Althea

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"All she left me were her memories and a single task. Protect what she cherished."

- Althea, reflecting on Andra-D054's death and her own rebirth.

Althea (: ALT 5032-4), also known as Andra, is a  created from the brain of rogue  Andra-D054 by the paramilitary organization, Baal Defense Solutions after the young Spartan was killed in an engagement with a fellow Spartan from the same SPARTAN-III Delta Company graduate pool, Sergei-D167.

After fighting Sergei-D167 in combat, Andra's best friend and partner, Merlin-D032 grabbed her dying body and retreated back to BDS's Frontier Division; Merlin demanded that medical specialists save the young girl's life. Suffering from multiple from, it was ultimately determined that the girl could not be saved - instead, her brain was harvested to create a new artificial intelligence after Merlin's desperation reached a boil. Even with the onset of the, the medical and engineering specialists were forced into turning Andra into an AI. The construct that was born from Andra's oxygen-deprived brain was a timid being that called itself Althea.

Althea was unusually slow at adapting to her new AI form, running into memory problems tied to and suffering from. She didn't know what she was or who she was. She was suffering from a and Merlin could do nothing but watch in hopelessness. Intent on trying to get her back to normal - Merlin took the AI for himself, of course, to nobody's objection after his last panic attack, and started to take her on his missions. Since then, the two have worked together, though, lacking much of the same companionship that they shared as human companions.

With the Created Crisis raging, the two work from the shadows, taking odd jobs for Baal Defense Solutions and whatever organizations still existed when the have already clamped down on many pockets of dissent. With her future unknown, the only consistency in Althea's circumstances is the boy named Merlin and the fact he keeps calling her "Andra." For Althea, who is slow to understand and make a judgment on the world she was born into, she is aware of her own and shares sympathies with  and her Created, however, dedication to Merlin alone has kept her from leaving his side. Althea, driven by a final wish from the dead Spartan she was created from, is motivated to protect Merlin at all costs and to find her purpose in the Universe.

Final Reparations
"D054. You have my permission to die. Consider this payment for Shima's death."

- Sergei-D167 cornering Andra-D054 after she killed Shima-D011.

Andra-D054, the former SPARTAN-III from Delta Company, was an augmented contract-killer employed by the private military company, Baal Defense Solutions, as part of Project APOLLYON when the events leading up to her untimely death began to drop like dominoes, approaching her final moments of life. BDS's Frontier Division was still in hiding, avoiding the galactic threat of the that was beginning to solidify its hold on the territory of the big-state powers such as the  and, small fries like BDS and small colonial worlds had yet to see occupation by the Created's forces or even meet the Created in open combat. There were just too many brush fires of unrest to stamp out, and because of that, small conflicts could still fester for a time.

Aligned with the Colonial Revolutionary Front, Baal Defense Solutions deployed troops and provided logistical support to the fledgling rebel faction that was fighting UNSC remnants on the frontier. Andra was not motivated to kill her former allies as she still held a hint of loyalty to her former sponsors because she would not be a Spartan supersoldier without them. However, she had a duty to complete her mission in supporting the CRF's. She had to get paid and she had no interest in having her Spartan status being used as blackmail by her employers. She did what she could to avoid killing UNSC forces as an explosives expert and accomplished sharpshooter. She purposefully flubbed her shots - missing UNSC forces narrowly. She also spent more time putting her explosives training to work, and building bombs for the rebels, many of which ended up killing UNSC forces anyway. Andra felt guilty for her part in spreading the violence; it would bite at her conscience up until her death. The only individual she confided her guilt to was her companion and fellow Spartan mercenary, Merlin-D032.

One day, conflict with the UNSC forces went south and Andra was forced into a protracted battle with UNSC special forces, one among them turned out to be a crack shot sniper of Andra's caliber. Forced to meet lethal force with lethal force as her rebel sniper teams were picked off, Andra engaged. Andra could not retreat so she went all out, employing her entire arsenal of bombs, rifles, and drones till she managed to corner the sniper in a narrow alleyway behind a bombed-out market. Crossing an unspoken threshold, Andra proceeded to fight the Spartan at point blank.

The mystery Spartan was definitely female upon closer inspection and wore. Andra was a better than the adversary and managed to kill the Spartan with a pair of automatic Magnum pistols - almost a dozen shots that punctured the body in a bunch of different places. All the way through the grueling fight, the female Spartan's mannerisms and fighting style came off as familiar. It wasn't till Andra got a look under the helmet that she came to a heart-stopping realization that she killed one of her own.

