtleties of knowing when to cause excruciating pain, when to cause simple discomfort, and when to ease off to allow that brief, glass-like flicker of hope which is so easily shattered.  And the hilarious part: it was over practically before it had even begun.  It was a grand learning experience for her, that beings' loyalties were only as strong as their will, and those who rely on their bodies as their force of will are the weakest of all.  She took a deep liking to biology after this, and soon her mother began trying to teach her some of the more hazardous things involving slaves, having her personally assist with breaking some of the more dangerous sorts, observing the mannerisms of those who will be harder to break.  And when her mother took Fragile for a ride, she asked to watch, to observe the strategems, not to mention occasionally going to watch Imperial training maneuvers or, on occasion, police actions if they happened to be in the same area.  She has also on rare occasions visited other slave markets, mostly to observe stylistic methods, and while she learned a little about whipping and torture techniques, she personally prefers the psychological breakdown that her own people did.  As she learned more, her mother started giving her responsibilities with the slave trade, organizing shipments and overseeing slave conditionings... and perhaps a little bit of haggling prices out.  It was good work, and it even got her the chance to meet some interesting people who would serve as excellent business associates in the future.  However, her time as the apprentice came to an abrupt end.

When she was eighteen, after a lovely dinner with family, Yora Vucora retired to her chambers with a male Togruta slave in tow, no doubt intending for him to entertain her... about a half-hour later a blood curdling scream came from down the hall.  Saika sprinted to her mother's room blaster in hand, and found the Togruta leaned over his mother's nude corpse, a crimson blade in his hand.  She shot him with a stun bolt and took him as a prisoner.  Between arranging the funeral and taking control over her mother's affairs herself, she had little time to waste... but what little time she had was spent making the murderer of her mother pay.  On the outside she was the model of control, clearly grieved over the loss of her mother, but intent on not letting anyone else pick at the bones of her miniature empire--any who dared attempt such a thing after she asserted herself as the continued governor, she either challenged to a duel (via her mother's former champion of course) or, if they refused, had silenced.  Some contacts were still lost to competition, but most of those were done in the earliest hours.  There was no period of upheaval or political jockeying on the planet--she spent a week wedging herself into the governorship as the proper heir to her mother's throne, and once positioned kept operations moving smoothly, the queen had no place to argue and the Empire was largely out of the loop.  In some ways, people were more optimistic with Satra in charge, despite her youth: while she might not always say what she meant, it was easy to know how you stood with her, as it was always your own doing which would put you in danger.  However, when she was alone in her home, any time she had a bad day or felt like finishing it strong she went down to the dungeon and visit her vengeance on that Togruta.  She knew he had no accomplices, his was an act of passionate hatred, that there was nothing tangible she was getting out of him for this.  For her this was how she unwound now, casually punishing the man eternally tethered to the walls below.  She kept him alive... killing him was too merciful, and since he wouldn't eat she used IV drips of various sorts to keep him breathing, always using a lower setting on her whip when she punished him to keep from actually damaging him.  She kept him down in that cellar for three years before his body finally gave out.

At the time, Alderaan's destruction was a footnote for Saika; the Empire was still strong and was crushing something which irritated it.  She didn't agree with the method (why waste perfectly good resources?), but she figured that it would mean little for her or her efforts, since she figured nobody would be stupid enough to oppose anyone who has a device which blew up planets.  She was a touch concerned that she was that much weaker than the Empire and disliked that situation, but it was an old one and something she was accustomed to.  Aaaaand then the Death Star was destroyed.  Bit of an anti-climax really.  Seeing something so mighty so thoroughly destroyed sent the Zygerrian stock-market into a panic, wavering manically as people attempted to brace themselves for the coming trials.  Not all other races saw the shadows of the Empire's fall on the horizon, but the Zygerrians (perhaps not for the right reasons) knew that power lead to domination, and anything with that much power was a grand threat.  Of course, they didn't know the details of the battle.  Satra did what she could to quiet the panic on her own planet, on a few occasions personally going out with Fragile (alongside other Zygerrian ships) to kill rebel vessels which intruded on their territory.  All had to look like it was under control, and thus the Zygerrians were kept at peace.  However, she (and most of the Zygerrian nobility) began preparing to retract support from the Empire, making sure that their assets were secured in case of the worst until either the Rebellion or the Empire gained the upper hand.  Saika even put out extra rewards for large batches of slaves, packing her stables in order to pad her stock.  Turned out to be a well-founded fear: the Rebellion took control.

