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06:03, 29 November 2015 First Referenced:
The New Exodus Vanguard (Part 8)
Additional References
The New Exodus Vanguard (Part 9)
Her Glory The Machine Empress of Mankind (Previously known as Gi or Gisela), was first born in 989 AD to the house of Swabia in pre-unification Germany. She was one of a number of children of the household, and was named after her aunt. She was originally human, and is known to have had blonde hair.
From a very early age, Gi possessed an aptitude and fascination with puzzles and the way things and nature worked. Her rapid advancement in puzzle and problem solving brought her under the tutelage of [[Verene]], who although a commoner, held the post of teacher for many of the young children of the household.
[[Verene]] protected Gi from the teasing of her older peers, and also procured a wide variety of increasingly complex puzzles and problems for Gi to solve. As a result, she became a trusted confidant for Gi. [[Verene]] continued to assist Gi in her studies of science and mathematics by secretly smuggling advanced books of theory to her, even though they were well beyond a traditional child of her age.
After suffering childhood heartbreak at the age of eight, [[Verene]] encouraged Gi to apply her advanced analytical skills to people in order to better understand them. Gi took this to heart, observing all the people around her and displaying a calculating and detached personality during the process.
At the age of thirteen she departed to join the Household of Brun, to be married to a man she had never met.
A year later, at the age of fourteen, she confided in [[Verene]] that she had discovered a disturbing ability within herself to manipulate reality itself, which allowed a solution for a problem to be created that should not even be possible. Gi had surmised that as both her parents were descendants of the same powerful ancestor, a recessive ability had expressed itself in her, granting her extraordinary abilities, which [[Verene]] described as witchcraft. [[Verene]] warned Gi that her ability must remain secret, as she would be killed if it were discovered.
Nearly dying while giving birth to her first child, Gisela fell into a deep depression, which she worked through by developing a device to reduce pain and allow for women to give birth in a safer and less painful manner. Due to her abilities remaining a secret, the device was developed over three weeks with a small group, including an old physician and two young metallurgists. A subsequent test of the device showed great success, although [[Verene]] and Gi resolved to claim the device was developed by physicians in Rome.
Over the next seven years, Gi gave birth to three more children, and continued to develop and refine her inventions further. Her knowledge and understanding long since surpassing [[Verene]]'s, it was unknown how much (if any) of Gi's ability to alter reality was responsible for the success of her inventions in performing their tasks, which now included the ability to heal major wounds, reduce fevers and clean and purify waste waters.
Through elation at her successes, Gi became careless, and her husband eventually discovered her while she was working on an invention in a hidden workshop. Originally suspecting an affair, Brun grew afraid as the true nature of her activities came to light. After witnessing one of her devices designed to heal wounds in operation, a disagreement occurred, resulting in the death of the two smithies present as well as Brun himself. Gi and [[Verene]] then proceeded to fake an illness in Brun by keeping him alive, allowing him to subsequently die of what was thought to be natural causes, albeit under a cloud of confusion and suspicion.
Gi then married Ernest I, through which she eventually was able to return to her family Duchy after her ruling younger brother died childless. Over the coming years she gave birth to two more sons with Ernest, and continued to deepen her understanding of medicine and mechanical studies. Left psychologically scarred by the way Brun died, she improved her healing devices, in part to ensure the same fate could not reoccur.
After five years of marriage, Ernest and several members of his court discovered Gi's secret. While Ernest sought to protect Gi, the others who had knowledge of her ability were able to assassinate Ernest during a hunting trip, making it appear to be an accident. In her grief, Gi developed her second weaponized invention (the first being that which she used to fake a fever in Brun). This second weapon worked in reverse to the way her healing devices worked, with horrific consequences for the murderous courtiers who attempted to invade Gi's chambers.
Although the courtiers survived the incident, it soon became public knowledge, with the church dispatching an envoy as well as a large number of troops, with the aim of burning Gisela at the stake for being a witch. Gi however was spared after it became apparent that huge numbers of people owed their lives and good health to her secret inventions and advances in technology.
Gi then married Conrad, who held significant influence with the church. This provided Gi with protection, while Conrad gained the Duchy and aimed to elevate his political position. However the subsequent political in-fighting resulted in their exile by the Emperor, who intervened on behalf of others also seeking greater political powers.
Growing angry at the constant disruptions to her life due to political power struggles, Gi focused her skills on developing her own political power base through dissemination of knowledge and information. She developed mass production of printed media as a result, with the aim being to lessen ignorance in the world and eventually elevate herself and Conrad to the position of Empress and Emperor.
Building her power-base, Gisele developed machines to fit all aspects of everyday life, providing significant economic advancement for her people. With her growing influence and power, previous conflicts gave way to peace, with the emperor tasking her with discovering a way to extend life.
Gi was successful in developing a concoction which when consumed daily would extend life, which she provided both to [[Verene]] and the Emperor. However, with the pressure of her political lifestyle taking its toll, Gi miscalculated when developing an improvement to the life extension formula which killed the Emperor and nearly killed [[Verene]].
After the Emperor's death, Conrad became king, and three years later in 1027, the Holy Roman Emperor.
With her ever increasing power and influence, the world began changing. Although under her rule as Empress her people prospered, Gi's creations were viewed with suspicion and fear by other world powers. A failed assassination attempts by the Song Dynasty from China left [[Verene]] poisoned, and as the nature of the poison was unknown to her, Gi used her reality bending ability to develop a cure for all poisons to save her. She subsequently eliminated the threat posed by the Song Dynasty by sending them a vial of a substance which changed the views of the Emperor and resulted in China swearing fealty to Gi and Conrad as Empress and Emperor of of the Holy Roman Empire a few years later.
Due to her development of clinical immortality, Gi, Conrad and Verene continued to survive many hundreds of years, with Gi being crowned as "Her Glory the Machine Empress of Mankind" in 1139. During her long life, those she had known aged and died, and Conrad began to withdraw from life, becoming prone to daydreaming and eventually falling mute and non-responsive.
In her grief for the loss of Conrad's mind, Gi sought out a means to cure him. Unable to find any way to cure him in her world, Gi exercised the full extent of her power, and build the first version of a [[Techno-portal]] generator, later found throughout [[The First World]] and within First World [[Portal Hub Facilities]]
Notes:
Gisela and Verene appear to have originated from a version of Earth in which the history of Europe took a very different path, including a number of events surrounding the unification of Germany which occurred several hundred years earlier than usual.