Post by Darth Niamh on Oct 9, 2015 23:40:09 GMT
Darth Niamh; an analysis
The FoundationSugar, spice, everything nice, and a heaping helping of half-developed ideas... Yep, totally sounds like the recipe for a Sith Lord!
The real starting point for Niamh was this half-developed idea I had of this childish type of Sith, someone who sang, danced, and had most of her power in subtler, mind-altering effects that were intended to screw with her opponents, but also having force scream as her primary offensive power to emphasize the whole “singer” aspect of her personality. She was going to be a more traditional Sith, killing subordinates for failure, only caring about herself, that sort of thing. This idea got thrown out in favor of another character, this witch who was going to represent a return to the more traditional image of the Dark Side Witches, instead of this whole Nyx-centric cult that developed among House Mystique; actually, she would have disdained Nyx as this pretender goddess, citing the Force as the only entity worthy of real worship. She would have represented this sort of brutal, pragmatic type of Dark Sider. The sort who supports gender and racial equality not because of any belief in sentient rights, but because deliberately excluding all but half of a population lowers the number of capable servants you can get, which she perceives as being stupidly wasteful. If you use only half of one family of the warriors of your tribe, and your enemies use all the warriors in theirs, they’re going to smash you. Both of these concepts got folded into Niamh to a certain degree, but where Niamh really started to come into being as a character was a YouTube that I just cannot, for the life of me, stop watching.
Pretty cool, right?
I’d seen it before, but it’d never really been anything more than a cool scene until then, but suddenly, I was enthralled. The way Neo poses, the way she smirks, and her general mannerisms were all fantastic, but the way she fights... that’s where the real spark came from. Neo became my model, so to speak. She was my base to work from, and over time, she morphed into Niamh. It’s a technique I use on occasion; take a character I like but know f’all about, build a character to imitate them, and then start making alterations to suit necessity or mood, and, if properly developed, he or she can end up becoming a strong, unique character in his or her own right. I’d like to think that’s where Niamh has ended up, but she hasn’t really had much screen-time outside of training and one mission, and my posts in that mission haven’t really highlighted her as a character very much.
Backstory
After half a dozen drafts of her backstory, Niamh is the last surviving member of a family of powerful Dark Siders on Yashuvhu. Freud would have a field-day with her family dynamics.
One of the early concepts I had while developing Niamh was this über-capitalist. Someone who judged everything by the credit-signs next to it. Morality? Pfft. Sentient rights? Good joke, you’re a funny man. Decency? It’s pronounced “currency,” ma’am, don’t know where you got the “dec-” from. Now, this, of course, suggested a large amount of wealth, which is the origin of Niamh’s points in the resources asset. The natural explanation seemed to be being born into money without having to work for it. She was kind of shaping up to be like the young Palpatine, actually (consequences for my actions? Please. Consequences are for people who can’t finance a frigate), and as I was digging through my Magic the Gathering cards, and I found one called Blood Feud. The illustration struck a chord with me, and I’d coincidentally just gotten done re-reading the tale of the prodigal son and thinking “what a cop out” (no offense to our religious members). I couldn’t help but empathize with the older son; after all, unlike his brother, he never took his inheritance and buggered off to spend it on beer and harlots; he stayed right where he was, worked the fields, helped his father, and acted the part of the dutiful son, but in the end, he didn’t get jack squat. As I recall, he said, roughly, “I never received so much as a goat to celebrate with my friends.” Then, his brother, this good for nothing who ran off to waste Daddy’s money, comes back destitute and he has parties thrown for him. The best meat and wine are served to him and he’s treated like he’s the best son ever. It gets even better after that, because when the older son complains, his father says (again, roughly), “oh, but everything I have has been yours.” Basically, Dad says “hey, don’t look down, you were so lucky to be allowed to keep on working your hindquarters off for me in a house you help maintain.” He could have said “I’m sorry if you felt like I've neglected you, I should have told you how much I love you more often, you’re the greatest son a man could ask for,” or anything like that, but nope, “shut up and be grateful.” And I realize that’s not how it’s supposed to be taken, in all likelihood, but that’s still how it comes across, and thus came the original incarnations of Arin and Aneem, Yulia’s brothers (Yulia being Niamh’s given name).
