Captain:Jaharan ae-Zamarros

"The greatest monsters in the universe are not those who commit evil for the sake of evil, nor those who are driven by selfishness and greed. They are not those whose sin is obvious and pure in its turpitude. They do not take form of demons, or of black-robed madmen, or even of corrupt robber barons. Virtue is strongest when it is pure and unadulterated, but vice - vice is strongest when defiled and corrupted. And what can defile a vice? Why, virtue. This was the worst, most despicable sort of sinners that Jaharan belonged to - the pious ones. A sinner without virtues may at times be sated, placated, or even be reasoned with, for everything he does is for his own benefit. But a virtuous sinner cannot be swayed from his path. Atop his unassailable fortress of morality, he thinks himself a paragon, an exemplar, greater than any mortal - deaf and blind to reason. The desperate calls of his conscience he will simply disregard as dangerous temptations. Driven by virtues, the moral sinner will spiral further down the road of evil than any other man - bravery, piety and determination giving him strength to persevere where lesser wrongdoers would have stopped - and bring about atrocities astronomical in scope."

-, On Virtue and Sin

Before the apocalyptic events of the, few names inspired as much hatred, fear, and pain all over the Gigaquadrant - from Earth to Cyrannus - as the name of Jaharan ae-Zamarros, the Silver Clericarch of the. A conqueror and slaughterer of intergalactic proportions, Jaharan singlehandedly masterminded one of the largest intergalactic wars in modern Gigaquadrantic history before the coming of the Xhodocto - the so-called Illustrious Struggle towards Grand Reclamation, or simply the Jaharani Crusade - for over 50 years from 2388 to 2465, all for the sake of restoring the Church to its former glory. Unyielding in his convictions and having zero regard for the life of a single individual, Jaharan is said to be responsible for the deaths of no less than fifty billion sentients, both unbelievers and Masaari. The atrocities commited by Jaharan have irrevocably altered the Radeon identity, as well as their image in Gigaquadrantic society, so much that the shadow of his bloody conquests continues to haunt even today.

Prince of Vendespode
"The name of my family has been covered in so much grime that it would have taken generations of piety and virtue to make it pure again. Fortunately, for us it took one. Myself. Never again shall the noble House of Zamarros be associated with sin."

- Jaharan

Though de jure a society where blood relationships were disregarded and positions in society were given only through talent rather than family connections, de facto, there were many times in Radeon and Church history that the institutions that were meant to assign the young to their appropriate positions, such as the Divaricator Caste, became so corrupt that certain families stayed on top for generations. One of these families was the House of Zamarros, whose name is inseparable from the Church of Spode in the first half of the third human millenium. One of the richest and most affluent clans in Radeon history, who gained their wealth through intergalactic trade, silver tongues, and the occasional poisoning, they occupied the very top of the Church's hierarchy for several centuries, both in the military, the civil administration and the clergy; the patriarchs of the family were frequently elected Clericarch, and in the cases when they were not, they still essentially controlled the Conclave with their bribes and connections.

However, the great wealth of the Zamarros family was not the thing they were famed for. The House marked their name in Radeon history with their great scandals, licentiousness, and immorality. From High Quaestor Lithai ae-Zamarros, a bastard born out of an illicit affair of a Zamarros Exarch with a prostitute who famously squandered all of the Church's money on provocative dresses, to War Predictor Thesael ae-Zamarros who enjoyed hunting primitive sentient beings for pastime (humans claim that 21st century Earth was his favourite battleground) and bringing them to Vendespode as pets, to Lady Clericarch Hajaran ae-Zamarros who replaced the water in sacred fonts in Enara City with wine and allegedly executed her husband for inability to service her, replacing him with an entire harem of young boys, most of the members of the house were decadent to the point of insanity (even though accounts of their decandence were likely exaggerated). The father of Jaharan, Clericarch Quaendir ae-Zamarros, was no different, and famously celebrated the anniversary of his ascension to the throne by hosting an orgy in the Ecclesiastical Palace together with his wife. It is said that it was during this orgy that Jaharan was conceived.

At first, it seemed that Jaharan would not be any different from the rest of his house; as a young boy, he showed the typical Zamarros interest in high cuisine, expensive clothing, mind-altering drugs, and instruments of murder. However, as the kid began his education, the older members of the Zamarros clan began to notice his profound interest in history and theology. Though that in itself was nothing serious (after all, some knowledge of Masaari law was needed to excuse one's depravities), the keen interest Jaharan showed towards the early history of the Radeons and the Church, especially the dismantling of the corrupt Enarans by Seranai, unnerved Quaendir, who came to see his son as a threat to their family's traditions. However, the father still loved his child dearly, and would rather see him turned to the "light". Thus, the Clericarch began to subtly influence his son, exposing him to the usual depravities of house Zamarros. But Jaharan did not submit. The decadence of his kin only drove him further away from the rest of the family as he grew into a man. This finally culminated in what Quaendir considered to be the "final test" for his young son; he locked him away for a night (actually a period of daytime; being nocturnal, Radeons sleep and do other usual nightly activities during the day) together with the most beautiful young nun from the Convent of Seranai, Metochia Nauvi, fully expecting him to violate her or at least sleep with her voluntarily.

