Name: Irene Himmel
Nickname: The Sun Daughter
Age: 45
Birth Date: September 2nd, 25,683 CE
Gender: female
Planet of Origin: Betreuen
Race/Species: Human
Height: 5’ 10”
Weight: 175 lbs
Physical Description or Image:
Social Class: Minor Nobility
Titles: Baroness/ of Betreuen, Governor of Betreuen
Occupation: Acting governor and military commander of the Betreuen Penal colony
Hobbies/Pastimes: Drinking Boba Milk Tea, painting, and cooking
Talents/Skills: An adept administrator with an affinity for quick tactical and strategic decisions. Her logistical vision and insight into civil and military maintenance ensure her place as Betreuen’s most ambitious warden.
Religious Beliefs: Agnostic on all religions, she is far more concerned with the material realm to think about eternal life after death. Irene takes great offense when religious orders interfere with her rulership as she considers them too contemptuous to give meaningful help.
Personality: A ruthless and pragmatic woman that despises hedonism and incompetence. Living in a penal colony surrounded by rapists, murderous, thieves, crackers, and political prisoners, Irene refuses to be part of a world, much less a universe, surrounded by degeneracy. Whatever it takes, she will drag them down kicking and screaming to wipe out their sin and make them model citizens of the Imperium.
Biography: Being born in a penal colony haphazardly run by apathetic governors, Irene had to grow up fast in order to be safe from the gangs forming around the slums. Despite coming from a minor noble household, her parents were exiled in disgrace here. As such, the family name meant nothing to the criminals and lowlifes sent to live on Betreuen. With no point of trying to form a living here, Tanya lied about her age and enlisted in the Imperial Army at 14 after her parents were murdered in a gang war. Being part of the Imperium’s oldest military institution surely meant a stable life, right?
For Irene, it was a way to channel her frustration and internal hatred towards the criminals on her home planet. Every night she would go to bed thinking of tearing them apart with her own hands to satisfy her vengeance and every morning she would wake up disappointed that she was only dreaming of her revenge. As to her instructors and commanding officers, Irene was a model soldier of the Imperium: loyal, unyielding, and highly competent. As Fate would have it, once she graduated as the ace Lieutenant of her class from the military academy and transferred back to Betreuen as part of the garrison.
Only there did her festering wrath finally reveal itself when she executed her first criminal for several accounts of murder at 25 years old in Betreuen. Such an act would get her court-martialed but the governor let the issue slide as he saw her as nothing more than an attack dog to keep the unruly populace from spilling over into open rebellion. Decades of neglect by the sycophantic planetary rulers combined with the death world nature left the colony in danger of failing to the elements. Unfortunately for the negligent governor, Irene would not be content being someone else’s tool in the shed.
Forming her own faction of like-minded individuals, she quickly set out to remove the governor out of office in a bloodless coup in his palace and in a violent crackdown against the colonists. Offering a choice of abdicating his position to her or facing the Emperor’s wrath after revealing to the Senate evidence of his criminal neglect on his rulership, the governor picked the former and fled the planet. A great victory although it was scandalous enough for her to get shafted from a promotion.
After 20 years, Betreuen had turned from a failed attempt at a penal system to a model colony in the Imperium. By ruling through an iron fist under a velvet glove, criminals and outcasts from every corner of the Imperium have been reformed into outstanding citizens and loyal soldiers. Slowly but surely, through steeled determination and countless deaths of the worst offenders, the death planet was being conquered.
With her grand experiment a massive success, Irene began looking towards Nova Terra. It was no secret that the Imperium was in decline with rising poverty and an influx of new criminals sent to her planet as future colonists. Fearful of a universe in chaos, Irene had to submit her proposal to the Imperial Senate to enact some badly needed reforms.
