The search for Kalid/meta/Characters

This page is for detailed information about the characters in The search for Kalid. For example, this page can contain detailed biographical information that is never revealed to the reader of the story, but this information can be useful to authors who are developing and writing the story. Another page, The search for Kalid/Contents/Characters is available for readers of the story and that page contains brief descriptions of the main characters and can help the reader keep track of the characters.

(in alphabetical order)

Amethyst
Daughter of Salvaje; lives at a small base on the Moon.

why the nudity on the Moon
The page sections Moon Base and Born again are still under development, but there are two objectives for Set's visit to the Moon. First, Set is being informed about the "dirty tricks" used by the Spaceship Guild and the Antiquists to protect their interests. This knowledge will later help allow Kalid to make clear to Set that the Haldus Order is not Set's enemy. The second objective is to provide some information about telepathy, including the history of how the Haldus order has tried to develop the telepathic abilities of humans. The small culture that includes Amethyst was formed from survivors of the destroyed Haldus Order temple at Shackleton crater. Soon after humans started developing space travel, it was realized that the most powerful producers of T-particles were disrupting attempts on Earth to develop true telepathy. In a sense, these powerful generators of T-particles were a "dead end" for the Haldus Order, but they remain as a strange fragment of humanity, and they continue struggling to adapt to their unusual telepathic predisposition and they are trying to form a viable culture. Their telepathic abilities are essentially restricted to unconscious brain functions, primarily the generation of social cohesion. As "seen" by Set when he watches Amethyst and Salvaje have a disagreement, their telepathic powers allow them to avoid conflict and reach a harmonious agreement. Salvaje is continuing to perform genetic experiments that aim to allow for conscious telepathic communication between powerful producers of T-particles. In addition to his on-going genetic engineering, he practices social engineering.

One important goal of Salvaje's social engineering is to keep the members of his community isolated and protected. If merged into the general culture of the Moon, these producers of high levels of T-particles would soon have their special gene combinations diluted. An idea that is being explored by Salvaje is that many human specializations such as bipedalism, the human pattern of brain growth and the human capacity for telepathy all evolved during one or more past periods of adaptation to a coastal marine environment (see the aquatic ape hypothesis). A base was originally made at Shackleton crater in order to gain access to water deposits near the Moon's South Pole. As described by Salvaje, a convenient way to isolate the members of his community from other humans was to put them behind a barrier of water-filled passageways. I am imagining that the gene combinations that were selected by the Haldus Order over several thousand years (during their attempts to breed humans for telepathic ability) make the members of this community well-suited for making use of an aquatic environment. In some sense, the artificial aquatic environment that has been created at Shackleton base is well suited to the gene combinations that originally gave rise to human telepathic abilities, and the assumption being made is that human features such as our pattern of brain growth evolved in an aquatic environment. In the controlled and warm and wet environment of the Moon base, clothing is of little use.

Salvaje and his predecessors have tried to find ways to keep complete control of the reproductive activity of the members of their community. As discussed for Amethyst's mother, members of the community who start to develop true conscious telepathic abilities cannot survive for long in the "noisy" T-particle-rich environment of the Shackleton base. Salvaje has to keep trying to develop a workable gene combination for true telepathy by allowing new generations to be produced in the way Amethyst was, by bringing back into the community the genes of people like Amethyst's mother who cannot survive at Shackleton base. It is important that the members of the community at Shackleton base both be 1) inhibited from indiscriminately breeding with each other, and 2)inhibited from indiscriminately breeding with outsiders. The culture at Shackleton base has been engineered to make nudity and hairlessness the norm...outsiders who are hairy and wear clothing are repulsive to residents of Shackleton base such as Amethyst. The small community at Shackleton base has been engineered to be like a family where everyone grows up behaving like close family members in an attempt to take advantage of their strong genetic predisposition towards incest avoidance under such environmental conditions. Members of the community have close social interactions and strong social cohesion but they are not sexually attracted to each other. Salvaje is free to completely control all reproductive activity of the community through artificial insemination.

Aristark
Aristark is second in command of the Thot spaceship that is sent in search of Kalid. Aristark is a political ally of Leone: they are both members of the Antiquist Party. Aristark is Planetary Counselor for Justice and is in charge of the investigation into the destruction of the Elevators.

Bahney
A robot at the Haldus Order Temple of Esclangon.

Dorothy
Mother of Sybil. She was a priestess of Isis once, until she asked for permission to quit the Order due to marriage with Jeremy.

Glen
Sybil's robot. Glen is an older model that generally works outside, tending the grounds of Sybil's estate. Glen originally belonged to Jeremy and cannot speak.

Jeremy
Father of Sybil. He was a white wizard inside the Haldus Order. He was personally instructed by Kalid but suffered some sudden illnesses that made him die soon.

Leone
Leone is Planetary Counselor for Transportation and member of the Antiquist Party on the planet Sakkara. He tries to go on a search for Kalid, in order to defeat Set, his enemy.

Biography and personality: He has a completely different personality as Kalid. If Leone is a maniac, Kalid is depressive. Leone is impulsive, Kalid is prudent. Leone could be defined with the motto "Let's shoot first and think next". He needs someone to control him; Aristark takes that role. If it were not for Aristark, Leone would be dead in no time, because he does not fear many things, maybe not even death. He thinks his abilities are very special and acts like a very valiant hero (in contrast to Aristark, who is wiser). He is a character that always says the truth and comments his thinking aloud. Nevertheless, when he takes the time to think deeply, he can take prudent decisions.

