Her Glory

First Referenced:

The Moon Aflame (Exodus Chapter 4)

Additional References

The New Exodus Vanguard (Part 8)

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, similar to that found within a The First World Portal Hub Facility. She hastily commanded her loyal Captain of the Guard to travel through the Techno-portal generator, only giving thought to his return when prompted by Verene, for whom she then created a Metallic Chip before sending her to retrieve the Captain. The effort to build the Techno-portal generator and Metallic Chip proved to be substantial, causing Gi to lapse into a coma.

Gi subsequently regained consciousness after a Brownshirt exile was drawn to her reality due to Verene and the Captain using the Techno-portal generator. The Brownshirt traveler was unable to draw Conrad out of his trance, identifying that he was uninjured, and merely chose not to respond.

Gi sought the assistance of the Traveler's people, and a subsequent contingent of Brownshirt refugees arrived, proposing an alliance in order to resolve the issue of the destruction of their reality by Von-Neumann machines. The result of the alliance was the formation of The First World, Branch Worlds and the Inner Shield and Outer Shield.

Conrad however remained unresponsive, and the true nature of his condition was exposed as being apathy due to his long life. Enraged through her grief at being unable to solve the problem and her loss of Conrad, Gi chose to journey out into the multiverse, seeking the regenerative abilities she needed to create a better immortality. Although she succeeded in refining immortality, she was still unable to find a solution to the apathy and ennui she now felt affecting herself, and which she knew was now also affecting Verene. With her withdrawing from managing the many realities under her control, inter-reality civilization fell, and large angry mobs attacked her palace. For the good of all of her people across the realities, she and Verene fled to the outer realities.

The Devastation resulted in a catastrophic scattering of Gi's empire, as well as her apparent death, however her creations continued to work autonomously to revive her. At this point her exact nature and similarity to humanity is unknown.

Traits: Originally caring of those around her and others, seeking to lessen suffering in all forms. Quiet and studious, with unnaturally advanced understanding of science, technology and mechanics. Able to bend or alter reality at will, although at the expense of significant amounts of energy and effort of will. Dangerous and poses a significant threat through her abilities, but not considered directly hostile (although her creations can be extremely dangerous in their own rights)

Notes: Gisela and Verene appear to have originated from a version of Earth (likely The First World) 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.