Hester Polaris

UPE Navy Commander Hester Polaris, namesake of the RSI Polaris Corvette and the inaugural vessel, UEES Polaris.

"Born to a family of explorers, Hester Polaris entered into the Navy shortly after the formation of the UPE in 2523. Polaris spent her first deployment as a military liaison monitoring terraforming operations. In 2530, during the Pallas Incident, she was selected to take part in the hostage exchange with the Xi'an. Afterwards, she received a commendation for her participation which lead to a promotion commanding a small corvette-class ship, the UEES Gilchrist. When the Tevarin War broke out in 2541, Polaris and the Gilchrist, were suddenly on the front line of Humanity's first interspecies war, engaging an enemy they had not prepared for.

On August 12, 2543, the Gilchrist was ambushed on a routine patrol by a Tevarin strike fleet. Previous reconnaissance sweeps had incorrectly labeled the system as clear, so Polaris and the Gilchrist's crew were caught completely off-guard. Elite Tevarin boarders had already infiltrated the ship by the time by the time the rest of the fleet attacked.

While personally defending the bridge from boarders, Polaris engaged the Tevarin fleet's overwhelming numbers by keeping her ship mobile, utilizing environmental conditions in the system to keep the Tevarin off-balance, and even re-engaged Tevarin ships that had broke from the fight to attack local settlements. First hand report of the incident cite how Polaris repeatedly placed herself and her crew in harm's way to save civilian lives.

She ultimately destroyed three Tevarin capital ships before Naval Reinforcements arrived to rout the rest. Sadly shortly after the battle, Commander Hester Polaris succumbed to wounds received during the Tevarin boarding action.

Polaris' bravery in the face of adversity has distinguished her for the ages, but it was her adaptability and effectiveness in asymmetric warfare that has made her a legend among strategic scholar and why the engineers at RSI honored her legacy with this ship."