Beatrice Avellar

Beatrice Avellar at the age of 59
Beatrice Avellar
Character Profile
Born 27 September 2691[1]
Died 18 April 2765[1]
Affiliation House Avellar
Position President
Profession Noble
Parents Davis Avellar (father)[2]
Children Lukas Avellar[3]

Beatrice Avellar was a President of the Outworlds Alliance during the early twenty-eighth century.[1]

History[edit]

Beatrice Avellar was a study in contrasts, and her six-decade rule over the Outworlds Alliance would be summarized by most historians as "antagonizing."[2] Whilst Beatrice was charismatic, intelligent and forward-looking, she was also puritanical, misinformed and stuck in the past. Just as Beatrice was full of contradictions, she brought out the best and worst in the Outworlds Alliance.[4]

Presidency[edit]

After her father, Davis Avellar, died of a heart attack[2] having resigned shortly before[5] Beatrice began her rule as President of the Outworlds Alliance; only fifteen years old at the time, for the first three years of her rule Beatrice's aunt Heather acted as regent,[2] with Beatrice becoming President on her eighteenth birthday in 2709.[5] Beatrice galvanized the citizens of the Alliance; she increased the funding of expeditions into the Deep Periphery, both in search of those colony ships that had vanished in the centuries before she came to power and to find suitable worlds for the Alliance to develop and thereby improve its weak economic position. The additional funding for exploration proved a popular decision in the Alliance, and it also saw an increase in the number of opportunities for research as the expeditions brought back new creatures with unique properties that could be exploited pharmaceutically. As limited as technological industries in the Alliance were at the time, those that did exist saw large growth under Beatrice's policies.[2] Under Beatrice's policies the Outworlds Alliance would expand as far as three hundred light years spinward of Alpheratz and some high-tech industries such as Lushann Industrials Limited began exporting outside the Alliance.[5]

In contrast with her outward-looking policies on exploration, Beatrice was deeply conservative when it came to interstellar concerns and social programs due to her puritanical beliefs. Many of her political decisions were the result of seeking more advice from the various religious leaders on Alpheratz than those with actual experience of government.[2] Beatrice bought a focus on strong family values, ethics and morals as well as irreproachable etiquette to the Presidency, values that became a staple of Alliance society; although there were critics who chafed under this focus and decried the values as priggish and affected, the majority of the population were appreciative of her focus on values, even if they disagreed with certain tenets or directives.[5]

Beatrice refused to give media interviews in any form other than print so that her picture would never be taken, something that was viewed as an odd quirk by the populace; she also insisted that everyone learn classical Spanish, which further raised eyebrows within the Alliance, particularly as Beatrice never became fluent in classical Spanish herself, despite a lifetime of study.[2] Ultimately, under Beatrice's rule the Alliance became much more the productive protectorate that the Star League intended it to be[5] but Beatrice failed to win the hearts and minds of her people because of her imposition of her conservative views on others; the Alliance's famed tolerance for religious beliefs and belief in freedom of religion would have made her religious beliefs unremarkable, if she hadn't sought to impose them on others.[1]

When agents from Stefan Amaris approached Beatrice to sound her out on the idea of a campaign to give the Periphery nations back their independence she proved receptive, as she found the idea of an independent Alliance appealing. The cultural and social agencies she had established during her tenure as President proved to be ideal fronts for stirring up the population of the Alliance, although in contrast with the other Periphery nations this was done through works of art and "guerrilla protests" rather than through direct political agitating. Beatrice disliked the idea of subjecting the population of the Alliance to another war, but allowed herself to be persuaded by Amaris' agents that a war would be a necessity and that the Alliance had to play an active role.[1]

Death[edit]

Beatrice died of natural causes on the 18th of April 2765, two days after news of the New Vandenberg Uprising reached Alpheratz; it was reported that Beatrice collapsed after reading the news, and those visitors who viewed her at her lying-in-state reported that her serene face bore a satisfied smile.[1]

And so it begins.
  — Last words attributed to Beatrice Avellar, 16 April 2765

Marriage and Children[edit]

Beatrice's son Lukas died in 2745; this left Beatrice's granddaughter Allyce and grandson Simpson as next in the line of succession.[3]

References[edit]

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Historical: Liberation of Terra Volume 1, p. 66: "Beatrice Avellar"
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 Era Report: 2750, pp. 89–90: "Beatrice Avellar"
  3. 3.0 3.1 Historical: Liberation of Terra, p. 66: "Allyce Avellar"
  4. Era Report: 2750, p. 160: "Beatrice Avellar"
  5. 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 Era Report: 2750, p. 64: "Outworlds Alliance"

Bibliography[edit]