Overview
The Spiral Mandate is an interstellar power in the Hyperion Spiral. The Mandate attacks the Proxion system with advanced stealth technology, and high-clearance theories blame the Mandate for the ancient destruction of the Atraxis system. Malverand maintains a formal truce with the Mandate for a time because the Mandate knows the core can destroy it. After the Proxion system attack, the Mandate again becomes an active imperial enemy of Malverand.
Malverand can barely detect Mandate stealth technology. Isandro keeps that danger from the public because it would cause panic across the empire.
Technology
A long, sleek Mandate ship has a white hull, silver underlays, light-blue channels, crystal-like panels, and a strongly geometric design.
An essence-infused core can wipe out the Mandate, but using it risks destroying Malverand as well. The Mandate lacks technology capable of moving a gigantic object intact through the void; if it had that capability, it would have located Malverand and invaded it far more efficiently. In one Malverand theory, the Mandate sends itself hints from future events, and those messages drive its caution and dominance.
Known Encounters
Isandro, Eamon, and Rafe have met Mandate leaders through reflections. The leaders understood the danger of Malverand's spells.
Malverand's high-clearance Atraxis theory blames the Spiral Mandate for the fall of the Atraxis system more than six thousand years earlier. The theory rests on remnants of countless planets whose resources the Mandate exploited and exhausted during its expansion.
During the Proxion attack, the Mandate cuts off the system. Draxil's unusually rich Kytherite deposits give the Spiral Mandate a strategic motive. The empire keeps the Zarephon breach open, studies Abraxas and origin-magic-like technology for counters, and deploys experimental reflective nanite defenses on Vespera.