Characters / The Sun Eater Cielcin

Main Character Index | Hadrian and the Red Company | The Sollan Empire | Extrasolarians|Other Human Powers| The Cielcin | Others (Major Spoilers)

Due to size, the page has been split. Warning: All spoilers prior to Kingdoms of Death are unmarked.

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"He who works for others is not diyugatsayu ^note free, kind of. You are a slave."

— Unuvanari

The first spacefaring alien civilization encountered by humanity, the Cielcin are a race of tall, white-skinned humanoids organized into several warring nomadic clans. Since their first contact, humanity had been fighting a war against these aliens, which they frequently refer to as the "Pale". The Cielcin would raid human colonies, burning most of the planet and taking the inhabitants as slaves or livestock.

As Hadrian reveals in the opening of the first novel, the Cielcin have been driven to near-extinction, consumed by the star he destroys.

The Cielcin

As a Whole

• Aliens Are Bastards: The Cielcin live by butchering and devouring humans by the millions, and refuse to consider any other way of life. They also worship and serve a race of dark gods at war with life itself.
• Alien Blood: Cielcin blood is black and toxic.
• Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Inverted according to Cielcin religion. In their beliefs, the Cielcin were spirit beings but with the Quiet creating the physical universe, the Cielcin are now trapped in gross material bodies. This is one of the reasons why the Cielcin want to destroy the universe.
• The Berserker: Cielcin warriors are aptly named thus; their usual tactic to charge the enemy head on behind a swarm of nahute and rampage heedless of pain until they're gunned down. Later in the series they become even more unstoppable as they begin to utilize deflector shields.
• Bizarre Alien Psychology: The reason that peace between humanity and Cielcin is ultimately impossible. The Cielcin view all relationships in terms of power and hierarchy; if they are not conquering and devouring humanity, then humanity must be enslaving them. Those who are not totally dominant or subservient, such as merchants, are seen as the scum of society.
• Black Eyes of Evil: Cielcin eyes are solid black.
• Blinded by the Light: A frequent tactic used against the Cielcin; being a subterranean species, they don't react well to bright lights being shone in their faces.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: As predators defined by hierarchy, the Cielcin are unable or unwilling to grasp certain concepts that would be necessary for peaceful coexistence with humanity, such as the idea of a mutually-beneficial relationship where neither party is dominant over the other.
• Close-Range Combatant: Outside of throwing nahutes or firing built-in weapons if they're a cyborg, Cielcin are about closing in and lashing out with their ceramic swords or superstrong punches and kicks.
• Creative Sterility: Despite their long history of existing and space-faring, their technology has effectively stalled well below that of the Sollan Empire. They only start matching humans in technology because they're being supplied by Extrasolarian renegades.
• Cyber Cyclops: Many Cielcin chimeras have a single, red visual receptor.
• Doomed by Canon: In the first book, Hadrian writes of the Cielcin being decimated by the Sollans and that the few remaining are confined to alienages.
• Even Evil Has Standards: The other Cielcin princes thought of Aranata as a reckless, violent fool.
• Evil Is Not Well-Lit: The Cielcin originate in subterrain ruins built by the Quiet, and keep the inside of their ships and vehicles dark.
• Explosive Breeder: Played with. The Cielcin, outside their hermaphroditism, don't actually reproduce that quickly. However they have a huge reproductive advantage versus humans when both races are travelling through space. Humans need to go into stasis to survive the long trips that could take decades or centuries to complete. The Cielcin have such a long lifespan that they'll be constantly active and reproducing during the time between star voyages. When a Cielcin invasion fleet finally arrives to their destination, they'd have been reproducing so much that the fleet will have swarming masses of experienced warriors to assault the target world.
  • In Ashes of Man, Hadrian, the Emperor and other important figures learn that Cielcin can impregnate humans and so the captured are used as incubators as well as food.
• Extra Digits: Their hands have six fingers.
