Vanencara Nortaro

History
Vanencara’s background begins long before her birth. In 2143, when a young, but talented turian farmer by the name of Hactinius Nortaro had the bright idea to get involved in the drug business. Having moved to the relatively poor colony of Triginta Petra with his parents at a young age, Hactinius had always dreamed of making his humble colony the crown jewel of Hierarchy space - a naive and barely possible, but noble goal. Having learned many impressive farming techniques from his parents, he took over the family’s farming business when his father died of an unexpected stroke. Over the years, he gradually managed to transform the farm from one of the small colony’s more important food producers into the heart of a secretive drug business, producing mainly Minagen X3 on its vast fields of minagia, a crop which grows remarkably well in the unique Trigintan soil. As Hactinius’ power was steadily growing, his and his wife Arala’s first child was born - Cara’s older brother, Givinus, and two years later, Vanencara followed.

Despite her brother always somehow being the favorite child, Cara received a lot of love in her early childhood. With endless acres of warm, flat grassland to play in, multiple homes across a vast, sparsely populated planet, and wealthy, loving parents, what else could a child possibly need? A sense of security would have been yet another bonus - and the family was working hard to get mercenaries and crime cartels off their backs - but after all, you can’t have everything.

Exporting their products across almost the entirety of the inhabited systems, the family’s largely illegal operations, being situated right in the middle of the Terminus systems, gained some attention from a whole share of mercenary organizations. Most often, their enemies could simply be strategically paid off, however, seeing as the Nortaro family’s business was still among the minor drug producers on a galactic scale, and organizations like the Vengeful Spirits and the Blue Suns had far more important things to deal with. Unsurprisingly, the Council was barely bothered by the family’s businesses too, and for most of the time, actual law enforcement was one of the few problems Nortaro didn’t have to deal with.

Still, the constant safety precautions put a great deal of stress on Cara’s parents, and financial strain on the family’s money reserves. Whenever they paid one organization to leave the colony alone, another one came knocking at their door, from time to time workers even vanished only to be returned after the payment of a fine, but the children, fortunately, barely got wind of the real situation, and over time, even began to find the hazardous atmosphere exciting.

Aside from the stress, eternally balancing between the killers of the mercenary groups created a whole share of other problems for the children, most of them somehow being taken care of by their parents. The lack of education was remedied by private teachers for the two, their safety was ensured by implanted microchips transmitting their location, public service was out of the question anyway, although their 15th birthdays were still quite a while away, and friends - well, they had each other. Naturally, Vanencara and Givinus were best friends, staying together at every occasion, however, as they grew older, their parents’ favoritism for Givi became more and more apparent. After all, only one of the two could lead the family’s business at some point - and the one they had chosen was obviously the older brother.

Among the family and its associates, Givinus’ position as the heir of the family business was self-evident, while Cara was just ‘the daughter’. As the siblings were growing into their teens, their parents slowly introduced Givi to his responsibilities, beginning to teach him whatever he needed to know to lead the business, and Cara was left to sit in the background.

Naturally, the relationship between the two siblings worsened, especially since Cara knew critical voices were arguing that Givinus wasn’t, in fact, the heir they had wanted him to be, doubting his abilities as a “businessman”. He was too slow of a learner, too scared to make impactful decisions, too soft to negotiate with business partners…

Getting to spend less and less time with her brother due to his training and noticing more and more flaws within him, she gradually developed a distaste for him. She began to see him less as a brother and more as a burden to the family, convinced that her father’s decision to pick him as the heir to their fortune was wrong.

Cara believed herself to be much better qualified than her brother, ultimately leading her to come up with a plan to convince her parents to stop wasting their efforts on him - or otherwise get rid of him. And so, in late 2173, Givinus Nortaro disappeared when meeting a friend in Licitron, after an anonymous informant had given his position away to the Blue Suns. As confident as she was in her decision, she still had some love left for her brother. But if ignoring that shred of love was what it would take to help her family, she was more than ready to do just that, even if her conscience didn’t make it any easier.

Presenting the perfect tool to get the Nortaro family under control, Givi was taken off world, the tracker in his arm stopping soon after his captors left the system. Left with no other option, the family had to strike a painful deal, that, some would argue, actually worked in favor of the family in the end.

Givinus would be returned unharmed if the Nortaros would accept the Blue Suns as their patrons, letting 75% of their revenue flow directly into the Suns’ pockets in return for protection against other harmful organizations, and, should the need ever arise, law enforcement. It was a massive bunch of money, but considering the protection fees the family was paying every week, it surprisingly wasn’t much of a change.

