- This article describes the Iscandarian species as depicted in Space Battleship Yamato 2199. For the homeworld of the species, see Iscandar (2199). For the species' counterpart in the original Space Battleship Yamato and Yamato: The New Voyage, see Iscandarian (OS). For the similarly named half of the hive mind consciousness in the live action film, see Iskandar.
The Iscandarians were a human species native to the planet Iscandar. One of the first humanoids to evolve, the Iscandarians built a powerful empire based on their great understanding of wave-motion energy, and brought war to much of the Large Magellanic Cloud with the ultimate objective of destroying lives to crystalize them for eternity in a wave-motion state. Eventually, most of the Iscandarian race underwent the same process, and instead enslaved the Garmillas race to continue their campaigns for them. Much of the later history of the Iscandarians would be characterised by their unique relation with the Garmillas and by Queen Stasha Iscandar's attempts to clean up her race's violent past.
Biology[]
A female Iscandarian, Queen Stasha Iscandar.
By the 22nd century, the only surviving Iscandarians were siblings, and did not necessarily represent the full range of features in the species. They resembled Terrans or Zaltzi in appearance, except for exceptionally brighter eye colors in some cases. The memories stored in Iscandarian brains could be accessed by equipment designed for Terrans. Genetic differences between the two species were negligible, enough for an Iscandarian woman to conceive a child with a human father. Despite the similarities with humans, Iscandarians possessed significant psychic capabilities, including some telepathy and the ability to project individual consciousness into other beings and to take partial control of them.[3][4][5][6]
History[]
Ancient History[]
Iscandarian Wave-motion Guns hit a planet
The Iscandarians were the result of the seeding of planet Iscandar by the Archelian civilization. Among the various species with the same origin, the Iscandarians were the first to develop. This fact, according to Queen Stasha Iscandar thousands of years later, gave them the "arrogance of a first-born child". With the development of wave-motion technology, the Iscandarians built an empire that stretched across the Large Magellanic Cloud. The ultimate reason behind Iscandarian expansion was the destruction of sentient lives and their recreation as crystals of wave-motion energy inside the underground vault the Sanctel. In the minds of the Iscandarians, this would give them eternal life and eternal beauty. Eventually, the entire Iscandarian race chose to undergo the same process and was entombed in its entirety inside of the Sanctel. The only ones who maintained a physical body were the members of the empire's royal family tasked with guarding the vault. However, their bodies were only a projection of their essence stored in the Sanctel. As such, they were ageless and bound to planet Iscandar. For their campaigns to continue without them, the Iscandarians enslaved a group of Galmans, a human species unable to live outside of their home planet, and settled them on a recreation of their homeworld on Iscandar's twin planet. The Garmillas, as they were now called, were brainwashed to develop an almost religious reverence for the Iscandarians, as well as a sense of pride in their blue skin. This was done to discourage interbreeding with other humans, which might have eventually resolved the issue of Garmillan longevity outside of their homeworld, weakening Iscandar's hold on them. Eventually, the Garmillas separated themselves from the Iscandarians' dying empire but maintained their unquestioning respect for them.[6][7] Despite the origins of the Garmillas being unknown to them, even thousands of years later, they kept the knowledge of having once been a part of the Iscandarian nation.[7][8]
An Iscandarian Wave-motion Core on Beemela
Thousands of years later, under the rule of Queen Stasha, the empire tried to establish a new, more equal relationship with the Garmillas. Stasha also formalised Iscandarism, the new leading philosophy for her people, which preached the salvation to all intelligent life in the universe. The empire undertook missions of peace, including one to the planet Beemela 4 sometime around the year 1800. Iscandar continued to rely on wave motion technology, but refused to share it with other races out of fear that it would be an irresistible temptation to their own imperial ambitions.[6][7][9]
Recent History[]
Abelt Desler: love and destruction[]
Desler courting Stasha
