Céleste Beaumont

Supreme Marshal Josephine Madeleine Céleste Beaumont, Duchess of Victory GCU GCMT GCSM GCSE GSIC OV OM (born 29 April 2640) is a renowned Marine general officer who has served as Chief of the Defense Staff since 2676. Previously, she was Personal Adjutant to the Emperor during the reign of Maximilian Charles I. Prior to her staff leadership, she was a field officer of the Imperial Marines and earned fame both in the battles against insurrectionists and in operations during the Great War as a special forces commander. She led a team of joint-service special forces known as Beaumont's Raiders during planetary assaults on the Soviet Republic and later during counter-terrorist operations domestically, which earned her numerous decorations for merit and commendations for leadership.
She is the youngest person to serve in a position of leadership among a staff of general officers through merit alone. Beaumont is also known for being one of the first total-body cyborgs to serve in such a role.
==Early life and education==
Céleste was born on April 29, 2640 to Captain Pénélope Beaumont and Lieutenant Commander Daniel J. Beaumont. Both of her parents were career Navy officers. Beaumont's mother was descended from Franco-Terran spacers who had lived on space habitats in the Cassiopeian Frontier province for generations. Her father was born on Earth and came from a family of wealthy French financiers and businesspeople, but he joined the Imperial Navy to "see the frontier".
Céleste was born and raised at the orbital habitat Goshen Station, in orbit around the planet Gesem IV in the Exodus Star Cluster, Cassiopeian Frontier. She was born with temporal lobe epilepsy and osteogenesis imperfecta, a type of congenital brittle-bone disease; her mother had refused gene therapy despite being informed of the risks. At a little over a year old, she began having seizures that shattered her bones, which were confirmed to be epileptic. Céleste received significant cybernetic augmentation, at age 8 becoming the youngest person recorded to have a full skeletal replacement. The synthetic carbon-fiber "bones" were designed to telescopically expand as she grew. She had computer chips installed to help regulate her brain chemistry and prevent grand mal seizures. At age 15, she had her limbs replaced with complete prosthetics.
She attended elementary and secondary school at the Naval Children's Centre, a school for the children of naval and Marine personnel which provided comprehensive education from ages 5 to 18. She enlisted in the Imperial Navy Marine Corps and began participation in the Marine ROTC program at age 17, and went to the Naval Academy at Thebes from 2659 to 2662. She graduated with honors and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant.
==Military career==
=== Marines service ===
Céleste enlisted in the Marines just before graduating high school. In May 2658, she shipped off for the Thebes recruiting depot and went through Marine Corps recruit training until August 2658, and then attended the Marine Infantry School. She followed this with Harsh Environment Training and Orbital Assault School to be qualified for entry into the Orbital Assault Marines. When she completed these training courses in 2659, she began studies at the planet's Naval Academy. In summers in-between classes, she took platoon- and company-level leadership courses at the Marine Officer Candidate School. She graduated in 2662 with a commission as a Second Lieutenant and was assigned to a Orbital Marine battalion.
Beaumont was billeted as a company XO in the 432nd Orbital Assault Battalion of the 212th Marine Regiment, 20th Marine Division. The 20th Marine Division was posted to New Tejas in the Banat province as the planetary rapid response unit. The region had been unstable for a long time, earning the moniker "Space Mexico". Several Marine Divisions were redeployed to police the region and put down a series of rebellions by the Colonial Liberation Organisation. In late January 2664, the CLO orchestrated a coup against the planetary government on the industrial world Burtuqali, forcing the governor's surrender and disarming the garrison. The 20th Division made landfall on February 6 2664, engaging rebel forces in grueling house-to-house fighting in numerous urban centers; Beaumont earned the War Merit Cross for meritorious action during the initial battle, as well as numerous combat badges. The regimental commander, Colonel Yusuf Hook, was captured a few days into the fighting. Once intelligence pinpointed his location, Beaumont's platoon was dispatched to mount a rescue operation in April 2664. The attempt was a disaster and almost all of the entire platoon was destroyed.
Céleste allowed herself to be captured by rebel soldiers in order to find Colonel Hook and rescue him. They escaped two days after her capture, and were evacuated. For conspicuous gallantry, she was awarded the Navy Cross. She was selected thereafter for special operations training, to serve in a Marine Raider regiment. She went through a 3-month training course followed by Airborne School and Combat Diver Training, after which she was promoted to First Lieutenant and was reassigned to the independent 33rd Marine Raider Regiment, stationed in orbit of the planet Kojima. She participated in two combat drops, leading an orbital drop platoon in direct action missions against hostile terrorists.
