Gaia's Stepdaughters

The first of the crazy factions...

Lady Deirdre Skye
Oh, she's gonna need changes...
First, for advantages, add Administrative Rank 6 (Leader of the Gaians) and Status 6 (head of a major faction), and Mind Worm Sympathy. Drop the Military Rank, as usual.
For Disadvantages, pretty much drop everything she's got right now. Replace them with Callous [-5], Delusion (The command staff of the Unity, and their successors, has always been plotting against me) [-10], Delusion (I am a transendent deity, trapped in human flesh), Intolerance (All other factions) [-15], Megalomania [-10], Odious Personal Habit (takes her bonded mind worm boil everywhere) [-15], Paranoia [-10], and Stubbornness [-5].
Skills are fine.
Biography-wise, tone down her devotion to ecology. Deirde is far less mystical about it than standard. Basically, she realizes that screwing up the ecology is a very stupid move, especially on Planet, where the ecology is more than capable of fighting back. She intends to live forever, and she wants a nice place to do it in.

The Gaians have had one of the most difficult roads of any of the "First Factions", those descended from the original Unity landings. Deirdre had always been somewhat marginalized during the voyage to Alpha Centauri; her insistence that the colony's first steps had to be made in tune with the new ecosystem were regarded as fanatical ravings by most of the "hard" scientists and engineers, who did not want to delay their initial colonization efforts while the biologists made extensive surveys. Of the high command of the Unity, Miriam and Zakharov were the most hostile, Miriam because of her religious feelings that humanity had the right to exploit Planet, and Zakharov because of his personal prejudices, both against biologists and women. Santiago used Deirdre several times as a scapegoat for covert Spartan activites. Pravin Lal noticed the large amount of tension between the ecological and colonization factions, and blamed Deirdre. Only Captain Garland and Chairman Yang were at all supportive of Deirdre, Garland because he trusted her, and Yang because he distrusted Santiago.
During the Landing crisis, Deirdre was consitently given second priority. Even after she found herself in command of a landing pod, her requests for telemetry data were ignored, and she was forced to calculate a course on her own. The Gaian landing pod ended up in the far north of Planet's major continent. Only last minute course corrections prevented the pod from overshooting the landmass entirely and landing in the Great Northern Ocean. Even though that disaster was narrowly averted, the pod did land in distinctly disadvantageous circumstances, on an island just off the northern coast.
The first few years of the Gaian colony were extremely difficult. The climate of their landing site was harsh, buffeted by storms, and the available resources on the newly-named Nova Terra Isle were scanty and hard to acquire. Dierdre nonetheless insisted on her policy of carefully examining the native ecosystem before making any sigificant changes. Several times, she had to deal with revolts, as colonists refused to follow her directives. Eventually, the Gaians built up enough infrastructure to escape Nova Terra and begin serious colonization of the mainland, but even then, progress was slow.
However, Dierdre's policies finally paid off, as Gaian colonists finally came in contact with xenofungus, and its accompanying mind worms. Because of their ecological consciousness, mindworms almost never caused problems in their bases. And then, in a fateful encounter, Dierdre made one of Planet's great discoveries. She was inspecting an outlying base near several patches of xenofungus, investigating accusations that the base commander had been less than rigorous in her care for the native life. The accusations proved quite true, and even as Dierdre made a personal check of the fungal mats, a mind worm boil errupted. Her underlings fled in terror, but Dierdre froze, paralyzed with terror. However, the mindworms not only did not harm her, they actively defended her. When an underling attempted to level a flamer at the boil, thinking Dierdre already dead, the mindworms swarmed and consumed him in a matter of seconds.
After the first few seconds of shock and fright, Dierdre discovered something even more fascinating: she could hear the mind worms - not in any sort of human speech, but in a sort of low level chatter that she could nonetheless interpret. She then attempted what would later go down as a historic first: she stretched out her empathic sense, which she had always used to "read" humans, and tried to contact the mindworms. The effect was startling. The mindworms sensed her contact and reacted, making Dierdre, for a second, a part of their gestalt mind. Even after Dierdre dropped out of contact, she found herself able to give the boil orders and sense its attitude. The Gaians had tamed, for the first time in Planet's history, a native life form.
Deirdre, however, was not unaffected by the brief contact with the mind worms. Touching the alien synthesis had exacerbated some of the mental imbalances and bitterness she had been dealing with since Landing. She came out of the gestalt firmly convinced that she was a nascent deity, limited only by her frail human flesh, and that all her old enemies were trying to prevent her apothesis. These new attitudes colored all her subsequent reactions to other factions. Only Yang has thus far managed to get on her good side, mostly by constantly playing up to her delusions whenever they meet.