Arin, the older brother, actually started as a cold, stiff sort of fellow, demonstrating a machine-like disinterest and efficiency in most tasks. An icy administrator, so to speak. Good with numbers, bad with people, obsessed with the family name. Aneem, on the other hand, was much less malicious than his final incarnation, and more of an immature rich boy who never knew when to quit. He still tried to bully Yulia, but in a “mean older sibling” way rather than out of pure spite. Her parents were well-meaning, but inattentive, which led Yulia and Arin to develop a close brother-sister bond, with Yulia ultimately thinking of cold but dutiful Arin as her mentor and guardian more than her loving but ineffective parents.
The original story would have followed the general arc of the prodigal son, with Aneem running off, ending up broke, and coming back humbled, but Arin, not content with being treated like the least loved child, demands his father disinherit Aneem entirely upon his return. Aneem insults him back, with the whole affair turning into a shouting match and their father stepping in, trying to scold Arin. Yulia, however, chooses to stand up to her father for Arin, pointing out that a lot of the family income is Arin's doing, and now that money is being spent on Aneem. Aneem, incensed by Yulia taking Arin’s side, would have insults her grievously, going so far as to subtly accuse Yulia and Arin of incest. Outraged, Arin strikes Aneem, and a brawl breaks out that results in the whole house burning down as candles and the fireplace are overturned. Yulia is the only one to escape, leaving her with her family fortune and nothing else. It explained most of what I needed explained; her money, her lack of empathy (one part being disconnected from the “common” people, one part having parents who sucked at teaching her money wasn’t everything, and one part emotional trauma), and why she was with the brotherhood (where else does a powerful, materialistic young person with no real family and nothing else to do end up?).
As I was doing my research, however, it occurred to me that there was a slight problem; I wanted her to have a very high Spirit stat, and Yashuvhi was the only race that gave a +2 (the other races only gave +1, on top of which Miraluka lose their vision against Ysalamir and have three people already playing them, in addition to all being force sensitives and therefore obvious suspects, while Kissai are aristocratic, snobbish inbreds with delusions of relevance to galactic society. And, they're members of the Sith species, making them, again, obvious suspects. No thanks). Trouble is, Yashuvhi are new to the galactic stage, meaning unless I want to try to get a character less than eight years old past Ares (yeah, that's gonna happen), her fortune had to have been acquired after her birth. So the question became “how does someone from a backwater world that still uses spears and crossbows become someone who doesn’t so much buy tickets to amusement parks as decide to rent the park for the day?”
I had to revise the story to account for this, and in the process, it took a much darker turn. Arin remained a cold, dutiful son, but compared to the rest of
his family, that made him a saint. Dear old Dad became a powerful dark sider hell-bent on founding a dynasty of powerful force sensitives, ideally to take over the world, and Aneem became a cruel, hateful lout, who lost his position as the favorite to Yulia when the magnitude of her force power was discovered. The worst change was for Yulia's mother; she became a hollow shell of a woman, her spirit long-since broken by her maniacal husband to the point that even now, Niamh remembers her less as a mother than as a nearly silent house-maid who just happened to have given birth to her.
Evil is one big screwed up family.
Rather than being born into money, plain and simple, Niamh was born into power. Not legitimate power, but the sort of power that having a father who can crush someone’s windpipe with his mind brings; people brought her family tribute to abate his wrath. It still didn’t cut it for explanations, however. She was treated as a princess, but a princess among people who are banging rocks together doesn’t measure up to the galaxy's standard quality of life. It didn’t explain the level of wealth she had, and I couldn't think of anything until I asked Xaos how a Yashuvhi could have become wealthy, and he pointed out that in the wake of the Yuuzhan Vong war, there was a considerable amount of economic opportunity to be had in reconstruction efforts. From there, the pieces quickly fell into place. Arin had been an administrative type since his initial iterations; it made sense for him to have a very good head for numbers, and, being a dark sider himself, the opportunism inherent in becoming wealthy off of efforts to rebuild the galaxy was perfectly in character. Aneem ran off for adventure the moment the larger galaxy became available, with his father close behind hoping to establish a power-base among the stars, leaving Arin, even brighter than Niamh with her explicitly genius level intellect, to his own devices. Arin got started immediately, trading natural resources and cultural artifacts from the planet to get his initial credits before taking on the galactic economy, often making use of his aptitude for force-assisted persuasion to get a better deal out of the people who mistook him for a tribal primitive. Dad, meanwhile, found some money of his own with the assistance of like-minded individuals. The Force does look after fools, remember.