=== Beaumont's Raiders ===
On 8 September 2665, Beaumont was pulled out of her post to join a team of special forces operatives in foiling the terrorist capture of an orbital military research station. The terrorists claimed to be CLO revolutionaries, and planned to de-orbit the station into one of Kojima's major cities. Beaumont, as the ranking officer of the assembled group, led the team in infiltrating the station and foiling the terrorist plot. The next morning, the team was constituted as the 71st Studies and Observations Group as a unit within the inter-service 9th Joint Special Forces Brigade, and was redeployed to combat duties in the Great War as saboteurs and covert forces. The group came to be known as "Beaumont's Raiders" during their Great War service, and many of its members became highly decorated. Céleste was promoted to the rank of Captain, and the 71st SOG was expanded to a company-sized unit with a large technical and air support staff.
After the pacification of the human-inhabited Soviet world of Mocny in July 2667, the Raiders took part in a victory parade. Resistance operatives attacked the parade with suicide bombings, killing three Raiders and injuring Beaumont. Céleste was so grievously injured by the shrapnel that she received a full-body prosthetic graft. Her brain, parts of her nervous system, and some major organs were able to be saved and were integrated into a fully cybernetic body. She returned to active duty again in October 2667. The unit had been led in the meantime by Air Officer Hervé Morrison, the unit's chief tactician and executive officer.
In March 2668, Lieutenant Junior Grade Damien, the team's robotic demolitions specialist, was granted command of his own battalion of special forces. He became a naval Lieutenant and began service as commanding officer of the 72nd Studies and Observations Group. Beaumont's unit was replenished with new recruits from the Imperial Strategic Intelligence Agency, including Army veterans William McGrady and Zenzi Rothschild, as well as private contractors Xander Vox and Brian Kessar. The 71st SOG engaged in counterterrorist action at home during the next few years, during which she was promoted to the rank of Colonel in command of the 71st SOG. However, Major William McGrady was assigned as the political handler of Beaumont's Raiders, with authority to override her command in certain circumstances after he was promoted to equal rank as Colonel Beaumont. He was appointed chief of staff for the 9th Joint Special Forces Brigade.
=== Command Staff ===
In November 2670, she was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant General and appointed by Emperor Maximilian himself to the position of Personal Aide-de-Camp to the Emperor, giving advice from the perspective of a veteran field officer. She attended the Imperial War College in Paris during 2671 to achieve a formal education on strategic and logistical elements of warfare. In her role as Personal Aide-de-Camp, she attended many meetings of the Imperial General Staff, the Combined Chiefs of Staff, and the Allied Command Staff.
During one staff meeting in late 2671, she suggested a policy that became known as the Beaumont Doctrine. The policy was developed as the standardized method of evaluating an occupied world for its habitation value and employing mass-destruction techniques on enemy-occupied worlds deemed uninhabitable or of limited habitability. She was appointed the Allied Command Staff's C-5 director of strategy and plans, and commissioned to further define the warfighting strategy through the use of this doctrine. The Beaumont Doctrine was used to great effect during the Great War, by conducting bombing campaigns from orbit rather than risky landings, especially in the case of the campaign against the Vryst. Beaumont was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross for the success the Empire saw in the application of her strategy. Late in the war in 2674, she was appointed Chair of the Combined Chiefs of Staff. At the last major battle of the war, her concept was employed in a tactical sense to achieve final victory over the Shrike Federacy by de-orbiting space habitats into population centers of the planet Liberalis. She was awarded the Grand Cross of the Iron Cross for her efforts.
In the reorganization of the Terran military after the dissolution of the Empire and the formation of the Central Galactic Union, the Combined Chiefs of Staff and Allied Command Staff were merged and temporarily reformed as the Joint Military Staff, with Field Marshal Beaumont as interim chairperson. The Defense Authorization Act, one of the first pieces of legislation by the newly-elected Central Galactic Congress, officially reorganized it as the Defense Staff, within the new Ministry of Defense. In recognition of her wartime service and leadership, Beaumont was promoted to the unique rank of Supreme Marshal and appointed to the position of Chief of the Defense Staff.
=== Chief of the Defense Staff ===
Since February 2676, Beaumont has served as Chief of the Defense Staff, the committee of the heads of each of the four service branches of the CGDF and the heads of joint-service high commands. Being appointed so at age 35, she was the youngest person to be appointed to a position of leadership in a military council on merit alone, though this was not without criticism. Younger staff generals have served, but most have been through noble or royal right, and in the century preceding the end of the Terran Empire, the practice had been minimized in the highly professional military staff system. Her supporters, however, contend that Beaumont earned her position, in the words of Lord Maximilian, "through conspicuous gallantry and leadership in the field, and effective counsel at the planning table."
Marshal Beaumont has been pivotal in devising numerous strategic methods for the Defense Forces, which has continued use of her planetary evaluation doctrine. She has been the chief military adviser to the government, and coordinated the joint service efforts to put down colonial rebellions, quash remnant insurrections, and to conduct the punitive expeditionary campaign in the Outer Rim. She has also led fact-finding missions in some regions of the Union, to assess the causes of security issues related to piracy and rebellion, including a joint investigation of the Banat sector following the Pirate War. She is known to be diplomatic in her dealing with the competing needs of the armed services, and has brokered several inter-service policy agreements.
