Characters / The Sun Eater Extrasolarians

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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"You still don't seem to understand, though. There are no Extrasolarians. Not in the way there's an Empire. We don't organize. That's why I don't have any masters. No god or emperors. No hierarchy."

— The Painted Man

"Extrasolarian" in it's broadest definition refers to any human living outside the control of the Sollan Empire. More specifically, the term generally applies to independent or loosely confederated planets, ships, or stations that are not ruled by the Sollans or other galactic powers such as Jadd. The laws against technological praxis are generally much looser among the Extrasolarians.

The Exalted

The Exalted are a faction among the Extrasolarians who are infamous for their extreme cybernetic modifications. Even the other tech-tolerant civilizations of the galaxy view them as extremely dangerous and only barely better than the Mericanii.

Vorgossos

Thought to be a myth, Vorgossos was an outpost world for the Mericanii and later a hideout for Exalted pirates. According to legends, those Exalted were defeated and their world claimed by the ancient hero Kharn Sagara.

Today, Vorgossos is a mecca for anyone seeking the most extreme black market genetics, ruled by a mysterious warlord known as the the Undying.

Vorgossos

As a Whole

• Keystone Army: The Undying's legions of SOMs do not function while his consciousness isn't active to animate them.
• Planet Spaceship: Vorgossos seems to be able to travel through interstellar space; not only did it disappear when the Empire attempted to destroy it, but it's original location seemed to be far beyond the range of Mericanii settlement.

The Undying

Kharn Sagara

Millenia ago, there existed a planet of artists, a world dedicated to peace and beauty, a world defenseless when it was attacked and despoiled by the Exalted. Only one boy survived, taken into captivity and enslaved. This boy would learn the ways of the Exalted until one day he seized control of an ancient Mericanii outpost called Vorgossos, using the technology and ancient machine demon trapped within to wreck terrible vengeance on those who had enslaved him and take his throne as ruler over the Exalted.

So goes the legend of Kharn Sagara, the King with Ten Thousand Eyes. Thought to be a myth, Hadrian learns that Vorgossos and its undying master are very much real, and both have a key role to play in his destiny.

Kharn appears on the cover of Howling Dark.

• A God Am I: He never says the words, but Kharn clearly sees himself as far above the mortal humans of the galaxy. He's co-opted a lot of imagery of the Garden of Eden and the Tree of Life, with himself as the one who provides eternal life.
  • Hadrian, for his part, heavily associates Kharn with imagery of Saturn.
• Ancient Keeper: He's the ancient keeper of Mericanii doomsday weapons, artifacts that can wipe out solar systems.
• Artificial Limbs: His body during Howling Dark possess a mechanical left arm.
• Body Back Up Drive: This is how Kharn maintains his immortality, transferring a copy of his consciousness to a clone when he's finished with his current body.
• Body Surf: Kharn can remotely possess some of his homunculus servants such as Naia.
• Broken Pedestal: For the Sollans, who view him as a mythological hero. When they meet him, they find a deeply amoral cyborg who's not above moments of pettiness.
• Choosing Neutrality: Kharn cares little for the Cielcin-Imperial war and is content to sit by and profit from both sides.
• Cyborg: All of Kharn's bodies and clones possess the hardware to download and upload his mind; his body throughout the course of Howling Dark contains extensive mechanical augmentations to his respetory systems and limbs.
• Depraved Bisexual: Kharn strongly hints that he would have been possessing or at least observing through Naia had Hadrian slept with her.
• The Dividual: An error caused by Bassander stunning Ren leads to Kharn's mind being downloaded by both Ren and Suzuha, resulting in there being two Kharns that act in semi-unison and speak together with Kharn's machine-voice.
  • However, by the time of Ashes of Man the two have come into conflict, with the male Sagara forced off of Vorgossos.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Kharn is visibly disgusted by the treatment of Nobuta's slave woman.
• Evil Is Petty: Embittered towards the Sollan Empire, he's not above petty cruelty to his Palantine customers such as not providing enough food and drink for their stay on Vorgossos.
• Evil Virtues: Despite his amorality, no one doubts Kharn's sense of fairness. It's for this reason, that the Cielcin and Sollans trusted him to host their meeting. And while he's often petty towards his palatine customers, he does not swindle them and will eventually grant them their new bodies.
• Face–Heel Turn: If the legends are true, Kharn was once a hero who defeated several monstrous Exalted warlords, only to become just as inhuman as them.
• Guile Hero: According to Sollan legend, he used trickery to ingratiate himself amongst the Exalted before destroying them from within.
• The Hedonist: A strange example in that Kharn does not live a stereotypical hedonistic lifestyle; but his entire existence is dedicated to new and unique bodily experiences, hence his several-millennia long chain of different bodies.
• Immortality Seeker: Despite by many accounts already having immortality, Kharn still fears final death.
• Japanese Spirit: Sagara's over 15 millennia of life have dulled this, but his history showed that he's got the elements of Koyu, Chie and Seishin in not only crushing the mighty Exalted but also winning over the Mechanical Abomination Brethren and converting the inquisitor Calvert to his cause. For bonus points Sagara actually was Nipponese.
• Living Legend: He's one of the greatest human heroes, thought to be a myth or long dead by most of the galaxy. The higher ranking members of society, however, know of his existence and the services he offers.
• Meaningful Name: "Kharn" is derived from the Latin word for meat or flesh, reflecting his purely materialistic view of his own bodies. His surname "Sagara" is Japanese for mutual, reflecting his lack of concern for the political situation of the galaxy and the quid-pro-quo manner with which he treats all sides.
• Merchant Prince: A king among the Exalted and uncontested ruler of Vorgossos, Kharn has lucrative dealings with Cielcin and aging palatines alike.
• Professional Butt-Kisser: Downplayed with regards to the Cielcin; because they view all relationships in light of a master-slave dynamic, Kharn has to play the part of a servant in order to deal with them (offering "gifts" instead of making trade requests and so on). With humanity he's much more inflexible. And if the Cielcin transgress against him, he'll gladly show them why he's a legend.
• Super-Speed: His bionics make him lightning-fast, appearing at times to Flash Step.
• Telepathy: While he seems to rarely use this ability, Kharn can communicate directly with the minds of others.
• Time Abyss: Kharn's mind is over fifteen thousand years old; far more ancient than any human alive at the time of the books and possibly only exceeded by the few surviving Mericanii AI and some Cielcin.
• Time Dissonance: Even the longest-lived palatine's lifespan is tiny to the Undying. Conversations with Kharn involve a lot of waiting until he decides to answer; the minutes are simply too short for him to care.
• Voice of the Legion: Frequently speaks through the cloud of eye-drones that surround him.
• White Hair, Black Heart: Kharn is an utterly amoral slave trader and his body at the time of Howling Dark has stark white hair.
• Wicked Cultured: Born on a planet of artists, Kharn has a great appreciation for aesthetics and art, and keeps a vast collection of historical artifacts.

