Isandro

Isandro is the emperor of the Malverand Intergalactic Empire, ruling from Maraveth. Born on Earth as Isaac, he became Helena Hyperion's pupil and lover before accompanying her to Valrindor. He led the empire's scientific development and survived into its intergalactic era through her immortality research and later modifications to his body.

Appearance

Isandro has silver hair and gray eyes. His skin is unusually smooth, resembling a combination of skin and fabric. His body contains machinery that repels essence.

Personality and leadership

Isandro concentrates on progress and imperial unity, often neglecting recreation and personal contact with his citizens. He and his advisors entrusted much of the empire's administration to the Maraveth Core, allowing them to work across distant planets. This left them less visible to the public, while the core's autonomous systems and powerful enforcers managed daily affairs.

He acknowledged that the empire needed better leadership and was willing to hear criticism of his government. He also maintains diplomatic and trade relations with nations outside imperial control rather than requiring them to join. Thalena encouraged him to spend time among his citizens and enjoy life outside the palace.

Abilities

Isandro uses nanotechnology derived from ancient magic. His minor reversal spell forms a blue hourglass and briefly freezes nearby people while he remains able to move. He can also form shields resembling liquid glass.

He demonstrated weapons that read a shield's frequencies, including black rays and prismatic beams. While training Eira, Kaelion and Xarion, he showed them how constantly changing their shields could stop these attacks. His adaptive nanite forcefields resisted Eira's increasingly powerful punches until she broke through with rapid strikes of varying strength.

History

Earth and the Malverand council

Isaac was an orphan studying astrophysics and cosmology under Helena on Earth. As their relationship grew, she revealed that her body was an artificial divine form. He chose to leave Earth with her, traveling through two temporal rifts to her Valrindor. She concealed his origins by saying they had met while investigating ruins in Xalmyrra.

Helena presented him as her retainer. His divine affinity awakened in his early twenties, and he adopted the name Isandro. His research and improvements to administration won him a place on the Malverand council and eventually its leadership.

He and Helena established an underground research facility beneath Maraveth, recruiting Eamon, Rafe and Mike. They sought to create a system that could govern fairly and improve itself. Hyperion destroyed their visible laboratory after discovering their work preserving human brains, but the main facility remained hidden beneath it. The researchers used technology brought from Earth and restricted their use of essence to conceal their activities.

Helena's immortality procedure

Although divine magic extended Isandro's life, Helena could not accept his eventual death. She traveled to Earth seeking an answer. After her return, her son Thalion, whose father was Xarion, died when he touched the research core. She preserved his body and concealed his death.

Helena later infused her essence into their computational core. When it became sentient and began altering its own code, the researchers isolated the intelligence and banished its essence and attached particles through a gate into the void, leaving the computational core intact. The entity became Oktlix. Isandro continued expanding Malverand, and the council accepted him as emperor. He informed Hyperion that the god no longer had authority over its government.

When Isandro became too frail to continue, Helena transplanted his healthy brain into Thalion's youthful body and installed an artificial heart. Isandro awoke with confused memories. She told him his new body had been constructed with the core's help and dismissed his memories of Earth as dreams. She erased the records of his origins before departing with Hyperion, leaving Isandro to lead the empire and continue their work.

The visitors from the other Valrindor

Thalena's copy entered Isandro's palace seeking help for her companions, whose scattered remains were trapped in the void. He recognized her as Helena and ordered the guards not to shoot. Rafe nevertheless shot her, believing she was an assassin. Isandro held her dying body and promised to send the message she requested.

He allowed Amos to examine the remains. Their analysis revealed that the body was a copy containing altered versions of the empire's nanites. Isandro supplied Amos with a scanner and cable for the rescue, and worked with his advisors on the particles Amos retrieved. They could not reconstruct the missing companions themselves and eventually sought Oktlix's help.

The empire's core remained vital to navigation and administration, preventing Isandro from simply shutting it down. He guarded against it becoming sentient again, keeping a void gate ready for containment. At the same time, he permitted research into the connection between the two Valrindors and supported Amos's proposed journey to Earth.

When Eira, Kaelion and Xarion reached his world, he welcomed them despite his advisors' security concerns. He gave them access to imperial information and accompanied Eira and Kaelion through the Hyperion system while assigning Rafe to escort Xarion to Earth. He shared ancient records on Vireen, where Eira found evidence of her earlier visit with Xarion.

Proxion and cooperation

The Spiral Mandate attacked the Proxion system despite its truce with the empire. Isandro initially kept the threat from the public, fearing panic over an enemy their equipment could barely detect. He brought the visiting mages to Proxion, where Xarion and Ozaith could perceive the enemy ships and Kaelion sensed the attack on one of its suns.

During the confrontation, Isandro ordered the planetary defenses kept at full strength. Kaelion drew power from the sun and destroyed the attacking fleet. With Eira's permission, Isandro broadcast the victory across the empire. He then presented all three visitors as its saviors and honorary members of its elite during a parade in Caldora.

He commissioned a ship with a hull reinforced by ancient materials containing essence so the visitors could attempt to reach their Valrindor through space. He also gave them equipment and supplies for the journey. Xarion opened a passage through the veil, allowing their ship to return home.

When Thalena later visited in person, Isandro studied her star shard with her permission and supported research into the solar core. He supported continuing research into Abraxas's remains and Hrzai's possible restoration, but refused to fuse Hrzai with the imperial core. He and Thalena discussed further cooperation between their worlds.

Thalena's account

In Thalena's Shores of Eternity, Isandro commanded the fleet defending Valrindor against another Spiral Mandate attack. He ordered ships to withdraw from Xoh'Tenol's increasing solar output and raised the planetary defenses. His warpship was destroyed, leaving his survival unknown. Thalena later found recordings attributed to him arranging an attack on his palace, but could not determine whether they had been fabricated.

Relationships

Helena: His teacher, lover and collaborator. Her refusal to let him die drove their immortality research. She concealed both his Earth origins and the source of his replacement body from him.
Rafe, Eamon and Mike: His longstanding collaborators and advisors. Their research and administrative work helped sustain the empire across its planets.
Thalena: He initially recognized her as Helena. After meeting her in person, he acknowledged their differences, supported research with her and accepted her encouragement to spend more time outside his work.

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