Nothing of the sort happened, naturally. Instead, Jaharan and Metochia spent the entire day talking of theological matters, of Spode and of the universe, and of how the Church and the Path of Masaari could be saved from complete degeneration. Though an educated man, Jaharan was still miles away from the common subject of the Church, and did not understand their plight the way they did. Metochia opened his eyes by showing him the faith of the common people - what he came to consider the true faith - and the suffering they endured under the depraved and corrupt elites. The unformed dissatisfaction with his House took shape of burning hatred now, and when dusk fell and his father returned, Jaharan stood up against him with a fiery monologue on how society needs to be reformed and sin cleansed from the Church.

Quaendir would have none of that. In his rage, he attacked the young nun, mutilating her body in ways that Jaharan did not think possible. Metochia screamed as the Clericarch smashed her head with his scepter several times before setting her on fire with it, separated her arm from her body, crushed her legs under his boots until they remained a mess of blood and viscera and finally violated her burned body using her own dismembered arm. Only Quaendir's fatherly love saved the soon-to-be Clericarch that fateful day from the same fate, as the Zamarros patriarch was still not depraved enough to turn on his own flesh and blood. Understanding that he was no longer welcome on Vendespode, Jaharan escaped to outer galaxies, well outside the Church's vastly dimished sphere of influence, together with the slowly dying Metochia.

Exiled Pilgrim
The following century and a half was spent by Jaharan in exile. Having disguised himself as a travelling monk, he traveled from star to star and planet to planet, meeting local religious communities while looking for a way to save his beloved Metochia from death. It is said that the mysterious stranger was seen serving the Sisters of Alkhuse in the, praying in the temples of the Corgel, and studying the relics of the on  worlds disguised as a traveler. The wide variety of sects revering Spode, both Radeon and foreign, startled Jaharan, who came to wonder if all ways to worship Spode were equally true or if there was some original Masaari religion that was the only true path to salvation. The many cults he came across during his journeys couldn't possibly all be false, and yet the disgusting acts of depravity he saw on Vendespode were still vivid in his mind, and he could not fathom that Spode could allow his true believers to fall so low. Surely, the clerics of Vendespode must have warped the holy doctrine somehow. Eventually, he came to believe that though there were many paths to Spode, all of them had to uphold several important principles of faith:


 * Self-sacrifice, rejection of personal interests and pleasures in favour of a greater cause.
 * Tenacity, which for Jaharan meant the willingness to protect one's faith and people, by violence if necessary.
 * Justice, or lack of tolerance towards immorality and injustice.
 * Communality, construction of the greater Masaari community united in brotherhood.

Meanwhile, despite her protector having used all medical technologies he encountered in his journeys to prolong her life, Metochia passed away, pleading her lover not to become a monster as she died. This drove Jaharan further down the path of desperation, to the point that he attempted to rescue her from death by reconstructing her body cybernetically and creating an artifical intelligence replica of her personality using forbidden Delpha Coalition technology. Nevertheless, he did not stop travelling, and eventually stumbled in his searches on a particularly strange planet, which he believed could be the only place in the Gigaquadrant where original Masaari was preserved best: Waset, an isolated planet in the inhabited by the Saqqarit, a nation of Radeon colonists who renounced the greater interstellar society millenia ago.

Having once again concealed his appearance, Jaharan had joined the community of the Saqqarit and lived among them for years. The ways of the primitive Radeons seemed to prove his beliefs to him: they were pure, shunned immorality and selfishness, and lived as a single family. Yet, one thing continued to puzzle the Radeon traveler - the Saqqarit's hatred of violence. Though they seemed somewhat aware of the world beyond the stars, they did not want to change it, to make it better. One day, when Jaharan studied together with other monks on Waset, and was about to receive guruship, he approached their teacher and asked her why her people refused to help the Gigaquadrant and change it for good as a whole if they knew the universe around them was dark and full of evil. The rest of the students were startled by the boldness of the newcomer. But the teacher did not answer, but rather asked Jaharan a question of his own: what was good? Could she distinguish with absolute certainty between deeds that were good for the entirety of the universe and those that ultimately harmed it? Jaharan answered immediately. The universe was Spode, Spode was Masaari: thus, what was good for the Church was good for the universe itself, and he knew for certain what was good for the church - a moral, just and strong ruler.

Having at last discerned the wanderer's true intentions, the teacher banished the guru-to-be from Waset. But the