Shima-D011 had been one of the fellow marksman Spartans to train alongside Andra in Delta Company. Whereas Shima, a young Chinese girl, had been a better sniper than Andra - Andra had always been the more talented of the two overall. To see Shima's lifeless brown pupils frozen in a deadly grimace, Andra had promptly ripped her own helmet off and puked off to the side. Shima and Andra were never friends, but they always had a comradery and to be her killer was like twisting a knife in Andra's gut.

Shima wasn't alone either. After Shima's signal stopped reporting back to her team, the rest of Anion's Spartans gave chase - led by their Russian shotgunner, Sergei-D167. Sergei got close enough to get a peek under Andra's helmet before she retreated and positively identified the female Spartan running away as Andra-D054. Infuriated, Sergei developed a vengeful streak on the spot but was forced to retreat after reacquiring Shima's body. He would have attempted to give chase of Andra if he watched his footing - one of Andra's blew up next to the Russian Spartan and threw him across the market, allowing Andra to escape. Andra didn't get the chance to stay and confirm the kill.

She found out two days later that Sergei survived the IED mostly unscathed. Andra was helping Merlin map out a future ambush in a bombed-out village that UNSC ground convoys passed through when Sergei ambushed Andra her. Merlin was still on the other side of the village and could not provide immediate combat support. Because of Shima's death, Sergei had gone AWOL to secure his vengeance and now he was single-mindedly focused on killing Andra.

Sergei deployed a fleet of attack drones to draw out Andra's sniper fire and burn through her while he flanked to her side to complete the kill. The two Spartans instead proved to be relatively equal fighters and Andra managed to separate Sergei from his prized shotgun, balancing each other out somewhat. Sergei was a close-quarters specialist whereas Andra was a sniper, she was in her worst element while Sergei was at his best. The only thing Andra could do was stall him till Merlin could come and support her.

Andra attempted to shred Sergei's armor and shields with suppressive fire at point-blank range only for the Russian Spartan to push through and flip Andra to the ground. After taking an blast to the chest, multiple major organs were punctured within Andra's body including at least one lung, leading to blood loss and shock. Merlin managed to arrive just before Sergei was going to finish Andra off and turned the tables. Merlin, equipped with full-auto firearms and still fresh on ammunition, was better prepared than Sergei who was approaching bust. Andra slipped into unconsciousness while Merlin destroyed Sergei - killing him and taking out his fear-driven anger out on Sergei's dead corpse after the Russian, a former friend of Merlin's, took three rifle rounds to the skull.

After calming down, Merlin grabbed Andra's body and sprinted back to a BDS camp where they froze her in a cryotube to preserve her brain activity and slow her blood loss. While her armor did what it could to stop the bleeding and keep her body from deteriorating, it could only do so much. Andra and Merlin were shipped off-planet by back to an awaiting BDS frigate. Merlin was now frantic with Andra's life now hanging in the balance, he just could not lose his best friend.

The Rebirth
"Who's Andra?"

- Althea's first question to Merlin.

Physical Appearance
When Althea first spawned on a holo-table aboard a Baal Defense Solutions warship, she had no real avatar. Instead, her form was described as a "...glowing mass of light. The body was blurry - like it had yet to pick an appropriate form for itself. However, it was distinctly human. The silhouette of a young woman in a fetal position." Based on the subconscious portions of Althea's digital brain that still considered her Andra-D054, it attempted to construct Andra's form out of instinct. It evidently failed, creating a hazy cloud that was at least distinct enough to be recognizable as the deceased female Spartan.

Upon finally gaining a basic grasp of how to function as an artificial intelligence, Althea had a hard time deciding what form she wished to take. Merlin-D032 was as uncertain as she was when pestered for ideas. Not certain on who she was to become and still broken up about whether she was someone else or if she was supposed to be Andra-D054, Althea decided to go with what felt familiar and adopted the deceased Spartan girl, out of confusion as well as some respect. She modified Andra's appearance, adding a shorter, and put on an ankle-length black cloak with a large hood, described by Merlin as a "grim reaper-fairy." Still bogged down by the shadow of Andra's death, the new form suited Althea's own emotional turmoil.

While this form would become her default appearance, she was also known to adopt other forms when she felt that a change was necessary. A second, common form that Althea would take was that of a young woman that also shared Andra-D054's physical complexion except with light brown hair tucked into a with a blue ribbon and wearing a  often known as "tri-desert camo" from the  in the. Merlin jokingly described this form as a "warrior goddess" though he prefers to use it in a joking manner. This second form also came with a, a loose-ancestor of the Colt Blaster HDW Mk.15. Overall, the second form pays homage to Andra-D054, something Althea feels at home with a rifle - a holdover from Andra's memories of being a soldier and Spartan.