==Personal Life==
Céleste Beaumont is the eldest child and first daughter of distinguished career Navy officers Admiral Pénélope Beaumont (née Mirabeau) and Commander Dr. Daniel Beaumont, both of Franco-Terran descent. Her mother bore a second daughter, Aurora Maryann Beaumont, in 2645, and a son, Artemus Jefferson Beaumont, in 2658 Her mother became a Rear Admiral during the 2660s in the latter stages of the Colonial Wars. Daniel Beaumont served much of his later career as Chief Medical Officer of Pénélope's vessel, the space battleship Molossian, which was commandeered in 2667 to be the new flagship of the Imperial Fleet. Their vessel guested Emperor Francis Charles from 2667 to 3 June 2668. In the midst of a pitched space battle against Soviet forces, Molossian was struck by missiles that disabled its thrusters. After several crewmembers evacuated, the ship was destroyed by laser fire. Daniel was aboard when the ship went down; Pénélope escaped and was promoted to Vice Admiral during the late stages of the Great War in 2673, and then to full Admiral in 2686.
Beaumont had little contact with her mother or siblings for around 16 years after some personal family quarrel, until they reconciled following Aurora's death in late April 2696. She remains devoted to her work, a trait noted by her superiors ever since her school days and her earlier period of military service. She remains unmarried and has no children.
Beaumont is also a well-known full-bodied cyborg, and has been a rallying point for disability and cyborg rights activists to indicate how far they have come in human society and to advocate for non-discrimination in the workplace for disabled persons and especially for cyborgs. Beaumont has rarely commented on the subject, save only to explain the origin of her extensive cybernetic prosthesis. She was born with osteogenesis imperfecta, a form of congenital brittle-bone disease, and acute epilepsy, both diseases from which she still suffers. Beaumont had progressively greater cybernetic replacement of bodily systems and parts from a young age to reduce risk of bone breakage and seizures, including an early replacement of her bones with carbon-fibre grafts and limb replacement. After a near-fatal combat injury in 2667, she had her entire physical body replaced with synthetic skin and a robotic shell, with the only organic remnants of her original body being her brain, heart, lungs, stomach, and esophagus.
While her last grand mal seizure occurred in 2657, she continues to have petit mal seizures. With the cybernetic implants and enhancements, she has said in interviews, they do not interfere with her work. Prior to her full cybernetic reconstruction, she was described as of slender and athletic build, and tall as most spacers tend to be. After surgery, her body was reconstructed largely on the model of her pre-cybernetic body, but limb size and facial features were "idealized" and news media have referred to her as "statuesque". She retains the haircut of her field combat days, a close-cropped blonde pixie-cut that has since become fashion sensation among women in the military. Marshal Beaumont has yet to comment on the subject.
She is the second of her family to be given a noble title. Her mother Pénélope had been named to a baronetcy and hereditary knighthood in the 2650s. After the final battle of the Great War, in which her strategic doctrine was put into tactical use and millions of human lives were saved, Céleste was created Duchess of Victory, a victory title solely possessed as a Life Peerage.
==Summary of Marines career==
Enlisted in the Imperial Navy Marine Corps on 9 June 2657. Went to Basic Training from 13 May to 14 August 2658, Marine Infantry School from 20 August to 20 October 2658, Harsh Environment Training from 3 to 20 November 2658, and Marines Orbital Assault School 6 December to 7 January 2659. Attended Thebes Naval Academy from 1 February 2659 to 4 May 2662.
Commissioned an Officer of the Marine Corps on 4 May 2662. Assigned to D Company, 432nd Orbital Reconnaissance Battalion, 212th Marine Regiment, of the 20th Marine Division from 15 May 2662 to 1 May 2664. Went to Raider Individual Training from 7 May to 8 August 2664, Army Airborne School from 14 August to 29 August 2664, and Combat Diver Training School 1 September to 30 September 2664. Assigned to 33rd Marine Raider Regiment from 6 October 2664 to 8 September 2665. Assigned to 71st Studies and Observations Group from 8 September 2665 to 3 November 2670.
Commissioned a General of the Marine Corps on 3 November 2670. Appointed Personal Aide-de-Camp to the Emperor from 3 November 2670 to 20 April 2675. Attended Imperial War College, Paris from 2 January to 30 June 2671. Appointed C-5 Director of Strategy and Plans, Allied Command Staff on 3 December 2671. Appointed Chair, Combined Chiefs of Staff Committee on 4 July 2674. Appointed Chief of the Defense Staff on 3 February 2676.
===Dates of rank===
*Private (OR-1) 9 June 2657.