• Face Full of Alien Wing-Wong: In Kingdoms of Death after Hadrian overhears one of his Cielcin captors wanting to rape him for sport and to implant its embryo, the other captor tells them no - first Hadrian is under the protection of Syriani, and second Hadrian is the wrong sex so the embryo would be nonviable. In Ashes of Man, one poor male palatine experiences this the hard way.
• Horned Humanoid: Cielcin have a series of crests that rise above and back from their forehead that give off this impression.
• Humanoid Aliens: Outwardly, Cielcin are more similar to humans than any other alien species in the setting, which is considered a scientific curiosity in-universe.
• Insufficiently Advanced Alien: The Cielcin have never developed technology on their own; all that they have was revealed by the Watchers, scavenged from the Enar, or created by their Extrasolarian allies. As such, they are far behind humanity in certain areas such as radiation shielding.
• "It" Is Dehumanizing: Played With. Cielcin are hermaphrodites, and therefore "it" is the correct pronoun; characters such as Hadrian who have a better understanding of the species will use "it", while most other humans default to "he". However, as the series goes on this serves to emphasize just how alien and inhuman the Cielcin are, and Hadrian begins to refer to all Cielcin as "it" regardless of their reproductive or social function.
• Jabba Table Manners: Cielcin devour their meat by ripping it off the bone as fast as they can, clawing over each other to get to more food and often tearing into any slaves unfortunate enough to be standing near the meal.
• Lightning Bruiser: Even the non-augmented Cielicn are much stronger and faster than an individual human. It's one reason why they've managed to be such a threat despite the Empire's technological advantages.
  • On a galactic level, this applies to their worldships. Their continent-sized antimatter reactors and engines can propel them much faster than the engines of the Empire, allowing Cielcin fleets to plunder planets before the Legions can arrive to defend them.
• Long-Lived: The Cielcin are extremely long-lived and many of those encountered are over a century in age. In Kingdoms of Death, Hadrian notes to himself that the Cielcin are so monstrously long-lived that he knew of one Cielcin being over 1000 years old. This tremendous lifespan is one reason why the Cielcin are winning against humanity, as they have that much time to reproduce.
• Of the People: The word "Cielcin" is the closest thing their language has to "person", and they find the idea of using that word for other races to be offensive and absurd. Humans are yukajjimn (vermin).
• Rape, Pillage, and Burn: Cielcins are worse than orcs in this regards. In Ashes of Man, Hadrian mentions the Cielcin raping people in their raids for the first time and it's implied that this is common. The burn and pillage is something the Cielcins do so much of that even Dorayaica bemoans how wantonly destructive its people can get, when the Cielcin had destroyed vast amounts of Enar technology and artwork.
• Religion of Evil: The gods of the Cielcin are the Watchers, a race of malevolent beings who threaten the existence of life itself in the universe and all future universes.
• Superior Successor: The Cielcin weren't the first servants of the Watchers, there was a previous crustacean race known as the Enar who were servitors. Syriani certainly feels the Cielcin are the superior of the two as they're thriving while the Enar are extinct, though it admits that some of their technology came from Enar artifacts and they kept the Enar city of Akterumu as a holy place. Hadrian does have a vision which shows the Enar being far more accomplished than the Cielcin would ever be and then the Enar committed suicide as an entire species.
• Super-Strength: The ceramic/steel composite armor of a human soldier can barely stand up to a Cielcin kicking it and invariably the poor human is knocked out. In Ashes of Man, the MINOS coven mentioned a Noodle Incident where Dorayaica barehandedly tore one of their members in two after he gave it bad news.
• Super-Toughness: The Cielcin nervous system is almost immune to the effects of disruptors. Plus they can withstand a lot of pain and torment to still be dangerous.
• Technology Uplift: Syriani reveals to Hadrian that it was the Watchers who gave the Cielcin the technology and understanding to become a spacefaring race. Prior to that, the Cielcin were barely more than animals.
• To Serve Man: It was initially believed that the main reason the Cielcin attack human worlds and refuse to stop is to gather humans to eat. Eating people is still a major factor but that's only one reason and not the main one which is the species extinction of humanity.