And so, Givi returned after just over a week of negotiations, crying and trembling and shouting, but physically barely looking worse for wear, supposedly not much different from how he had acted in custody of the Suns, even though they claimed to have treated him relatively ‘generously’. After all, who would hurt the kid who immediately offered to reveal anything he knew about the family, just to gain his freedom again?

Either way, Cara had achieved her goal, and even if she felt somewhat guilty for what she had done to her parents’ financial situation, she was convinced it would benefit them in the long run. Her father was finally convinced Givinus wasn’t in any position to lead the family’s business, no matter how many years it would take until the need arose. The young turian was sent away to his aunt on Oma Ker to be kept safe and out of the way, and Vanencara was destined to be the business’s future leader, but it would take her a few more years to actually understand what she had gotten herself into.

Either way, she didn’t complain about her father’s decision to send her brother away. During the past months, she had gotten sick of him, partially out of jealousy and partially because she felt like the family deserved a better heir, so, for the moment, she couldn’t be happier. Some sympathy for Givi was there, but that would soon subside, she thought.

A few months later, her father started taking her to meetings and video conferences, mostly with less important business partners, sometimes with subordinates, and sometimes with the Blue Suns. After each one of them, he would repeat the same lessons, teaching her about the importance of asserting dominance over subordinates, conveying seriousness when working with equally powerful partners, and giving superiors a feeling of loyalty. Soon, the young turian was taught how to manage income and expense, and over time, she was introduced to more and more of the family’s farms, laboratories, collaborators, trade routes, and secrets. Cara was a fast learner - much faster than her brother, that’s what her father always told her, but she never really believed it.

The boring technicalities of the ‘profession’ were necessary, sure, but she found them to be immensely boring. Cara wanted to do things herself instead of telling a subordinate to inspect the laboratories, hire employees, purchase vehicles, and as soon as her father began to give her actual duties and power, that’s exactly what she did. While Hactinius, in her eyes, was pretty much sitting on his ass all day, she ran the errands - really only the interesting errands, but errands nonetheless, and he couldn’t complain. After all, there was barely anyone he could trust as much as his own daughter.

But he wasn’t entirely right there. Cara didn’t agree with many of his actions and tactics, and she told him, but the result was always that “Father knows what’s best for the business.” The older she got the more she understood that the business had so much more potential that Hactinius either didn’t care, or didn’t know how to use. The endless possibilities for expansion were one point, with millions of acres of dirt cheap land on Triginta Petra, but his faults reached right down to his employees. He knew how to assert dominance, but not how to enforce it, so people stole. And they stole a lot - rarely with a lot of repercussions. If the boss doesn’t find out who stole - who cares?

So Cara made it her personal mission to solve the problems her father ignored, preferably without him knowing until results could be presented. Armed with an expensive, custom-finished M-77 Paladin to make an impression, she scouted the labs during her inspections, picking out one or two reliable workers that would receive a little extra pay to serve as informants. And obviously, the things the workers didn’t tell their managers, they told each other, so it didn’t take long for the reports to come in.

The first thieves would return to their labs beaten up to set an example - the ones who were still brave enough to snatch some of the produce didn’t return at all. Within a matter of weeks, the family’s revenue increased by a couple percent.

Her father was somewhat conflicted when he got wind of what was happening. His daughter’s tactics were ruthless, sure, but he couldn’t deny they got things done. And so, he made Vanencara something he called his ‘Internal Enforcement Manager’. It basically meant he was making the decisions, and she made sure everyone stuck to them.

It was a welcome development, but of course, things still bothered her- most important of all, the Blue Suns’ invisible hand constantly taking and taking and taking, much more than they were giving back in the form of protection. So, the family had two options - either get the Suns to drastically lower their demands, or kick them out and drum up their own band of mercenaries. But that would take a lot more time. Right now, Cara didn’t have nearly enough power to enforce something like that on her own, and, naturally, her father was too afraid of them to act.

Either way, for the time being, the family earned more than enough to get by until the time was right. In the following years, Cara became ever more proficient in her area of expertise, and business was steadily growing, although, of course, most of the revenue still went towards the Suns.

However, something of a turning point came in 2183, one that had initially seemed like a positive development for the family’s business. Having managed to convince her father to found what was in its essence a subsidiary company, Cara had moved away from home and to a large property on Illium, a couple dozen kilometers outside of Nos Astra to start the first phase of her Suns-independence plan, and had taken a small part of Triginta Petra’s staff with her.

Within just over two years, she had transformed the property into something that was both a place of residence, and a hub for the new drug distribution operations she had been planning. A small smuggling route between Triginta Petra and Illium was established to move a decent chunk of the family’s produce somewhere Cara didn’t expect the watchful eyes of the Blue Suns to reach, and distribute it among the streets of Nos Astra.

