Simeon the Red

Simeon the Red is a legendary scholiast of the Sollan Empire who lived thousands of years before the present, celebrated for making first contact with the Irchtani -- a species of winged xenobites on the mountainous world of Judecca -- and for defending their holy site, the temple of Athten Var, against a mutinous crew that planned to sell Irchtani into slavery. The Empire rewarded him with command of his own ship, and the Irchtani gave him a red prince's cloak -- red because the Irchtani perceive color differently and believed it matched his green scholiast robe -- from which he took his name. He thereafter explored deeper into the Centaurus Arm in service to the young Empire.

Simeon was Hadrian Marlowe's greatest personal hero throughout childhood and early life. Hadrian's mother told him stories of Simeon alongside figures such as Kharn Sagara, and Hadrian told his father he wanted to join the Expeditionary Corps and travel like Simeon the Red -- an ambition Lord Alistair Marlowe received with contempt. Hadrian continued to invoke him as a personal ideal as late as his conversation with Princess Selene.

By the time of the seventh book, however, Hadrian's view of Simeon has darkened. Reflecting on the fate of the Irchtani, Hadrian concludes that Simeon was responsible for bringing them under the dominion of the Empire -- a process that ultimately destroyed Judecca-that-was and the original Immuz of the Irchtani. The man Hadrian once revered as a savior, he now believes, would have served the Irchtani best by leaving them entirely alone.