In 2174, the Garmillas Grand Duchy sent a delegation of noblemen, which included Grand Duke Erich Vam Desler, to meet with Queen Stasha. The Queen's eye was caught by the young nephew of the Grand Duke, Abelt Desler. Stasha whispered to the kid to "grow up fast", hoping he would one day help her change the relation between her nation and the growing Garmillas. Around the time of the Civil War Over the Rights of Succession, Abelt met a gain with Stasha, and personally courted her with a proposal to unify the remains of her empire with the Greater Garmillan Empire. Stasha apparently accepted some aspects of Desler's proposal, despite hesitation on her part about deep differences between their two societies. Construction began on a massive space station that would serve as the capital city of the unified empire.[6][8][10][11]
Sasha is found dead on Mars
Stasha's hesitation was confirmed by Desler's continuing campaign of conquest, and in particular by attacks on Earth that threatened to drive all life on the planet to extinction. In secret, Stasha took her sister, Yurisha Iscandar, outside of the Sanctel to dispatch her on a trip to Earth with an offer of the Cosmo Reverse System to restore the planet's biosphere, and plans for a wave-motion engine. Later, she also sent her other sister Sasha to gift the Terrans with a wave-motion core to power the WME. Both sisters were successful, but at the cost of Sasha's life in a crash on Mars, and an incident on Earth that injured Yurisha and the Terran officer escorting her, Lieutenant Yuki Mori. With a comatose Yurisha under medical care (but able to provide guidance through psychic possession of Warrant Officer Yuria Misaki), the new Earth ship, Yamato, departed for Iscandar.[1][2][5][7]
Stasha tried to beg Leader Desler to stop his rampage against the Terrans during the Battle of the Imperial Capital
Desler quickly realized Stasha's involvement, but kept knowledge of it to himself as long as possible. However, after learning that Yurisha was aboard Yamato, he saw a political opportunity and ordered his forces to abduct Yurisha during a battle with the Earth ship and bring her to Garmillas. The soldiers carrying out the mission unknowingly captured Lieutenant Mori, whose resemblance to Yurisha was striking. Desler was undeterred and presented Mori to the public as a princess of Iscandar—and as endorsement of the final unification of their two worlds. Soon afterward, the plan collapsed following a series of events that destroyed Desler's new capital and drove him from power.[8][12][13][14]
Stasha confers with Kodai's conciousness after his death
In the months while these events unfolded, a Garmillan vessel carrying Terran prisoners of war crashlanded on Iscandar. The only survivor, Mamoru Kodai, developed a romantic relationship with Stasha and the two had a daughter, whom the Queen named Sasha in honor of her deceased sister. Kodai died of the wounds reported in the crash before Yamato could retrieve him, and Sasha was kept away in a non-physical form for the following years.[6][7]
After Desler: new beginnings and end[]
Yurisha and the Garmillas provisional government
Despite Desler's loss, the closer ties he forged between Iscandar and Garmillas persisted. Vice Leader Redof Hiss updated Stasha on the political and military situation on Garmillas. Months later, Yurisha met with Admiral Gul Ditz, supreme commander of Garmillas Astro Force, and other leaders of the new Garmillas government. A Garmillas military attachée was also stationed on Iscandar to aid the two royals.[6][15] Yurisha became a part of the new government and tried to become a new symbol for the Garmillas people in the wake of the loss of their strong leader.[16] In 2203, it was discovered that planet Garmillas was reaching the end of its planetary cycle and would soon collapse. Knowing this had probably caused by the Iscandarians tinkering with Garmillas to make it habitable thousands of years prior, Stasha secretly leaked the existance of Galman to Desler's forces, who in the meantime had reconciled with the Garmillas government.[17]
Iscandar became a battlefield during the Dezariam war
Galman was liberated by the tyrannical rule of a foreign power in 2205, and the mass migration of Garmillan citizens began.[18] However, the previously unknown alien faction Dezariam, which sought to take control of the Sanctel, destroyed Garmillas to facilitate the transport of Iscandar, and began towing away the planet. A joint force of Desler's fleet and the Yamato's new squadron battled Dezariam to protect the planet and the surviving Garmillan refugees that had landed there. Yurisha initially suggested opening the Sanctel to hide the civilians, but Stasha refused stating that the immortality given by the vault was nothing but a curse. Eventually, the Queen revealed the truth about Garmillas' origins to Desler and the commander of the Earth fleet, and decided to self destruct Iscandar to not allow Dezariam to sieze her people's memories. As a result, both her and Yurisha disappeared due to the destruction of their essences stored in the Sanctel, extinguishing the Iscandarian race.[7][19][20][21][22][23]
