Ares 17

"Ares 17, driven by ambition and contempt for his teammates, manipulates Artemis 11 into a suicidal mission, leading her to her death at the hands of the Gray Guards."
-- Events of Booklet 036

Ares 17 is a genetically engineered Super-Driver -- an artificially bred human clone with immense psionic powers -- produced by the Kaiser Corporation's secret Alpha-Order program on the prison planet Sarym. He is the seventeenth iteration of the Ares genetic line, one of several series in the Alpha-Order breeding program named after mythological figures. Of all the Super-Drivers deployed in the saga, Ares 17 holds a singular distinction: he is the only Super-Driver whose Killer Block is confirmed to activate and kill him -- making his death the clearest demonstration in Die Terranauten of both the Killer Block's lethal efficacy and its fundamental inadequacy as a control mechanism.

Appearing in 2 booklets (035 and 036), Ares 17 is a brief but pivotal figure. His attack on Shondyke -- the secret central world of the Gray Guards -- triggers a cascade of events that leads to the overthrow of Chan de Nouille, the establishment of the Clone-Queens' matriarchal society, and a lasting alliance between the Terranauts and the new rulers of Shondyke. He is a weapon that destroys its target, its allies, and itself -- in that order.

Origins: The Alpha-Order Program

The Ares Genetic Line

The Ares series is one of several genetic lines in the Alpha-Order breeding program, named after the Greek god of war. Super-Drivers are designated by their series name and a sequential clone number; higher numbers indicate later, more refined iterations. Two Ares clones are known in the saga:

The naming choice is apt: Ares, the god of uncontrollable war, lends his name to a clone whose defining trait is uncontrollable violence directed at everything around him -- allies and enemies alike.

Breeding and Conditioning

Like all Super-Drivers, Ares 17 was bred at the Kaiser secret station on Sarym's South Continent, a covert facility directed by Hermano Lotz and his cyborg assistant Dor Masali. His conditioning involved:

• Genetic engineering: Cloning and selective breeding within the Ares line to maximize psionic potential
• Biochemical enhancement: Chemical treatments to amplify PSI abilities beyond natural limits
• Thingstones: Radioactive crystals from Stonehenge II used to boost psionic energy during the breeding process
• Memory erasure: Systematic stripping of personal memories to prevent independent identity formation
• Killer Block: An artificial mental barrier implanted to ensure absolute loyalty to Max von Valdec, compelling suicidal behavior upon disloyalty

Ares 17 belongs to the second generation of Super-Drivers -- those deployed by Valdec as active weapons of conquest, as distinct from the first-generation test subjects (Prometheus 93, Isis 24, Phonix 17) who remained at the Kaiser secret station. He was enhanced alongside Artemis 11 and Plutos 23, forming a three-member team designed for psionic assault operations.

Biography

The PHOENIX and the Pirate Lodge (c. 2501)

Ares 17's first appearance occurs in Booklet 035 (The Pirate Lodge). He, Artemis 11, and Plutos 23 are discovered aboard the PHOENIX, an old Driver freighter crewed by a pirate lodge of outlaw Drivers. The PHOENIX was hiding in the meteor swarm Mothers Little Children near the Usher Cube, a rest and orientation point in space, and attacked a convoy of container haulers being escorted by the Gray Guard cruiser STEELFIST.

The engagement was brief. The STEELFIST, a far more powerful warship, destroyed the PHOENIX with ship-to-ship missiles. Three crew members survived: Ares 17, Artemis 11, and Plutos 23. They were captured and placed in deep-sleep chambers aboard the STEELFIST -- standard procedure for securing psionic prisoners.

Whether the three Super-Drivers were long-standing members of the pirate lodge or had infiltrated the crew as part of Valdec's plan is never explicitly stated. However, given their enhancement on Sarym and their implanted Killer Blocks, it is likely that their presence on the PHOENIX was a deliberate insertion. Valdec placed his operatives aboard a disposable pirate vessel that was certain to be intercepted by the Gray Guards, counting on the Super-Drivers' enhanced abilities to allow them to break free from captivity and reach Shondyke -- the Gray Guards' secret central world.

Seizure of the STEELFIST (c. 2501)

A Shadow aboard the STEELFIST, invoking her Alpha Legitimation and instructions from the Cosmorality, assumed command from Queen Alian and ordered a course change -- first to Contradom, then to the secret Guard world Borzeyke-Two, and finally to Shondyke.

During the journey, the captured Super-Drivers used their combined PSI abilities to break free from their deep-sleep chambers. The power of their enhanced psionic capabilities -- far beyond anything the Gray Guards had anticipated from ordinary pirate Drivers -- proved overwhelming:

• They killed Queen Alian and the Shadow
• They seized control of the STEELFIST
• They used the ship's shuttles, specifically the Ringo STEELFIST-Three, to descend to Shondyke's surface

This breakout demonstrates a critical feature of the Super-Driver program: even supposedly secured prisoners could not be contained by conventional anti-PSI measures when three enhanced psionic beings combined their abilities.

