Melanie Bernard (A comprehensive history)

[alex man142]

Behind the Scenes Part 2:

I admit, the concept for the game of Stellaris that inspired Melanie Bernard seemed like a great idea: a reign of God Emperor Trumps that would make the galaxy great again. I literally called my leaders God Emperor or God Empress...I'm not even joking . It was dumb, yes, but it was fun, and that is all that really matters.

Looking back, however, the backstory of Melanie's rise to power is crap. Yes, I said it. It seemed great at the time, but it's downright awful. Hannah Trump is a wholly unsympathetic character who is quite possible the most hands down retarded ruler ever to exist. There was no reason for that, and it boils the choice between an authoritarian (Melanie) vs an idealist moron (Hannah). Not to mention that everything was essentially happening because of John's meddling. I don't have a problem with the meddling per say, but Melanie deserves better. Here is my new and improved backstory and new headcanon that I personally consider to be the background. I couldn't just retcon to this degree so I may eventually get around to writing a new Melanie Bernard AAR sometime in the distant future if I ever feel like it. The thing is....you won't know it's a Melanie Bernard story at first.
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I was really inspired by The First Century. The political machinations, the sort of intrigue and hope that came along with the United Nations and the bright future that humanity was expecting. This is the setting of my new story: no longer will there be a new Roman Empire ruled by Donald Trump and his descendants. In this timeline, the United Nations formed a global nation ruled by tolerance, respect for law and the Constitution, equal rights for all, and a sense of freedom and safety. This nation was formed by a grand parliamentary coalition between two large center right and center left parties (the Conservative Party and Social Democrats respectively). Third parties and fringe elements became unviable under this current system and quickly became irrelevant. This political stability and harmony set the stage for the greatest period of sustained economic growth and cultural accomplishments in all of human history. People marveled in the new wealth and advancement that this government brought. Other planets were colonized, new species were found and interacted with, and most importantly, a grand federation with smaller non-human species was created. Humanity would join the grand story of the stars in peace and harmony. There were several wars against non-friendly aliens, but those were avoided at all costs.

This is the world that Melanie Collins was born in.

The new concept begins with the election of Alex Azaar to the position of President of the United Nations. Alex was a wily politician and a member of the Social Democrats. Elections in this time were peaceful and not acrimonious at all, and it was assumed that the two parties would form a coalition no matter who won. Alex won a platform of opening the Core worlds and earth to alien settlement, as well as making sentient aliens full citizens of the United Nations. They had long been residents of the Federation and of outer planets but there had always been a sense of caution in allowing them onto Earth and other core planets. This plan was met with resistance among elements of the population, but they were derided as xenophobic so their concerns were not met. The first part of the AAR would be Alex Azaar and his rule, federating and dealing with friendly aliens as well as any political machinations back home. This would be a normal United Nations play through.

Enter Courtney Bernard.

Courtney was a high ranking admiral. The military, having fought in wars against aliens, would be far more conservative and xenophobic than the more liberal populations of the larger cities, and Courtney was conservative even to them. She was a xenophobe through and through who hated aliens and non-human entities. She despised them, believing that at any moment, they would strike and cause humanity's extinction. Many shared her sentiments but were fearful of sharing them in public due to the mob of activists. She created a new political party, the Populist Party, and won around five percent of the vote and seats: larger than most third parties, but not enough to really do much. Melanie Collins at this time was a junior officer in Courtney's fleet, having graduated from the Naval School a few years prior. She rose through the ranks and quickly became one of Courtney's most trusted soldiers.

One day, Courtney and other admirals had the great idea of invading and taking over a hostile alien Empire that while was not at war with humanity, really did not get along with them. Alex Azaar obviously refused this request, but Courtney went along with the plan anyways, taking the Empire by force in a long and bloody war. He had to support her fleet in the interim, lest he look weak, but when the war was done, he fired her and other high ranking fleet generals (including Melanie and Fletcher) charged with treason and conspiracy against the government. This was a massive political miscalculation: the war was generally popular (the aliens had a habit of raiding human systems) and Courtney was a fiery orator who had a knack for drumming up the discontent masses. In the next parliamentary elections, the results were absolutely shocking: Courtney's Populist Party won a whopping forty-percent of the vote, preventing the grand coalition from even forming. The Conservative Party was practically wiped out due to most of that electorate moving to Courtney, and the Social Democrats were drummed. The far right fringe parties along with what remained of the Conservatives coalesced around Courtney and she was elected President with Melanie Collins being elected as Speaker of Parliament. Courtney's Greenshirts (the militant wing of the party) began to attack aliens and their supporters, causing fear and uproar to spread, along with a radical counter-reaction.

