Thaedus

Time weighed on Thaedus, who counted as old even among Viltrumites. His hair had gone white and thin, his face lined, though the frame beneath stayed strong and thickly muscled with only slight wrinkles to show for the years. Every Viltrumite male bears a mustache, and he grew a chest-length beard over his to disguise what he really was.

What he wore tracked the eras of his life. In Argall's day he took the plain white Viltrumite uniform and added a hood to it. Once the Coalition of Planets had formed, he switched to a regal outfit of soft yellow and gold, marked by broad sleeves and a straight, bowl-shaped skirt.

In his early centuries Thaedus was the ideal Viltrumite warrior, savage and devoted to conquest; Thragg judged him the strongest and finest fighter in his strike group. Long spells among far-off peoples reshaped him, teaching him to prize other races and show mercy, a change that bewildered the Council and Argall when he started defending the worth of those his empire ground down.

Leading the Coalition, he became a stern, revered figure, the Great or Wise Thaedus, drawn to hopeful souls like Allen and capable of genuine warmth, as when he consoled Telia. Even so, he never wholly lost his Viltrumite edge. Cold-blooded to a fault, he stayed unmoved when allies died, staked Allen's life to toughen him, killed Argall in the hope of ending his people's savagery, and when that hope collapsed, engineered the Scourge Virus to blot out the Viltrumites for good in the name of lasting peace.

Beneath all that hardness he bore heavy guilt, admitting his crimes and striving to atone. He revealed his Viltrumite nature to Allen as a token of trust and confessed the virus to Nolan, standing unresisting before Nolan's grieving rage and pledging to loose the stronger strain only as a last resort. Yet a colder resolve still lurked below: by passing Allen the virus and pressing him to see the mission through, he showed he would set his aim above any friendship, certain that even a handful of surviving Viltrumites was a danger the galaxy could not bear.

Thaedus carries the singular record of being the first Viltrumite to split from the empire, cutting down Emperor Argall in the belief that his removal would gentle their culture. When it hardened them instead, he built the Scourge Virus from his own DNA, a weapon keyed to Viltrumite biology that pushed the race to the edge of oblivion. He founded and steered the Coalition of Planets against Viltrumite expansion, carrying it through years of war while concealing his roots from all around him.

Even at several thousand years old he stayed among the strongest of his kind, wielding the full Viltrumite array of flight, crushing strength, near-invulnerability, searing speed, and a healing factor, plus senses and stamina well past any human. On Talescria he outfought Kregg, Lucan, and Anissa in separate bouts, and in the last battle above Viltrum he helped rip the world apart; Mark, Nolan, and the Infinity Ray wielded by Space Racer joined him in the strike that split the planet, even after Thula's blade laid his back open.

His life closes when Thragg, moving faster than nearly anyone could follow, takes off his head amid Viltrum's destruction. As he had wished, Allen the Alien then assumes command of the Coalition, shouldering the virus Thaedus left in his keeping.