Dr. Rhae Canel
¶ Overview
- Full Name: Rhaenvaeh
- Aliases: Rhaenvaeh Canel, Rhae Canel, Dr. Canel, Director
- Species: Grey (originally) / Sooni (current)
- Height: 170cm (5'7")
- Born: 2658
- Place of Birth: [REDACTED]
- Gender: Female
- Sex: Female
- Sexual Identity: Pansexual
- Faction: CNK, Grey, Heretics
Rhae is an egotistical, manipulative cynic who's far too smart for her own good and has the morality of Stalin's evil twin, most days. She gives off an air of viewing everyone as less than her, to the point of seeming actively hostile to the people who work under her.
Beneath the psychopathic exterior, however, she is a calculating person with fierce loyalty to her people, her family and her friends (in that order). She doesn't want people to know she cares, but she often does, going well outside her way to protect those she feels needs protecting, while also jumping through hoops to "blame" someone else for the assistance.
¶ Physical Description
Rhae is an attractive woman with red hair, appearing to be in her early to mid thirties. She she puts in effort she can be a bombshell, but she rarely sees the point in the "disgusting and uncomfortable human rituals of female beautification". The concept is a bit foreign to a Grey, as they rarely engaged in adornment, let alone clothing.
She is aware of her physical attractiveness, however, and finds it useful on occasion. She is known to attempt to (poorly) seduce people she can't outright threaten, and as such she does engage in some of the more subtle "rituals", keeping her appearance clean and neat. She has perfected "sexy scientist who doesn't care what she looks like" and in fact puts a lot of effort into maintaining that look.
¶ Personality
If "egotistical bitch" were an aspirational life goal, Rhae would be held up as the unrealistic pinnacle of achievement. She doesn't just act like she's better than everyone else, she gets confused that others don't find it self evident. She's actively hostile towards any Sooni employees she works with, regardless of affiliation, and she sees Human employees as clearly too stupid to work out that CNK is a front, therefore, they deserve what they get.
In truth, she uses this hostile exterior to keep everyone at arm's length. She feels an immense weight of duty to her people and she feels insecure when she thinks about trying to live up to it. She legitimately does believe herself to be the smartest person in the room most of the time, but it's generally true. She also has generations of Grey to rely on, making her incredibly knowledgeable about many things, skilled at almost anything she attempts to do and insufferably right most of the time.
All of that being said, she's a very loyal person. When she's decided she likes someone (for whatever reason), she's very possessive of them, often interfering rather deeply in their life, while trying to hide her involvement. She doesn't want the people she likes to know she likes them, but she's rather that then risk them not getting everything she feels they deserve.
Her 'affection' often can take interesting forms, with her giving them anonymous gifts not of what they want, but of what she feels they should want, if they just thought about it a little longer.
She is incredibly aggressive about not wanting to discuss her feelings on any particular subject, often risking into coming off as a tsundere trope.
¶ Special Abilities
¶ Grey Genetic Memory
Despite her physical transformation, she has maintained the Grey genetic memory, both in terms of keeping her previous memory, but also in producing the correct enzymes. Should a Grey consume her flesh, they will gain her memories. (She was very insistent on this with Nyana when she was transformed.)
¶ Multitudes of Life Experience
Because she has access to the entire genetic memory of the Grey, she has an impressive amount of life experience. She knows something about most subjects, is incredibly skilled at almost any task (painting, singing, engineering, poetry, etc.) and as such comes off as a genius at anything she does. (She, in fact, is not, she's simply borrowing the memory of another's genius. In the areas she's borrowing from, if someone knew Grey works, they would see she's very derivative.)
¶ Enhanced Sooni Strength / Reflexes
Rhae has your typical Sooni strength and reflexes. They are better than they should be if she is a Sooni who abandoned her training, as she's pretending to be. However, Nyana allowed her to retain her Grey physical strengths and stamina.
¶ Scientific Genius
Rhae is a scientific genius in her own right, with a specialization in space-time, hyperspace and subspace in particular. She has made major breakthroughs in numerous other fields as well, including an interest in biology as she explored the limitations of her new form. There's few scientific problems she can't crack, given enough time.