Itani Otiolo

Uvanari

Unvanari

Itana Uvanari Ayatomn was the ichakta (captain) of a Cielcin ships sent to investigate the Quiet ruins on Emesh.

• A Father to His Men: While it's difficult for the human characters (or readers) to really understand a Cielcin's mindset, Uvanari seems to have a deep concern for those under it's command.
• Face Death with Dignity: After weeks of being tortured, Uvanari is ready to die honorably rather than give up information... at least, until he sees a chance of defeating Hadrian.

Tanaran

Tanaran

Casantora Tanaran Iakato was a baetan priest-historian of the Otiolo clan.

• Ambiguously Evil: Did Tananran ever truly care for Hadrian and the rest, or did it simply want to return to Aranata? Cielcin Bizarre Alien Psychology makes it a difficult question.
• Happiness in Slavery: Sees its slavery to Aranata as the most important aspect of its life, and is resistant to anything that would indicate that it was serving another master.
• Humanity Is Insane: Expresses this sentiment after learning that humans always spend the years of interstellar travel in fugue.

Aranata

Aranata Otiolo

"Equals? The Aeta have no equals."

Aeta of the Itani Otiolo, Utsebimn Aranata Otiolo is the first Cielcin prince encountered by Hadrian.

• Ambiguous Gender: The Cielcin are hermaphrodites, but have elements of their language that human scholars associate with gender distinctions. As such, Hadrian initially refers to ruling Cielcin such as Aranata as "he", although he eventually realizes that human categories just don't apply when it becomes clear that Aranata is Nobuta's sole parent.
• Berserk Button: Anything other than absolute submission to it. In particular, Aranata becomes incensed when it believes that the humans are treating it like a mnunatari (merchant).
• Black-and-White Insanity: The concept of "neutral" is repugnant to Aranata; there can be only service or rulership.
• Braids of Barbarism: Aranata embodies the Cielcin archetype of the maurading space-nomad as much as or more than the rest of the princes, and wears a single long braid that wraps twice around its shoulders.
• Disc-One Final Boss: Aranata is not the Cielcin ruler of Hadrian's visions, and instead serves as the impetus that motivates him into dedicating himself to the war, and for his promotion to knighthood.
• Klingon Promotion: Aranata was originally vayadan to a Cielcin prince named Utaiharo. It killed its former master and took its place as Aeta.
• Mama Bear: If the Aeta Otiolo can be said to have any redeeming qualities, it really does seem to care deeply for Nobuta.
• Try to Fit That on a Business Card: As announced by Oalicomn:
  "Yukajjimn! You stand before the Lord of the Seventeenth Branching, who is Aeta! Prince and Chieftain of the Otiolo! Who is Viudihom, the Self-Made! He who fashioned our world, who brought forth life from dead stone! He who brought us out of the Chains of Utaiharo! Who Sees the Watchers! Who knows the Mind of the Makers! Who leads us through the emptiness and the light! You stand before the Great One! Our Master, Our Lord, Our Keeper! Who is Father and Mother to us all! Utsebimn Aranata Otiolo!

Nobuta

Nobuta

Nobuta Otiolo was the child of Aranata and presumptive heir of the Itani Otiolo.

• Bratty Half-Pint: Even for a Cielcin, Nobuta is unpleasant, whiny, and immature.

Oalicomn

Oalicomn

Oalicomn was Aranata's herald and majordomo.

• Half the Man He Used to Be: Tried to duel Hadrian, apparently not knowing what highmatter is capable of.
• Mouth of Sauron: One of its roles as herald to the Aeta.

Itani Dorayaica

• Early-Bird Cameo: Kharn Sagara mentions Dorayaica as one of the clans he trades with early on in Howling Dark, a full book before the clan first appear in Demon in White.
  • Syriani itself first appears in Hadrian's vision during Empire of Silence/

Syriani

Syriani Dorayaica

Aeta of Clan Dorayaica and Prophet of the Watchers, Syriani Dorayaica is a greater threat, and possesses far grander ambitions, than any other Cielcin prince before it.

