Feilin

The illegitimate child of a soldier and the heiress of the Herschel family, one of the most powerful and influential families on Adelphi. His mother, too busy with her political ambitions, promptly abandoned him after birth, leaving his father to raise him by himself. Not wanting his child to grow up on a planet on the brink of war, his father abandoned his military duties to bring Feilin to Ti-Ane, a distant planet that remained untouched by the intergalactic conflict, thought of as a beautiful sanctuary.

Feilin grew up with no knowledge of his mother's side of the family, or of his father's past, believing himself to be the son of a simple tea farmer. At the age of 14, he was enrolled into a school of average repute and attained stellar academic results, drawing the attention of military recruiters from Adelphi. When he performed excellently on the aptitude tests they administered to him as well, he was invited to join Adelphi's prestigious command school. Naturally, his father forbade him from taking up the offer. However, this incident put him on the radar of his mother, Ilse, once more, who gained a renewed interest in her lost son. 

Ilse thus sent her younger sister, Lisbeth, an upcoming military commander, to bring Feilin to her. To coerce Feilin's father into letting his son go, Lisbeth threatened to have him court-martialed for his desertion. Lisbeth then convinced Feilin of the importance of him defending Adelphi, reasoning that should the Alliance's capital planet fall, Ti-Ane (along with his father) will soon be lost to the Sercaprian's destruction as well. The young boy bought into her claims and obligingly left Ti-Ane with her, determined to save his home, without realizing that he would never be given a chance to return.

On Adelphi, Feilin first encountered his mother again after their 10 years of separation. Yet, Ilse brushed him off coldly, stating that he was only here to be a heir for her in name, since she did not wish to marry or have anymore children, and that she felt no motherly love for him. Feilin, who had not expected his mother to be so callous towards him, was immensely upset, and from that point onward sought desperately to win her affections.

Enrolling into Adelphi command school's cadet program, Feilin befriended Akemi, a fellow cadet from a less well-to-do family, who had joined the military solely for financial benefit. He was also reunited with an old childhood friend, Luka, but found their friendship challenged as Luka's adoptive family were direct political opponents of the Herschels.

In a bid for his mother's favor, Feilin pushed himself to achieve success at the military academy, graduating among the top of his class and becoming a lieutenant in a small fleet. His military career henceforth was plagued by mixed blessings: any commanding officer he served under almost seemed to be cursed to perish quickly in battle, but once he took control, the fleet was always able to claim a victory, no matter how overwhelming the odds. The result was that he was promoted very quickly, attaining the rank of Admiral at the age of 20, barely 2 years after his graduation.

Feilin became a celebrated hero of sorts, thus earning admiration and ire in equal measures. Ilse was quick to use this to her advantage, publicly pronouncing him her legitimate heir, and a valuable member of the Herschel family. She also pressurized him into using his charm and looks to win over political allies for her, which he was much less happy about.

Eventually, political tensions on Adelphi boiled over almost to the point of a small civil war, as different parties could not agree on how to tackle the Sercaprian threat. Ultimately, Ilse emerged as the victor, placing Adelphi under martial law and forming the Adelphian War Council, which would continue to rule over the planet for decades.

Feilin, however, had been briefly implicated during the power struggle, and sent on a temporary exile to defend a remote supply outpost. There he continuously thwarted the efforts of one Sercaprian general. The general, Pacha-zlok, or otherwise known as General Pacha, began to develop a great obsession with the human that she had lost so many fleets to. On one occasion, she managed to trap part of the human fleet, demanding that Feilin be handed over to her for her to let the rest of the ships go unscathed. The Fleet Admiral in charge was quick to turn Feilin over to her, despite Feilin’s misgivings about the trustworthiness of her terms. Immediately upon acquiring Feilin, General Pacha proceeded to decimate the rest of the human fleet.

Now in the clutches of the Sercaprians, Feilin feared for his life. On board the general’s ship, he encountered an enigmatic human with uncanny psychic powers. The human, Amaryllis, explained that General Pacha had no desire to execute him, nor torture him for information. Instead, she simply thought of him as a valuable piece of treasure, a curious specimen to be added to her collection.

With not even a slim chance of escape, Feilin had no choice but to adjust to his new status as a Sercaprian szekl (a term with roughly the same connotation as a treasure or a precious pet, used to describe the non-Sercaprian vassals of a Sercaprian general). Unlike other szekls who were free to roam where they pleased, Feilin was kept locked up in General Pacha’s “lair” on the Sercaprian home planet, or in a large chamber on board her ship. Despite being robbed of his freedom, he was treated well enough, and even given some degree of respect, being the precious szekl of one of the most powerful Sercaprian generals. General Pacha herself spoiled him with luxuries and treasures in an attempt to cheer him up, but the only thing he yearned for was to go home.

Feilin spent his two years in captivity learning as much as he could about Sercaprian culture. He grew close to Amaryllis, who also happened to be one of General Pacha’s szekls, but was an artificial human created by the Sercaprians themselves. He discovered that contrary to what he was led to believe, the humans were the ones who first initiated the war, under the pretext of being threatened by the Sercaprians’ artificial creations.

When a number of small human ships were brought aboard General Pacha's vessel, Feilin pleaded for the pilots to be spared, then enlisted their help in making his escape. A head start allowed them to evade the Sercaprian's pursuit all the way back to human-occupied space. While his return was celebrated, there was a great deal of suspicion surrounding where his allegiances now lay, and exactly what had transpired during the two years he went missing.

Nonetheless, Feilin was put to work only a few short months after his return. His time spent with the Sercaprians familiarized him with their strategies and way of thinking, allowing him to secure victories with even greater ease. Yet, he found himself increasingly reluctant to fight, realizing that each battle would only serve to prolong the conflict. He urged the Adelphian Council to seek out more diplomatic solutions, yet his concerns were brushed off and his mental stability called into question.

Oddly enough, Feilin began to experience strange hallucinations and dreams of his time on Sercapra. A search patrol turned up a small Sercaprian ship drifting in human-occupied space, with Amaryllis on board. Pronouncing himself as an ambassador, Amaryllis delivered a warning message to Feilin, that General Pacha was leading several fleets with an unprecedented number of ships straight to conquer Adelphi. Amaryllis was allowed to return to the Sercaprians unharmed, as a gesture of gratitude for his help.

Feilin led all the human fleets stationed in the vicinity to meet the Sercaprians in battle. When facing off General Pacha's flagship, however, he realized that the Sercaprian seemed to be able to predict his every move. It finally dawned upon him that his closeness to Amaryllis had allowed the unnatural human to form a psychic link between the two of them, thus feeding all of his thoughts to the Sercaprian general and directing his fleets straight into a trap.

Knowing he was compromised, Feilin decided that their only chance left was to pull off a move so ludicrous that the Sercaprians would not believe him to carry it through.  He ordered his ship to be evacuated, then set a course for it to crash straight into General Pacha's flagship, sacrificing himself in the process. With the command of Sercaprian army gone in one fiery explosion, the rest of the ships scattered or were picked off by the human fleet.

What happened to Feilin near the end of his time never came to light, and he was mourned as a hero. Ilse, finally affected by the loss of her son, decided to initiate a project that would allow her to bring him back, albeit in a different form.