¶ History
¶ Early Years
Rhae, as Rhaenvaeh, was born in secret to parents on one of several Grey multi-generational ships. An ancient concept, when the Sooni enslavement became obvious, the idea was revived so that the bulk of the Grey race was hidden from the Sooni. She quickly established herself as a leader among her people in exile, showing an aptitude for leading people and a willingness to pick up the mantle.
¶ Scientist
She declared herself to be a scientist when she was only six months old. By the time she was two (and considered a full adult) she had established her credentials, discovering a way to utilize hyperspace for near instant communication, under specific conditions. While not immediately applicable, her scientific discoveries achieved near mythic proportions over the next two years. Her people were difficult to impress, but Rhaenvaeh had done so.
¶ Leader of the Rebellion
While, in theory, the Grey Rebellion was in progress for much longer than Rhaenvaeh was alive, she was so outspoken with her views and philosophy that she became the defacto leader. This was entirely by her own design, showing a penchant for the same manipulation the Sooni used to enslave her people.
She was officially made the leader of the rebellion and she then helped craft what that even meant. Her people were not gifted at subterfuge or intelligence gathering, but she stuffed the subject intensely and helped train her fellow Grey. They were successful, pulling of several 'test' operations that killed hundreds of Sooni. To Rhaenvaeh, this was a war, something the Grey had finally learned to do well.
¶ The Archigos
The events of the Grand Heresy have her the perfect opportunity to escape to another galaxy all while hiding her true nature. She could be the Leader in Exile, getting messages back and forth to her people using her extensive scientific achievements... somehow. She'd need a black hole, but it seemed the stupid humans had built one, so that would work out nicely for her. She set about convincing them she could help them, on the stipulation that they hide her and take her with them. She planned to work things out from there.
¶ Transformation
Rhaenvaeh was aware that Sooni Focus use could do some impossible things, but she did not understand how it worked. She knew that Nyana was one of the most skilled Sooni in generations, she just assumed the woman could make her passible, somehow.
Things got real Nyana explained that it was a permanent change; because she didn't understand Grey biology well, she wouldn't be able to keep the complexity of Rhaenvaeh's Grey form in her head. It might be possible with a lot of very invasive learning for Nyana to eventually be able to undo it, but there was a chance she'd never be able to return Rhaenvaeh back to her original form. Rhae acknowledged that, but told the Sooni woman to proceed anyway. This was a sacrifice she was willing to give.
She did not realize just how good the transformation would be. Not only was she Sooni at the genetic level, but she gained her first inkling of just was Focus was. Her mind, she noticed, was also altered; she felt emotions differently, she thought different, and she even had fundamental responses to stimuli that were completely natural for a Sooni, but foreign to a Grey. (Most annoyingly, she found, was how Sooni experience sexual attraction; Rhae complains about feeling distracted because of it a lot.)
¶ Longer Lifespan
One of the most jarring realizations she had was that instead of the typical 30 to 40 years a Grey naturally had, she would easily live 200 - 300 years. Almost ten times the length of time she expected. She still struggles with that realization as it feels almost like an infinite amount of time to live.
¶ Director of the CNK Institute
Rhae posed as a new recruit for the Heretics, and eventually gained their trust, despite her standoff-ish nature. (Nyana was instrumental in this; Rhae wouldn't have been able to pull it off without the woman's help.)
With Nyana's help (and at the insistence of McKenzie) she took the position of Director of the Corona Noir Ki Institute. She liked the idea of building a real scientific research think tank as the front for the Heretics operations in this new galaxy. Plus, it had a black hole, something she needed to allow instantaneous communication with her people.
Since then, she's settled into her role rather well. She has been referred to as "hell on wheels" by some of her human staff, but she takes comments like that as a compliment.
