Karina Larina

Karina Larina, known as Karin to her friends, was a university student and aspiring writer who lived on in the aftermath of the . After her father was murdered for his investigative work she became determined to live inconspicuously but was nonetheless dragged into the affairs of the vigilante known as the Renegade in his quest to rid Talitsa of corruption. The experience revived her abandoned dream of becoming a journalist and she started an underground newsletter chronicling the Renegade's exploits. During the Created Uprising she was forced to work for the and later discovered her larger extended family when she met her cousin, the rogue Spartan Simon-G294.
==Biography==
===Early Life===
Karina was born on in 2539. The daughter of Mariya Onegin and official Walter Larina, she spent her early years cooped up in their Ezhtergom apartment while her parents were out working. Attended only by the apartment's rudimentary nanny drone, young Karina quickly tired of the "educational" toys left out for her. The restless toddler wreaked havoc on the apartment, driving her parents to their wits' end until her father invested in a series of computerized education lessons. The elementary-level lessons managed to tame Karina, who quickly learned to read and immersed herself in children's books given to her on birthdays or rented from the apartment building's library. By the time she was old enough to attend local play groups and begin official schooling Karina was reading well beyond her age level, much to Walter's delight. Although she got along well enough with the other children, shy Karina Larina found herself mocked relentlessly for her rhyming name. After one tearful teasing session too many she adopted the nickname "Karin" and refused to let anyone besides her parents call her by her full name.
Even to a young girl immersed in her schooling and the melodrama of adolescence, the ravages of the were impossible to ignore. With footage of embattled UNSC troops plastered across the news and frequent "glassing raid drills" conducted at her school, the looming alien threat cast a dark shadow over Karin's childhood. Terrified for her mother—constantly away on military field exercises—she was plagued by frequent nightmares and often insisted on sleeping in her father's room. One day, Karin got lost on her way back from school and happened upon a staging area for refugees shipped in from planets already lost to the Covenant. The young girl was horrified at the squalid conditions in the camp but was rescued by a chance encounter with another girl, Valerie Harding, who helped guide her away from the camp. The two girls were picked up by Valerie's father, police officer Reginald Harding, and Karin was delivered safely to her panicking father. Though harshly scolded for wandering off alone Karin was impressed with the far more outgoing Valerie and sneaked out several more times to meet with her new friend. The meetings ended abruptly when Valerie disappeared without notice and a disappointed Karin returned to her solitary collection of books.
 
When Karin was twelve Mariya finally convinced Walter to take their daughter and evacuate to safety further within the . Karin parted tearfully with her mother, who promised to join them as soon as she could apply for a military transfer. Karin never saw her mother again; Sergeant Mariya Onegin was killed in action along with the rest of her unit during the . Karin and her father were devastated by Mariya's death. As they settled into their new quarters on , Karin withdrew even further and often refused to leave her room for anything besides school. Grappling with his wife's death, Walter reconnected with his long dormant Catholic faith and frequented Mass at a local chapel in the evenings following work. Torn between his private turmoil and duty to his grieving daughter, Walter forced Karin to attend the services with him. She resisted at first but soon found her own kind of peace within the religion. Though she had not grown up in the faith, she was captivated by the lyrical poetry that comprised the services she attended. The new faith reminded her of the books she had read as a child and answered some of the questions she had been saddled with since her mother's death. Karin was baptized on her thirteenth birthday.
But the Larinas had not escaped the Covenant's onslaught. In 2552 an alien battlefleet assaulted Tribute and quickly overwhelmed the planet's defenses. In the ensuing Karin was separated from Walter as Army troopers rushed to evacuate the colony's civilians. Pinned down on a landing platform with dozens of other civilians, the terrified girl saw the dreaded Covenant for the first time: warriors emerging from the smoke to cut down outmatched Army troopers. But she and the other civilians were saved when a team of counter-attacked and drove the aliens back. Karin found herself stunned with amazement as one of the newcomers killed a Sangheili just as it prepared to run her through, though the effect was promptly ruined when he tripped over the body and had to be dragged back by his comrades. The respite was short lived and the Covenant renewed their attack on the landing platform. Karin was struck by a stray plasma round as she huddled in cover, leaving her wounded and dying in the midst of the firefight. Only the quick actions of the commando team's medic stabilized her injury and she was rushed onto one of the standing by to evacuate the civilians. Karin was rushed to a military field hospital on the outskirts of the city, where she was reunited with her father. They were soon evacuated to a transport in orbit and taken to a refugee camp on . Although Karin made a full recovery, she was haunted by the memory of Tribute and suffered frequent nightmares. Walter's position as a CAA official managed to spare him and Karin from the worst of the poverty-stricken refugee camps and they were soon relocated to a small apartment in one of Minister's more developed regions. Lucky to be alive, the Larinas remained on Minister until the heralded humanity's shocking victory and the end of the war that had destroyed their lives.