The Gaians are under a fairly ruthless military dictatorship. Dierdre is extremely paranoid of everyone, and her own underlings are no exception. Gaian bases are partolled by military units, and have extensive secret police forces. Dierdre makes extensive use of telepaths for the secret police forces, and mind worms are often used as police units to prevent rebellion.
Gaian economic policy is agressively environmental. Strict laws enforce extensive environmental impact studies before any alteration of Planet is made. Industries are forced to be as non-polluting as possible, and terraforming is minimal. Whenever possible, Gaians work with Planet, not against it.
Led by Dierdre, the basic Gaian philosophy is that they have the right to rule all of Planet. To this end, they actively pursue military and political power. Whenever possible, the Gaians act to expand their hegemony. Dierdre becomes very upset whenever any source of power is lost to her, and intently pursues its recovery and revenge for its loss.
The Gaians have begun to pursue a policy of cybernetic and genetic improvement of their citizens, aimed at making the faction an idealized version of humanity. Dierdre has visions of herself as the goddess ruling over a utopian world of superhumanity.

The Gaians have average wealth for Planet. Faction members make money, but few are allowed to make too much, in case they become able to threaten Dierdre's control. However, as Dierdre's goal of converting the faction into superhumanity progresses, the average wealth seems set to rise.
The Gaians are fairly efficient. Although their restrictive society lends itself to red tape and hassle, the Gaians' heavy use of telepaths in high offices tends to speed communication and prevent misunderstanding. Also, the ecological ideology of the faction ensures a high standard of recycling and good maintenence is kept up.
Gaian bases tend to grow fairly slowly, at a rate of only 1%/year. Their insistence on low environmental impact means that appropriate facilities for large numbers of children are hard to come by. As the Gaian population is subjected to Dierdre's improvement policies, however, the growth rate may increase somewhat.
Currently, Gaian industry lags behind that of the Planetary average. Their focus on military power means that fewer resources and skilled workers are available for industrial work. As the Gaian human improvement schemes progress, this is likely to change, as more efficient production techniques are put into place.
Gaian troops are fairly reasonable, with decent training. The number of Gaians with military training is slightly higher than the Planetary average. However, the Gaian program of human improvement is degrading their training programs, as the improved humans are often unwilling to use violence.
The Gaians have an excellent rapport with Planet's native life and ecosystem. Many Gaians have a strange bond with the mind worms, and Gaian bases are very rarely attacked. Gaian forces often include a large number of controlled mind worms as part of their weapons.
Gaian society is fairly restrictive, with few personal liberties permitted. Communications, weapons, and other technology are all strictly controlled by the government. Taxes are high, and punishments for lawbreaking are severe. Gaian society has the death penalty, and death sentences often involve being fed to mind worm boils, or being used to test new telepathic attack techniques.
The Gaians have about average intelligence and counter-intelligence services. Their spies are reaonsably dedicated, but few have truly cutting-edge equipment. The Gaian populace has only normal amounts of dedication to Dierdre's ideology. Most faction members agree with the ecological values of the faction, but much fewer are on board with Dierdre's schemes for godhood.
Gaian research programs keep pace with the Planetary average, but are not particularly stellar. They tend to focus on biological and telepathic advances over more engineering-oriented technologies.
The Gaian military is quite large by Planetary standards, with more than 5% of their population forming a standing force. Dierdre's paranoia lead her to insure that the Gaians are always ready to meet enemy forces with a strong counterattack, or to immediately sieze advantage of a weak point.