Marie J. Lopez and Anthony Beast were certainly an odd couple, even for what you usually see within such a huge cultural melting pot like the Junkers. She, a descendant of a rich Gallic family and him, a pure Libertonian Junker hailing from a poor family.
Marie was born and raised in Beaumont out of pure luck. Her father, Bernard, traveled often all across Sirius, staying a couple of years in one station and a couple of years in the next, whichever provided the most desirable commercial opportunities. In 759 A.S, long before even the slightest hints of the Nomad War, Bernard met a young, beautiful Outcast named Ana Lopez, youngest daughter of an equally wealthy Outcast family. Between them occurred a forbidden romance. Why forbidden, you may ask? The old quasi-noble Gallic Junker families lived by a strict code. To preserve the purity of their heritage they were only to marry others of Gallic descent. Such a practice was long abandoned by all but the most traditionalist of families, families such as Bernard's.
Of this romance resulted an unwanted child, Marie Lopez. Upon the birth of Marie, Bernard realized how severe the consequences of his actions were. He had doomed his family's name forever. In a fit shame, he plotted to kill Ana, the child and himself in a suicide plunge into Manhattan's orbit. In the end, he could not do it. He left Ana to die in the mercy of the Liberty Navy and flew off with the girl back to Beaumont.
Marie was raised, rich amongst the poor, spoiled amongst the hard-working, in a constant struggle between a life of carefree luxury and that of the hard-working Junker middle class. As she grew older, she grew more and more tired of the life her father tried to provide for her. A life with no learning, no challenge, no love, she thought. A loveless life she did not lead, however. At age 19 she fell in love with Anthony Beast.
Anthony Beast himself was also born and raised in Beaumont, not out of luck, but tradition. The Beast family was once a powerful clan that spanned across Liberty and controlled most of the Texan smuggling operations, going so far as to have ports in the far side of Houston to distribute Cardamine and corrupt cops running covert operations in Huntsville and Sugarland.
All this ended in a blink of an eye though. Charles Beast, Anthony's grandfather, was a self-obsessed man completely lacking the business sense or discretion common amongst the Junker population. It took him a mere decade to plunge into darkness an empire that took several generations to achieve. Charles ended up dying in misery, leaving his offspring to fend for himself at a very young age.
Anthony, born right after this disaster, was faced with the threat of near-poverty. He learned by himself the basics of the Junker life, how to salvage scrap, how to smuggle without being seen, how to fix a ship. all while stockpiling cash to invest in his education. Many considered him to be somewhat eccentric, too focused on what he strives to achieve to look at the bigger picture and above all else, bitter about his family's past and what he could be today, too bitter to have a lasting relationship with someone, some said. Well, they were wrong.
The love between the two was explosive and inexplicable. How could such different people fall in love with one another? To some extent, they completed each other. Anthony provided Marie the life she always wanted, full of excitement and challenge and she provided him with the money he needed to learn whatever he wanted. They sought to get married. Unfortunately, there was one obstacle. Bernard was against the marriage. He did not want his bloodline polluted any further and thought of Anthony as nothing more than a parasite, leeching off of his fortune. Faced with her father's decision, firmly set in stone, she and Anthony saw no other option but to escape.
They fled to Rheinland with nothing more than one of Bernard's Salvage Frigates, taken without consent, and the money on their pockets. They arrived onto Kreuzberg Depot and soon established themselves as some of the best smugglers in Rheinland, working closely with the Red Hessians whom were experiencing at the time a great financial growth. Years passed and the couple continued their life, madly in love with each other. One thought loomed over Marie's head, though. Rheinland with it's populist revolts seemed much too dangerous to raise a child. She missed the calm days aboard Beaumont. It was, however, impossible to go back, to face Bernard again.
This changed one day upon receiving a hand-written message, delivered by courier. Marie's father had died, killed in a Xeno raid. This, while saddening, meant that they could return to Liberty, lead a calm life and raise a child. Unfortunately, said child would not be raised in the same conditions as Marie. Bernard had spent the past decade in madness, wasting away the majority of his fortune in alcohol, drugs and whatever temporary whims went by him.
This, however, didn't deter them. They had built up significant wealth themselves in the years they spent in Rheinland. And so, in 784 A.S, Andrew Beast was born.
