The Sapphire Empress
Welcome back to yet another weekly blog that was totally, definitely written on a Wednesday and definitely was NOT written early on some other day! Following last week’s blog, I want to continue the theme of breaking down elements of my world and showcasing highlights from it, but I had an epiphany today. Despite Sapphiria’s importance, I have NEVER done a breakdown for her on here! How did I not realize this until now??? Anywho, here we are with a full breakdown on the main character for the Sapphire Verdict!
Sapphiria
There’s really only one place where we can start with Sapphiria’s introduction, and that is most simply what in the world she is! Sapphiria is a Krysheek, a bipedal race of wolf/fox-like aliens from the planet Kryshendar. Her people are an incredibly varied and colorful race with two to three tails and the possibility to come in almost any color of the rainbow… with one exception.
Since her birth, Sapphiria has been an anomaly. She is the only one of her people to ever have been born blue, but it doesn’t stop there. Additionally, she has exceptionally large ears, seven tails, and… no powers, something the rest of her people treat as a birthright. Because of her many differences, she is treated as an outcast and has never been given a chance to prove herself as anything else.
From an early age, Sapphiria knew nothing but loneliness. Because of the way tradition works for her people, none of them wanted anything to do with her. Even her own parents largely treated her as an outsider, interacting with her only in rare examples of kindness. Most of her early life was spent in quiet isolation, but the entire course of her life changed one day when she happened to take a different route home from the Sanctum.
By pure chance, Sapphiria happened across the aqua farms, a section of farmland dedicated to farming crops by use of extensive amounts of water. While these farms weren’t anything special, they were entirely run by automatons, machines created by her people that possessed true souls. Unlike her people, the automatons treated Sapphiria just like they would any other Krysheek, but it was an automaton named Trigon that she really bonded with.
Trigon was an ancient automaton built from clockwork, and was one of the last of his kind. When Sapphiria first appeared, he was the first to converse with her, and they ended up forming a lasting friendship. Sapphiria returned to the farms regularly to visit and play with Trigon, and as time went on, she even picked up on tips and suggestions to help improve her skills with engineering.
Engineering was Sapphiria’s focus in her lonely life. Since she had no one else to really talk to, she focused entirely on growing her engineering skills, leading her to quickly become a prodigy. With Trigon’s assistance, she was able to grow her skills to the point where she could build her first automaton, Atom, earning her the friend she had always wanted. With Atom, her life became a little less lonely, but she had no idea just what her engineering would eventually turn into.
The Sapphire Empress
The entirety of the previous section is largely focused on Sapphiria’s early life and time on her home planet, but for anyone that has been keeping up with this website, that’s clearly not where she is destined to remain. While details are being withheld for spoiler reasons, Sapphiria eventually becomes the empress of the Sapphire Eye, a spacefaring civilization of her own design.
As an Empress, she is far more serious and professional than what she was in the past. Almost all hours of her life are spent maintaining and governing the countless planets she is responsible for. There’s so much on her plate that she can’t even find time for engineering anymore, but that doesn’t stop her from trying.
Despite the influence she eventually wields, there are certain problems that she can’t quite escape. She didn’t create her empire out of ambition or desire. Only a few years ago, the entirety of her homeworld was decimated, leaving her and a few automatons as the sole survivors. Instead of letting it break her, however, she took her engineering skills and crafted an empire with which to protect the innocent all across the stars, but it has come at great personal cost.
Although few are aware, Sapphiria’s mental health is in complete shambles. Her insomnia is so bad that she’ll go days without sleeping, and the stress of maintaining so much all at once saps her energy on a daily basis. Between the nightmares in her sleep and the waking nightmares that plague her every day, she is completely stretched thin and is barely hanging on a thread, but she endures in hopes of one day seeing her singular goal fulfilled.
Vengeance
While Sapphiria’s empire is mighty, their greatest enemy is still running around unchecked, and that is James Stockton. Stockton was the one responsible for destroying her homeworld and attempting to enslave her automatons. His goal was to create an army with which to conquer the stars themselves, but through Sapphiria’s cunning and wit, his plans were undone.
However, Stockton was not killed, and still remains free amongst the stars. All of Sapphiria’s efforts are now concentrated on bringing Stockton to justice and ending his reign of terror once and for all. To do that, however, the United Earth Confederacy itself, and all the humans it encompasses, must fall. After all she has seen, she cannot separate Stockton from humanity itself, and sees it as a threat just as great as him. That inability to distinguish the two will ultimately be the driving force behind the largest conflict the galaxy has ever seen.
At Her Core
While I’m sure the previous section has painted Sapphiria as becoming this cold shell, I promise that’s not all she is, even in the present! Perhaps this section should have been higher up, but I think it better to end on the note of who she actually is as a person, especially in terms of her interests and motivations!
Sapphiria’s greatest passion in life is, of course, engineering! She loves tinkering on anything she can get her hands on and loves building machines out of scrap. No matter how much she learns, there’s never an end to her engineering ambitions, leading her to seek out mathematic and science based scrolls instead of the fantasy novels Atom so desperately wants her to read.
Additionally, Sapphiria is something of a pacifist. She hates the idea of violence and will actively work to avoid a confrontation if she can, even at personal cost. Sapphiria is the type of person to pick up a spider with her bare hands and carry it outside instead of squish it, and that dynamic will play heavily into the present day.
Speaking of spiders, another of Sapphiria’s interest are insects! She’s been an avid insect collector for her entire life, and loves every type of bug, even the creepy ones. When other kids were out playing with each other and doing normal things, she was out with Atom and Trigon exploring the jungle and turning over every rotten log she could. This also directly contributes to some of her machine designs!
The ocean is another of Sapphiria’s passions. Given that it’s one of the few things her color that she can actually touch, she loves the ocean dearly along with all of the creatures that call it home. Reading about oceanic adventures is one of her favorite hobbies, and this hobby is a direct contributor to all of the names of the ships in her fleet! Sea scorpions, eagle rays, naudilons, and mokotas are just a few of the many creatures that her ships share a name with!
The last thing worth mentioning is that Sapphiria is incredibly inquisitive. She has a tremendous wanderlust lurking within her, just like her ancestor, Tearna, and won’t pass up the chance to explore a new landscape. Though she might be a timid and shy outcast, one has to wonder just who she will become once she finds the acceptance she so desperately wants.
Conclusion
Aaaaaaaaaaand that’s a wrap for the blog post that was DEFINITELY written on a Wednesday and totally not a Monday! I hope this peek into Sapphiria was interesting and gave you a better idea of who she is as a person. I want to do more of these character spotlights now that we’re out from under Tearna’s stories, so expect another one of these here soon!
For now, that’s all I have, so, as usual… CHEERS!
The Flying Fennec