Krenis Ban'darr

**Krenis Ban'darr**, commonly known as **Kren To'rahk** after her flight from her people, is a former operative for the Batarian Hegemony's Special Intervention Unit. While the batarian gave up her role in that outfit to save her family, she has kept her skills from that time.

## Biography

Krenis Ban’darr was born on May 3rd, 2153, in the midst of one of the lightning storms very commonplace in her home of Ectah, which had just entered pre-colonial stages. Her parents, Madro her father and Tameh her mother, were both relatively high-caste administrators in the Hegemony military, tasked with administering Ectah as it was in its early stages of colonization. It would take decades for the girl to ever learn how lucky this made her: she was one of the few among the vast batarian population that wasn't destitute, uneducated, and brutalized. On the contrary, her family’s position meant that she had an absolute wealth of opportunities at her disposal. However, she wasn't at complete liberty to pursue what she wanted. Krenis was her parents’ only child, and they her only family, so naturally she grew up incredibly close to both of them, especially her father. Throughout her youth, both of them indirectly pressured her down one path -a career in the military, like theirs-, always speaking of how proud they would be to have a soldier for a daughter, or by taking her to military parades so that she could fawn over the handsome soldiers marching by. Krenis practically lived and breathed military history and tactics growing up, spending hours at a time in the high-caste library, browsing through the (admittedly limited selection) of digital tomes pertaining to her interests. This interest didn't die down in the slightest as she grew older, despite that fact that she made remarkable grades in every subject: her path was set. When she wasn't studying she was preparing for the rigorous physical trials and training, beginning a strenuous daily exercise regimen.  She did for a time consider a medical career, but abstained, not wanting to disappoint her parents. She enlisted in the military straight out of secondary school, the only woman in her class to do so, leaving behind a pair of beaming parents, and a tragic-plethora of opportunities she had given up for their sake.

Bootcamp was Krenis’ first true exposure to life outside of the high-caste. Sure, she was still relatively safe inside the female barracks, and the lower-caste recruits were still expected to dance-around her, but for the first time her eyes were opened to how hard life was outside of her proverbial bubble. Signs of malnutrition, scars from beatings, health-issues caused by badly treated old-wounds: all were readily apparent to anybody who was willing to open their eyes. Nevertheless, Krenis turned away. Thanks to her early physical and mental training, she excelled, fueled by the ever-encouraging messages from her parents. Eventually, due to her exceptional physical and aptitude scores, she was selected to take part in the famously-brutal trials for the SIU. Firstly, she was subjected alongside 100 other recruits to brutal physical tests of endurance, strength, and pure perseverance, and finally, while their muscles were at least the peak of exhaustion following a straight week of strenuous exercise, the recruits were thrown into an arena and told to fight to the death. Out of the 100, only one would go in to be fully trained for the SIU, the others joining the thousands that had already perished in pursuit of the legendary position.  Krenis, after an hours-long fight, requiring all of her strength, will, and ferocity, won the day, if only barely. However, she felt no glory in victory: instead, as her final opponent’s neck cracked apart in her grip, she felt a deep pang of remorse. These weren’t enemies, these were \*batarians\*, just like her in a great deal of ways. This wasn’t the enemy she was told that she would be fighting.

She didn’t leave the arena with exclusively psychological scars. In the final minutes of the fight, her last opponent had stabbed her her viciously in the leg with one of the make-shift blades they had been given. A long-term reminder of all that had happened. She would spend the next ten years of her life in the SIU, traveling the Hegemony, and eliminating its enemies with extreme prejudice. She befriended her squad, and they became a tight-knit unit, exactly what was wanted of them. There was Kromek, their charismatic, loud-mouthed-lieutenant, Mokha, their soft-spoken, extraordinarily-polite sharpshooter, Tozzk, their massive hunk of brutish-muscle, and more. Of course, whenever possible, she took leave to see her parents, never letting the bond between them loosen in the slightest.

After about four years together, they were sent to intercept a Blood Pack frigate that had crossed into batarian territory, and raided a Hegemony armory, most likely intending to sell the weapons. They never got the chance: the ship was intercepted, and Krenis herself disintegrated the leader with her flamethrower, before using his own dropped grenade launcher to annihilate the rest of the crew. After such a show of blunt usefulness, it was only *natural* that she would keep and train with the weapon: such a thing was encouraged by the SIU, after all. As time went on, the feeling of being lied to faded, and the batarian grew more and more comfortable serving the Hegemony. She was happy, she was fulfilled, and why not? She was sure everyone else felt the same way.