Syriani appears on the cover of Kingdoms of Death.

• Alien Arts Are Appreciated: Has devoted centuries to studying human and Enar art, culture, and literature, and is just as proficient in these fields as Hadrian. Syriani is almost certainly the only Cielcin warlord who can quote Shakespeare.
• Alien Blood: Syriani's blood is silver rather than black. This is considered a holy omen by the Cielcin and possibly a sign that it is becoming, or perhaps incubating, a Watcher.
• Aliens Speaking English: Can speak Galstani flawlessly, without the aid of translation software.
• Antichrist: Claims to have been chosen as the champion of the Watchers.
• Battle Trophy: Syriani now owns Hadrian's Jaddian highmatter sword after his attempted execution of the Halfmortal .
• Big Bad: The true villain of the series and greatest individual threat to humanity.
• Cool Crown: Its silver crown seems to stick prominently in Hadrian's mind even before they meet in person.
• Cool Sword: According to a surviving Imperial soldier, Syriani wielded an oversized, "twisted" Highmatter sword.
• Do Not Call Me "Paul": After proclaiming itself the Shiomu Elusha (prophet-king), it harshly rebukes any Cielcin that still uses the name Doryaica.
• Evil Counterpart: Hadrian realizes Syriani has much in common with him when the Prophet expresses regret over the loss of Enar art and architecture due to Cielcin rough handling and iconoclasm. Addtionally, Syriani is the Chosen One of the Watchers and both of them have similar prophetic abilities (though Syriani lacks Hadrian's Retconjuration powers).
• Evil Is Petty: As it prepares to order the public execution of Hadrian and the entire Red Company, Syriani still takes the time to mock Lorian's birth defects.
• Flat-Earth Atheist: While Dorayaica is a fanatical believer in the power of the Watchers, it refuse to believe that Utannash (the Quiet) is able to perform supernatural acts, even when Hadrian seems to draw a highmatter sword from thin air.
• The Fundamentalist: Syriani is known even among the other aeta for how strictly it venerates the Cielcin religion.
• Godhood Seeker: As revealed at the end of Demon in White, Dorayaica's goal is to become "like them", that is the Watchers.
• Hero Killer: While he didn't do it in person, he's the one that has the Red Company taken to be butchered, resulting in the slaughter of the company including a number of named characters.
• Humanoid Abomination: When Hadrian cuts him, he sees something growing and writhing beneath its skin. Combined with the vision of a one-eyed creature crawling out of the Shiomu's corpse, it seems that Syriania is becoming, or acting as the host for, something far worse than it already is.
• It Can Think: What initially makes Dorayaica more dangerous than any other Cielcin Scianda; instead of randomly raiding worlds for food and supplies, Syriani treats the conflict with humanity as an actual war, attacking military targets and seeking technological and diplomatic edges over the numerically superior Sollans.
• Lean and Mean: Syriani is the series Big Bad and "lean as a saber".
• Omnicidal Maniac: Syriani's ultimate goal is to sacrifice the entire universe to the Watchers by destroying humanity, thereby preventing the Quiet from existing and creating the universe.
• Scars Are Forever: After the massacre on Eue, Hadrian can at least say that he gave Syriani a wound that resulted in a permanent limp.
• Seers: Syriani reveals that the Watchers have given him the ability to see the rivers of time just as Hadrian can.
• Sole Survivor: When Syriani defeats an enemy, it always leaves a single survivor alive to take back news of their defeat.
• Super-Toughness: Can keep fighting after taking a wound that would put down a regular Cielcin.
• Time Abyss: During a conversation between Syriani and Hadrian about the start of the Cielcin's quest for the Watchers over 20,000 years ago, Syriani makes some personal references which causes Hadrian to wonder how ancient Syriani is.
• Vocal Dissonance: While its voice is described as high, the audiobook gives Syriani a very pitched, almost whining tone.
• Wicked Cultured: As mentioned above, Syriani is quite knowledgeable and appreciative of human literature and culture. It's also an Omnicidal Maniac alien warlord.