With the explanation for the source of the credits now solidified, the rest more or less remained the same; Aneem returns, is treated like a prince, Arin demands he be disinherited. The biggest difference is what kicks off the family brawl. When Yulia's father started to rebuke Arin, his mother stood up for him along with Yulia, speaking for the first time in a literal decade at least. This prompted Yulia’s father to attempt to kill her for defying him in front of their children and subverting his authority, and Yulia threw a wine bottle at him to save her mother.
It’s important to note that this wasn’t an act of love towards her mother. She didn't care about her any more than any other maidservant, but she knew Arin did, which forced her hand. She was protecting someone that her brother held dear, rather than someone she personally cared about. It sounds callous, but remember Yulia never got any mother-daughter bonding with the woman. By the time Yulia was conceived, her mother was already broken, little more than an extension of her father’s will. That’s also why I refer to her simply as “Yulia’s mother.” Yulia/Niamh never learned her name, before or after her death.
On another point, rather than it just being Arin and Aneem fighting, everyone fought. Dad strangled Mom, Arin cut Dad's head off and cried over Mom's body, at which point Aneem stabbed him from behind repeatedly and subsequently attacked Yulia, leaving a long, nasty scar on her back that still hurts years later, and she slit his throat in turn.
There was one particular detail I considered adding, but decided against, thank goodness. At one point, I’d considered that perhaps Yulia’s mother and father were brother and sister, rather like the Targaryens or the Lannisters. On a certain level it would make sense— her father wanted to ensure force sensitivity in his children, and there’s a woman from a force-sensitive bloodline readily available. I also remembered that some pharaohs wed siblings to keep power within the family, very much in line with her father's way of thinking, and on top of that, it would really drive home just how screwed up the family dynamic was. In the end, however, I decided against that for four main reasons.
First off, I didn’t think the site would be too keen on it. I wasn’t entirely sure if it crossed too many boundaries, but I didn’t want to test it, given the sheer squickiness inherent in the topic. Second was that I felt like if I was going to play an inbred individual, I ought to actually do research and portray it realistically, which I didn’t really want to do— being the progeny of a brother-sister coupling wasn’t supposed to be a large part of the character, and just ignoring it would have felt like trying to play a character with Tourette’s Syndrome and having them spew profanity; insensitive, marginalizing, and in horrendously poor taste. The third (and most petty) was that you could bet one hundred dollars at odds that a certain someone, you know who you are, would never have let me hear the end of it, and fourth and last (and this is really the one that made me unwilling to go for it), it really cast a different light on the dynamic Yulia had with Arin. It took a dynamic that was supposed to be a big brother mentor looking out for his little sister and made it seem like... something else.
Several times I've tried to imagine how Niamh would try to tell someone “I love you” without actually saying the words, and a number of those attempts included some variant of “I’ve never cared about anyone this much except Arin.” Arin was the most important person in the world to her. If she had to choose between Arin’s life and watching the Death Star blow up Yashuvhu, she’d choose him in a heartbeat. On top of this, she describes one of the lieutenants I’ve developed for her ahead of time as reminding her of her brother. Said lieutenant is actually the proprietor of a nightclub in Telos' red-light district, with a well-deserved reputation for sleeping around that would rival Kairlin Dufré’s (for those of you who didn't know him, he was the Site's ladies' man. 18 Presence, movie star... yeah), and a better deserved reputation for being a sneaky, conniving schutta. I decided that the very last thing I needed to do was add fuel to that particular fire. As Darth Vader would put it...
The Sith Code, The Force, and Morality
For Niamh, The Force is her god, and the Sith Code is its scripture.