That was not the case. Unbeknownst to her, Madro and Tameh Ban’Darr had secretly been having doubts, at this point, for years. It had started during the first Skyllian Blitz: the Hegemony paraded it as a triumphant strike against the arrogance of humanity. They, both of high-enough tank to gain access to unedited footage, saw the truth: that it was a brutal, undeserved attack almost exclusively targeting civilians, many of those civilians being, tortured, raped, and finally, sold into slavery. The final part was what truly horrified Madro: many of those spaces had probably passed through *his* port, suffering all the while, and yet, he had done nothing. Silently, the parents agreed that the Hegemony needed to end. It was a curse upon the image of batarian society, and a threat to the survival of their species. The only question was how would they escape...and how would they convince Krenis to go with them? The only viable way, knowing how indoctrinated she had become, was to subvert her, call up doubts indirectly to weaken her opinion. And so, they did. Starting in 2181, her parents took every day of leave she received to share stories, not directly criticizing the Hegemony, but of such material as to let *her* mind do the criticizing. The rape of a low-caste woman by a high-caste male who got off free, a slave-famine on Bekke, the murder of a seemingly innocent slave. It was effective, calling up all the fears that had surfaced after the arena, but in the short term she was able to ignore it and do her duty, if not for the Hegemony, then for her friends in the SIU, for her unit.

As tensions with the council increased, and it seemed more and more evident that things would eventually boil to a head, the Ban’darr’s knew it was time to leave. In 2183, they confronted their daughter in the midst of her year’s leave, and finally informed her of their doubts, and their wish to leave. They could never know what kind of pain they put her through in that moment. The two most important things in her life were clashing together, and *she* was the one who was expected to decide between them? That was simply the cruelest twist the galaxy could have ever dealt to one of its most loyal-minded occupants. If she was to be a good batarian, loyal to her Hegemony, she would turn her parents in. Let them rot in slavery. But, she simply *couldn't*. It was the hardest decision she had ever made in her life, but she couldn’t turn against the people who had created her, her only true family.

In her very first act of rebellion, Krenis made contact with the Alliance. In exchange for intel on SIU movements and planned attacks, transport was arranged to Earth, all through a single human handler with the alias “Manilow”. The family stowed away to the rendezvous point on a mercenary freighter, before hooking up with a small Alliance escort just outside Hegemony space, and making their way to San Francisco. The sunny, warm, beautiful city was completely different from what Krenis had known inside the hegemony, an extremely *good* change. Here, they met the mysterious “Manilow” who revealed himself to be Luke Kerrigan, a 34 year-old agent for Alliance Intelligence and Foreign affairs, assigned to help the family “acclimate” to life in San Francisco, and to help them get used to their new identities. The latter was possibly the most outlandish, and most important thing about their exile: they were being hunted. All rogue-SIU elements were, almost always by their own units, who knew their former-compatriots tactics. They weren’t safe living under the Ban’darr name, so, the alliance had it “altered for as long as foreseeably needed.” Now, they were the To’rahks: her parents, marine biologists coming to study the bay’s fauna (the most diverse on Earth following the environmental breakdown), and their daughter,  “Kren To’rahk”, working as their security.

Krenis, or Kren depending on who you asked, spent the next month simply meandering about the Bay Area while her parents spent their time fishing. The amount of freedom she was able to indulge in was, well, *freeing*. Everyone on the street walked with such remarkable confidence that she needed to consciously fight the urge not to tilt her head in subservience. She could say exactly what she wanted, go where she felt like, do whatever it was that first struck her. So extremely different from the Hegemony, in such an amazingly good way that her heart ached for the possibility of eventually bringing this way of life to her brethren. However, it was far too much change for her to get used to in such a short time, but she enjoyed every moment of it, getting to know the city at the side of their handler. Luke was humorous, bold, energetic, and he became a fast friend to a woman who was desperately searching for a new place in the galaxy. He was her gateway into the strange, confusing race that was humanity, and the wonderous world they lived in, and her trust in him grew to a great degree.

It was him that suggested that she start freelance work, as a way to relieve some of her boredom, and perhaps see a little more of the galaxy. Under his gentle guidance she put feelers out, searching for appropriate work for almost a year. During that time, their friendship continued to blossom, until a few Alliance aides informed Luke of a new possible lead. Upon further inspection, the entire thing seemed almost too perfect to be true, and within a week, Krenis was shipping off.

## Personality

Krenis is absolutely devoted to her parents. They are the only family she has, and she is likely to follow their advice above all others. It was their influence that led to her joining the military, and similarly, they were the ones who persuaded her to leave. She’s adopted her father’s negative views regarding the caste system and slavery, and on his word seeks to purge all of the remnants of the Hegemony’s brainwashing still left within her.