===Post-War Independence Movement===
The war's end and the vast colonial reconstruction programs that followed in its wake revitalized Walter's job and saw him rise to a new position within the CAA. As her father busied himself with his work, Karin struggled to adjust to life in the shadow of everything she had suffered throughout the war. Still troubled by nightmares of the battle on Tribute--she often envisioned the armored commandos wearing the faces of dead children--Karin refused the extensive psychological treatment available to her through Walter's CAA medical plan and instead opted to keep busy with school and volunteer work. Self-conscious of the fact that her father's government status had kept them out of refugee camps, she often ventured down into the city to help distribute food and medical aid amidst the overcrowded and underfunded camps. Karin's volunteer work taught her a handful of useful skills such as basic first aid and administration procedures. It also introduced her to a new ideology sweeping through the camps: the colonial liberation movement.
Through camp residents and fellow volunteers, Karin learned that many people blamed the UEG and its Earth-centric policies for humanity's current predicament. Although the Reach-educated Karin might have once dismissed such sentiments as Insurrectionist propaganda, her firsthand experiences with the war and its aftermath made her more sympathetic to the accusations of corrupt CAA oppression. Walter could provide little support for his troubled daughter; already overburdened with work, he had also taken on a personal project of scouring public records for any trace of his deceased wife's extended family. Karin spent more and more time in the camps and found herself drawn increasingly further into anti-Earth activist groups. Shortly after the war's end, the colony world rose up in a violent secession attempt that prompted a brutal UNSC counter-offensive. News of the fighting galvanized the camp activists to stage massive demonstrations protesting the UNSC's use of military force against fellow humans so soon after the end of the Human-Covenant War. Karin joined in many of these protests, now firmly committed to opposing the very system she had grown up in.
The activist cause proved to be a much-needed stimulant for Karin. Ideologically isolated from her father, she dedicated herself to organizing demonstrations channeling her bookish childhood into a newfound talent for writing campaign flyers and political essays. With independent colonies such as gaining prominence and high-profile uprisings springing up on colonies like Mamore and Kafka, anti-UNSC sentiment swelled among the refugee camps. Walter finally recognized the signs of radicalization in his daughter after Karin was arrested at a protest, but he was too late to stop her from fully embracing her new cause. After a heated argument Karin stormed out of their apartment and began to live in the refugee camp alongside her fellow activists. When Walter turned to the local police to retrieve his daughter, Karin agreed to let herself be shipped offworld alongside several dozen other student activists. Their task was to help provide much-needed infrastructure support to yet another burgeoning independent colony called Talitsa.
Traveling away from her father for the first time as part of a cause bigger than herself was a heady experience for Karin. Though she and the other volunteers were shipped to Talitsa in a run-down civilian freighter she had high hopes for her future as part of the colonial autonomy movement. But while she looked forward to assuming a junior role in Talitsa's new government, the situation on the colony was far from the idyllic, independent paradise Karin and her fellow volunteers had imagined. The planet was a hotbed of armed Insurrectionist activity and with UNSC cracking down with violent special operations raids Talitsa was a step away from becoming a full-blown war zone akin to Mamore or Kafka. Provided with only barely adequate living conditions, the volunteers found that instead of assuming administrative roles they were pressed into hard labor by rebel forces preparing for all-out war with the UNSC. Many of the volunteers balked at the reality of their situation, but Karin fought to keep a positive attitude. She had given up everything hoping to contribute to the cause and having lived most of her life under the CAA's wing she felt it was her duty to endure whatever hardship was asked of her.
Unfortunately, not all of the volunteers shared Karin's dedication. After two of the students deserted the labor camp the rebel forces placed the rest of the work crew under armed guard. Shortly thereafter UNSC forces raided a nearby staging area, prompting a rebel officer to accuse another student of spying for the enemy. Karin and the remaining volunteers were forced to watch their fellow activist endure an ad hoc tribunal and then attended the boy's summary execution. The shocking violence, reminiscent of the horrors she had experienced on Tribute, was too much for Karin and she became deeply disillusioned with what she now realized was an elaborate campaign to drag students like her into a war they wanted no part of. Shortly after the execution the fighting across Talitsa intensified. The labor camp was shut down and the remaining students found themselves herded onto trucks and taken to a militia training camp. Once there a rebel officer informed the horrified students that they had been conscripted into the militia forces and were to receive military training effective immediately. After nearly a week of enduring the abuse of harsh rebel drill instructors, an inspection from the rebels' sector command brought Karin face to face with a field commander named Redmond Venter.
