Bio Yirana Phoebe

Yirana Phoebe
Affiliation	[2nd] Antarean Star Empire (AE), Senate
Titles	The Quorum of Forty-Eight, Premiary
Homeworld	Antares Prime
Born	928 AE

Senator Phoebe was born into one of the old families of Antares. Had she been born during the time of the First Antarean Empire her birth would have been heralded by news-nets and her christening would have been attended by the Emperor. Instead, she was born during the darker days of the New Antarean Federation. Her familial home had been taken by ULP forces and her family displaced into the 'commoners.' Many of the lower class remembered the Phoebes' haughty manner and total historical disrespect for any governmental initiatives that aided the regular man and acted out their League-granted freedoms onto what property remained to the Phoebes. Though the family had resources stashed away, they never quite recovered, nor were they ever to win the favor, or even respect, of the people whose company they'd been forced to share. So instead, Yirana Phoebe was born into a government-run hospital, only a few miles away from her family's home, an apartment in the suburbs of Prime City. As her mother gazed down at her, surround by hospital walls grey with dirt and ten-year-old medical equipment, the first words she heard were "There's my little girl, you'll be rich and powerful one day." Though she may not have heard those words the first time her mother said them, she would many other times throughout her younger years, right up to the day her mother died.

Apparently the repetition worked, she made her fortune with day-trading in the League stock market. Dynamic, vital, and driven, Yirana was accused several times of illegal practices but managed to be demonstrated not guilty each time. She was approached by Sycamore Patlus in 976 AE and told that, should she contribute money to the cause of rebellion against the ULP, she would be able to regain her family's place among the Quorum of Forty-Eight. She did so immediately and found her investment justly rewarded when Marius is crowned Emperor only five years later.

Yirana and Sycamore, due to their close contact as they raised money and their working proximity as the empire began, developed something more then a working relationship. The two kept their affair secret however, fearing that their relationship might be used against them. Yirana, Sycamore, and the rest of the Forty-Eight found themselves becoming more and more distanced from the Emperor and began to worry about their place in the scheme of the Empire. Justly so, only three years after his crowning, Marius declared that the Forty-Eight would be absorbed into the Senate, their seats up for election, just like any other senator, their voices absorbed into the whole of the citizenry. Only days later Senator Sycamore Patlus, the strongest voice among the high-born speaking out against the Emperor, disappeared; he would not be seen again. As a Lord with no heirs, Patlus's property was repossessed by the state. Phoebe, fearing for her own life, as well as her position, began to tentatively approach the other high-born to form an alliance, one strengthened and driven by their combined multitude of resources and collective economic power. Cunning but paranoid, Phoebe became the head of a mostly secret faction within the senate; who called themselves by what they considered their rightful name, The Quorum of Forty-Eight. Through careful expenditures and shrewd advertising the Quorum was able to keep almost all of its members in office. Under Phoebe's leadership, the Quorum has been able to solidify their economic base and quietly gather a number of (mostly obsolete) ships, which they have taken to calling The Fleet of Forty-Eight.