Unfortunately for her, her success in Betreuen brought suspicion to the high nobility in the Imperium. The “Upstart Lieutenant” from a backwater planet coming to the capital to lecture them how they should govern the universe...Even if it’s proven that the lowlifes and criminals of the Imperium have been reformed under Irene’s policies, it is without question that their loyalty lies in with the Sun Daughter.
If Great House or a leader of a Faction like a SAS, Colony, Et Cetera
Name of Territory: Betreuen Penal Colony
Government: One Party Authoritarian Stratocracy
Capital World: Betreuen
Population: 600 million
Economy: As a colony, or as some would say the "Imperium's Wastebasket", its main export has always been raw materials such as iron, chromium, nickel, silver, and gold thanks to a constant stream of "immigration" to the mines. But under Irene, the trade expanded to arms manufacturing and annual tithes of soldiers to the Imperial Army. Despite the lack of political rights, inhabitants have plenty of economic freedom such as private property and small business ownership. Only conglomerates and corporations on the planet are state-owned by Irene’s government.
Culture: Home of the Betreuen Blackguard Corps, society on the planet is heavily militarized with all criminals having to serve four years in the penal militia as their sentence. From there, they would endure horrendously brutal training, the hellscape that is the untamed environment, and are constantly fed Imperial propaganda.
Natural born residents have it easier as under Irene’s laws that they will not inherit the crimes of their parents. As such, there is a growing generation of young families eternally grateful towards Irene as they no longer have to endure the stigma of their ancestors. Given that they are far more receptive to her regime, these natural-born residents make up the backbone of her administration that turns criminals into loyal fanatics.
Of course, Irene had implemented a meritocratic system of promotion in order to ensure that her government isn’t corrupted by loyalist buffoons. Through state-sponsored healthcare and education, the people would no longer have to endure the squalor and destitute that plagued the colony before her rule. Because of her desire to foster knowledge and integrity in the people, religion is heavily restricted and monitored in order to prevent ignorance and superstition. With the current decline of the Imperium, Irene feels validated in her concerns. This is crucial in maintaining stability since 83% of the planetary populace has received firearm training with over half as part of the Penal Militia. Unfortunately, she did not expect that xenophobia would permeate the society she built so hard to create.
Social Structure: Irene Himmel > the Betreuen Blackguards > the natural-born residents > political exiles > white collar criminals > blue collar criminals > the absolute worst criminals.
Territorial Size: Death World (Mars-size)
Military and Security Forces:
The
Planetary Penal Militia acts as Betreuen’s prison for the criminals sent there. Instead of rotting in the cell, the people serve their sentences in expeditions into the wilderness to claim more land for the growing metropolis. For Tanya, the purpose is twofold: culls the planet of its most violent and disruptive penal colonists while simultaneously purging the environment of hostiles. Operates as a reservist defense force in case of invasion. Notoriously unreliable if the new recruits aren’t spread between the more veteran militias.
The
Betreuen Blackguardsare Irene Himmel’s greatest contribution to the Imperium. Recruited from the penal militiamen deemed reformed, the Emperor won’t find a soldier more recognizable than the men in black uniforms and outfitted in heavy armor and weaponry. Marked by the Black Sun (painted in white) on their shoulder pauldrons and helmet, the Blackguards operate as heavy infantry in the Imperial Army serving as their stormtroopers in every engagement. Their fatalism and devotion to duty are second-only to the Imperial Guard leading to a mutual rivalry between them. It is calculated that 80 million Blackguards are in active service.
The
Walkyre are an all-female task force assigned as Irene's personal bodyguards as well as protecting important figures of her government at home and abroad. Drawn from the most loyal and capable female recruits from the Betreuen Blackguards, the Walkyrie are also tasked in anti-counterfeiting operations as Irene trusts no one else to enforce monetary integrity. There is actually one battalion of Walkyrie integrated in the 1st Betreuen Armored Blackguard
Liebgarde Irene Himmel. Most often than not, Walkyre recruits are native-born instead of being exiled convicts.