Role in the story: Although most readers will think he is the main character in the story, he is not as important as Kalid. It is a way to feel Kalid's presence as mysterious and to give meaning to the title. "The search for Kalid" could be "Leone searches Kalid". So, he is the second main character (along with Set). We see most parts of the story from the point of view of Leone and Aristark, since the beginning. Leone is the "action" character or hero; he is the one involved in most of the thriller-like scenes like the attack from Flammis, the attack in Akara's system, etc. So, his main role in the story is surviving many struggles until he finally finds Kalid and gets help from him to defeat Set. He has put many hopes in Kalid after the Invocator scene, when he started believing in telepathy and the hiding technology Haldus Order uses.

Kalid
Kalid is Great Master of the Haldus Order and has telepathic ability.

Biography: he lost his parents at an early age and he began working for the Haldus Order as an outsider. After many years of spy-like missions, he entered the circles of the Order and was trained by the best masters in the order. They realized how much potential he had for psychic abilities, specially for telepathy. He is one of those people that were born for telepathy and who need less training than regulars at the Order to achieve mind powers (telepathy, precognition).

Role in the story: Kalid is the main character in the story, but in the shadows. He is very mysterious and most of what the reader knows about him comes from descriptions made by other characters. He is very important because he is in the title of the story. The initial goal for the story was to find Kalid because he is, supposedly, the only one who can stop Set's madness. So, Kalid will have a special role mostly near the ending of the story. He will try to convince Set that he was not responsible for the attack of the elevators and will try to tell him, showing proofs, who was the guilty one. The result of this is not known yet; it would be very hard to actually convince a person who has experienced the death of his beloved girlfriend. Besides, after Set becoming a murderer, there is no way back for him, perhaps. So, Kalid wants Set's anger to be directed to the true guilty of the attack and to join forces to be able to stop his plans.

Initially, the story was going to be some kind of "initiation" for Leone. That is, Leone would learn many things by searching Kalid, knowledge for his life that might help him in the future to get to important roles within the party. Up to date, we need to add more esoteric backgrounds for Kalid. Kalid's only advantage and importance in the story are his very advanced mental techniques, which are stronger, by far, than those coming from Set, Sybil, Kaleb or Salvaje.

We need to add more humanity to Kalid, that is, showing he is not the "perfect guru" or spiritual leader. The contrary, he is leaving a life caused by an interconnected set of events that made him become master of the Haldus Order. It was something he did not have in mind because he has no desire for power or money of any kind. He is a very sad person who is still wounded by the early death of his parents and all the people around him. It is like a pattern in his life, the people he loves end up dead, family and friends. So, his only reason to live was to protect his family and to protect Sybil, after he promised that to his deceased friend, Jeremy. He does not have dreams of a better galaxy or to impose Haldus Order beliefs or way to be in the planets. Haldus Order's long term goal is to create a society resembling Haldus Order ethical values. A society in which everyone knows about mental powers, something resembling the myth of Atlantis, maybe. But, even if Kalid is the Great Master of the Haldus Order, he is very pessimistic and has stopped many plans towards that direction, plans that were too violent or too fast to achieve that goal. He just wants to protect his people and become a better person, in the spiritual sense. He is very religious, to the extent of old prophets, so he only cares about God, family (including Sybil) and the Order.

I am planning to write a flashback scene of him accomplishing one of his early missions, to show how he was when young and have a glance on his personality. We need to add more scenes in the present of the story, too, in which he takes a role, using his psychic abilities.

Kaleb, Logan and Megan
Two sons and daughter of Kalid, respectively.

Katherine
Katherine is Set's girlfriend. She is killed in the accident of the destruction of the The Elevators.

Ketar
Ketar is the head of the Galactic Antiquist Party. He wants to meet Kalid for a special reason.

Salvaje
Salvaje lives at a small base on the Moon where he studies telepathy (his real name is Ben Olmo). Father of Amethyst.

Set
Set is the head of the Futurist Party.

Set is the main antagonist to the Kalid, the main character. Although at the beginning he might seem like playing a secondary role, he is very important to the story as a whole. He is not just a murderer; what he did on Flammis had a reason: revenge for the attack to the elevators. It is a character parallel to Leone and similar to him; Set could be seen as a mixture of Leone and Kalid. Set is less impulsive than Leone but when he is completely determined to do something, he acts as blindly as Leone. Besides, Set has telepathic powers, as Kalid, but not so powerful as his.

Like Leone, Set wants to find Kalid too, but in order to kill him. He knew he failed on Flammis because Kalid was not found there; he also know there were survivors in there because he could sense them with his mind. So, the main motivations for Set are avenging his girlfriend. It is why he accused Kalid on Mars but then he quit because he had no proofs but the 2 members of the Haldus Order that he had traced (he thought they were related to the attack). When he gets to the Moon, he might be changing his mind about Kalid but he is not sure about the guilty one, in this case.

As a person, Set is self-made, as Kalid. His parents also died at an early age so he became to attached to his only family, Katherine. He would marry her soon. Unlike Kalid, he desires power but not for power itself but just to protect Katherine and himself. He failed to do so, so he lost the meaning for his life. He is involved in politics, but as Kalid, he does not see them as very important. They are just means for protection of himself. He is optimistic in some things and believes in the Futurist party goals, for true.

Sybil
Sybil is Priestess of Isis, the highest ranking female member of the Haldus Order on Sakkara. She instructs Leone on how to find Kalid.

The son of Kalid
He was trained by Kalid himself in the use of spiritual abilities like self-healing, breathing and martial arts. See Kaleb and Logan.

Thot
The artificial intelligence inside Leone's Thot spaceship.

Waldo
Name jokingly applied to the remote-controlled device that initially meets Set when he is on the Moon. At first Set thinks "Waldo" is a robot, but Salvaje explains that he is in control of the mobile device. See: Waldo (short story).