Anne Stone

Anne Stone, as the West Caribbea Chief Envoy, 512 AC

*"With all due respect, I have no respect for you."*

*" For the record, I don't think that's morally appropriate at all. You should be ashamed at yourself. Its a good thing there aren't a cohort of bystanders watching this very conservation, including the bartender, the piano player, the waiter with the crooked stroll, the newspaper reader over in the corner of the room, the dog walker that just passed by the front of the restaurant, the single mother calming her child a few tables over, and the other patron sitting right next to you...it would be a terrible blow to your reputation if word were to spread of that comment you made just now.*

*"I could really go with some coffee right now. I'm exhausted. But there's so much work to do...what do you mean this is just like university?"*

## Overview

Anne, to the knowledge of the common people, is the Chief Envoy of the West Caribbea Trading Company, handling matters of domestic and international affairs while also being the public "voice" of the Company when vocalizing its day to day decrees and interviews. She is widely regarded as the most capable diplomat West Caribbea has to offer, and is widely popular with the people due to her being a close friend to Jorge during the events of the Caribbea Civil War. However, her true and primary role is a secret one, being that of the Provost of Espionage and Secret Intelligence for the Company, where she maintains a huge network of informants from all over Caribbea, ranging from escorts, businessmen, and even day to day farmers. She is responsible for the deconstruction of the Old Elites using this elaborate system, finding ways to undermine their reputation and cause publicity stunts that many are not aware were manipulated specially by Anne. Rarely, Anne plays a hand in assassinations and interrogation, a role that mentally taxes more than anything else. However, she is first and foremost a humanitarian focused individual, who cares deeply about the state of poverty in Caribbea and seeks to provide for the best of the common people. Although maintaining a calm and confident visage in public, she is a fairly introverted but playful person truthfully, who enjoys the small enjoyments of life, including coffee shop browsing and reading by the sea. Anne is described as relatively short for people in Caribbea, and is notably "half Asiatico," a group of people who were said to have descended from what was known as East Asia before the Calamity. Anne typically wears a modified version of the "Diplomat's Cuirass," to suit her own sense of personal style.

## Early Life and University

Anne was born to a relatively wealthy family in Havano, in the island of Cubano, well regarded as one of the richest cities under the jurisdiction of the "Viejos," or "Old Elites." From very early on she was academically gifted, and coupled with the immense amount of resources funded by her family, including tutors, academic excursions, and special writing clubs, Anne became a top student throughout her early academic career. However, despite her upbringing, she could not help but feel sympathy for the people in the outskirts of Havano, who she would frequently past by when visiting various tutors, toiling away at the fields and actively being subject to exploitation. Eventually, she began to participate in more humanitarian pursuits (after begging her father for the funds), often visiting farms and asking people about their life stories while providing them with much needed medicine and aid. As she learned and interacted more with the common person, she grew more and more determined to her convictions, and this affected her own political ideology. Upon being accepted to Zapata University in 492 AC for Political Science (the most prestigious college in Caribbea), she began to read ideological literature from the previous age, before the onset of the Great Calamity, and learned of an ancient ideology known as Anarchism, which aligned mostly with her values. Consequently, she founded a club known as the "Anarquistas," which sought to mimic the ideology of Anarchism, and after some preaching it gained a fair amount of traction, encompassing about fifty students out of an undergraduate population of one thousand. However, it was in late 492 AC that Anne's life took a drastic turn, as she was present during Jorge's famous "El Sol Nunca se Pone speech" before his supposed execution, and decided to flee to the mainland after hearing the militant actions that a rival classmate of hers, Cruz Flores, intended to take upon hearing of his execution. Fundamentally disagreeing with the approach that Flores wanted to take with his "Black Rose" organization, Anne decided to form a counter group of her own emphasizing Jorge's approach, and to escape the violence that was about to engulf Havano between the student revolutionaries and government forces.

## Actions during the Caribbea Civil War

Anne's following became minuscule due to the polarizing nature of the Caribbea Civil War, as most of of the populace were unaware of the true contents of Jorge's speech and much of it was misconstrued to sow dissent and conflict. Anne led a camp of about fifteen other students, who were still committed to the tenets of peace as referred to by Jorge, and went about Caribbea attempting to provide humanitarian aid to the best of their ability, similar to what Jorge had done. She had many encounters with the Black Rose Group, who were driven away from the island of Cubano and forced to conduct guerilla war on the Caribbea mainland, and despite the many appeals of Flores she refused to join their cause. It was during this time that Anne truly became exposed to the hardships of the world, as previously she had been nothing more than a pampered upper class woman who focused on education. She slept in the dirt in the cold of night, suffered sicknesses and physical pains, and experienced the immense misery of people around her, Her experience during the Civil War matured her character and gradually she became less so an "Anarquista" as much as someone who simply wanted to help people in need. Eventually, after Jorge recovered from his forty day coma and came back from his brief disappearance, he publicly informed the people of the world of the true contents of his speech, and called upon all people who were willing to participate in a peaceful protest to end the war. Anne eventually joined Jorge's "Fight for Peace," movement, and quickly became distinguished for her exceptional administrative abilities and commitment to providing aid. She made herself personally known by Jorge when she suggested an elaborate scheme to cause a mass disruption of Army movements in East Caribbea, all rooting from a manipulation of clerical records to cause less food to be sent than needed for the upkeep of an army, causing entire army groups to suffer more attrition, march slower, and fight less battles for an entire months, saving many lives. Despite her abilities, she still participated in mass protests as Jorge advocated, experiencing both the Santa Clara and Rosa Massacres standing in front with the main vanguard, where Jorge's protest group was fired upon and dispersed by army units. At this point she became one of Jorge's closest friends, alongside Rivera Diaz, and she continued to generate elaborate schemes that contributed to eventually the war falling into a stalemate, from which peace could be negotiated.

## Contributions to the West Caribbea Trading Company

After the war, Jorge personally appointed her and Rivera Diaz as his head administrators for the West Caribbea Company, where Rivera handled more clerical tasks such as management of the finances and industry, and Anne handled more of the diplomatic and public relations portion, alongside the espionage network which Anne suggested was closer to her expertise. Anne spent most of her early years in the Company constructing an elaborate network alongside attending to important diplomatic matters, and around 497 AC, began to perform elaborate operations and schemes which saw The West Caribbea Trading Company gain more influence and power at the expense of the Old Elites. From destroying personal reputations, seizing assets, falsifying immense fines, forcing public works contributions, and instilling petty rivalries amongst the Viejos, Anne would completely undermine the power structures of the Old Elites through 503 AC, which would culminate into the Treaty of Puerta Nueva, which saw the Old Elites cede control of governance and land to the West Caribbea Trading Company, securing Company dominance completely over East Caribbea. Although Anne would occasionally have to orchestrate assassinations, which to her gentler nature felt wrong and depressed her, she felt as if these were necessary sacrifices to better the lives of the people of Caribbea. Her diplomatic abilities are not to be forgotten however, as her tact words during the Loyalist Crisis in 505 AC also prevented further violence from being escalated, and is worth noting. Through the present, in 512 AC, Anne continues to maintain her network and prepare for the overall acquisition of all of Caribbea and to eventually move into Colombo, but recently she began to hear news of much more troubling matters than just Loyalist Guerilla fighters and petty diplomatic matters...

## Trivia

* Anne is based off a real life person Howard knew from high school...
* Anne's espionage actions are inspired by a character from Howard's "2052" story, Mercy Lynn, who performed similar schemes as Anne does.
* The idea for Anne's Anarchist background came from her real life inspiration, who said that Anarchism is a "cute" ideology.