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| Portrayed By | Victoria Pendleton |
| Sex | Female |
| Status | Unregistered (but globally known) Evolved (Tier 1) |
| Ability | Short-range gravitic manipulation |
| Age | 36 |
| Date of Birth | 1st of February 1983 |
| Date of Death | Not yet |
| Occupation | UN analyst and translator. Reluctant media personality. |
| Family | Jennifer Galloway, civil partner. At least one adopted child. Parents and brother in the UK. |
| Significant Other(s) | Jennifer Galloway |
| First Appearance | |
| Last Appearance | |
Perhaps the highest-profile UN employee after the Secretary General, Ygraine is one of the heroines of the fight against the Vanguard, a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, an at-times outspoken critic of past and present governmental policy on both sides of the Atlantic, an advocate of Evolved rights, an ex-member of Phoenix, an open lesbian married to a Broadway actress, a retired internationally-competing professional cyclist, and the former inmate of a mental institution.
Character History:
Though Ygraine is now employed behind the scenes at the UN, working in an analytical department translating and assessing reports and attempting to predict future trends, she's widely-known to the broader world as a controversially out-spoken Evolved.
At first, she merely sought a quiet life. Her father and mother (a professor and lawyer, respectively) helped to secure Jennifer's transfer to a British university to complete the remainder of her degree, and the pair remained in Britain after their civil partnership in September 2009. She did not speak out about her role in the fight against the Vanguard, and with her sporting aspirations blocked by the ban on Evolved competitors and the development of detection tests she returned to work as a translator.
She tried, hard, to develop a "normal" life with Jennifer - the pair seriously investigating adoption and IVF treatment as routes to starting a family, with Ygraine happy to take on the home-maker role after her years of travel. She returned to academia part-time, starting on a PhD to follow up on her first two degrees - not so much out of a desire to gain more qualifications, but to try to keep her mind distracted from contemporary events.
When the US experienced its latest volte-face in policy, her role in the events of January 2009 became a matter of global interest. Suddenly a noteworthy figure and "heroine", she was honoured by both the US and her home government. Sorely tempted to hide from the media - but concluded that trying to channel and control their interest would be better than leaving them to make up their own stories.
The result has been an intermittent string of interviews over the course of the past eight years. She's good copy for series new outlets, as an articulate commentator perfectly happy to roundly criticise policy decisions past and present. Academically accomplished in her own right, she is able to hold her own in discussion with "experts" from organisations with a vested interest, and does not shy away from a confrontation if challenged to defend her views.
Though she has never become a full-time "media personality" - and very much sees her work with the UN, to which she has now returned, as her true profession - she tends to be willing to respond to serious questions put to her by reputable journalists. The attentions of the paparazzi, she suffers with as much grace and good humour as she can muster.
Somewhat more privately, she has managed to start a family with Jennifer and completed (over the course of seven years) her PhD.
Politically and socially, she's a high-profile but not constantly-active commentator. She is often turned to for comment upon international affairs and matters of Evolved rights and integration, but has also been asked to comment on the Olympics, Evolved in sport, gay rights, and family policy. She's participated in a large number of charitable events, mostly in the UK.
As an outspoken, high-profile foreigner of liberal views (and with a proven track-record of breaking the law to do what she considers to be morally required), she has carefully been kept wholly ignorant of the darker side of the Bright Future USA's activities.
Media Presence and Reputation
Articulate, controversial, combative when pushed; yet constantly advocating cooperation, tolerance, and careful consideration of actions - Ygraine is a popular hate-figure for some of the more hard-line "shock jocks".
To Ygraine, as she has often said in print and on tape, the mission against the Vanguard was wholly necessary and can be considered a resounding success in the result of saving six billion lives - but a collection of self-described "kids", a few foreign and domestic adult civilians, and some half-renegade officers of the law should never have found themselves having to try to save the world. The planning and execution of the mission were deeply flawed, the Federal authorities were at best astonishingly ungrateful in scooping up so many of her former comrades - and the Feds were also deeply suspect in having so much power on hand to ambush Phoenix while doing nothing visibly direct to stop Vanguard… and she still has nightmares about it to the present day.
But holding and firing a gun for the first time, shooting someone, being shot at, coming face to barrel with a tank, risking her neck to spare Brian Fulk from experiencing the death of another clone, listening to Conrad die, and getting whacked on the head by part of ConEd… all that was worth it. It just should never have been necessary.
To Ygraine, it's imperative that people - electors, advisors, legal officers, and politicians alike - learn from what took place. She can talk at length about the instinctive responses of people to a conflictual situation, but holds out hope that such attitudes and knee-jerk reactions can be overcome.
To the lower end of the media, of course, she's of far more interest as a superheroine dyke with a cute accent, a self-admitted record of cosmetic surgery, and a beautiful Broadway actress for a wife. She's done a few photo-shoots over the years - after a decade of riding around in nothing but lycra, posing for a photographer's not much of an issue - and seems genuinely proud of Jennifer's accomplishments on the stage. If anything, she enjoys the chance to stand beside her wife, and not be the primary focus of media attention.
Evolved Human Ability:
Short-range Gravitic Manipulation: Ygraine's power remains essentially the same with few changes that might be noticed by others. Though she's continued practicing it, she has not pushed herself to break any limits. Her theoretical understanding and fine control have improved, and overall her ability has roughly doubled in all parameters:
- Without taxing herself, she can now place charges on objects (or closely-associated groups of objects, such as a person and clothing) that weigh up to 600lb, giving them a new "down" that must itself be another object.
- The range between her and her target cannot reliably be more than ~12 inches, nor can the distance between her target and its new "down" be greater than that if the power is to work reliably.
- The new "down" remains fixed for 10-15 minutes, or until the two objects are separated by more than ~12 inches.
She suspects that her ability's tight focus upon her own body might be working slow changes - she thinks that she might gradually be increasing her own density - but has not sought to test this.
There are various theoretical applications with which she has not experimented, for fear of the results of failure. Given her scientific approach to understanding her power, she regards gravity manipulation as potentially one of the most powerful of all abilities, and doesn't believe that its more advanced applications should be toyed with. After all, in some conceptions of the universe, gravity is an expression of the underlying fabric of reality. While she's happy to keep a hot drink in a mug or to take a trip up the side of a building, she doesn't want to discover what happens if she pushes for something more dramatic and gets it wrong.
Timeline:
9th of April 2019: Attends a police fund-raiser, but misses most of the excitment. Indeed, only Cat seems interested in her.
10th of April 2019: Bumps into a dead man and the mother of his child, in Don't Faint.
Memorable Quotes:
- To seek to turn the deceased into super-human figures of legend is to devalue their contribution to our world. If we portray their actions as perfect, then we remove them from the realm of human experience. Only by acknowledging their flaws and mistakes, by seeking to learn from the reality of their lives and actions, can we truly claim to honour their memory.
Trivia and Notes:
- If you want any ties with Ygraine (good or bad), do let me know!