"[T]hose who were shot dead without trial, who died under torture, who were 'disappeared' to barren penal asteroids, who died in prison of 'illness' or 'accidents'... the combined tally climbed to four billion.'"
Duke Otto von Braunschweig: A citizen's revolt? They dared to kill my nephew?! Those ungrateful bastards living in my territory! They'll pay a heavy price for such ingratitude! Launch a nuclear attack on Westerland! Don't let a single soul survive!
Ansbach: Your Excellency, your anger is understandable, but using thermonuclear weapons on a planet has been taboo since the 13 Day War that nearly exterminated the human race! Besides, isn't Westerland your own territory?! Killing all the inhabitants is far too harsh! Isn't it better just to punish the ringleaders?
Braunschweig: Silence! Westerland is my territory! I have the right to do anything I want to my planet!
Ansbach: Your Excellency, your anger is understandable, but using thermonuclear weapons on a planet has been taboo since the 13 Day War that nearly exterminated the human race! Besides, isn't Westerland your own territory?! Killing all the inhabitants is far too harsh! Isn't it better just to punish the ringleaders?
Braunschweig: Silence! Westerland is my territory! I have the right to do anything I want to my planet!
As Reinhard von Lohengramm and Yang Wen-li try to right the course of history, they face the shadows of prejudiced, ambition-consumed "heroes" of the past; classist High Nobles; crooked politicians; and destructive terrorists. While on a factional level the series works on Grey-and-Gray Morality, some still stand out as truly monstrous.
All spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned!
Original novels
- Kaiser Rudolf von Goldenbaum used his status as a beloved war hero to manipulate his way to ruling over humanity's galactic populace. A viciously bigoted man, Rudolf's Imperial regime sees citizens deemed undesirable interned, forcibly sterilized, and executed, with a death toll in the billions under the Inferior Genes Exclusion Act and his mass-sterilization campaign reduced the population from its three hundred billion to only a fraction of the size even after recovering for hundreds of years. Meanwhile, Rudolf forms the High Nobles, a class of people he favors for sharing his own Caucasian and Germanic ancestry and allows them to likewise torment the common citizens of the Galactic Empire, with millions killed in conflict when they attempt to rebel. So great is Rudolf's prejudice that when his son is born disabled, he has the attending hospital staff murdered along with his mistress and all of their families to cover up what he sees as a shameful incident. Even after his death, Rudolf's self-titled Goldenbaum Dynasty continues for a half-millennia, his nobles continuing to spread his hate and violence, with Rudolf himself ultimately responsible for the single most suffering to ever be inflicted upon humanity in all of history.
- Job Trunicht is remembered as the worst of the Free Planets Alliance's corruption and excess. A petty, arrogant man who will cling to power at all costs, Trunicht glorifies a war killing millions and uses the ultranationalist Patriotic Knights Corps to torture and kill any who speak out against him as well as rival politicians. Trunicht enacts a plan that leads to tens of millions dying so he can secure power as Supreme Council Chairman and rule unopposed, expanding his rule to force the whole society under his near-dictatorial reign. Trunicht also works with the violent Terraist cultists to allow their terrorist attacks to occur as long as they support him, ultimately selling out the Alliance itself to ensure his own safety and power. Even in his final moments alive, Trunicht admits to plotting to use the conquests of the Galactic Empire's heroic Kaiser, who spared his life, to kill while Trunicht grasps all the power he can.
- Duke Otto von Braunschweig is a power-hungry High Noble believed to have poisoned the unborn baby of Kaiser Friedrich IV von Goldenbaum's concubine out of fear that Braunschweig's own daughter—Friedrich's granddaughter—losing her—and thus Braunschweig's—claim to the throne. After Friedrich's passing, Braunschweig launches a coup to seize power when his grandson is made ruler of the Galactic Empire instead of his daughter. In his war, Braunschweig incompetently throws away the lives of countless men, executes a commander under the mere suspect of treason, and means to retain the Goldenbaum Dynasty's despicable oppression of commoners. When Braunschweig's oppressive nephew is killed by his revolting citizens for robbing them to supply Braunschweig's forces, he uses a nuclear weapon to wipe out all two million on the rebelling planet, in a war crime so despicable even his High Noble followers begin defecting or even committing suicide out of disgust.
- Andrew Falk is an ambitious Commodore who concocts a harebrained scheme to invade the Empire for his own fame, uncaring of how many lives will be lost. Amassing an army of thirty million Alliance soldiers, Falk sends them to march on Empire territory and "cleanse" their presence on every planet. When the Empire damages Alliance supply lines to end the invasion, Falk refuses to let his men retreat, instead ordering them to raid the planets the Alliance has conquered and steal from their citizens, leading to bloody riots and countless millions threatened with starvation. Afflicted by a neurological condition brought about narcissism so great that he can't stand any criticism, Falk's lack of care for his soldiers gets twenty million of them massacred, something Falk laughs off before shooting a superior officer for daring to insult his invasion of the Empire as the stupid move it was. Even years later, Falk has zero remorse for his hand in so many deaths, instead trying to assassinate Yang Wen-li to ensure that peace talks between the Empire and Alliance never happen, so the war will continue until Falk can get the glory he feels entitled to.