Courtney's hold on power was, however, tenuous at best. The courts prevented her from enacting much of her agenda, massive protests (which all involved street battles) were a hallmark of her reign, and the political class investigated everything that she did, causing numerous embarrassing leaks. Despite this, Courtney grew and grew in power, especially due to her Greenshirts and the support of the military. Alex Azaar, now the leader of the opposition, became convinced that democracy was on the verge of ending and a conspiracy began to end Courtney's reign. When it became evident that all the special councils would not indict her, Alex Azaar and a group of senators assassinated Courtney in the middle of the Senate House. Melanie, with John's help, barely escaped with her life. She fled to the one place she knew where she find safety: to her boyfriend Fletcher's fleet in the frontier. Whether by blind lust or a sense of duty to the constitutionally legitimate President (the Speaker was the 2nd in line), he declared his fleet for Melanie and declared rebellion. Much of the fleet joined her and the Civil War was on.

Long story short, Melanie, despite being outnumbered and outgunned, managed to trap most of the United Nations' fleet in dock near Bekigh and destroyed it. This swung the war in her favor and started the Siege of Earth, which, due to infighting amongst anarchists, syndicalists, and normal liberals, only lasted around a year. Earth fell, and Alex refused to flee or surrender. The last words Melanie told him while he sat in his office were as follows:

"I will be the tyrant you thought Courtney was, and I will take away all the freedoms she would have let you enjoy."

Alex died a failure: democracy died under his watch. His son, Oliver Azaar, however, was determined to extract revenge.
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I feel like this plot is far better. For one, it makes all the characters younger. One issue I had was that many of my characters were just getting super-old as time went by. In this timeline, Melanie becomes Protector/Fascist Dictator at the age of twenty-seven. This gives her a ton more time to role, as well as preventing the problem of all my characters being ninety years old and running around doing things. Secondly, it gives Oliver more depth as well as provide a legitimate difficulty in Melanie's quest to seize power. What do ya'll think?

 

[alex man142]

Melanie Bernard: Anatomy of a Character

As I was playing through the game of Stellaris that inspired all of this, I began to look for leaders of mine to replace Hannah Trump as leader in order to fit the coup story that I had made for myself. My generals and admirals (Courtney was one of them) were too old, as were most of my sector governors. One leader stood out: Melanie Bernard. She was young, at only forty-seven, and was the governor of the larger of my two sectors. Without much in the way of thought, I gave her the role. Little did I know how much she would occupy my time for next half a year.

Melanie was a complex character who was incredibly hard to write about. On one end, she was an incredibly compassionate character whose motives mainly revolved around keeping the people that were dear to her safe and sound. On the other end, when she lost much of her family, she turned into a maniac, with cruelty and reckless abandon for life, liberty, and property that would make even Genghis Khan or Joseph Stalin blush. I wish I went into this more, but she quite literally purged an entire race of aliens just because they disrespected her. It is really hard for me to reconcile the two. I suppose a criticism is that Melanie just wanted to be some housewife, but I disagree with that assertion. Melanie only wanted her loved ones to be safe. If that meant control over the entire Galaxy, then so be it. She is the type of person that would kill everything alive just so that her family would be secure. Indeed, even though Amalia tried to kill her, Melanie immediately forgave her daughter and gave her a high ranking husband and role in the government.

Melanie also was obsessed with control. I really didn’t touch this trope enough. Her childhood was quite rough. Mercilessly bullied, forced into a career path that she didn’t necessarily want, and used for her skills, Melanie really did not have much of a say in her life. Maria mentioned a few times that Melanie even peed herself in class: the ultimate humiliation and loss of control. As she grew, even her love life was sort of thrust upon her, with Courtney essentially matching her and Fletcher for her own political benefit. I guess that she sort of forced herself to love Fletcher, eventually falling madly in love with him, but you can see why she would resent most of her life. She didn’t want to become Protector, the job, as usual, was thrust upon her by people who were using her. What reward does she get for finally doing everything that was supposed to? Her husband and daughter being blown into tiny pieces and her suffering a limp for the rest of her life. Tragically, even her attempts to keep Amalia on the straight and narrow resulted with her remaining daughter abandoning her. Anyone in that situation would have an axe to grind with society and life itself. It only makes sense that she would turn into the person that she did: she didn’t know any other way. Thus, when everything she valued turned into ashes in the wind, she defaulted to her one primordial instinct: the desire for control, attacking anything that threatened her desires and wishes.

