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Skade was a Conjoiner, and a key figure in the conflict between humanity and the Inhibitors.

Biography[]

Skade was a "late-model" Conjoiner, having more advanced neural implants than older Conjoiners such as Remontoire and Clavain. Like many of her contemporaries, her skull was outfitted with a crest that served as both a visual communication aid and a heat sink for her augmented brain.

Skade was unusual amongst Conjoiners in that she had no fear of being away from the Mother Nest, having been trained in infiltration and special ops. She was a member of the Closed Council and also the Inner Sanctum, both executive bodies within the post-war Mother Nest—the need for compartmentalization overwhelming the Conjoiner desire for absolute transparency in decision making. She also claimed to work for a secret Conjoiner agency supposedly ranked above the Inner Sanctum, the Night Council.

Skade was expert in Conjoiner technology, being able to unleash neural attacks on other Conjoiners and peer past security divisions—even those within the minds of other Closed Council members. Clavain was the only person able to withstand her attacks, doing so repeatedly throughout their encounters. He later explained that her attacks were simply too sophisticated to penetrate his outdated implants—describing it as "like trying to hack into a clockwork calculator".

When Clavain fled the comet containing the Conjoiner Evacuation Fleet, he snapped the anchor tethers off his ship rather than disengaging them from the comet's surface first. One of them sliced Skade in two through the upper torso. She survived with little more than her original head, mounted on an android body.

Later, when the Nightshade was about to be destroyed by weapons deployed by Clavain, her ship jettisoned an escape pod containing only her head, equipped with an interface able to keep her head alive for long enough for the escape pod to rendezvous with a trailing Conjoiner ship.

At some point between her rendezvous with the Conjoiner lighthugger and her crashing on Ararat a new body was grown for her and her head was attached to it.

Skade was later mortally wounded in battle with the Inhibitors and crashed on Ararat. She made a deal to allow the unborn Aura to be recovered from her womb before she died. In exchange, Nevil Clavain was tortured to death by his friend, Scorpio.

Notes[]

  • Skade features heavily in Redemption Ark and, to a lesser extent, in Absolution Gap.
  • In Redemption Ark it is hinted that the Night Council does not exist at all as a Conjoiner body, but is actually an avatar for the mental structure of the Mademoiselle, who theoretically would have infiltrated Skade's mind during a top secret mission to Chasm City.
  • "Skade" means "harm" in Danish and Norwegian. Other Conjoiner characters, such as Remontoire and Clepsydra, also have meaningful names.
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