The Rani

[Deleted]

Canon

Name:
The Rani – Ushas

Age: 1000 years, give or take. Roughly the same as the Doctor
Gender: Female.
Species: Time Lord.
Planet of Origin: Gallifrey.
Occupation: Xenobiologist. Chemist.

Physical Description:

The Rani, at a glance, looks the part of a beautiful woman in her prime. Her face is carefully sculptured – high cheekbones, a symmetrical face, and thinly arched eyebrows and thin lips all leading to a composed and confident facial expression. Her chin is always tilted up, giving her the powerful display of self-assurance. Her lips are almost permanently pulled into a smirk that, when you look closer, is vaguely condescending.

Perhaps her most striking feature was her eyes. They were like two sapphires – a cold, pale blue that projected frigid calculation unmarred by compassion. Her hair was a dark brown with faint streaks of grey in it, giving her a very strict appearance. Coupled with her facial structure, she was a woman that, while attractive, was not approachable. Her eyes were simultaneously detached and alive with scientific interest.

A woman with a penchant for the color red, the Rani nearly always incorporated it into her outfit. Attached to her ears were fashionable red earrings, highlights the harsh angles of her face. She mostly dresses in a way that accentuates her form – a broad torso and thin waist – save when she’s in disguise. Pierced to her nose is a red studded jewel. Her hands are gloved, both as a fashion statement and, as always is the case with the Rani, a practical accessory to keep her hands safe from chemicals she works with.

Before she even opens her mouth, the Rani is an obviously confident woman. She stands with her spine erect and her shoulders back, her chin tilted up. She has a long and assertive gait. Her voice is smooth and she doesn’t stutter or mince her words, and she has very little patience for those who do. There’s a detachment about her that makes most people stay at arm’s length away naturally without her having to do much other than raise a brow.

In her second incarnation, the Rani has much of the same facial structure as her first. Her cheekbones are softer and her eyebrows less severe. Her lips are fuller and her jaw not as defined. She still keeps her head held high however. Her expression tends to be the same as her first incarnation – assured and determined.

Her hair is long and straight, for the most part. Occasionally the black mass curls up to just along her shoulder blades, in which case the Rani ties up her hair in a tight bun to keep it from interfering with her vision. Her eyes are a dark brown, with flecks of light brown around the pupils. She had the same detached air in her eyes as she did in her first incarnation, though this body was youthful and the smile was more charming and disarming. She holds herself regally – perfect posture, an inclined chin, and subdued and controlled mannerisms. She can master her facial expressions, however – she’s perfected the art of looking friendly to get on with her experiments without anyone digging in.

The Rani’s fashion sense did not change much – ever the practical Time Lady, the Rani refused to be typecasted with one certain outfit as did some of her more… lesser contemporaries. She dresses to blend in with her surroundings, though the color red is always predominantly in her clothes. Her fingernails are always painted the color as well.

Personality:

To make one thing perfectly clear, the Rani doesn’t consider herself a villain. She doesn’t even particularly care what you consider her. She is a scientist, first and foremost. She never did like the Ethics class at the Academy; why should she care what happened to inferior species? The Rani never killed mercilessly – and indeed, all negative side effects of her experimentations were just that – an unfortunate byproduct.

It is precisely that amoral nature that, while she considers herself to be rather neutral and objective, often pits her to the side of the villainous. Although she refuses to pick sides between the Doctor and the Master – she views their little rivalry as pathetic drivel – she finds herself going head to head with the Doctor more frequently. She has no patience for him – she doesn’t like when people interfere with her mission, and she goes to great lengths to keep a low-profile, something the Master never seemed to get through his thick skull was important.

When the Doctor points out that there are no ‘inferior’ species, the Rani often finds herself having to exasperatedly point out the logical fallacies of his argument. What’s the difference between what she’s doing and what humans do every day? They kill innocent creatures to sink their teeth into, so why couldn’t she experiment – without killing them – in the name of science? What she did was far more humane, after all. But the Doctor tends to drift away from moral ambiguity, at least when it doesn’t concern himself. The Rani also disliked hypocrites.