By the time Melanie died, she had done some truly incredible things. She conquered the galaxy, broke the backs of several fallen empires, and began construction and humanity’s first ever mega-structure. In her own way, she brought order to the galaxy for the first time in history. Sadly, she may have sacrificed herself as a person in doing so. Early on, Stynlan noted that “there is something classically tragic about Melanie.” I agree fully with that sentiment. Melanie could not ever achieve what she wanted.

In the end, Melanie is left with a final choice: join the Cycle and bring about the end of the universe, or side with John, and perhaps end all chance of ever seeing Fletcher again. In an act of sacrifice, she sides with the universe and ends the Cycle, an ultimate act of selflessness. Again, all that she valued was ripped from her, but unlike last time, she took to constructive hobbies and activities to sooth the pain and help to bring about a bit of light in the darkness. Eventually, she does in fact get to see her husband and family once again due to some creative thinking by John and Marike, bringing her story to an end (?). Melanie is finally at peace.

I really debated whether or not to give Melanie a happy ending or not. On one end, she did horrible things and quite frankly, one could argue that she does not deserve it. On the other side, Melanie did go through a lifetime of trauma and horrible consequences, to the point where even the most stoic person might feel sorry for her. In the end, I gave Melanie Collins Bernard a happy ending because I felt like she earned it after all the things that she went through. Whether or not you agree with that is up to you. I honestly think that she does. She was prepared to give up everything that she ever wanted in life just to save the universe at large. Does that pay for all of her past sins? Perhaps not. The Creator doesn’t seem to weigh these things.

One thing that I have been thinking about is what ideology really motivates her. Melanie had a lot of influences and beliefs that she was subjected to. Oliver loved calling Melanie a fascist during his younger years. He called her a litany of other names, from tyrant, to maniac, among other things. Is Melanie a fascist? I am not entirely comfortable with that distinction. I like to say that she subscribes to Melanieism, the ideology that states that whatever she does or says is right and justified no matter what. I guess the closest sort of ideological counterpart (she says this herself) would be Francisco Franco or perhaps Pinochet. They were both strongman dictators opposed to the left, but I think that they were only in it for their own gain. Melanie is much the same way. She isn’t bound to a specific ideology, nor does she claim to. Yes, most of her support is definitely from the far right end of the spectrum, but she could easily squirm her away across the horseshoe to Totalism or Stalinism.

Next, I will do an analysis on Johnathan Fredericks, then really brief ones on the rest of the characters. Then I will begin my next AAR!

(Note, photo comes from Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice. No joke, I was looking through memes and found this photo. I was shocked because it literally is exactly how I pictured Melanie in my head)

 

[alex man142]

Johnathan Eric Fredericks – The Enforcer

One thing that I really failed to mention during this AAR is just how fucking frightening I imagined Johnathan Fredericks to be.

Imagine it this way: John was created to serve, that’s it, no ifs and buts. When someone gave John an order, John was supposed to follow it down the letter with an absolute disregard for his own personal wellbeing and safety. He was bred to kill and do so as efficiently as possible. His training was so brutal and so intense that most of the killers that he was created with failed to pass and were killed off. The result was the creation of a being that would make the Spartans of ancient Greece fear, a killer bred for war and nothing but it. His brute strength was immense, as he was easily able to kill anarchists with his bare hands alone. This was the world that Johnathan Eric Fredricks was born in.

If you have been following this story, you know how John came to be in Melanie’s service. Whereas Melanie Bernard was the dictator giving orders, John was her chief-of-staff, the person meant to actually carry them out. All the atrocities that Melanie ordered were implemented by John. The slaughter of political dissidents? John. The purging of an entire species? John was in charge of that. The enforcement of the rigid and strict state apparatus that was built to quash all who would disobey their dictator? John built that. Behind the scenes, John was always involved in whatever Melanie wanted done. This is makes John so terrifying. All the torture and death that Melanie ordered was done by his hand. Every genocide, murder, purge, and atrocity was by his command, and in many cases, done himself. The few torture scenes I included were only the tip of the iceberg.

To make matters more horrifying, John was loyal down to his bones. While yes, much of his original programming was removed during his transition to a new body, his internal though processes remained intact. John was absolutely and utterly devoted to Melanie Bernard and would do everything that she asked. The fact that he was a clone made him almost irrational in his zeal. I really wish that I added in more day-to-day interactions with the government that showed this: I now sort of envision Oliver Azaar assuming a false identity and working in the government to get closer to Melanie, where he would come into routine contact with John…the real John, the John would who kill anyone who didn’t obey Melanie’s orders down to the letter. John’s body count is definitely mind numbingly high.