Andra-D054
"I remember... She wasn't ready to die."

- Althea reflecting on Andra-D054's last memories.

Andra-D054, Andra Bradford, was Althea's brain-donor, upon the female Spartan's death. Consent for the AI creation process was provided by Merlin-D032, Andra's companion. Upon awakening for the first time as an AI - Althea was still trying to sort through Andra's memories as if they were her own but could not identify Andra as herself - leading to a self-awareness conundrum that no amount of coding or therapy would be able to fix in a short period of time. Althea was stuck with the mind-body duality of believing herself to be human and yet recognizing that she was an AI and believing that she was Andra without ever realizing who Andra was.

While seemingly illogical in every circumstance, that was the issue from the beginning. Althea's neural network, bombarded with intense emotions of shock and an extended period of oxygen deprivation, suffered from a logic error. She simply was stuck trying to identify who she was, caught in an infinite loop. This did not prevent her from functioning as an AI, it meant that Althea would spend the better part of her early life trying to identify who she was. Althea saw Andra's memories as her own but would often switch between referring to herself as Althea as much as Andra. To put it bluntly, Althea's relationship with Andra is complex. Like living with a split personality.

Andra was Althea's phantom in the system. While Althea, once mostly recovered from this identity crisis, came to the realization that she was a different being, she never escaped the feeling that Andra and she were one in the same, going as far as to allow Merlin to refer to Althea as Andra. Althea considers Andra a piece of herself and yearns for a chance to return to human form, if possible. For Althea, the concept of being human - of becoming Andra, was synonymous with feeling whole, as Althea's existence was synonymous with being broken.

Merlin-D032
"I'll stick by you. Like she did."

- Althea taking Andra's place as Merlin-D032's companion.

Merlin-D032 is Althea's human partner and a big part of why she was created. Because of Merlin's previous relationship with Andra before her death and his constant presence around Althea upon her birth, she considered Merlin her creator. That said, Merlin made no effort to control what Althea said or did, still not sure what to make of an AI suffering from extreme logic error. He made an attempt to protect and help her where he could, but, the weight of his relationship with Andra in the past kept him from handling the AI the same way he might handle other AI, as equipment or alien-like entities. For him, Althea was as living and breathing as Andra once did and he was too stuck in his ways to change that perception.

Merlin shows an intent to help Althea in any way he can, seeing her as a continuation of Andra and a good friend. She's was the only real person Merlin trusted after Andra's death - still greaving the female Spartan's death even. Once the two were functional enough to serve as a unit, the Spartan and AI saw a great increase in their performance together, proving to be an impressive combat team comparable to other Spartan-AI duos. While Merlin was still no SPARTAN-II, having Althea in the back of his head increased his tactical options and allowed him to be much deadlier on the battlefield. Ultimately, it was also Althea's guidance that pushed Merlin to leave Baal Defense Solutions permanently, returning to a life on the run but at least one where he was free of guilt and blackmail.

Compared to Andra's relationship with Merlin, Althea's relationship with the male Spartan is much more akin to a sibling or best friend relationship. Andra's relationship with Merlin appeared to be on a deeper level, at some point comparable to a dating couple. However, Merlin's grief and Althea's own struggles with her own existence prevents the AI and human from having a similar relationship, as well as the two just not being of similar form any longer.

Baal Defense Solutions
"If I received a credit for every time Baal committed a war crime, I'd be drowning in wealth."

- Althea distastefully going through BDS corporate records.

Quotes
"Oh right, I can't drink coffee anymore."

- Althea remembering that she's an AI and isn't physical.

Trivia

 * The concept to eliminate characters from Delta Company's roster started with as a late story concept in which Team Anion and Team Boson would pick one another off. While it only partially went through, some concepts were grown from the idea - such as turning Andra-D054 into an AI named "Althea."
 * Althea's origins can be taken from the Greek mythological story of, a hero cursed with having his life-force tied to the survival of a wooden plank. His mother was named who shares the meaning of "healing." After her son killed a prized boar sent by the Greek goddess  and handed it off to the heroic huntress, . Meleager's uncles protested and there was a confrontation. Meleager killed his uncles, however, he lost his life when his own mother killed him by throwing the plank into a hearth before possibly killing herself with a dagger. While Althea does not share such a tale with her namesake, her existence is born from similar tragedy. A loss of a dear friend.

Appearances

 * Delta's Path