She has a practical, no-nonsense attitude. The Rani has little to no patience for people who talk endlessly without actually trying to achieve anything. When she isn’t working on her latest project or development, she is slightly more relaxed concerning this. She doesn’t enjoy bantering between idiots, and she would be content with silence the majority of the same. She dislikes the Master because she feels that he isn’t practical – he overcomplicates things, and that’s his fatal flaw. All of her schemes, while seeming small and pointless, have served her rather well. She once commented that the Master would “get dizzy if he had to walk in a straight line.”

The Rani also has a brilliant mind. She’s innovative and creative, with the right amount of cold calculating and disciplined attitude that actually accomplishes thing. She is a gifted biochemist, something recognized not only by the Doctor, but also by Gallifrey (and particularly the Lord President, who got a bit stuffy about her talent). She is also very self-assured and her confident demeanor was not all just body language. She has high self-respect, and she isn’t afraid to take someone down a few notches if she feels they deserve it.

Although she’s fine with fighting using her chemicals and minions, the Rani isn’t afraid to defend herself. She wears high-heeled boots for more than a fashion statement – a well-placed kick in the groin can fell most opponents. On one occasion, the Rani kneed the Master in the groin after he tried to mess with her TARDIS’ controls. She slaps people’s hands away when they try to touch things, and particularly in her second incarnation, who is gifted at fighting despite the almost wiry build she has. She isn’t known for her long-fuse, or her self-depreciating humor.

History:

The Rani’s beginnings were similar to that of other Time Lords. She was Loomed to a House. As a student in the Academy, she went by Ushas. She had not always been interested in Earth, but since meeting Theta Sigma and his stupid obsession with the planet, she had once looked it up and found the Sanskrit language quite appealing to her. Ushas was Sanskrit for “dawn”, and also an exalted goddess. She had nothing in common with Ushas, but the story stuck with her despite herself, and so Ushas was what she came to be known as.

After the Academy’s beginning, Ushas immediately fell in with the Deca. The other freshmen of the Prydon Academy nearly immediately began to resent the Deca, a group of ten brilliant minds. Ushas wasn’t sure why she had drifted towards them – she hated ‘secret’ clubs, but among the drivel of the useless rest of the student body, it was wonderful to have intelligent conversations finally. She was never particularly close to any of the other members, even as a child she kept herself at a distance. Theta Sigma, Rallon, Drax, Koschei, Mortimus, Magnus, Jelpax, Vansell, Millennia, and then finally herself.

They were the pinnacle of their class. Sendok, Borusa, and Franilla, their teachers, seemed to treasure them. For the most part, anyway. Rallon was always a bit of a trouble-maker, and Koschei even at a young age wanted to be in control, and Thete (which she called him not out of affection, but because she knew how much it irritated him) was the sort of rebel that inspired confidence. Ushas could not care less for them – despite Thete’s claim that they were a close family, Ushas befriended the Deca out of convenience to herself.

She was a gifted biochemist, there was no doubt about it. She performed various experiments outside of her classes – the Academy had an irritating way of moving too slow. They were old-school; time was irrelevant to Time Lords, so why should slow bother them? Ushas did not share that view – and indeed, although she was the same age as Thete, she was a semester ahead of him due to her aspirations to be done with the Academy. Everyone knew that Ushas was going to make a brilliant scientist.

However, there was a slight dent in that plan after an… er, accident with genetically augmented mice. Ushas hadn’t known it would eat the President’s cat, though she thought it was rather fitting as the damned creature had been lurking around her laboratory mice for long enough. When she had tried to put the incident from the mouse’s perspective, because after all, objectively the cat did have it coming (it’s a kill or be killed universe, after all), the President hadn’t quite seen it her way.

Although she remained on Gallifrey for a time after that, she eventually became exiled after she graduated and so she took up residence on Miasimia Goria. There, she changed her name to The Rani, still a reference to the Sanskrit language from Earth. It was a term for a female ruler, which she soon became. She subjected the inhabitants to various experiments, and it worked out rather nicely. However, there was a rather unfortunate side effect. Her experiments removed the ability to sleep from the Miasimia Gorians.

