Petra Bellweather

**Petra Bellweather** is a character in *Motherland: Fort Salem*. She is portrayed by Catherine Lough Haggquist.

## History

General Petra Bellweather has served in the U.S. army for most of her life, just like her ancestors before her. She is mother to cadet Abigail Bellweather.

## Throughout the Series

### Season 1

Petra is the guiding and pushing force behind Abigail Bellweather. She has served for long time in the U.S. army as a General, and she wants her daughter to follow in her footsteps. At times, Petra can be very pushy and expects nothing but the best from Abigail. However, it is clear from her actions that she cares deeply for her.

Petra was always a dutiful general who supported and helped General Alder, however she started to have doubts about Alder's decisions as The Spree started to gain momentum. Upon learning from Raelle Collar that Alder had a Spree infiltrator at Fort Salem, she approached the President. The President decided to relieve Alder of her longtime duty as leader of the army and informed Petra that she planned to make her the new head of the army. However, during the President's televised speech, Alder puppeteered the President and granted Alder unlimited power instead of declaring Petra as the new leader.

Because of this attempt, Alder blocked her daughter's placement at War College and deployed her unit. Managing to pull some strings, Petra secured a solo placement at the college for Abigail, but when the latter learned that this did not include her unit, Abigail went ahead and joined them on the Tarim rescue mission with Alder.

### Season 3

Petra was in command of the Army following the death of General Alder. She and her forces learned quickly through spying that Vice President Blanton Silver was a member of the Camarilla and decided that the most important next step was to establish whether or not President Kelly Wade was also Camarilla.

To this end, Petra decided to host a dinner at the Bellweather household. In attendance at the dinner was her mother, Minerva Bellweather, who in the past had some sort of bad blood with Wade, back from when Minerva was a general and Wade was still a senator. After the dinner, Wade announced that she would not be signing a bill proposed by Blanton Silver stripping witches of certain voting rights. Minerva then told Petra that Wade was most definitely not Camarilla, stating that while she and Wade might not see eye-to-eye on certain things, the woman has integrity to spare. While Petra felt that this was good news, it also meant that Wade was now the Camarilla's top target.

## Physical Appearance

Petra is tall with dark brown hair. She is always dressed very elegantly and walks with a lot of confidence.

## Powers and Abilities

### Powers

**Witch Physiology:** As a witch, Petra possesses enhanced vocal chords that are capable of creating change in the physical world by singing different seed sounds and songs, as well as enhanced ears -- as stated in *Up is Down:* eardrums with "five mallea", compared to a regular human's one, that are capable of sensing subsonic and ultrasonic frequencies far beyond the capabilities of normal humans. She was the Head of Intelligence and is now The General of The Army. As a Bellweather, she possesses potent Work from her bloodline.

* **Weather Manipulation:** Dubbed "weatherwork" by the witches at Fort Salem, users of which are known as Blasters. She is known as the "Mistress of Blasters."
	+ **Storm Wall Creation:** In *Bellweather Season*, Petra and the witch generals at Charvel's wedding line the edge of the property and extend their arms widely towards the sky, combining their voices to create a powerful wall of wind to blast back the Spree's balloons -- it notably traveled horizontally, as opposed to to a windburn's straightforward path.
	+ **Windstrike:** In *Bellweather Season*, Petra attempts to windstrike the Spree assassins, but is prevented by their sonic-dampening equipment. Later, after destroying the sonic-dampeners, she and Abigail windstrike them out of the mansion window after they light themselves on fire, announcing "We are the Spree!" -- the two are subsequently killed as they are thrust into the storm created by the witch generals.
	+ **Tornado Creation:** In *Revolution: Part 1*, the Unit are stopped from fleeing -- after being freed from the transport bus -- by a single large tornado column fixed on them, created by Petra, who follows closely behind along with Anacostia.
* **Linking:** Linking is the touchstone of Fixing, and is often life and death.
	+ **Healing:** In *Bellweather Season*, after handling the Spree agents, Petra turns to an injured Abigail -- who has suffered a stab wound to the chest -- placing one hand over heart and one over her head, linking with her to heal her wounds.
	+ **Cardiac Arrest Inducement:** In *Petra's Favorite Pen*, she manages to link Colonel Jarrett's heartbeat to the tapping of her pen from a distance -- without any physical contact -- using the frequency produced from tapping it to gain control over his heart-function, mirroring it before increasing the pace and force, eventually to the point that the pen snaps and the Colonel falls over, dead on the spot -- his face turns bright blue as a result. Just before his death, Petra announces to him, "We are the daughters of ancient lines and we are called to greatness".
* **Detection:** In *Citydrop*, Petra uses a tuning fork to try and find residue of the Spree's Work in the mirror of Fort Salem.
* **Levitation:** By using Salva, Petra can levitate several feet off the ground, and, with practice, can perform combat drops. She dropped from a helicopter with Anacostia to say a farewell to the Bellweather unit and their allies at the end of *Revolution, Part 1*, and uses it to levitate back up to the helicopter hovering above the tornado column.
* **Warding**: In *Revolution, Part 1*, Petra is seen undoing the warding put on Nicte's collar, allowing her to join in the fight once the Camarilla infiltrate Fort Salem.
* **Counter-Disabling**: In *Revolution: Part 1*, after unwarding Nicte's collar, Petra utilizes the counter-disabling method -- invented by Tally -- to short-circuit and neutralize the anti-Work
* **Telepathy:** Dubbed "Farspeech" by the witches of Fort Salem. Petra used this ability to signal Anacostia to contact Scylla, Adil, and Khalida in order to free the Bellweather unit while they are on the prison bus in *Revolution, Part 1*.
	+ **Thought Projection:** In *Book Club*, Petra displays a speechless form of farspeech, directly projecting her thoughts into the minds of her soldiers, speaking over top of Colonel Jarrett's voice so as to make him background noise.
* **Pushing**: In *Cession in Session*, Petra is seen pushing the coroners working on President Wade's "body", telling them that they will give her a closed-casket viewing.
* **Omniscience**: In *Book Club*, Petra somehow knew that the Government -- now led by Blanton Silver -- would soon order her to invade the Cession.

### Abilities

* **Expert Combatant:** Petra, along with Abigail were able to fight against two Camarilla assassins. Petra got into a fist fight with a blonde assassin and defeated him by kicking him through a door.
	+ **Skilled Scourge Wielder:** After finding Abigail getting tortured by the Camarilla, Petra pulled a scourge from her side and fought against the duo with it briefly.

## Quotes

> Willa Collar was one of the bravest soldiers I knew. She was the fixer every unit wanted to deploy with. Your mother's unconventional methods delivered incredible results. Countless lives were saved because of her work. And from what I understand, you have followed in her footsteps by trying to save a young man's life. I wish she could have been here with us today. She would've been so proud of you.
>
> Petra to Raelle in *Bellweather Season*

## Trivia

* Petra fought with Raelle's mother, Willa Collar, in the war on the Spree. Willa allegedly died under Petra's command, but when Raelle confronts her on it, Petra doesn't answer directly.
* Her female ancestor, the first member of Bellweather family to serve in U. S. Army, was a slave.
* It is implied by Abigail that Petra had other sisters besides Edith who died in combat.

## References

1. ↑ 1x09: "Coup"
2. ↑ 1x10: "Witchbomb"
3. ↑ 3x01: "Homo Cantus"
4. ↑ 3x02: "The Price of Work"