The White Hand

The Iedyer Yemani, the White Hand, were Syriani Dorayaica's vayadayan, or Holy Slaves. Traditionally, the vayadayan were the guards, generals, and concubines of the Aeta; each of Syriani's was augmented by the cyberneticists of MINOS into a unique war machine.

• Cranial Processing Unit: Downplayed; Only Iubalu (which kept its original, organic head) had its brain located within its skull, with the rest (aside from Hushansa) having their internal organs stored within their chest cavity. However, their eyes are still on their faces; more than one is blinded by having their head crippled.
• Full-Conversion Cyborg: Other than Iubalu's face, each of the White Hand have only their brains, nervous system, and kidneys retained from their original Cielcin bodies.
• Nigh-Invulnerable: The cyborg Vayadan are outfitted in adamantine bodies and are sometimes equipped with Royce shields. Taking one down means either Attack Its Weak Point with a highmatter sword or bring down its shield with energy weapons before slagging its armor with intense plasma attacks.
• One-Man Army: The White Hand were each designed to punch even above the weight of the Super-Soldier chimera.
• Red Baron: Each has a title that refers to their specific augmentations.
• Translator Microbes: Each of the yemani have translation software installed within their cybernetic implants that allows them to speak Galstani.

Vati Inamna

Vati Inamna

The First Sword. Vati is Syriani's closest companion.

• The Dragon: Vati is Syriani's favourite henchman and leader of the elite White Hand, as well as chief admiral of the united Cielcin fleet.
• Horned Humanoid: Unlike the other vayadayan, Vati's body is modeled in the shape of a Cielcin, with horns and a facsimile of a Cielcin hair queue.
• Super-Speed: Strikes Hadrian faster than his eyes can track.

Aulamn

Aulamn

The Wings of Despair. Aulamn was the final vayadan that Hadrian met.

• Eye Scream: Crim stabs one of its optical sensors with a vibro-knife.
• Flight: Aulamn was built to fly with its adamant-framed wings.
• Fragile Flyer: Downplayed significantly; Aulumn is still a bionic Super-Soldier. But compared to the other vayadayan, Aulamn is much less durable and rather lightweight; Pallino was able to knock it over with a tackle, Crim was able to cripple one its limbs with a few explosives and a clip from Ilex's plasma pistol rendered its wings useless.
• Hero Killer: Aulamn killed Crim, Pallino and Ilex.
• Machine Monotone: Speaks with a voice nearly free of inflection.
• Magnetic Weapons: It has projectile-firing MAG cannons for ranged combat. Its computer-assisted brain and laser designators make Aulamn an excellent marksman with these, though they fare poorly against shields.
• Rasputinian Death: Crim stabs Aulamn in the eye and plants explosives on it, Ilex empties a plasma pistol into its face and wings and Pallino stabs it into the neck before cutting off one arm with Hadrian's sword and then finally finishing the vayadan off by stabbing through its brain casing.
• Snakes Are Sinister: Aulamn was built in the shape of a winged serpent.

Hushansa

Hushansa

The Many-Handed. The Red Company first encounters Hushansa at the Yamato Fuelworks antimatter facility on Eikana.

• The Blank: Its metal heads have no faces.
• Body Surf: Aside from its own specially designed chassis, Hushansa can also possess the bodies of other Cielcin chimeras.
• Grappling-Hook Pistol: One of its weapons is a corded grapnel meant to spear foes and draw them in.
• Me's a Crowd: While each body is weaker than any other vayadan, Hushansa has several of them and can control them simultaneously.
• Oculothorax: Hushansa's brain is housed in a floating orb that resembles an eyeball.
• Remote Body: Hushansa's multiple bodies are controlled from a safe distance and it has no problem controlling them all at once.
• Underestimating Badassery: When Hadrian first meets Hushansa, he remarks that the vayadan's body is not much bigger than a regular Cielcin chimera and insultingly askes it if MINOS was running out of materials, before rather easily dispatching it. Then the Company is attacked by another Hushansa... and another...
• Wolverine Claws: Hushansa's fingers are tipped with deadly adamantine talons.