Niamh's interpretation of the Sith Code can be summed up as “one ought to follow one's passions,” with passions being here defined as one's drives, thoughts, and feelings. If a person is hungry, he or she should eat. If a person feels that something is wrong, that person should oppose it. If a person is in love, he or she should pursue the beloved as far as that emotion will lead. Only by following these passions can a person have a real life, as denying one's passions is tantamount to a rejection of one's self and renders that person's life effectively meaningless. To put it plainly, it could be said that Niamh perceives the Sith Code as the ultimate existential iteration of the age old phrase “be yourself.” Or more precisely, “be yourself, and screw anyone else,” taking into account the line “Peace is a lie,” which she interprets as a declaration that the individual should place his or her own needs above abstract and “lazy” measurements of the common good, such as “peace.”1 This is, as far as Niamh is concerned, the only hard and fast law in the galaxy, with all others being less rules than guidelines for how certain individuals go about pursuing their passions (rather like the Doctrine of Personal Revelation). The Sith Code guides Niamh's actions in all situations, however far removed from it they may seem.
It bears mentioning that Niamh's devout attitude towards the Sith Code is due to the circumstances of her induction. Prior to joining the Brotherhood, she held many of the same standpoints she currently maintains. Yashuvhu Force traditions are based off of a blend of ancient and more recent (though still outdated) Jedi teachings, to the point where Yashuvhi prophetess Valara Saar took no mate and had no children. In fact, one could almost posit that Niamh's family, and others like them, are somewhat analogous to the early Sith, being Dark Jedi on a planet of primitives strong in the force, using dark side teachings based on a corruption of Jedi philosophy. Niamh could be said to already be a sort of proto-sith prior to joining the brotherhood. Niamh isn't so much a convert from another religion as a pilgrim discovering a religion to which she already belonged.
If Niamh loves, then Niamh's first love is the individual, and Niamh believes the Sith Code commands every individual to be exactly as he or she is, nothing more or less. While many Sith profess this belief, Niamh is one of a rare handful who extend this line of thinking to cover every living being in the galaxy. Though she'd hesitate to say it out loud, Niamh believes that the Sith teachings, with their worship of the individual and glorification of the self, should be shared with the galaxy as a whole, rather than reserved to a few force sensitives, and unlike such Sith as Darth Jadus, who sought to spread them by ingraining hatred and terror in the hearts of the people in his so-called “democratization of fear” where all beings would “revel in fear and degradation,” Niamh desires to use the teachings as an empowering force, teaching all to love and cherish themselves, to recognize the beauty of the individual in themselves and in others, and to realize that every being is an extension and embodiment of The Force itself; each being is The Force, and The Force is each being, ergo in accepting all of oneself, one must by definition love all others. As Papa Palpatine once put it, "it is said that if one could ever entirely comprehend a single grain of sand—really, truly understand everything about it—one would, at the same time, entirely comprehend the universe." While it's completely true that Niamh thinks Sidious was a tool, if she ever found out he'd said that she'd readily admit he got that part right, and maybe rethink her opinion of him a bit (but only a bit).
This is where I start having trouble describing Niamh. I try to explain her approach to morality, but it comes out sounding wrong. Niamh has very few hard and fast limits. Some people would never be able to bring themselves to use the Death Star, but Niamh could. Some people could never sacrifice a family member for something, no matter how important. Niamh could. Niamh can and will lie, cheat, and steal to get what she wants. She would do almost anything to get what she wants.
Except that she wouldn't. She does have limits. If the fate of a planet is at stake, she'll decapitate an unarmed prisoner. More than one, even. But if she just wants a crêpe parfait, she's not going to execute someone who stands between her and her dessert. At the same, time, however, if for some reason her getting a parfait happened to result in an unintentional death, she would sigh, lament the wasted potential, and go back to happily enjoying her treat. Niamh doesn't have rules so much as she has priorities, and despite her lack of remorse over any actions, she places sentient life surprisingly high on that list. She loves the individual, remember.
It's a sort of strange duality she has. She places herself first in importance and is willing to do anything to accomplish her goals, if the goal is worth accomplishing, and yet she loves everyone and thinks of everyone as her equal in a universal sense. Her self-centered worldview effectively means she will always do what is in her own interests, and if that screws you over in the process, she'd be sorry about inconveniencing you (assuming it was a side-effect instead of the goal), but she wouldn't be sorry about doing it, and she'd do it again in a heartbeat unless there was some distinct reason not to, the fact that it screwed you notwithstanding. She wakes up every morning, looks in the mirror, and says “I am the greatest thing since sliced bread,” yet she believes every person should think of himself or herself a perfect being, exactly as the force intended them to be, rather than obsessing over their perceived shortcomings. She believes that everyone should fight tooth and nail for what they want or what they believe in, even if it works at cross purposes with her own goals, yet when confronting an opponent fighting for those ideals, she acts to remove them from her path without hesitation, even if it means striking them down, and expects them to do the same. In fact, she prefers to fight opponents based on differing ideals; such a struggle is ordained by The Force according to her philosophy, a sacred trial of each combatant's convictions and identity.