I guess this is a reflection of the narrator, being John himself. The entire story is told from his perspective where Melanie is always right no matter what she does. Note how the story never really condemns her for any action, even the horrible ones. John always has reasons and rationale for justifying them. One of my favorite chapters is the one where Oliver is protesting in the square and we really see the reality of what is going on. I only wish I had Oliver narrate more scenes himself to get a more balanced picture of events. Oh well. Whatever the case, John is the narrator of this story so the events portrayed are incredibly biased towards her. I’m not saying that he is unreliable by any stretch of the imagination, but he has own motives in telling the story that he tells, and is coming from his heavily slanted point of view. Melanie is essentially his god, a god that he won’t hesitate to follow.

Why did Melanie give John so much authority? After the bombing, I don’t think Melanie trusted anyone anymore. She mentions this over and over, how John is one of the few people that she can turn to. In reality, this is true, but John is also someone that she can control and manipulate. A human would obviously have reservations about many actions; John has none. Melanie could easily mold John into someone that she created. She even marries Amalia, a person that she could not really control, to John in order to cement them both even closer to her. By giving Amalia a husband and children, she permanently ties her to Melanie.

John takes on many different roles in his life, none of which were really his plan. He begins as a random soldier/grunt, a role not show in the AAR. He then becomes Melanie’s personal guard, then becomes the head of her security detail, and then his final promotion to Chief of Staff, a role that would only end with her death and his assumption as Protector of the Human Empire. He only has three different literal bodies, his first purely clone one, his second modified body, and then his body that has a psionic soul. All three allowed him to do different things and experience things in different ways. By the time he came fully human towards the end, he experienced true emotions and feelings for the first time in his life.

John also has incredible difficult in his life. Much of life was spent learning how to act like a human despite not being made to do so. He has to quickly learn mannerisms, sayings, slang, and other social cues that a clone is not expected to learn. He even has to take pills to fall in love with Amalia and ‘his’ children, only to have them all taken away when Marike deposes him. He falls back to the one thing he knows how: follow orders. He writes, because that is what Melanie wanted him to do.

The most fascinating role in my opinion that John plays is that of the puppet master in the black-hole. He is so devoted to Melanie that he doesn’t even ponder for a second to realize what exactly he is doing: manipulating the past to bring about the future events in a way that will help Melanie succeed in her life. That’s his motivation. Thinking about it, what he does is scary, changing the past due to his obsession with Melanie. In a way, until he decides to stay on earth and raise Oliver’s children as his own, he is always sort of enslaved to her. Unlike Melanie, he is not seeking control, but his entire life revolved around serving his master and doing her bidding. His final liberation only occurs when he learns to express himself and how to not blindly follow his master and best friend.

 

[alex man142]

Oliver Woods – The Victim

Oliver Woods is both one of my favorite and least favorite characters in the AAR at the same time.

My biggest issue with Oliver was that with everything being sort of unplanned and sort of jumbled, I really missed more than a few opportunities to really flesh out the world through his eyes. While I think his motivations are realistic in that he wants revenge against Melanie for the killing of his family, I feel as if he just sort of bumbles into it and fails way too miserably. He accidentally discovers Amalia, plays the long game against Melanie, then gets totally cucked by Melanie at the end. While I sort of like how I went with it, Oliver just needs more motivation, and he needs more of a grievance with Melanie to really sell his ultimate redemption and sacrifice at the end.

The Oliver that I imagined at the beginning is wrathful and impetuous, beating John up for minor infractions. This Oliver would not play a long game, rather shanking Melanie with a shiv the moment he has a moment alone with her, something that would be easy to get since he was acting as her grandson. I cannot easily reconcile the two. No, Oliver needs to be more tactful, and possibly even more vengeful. In my new headcanon that I am working on, he is the one that bombs Melanie, killing Fletcher and Ruth. He assumes a new identity as a worker in the palace, and uses this authority to sneak a bomb in. Of course, his plan fails as he fails to kill Melanie, and he is discovered and barely flees with his life. This Oliver would be even more angry, seeking vengeance and John (who was the one who killed his parents) would be first on his hit-list, along with Amalia who would naturally be found through John.