The Attack on Arda-City (c. 2501)

Arriving on Shondyke via the Botanical Transmitter System, the three Super-Drivers launched a devastating psionic assault on Arda-City, the underground capital of the Gray Guards. Their mission, as agents of Lord Colonel Valdec, was to sow chaos and weaken the Guards from within.

The attack caused:

• Widespread destruction and panic throughout Arda-City
• Mental takeover of individual Gray Guards, who were psionically dominated and turned against their comrades
• Disruption of the fire-shell surrounding Shondyke -- a phenomenon that Scanner Cloud, communicating with Baby (the Yggdrasil offshoot), identified as threatening the planet's connection to Space II and its very survival

The arrival of the Super-Drivers coincided with the infiltration of Shondyke by the Terranauts -- David terGorden, Llewellyn 709, Queen Mandorla, and Scanner Cloud -- who had traveled to the planet via Space Roads from Rubin through the abandoned non-human city of Bortzynn.

Betrayal of His Teammates (c. 2501)

It is during the Shondyke campaign that Ares 17's true character emerges. Driven by personal ambition and open contempt for his fellow Super-Drivers, he systematically betrayed both of his teammates:

1. Plutos 23 suffered a psionic breakdown due to the anti-PSI fields on Shondyke, particularly the interaction between the Sarym Shield technology and the Thingstone radiation in his conditioning. Ares 17 expressed contempt for Plutos's weakness and incapacitated him to prevent him from interfering with his plans.

1. Artemis 11 was manipulated by Ares 17 into a suicidal mission, deliberately sent into a situation where she was killed by the Gray Guards. Ares 17 used his teammate as a disposable distraction, sacrificing her life to buy himself time and opportunity.

These betrayals reveal the fundamental dysfunction at the heart of the Super-Driver program. The Killer Block was designed to enforce loyalty to Max von Valdec, but it did not prevent -- and may not even have registered -- intra-team betrayal. Ares 17 could murder his own teammates without triggering his conditioning, as long as his actions served (or could be rationalized as serving) the broader mission parameters.

The Psionic Duel with Llewellyn 709 (c. 2501)

With his teammates eliminated, Ares 17 attempted to reach the Control Pin -- a gigantic, petrified tree structure in orbit around Shondyke that controlled the system of space lanes connecting the planet to the rest of the empire. His intent was to destroy the Control Pin and sever Shondyke's connection to the broader interstellar network -- an act that would have isolated the Gray Guards permanently.

Llewellyn 709 killed Ares 17 in psionic combat, triggering Ares 17's own Killer Block. This was one of the saga's most dramatic demonstrations of Llewellyn's raw PSI power -- defeating a being specifically engineered to be a psionic weapon. The sequence suggests that Llewellyn's psionic assault either triggered the block directly or forced Ares 17 into a situation where the block activated autonomously as his mission parameters collapsed.

Death: Transport and Suicide (c. 2501)

Even after the psionic duel, Ares 17 managed to hijack a space shuttle and headed toward the Control Pin, still intent on destroying it. Scanner Cloud and Ci Anur joined forces to stop him.

The final blow came not from any combatant but from Baby -- the sentient offshoot of Yggdrasil possessing the memories of Astos. Baby used its connection to the cosmic tree's network to transport Ares 17 far away from Shondyke, stranding him in an unknown region of space.

There, alone and stripped of his mission, his teammates, and any purpose his conditioning could recognize, Ares 17 committed suicide -- the Killer Block's ultimate compulsion, activated in a being who had run out of loyal acts to perform. His death is the saga's single most explicit depiction of a Killer Block activation carried to its lethal conclusion.

PSI Abilities and Combat Capabilities

Ares 17 possesses the standard suite of artificially amplified PSI Powers characteristic of Super-Drivers, with several capabilities demonstrated explicitly in the saga:

Demonstrated Abilities

• Deep-Sleep Escape: Working in concert with Artemis 11 and Plutos 23, Ares 17 broke free from deep-sleep chambers aboard the STEELFIST -- capsules specifically designed to contain psionic prisoners. This demonstrates the combined PSI power of three Super-Drivers exceeds the containment capabilities of standard Gray Guard technology.

• PSI Assault: Ares 17 waged a sustained psionic assault on Arda-City that caused mass chaos, destruction, and the mental takeover of individual Gray Guards. The scale of this attack -- disrupting an entire underground city -- places him among the most destructive Super-Drivers deployed in the saga.

• Mind Control: He was able to psionically dominate individual Gray Guards, turning them against their comrades and using them as puppets during the assault on Arda-City.