There are several exceptions to Niamh's otherwise incredibly permissive philosophy. Any action that is committed for the purpose of denying another individual's ability to follow his or her own path is an affront to The Force, as it by definition prevents these individuals from fulfilling their own passions. Slavers, therefore, are one group that Niamh has no tolerance for, as would the Killiks be, if she were aware of their ability to make people into Joiners. Deliberately robbing any individual of autonomy is an unforgivable offense, and grounds for immediate and painful death at Niamh's hand. Note that this doesn't extend to prisons where prisoners are kept for legitimate offenses, or mind-affecting force powers.
Jedi and One Sith
All Niamh's experience with the Jedi is second-hand, from standard Sith rhetoric and the stories told of the Jedi among her people (their most recent exposure to the Jedi was before the Rise of the Empire). In other words, Niamh has a perception of them as ascetic hypocrites, pacifists except in times of war, teachers who suppress the whole truth rather than trust their students to make good decisions with the whole of it. Arrogant zealots seeking to purge all that doesn't conform to their dogma, suppressing their own and others' emotions. Essentially, everying Niamh despises. Self-sacrifice for the sake of something worthwhile is fine with Niamh; cutting off one's arm to survive a life-or-death situation, for example is completely acceptable, or to save a friend, if the friend is worth losing a limb for. But an entire order of mystics teaching others to sacrifice themselves for others regardless of the context, and to suppress their emotions, effectively denying their own identity? That's an entire order built around blaspheming The Force, and using The Force to do it, at that. It's not something that she can abide. Currently, they're the only group to earn the distinction of “hated enemies” but when she figures out that the order has made some changes, she'll have a much brighter opinion of them, more along the lines of “respected adversaries.”
She'll still have problems with them, of course, particularly their handling of Kyp Durron. Not because she opposes his actions, but rather because they use what she perceives as a false excuse. As far as Niamh is concerned, “the Dark Side made me do it” is the biggest cop out of all time. The Dark Side doesn't make anyone do anything he or she doesn't already want to do. It just makes him or her admit the desire. The devil doesn't make deals with those who aren't willing. Using the Dark Side as an excuse is an abdication of personal responsibility, from her perspective. If he was going to be abashed about it later, he shouldn't have done it in the first place.
The One Sith, on the other hand, Niamh will probably admire at first. Other Sith, willing to oppose the brotherhood because they believe their way is better? That scores major points with Niamh. After all, that's what Niamh is all about. As she uncovers their true face, however, Niamh might actually hate them more than she hated the Jedi initially. They're claiming to be Sith, which is all about the individual, but their entire order reduces everyone other than Krayt to a slave, a disposable tool. They don't pursue their own paths. The only one doing what he actually wants to do is Krayt. Everyone else has been indoctrinated, intimidate, or duped into giving up even more of their own free-will and identity than the Jedi have. The One Sith are aptly named, because there's only one Sith in the whole lot of them, the one who was clever and persuasive enough to dupe an entire order of people into surrendering all their own free will and convince them they were Sith when they did, and even he's a borderline case because he doesn't seem to understand that he's running one of the greatest cons in galactic history. He actually thinks his order is a legitimate incarnation of the Sith, when they're anything but.
The Force
Niamh, brought up with Yashuvhi traditions, which were based on old Jedi teachings, believes in the light and dark in The Force. However, Niamh has a somewhat different idea of what these mean. She agrees that the Light Side is the natural state of the force, and that the Dark Side is something different, but she disagrees on just what it is.
Consider that the Force is created by all living things. This means that The Force exists externally in energy generated by others. On the other side of the coin, however, The Force also exists internally, as the energy that the individual drawing on the force creates. This energy is more in-tune with the individual, tinged with his or her own desires. By Niamh's beliefs, this is what the Jedi refer to as the Dark Side; the power of the self, the individual. It explains the physical degeneration suffered by excessive use of the Dark Side (drawing upon one's own reserves excessively is damaging, the same way that exercising too intensely for too long burns muscle), the inward-focus of the Sith, and the "taint" of the Dark Side (powerful individuals leave behind some of what they generate. Dwelling in one area will naturally leave behind a higher concentration of this energy). In a sense, every individual has their own personal Dark Side, where the Light Side is a more homogenized mix of the energies from assorted sources. Therefore, the Light tends to be colder and dispassionate, while the Dark is associated with one's emotions, for good or ill.