Yume

Yume

The Undying's majordomo, Yume is an androgynous black-and-gold plated android, or possibly the shared designation for several androids.

• Cannot Tell a Lie: Claims to be programed to be incapable of it.
• Clockwork Creature: Yume's design includes transparent crystal panels that show off some of the clockwork mechanisms within.
• Cyber Cyclops: Yume possess a single eye painted on the left side of its face; whether this is an actual sensor or just decorative is ambiguous.
• Just a Machine: Kharn mentions that he could have created Yume to be fully sapient, but its current level of consciousness is sufficient for what it needs to do.
• Mouth of Sauron: The Undying often sends it to deliver messages and summon his clients.
• Robot Maid: The head of Kharn Sagara's servants, and his main mouthpiece.

Suzuha and Ren

Suzuha and Ren

Two of Kharn Sagara's clones; Suzuha and Ren were raised as children instead of being left in the vats.

• Death of Personality: Their minds are overwritten and "asleep" after Kharn uploads his consciousness to their bodies.
• Happiness in Slavery: Suzuha and Ren were raised to worship Kharn and embrace their fate as his Body Backup Drives.
• Opposite-Sex Clone: Suzuha is this to Kharn.

Calvert

Calvert

Calvert was an Exalted geneticist who headed Kharn Sagara's cloning programs.

• Cyborg: His limbs and lower torso are mechanical.
• Evil Old Folks: What's left of his body is shrunken and decrepit; it's ambigous how much of this is age and how much is a result of spending his time in his mechanical body.
• I Am a Humanitarian: Not Calvert himself (that we know about), but he threatens to throw Hadrian and Valka into a rendering vat to feed Kharn's clones with their deconstructed protein.
• Spider Tank: Calvert's mechanical body is modeled after a scorpion.
• Sinister Minister: Calvert was once a Chantry geneticist and Ren and Suzuha refer to him as "Father".
• Super-Powered Robot Meter Maids: Calvert operates a nearly twenty-foot tall mechanical scorpion with superhuman strength and speed coated in adamant plating as part of his task of overseeing Kharn's genetics lab and cloning vats.
• Super-Speed: His cybernetic limbs can move faster than Hadrian's enhanced reflexes can track.
• Uncertain Doom: It's unknown if he's dead or alive after Brethren attacked him with its tentacles before hurling him into Vorgossos's sea to save Hadrian and Valka.

Brethren

Brethren

We are Brethren,

a child of Columbia.

We

we

we are AI, yes, but

are no more artificial than are you yourself, child of clay.

