So I have this really cool idea for the opening into the bridged city. But then I realized that it refers to a few things that only dedicated AFFers would get.
When you are in a game and there is a bit of art that is not essential to the narrative, but that adds flavor and depth, part of the fun is leading the player to the origin of it. But when you write these things out it makes less sense to put it out there and explain it later because on it’s first mention the player is not going to be distracted by gameplay, they are going to simply be puzzled. So in order to set the history a bit better for those who might not know it. (A brief timeline of the AFF universe, as compiled by yours truly, can be found here.)
So, without further exposition, here is the Bio for Varis Lania Gallientus, one of the prime historical personages in the AFFU.
Homeworld: Arctus Gordivia IV (Diorga)
Affiliation: Founder, White-Wing Foundation (NGO-Humanitarian). Antarean in origin. Varis in the house of Gallientus.
Born: 944 A.E.
Status: Deceased
Bio: Lania, of House Gallientus, was born 944 A.E. to the then junior Senator Claetus Gallientus and his wife Riea. She was the latest, and last, of the direct bloodline of the house’s founder Varis Gallientus. Like all members of the direct bloodline from the house’s founder Lania was given the title of Varis.
At the age of 14 (958 A.E.), Lania moved with her father to Antarea Prime and was thrust into the limelight as the daughter of one of the Antarean Federation’s most beloved public figures. Unlike many of her peers, Lania was forged by the attention of millions of Antareans. Her character was strong and sweet and many considered her the daughter of the Federation, raised by the best that Antarea had to offer in the very heart of the young democracy. To many she became a symbol of the success of the Federation.
When Riea Gallientus died of natural causes in 962 A.E. the whole nation watched as the newly elected Vice Minister walked slowly through the streets of Prime City to the sculpted Necropolis, where only the Antarean culture’s most important personages are buried. With worlds upon worlds watching, Claetus Gallientus broke down at the podium. His young daughter, however, stayed strong. Lania held her father up and–though practically still a child–spoke spontaneously to the crowd and the many viewers, giving what historians consider to be one of the most moving eulogies in Antarean history.
Claetus Gallientus took a year long leave of absence, returning to the position fully recovered, though–as he himself would readily admit–only through the aid of his daughter.
In 965 A.E. Claetus was elected to his first term as the Prime Minister of the Antarean Federation. Lania was one of his strongest campaigners, traveling around the Federation to espouse his platform of new development, expanded humanitarian rights, and the integrity of the United League of Planets, to which the Antarean Federation had been welcomed almost 100 years before his election.
When Claetus was elected as Prime Minister, his daughter was only 21. Lania, determined not to “simply sit around Prime City and look pretty,” founded a humanitarian organization: the White-Wing Foundation. It was created in order to bring respite to victims of the Crusader uprising.
With Lania–aboard her command ship, Riea’s Pride–coordinating relief efforts in the second and sixth districts, the White-Wing Foundation became the largest pacifist humanitarian group in the entire League. The organization was publicized with posters of Lania portrayed with angel wings, reaching out to take an unseen person’s hand.
Lania personally became a force for peace and human rights, her very presence was often able to diffuse even the tensest of situations. To many in the second and sixth districts, she was a saint.
It was no surprise that Lania, always a supporter of worker rights, came to stand in solidarity with the members of People’s Worker Union. She, and a number of AF Senators, came to support the PWU during their protest above Ixion, stopping work on one of the ULP’s main shipyards. In order to put more force behind their statement, the PWU held the work stoppage during the Antarean holiday of Crowning Day, one of the most significant in the Iosian religion.
What was a surprise was the appearance of a heavy League taskforce in the Ixion system during the protest. Due to the manipulations of Antarean Royalist agents and the last of the Crusader leadership, the twitchy Commodore Kurtis Bradley opened fire, without provocation, on the shipyards. Bradley, twisted by his own private tragedies, destroyed the station and then meticulously eliminated every ship that had escaped the initial conflagration, including Riea’s Pride, clearly marked with the wings of Lania’s foundation.
When Lania died, her father, Prime Minister Gallientus, took his own life on the very floor of the League Parliament. At the same moment he died, the news of 31-year-old Lania Gallientus’s death spread throughout the Antarean domain, destroying the battered hope of those whom she had aided.
Throughout the second and sixth districts of League space riots broke out as the news spread and a general attitude of rage spread through the districts. As rioters broke through League Security barricades and out into the streets of thousands of cities it became common for graffiti artists to tag the once hope-producing recruitment posters of the White-Wing Foundation.
The most common phrase, scrawled in paint red as blood across the bottom of the posters, was:
“Angels Fall First”
In her death, Lania’s organization fell apart and the ideals she had spent years spreading fell. Her only remaining legacy is the Second Antarean War, that and thousands of aging graffiti-covered posters.