Romance and Sexuality
Depending on who you ask, Niamh is either a modern, liberated woman, comfortable in her sexuality, or a misguided, licentious trollop, fortunately restrained by what few scraps of common sense she has, and god help us all if she ever finds a 100% effective contraceptive besides abstinence. The truth is that both perspectives are wrong. Niamh is Niamh, and Niamh cares as much about your opinion on her sex-life as Daala does about Korriban.
As with most other aspects of her broader worldview, Niamh perceives romance2 and sexuality through the lens of her individual-centered belief system, which in practice means she has very few hard and fast rules for others, and a loose, but consistent set of guidelines for herself. Niamh holds a particular disdain for labels in this particular arena, feeling them insufficient to adequately describe the combination of physical and emotional attachments that one might form, especially when physical and emotional urges conflict one another.
Furthermore, romance and sexuality don’t necessarily go hand-in-hand for Niamh. In theory, Niamh wants a committed, exclusive relationship with one man (she wants kids, dammit!). One without any formal marriage of any kind, firstly because the idea they need someone else’s recognition to validate their relationship is downright condescending, and secondly, because their word to one another ought to be enough without witness from some outside authority (additionally, her idea of marriage, even one she chooses to be part of, isn’t the same as ours). In practice, however, Niamh’s commitment to following one’s passions makes her willing to participate in any number of other (often unorthodox) arrangements, including chaste romances (“the boyfriend/girlfriend treatment”), non-romantic physical relationships (“friends with benefits”), open-relationships, and polyamory, as well as making her able to accept a partner of the same sex without any particular difficulty.
Despite the common perception of such arrangements and her otherwise selfish nature, Niamh is a passionate and devoted lover, with very little tolerance for infidelity on the part of her partner(s), and no tolerance for it on her own. In any relationship she pursues, even one primarily concerned with physical gratification, she takes honesty and openness incredibly seriously. Her “friends with benefits” are friends with benefits (and her friends with benefits, at that)3. Multiple partners is fine, as long as all parties are aware and accepting of the arrangement, and necessary precautions are taken to prevent the spreading of infection to other members of the relationship.
This emphasis on honesty and trust might seem at odds with her personality and worldview. In fact, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect her to have a more utilitarian view of such arrangements, given the nature of the relationship between her mother and father, and the fact that to a certain extent, marriages in primitive societies such as the one she comes from tend to be less unions of love than economic contracts for reproduction purposes.4 To a degree, this is accurate; she would perceive such an arrangement as less an expression of love than a “shelter for sex and young” contract, and this is one more reason she is adverse to the idea of marriage. The thing is, Niamh draws a distinction between the two. Where marriage on her planet is more about survival, in the more advanced world, it’s less important to mate—after all, there are multiple planets literally overflowing with humans. Instead Niamh perceives such a union (that is, a romantic relationship as we know it) not as two individuals staying together, but as two individuals becoming one. Not in some mystical/spiritual/religious/metaphorical way, but in an almost literal, physical sense, as with a force bond. These relationships might seem less glamourous than a force bond, but Niamh holds them as even more precious, because such a relationship is at its core entirely voluntary, where force bonds are often accidental, unexpected, and possibly even unwanted.
Effectively, Niamh perceives her romantic partners as a part of her. She will never recklessly endanger them, she will never harm them, and she will always place their good ahead of that of others, and she will expect her allies to protect and aid them as they would protect and aid her. This other person is still her, after all. Cheating in a relationship, therefore, is roughly equivalent to stabbing oneself in the arm or slashing one’s own hamstring; unfaithful behavior is a grievous form of self-harm which Niamh is unable to tolerate.
