Howdy. Let’s talk about the lore in Battleplan #21 & Battleplan #23. I honestly wasn’t expecting Gearbox to release this much lore about Ambra & the Silent Sisters as they prepared to release the October Update, so all of this comes as a very pleasant surprise. Even though this is about the lore in the Battleplan posts made by Gearbox, I have played the DLC a few times so I may slip a few details into here. Please be sure that you have “battleborn spoilers //” blacklisted & everything from Battleplan #23 will be under a cut until most people have had a chance to play the dlc.
BATTLEPLAN #21
Battleplan #21 discusses the origins of the Order of the Sustaining Mother & says in more explicit detail about Galilea’s betrayal & the aftermath. She was a deep cover operative for the Arbiters of Being & spent fifteen years undercover amongst Jennerit society, working her way up through the Silent Sisters to become a Templar. During that time, she became friends with Ambra & gained her sponsorship. Three years after gaining the title of Templar, Galilea failed her mission to destroy the Sustainment Engine & her friendship with Ambra crumbled. I think this is a really important thing to remember about Ambra & Galilea’s friendship. It is this broken thing that can never really be put back together. Galilea’s betrayal really, really hurt Ambra. It hurt her so much that she is still incredibly angry about it all these years later. More importantly, it changed her.
Ambra, more leery than ever of splitting her loyalties, redoubled her zealotry. She became even more guarded, pious, and intolerant, and spent the next several hundred years fiercely curating the Sustainment process, the Order of the Sustaining Mother, and propriety among all of the highborn within the Empire.
We're never given any details about the hierarchy within the Silent Sisters aside from what could be implied in her lore challenges, but I think this proves that the Sun Priestess is synonymous with the position of High Priestess or even Pontiff. To be able to control the Sustainment process, the entire Order of the Sustaining Mother, and the rules of behavior among Jennerit highborn means that Ambra has enormous political & social power. To curate the Sustainment process further indicates the kind of influence & power she has. But let’s not think that prior to Galilea’s betrayal, Ambra wasn’t a pious woman. She is a Silent Sister, a member of the religious institution of the Jennerit state. She has always been & always will be a very religious woman.
This also demonstrates just how much Galilea’s betrayal hurt Ambra & made her more paranoid. “She became even more guarded, pious, & intolerant” is a very interesting statement about the changes Ambra went through personally after what happened. Ambra let her guard down once & became friends with the woman that would try to destroy the very thing that make the Jennerit great. I can imagine Ambra becoming paranoid, which ties in with her intolerance, trying to not only shape younger Jennerit girls, but also keeping a close eye on everyone around her. What Galilea did to her cut so deep that Ambra vowed to never allow that to happen again. Becoming even more pious means that Ambra became even more religious. She probably prayed more often.
Galilea & Ambra may have been friends, but I will say that nobody knows Ambra better than Deande because she is the product of Ambra’s teachings & Empress Lenore’s instructions. Deande has seen Ambra at her best & at her worst.
In regards to Rendain’s coup & the transformation of the Jennerit Empire into the Jennerit Imperium:
At first, Ambra expressed her objections within formal channels, using political discourse and rhetoric to call the self-appointed “Lord Commander” to task. Ambra’s conflict with Rendain escalated, however, after Rendain breached protocol (and Ambra’s personal rules of etiquette) by bringing his dog, Constable Cuddles, to a formal political meeting.
I think this is incredibly important because it shows that Ambra has continuously opposed Rendain’s coup & leadership. Also, Ambra using formal channels in order to call him out is true to who she is as a person, as the Sun Priestess, & as a highborne Jennerit woman. Using political discourse & rhetoric shows that Ambra knows how to work the Jennerit political system. Also, she’s using it in defiance of Rendain who has been targeting Ambra’s division of the Silent Sisters because he sees them as a threat to his rule. She retaliates against him using the outlets she knows she’ll be heard. Of course, the incident with Constable Cuddles forces her to take extra measures & that is by going in front of the entire Jennerit court to call him out.
Soon after, Ambra began taking more direct and insurgent actions. She was contacted secretly by Spymistress Deande (also engaged in the seeds of rebellion) and used her influence as a Silent Sister to stir unrest within various groups of the Imperium. Eventually, Ambra’s participation in the Jennerit rebellions grew too bold to maintain her façade, and she fled the Imperium with the aid of the newly liberated political prisoner known as Caldarius.
This is so IMPORTANT. Not only did Ambra call out Rendain in front of the entire Jennerit court, but she was also instrumental in starting the Third Thrall Rebellion. It shows that Deande wasn’t working alone in starting it either, she knew that Ambra could be enormous in starting it because of her position within the Silent Sisters.
Of course, she has many reasons for doing this besides her conflict with Rendain, though that is certainly a major reason. In the new DLC, Attikus mentions that Ambra was sympathetic to the Thralls. But she also knows that the Imperium relies heavily on the Thrall labor force & getting them to revolt would cause a major upset.
The other reasons is because of Sister Aria.