She didn’t care particularly if they were sleep-deprived, but unfortunately it meant that they were unruly and hostile, even against her. The chemical to aid sleep was found only in a human’s brain, so she put her operation on a halt and moved to Earth, disguising herself and blending in with the natives so she could continue. She traveled through the Trojan War, the Dark Ages, and other violent points in Earth’s history until she finally came to the Luddite riots in Killingworth. There, she masqueraded as an old crone who owned a bath house so she could continue extracting the human chemical from their brains.

Her actions would not have been noticed had the Master not dragged her into his petty vendetta against the Doctor. He dragged the TARDIS off course and practically led him to the bath house, effectively ruining her plans. Afterwards, the Doctor trapped both her and the Master on her TARDIS with a rapidly growing tyrannosaurus rex. Getting out of that mess was an adventure she would rather not have had, but she eventually made her way to the planet of the Tetraps. The Tetraps were ugly, furry creatures, but they were loyal to her.

Together, she and the Tetraps, the main one being Urak, took over Lakertya. She kidnapped some of the greatest scientific minds – Einstein, Hypatia, and Pasteur to name a few – and threw the TARDIS off course to get the Doctor’s input. He recently regenerated and the Rani used this to her advantage as she gave him a drug to increase the post-regenerative amnesia. She then disguised herself as his current companion, Mel Bush. She needed the Doctor’s knowledge of time.

Her plans fell through, however. The Tetraps turned on her and took her back to their home world, where she stood on trial and imprisoned. She escaped with four other prisoners – two humans and two aliens – and retrieved her TARDIS back after vowing that she would teach Urak a lesson eventually. She still hasn’t forgotten that promise to him. Immediately afterwards she caught wind that Gallifrey was burning into a war.

Well. They had exiled her. It wasn’t her problem. With that, the Rani took up residence at Earth, refusing to complicate herself by going into the Time War.

Addition Medical Information: Two hearts, allergy to aspirin. Strict vegetarian.

RP Sample:

The Rani was not a woman of high patience and an infinite temper. She also didn’t like to involve herself in something as petty as human politics – she could certainly fake the qualifications needed to work for UNIT. It would be beneficial for her to know what was happening in UNIT. She knew that they kept tabs of the Doctor and his companions and, should she need to lay low and keep out of trouble, she would also need to have UNIT’s information about when he comes about.

That was why the Rani had discovered a solution. Or rather, the solution had come knocking on her door in regards to a lead about suspicious activity, though the Rani knew she wasn’t supposed to know that. The man had been charming and quite a good liar, but Time Lords were trained to read the surface thoughts. And it was the lack of those thoughts that the Rani found most peculiar – if the man had been a simple untrained human, he would have had them. But he worked for UNIT – or otherwise Torchwood, she knew because she could practically smell the training on him.

The solution had proposed quite a problem – as in, how could he become the solution? The Rani, ever resourceful, pulled out a jar of what looked like maggots from her cupboard. After putting sleeping medicine in his tea, she put a maggot between his lips, encouraging him to swallow it. His eyes fluttered opened, glowing an unnatural shade of blue before returning to normal. The ‘maggot’, at full potency, was supposed to inhibit his normal responses and make him nothing but servile. Instead the Rani had ensured his original personality would remain untouched, simply making him open to suggestion.

“What did you do to me?” he demanded.

“Nothing,” the Rani said, affecting a hurt tone to her voice and holding up both of her hands to show him her palms. “You merely fell asleep after drinking your tea. Poor thing, you must be so exhausted. You mentioned your work was stressful,” she said, taking advantage of her slightly aged appearance. She wrote down her telephone number and handed it to him, gently ushering him towards the door. “Call me to tell me about your work,” she said kindly, as though it were a suggestion.

His eyes glowed a bright blue and he nodded. “Yeah…”

[Deleted]

Accepted!

Now what?