Karin and the other volunteers knew Venter by reputation: a brutally effective field commander known for his unwavering commitment to the rebel cause. Venter, called away from his duties to inspect the new recruits, was irritated by their lack of potential and berated the local officers for wasting his time. He quickly set up a test for the students. Bringing in several UNSC prisoners captured by his unit elsewhere on Talitsa, Venter ordered the students to execute the captives. Presented with her potential victim—a captive already savaged by Venter's brutal interrogation—Karin was finally overcome with the horror of her situation and burst into tears. Taking the gun away from the sobbing girl, Venter shot the prisoner dead and then arranged safe passage for Karin to the city of , far from the fighting. The grueling ordeal left Karin deeply disillusioned with the independence cause and highly averse to the use of firearms. Arriving in Irbit, she was shocked to be reunited with an overjoyed Walter: her father had relocated to Talitsa in order to find her. Only after their tearful reconciliation did Karin learn the full truth of what her father had done. Reaching out to rebel contacts to get in touch with Venter, Walter had defected to the NCA and handed over classified government material in exchange for the rebel commander's promise to ensure Karin's safety.
===A Quiet Life===
Though Walter was now a traitor to the UEG, his defection to the rebel cause bought him enough safety for his daughter and a comfortable administrative position in Irbit's local government. Ironically, though her father now served the independence movement she had given everything for Karin herself was deeply disillusioned by the brutality she had witnessed and wanted little more to do with the rebels. But she did not want to reopen the rift between herself and Walter—a rift he had gone to such lengths to mend—and instead applied to become a journalism student at Irbit's local university. Inspired by the war corespondents she had read as a child, Karin hoped she might one day return to UEG space and report on the violence erupting across the frontier. She also wanted to repay her father by assisting him in his ongoing search for Marina's vanished sister, a project he maintained even after fleeing the Inner Colonies.
Shortly after Karin moved to Irbit, news reached Talitsa of a catastrophic bombing at the city of Philadelphia on Earth the previous year. The attack was reportedly the work of Insurrectionists and confirmed Karin's newfound disdain for the movement's terrorist actions. However, news of the attack also carried a familiar name. The purported architect of the bombing, a young terrorist identified as Simon Onegin, bore the same surname as Marina. Though Walter could not make any certain conclusions about whether or not this wanted criminal was related to his wife, Karin developed a strange fascination with the events surrounding the bombing and its perpetrator. Putting dozens of hours into researching the bombing, she prepared several presentations of the event for her university classes and ignored concerned scoffing about her "morbid curiosity". In the meantime, Walter delved into a lead of his own: an enigmatic woman named Tatiana Onegin he had heard might be involved in organized crime back in the Inner Colonies. In an effort to reconnect with her father, Karin began joining him during his research sessions and the two bonded as they continued looking for the last trace of Marina left to them.
Unfortunately, Walter's suspicions saw him stumble deeper than he had ever intended to. Returning from class one afternoon, Karin found their apartment a crime scene: someone had shot her father through the head. That night, reeling from the loss of another parent, Karin discovered a small data-disk containing Walter's research hidden in her room. But the grieving Karin wanted nothing to do with whatever had killed her father. Though she kept the disk as a memento of Walter she refused to inspect its contents and instead resolved to live out the rest of her life unobtrusively; perhaps this would be the way she could avoid the misfortune that seemed to dog her and her family wherever they went.
Now living alone with only the last of Walter's savings to sustain her, Karin struggled to keep up with her coursework while also taking part-time jobs to make ends meet. Through a friend from the journalism course she found a position as a freelance writer at a local newspaper. But while Irbit and its schools remained relatively free of rebel political influence Karin soon discovered that another force controlled the city from behind the scenes. Corruption and crime was rampant throughout the city, with most public officials and the police force in the employ of a far-reaching criminal conglomerate known as the Syndicate. Karin's attempts to write articles on the Irbit's bribery, drug trade, and black market problems were quickly shut down. Realizing that she would never be able to become a reporter without being forced to twist the truth in the name of someone else's agenda, Karin sadly abandoned her dream. With little left to push her onwards, Karin did her best to honor her father's memory by volunteering at an independent medical clinic operating in one of Irbit's poorer districts. While attending a small prayer group with her fellow volunteers, she met the owner of the clinic: a young woman about her own age named Cassandra Engel.
===The Renegade===
==Personality and Traits==