Sasha assumes physical form
However, Sasha, survived and was entrusted to her Terran relatives. Now having a place to live normally, Sasha assumed physical form.[23]
Culture and Society[]
When Iscandarians abandoned their aggressive policies, they embraced an absolute belief in the importance of life throughout the cosmos. This new pacifist philosophy informed many of Iscandar's activities from that point.[6][9]
Technology[]
An Iscandarian wave-motion core
Wave-motion technology was the most dramatic example of Iscandarian science, their devices were replicated by other civilisation, most notably the Terrans, and continue to be used even after the Iscandarians' extinction. A single lightweight wave-motion core a few centimeters in length can enable a large ship to warp across vast interstellar distances. The same device can also give a ship potent long-lasting defensive and offensive capability, in the form of force fields and artillery. At full strength, a weapon such as the wave-motion gun built into Yamato can fire a single shot capable of vaporizing a continent. Desler's use of his own wave-motion gun appalled Stasha; his revelation that Yamato also possessed a wave-motion gun led Stasha to consider allowing Earth to die, just to prevent the rise of another empire like Iscandar of the distant past.[6][14][23][24][25]
A Cosmo Reverse System was given to Yamato, the Terrans later reused it on another warship
The Cosmo Reverse System embodied Iscandar's new belief in the value of all life. The consciousness of a deceased individual was preserved within the device. By drawing on the stored memories, the Cosmo Reverser could bring a dead person back to life, or heal a dying planet. The memories had to be relevant to the kind of life that was being restored. In the case of Earth, the consciousness of a Terram was required, hence Stasha's need for an Earth ship to visit Iscandar, rather than simply delivering the device to Earth directly.[6]
Robots similar to the type used by the Garmillas military carried out labor and security functions around the royal palace.[6]
Language[]
Iscandarian script (detail from a grave marker)
The Iscandarian language existed in spoken and written forms, and was kept alive by Stasha and Yurisha. The few humans that have heard it describe it as a soft-sounding language like Welsh or French[26]. Some Garmillans were able to speak at least a few phrases, but Garmillas translation technology made full learning of the language unnecessary.[6][14]
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 "Messenger of Iscandar"
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 "Toward a Sea of Stars"
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 "The Whisper of the Witch"
- ↑ "Clockwork Prisoner"
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 "Out of the Forest of Memory"
- ↑ 6.00 6.01 6.02 6.03 6.04 6.05 6.06 6.07 6.08 6.09 6.10 "The Distant Promised Land"
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 "Iscandar, the Dying Planet of Sorrow"
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 "The Planet That We Head For"
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 "A Choice for the Future"
- ↑ "Wish Upon a Star"
- ↑ "O Teresa, Cry for Dessler!"
- ↑ "They're Coming!"
- ↑ "Under a Rainbow Sun"
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 "One Man's War"
- ↑ "The Forever War"
- ↑ Space Battleship Yamato 2199 Secret File 03: The steep but bright future of the Garmillas provisional government
- ↑ Space Battleship Yamato 2205 Complete Works literary materials pp. 138-139
- ↑ "A Galactic War is About to Break Out! Assemble the Yamato Fleet!!"
- ↑ "The Last Day of Garmillas"
- ↑ "Save Iscandar! Rebellion of the Young Heroes!!"
- ↑ "Emergency Order! Yamato, Shoot Iscandar!!"
- ↑ "Immigrant Fleet Rescue Operation. Go Beyond the Dimensional Wall!"
- ↑ 23.0 23.1 23.2 "Hello Sasha"
- ↑ "Escape from the Jupiter Sphere"
- ↑ "The Trap on All Sides"
- ↑ "Ghale Garmillon! The Language System of Garmillas," by "Hoffnung," in Official Space Battleship Yamato 2199 Garmillas Mecha Book pp. 260-261 (translated by Neil Nadelman)
Japanese language information[]
イスカンダル人 Isukandarujin