Teyanu

Teyanu

The Unbreakable. Teyanu is one of the four surviving vayadayan who was at Eue during the Syriani's victory over Hadrian and the Red Company.

• Evil Sounds Deep: Teyanu is described as having a remarkably deep voice.
• Giant Enemy Crab: Teyanu was built in the shape of a giant crustacean, its body based on a six-legged Enar.
• Mighty Glacier: Seemingly the slowest and toughest of the vayadayan; Hadrian describes it as tank-like.

Iubalu

Iubalu

The Four-Handed. Iubalu was commander of the fleet the Red Company fought at the Battle of the Beast and the first of Syriani's vayadayan encountered by Hadrian.

• Battle Trophy: Iubalu is made into one after the Battle of the Beast. His body is taken and put on an Imperial parade before a cheering crowd. Afterwards they publicly melt his adamantine carcass in a ceremonial plasma furnace.
• Blade Below the Shoulder: Iubalu's four arms each contain a retractable blade in the wrist.
• I Shall Taunt You: Hacks into Hadrian' comms to mock him as it tears through the Red Company's soldiers.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Iubalu's cybernetic frame was equipped with four weapon-laden arms.
• Slasher Smile: Uniquely, Iubalu's original face was retained in its bionic body, with its many teeth left exposed in order to terrify anyone looking it in the face.
• Stealthy Colossus: Despite being twice as tall as a human and made of metal, Ibalu manages to creep around both its own ship and the captured Imperial vessels, getting the drop on the Red Company several times.
• Super-Speed: Can swing its arms fast enough that they bounce off personal shields.

Bahudde

Bahudde

The Giant. Bahudde was the vayadayan that led the Cielcin ground assault on Berenike.

• Big "WHY?!": Bahudde's response after punching Hadrian in the head, only for the Halfmortal to NoSell it.
• The Brute: Of all the vayadayan, Bahudde was the largest and least subtle.
• Humongous Mecha: Bahudde was enhanced with a thirty-foot tall metal body that towered over the battlefield.

Attavaisa

Ugin Attavaisa

Ugin Attavaisa was the Aeta of the Itani Attavaisa. After swearing loyalty to Doryaica, it was appointed as one of the prophet's vayadan to replace Iubalu. It was the one to lead the assault on Perfugium

• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Refers to Doryaiaca as "my beloved"; a Cielcin phrase that can only apply to the relationship between an Aeta and vayadan.
• Sixth Ranger: One of the Cielcin princes appointed as vayadan to replace the dead Bahudde and Iabalu.
• Red Baron: As Aeta, was called "the Blue". It is unknown if it kept this title as a vayadan.
• The Team Normal: Attavaisa as not given a cybernetic body like Syriani's original concubines were.
• Too Important to Walk: As an Aeta, Ugin was carried by a multi-legged mechanical throne.

Peledanu

Gurima Peledanu

Gurima Peledanu was the Aeta of the Itani Peledanu. It was in charge of supervising MINOS's production of the LTH-81 virus and it took Bahudde's place among the vayadan.

• Savage Piercings: From what Hadrian remembered of this new vayadan, it had jade piercings through the cheeks.
• The Team Normal: Peledanu is even more mundane than Ugin who at least had his mechanical throne.
• The Unfought: Peledanu wasn't on DB-639 when Lin's 409 assaulted it.

Other Cielcin

Elu

Elu

Elu was the first king of the Cielcin and parent of all Aeta.

• Evil Counterpart: The mirror to the first Sollan emperor, William Windsor. Both founders were kings of their people, given technology and visions by a higher power and revered as divine by their descendants.
• Human Sacrifice: Offered its mate Avarra as a sacrifice to Miudanar.