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Trace Thakur joined United Forces Marines. She served on UFS Phoenix under Captain Pantillo, until humans won the Triumvirate War with the triumvirate alliance. Phoenix Company is led by Major Thakur, a legend in the Corps and now a renegade, hunted by Fleet and her own people, the Kulina
Major Thakur[]
- Trace Thakur commands Phoenix Company, UF Marines
- she's beloved of her team
- Ten years in the corps, serving Fleet
- Age 32, three years younger than Erik Debogande
- medals: "Distinguished Service Star, Legion Medal, three Valorous Hearts, multiple Campaign Medals, Diamond Star, Liberty Star" (R-25)
- her kukri — a wicked blade, angular and deadly, origin Nepal
- a Kulina warrior, she embodies Zen:
Trace Thakur was a little below average height, had ethnicity going back to a more familiar-sounding Earth-place called ‘India’, and was kind of pretty but in no way delicate. Like all marines, she was the product of the best genetic engineering and bio-synthetic augmentations that money could buy. Unlike most marines, she was Kulina, the elite warriors from the world of Sugauli. Among other things, that meant she didn’t drink or gamble, and as far as anyone knew, hadn’t been screwing around either.(R-2)
Childhood[]
- grew up on a mining base on Sugauli (DL)
- rough childhood with abusive father and alcoholic mother
- Her Kulina mentor Colonel Khola sneering at her motivations:
"“I know your father beat you. I know your mother drank and gambled. I know your eldest brother took dangerous work as a mining technician to escape the home, and it killed him. I know you sought a similar escape to the Kulina. Perhaps you believed in the concept, but mostly you valued the meditations on karma and selflessness as a way out, a way to stop thinking on the matters that bothered you. “The Kulina are a crutch for you. A bandage on your personal wounds. And ever since, your career has been marked by attachments to powerful men, to replace the father you never had. Me. Captain Pantillo. And now Erik Debogande.” (DL-15)
- joined Kulina in childhood after her brother died in mine accident:
“I became Kulina Vidyarthi at age eight. I’ve trained for battle ever since. I’ve a head for heights because at age ten they made us do the santipurna arohanako —it means ‘peaceful ascent’. It’s basic ropes and limited safety harness up several thousand meters in the Rejara Phirta Range on Sugauli, all weathers, day and night.” (R-9)
- Rough homelife, negligent and abusive parents:
Trace was particularly eager to leave her family. I hear her dad was a bastard and her mum was indifferent, they had a tough life in a mining base. Sugauli’s a rough place, it was founded in violence and it’s no garden spot. We glorify and mysticize it, but it’s a traumatised culture to this day. I think for Trace, the Kulina were an escape.” (DL)