Of course, more than a decade of training and rigorous systemic grooming can be hard to decode from one’s mind. The Hegemony’s touch still displays itself in a variety of ways. For instance, Krenis is overly serious. One can hardly blame her for this; a decade spent fighting in the SIU will do that to a person, but even for a batarian, she is no-nonsense. She treats almost every task she’s faced with, no matter how menial or mundane, as a mission, going to great lengths to achieve them. It also means that she has literally no sense of humor, to the point of jokes and sarcasm simply flying over her head, and when she speaks she is always completely blunt and to the point. She is doing her best to break free from this, seeing it as a negative result of her time in the Hegemony, but progress is slow-going. Often, the batarian will make poorly-constructed puns, in an attempt to at least emulate comedy.

Another one of the hangups that Kren is trying to get over is her ingrained disdain for humans. Throughout her childhood, everything from state propaganda to children’s cartoons portrayed humanity as a greedy, conniving, evil culture, hell-bent on ruining the Hegemony. With such influences, it was impossible for her to not be at least partially swayed. However, it only took a few days of exposure to humanity on Earth after her family’s exodus to open her eyes, at least partially. She struggles daily to remedy her disdain and hopes to one day be free of it entirely.

Perhaps the most acrimonious of her ‘bad habits’ is her reflexive obedience. She is used to following any order given to her, without question, directly on the spot. Even questioning the command of an officer is almost unspeakable to her, and talking down about one, even worse. This trait was ingrained into her by her position in the caste system: she wasn't low in the ranks, not by any means, but she wouldn't even think about going against or disagreeing with a higher-caste batarian, which most of her superior officers were. The first and only act of true rebellion she has ever committed was leaving the Hegemony behind. Since then, she has slowly been building her self-confidence, hoping to put this habit, like all of the others, behind her.

The influence of Krenis’ parents is also readily apparent, influence that, unlike the Hegemony’s, she will likely never try to break free from. She absolutely abhors drugs and alcohol, hating the feeling of being under their influence, and hating the effects they have on other people. This hatred was actively encouraged by her parents, both teetotallers themselves. A natural curiosity was fostered within her, which has manifested in recent months as a flaming desire to learn as much about various alien cultures as possible, information which was restricted to her inside of the hegemony. She has taken special interest in art, of any shape or form, having had little access to any other than the traditionally bland-forms practiced by batarians, with painting being the foremost interest. She spends a good amount of her free time practicing this activity, which is readily apparent by the stains on her clothing.

## Physical Description

Krenis, for lack of a more gentle description, is built like a brick-house. Her impressive musculature is rounded out by a healthy layer of body fat, which only adds to the effect generated by her already broad shoulders and hips. The build would be an intimidating one, if it didn’t belong to a woman who is diminutive by batarian standards, barely 5’5 in height. Underestimating her because of her size, however, would be a dreadful folly. Her face seems slightly elongated when compared to other batarians, and she has ears that are noticeably more pointed, with titanium-loop earrings hanging from each.
Krenis carries herself with unaffable seriousness, ‘letting go’ only very rarely. She hardly ever laughs, and when she does, it is almost always a poor imitation of laughter made whenever others around her are laughing, in an effort to fit in. Most often, however, the only response she will give to a joke is a confused expression or response. In addition, she seemingly doesn’t possess the capability to whisper, in contrast being loud and blunt in almost all conversation. In the extremely unlikely chance that she does laugh, however, the sound has been described as extremely pleasant, a sort of happy window into a new side of the Batarian.

### Fashion Sense

In casual settings, Krenis can usually be found wearing a modest black and red jumpsuit, a common batarian fashion. In addition, since leaving the Hegemony, she has also purchased several pieces of human clothing, in an attempt to fit into the setting of her family’s new hideaway. These come primarily in the form of jeans, a pair of sneakers, and various sweaters. A garment that she is \*much\* less proud of is the tight-fitting “I ❤️ San Francisco!!!” T-shirt purchased for her by her handler as a joke. It clashes violently with her quiet, serious persona, and thus she avoids it like the plague, save for heavy use as sleepwear, or as a  smock when painting.

## Armament

### Combat Arms

In combat, Krenis wears a set of medium-weight Partisan Armor re-shaded to a dark blue and equipped with Blade Armor, along with several bandoliers of power cells slung across her hips to hold her Stimulant Packs, Flak Cannon shells, and grenades for her M-100 Grenade Launcher. When in combat with the SIU, she would use her explosive weapons and abilities to devastate, disrupt, and distract enemy lines, allowing her aggressive squad-mates to push in on unprotected flanks. Once they were in the fray, she would charge in and let loose with her own AT-12 Raider shotgun. She is weakest at long range, as she dislikes the feel of her Terminator X Assault Rifle. Her omni-tool is equipped with the Combat Abilities Incinerate and Flamethrower, and she utilizes Tech Armor as well.

## Family

* Madro Ban'darr - *Father*

* Tameh Ban'darr - *Mother*

## Appearances

* Faces, New and Old
* Depot Dowanubo
* Projections
* What Lies Beneath
* Cold Case