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Annette is particularly strong and athletic. Her physical endurance allow her to operate in XCOM heavy infantry gear for a good while.

She can also keep pace with crack XCom tactical operators trained in a low-flash form of parkour.

(Again, this version of Annette happened to be a Heavy. In other playthroughs, her abilities will be different if she belongs to another character class).

It seems likely that she was a well-trained, highly-conditioned athlete before her abduction. Perhaps she was a powerlifter who evolved toward CrossFit, or similar athletic training.

If so it wouldn’t be surprising, in circa-2010 France, if she also held degrees in sports education and/or sports medicine.

She’s reasonably fluent in English.

Concept art by Piero McGowan. As often on writeups.org, click on the image for a fuller view.

Madame Durand is near the peak of human psychic potential.

Early on she was used as a sort of amplifier for the mind control abilities of certain Sectoids. She’d apparently boost both their range and the number of minds they could control simultaneously.

However, abuse of this power damaged this portion of her brain. It is doubtful she could do it again.

Due to her power level, she could be quickly trained by psionicPsionics are sci-fi style psychic powers.  XCom operatives. Annette’s powers include :

XCom invested heavily in keeping Annette, their most powerful psychic, alive on the battlefield.

By the time she joined, XCom scientists could rewrite large chunks of the DNA of their soldiers to make them superhuman. This was based on captured alien science.

Ms. Durand’s enhancements include :

Likewise, XCom has learned to produce sci-fi ordnance, base on alien engineering. The heavy infantry gear issued to Ms. Durand includes:

See our XCom Weapons Locker article for more.

Annette Durand was a French citizen of unspecified background (P.E. teacher ?) during the alien attacks that shook the world.

An attempt at kidnapping her was foiled in unclear circumstances. One imagines that a small alien team was dispatched to capture her, but was slain by French authorities.

Why aliens had come specifically after Ms. Durand was unknown at that point.

The French military attempted to evacuate her to a fortified position. They quickly assembled an armoured convoy.

Near Lyons, this convoy was attacked. This time, the ambushers were heavily-armed Human mercenaries. Though the mercenaries suffered heavy losses, they did capture Annette. The attack killed all the soldiers defending her, plus numerous nearby civilians.

An XCom tactical team swept in soon after. It ran into alien Thin Men, who were apparently trying to find some trace of Annette. The commando disposed of them.

They then captured a surviving mercenary.

XCom eventually determined that the mercs worked for a secret organisation called EXALT. At first, their impression was that EXALT were quislingsA traitor who serves as the puppet of the enemy occupying his or her country.  collaborating with the aliens.

Meanwhile, in the hands of the aliens, Annette and other selected Human subjects were tortured using medicine and telepathy. These prisoners had latent psionic abilities, which seemed of high interest to the aliens.

After XCom raided the aliens’ planetside base, the extra-terrestrials launched a retaliatory raid on XCom headquarters. A key asset was the Human psionics. The aliens used these to magnify their own mind control abilities.

This allowed for taking over a number of Xcom technicians and engineers. Which in turn made the fortified headquarters vulnerable to an assault.

XCom narrowly defeated the attackers. But they couldn’t determine right away how the mind control manoeuvre had succeeded.

EXALT then attacked the aliens, seeking to recapture Ms. Durand. This proved that they were not pawns of the ETs after all. It is possible that they somehow seized the moment when the Human psionicists were being transferred back to captivity, after the failed raid against XCom HQ.

Most Human subjects used against XCom apparently died from psychic stress during the battle. Or perhaps they were killed during the EXALT raid.

The extra-terrestrials reacted in anger. They located the EXALT extraction team while it was driving away over a dam. They shot EXALT troops to pieces, damaging the dam and killing most people nearby.

XCom immediately detected the attack. Its tactical cadre arrived on the scene just as alien troop transports were coming in.

Rushing in as the dam was beginning to crumble away, XCom fought through alien invaders. They reached Ms. Durand just in time.

On her side, she had used her psionic abilities to kill the EXALT guards within the vehicle holding her. However, she was still in partial shock over the torture – and seeing many of her fellow abductees die.

Annette expressed a strong interest in joining XCom’s tactical operators. She craved revenge, and wanted to help rescue her fellow abductees.

Given her athletic capabilities, strong willpower, and demonstrated psionic strength, XCom agreed to train her. Fourth Company training was an excellent fit for her profile.

Ms. Durand became a fixture of the XCom tac ops team. She brought both her psychic strength and a plasma BFG to bear against aliens.

The information she provided also helped XCom rescue three other psionic captives, who also enlisted with the organisation.

Wearing the no-frills XCOM dress uniform.

The following are animation tests by a Firaxis artist who worked on the character.

They include the audio for her voice. For what it’s worth, her French accent sounds about as accurate as Dr. Vahlen’s German accent.

Not much is visible in the game. During her cutscenes, Annette is still in partial shock over the psychic abuse.

She’s not an experienced fighter, and doesn’t have a lot of tactical experience. But she’s aggressive and has a strong killer instinct – without being gung-ho. She also really really wants to keell zee ahliens.

Her mistreatment may have left her with a mild fear of the dark. But she’s generally a solid trooper.

Annette feels that she owes her life to XCom. Especially since she was used against her will as a weapon in a raid that killed a number of XCom HQ personnel.

(This section proposes ways of using this character in DC Universe stories).

The simplest parallel would be for Annette to have developed some minor super-powers during the Invasion  . She would then have been authorised by the French government to enlist with the Human Defense Corps.

A XCom-type scenario would probably involve the Psions as the “boss” aliens behind it all.

In endgame heavy infantry equipment. Spoiler – she’s all out of bubblegum.