Diana

(a.k.a. The Red Queen)

A former Cadet-Commissar of the Septemvius VI 4th Regiment and later Antak'ya, Lady Diana or the Red Queen as she is sometimes known is feted by the Antakyans as one of the founders of their settlement, the wife of their first leader and the mother of their second. Living in self-imposed exile since the ascension of Haalis, she harbors dark secrets - mutation, xenos-corruption, and the birthing of a dreadful cancer that eats at the heart of the now-independent realm.

Mental characteristics

Personal history

Birth and Early Life

Born in Illyria on Macragge, the capital world of the Ultramarines' realm of Ultramar, Diana Lernaea was a fourth-generation Genestealer Hybrid. Over many generations and several centuries the Cult had grown from a lone Genestealer that had slipped past imports & excise screenings in a munitorum container to a many-tentacled cancer deeply enmeshed into the planet's infrastructure. One of the institutions controlled by the cult was a genetic screening laboratory - on other worlds such an important task would have been undertaken by Imperial Adepts, members of the Magos Biologis cadre of the priesthood of Mars, but the Ultramarine masters of Macragge gave dignity and independence to the mortals under their rule by allowing them to pursue private enterprise and contracting government work to trusted businesses. In this instance their trust was misplaced, because the Cult was able to provide its members with forged certificates of genetic purity.
And this was why Diana was never discovered, not even when her family was killed during a Chaos uprising. The region of Illyria was historically known as a hotbed of anti-Imperial sentiment - rebellion, sedition and even worship of the Ruinous Powers is not unknown here. The cell of the Cult Diana's family was part of took advantage of his by masquerading as a devout community of laypeople isolated within the walls of their compound, growing their own food and living simple and austere lives in reparation for Illyrian treachery. Regarded as harmless by the authorities of Macragge they were able to pass unnoticed.
But it was not just those loyal to the Imperium they fooled. A temple of the Ruinous Powers took their piety at face value and - after a series of setbacks (in truth caused by infiltration by Adeptus Arbites agents not any divine intervention brought about by prayers to He-They-Call-Anathema) - they threw off their own secrecy and attacked many Imperial institutions, including the purported monastery.
The renegades revealed their secret shock-troops, mutants corrupted by the warping powers of Chaos. Outside the compound's walls and within the courtyard, the Genestealer Cult could only fight back with their own cultists and Brood Brothers - but once the Chaos forces penetrated into the buildings they were met by ferocious Purestrains and Hybrids. But the cell knew they could not prevail even if they were victorious in battle - their secrecy was paramount and if it were broken the entire Cult would be at risk. Acting with alien pragmatism and on the psychic orders of the Patriarch far away the cell conducted a fighting retreat, luring the followers of Chaos into the compound's reactor room where the plasma-coils were overloaded and the entire compound destroyed and physical evidence of genetic corruption obliterated.

Imperial Service

Diana was a babe in arms when Chaos attacked and she survived, found in the rubble of her home by the Arbites sent to mop up the last elements of Chaos resistance. Branded with a forged Libellum Puritatis Geneticae by the Cult she was not subjected to any testing and was inducted into the Schola Progenium. There she grew and was raised by Drill-Abbots, quickly being marked for high station because of her intelligence, charisma and obedience - traits that owed much to her heritage as a Genestealer Hybrid. Her baldness was remarked on, but it had been put about by the cell that follicles were burned away at birth as a penance and rejection of vanity and this was accepted as an appropriately-pious explanation.
Of course as she grew her true loyalty shifted to the distant Patriarch of the Cult, manipulated by his psychic powers through her genetic link. The Cult was eager to turn the setback of the cell's destruction into an advantage, and she was a unique asset - gestating in the Imperium's womb, above suspicion with a history of piety and martyrdom, and with any physical evidence destroyed. As she reached puberty the Cult received another gift - the wyrdling-gene unfolded in her and her psychic powers blossomed. Normally such a thing would have been noticed - perhaps at the purity scan but certainly when uncontrolled powers manifested - but, thanks to the mentorship of the Patriarch, Diana was able to control her powers and even mask her abilities.
At 14 she was selected for the Commissariat and transferred to the Officio Prefectus. At 16 she was commissioned a Cadet-Commissar and joined a Commissar Training Squad assigned to the Septemvius IV 4th Regiment. Throughout this period she bided her time, the Patriarch patiently waiting for the most opportune time to utilize his hidden asset, now deployed several sectors away.