*Private First Class (OR-2) 20 August 2658
*Midshipman (OR-5) 25 August 2659
*Second Lieutenant (OF-1) 4 May 2662.
*First Lieutenant (OF-2) 6 October 2664.
*Captain (OF-3) 30 November 2665.
* Major (OF-4) 10 June 2668.
*Colonel (OF-6) 25 December 2669.
*Lieutenant General (OF-9) 3 November 2670.
*General (OF-10) 1 July 2671.
*Field Marshal (OF-12) 4 July 2674.
*Supreme Marshal (Special Grade) 3 February 2676
===Notable decorations===
*Grand Cross of the Iron Cross
*Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross
*Knight's Cross of the War Merit Cross
*Iron Cross
*Navy Cross
*War Merit Cross
*Military Spaceflight Badge
*Infantry Assault Badge (in Silver)
*Close Combat Badge (in Gold)
*Wound Badge (6 times)
*Navy Service Medal with Eagle and Oak Leaves
*Great War Special Service Medal
== Titles, honors, styles, and arms ==
=== Peerage titles ===
* 2 July 2675 Duchess of Victory
=== Styles ===
* Lt-Gen Céleste Beaumont OM (3 Nov 2670)
* Lt-Gen Céleste Beaumont, KIC OM (13 August 2672)
* Gen Céleste Beaumont, KIC OM (20 August 2672)
* Gen Céleste Beaumont, DMT KIC OM (17 August 2674)
* Gen Céleste Beaumont, DMT GCIC OM (9 February 2675)
* FM Céleste Beaumont, DMT DSM GCIC OV OM (20 April 2675)
* FM Her Grace The Duchess of Victory, DU DCMT DSM DGE GCIC OV OM (2 July 2675)
* SM Her Grace The Duchess of Victory, DU DCMT DSM DGE GCIC OV OM (3 February 2676)
* SM Her Grace The Duchess of Victory, DCU DCMT DCSM DGE GCIC OV OM (29 April 2686)
* SM Her Grace The Duchess of Victory, GCU GCMT GCSM GCSE GSIC OV OM (1 January 2690)
=== Honors ===
* Dame Grand Cross of the Order of Union and the Republic
* Dame Grand Cross of the Order of St. Mary of Terra
* Dame Grand Cross of the Military Order of St Michael
* Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the Galactic Eagle
* Dame Grand Star of the Order of the Iron Cross 
* Member of the Order of Victory
* Member of the Order of Merit
* Dame of the Golden Fleece
* Dame of the Order of the Bow
* Dame of the Order of the Black Swan
* Dame of the Order of the Ram
* Dame of the Order of the Starry Cross
* Dame of the Order of the Golden Leopard
* Dame of the Order of the Black Eagle
* Commander of the Legion of Merit
* Commander of the Legion of Honor
* Dame of the Order of the Aztec Eagle
* Dame of the Order of St. Stephen
* Dame of the Order of the Most Holy Annunciation
* Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the Red Eagle
==== Terran Imperial honors ====
* Privy Counsellor
* Personal Aide-de-Camp General to the Emperor
* Lord Lieutenant of the Perseid Frontier
==Behind the scenes==
Céleste Beaumont, and most of the other members of the Beaumont clan, was created by Mallori Puchino as part of a roleplaying game devised by the creative team to conceptualize and plot out events and characters. Céleste was Mallori's first character in the setting, and as such garnered quite a bit of development and planning. She conceived of the character as a disabled person overcoming their disability and other issues through perseverance and the power of technology, and thus was from the outset devised as a cyborg. The first round of adventures chronicled, essentially, Céleste's growth as a patriotic Terran Imperialist to a cynical opponent of the regime; leading the Raiders goes from fighting the war to carrying out political assassinations. In secret, Céleste is coordinating the resistance to the CGU, and has been since gaining Maximilian's ear. Using her unique position, she has access to enormous amounts of military information, and provides that through proxies to leaders of the rebellion. Her compatriots in this endeavor, Gracie Gray and Brian Kessar, handle other covert ends of the resistance; Gracie is the crypto-leader of the grassroots side of things, and Brian is secretly training soldiers to act as the spearhead of an uprising. But it is ultimately Céleste who decided to bring their efforts together into a roughly united front.
But there are some flaws to her plan, which push into cynicism, despair, and confusion over what she's doing and why. In order to gain a position to knowledge and power, she pretended to be fanatically loyal to Maximilian and his bulldog in military staff meetings, an act which included making outlandish or extreme suggestions. One of these was taken seriously and developed into the Beaumont Doctrine, which resulted in trillions of alien deaths as human starships simply bombed planets from orbit; Céleste bears the weight of all of those deaths, and sees the blood on her hands every day. She avoids eating, and rarely sleeps, from depression. Which leads to her at-times reckless personal behavior.
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