The Zygerrian Slave Empire was rocked when the New Republic was founded and the Galactic Empire went on the defensive.  Each planet fared as well as their leadership could manage, and to Saika's credit she was good at keeping them under control, bailing out hurting nobles and businesses using her bloated stock and keeping their economy stable.  During this time she feared instability and began hiring more bodyguards to cover her back.  At the same time, she became far more active with her shadowy side-activities, not relying on blatant actions, but rather subtle "accidents" which she could deny involvement of, make it seem like the world was righting itself without outside influence.  This was also the time period where Fragile saw its electronic countermeasures added, as she suspected that if she was going to have to use it, she'd need to make sure she wasn't found.  Perhaps also because of her paranoia, she desired an heir and so stopped taking her birth-control pills and was soon enough given a son via her favored guard, Korvas.  The first boy she named Tralet, and soon enough she was given another son, Klan, then her twin sons, Nathra and Nazca.  She jokes that she wanted a daughter, but after the twins there was no way she was giving birth again.  It's also not entirely clear if all of the boys belonged to Korvas, as while it was rare, she occasionally slept with other nobles she was working out a deal with.  Life was fairly normal in the early days of her parenthood, she still had her job to take care of but neither the Republic nor the Imperial Remnant bothered doing much with them, and things were pretty stable.  She tried to teach her boys much as her mother had taught her, bringing them to see the violent events, get them used to the way the world worked, make them comfortable in their place above the lesser beings and make them confident in their ability to dictate the world.  It went well, though she had the impression her oldest wasn't quite as interested in politics as he should have been--still he took to it well enough and she was happy to grant him his swoop bikes.  The younger boys also followed a little in Tralet's footsteps, but there was enough difference between them that she overlooked it; the twins in particular seemed to LOVE the political debates.  Of course... then... the Republic came a-knocking.

Now... don't misunderstand, Saika was more than eager to fight the Republic, she had her men riled up, had the best equipment she could get her hands on; come to think of it the Zygerrians were probably one of the galaxy's largest purchasers per-capita of the R-41 Star Chaser.  She wasn't actually going to fight, Heaven no, but she would direct the fighting from the ground and had Fragile loaded up and ready to make a hard burn... and then she noticed the fleet of troop transports leaving the planet.  The queen was abandoning Therritha.  She was abandoning her people who probably could've fought off the Republic, or at least done a damn good job of bloodying them so that reinforcements could finish the job.  But no.  They were abandoned.  Now, Therritha wasn't alone in this, several other of the fringe colonies were treated similarly.  However, she wasn't about to lose her own troops defending another planet when they were so thinly stretched, and neither were the others.  She knew she couldn't win, so she did the only thing she could: she struck the mother of all deals with the Republic.  It was the most humiliating thing she had ever done, she offered all manner of deals which to this day make her want to vomit in disgust.  She betrayed her queen and opened the gates for the Republic, against the overwhelming anger of her people.  But her goal was accomplished: Therritha became a Republic planet with legalized slavery, and she was kept in charge.  Now, technically they're no longer allowed to do slavery, but by simply saying that the rent for their servants costs more than their practical income and keeping it at minimum wage, well they're able to mimic the results.  The physical abuse is less powerful, and as such control is less impressive.  At first the Therrithans were furious with her for harming their honor by not letting them fight, but as they saw the state of the other Republic-conquered worlds of their former empire, they realized that she had actually managed to save them in a round-about way.  On Therritha, she is considered a hero.  However, keeping the status quo has become her number one job, as many within the Republic target her planet politically and it's everything she can do to have her ambassadors keep afloat and keep those who would ruin her work silenced.

Through this trying time, she had to alter her sons' training, trying to focus more on politics than domination, and it was stressful for her to do so between all the work she had to do.  The boys were good about it, they learned well, but they tended to question things more than she had as a girl.  She tried to give them answers which would keep them on the straight and narrow (as she saw it), and she succeeded for the most part, but there was only so much a woman could do to keep the boys under control.  Her greatest mistake was in taking them on her journeys out of Zygerrian space; her logic had been that she needed to keep an eye on them and to provide them answers for all of the ethical dilemmas that might trouble them, and instead she gave them a taste of what the galaxy thought of Zygerrians.  With the younger three she was able to salvage things--she taught them to blow it off, that it was the thoughts of the weak criticizing the strong, and she taught that to Tralet too.  Unfortunately, Tralet began questioning things at just the same time that his remarkable talent at swoop racing was also coming into the forefront... and so he was able to slip out from under her gaze without any excuse.  Of course, she wasn't aware of changes--she didn't seem him often enough and he had taken after her in his talent for hiding his thoughts (something she had once been proud of).  When he damn near became a champion and only lost due to a last-second slip-up, she rewarded him regardless, pleased with his showing and gave him a servant with a large family whom she assured "If you harm him, you and all your family will suffer far worse than simple torture."  She had no idea that she had just personally planted the final seed in his mind.  Eventually she discovered her son's attempted flight, and while if he had simply wanted to leave she would have granted it, his mentality about slavery had become worrisome.  She realized that if she let him go, he might turn on her... and he knew far more about her deeds than anyone save maybe her personal guards.  She could not let her own son ruin her, so she crippled his ability to leave until she could recondition him.  In the meantime, she has risen up her younger boys, who were more than happy to take the place of their disgraced brother.  Despite this, she takes no joy in it.  Tralet had been her pride and joy, and she hopes he will be again, and in her heart she still blames the Republic.  That filthy establishment that can't even stick to its own morals and has whored itself out to the Jedi, a paradox of weak men being granted great power.  Her greatest desire is to free herself, her family, her people, and her planet from the Republic's clutches... but of course she is but one planetary governor of a planet whose core economy is being throttled.  There is only so much she can do.