War Against The T'au

When the Damocles Gulf Crusade was called, the Septemvius 4th took up the Aquila and made war on the T'au. For three years she fought alongside her squadmates and the Septemvian rank-and-file until the Crusade ground to a stalemate and Inquisitor Kryptman ordered with withdrawal to face the Tyranid threat of Hive Fleet Behemoth. Imperial troops, including the Septemvius 4th, found themselves abandoned and forced to choose between joining the T'au Empire or destruction at its hands.
The Septemvians were more open to alliance with xenos than most Imperials - this is why so many Commissars from other worlds were assigned to their regiments. A mutiny broke out in the regiment, with officers and rank-and-file wishing to join the T'au and the Commissars opposing them. The Gue'vesa settlement of Antak'ya was founded. The Commissars resisted the new political order with acts of rebellion, sedition and terrorism.
Now the Patriarch saw his opportunity to activate his asset. It was clear resistance to the T'au was futile; the Commissars were too few to prevail against the masses of Astra Militarum and, even if they did and the regiment fought, the Fire-caste would crush them. It would be better to have a stable settlement in which Diana could breed the next generation of Purestrains and begin a new Cult in the heart of this new race's territory. He had Diana conspire with the Septemvians and betray the Commisariat, capturing them and trying them in courts martial. Using both the training she had received in the Officio Prefectus and her own heretical talents she lead the prosecution, shaping the opinion of the Septemvians and convincing juries to convict and judges to sentence to death. No Commissar was spared and the Patriarch was now in the perfect position to begin a new Cult right in the heart of the overly-trusting Gue'vesa settlement.
But the Patriarch was not to have his victory, as events in the wider galaxy unfolded and robbed him of it. Hive Fleet Behemonth had carved through Imperial space, leaving scores of death worlds in its wake and slamming into the Ultramarine's capital world. Heeding a call from the Hive Mind he could no more resist than his own brood could resist his, the Patriarch lead his Cult in an uprising against the government and military of Macragge, fighting as a fifth column behind the lines and causing great damage. But it was all ultimately for naught. As a "reward" for their service, the Cult was consumed by the Hive Fleet, achieving apotheosis in being absorbed by the Star Gods. In the Battle of Macragge the Lord of Ultramar Marneus Calgar defeated the Tyranids and scoured them from the Void and his planet. The Patriarch was destroyed and the chains of the Hive Mind broken. Unknown to the Imperium and now unknown to the Tyranids, Diana was free.

Independence

Although unguided by the Cult's Broodmind for the first time in her life, Diana had forgotten nothing of what had happened to her and understood the genetic corruption she carried within herself. She had no real loyalty to the Imperium or the T'au or even the fledgling settlement of Antak'ya but she recognized the reality of the political situation and that remaining loyal to the T'au Empire was necessary for survival.
She also knew could never wed and must remain forever celibate; chastity would keep the alien beast within her locked away but marriage, romance or even a night's dalliance would let the horror spring forth. This was complicated by attention lavished on her by Colonel Lewis, the former commander of the regiment and now the Administrator of Antak'ya. She was a beautiful young woman, not yet twenty Terran-standard, and he was much older than her. Despite this - or perhaps because of it - he was smitten with her and made frequent overtures, pleading with her to be his bride. His interest may have been simply physical but it would also have advantaged him politically; she was highly respected by the Antak'yans and a union would have cemented his own power. Sensing this, she delicately rebuffed his romantic advances and instead suggested a political alliance as co-Administrators of the settlement, an arrangement he accepted.

The Wolf of Outremer

But not everyone enamored of her was so easily dissuaded. Renaud d'Châtillon, the rapacious Wolf of Outremer, was raiding T'au settlements in defiance of a non-aggression pact brokered between his brother Baudouin and Commander Farsight. His men had taken plunder - xenos technology, fuel and power cells, T'au trading tokens, even captives who were made into slaves - but more than his avarice was aroused when he saw a vid-capt of Diana. Desiring her to be his wife - or, at least, claiming such - he played court to her, but she refused him. Even if had not been for the alien secret within her, she would have refused the cruel and uncouth Renaud who she found repulsive.
But the Wolf of Outremer was not to be gainsaid, and led a raid on Antak'ya which kidnapped her. He gave her one final chance to accept his attentions willingly and, when she refused, he forced himself upon her and bestowed intimate indignities on her person. Lying in her cell violated and shamed afterwards, her true pain was the knowledge the alien horror within her could burst forth. She had no meaningful faith in the Emperor, but she prayed to Him that night Renaud's seed - monstrous in itself - would find no purchase in her corrupted womb.

The Alien Beast Within

Alas, her prayers were not to be answered. Although Renaud was defeated at the Battle of Ha'tin and she was rescued by Commander Farsight and returned to Antak'ya, two weeks later her worst fears were realized by the absence of her cycle. Although she had no test performed for fear of what a medicae might discover about her child, it was clear to her feminine instincts she was pregnant. Elective abortion was a crime - in both the Imperium and T'au Empire children were property of the state and may not be destroyed, and that view prevailed in Antak'ya - and while it is certain a medicae would have purged the alien from her, she herself would have been consigned to the pyres. She dared not resort to unquickening drugs and pessaries - a Genestealer's xenos resilience meant it might survive poisons that would kill her. Who knew what the vile beast would do? Snip its way out of her corpse with a claw and crawl away only to reveal itself later?
The situation was made worse by the well-meaning concern of Antak'ya's Administrator; as the weeks turned to months Diana was unable to hide her condition from him. He knew the child could only be Renaud's and he sympathized as much as he could, going so far as to offer her discrete access to his personal medicae so her "condition" could be taken care of. Tearfully, she refused - she told him it was because she would not force him to break Imperial and T'au law, but in reality she knew not even the most discrete physician would keep her child's nature secret.
He respected her decision and offered another solution; she would accept his previous marriage proposal - although, he assured her, it would be merely a legal arrangement and they would not share a bed - and the child would be presented as their offspring and heir to Antak'ya. Perhaps it was a pure kindness to save her shame, perhaps he hoped she would warm to him as they parented together and acquiesce to his affections. Unable to see any other way out, Diana accepted and they were married forthwith.

Relationships

Colonel Lewis

Husband

Towards Diana

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Diana

Wife

Towards Colonel Lewis

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0

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Current Location

The Damocles Marches

Spouses

Colonel Lewis (Husband)

Siblings

Children

• Genestealer Patriarch

Eyes

Piercing black without iris

Hair

Bald

Skin Tone/Pigmentation

So pale there is an underlying blue tinge