We think, and therefore

are.

It is said that when Kharn Sagara seized Vorgossos from the Exalted, buried deep within was a Mericanii artificial intelligence, one of the last of the daemons that had enslaved mankind. Far within his fortress it skill lies; an amalgamation of human neural tissue swimming in the moon's underground ocean.

• American Robot: A rather twisted example; The AIs that eventually formed Brethren were created in San Francisco by what is heavily implied to be Google.
• Body Horror: Brethren's body is made up of hundreds of human corpses molded together; each of their limbs is made up of several human arms, with a single human hand on the end.
• Cannot Tell a Lie: The reason their warnings and predictions are so cryptic; being unable to lie, Brethren must speak in uncertainties.
• Compelling Voice: Orders Hadrian to put down his sword; his muscles obey before he can realize what's happening.
• Emotion Control: Hadrian knows that he should be terrified of the daemon, but can feel Brethren suppressing the fear.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Refers to Hadrian as being "preyed upon" in his room, implying that even the ancient abominable AI understands how twisted it was for Kharn to send Naia to him.
• Eyes Do Not Belong There: At least one of their arms has an eye in the palm of its hand and another further up on the forearm.
• Hazy-Feel Turn: Brethren is a horrifying monster that once helped enslave the human race and represents an existential threat to the galaxy if they ever escape, but doesn't really try to do that in Howling Dark. Brethren actually turns out to be one of the most helpful characters Hadrian meets on Vorgossos by passing on the vision from the Quiet.
• Mechanical Abomination: Maybe. Brethren certainly started as this, but it's unclear if they have any mechanical parts left.
• Painting the Medium: Their speech is always rendered in bolded, centered font.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Kharn keeps them sealed in the deepest pits of his fortress, less the AI escape and burn the stars.
• Seers: Brethren can discern the future through sheer computational power; they were able to discern the Quiet in one potential universe state.
• Telepathy: Brethren can communicate directly with the minds of others as long as they are within the orbit of Vorgossos. The city has advanced network shielding that limits their ability to speak directly to anyone not directly in front of them.
• Voice of the Legion: Hadrian describes their speech as a choir of discordant voices.
• World's Smartest Man: Hadrian once described Brethren as the most intelligent being in the universe.

MINOS

MINOS was an Extrasolarian company that specialized in cybernetic bodies. They were contracted by Syriani Dorayaica to construct his army of chimera and the specialized bodies for his Vayadan generals.

• Connected All Along: Despite their current enmity, Hadrian theorizes that Kharn Sagara may have been a member of MINOS and learned his mind transference technique from them, or vice versa.
• Cyanide Pill: Each member can deactivate his or her body at will, transmitting an image of their brain to a new one.
• Even Evil Has Standards: The only common ground between MINOS and the Terran Chantry is their agreement that the duplication of the mind is an abomination; each of them only uploads their consciousnesses to a new body by killing the old one.
• Les Collaborateurs: To break humanity "free" of the Empire's shackles, the tech-sorcerers of MINOS gave Syriani the tools it needed unite the Cielcin and wage its war against humanity.
• Mad Scientist: Whether it's inhuman cyborgs or deadly synthetic cancer-plagues, MINOS has zero qualms about what it will create in order to be free of the Empire.

Urbaine

An Exalted scientist who designed many of Dorayaica's war machines. Like the other sorcerers of MINOS, Urbaine kept a backup of his mind in case his body was destroyed.

• Arch-Enemy: Urbaine is the nemesis of Valka in particular, having uploaded a deadly virus into her brain that she never fully recovers from.
• Back from the Dead: His body in Demon in White actually had a backup transmitter that sent a copy of his mind to orbit before Hadrian could finish him off. He shows back up in a new body in Kingdoms of Death.
• Body Backup Drive: Urbaine's bodies have a drive that is constantly mirroring his brain, ready to transmit the data to a new body in the event of his death.
• The Cracker: The instant Valka drops her network defenses, Urbaine is able to upload a virus to her neural lace that nearly kills her.
• Cranial Processing Unit: Subverted; although he seems to die when his head is destroyed, Urbaine's bodies are capable of maintaining and transmitting his consciousness. During their battle on DB-639D, he mocks Hadrian for not remembering this after he proves to be Not Quite Dead.
• Cyborg: His body appears human from the outside but is full of machinery and circuitry when cut open.
• Godhood Seeker: Believes that MINOS can achieve the power of the Watchers by studying Syriani's transformation into one.
• Half-Human Hybrid: His bodies try to invoke this by adapting certain Cielcin features, although it is not known if he used any of their actual genetic material to do so.
• Killed Off for Real: Possibly. On DB-639D, all of his bodies were killed after the network relay has already been destroyed, seemingly leaving no way for him to transmit his mind off-world.
• Mind Rape: Implants a virus within Valka's neural lace that constantly induces seizures and tries to hijack her limbs into strangling her own throat. Even with the best efforts of Tavrosi physicians, it's impossible to fully excise.
• Pet the Dog: The only redeeming act he performs in the entire series is to offer Hadrian a drink of water before he is led to his execution by Syriani.
• Professional Butt-Kisser: Willing to totally abase himself before Syriani for the chance to bring down the Sollan Empire.
• Squishy Wizard: Urbaine is not very durable; Hadrian, nowhere near the top of his game at the time, is able to lay him out with a good punch.