¶ Relationship with Nyana
As a result of the close work the two did together and Rhae struggling with learning about Sooni sexuality, she and Nyana crossed over from their budding friendship into something more. Rhae was perplexed by the turn of events, often feeling incredibly frustrated that her friend and sometimes lover wasn't. No matter what objection Rhae raised as to why they should keep things platonic, Nyana would counter it, and then wait for Rhae to make the next move. It was maddening, but Rhae learned a lot through these exchanges.
To anyone who ever asked, Rhae was begrudgingly Nyana's friend. But if she was being honest with herself, she suspects she might have developed actual romantic feelings for the Sooni woman, as repulsive a thought as that was. She never had any intention of perusing them, or even acknowledging them to anyone, ever.
¶ Work with the Heretics
Rhae's work as Director means she has to help the Heretics and their goals. While she came to appreciate McKenzie and his approach to the problem, she insisted on doing her own thing, in her own way. Her focus is much further out than the immediate problem, so she builds contingencies for the long name, not the short one.
Her work with the Heretics has been very beneficial. She often wonders what they would think knowing they were helping the Grey throw off the yolk of Sooni oppression. As forward thinking as the Heretics are, they're still a very ethnocentric race who see little wrong with how the Grey were enslaved. Because of that she never lets herself become close to any of the Heretics.
¶ Nyana's Assassination
When Nyana was assassinated, Rhae lost her mind, briefly. She is said to have completely destroyed an entire lab with her own hands, before taking her private ship and disappearing for months. When she returned, very little of the ship remained; it was barely functional with parts from other ships haphazardly grafted on. What was even more disturbing was the pieces of multiple Grey ships she'd grafted as well. The ship's weaponry had been entirely stripped and converted into something that had melted down into slag before she returned. The ship was taken to the Anchorage and put under special security she designed herself.
She did have a confrontation with McKenzie at some point after returning. Neither will talk about the incident, but those who know both of them refer to it as 'the time they almost killed each other'. Given the people involved, that is not hyperbole.
¶ Major Associations
¶ Nyana McKenzie
- Relation: Lifetime Friend / It's Complicated
At first, Rhae hated the quiet confidence that Nyana seemed to exude. She couldn't stand the unspoken arrogance of someone who was, generally speaking, always right. But the closer the two worked in the first year after meeting the more Rhae found herself drawn to the Sooni, despite her better judgement. Rhae found herself torn between intellectually wanting to hate Nyana, being her best friend, and refusing to admit she'd fallen in love with the woman.
Even now that Nyana has passed, Rhae refuses to admit that she ever held romantic feelings for the woman, only begrudgingly acknowledging their friendship to those who already know. Deep down, however, a part of her wants to set the universe on fire for taking Nyana from her. The rest realizes there's better ways to get even.
¶ Alastair McKenzie
- Relation: Trusted Ally / Occasional Rival
Rhae found Alastair amusing at first, but quickly their relationship turned into a bit of a rivalry. Neither admitted that the rivalry was in part for Nyana; even Rhae knew better than to question her devotion to Alastair. Thankfully he was wise enough not to flaunt it in front of Rhae. Instead, what worked best was simply not talking about it, and working those feelings out via more productive rivalries and pranks of a sort.
When push comes to shove, however, Rhae considered Alastair the last remaining friend she has. She knows that she can trust him, she just wished it was easier for her to let him do the same.
¶ David McKenzie
- Relation: Family Friend
Admittedly, part of Rhae would like to dissect David, to understand just why a Human/Sooni hybrid is so damn powerful, but really it's more a passing fancy than a real desire. She feels protective of both of Nyana's children, though the one she witnessed the birth of hold a sort of special sentimental place in her heart.
Not that she'd ever admit it, or that David knows her as anything other than her mother's friend.
¶ Glyse McKenzie
- Relation: Family Friend
There are times Rhae thinks Glyse looks so much like Nyana it hurts. That alone makes the already aloof woman put some distance between herself and Glyse. It doesn't help that Glyse is nothing like Nyana in either personality or skillset. It's like a cruel trick that someone looks so much like her lost friend and is so different.
That said, she's still fiercely protective of Nyana's children and would never let harm come to Glyse if she could help it. And woe be unto whoever did it; Rhae has a long, long memory.