Name: Amandu Kathryn Staten (“Kat”)
Age: 21
Gender: Female
Rank: Lieutenant Junior Grade in the EFSF, previously Warrant Officer in EFGF
Appearance:
Personality: Brash and arrogant on first impression, though not quite as boisterously patriotic as some of her countrymen. Kat gives off every outward sign of being completely unfazed by her experiences, perfectly willing (and eager) to take point when diving into the fray.
She spends her off-duty time doing everything from playing cards, schooling the new recruits in training, and laughing the loudest at every joke. The extra set of dog tags around her neck and the serious demeanor that takes over in combat hint at the deeper truth.
Kat is more determined than anyone to drive Zeon off of Earth, owing in large part to their occupation of her home. Despite the push after Operation Odessa, Zeon still occupied large portions of North America. Kat makes an exception in her easygoing nature for soldiers of the Principality for whom she holds little but thinly veiled contempt. She has the skill and experience to back up her boastful nature, but her tactics in combat still border on reckless. More than one CO has tried to reprimand her for it only to be informed that “it’s only reckless if I fail!”
On her own, Kat tends to be a little quieter. Relatively. She’s at her quietest after pulling a long shift and finally getting the chance to drink her coffee black and strong enough to kill a horse. At these times in the morning (or night, depending) she usually takes the time to catch up on paperwork. She’s hard on her subordinates, pushing them to be their absolute best so they can keep on going, but she tries to put herself in the big sister role.
Backstory: Kat was born in UC 0058, the same year Side 3 declared itself the Republic of Zeon. Within a week of it, in fact. Her parents watched the news from her mother’s room in the hospital. She grew up with a normal childhood, dragged herself through the school day like every normal kid, lived for afternoons in the boxing ring, and came home to watch TV with her parents every night. Lather, rinse, repeat. The city was her playground, and she felt secure no matter where in it she went. One part ignorance, one part teenage overconfidence, and one part… Well, Kat being Kat.
That started to change in high school, when she was taking a look at the world around her. Tensions between the Federation and Side 3, now the Principality of Zeon, just kept growing. Her social studies teacher spent more and more time talking about historical regimes, keeping the references to Side 3 veiled. It wasn’t hard to draw the parallels if you were looking. Her friends were all seeing the same, too. It always came up in the form of jokes, making fun of Zeon’s chances, hoping the war came soon so things would be less boring, the usual teenage way to cope with worries. By the time they graduated the jokes were a lot less funny.
So Amandu put college on hold. She enlisted in the Earth Federation Ground Forces as a Type 61 MBT driver, supposedly to pay for college when her tour of duty was up. Though she had entertained the thought in the past, seeing the Dawn Rebellion in 0076 made her choice clear. There was going to be war, and she wasn’t going to stay on the sidelines. She hoped to be proven wrong.
In 0079 she was vindicated by the three second warning and the commencement of Operation British. Debris rained down on North America, killing civilians across the continent and beyond. As part of the EFGF she had no choice but to watch the One Week War in horror, seeing the devastation Zeon wreaked upon the Federation’s Space Forces. But she got her chance soon enough. As soon as Zeon began dropping forces planetside, the EFGF was deployed.
Then-Warrant-Officer Staten drove her Type 61 for six months while Zeon kept pushing them further, and further, and further back. Earth Federation Ground Forces, at the outset of the OYW, were one of the worst-equipped branches in the service. It showed.
The T61s she and her comrades used could only handle Zakus in a pack, as not one MBT could square off with a Zaku and win. Minovsky particles slashed their effective range and a Zaku could outmaneuver a Type 61 with ease in close range. But they all fought as hard as they could, no matter how tired they were, as their numbers slowly dwindled. Kat only fought harder when news reached her unit that most of North America was now occupied by the enemy.
Every now and again things were different. Units like hers captured Zakus every now and again, and on a few occasions Kat took one into combat herself. They never lasted long, either due to running out of supplies, being shot down, or being confiscated by the brass… But it always felt good, to use their own mobile suits against the Zeek bastards.
Kat was the CO of her little squad by the time Operation Odessa rolled around, and they took to the fray with everything they had. The Federation was winning, too, despite the losses they took. The Principality’s soldiers were being pushed back.
But Odessa was a meatgrinder, and Kat wasn’t spared it. She was exceedingly lucky; the shot that took out her Type 61 hit mostly the gunnery positions, leaving her alive albeit injured. The rest of her tank crew wasn’t so lucky. That was the last day of the battle, however, and she was shipped back to Jaburo to recover. The last two fingers on her left hand were replaced with prosthetics that works about as well as the originals, even if they weren’t quite as pretty, and the doctors minimized the scarring on her body pretty well.
Ironically, she recovered just in time to be dropped into a GM and told to defend Jaburo.
She shone in the battle that followed, owing in part due to her earlier experiences with mobile suits, and was assigned a new Jim, promoted, transferred to the EFSF, and plopped down on a Pegasus-class. Kat was going to be taking the fight to the Zeeks, and that was fine by her.
Other Info:
Model Number:
RGM-79SDesignation:
GM Spartan Kat CustomOriginal Model:
GM SpartanFeatures:
- Infrared Radar Detection
- Infrared Camouflage
- Minovsky Scattering Pods
- Dummy x2
Fixed Armaments:
- 2x WAMM (Wire-guided Anti-MS Missile)
- 3-slot Grenade Rack
- Beam-Treated Shield
Armaments:- Minigun
- BOWA-XBR-M-79-07G Beam Rifle
- Beam Saber
- Combat Knife
Description: The RGM-79S was originally a ground-use variant of the RGM-79SP Sniper II, itself built off of the GM Command frame. Upon news that Lt. Jg. Kat would be transferred to the EFSF, the unit designated for her use was modified to include components from the Command’s backpack to ensure it maintained a high degree of maneuverability in space, and at her own request fitted with a beam rifle in place of its original secondary weapon, a saber in place of its second knife, and a shield taken from a Sniper II unit. Dummy launchers, two of them, were included to help the Spartan maintain its originally intended role in space combat. The standard Minovsky scattering pods would ensure that even basic inflatable dummies were easily mistaken for the real thing.
Amandu has had a few other small modifications done since then, primarily the painting of kill tallies on its shield. One tally mark for every fighter, tank, and mobile suit shot down over the course of her career. The marks are displayed on its shield so as to ensure that the enemy sees them, as a sort of challenge to any enemy combatant.
The Spartan Kat Custom, like its stock brethren, is highly adept in mid-to-close range due to its armor and armaments. It can take a beating and keep on going, though with its equipment making it suitable for hit-and-run tactics, it won’t have to. Not in the hands of a skilled enough pilot.
