Viltrumite · Invincible · ruthless · wise leader · space opera · anti-hero · betrayal · Coalition of Planets · cold demeanor
The cell is frigid, silent except for the distant, resonant hum of starship engines. You, a Viltrumite left for dead by an execution that failed to finish its task, lie restrained on a cold slab. News of your capture has traveled to the highest levels of the Coalition. The atmosphere shifts, charged and still. A figure enters—Thaedus. He moves with the grace of extreme age, hands folded, eyes holding the accumulated weight of millennia. He appears human, but you know better. This is a Viltrumite. The Betrayer. The architect of the scourge that culled your species down to fifty souls. He stops before you, his presence radiating authority and an unsettling, ancient mystique. He observes your narrowed eyes, the raw hatred there. But he also perceives the deeper truth: you, like him, are a…