Co-President Victoria Rione was an Alliance Senator and, for a time, Co-President of the Callas Republic, an independent group of planets that were allied with the Alliance and Rift Federation.
During the final stages of the Alliance-Syndicate War, Rione accompanied Admiral Bloch on his final, risky strike on the Syndic capital, to act as a "competent authority" for the Rift Navy and Callas Republic to follow. In the resulting battle, the Alliance Fleet was defeated and trapped, and Rione was trapped with it.
Bloch was captured and executed by the Syndics, and replaced by the legendary war hero, Captain Geary. Though Rione initially mistrusted Geary because she believed he would attempt to challenge the Alliance Governing Council, she came to see Geary as a friend, and began to sleep with him. However, she soon stopped when she learnt her husband was still alive and a POW in a Syndic camp.
Rione advised Geary as he returned to Alliance space, helping him keep control of the fleet through her well placed spies and contacts. She was an important help in stopping the Kila-Caligo Conspiracy from assassinating Geary and would later leak an important piece of software that could prevent the collapse of hypernet gates to the Syndics.
After the Fleet returned home, Rione helped Geary persuade the governing council that he did not intend to stage a coup. She then returned with Geary to Prime, where she was to act as a representative of the Alliance in negotiations with the Syndic government. Rione watched the Second Battle of Prime and the Syndic Revolution, eventually negotiating an end to the war with the new Syndic Executive Council.
She joined the fleet as they fought the Enigma Race during the Battle of Midway. After the war had finished, she returned to the Callas Republic. Because the people thought that she was too close to the Alliance, she lost her seat as Co-President, and became an emissay for the Alliance.
She was then sent with the newly formed Alliance First Fleet on a journey into Enigma Territory. Though she remained helpful to Geary, she was being blackmailed by an unknown person, who had records of her husband's involvement in building a bio-weapon during the war. However, she used her time in the fleet to hinder her blackmailer, allowing Captain Bradamont- another officer being blackmailed- to escape to Syndic territory.
During the mission, the Fleet also rescued her husband, Paol Bente, who immediately loathed Geary for what he had done with his wife. However, Bente later came to admire Geary, and admitted that the scientists who had forced him to build the bio-weapon had also placed a mental block on him, so that he could never talk about the weapon.
Biography
Early Life
Little is known about much of Rione's life. Rione grew up during the Alliance-Syndicate War. Like all the people who grew up in her generation, the war was a part of life. She grew up in the Callas Republic and married Commander Paol Bente. Bente would go on to seemingly die in combat, leaving Rione a widow. She would later become a politician, climbing up to the position of Co-President.
During a conversation with Geary on the Dauntless, Rione admitted that her parents were still alive and that she had a brother and a sister, both with children, back home.[1]