Editing Ilsa Zane

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|rank=[[Bloodstar]] {{C|2559–}}{{Ref/Reuse|CF153}}

'''Ilsa Zane''' is a [[human]] [[insurrectionist]] leader within the [[New Colonial Alliance]], which pledged allegiance to the [[Banished]] in [[2559#May|May 2559]].{{Ref/Novel|Id=ttl|Halo: The Third Life}} After being the sole survivor of the first phase of the [[SPARTAN-IV program]], Zane defected to the NCA after her augmentations made her mentally unstable. She notably led [[Raid on UNSC Infinity|an attack]] on {{UNSCShip|Infinity}} in [[2553]],{{Ref/Comic|Id=hi3|HInit|Issue=3}} as well as the NCA figure responsible for the faction's alliance with the [[Banished]] in 2559 after personally executing the then-head of the New Colonial Alliance [[Mattius Drake]].{{Ref/Reuse|ttl}}

Born on [[Kholo]] on [[2528#June|June 11, 2528]],{{Ref/Reuse|CF153}} Ilsa Zane was present when her parents and everyone else she knew killed in the [[Covenant]]'s [[Battle of Kholo|attack]] and subsequent [[glassing]] of the planet.{{Ref/Reuse|CF153}}{{Ref/Reuse|ttl}} After Kholo's fall, Zane was sent to [[Asphodel]] as a ward of the state, living a mostly quiet and solitary life. When she came of age in [[2547]], she was conscripted into [[UNSC]] military service.{{Ref/Reuse|CF153}}

{{Quote|Ilsa Zane was a walking science experiment gone wrong. At one point, she had been slated for the Spartan program, an attempt at building the ultimate unarmored killing machine. But she snapped. After defecting to the NCA, she was quickly indoctrinated and promoted to Admiral Drake's attack dog.|Commander [[Maya Sankar]]{{Ref/Audio|Id=htts201|HtT|Season=2|Episode 01: Cube B-349}}}}

In [[2550]], Zane was chosen for the prototype phase of the [[SPARTAN-IV program]]. The additional augmentations she underwent were meant to make armor unnecessary, however, they crippled or killed nine others and made Zane unstable. Because of her instability, Zane was discharged and assigned to the [[Office of Naval Intelligence]], but subsequently escaped and defected to [[Mattius Drake]]'s [[New Colonial Alliance]].{{Ref/Reuse|hi3}}{{Ref/Reuse|CF153}}

A small group of crew and Spartan-IVs led by Spartan [[Sarah Palmer]] and Commander [[Thomas Lasky]] foiled Zane's plans. With the Spartans' help, Lasky was able to reach a security panel and input override codes, which gave Del Rio and the other officers access to the bridge. Having made their way to ''Infinity's'' bridge from outside the ship, Palmer and [[Edward Davis]] reached Zane. As they breached ''Infinity's'' bridge, Ilsa Zane fought Palmer one-on-one. In the ensuing fight, Del Rio brought Aine back online, who then activated the ship's containment doors. Palmer then knocked Zane out a containment door and into space. However, due to her physical augmentations, Zane survived and was later recovered by an unidentified NCA [[prowler]]. Upon awakening, she was met by Mattius Drake, whom she was surprised to see.{{Ref/Reuse|hi3}}{{Ref/Reuse|CF153}}

After her recovery, Zane was tasked by Drake as an acquisitions specialist for weapons and materiel, as well as a ruthless instructor for mercenary and rebel groups that joined the New Colonial Alliance.{{Ref/Reuse|CF153}}

{{Quote|When I found you, there was no discipline, no uniformity. Just a bunch of misfits with different allegiances and philosophies. That was a problem of leadership. The Colonel had allowed this legendary faction of the NCA to devolve into a form for individual interests. You were scattered and slow, and that's a death sentence. I relieved him of his command because bands of misfits don't win wars. Big machines do. Big machines made of lots of little pieces, moving with the same purpose. That's what we needed to build here.|Ilsa Zane, to the rebels under her command{{Ref/Audio|Id=htts202|HtT|Season=2|Episode 02: From Fire to Blood}}}}

In October [[2558]], Zane was sent to the remote world of [[Conrad's Point]], where the undisciplined NCA rebels and mercenaries on the world were being poorly commanded by an unidentified colonel. After relieving the colonel of command, Zane organized the insurgents into a more formidable force. As commander of NCA forces on the world, Zane operated ruthlessly and killed any individual who did not carry their weight. Afterwards, she began preparing the NCA forces on Conrad's Point for war with the [[Unified Earth Government]] and had accumulated a large amount of [[nuclear weapon]]s. In [[2558]], after Conrad's Point was attacked by a [[Forerunner]] [[Guardian]], Zane had all NCA forces move to the Guardian's attack site and secure the crater it left behind. Making camp in a nearby compound, the NCA sought to search the ruins of a city destroyed by the construct for clues on the Guardian's next site of attack. Not wanting the Guardian site to fall under rebel control, ONI sent Commander [[Maya Sankar]]—who operated with the insurrectionists under the codename "FERO"—and [[smart AI]] [[Black-Box]] to infiltrate the faction and rendezvous with operative [[Ari Rezneck]], who had already infiltrated the New Colonial Alliance.{{Ref/Reuse|htts201}}

