STARLA
by Moxie
Where did Starla come from?


NOTE:  This story takes place within the Aurora Universe, as created by Sharon 
Best.  Starla is a Velorian supergirl without equal.


CHAPTER 1:  BACKGROUND - Where did Starla come from? 

The Arions were intensely interested in the advanced technology under 
development on the planet Talisha.  Through the use of bio-mechanical 
implants and advanced cybernetic devices, the Talishans were gaining 
capabilities that in some ways approached that of the homo sapien 
supremis.  This was just the type of development that the 
technologically-adept Arions would be interested in.  The decision-
making body on Velor knew that the planet Talisha needed a Protector 
very badly since the war-like Arions would surely succeed in conquering 
the peaceful planet.  The Talishan people were very intellectual and 
artistic, and had no interest in any involvement beyond the realm of 
their own world.  And they were certainly not as skilled in the art of 
making war as were the Arions. 

Given the enhanced physical strength that the implants would give the 
Talishans, it became clear that a standard-bred Protector would not be 
adequate.  Clearly, a Protector should have a greater advantage, a 
larger gap, over those she is intended to protect.  Therefore, the 
scientists on Velor invested a great deal of time researching ways to 
enhance the raw physical strength, and other capabilities, of the 
improved Protector they intended to create.  In time, the scientists 
made a major breakthrough in genome research, and Vanella, an enhanced 
Protector, was ready to be transported to Talisha. 

Vanella was a supergirl among supergirls.  As a result of the 
enhancements, Vanella was at least five times as strong as Aurora, 
previously the strongest Protector.  This allowed Vanella to easily 
fulfill her promise to the planet Talisha.  However, the very genetic 
enhancements that increased Vanella's capabilities simultaneously 
weakened her genetic pledge to protect the Talishans.  Vanella soon 
learned that with her overwhelming strength she could conquer and rule 
the Arions or Talishans with similar ease.  The thought of this gave her 
great pleasure, and she soon became cruel towards the very people she 
was bred to protect. 

The Ancient Ones, the ones that manipulated most things from behind 
their veil of privacy, knew that Vanella had to be stopped for betraying 
her pledge.  However, due to her enhancements, she had no equal:  no 
other being existed who could challenge her and bring her to justice.  
Therefore, in a rare moment of direct intervention, the Ancient Ones 
pierced the veil,  reached down from their own dominion and scooped up 
Vanella.  In an instant, they crushed her limbs, and deposited the alive 
- but permanently injured - Protector on an isolated planet on the far 
side of the galaxy.  There she would live out the rest of her life in 
exile as punishment for the crimes she had committed. 

What the Ancient Ones did not know was that Vanella had recently taken 
steps to bear a child.  With the aid of Galdo-Nyd, a brilliant Talishan 
geneticist, Vanella had accomplished the first in vitro procedure ever 
performed on a supremis.  As her broken body lay on the cold dusty 
planet, the new fetus inside her was alive and beginning to develop. 

The unnamed planet on which Vanella was stranded was a giant - twice as 
large as the planet Jupiter - with a tremendous gravitational pull that 
was over one hundred times that of Velor's.  The child's wonderfully-
adaptive Velorian genetics continually coped with this strain, and the 
fetus' development was affected as a result.  The fetus, which was bred 
from an abnormally strong Protector to begin with, grew an exaggerated 
musculature to offset the demands of the overwhelming gravitation.