All of that aside, Oliver finally finds his redemption in the end of the story. In the start, he arrives solely to extract revenge. By the end, he has changed; he even admits as much when he proclaims that he sees Melanie in a different way. Now, I don’t think that the events of the climax absolve the sins of the past, but they went a long way in healing the tension. His new empathy is revealed when he sacrifices his life for the safety of the universe. In this sense, Oliver is now a true hero, much like John and Melanie were. In the ultimate irony, he marries one of Amalia and John’s grandchildren, thus furthering the Bernard line well into the future.

Amalia Bernard Fredericks – The Rebel

Amalia was an afterthought, this I admit. I thought it would be interesting to introduce her and kill her off to make Melanie’s life even more anguished. Obviously that never happened and Amalia became a sort of main character.

She exemplifies the theme of control to its fullest. Like Melanie, she withers under being oppressed and desires nothing more than to lead her own destiny. Melanie, wanting to keep Amalia on the right path, lays strict rules on her, including attempting to force a marriage. This leads her to run away from home shortly after Fletcher dies and lives a life of debauchery, eventually culminating in her leading a band of rebels right under Melanie’s nose. She thinks that she is powerful and strong and able to resist Melanie’s siren song of wealth and luxury, and clearly expects a hostile Melanie who would seek to oppress her once again. What she finds is a broken woman who loves to go to Amalia’s old room and pretend like she is still there with her. Amalia is clearly touched, and is the revelation that Oliver’s father killer Fletcher and Ruth that finally turns her to her mother’s side. The rebellion is mostly crushed, Oliver is broken for a second time, and Amalia marries John at her mother’s urging.

I feel like Amalia is the most ‘normal’ character in this saga with perfectly normal emotions and rational for doing what she does. She loves John and raises children with him, but is utterly broken when she learns that he is, in fact, a clone. The implications of this revelation are horrifying. Not only did her mom know this, but she purposely married her daughter to a clone. Not only this, but her children were probably not even ‘natural’ to begin with. Any person would have the same reaction that she does. Broken and destroyed, she flees to West Virginia with her family. There, she lives an isolated life, utterly incensed at what her mother put her through.

By the conclusion, however, she realizes that John is more human that she would like to admit. While yes, he may have been born into a vat, John displays more emotion and empathy that even the average human being. This, combined with his sacrifice to enter the Black Hole compels her to forgive him, and while things were never really the same for her and John, the two reconciled, much to his delight. When the portal finally opens, she cannot bear the thought of John seeing her die, so she enters the afterlife with her mother. Decades later, she is finally reunited with her husband in paradise.

Fletcher Bernard- The Husband

Fletcher is by far one of the most important characters in this saga. Most of the actions that happened revolved around him, one way or another.

His backstory is a bit more clouded, but the way I see it, he was raised by a mother who never was really there for him, leading to him becoming sort of withdrawn and sort of angry towards everything. He marries someone young, only for his wife to be killed during the first days of the Cephevad War. Shortly after, he is introduced to Melanie by Courtney and strongly urged to date her. He acquiesces, dating and eventually marrying Melanie. They had four children together. While their marriage was certainly rocky at first, it grew into a genuine relationship by the time she was forty-seven years of age. They truly did love each other.

Despite not being the Protector per say, Fletcher held unrivaled power in that he was one of the few people who could really influence Melanie in any meaningful way. She loved him dearly, and listened to most of what he had to say. He used this to his advantage, steering her in a more positive direction that respected the rule of law and rights of citizens. Fletcher wasn’t selfish: he loved Melanie as well and wanted to see her thrive and prosper. It wouldn’t be hard to say that Melanie’s first seven years in power were some of the brightest in all of human history…and it was mainly due to him. He was also able to keep Amalia mostly in line as well. He wasn’t like Melanie: he was calm, collected, and was able to compromise in ways that he got what he wanted without offending the other party. I regret not adding in scenes of this.

The ultimate tragedy is that if he and Ruth were not killed in the attempted assassination plot, Melanie would have retired after thirteen years, and would have not descended into the madness that she ended up falling into. She would have retired at peace at her estate with Fletcher, living out the rest of her days with the people that she loved and cared for.

In the end, she sort of gets what she wished. She is in heaven with Fletcher, and they are both truly happy. When Melanie is forced to leave to save the universe, he resists at first, only surrendering when Melanie realizes that even they are in danger. For the second time, he is left alone without her. They end happily, however, as he returns to earth and sees her again. Melanie finally achieves her ultimate and lifelong dream of rest.

Marike Van Zyl- The Empress of Evil

Look, Marike is a genocidal maniac who makes Melanie look like Martin Luther King Jr. She is entirely one-dimensional and evil…or is she? I need to explore her motivations more and see what makes her tick. Maybe she will discover herself in the new world she finds herself in.