Severine

One of the Elect-Masters of MINOS, Hadrian first meets Severine on Arae.

• Back from the Dead: Killed by the Red Company on Arae, but later uploaded her mind to another body.
• Deal with the Devil: Offers Hadrian a way of escaping Dharan-Tun: uploading a copy of his mind into a cloned body, in exchange for his aid in studying the Quiet. Hadrian of course refuses.
• Doing In the Wizard: Her goal is to find a rational, scientific explanation for Hadrian's abilities so that MINOS can replicate them.
• Racial Transformation: She currently looks like a Mandari woman but Hadrian deduces that she was originally a Jaddian with some time as a Norman based on her accent and word phrasings.
• Stalker with a Test Tube: Downplayed. She wants Hadrian's DNA to study to see how he gets his powers, not bear his kids. She does succeed in getting blood samples from him, so it remains to be seen what she'll be doing with those.

Takeshi

Takeshi was one of the Elect-Master who oversaw the production of MINOS' bioweapon on DB-639D.

• Awesome, but Impractical: Downplayed; his plasma sword is an effective weapon, but lacks the cutting power of a highmatter sword and is even more dangerous to the wielder.
• Badass Bookworm: A MINOS magus who almost killed Hadrian in a sword fight.
• Creepy Monotone: Hadrian notes that his voice has no inflection or accent to it.
• Everything's Better with Samurai: Takeshi's body, wardrobe, and weapon are modelled on the image of a stereotypical Rōnin.
• Foreign Culture Fetish: It is strongly hinted that Takeshi's original body and mind were not Nipponese, and his entire persona is an exaggerated construct. The author has stated that if that's the case, then Takeshi is most definitely a weeb.
• Laser Sword: Unlike a highmatter sword, the blade of Takeshi's weapon is actually made of plasma, making it more in line with the conventional examples of this trope.
• Master Swordsman: Quickly scores a few devastating hits on Hadrian. Had he been wielding a highmatter blade, the Halfmortal would have died in seconds.

Others

The Painted Man

The Painted Man

A mysterious arms dealer that the Red Company encountered on Rustan, and one of the few beings to escape Vorgossos.

• Animated Tattoo: With his shapeshifting abilities, The Painted Man can control and animate his skin pigment, giving off this effect.
• Black Eyes of Evil: In his default form, The Painted Man's eyes are completely pupil-black.
• More Teeth than the Osmond Family: Which makes his Slasher Smile all the more unnerving.
• Shapeshifting: The Painted Man can rapidly assume the form of any humanoid.
• Spell My Name with a "The": Always refered to as "The" Painted Man; the narration even capitalizes it.

Jari

Jari

An Exalted cyborg who was exposed to alien microorganisms that granted him the ability to see beyond time. Encountered by Hadrian aboard the Enigma of Hours.

• Call-Back: Hadrian realizes that his powers are real when Jari references Hadrian's time on the streets of Borosevo; namely, waking up in the clinic and Cat's death, things no one else should know.
• Came Back Wrong: Jari claims that he died and was brought back by the dark waters that granted him the ability to see time.
• Go Mad from the Revelation: He's already pretty far gone, but seeing Hadrian's destiny renders him unable to do anything but scream the word "Light!".
• Instant Oracle: Just Add Water!: Was granted his abilities by immersing in the waters of the Deeps.
• Mad Oracle: Whatever the Deeps did to Jari did a number on his sanity, if his original mind is even still there.
• Wrong Context Magic: As hinted in the books and confirmed via Word of God, the Deeps are not a product of the Quiet or the Watchers, but some other race or deity that has not appeared in the series.

Calen Harendotes

Calen Harendotes

A former Sollan palantine emerging from the Latarra system, he calls himself The Monarch has long since turned renegade and has become an Extrasolarian warlord. He's sided with the Cielcin and currently in partnership with MINOS to stir up trouble for the Empire.

• The Unfought: While his henchmen were on DB-639D, he wasn't so he avoided a nuclear strike.
• The Usurper: What Calen hopes to do is to eventually rule the empire, for that reason he's joined the Cielcins as a raider.