- Arthur Lynch is a former rear admiral of the Free Planets Alliance disgraced for cowardice after his capture while trying to abandon the three million citizens of El Facil. Used by the Empire to instigate a Civil War, Lynch revels in dishonoring well-intentioned men and launches a coup that kills tens of thousands of citizens while bringing down Martial Law on the planet Heinessen. When outed as a traitor, Lynch scoffs at the noble rebellion his co-conspirators meant to inspire and mocks their leader as he coldly guns him down.
- Rupert Kesserling is the scheming, bastard son of Adrian Rubinsky, out to eliminate the Free Planets Alliance and supplant his father. Working with Rubinsky, Kesserling masterminds the Eighth Battle of Iserlohn, leading to millions of deaths of both Alliance and Empire personnel, with Kesserling framing the event on a lowly Imperial scientist when the intended body count is far lower than Kesserling desired. Later orchestrating the kidnapping of Kaiser Erwin Josef II, Kesserling transports the boy into Alliance space to manipulate the Empire into declaring total, bloody war against the Alliance. With plans to embroil the galaxy in countless deaths to serve his goals, Kesserling also forcibly addicts a Terraist priest to drugs and sex to blackmail him; threatens to starve out an entire farming installation; and attempts to murder Rubinsky in cold blood to assume control of Fezzan and, eventually, the Empire itself for his own twisted ends.
- Archbishop de Villiers is the General Secretary of the extremist Church of Terra who uses the organization for self-interest. As the Church's second-in-command, de Villiers has members indoctrinated through drugs and brainwashing to make them suicidally devoted to the Church, and helps manipulate and further bloody the war between the Galactic Empire and Free Planets Alliance to weaken both. Ruling from the shadows with the death of the Grand Bishop and brainwashing a man into taking up the mantle as his puppet, de Villiers orchestrates multiple terrorist attacks, determined to maintain power no matter how many billions must perish.
- Volume 4: Strategem: Kaiser August II von Goldenbaum, aka "The Bloodletter", is remembered as one of the most evil and nightmarish of his family's Dynasty. Rising to power after a life of hedonism, August took hundreds of concubines and tortured them, flaying them alive to mock his mother before ordering her suicide once he had murdered his own brothers. Initiating a reign of torture and despotic slaughter that killed millions, August would have his victims tortured, driven to insanity, and fed to his hornhead dogs, and ordering their entire families killed, even infants.
OVA adaptation
- Baron Flegel, the spoiled, sociopathic nephew of Otto von Braunschweig, matches his uncle in depraved elitism. Having a special hatred of Reinhard von Lohengramm for halting Flegel's senseless torturing of a "commoner", Flegel manipulates the mentally and emotionally unstable Sussanne von Beenemünde into an Assassination Attempt on Reinhard's sister Annerose, after which Flegel solely blames Sussanne to have her executed while he kills off everyone else involved. Flegel then takes part in Braunschweig's attempted takeover of the Empire, in the anime even advocating for the nuking of Westerland and threatening execution to any who express doubts about the atrocity. Leading a final charge against Reinhard's forces to kill as many people as possible, Flegel orders his own crew to die in a suicidal blitz attack to satisfy his glory seeking, and tries to kill the sole officer who refuses.
- "The Castrop Rebellion": This version of Maximilian von Castrop deploys the destructive Artemis Necklace to defend his ill-gotten fortune. After his father's passing and the Imperial army seeking to reclaim the stolen treasury funds, Castrop uses his super weapon to disable and destroy their ships, killing hundreds of thousands of helpless soldiers by doing so. When the Necklace is disabled by a second battalion, Castrop attempts to flee his own colony, trying to kill a servant to fake his own death.
Die Neue These (The New Thesis)
- Duke Otto von Braunschweig is the same smug, scheming High Noble as ever. To avenge an Assassination Attempt by a disgraced Marquis, Braunschweig leads a campaign on the Marquis's territory, satisfying his bloodlust by letting his soldiers plunder and terrorize the population. When Commander Wolfgang Mittermeyer kills his relative for slitting the throat of a terrified, innocent woman, Braunschweig wrathfully tries to have Mittermeyer executed, only staying his hand when forced to by an Imperial arbitrator. After the deceased Kaiser's grandson is named heir to the Galactic Empire instead of Braunschweig's daughter, Braunschweig launches a devastating war, rebelling to apathetically throw away the lives of his soldiers by the millions, sacrificing many to rid himself of a political rival and executing a surviving admiral out of paranoia at treason. Braunschweig also nukes the planet of Westerland when rebels kill his tyrannical nephew, attempting to arrest and execute any followers who question his insane orders.
