Marena

Marena
Personal
Also known as	Merchant Queen of Alyina
Born	3095
Affiliation	Alyina Mercantile League; Clan Jade Falcon (former)
Profile
Title(s)	Syndic
Profession	Merchant

Marena was a Clan Jade Falcon lower casteman who served as her Clan's Merchant Factor during the later Dark Age era and became the founder of a proto-state founded upon commerce, the Alyina Mercantile League.

History

Origins

Marena was a trueborn warrior of Clan Jade Falcon. At a young age, she knew she would never be a warrior because she simply didn't care for it. While others in her sibko fought and trained, she played politics, made deals, and gathered meager resources for herself. When she washed out, her sibkin sneered at her – but by the time she had risen to the leader of all Clan Jade Falcon's merchant caste, her sibkin were all dead. Marena never liked the warriors because they wasted the resources she gathered, and prosperity came from commerce. She admired the Sea Foxes, and more than once she tried to get herself harvested by them; the only time the issue came to a Trial, the Falcons won, deepening her loathing of them.

Merchant Factor

Marena rose to Merchant Factor in 3130. Luckily for Marena, who had a very independent attitude, her Khan, Jana Pryde, gave the merchants a free hand so long as they didn't ruin her Clan, which allowed Marena great liberty.

Even the Blackout didn't stop her Clan's prosperity. When Khan Pryde asked her for a solution to the turmoil in commerce and business, Marena proposed the creation of the VaultShips, loaded with multiple liquid assets and very well protected, traveling around Clan space, loaning them or using them for trading and to update the Kerensky Registry. The VaultShips proved to be an astonishing success.

However, Malvina Hazen's rise to power made life a living hell for Marena. The profitable machine she had built began crumbling before her eyes after Malvina began demanding more and more money for her wars of conquest. Only Marena's financial acumen enabled her to keep the Falcon touman supplied, but her disdain for the Warrior Caste ripened over the years. She apparently obeyed Hazen, but in fact she protected those merchants threatened and, when Malvina mobilized all her touman to the Battle of Terra, and ordered Marena to send all VaultShips to Sudeten, she only gave excuses, refusing to comply. Malvina ordered Marena killed, in vain.

Merchant Queen

Following the near-total destruction of the Falcons on Terra in early 3151, Marena, onboard VaultShip Alpha, jumped to Alyina, where she heard news about the chaos erupting into the former Falcon's occupattion zone. After sending Alpha's Trinary to annihilate Alyina's garrison, she took posession of the world, broke with the Clan, took the title of Syndic and decided to create a new state, the Alyina Mercantile League. After traveling to Twycross, she recruited its leader, Merchant Geran (Clan Jade Falcon), and Clan Sea Foxes as allies. Easily, Marena too convinced the planet Waldorff leaders to join her. She asked all VaultShips to come to Alyina, but VaultShip Gamma refused, through all others obeyed her, filling Alyina with her riches. The 9 August, the critical military weakness of the League became evident when a group of Pirates attacked New Delhi's Factory Zone 4, and Margolian wasn't able to defend it. In a meeting of the AML leaders, the 15 September, Marena, hearing Geran's advice, decided to recruit mercenary units, sending representatives to Galatea and Kandersteg. However, the 18 September, the Lone Wolves arrived by their own initiative. She had a meeting with their spokesman, Albert Heidegger. He impressed her as a very cunning negotiator, and despite the fact she needed desperately mercenaries, both bargained hard, eventually accepting a payment of money and a single OmniMech for the Wolves every month.

Soon, the Wolves were followed by many smaller units. A unit, the Tread of Doom broke the contract, which enraged Marena, but eventually decided not to cancel the contracts with all the other units. She didn't want to groom another military caste, but tasked her military leader, Margolian, to create an AML permanent military, promoting him to Star Colonel.

Marena later negotiated with nearby worlds, incorporating more to the League. Her main interest was Blackjack, for housing military academies and sibkos. Marena, after hearing about the formation of the Clan Jade Falcon Remnants on Sudeten, led by Jiyi Chistu, she contacted him, ordering her to rejoin her former clan. When he, now proclaimed Khan, asked her to submit to him, she laughed about it, and refused to recognize him as Khan. Instead she offered him to command all her military assets, but as her subordinate. He refused, but the conflict between both Falcon proto-states didn't begin. In fact, Marena used the Remnants as dumping ground, to get rid of those unwilling to accept her new order, sending a full JumpShip to Sudeten with those who did.

Bibliography

• A Question of Survival (novel)
• Lone Wolf and Fox in Shrapnel Issue 13 (novel)
• Tamar Rising