It was a massive success during the first few months. Vanencara sold her products with, compared to the Suns’ usual share, basically no taxes in the way, and made unthinkable profit. But, of course, the family’s patrons weren’t quite as blind as Cara expected them to be, and an impending raid by the mercenaries was unavoidable.

In the early days of 2186, the Suns’ forces arrived and wreaked havoc. Dozens of guards and workers were killed, many millions of credits worth of Minagen X3 were taken, and Cara was injured and captured after having managed to at least down two mercenaries. It was Givi’s kidnapping all over again, but this time, the Suns wouldn’t be quite as forgiving.

The first time, thirteen years ago, her brother’s tracker simply stopped transmitting after the Suns had taken him far enough away, but obviously, they were aware that Vaña’s tracker had been upgraded since then. And having to somehow stop the device that had been implanted under her right forearm’s upper plate from working, the only tools they saw fit to do the job were a hefty knife and a pair of pliers.

Having been taken to a small prison ship in an unknown system, Cara was kept there for five days on a diet of the lowest grade quarian nutrient paste and water, but knowing that there was barely anything the Blue Suns could do to her, she decided to stay as calm as she possibly could and simply wait out her release. If they had wanted to kill her, they would have long had the chance, and since she knew nothing the Suns hadn’t already known, there was no point in torturing her, so the only possible reason they were still keeping her was to strike some kind of deal with her father. And obviously, it wouldn’t be a very beneficial deal to the family, but Cara knew, or at least believed, that she’d find a way to negate its effects, and, at some point, pay the Suns back for what they had done to her and her newly founded enterprise.

And so, on the fifth day of her imprisonment, Cara was returned to her family on Triginta Petra, the gunshot in her calf and the wound on her arm having been half-assedly medi-gel’d back together by the Suns. While being taken to the family’s personal doctor, she learned of the conditions of the deal, which weren’t too far away from what she had imagined. 90% of the family’s income would flow in the Suns’ pockets from now on, and then something about the usual ‘if you betray us again’ bullshit. What Cara was dead sure of, however, was that this most certainly wasn’t the last time she would betray them, though it was the last time she would let them find out. She had learned from her mistakes - far too obvious mistakes, honestly - and she would make sure her family got the money they deserved, without the Suns ever knowing about it.

Brewing on the horizon, however, was a threat infinitely greater than whatever the Blue Suns could bring to the table. As the final months of 2186 rolled around, it took mere minutes for the news of a Reaper invasion to reach the Nortaro family, and only two things were on their minds that day - how much time it would take the Reapers to reach their little corner of space, and the inevitability of their and likely every other galactic citizen’s destroyed livelihoods. It was a dark day, but plans had to be made quickly, and so the family’s personal shuttles were spread out to their facilities, and of course their own residence over the following days to evacuate as soon as the planet was undeniably lost.

Fortunately, Triginta Petra was only a minuscule dot on the grand scale of the Milky Way, so Cara had several weeks to part with her homeland and prepare for her and her family’s exodus, but eventually, in the final days of October of 2186, the Reapers had moved close.

A comfortably equipped shuttle carrying the turian and her relatives, along with many others like it, lifted off from the planet and escaped the system, headed for the Citadel. It was not a place any of them would have dared to set foot on in any other circumstance, but with every sentient being in the galaxy being systematically wiped from its face, Citadel forces had bigger issues to deal with than a handful of drug d

ealers seeking refuge. Unfortunately, by the time the shuttles had reached the Widow system, the beacon of hope their crew were expecting to find had turned into a petrifying Reaper bastion.

A change of plan was in order, but with even the mighty citadel overrun by the enemy and the small fleet of shuttles unable to operate on their own for extended periods, Cara’s hopes finally began to deteriorate. The last of the crafts’ fuel reserves were used to make the jump towards the Horse Head Nebula, where the fleet finally met council vessels in the Fortuna System.

For Cara, the encounter was barely a solace. Finding council warships hidden away in a small, unimportant system while the Citadel served as a Reaper nesting ground was only a testament to how dire the situation really was. Having wanted nothing more than to bring her family to power and fame her entire life, she was starting to accept that this was where her powers ended. Save for miracles, she saw no more options, neither for herself nor for the council, that could turn this mess around. And while Cara was losing hope and failing to find a solution, her father, whom she had believed to have grown so incompetent in recent years, was pulling the strings invisible to her.

Sitting on millions and millions of credits and a daughter who knew how to use the resources available to her to great effect, it wasn’t a difficult task for Hactinius to convince the council of her talents. And so, a promising message soon reached Vanencara.