This perception extends to others, and has both positive and negative side-effects when dealing with couples. Friendships extend to both parties in a relationship, as does enmity. If a friend of hers should take up with an enemy, she will default to suspicion, as she would with someone who had done both good and ill towards her, though she remains conscious that the two are not necessarily interchangeable, each having different knowledge and a separate personality. This “shared” perception is temporary, however; following the above example of Niamh’s friend taking up with an enemy, the suspicion Niamh displays will vanish almost immediately if the two split—her friend is her friend once again, and her enemy is her enemy, to be removed when the time is right. However, the events of the relationship do not “go away.” If said friend transgressed against Niamh during the relationship, the friend could easily find himself or herself in Niamh’s disfavor until he or she makes amends sufficiently, while an enemies who behave themselves sufficiently may be forgiven for past offenses, or even embraced as new-found comrades.
Bearing all of this in mind, Niamh herself has thus far abstained from consummation of a physical relationship for practical reasons. Being raised in a society without modern medicine, Niamh still carries a certain fear that, with her short stature and comparatively narrow hips, pregnancy and subsequent childbirth would be dangerous, even lethal, for her and her offspring (there is a certain amount of truth to that risk, of course, but she overestimates it greatly). Additionally, being out of commission for nine months, as carrying a child would demand, is simply unacceptable for her, as is the idea of being forced to prioritize Brotherhood duties ahead of motherhood if the child was delivered safely.
Reflection
Looking back at everything, more than a few things stand out to me, the first being the contrast between Niamh and my old character, Darth Drakonis. To a degree, they're almost opposites. On a surface level, Drakonis was large, menacing, more than a little insecure, where Niamh is small, amiable, and confident, but on a philosophical level, they're opposed as well. Drakonis subscribed to common ideas of morality, but often did things he believed immoral for what he thought of at the time as a just cause. He wanted to protect others, first and foremost, and was focused outwards, on his master, on the Union, the war, the Jedi, or whatever he was worrying about at the time. He didn't stop and smell the roses a whole lot. He was far too serious for his own good, really.
Niamh, on the other hand, doesn't really believe in morality. Good and evil aren't anything but labels to her. The truth of the world is that everyone has a right to choose their own path, and that if that path leads one into conflict with others, so be it. She looks inward, drawing her strength not from some abstract concept of duty or righteousness, but rather from her own being. Niamh doesn't need a role-model to imitate or a cause to fight for; Niamh is her own reason and inspiration. She remembers to enjoy the world around her, because it's only fleeting, and she never forgets to have fun, or takes herself too seriously. On top of which, while Drakonis was never satisfied with himself, Niamh believes that she is the greatest thing in the galaxy.
A second thing, and an unexpected one, is that Niamh is a sort of dark counterpart to the Yashuvhi Prophetess Valara Saar. Both free-spirited Yashuvhi women, powerful in the force, and both left their homeworld to seek greater understanding of the Force, and both talented linguists. Where Saar went to the Jedi, though, Yulia went to the Sith. Saar proved too free-spirited to join the Jedi, while Niamh's independence is a desirable characteristic in the Sith. Both have unusual outlooks, a result of ancient teachings colored by personal beliefs and refined by outside sources. And while Saar fought the Chiss to drive them from her planet, Niamh is fighting with the Chiss.
All in all, I'm liking the way that Niamh is shaping up, though I'm a bit wary of saying too much too soon. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.
1To be clear, she isn't against peace. However, she believes that it's overrated. If a Galactic Empire has built a space-station capable of destroying a planet, for example, the "peaceful" option is to not do anything about it as it destroys planets. Blowing it up would be inherently violent, and therefore not “peaceful,” and yet, doing that is still accepted by many people as the right thing to do, despite it being a violent option. Thus, “peace is a lie,” because people have used it so often as a synonym for “good” that some people have forgotten there are fights worth starting. Peace isn’t impossible, or even undesirable, necessarily, but it's not what people think it is.
2Niamh defines “romance” in this context as the part of a romantic relationship involving bonding, companionship, and general tenderness. The “sweet” stuff.
3To be clear, “friends with benefits” is here defined as an amicable, mutual agreement between two friends to engage in one or more physical encounters of a sexual nature without romantic attachment (see above). A cheap, tawdry encounter in a motel with someone she never intends to see again is rutting—and she does not do rutting.
4Alternatively, you could be saying “Well, this is Niamh, so precedent indicates she has an abhorrent/self-centered reason that undermines what appears to be a redeeming factor in her personality.” If so, good. You’re learning.