When Sankar, Black-Box, and Reznek arrived at the NCA compound, Zane arrived shortly after. She congratulated the NCA soldiers for being useful to the cause and working together effectively. Zane informed them of the apparent death of [[Spartan-II]] [[John-117]] and encouraged her soldiers to celebrate the death of the UNSC's "poster boy". Meanwhile, the UNSC was informed of Zane's current location and planned to kill her by bombing the compound. As Sankar and Reznek moved to leave the compound, Zane approached them before the other insurgents and recalled that "FERO" wished for the New Colonial Alliance to stop combating the UNSC and protest peacefully instead. Zane mocked "FERO" for believing that negotiations with the UNSC were a viable plan to gain colonial independence and questioned what use she had for the NCA. When Reznek defended her, Zane killed him with her sidearm and revealed that she knew that he was an ONI operative. As Reznek vouched for her, Zane concluded that Sankar was also an ONI operative. However, before Zane could kill her, Sankar's friend within the NCA—[[Bostwick]]—raised a knife to Zane's throat and insisted that "FERO" was not a spy. Zane attacked Bostwick, but Sankar revealed that she was an ONI operative by informing her that a UNSC airstrike was incoming. Before anyone could react, the compound was bombed by UNSC aircraft. Sankar fled the compound with the injured Bostwick, while Zane pursued. The two escaped the area on an [[M274 Mongoose]] and eventually escaped the world aboard Sankar's [[prison ship]]. Furious, Zane continued to futilely fire upon the vessel as it left Conrad's Point.{{Ref/Reuse|htts201}}

By [[2558#October|October 28, 2558]], Zane and the NCA had tracked Maya's group to [[Laika III]], intent on killing them and securing the planet's Guardian before it activated. She forced their ship down and later pursued them away from a [[Triad]] camp where they had taken refuge.{{Ref/Audio|Id=htts205|HtT|Season=2|Episode 05: Where the Third Life Shines}} A detachment of ONI troops, also pursuing the renegades engaged the rebels in combat as the Guardian began to rise. Zane engaged UNSC troops in hand-to-hand combat, but a body flung by the Guardian's concussive waves would knock her out and the last thing she saw was the Guardian disappearing into [[Slipstream space|slipspace]], as she feared her final thought would be ''"Nobody kills Ilsa Zane."''{{Ref/Reuse|ttl}}{{Ref/Audio|Id=htts206|HtT|Season=2|Episode 06: Transcendence}}

Sometime later, Ilsa would awaken in a makeshift prison being guarded by a [[Jiralhanae Warrior]] named [[Amatus]] alongside seventeen other human prisoners from both the UNSC and NCA, as well as [[Dasc Gevadim]]. Dasc explained what happened while Zane was knocked out, including [[Cortana]]'s declaration of a new order of peace to bring an end to hunger, pain, and conflict (something that Ilsa found about as absurd and unbelievable as Dasc's own religion), and that their captors were members of the [[Banished]] that had come to claim the crater left in the Guardian's wake.{{Ref/Reuse|ttl}}

Ilsa revealed to Dasc that she had an implanted tracker that pinged NCA command every twelve hours and that they would need to send a rescue team if she didn't report back in three days. So, Dasc proposed a deal in which he would teach her to deal with the Jiralhanae until the rescue team arrived in exchange for coming with her and being dropped off at a location of his choice. However, when Amatus returned to find a prisoner for his pack to feast on, Ilsa challenged the Jiralhanae by looking him in the eyes berating him. When Amatus let out a roar, Ilsa punched him in the throat and crushed his windpipe, allowing Zane to tear off one of his shoulder plates and use it as a weapon, hitting Amatus in the face over and over again until the Jiralhanae was dead.{{Ref/Reuse|ttl}}

 

 

When [[War Chief]] [[Escharum]]'s ship arrived, Banished scientists began to inspect the ancient structure the Guardian rose from. Initially, Escharum was not pleased to find that Ilsa was alive. However, she offered the War Chief a chance to absorb the entirety of the NCA's resources into the Banished.{{Ref/Reuse|ttl}}

[[File:TheThirdLife IlsaZane.jpg|thumb|300px|Ilsa Zane wearing MJOLNIR armor along with Banished-manufactured components.]]

On [[2559#May|May 8, 2559]], Ilsa Zane infiltrated Admiral Drake's flagship, the [[NCA D'artagnan|NCA ''D'artagnan'']], in the [[Edolas system]]. She reached the [[bridge]] and managed to restrain the admiral to his command chair. Holding him at gunpoint, Ilsa asked if he had even tried to find her and she detailed her harrowing experiences over the last several months, making it clear to Drake what he had put her through. When she had finished, Ilsa turned his chair to face the bridge's viewscreen so that he could witness the arrival of Escharum's [[intrusion corvette]]. When a single [[Eklon'Dal Workshop Phantom]] emerged from the corvette and approached the ''D'artagnan''{{'}}s [[Hangar bay|hangar]], Drake finally realized the graveness of the situation and pleaded with Ilsa.{{Ref/Reuse|ttl}}

 

After she pledged her allegiance to the Banished, Ilsa Zane wears a suit of [GEN3] Mark VII MJOLNIR taken from a Spartan she killed. Zane wears the armor in conjunction with the Banished-manufactured [[CHAMPION-class armor|Champion armor]], the Colosseum Prize chestplate, and a reinforced vambrace on the right arm.{{Ref/Reuse|ttl}}

*Ilsa Zane's name is once misspelled as "Isla" in the second issue of ''[[Halo: Initiation]]''.

[[Category:Human characters]]

[[Category:Spartan-IVs]]

[[Category:New Colonial Alliance personnel]]

[[Category:Banished members]]