• Psionic Combat: Ares 17 was powerful enough to engage Llewellyn 709 -- the saga's second most powerful psionic being -- in direct combat, though he was ultimately defeated.

Power Level

Ares 17 is powerful enough to devastate a Gray Guard stronghold and eliminate his teammates, but he is outmatched by beings of true exceptional psionic power -- Llewellyn 709 and the Yggdrasil network. This places him in the middle tier of named Super-Drivers: more dangerous than Plutos 23 or Artemis 11, but far less powerful than Prometheus 107 or Llewellyn 709.

Personality and Character

Despite being a weapon bred for obedience, Ares 17 displays a vivid and destructive personality across his two appearances:

• Ambition: Unlike Isis 31, who serves her masters without independent scheming, Ares 17 pursues personal goals that diverge from his mission parameters. He does not merely attack Shondyke; he eliminates his own teammates to consolidate power and attempts to sever the planet's connection to the empire -- an act that would position him as the sole architect of a devastating strategic blow.

• Contempt: Ares 17 holds open contempt for both Plutos 23 and Artemis 11, viewing them as weak and expendable. This contempt extends to his willingness to sacrifice them without hesitation -- using Artemis as a disposable weapon and discarding Plutos as dead weight.

• Ruthlessness: He manipulates Artemis 11 into a suicidal mission with calculated precision, sending her to certain death to serve his own tactical needs. This is not battlefield triage but deliberate, cold-blooded sacrifice of an ally.

• Overreach: Ares 17's personal ambition ultimately exceeds both his abilities and the boundaries of his Killer Block. His attempt to reach the Control Pin after eliminating his teammates pushes him beyond mission parameters, leading to the confrontation with Llewellyn 709 that triggers his destruction.

In the taxonomy of Super-Driver personalities, Ares 17 occupies a space between the obedient Isis 31 and the fully rebellious Prometheus 107. He is neither a loyal weapon nor a genuine revolutionary -- he is a self-serving predator who uses his mission as cover for personal ambition, and whose conditioning ultimately catches up with him.

The Killer Block: Ares 17 as Test Case

Ares 17's death is the single most important data point in the saga's analysis of the Killer Block mechanism. His case demonstrates several critical features of the technology:

Partial Autonomy

The Killer Block tolerated Ares 17's intra-team betrayals -- the manipulation and death of Artemis 11, the incapacitation of Plutos 23 -- without activating. This suggests the block defines "disloyal behavior" narrowly, focused on direct defiance of Valdec or abandonment of the mission, rather than monitoring the Super-Driver's treatment of fellow operatives. A being who murders his teammates but continues pursuing the mission objective apparently does not trigger the block.

Eventual Activation

When Llewellyn 709's psionic assault compromised Ares 17's ability to continue the mission -- or forced him into a state where the block recognized terminal failure -- the Killer Block activated. This confirms that the block is functional in Ares-series clones, unlike the Prometheus line where it appears entirely ineffective.

Lethal Outcome

After Baby transported Ares 17 far from Shondyke, stranding him in unknown space with no possibility of completing his mission, the block compelled him to commit suicide. This is the only confirmed instance in the saga of a Killer Block driving its subject to self-destruction -- the mechanism working exactly as Hermano Lotz designed it.

The Correlation

The Killer Block article in the Encyclopedia establishes a clear pattern: the Killer Block's effectiveness correlates inversely with psionic power. The Prometheus line (most powerful) defeats the block entirely. The Ares line (powerful but not supreme) operates with partial autonomy before the block activates fatally. The Isis, Thor, and Osiris lines (powerful but less dominant) show no recorded Killer Block failures. Ares 17 occupies the critical middle position in this spectrum -- powerful enough to circumvent the block temporarily, but not powerful enough to overcome it permanently.

Consequences of the Shondyke Attack

Ares 17's rampage, though it ended in his death, set in motion a cascade of events that fundamentally reshaped the political landscape of the Terran Star Empire:

1. Overthrow of Chan de Nouille: The chaos of the Super-Driver attack provided the opportunity that the Clone-Queens -- Ci Anur and Mi Lai -- had been waiting for to seize power from the old Cosmorality.

1. Establishment of the matriarchal society: The Clone-Queens used the crisis to separate Shondyke from the Council of Corporations and establish their independent, ecologically oriented civilization.

1. Terranaut-Clone Queen alliance: Scanner Cloud's pragmatic decision to help the Gray Guards, and Ci Anur's willingness to cooperate with the Terranauts, created a lasting alliance that proved critical in later booklets.

1. Baby's activation: Scanner Cloud's contact with Baby, the Yggdrasil offshoot, during the crisis deepened the Terranauts' connection to the cosmic tree network -- a connection that would prove vital for the space road system and the ecological transformation of Earth.

1. Scanner Cloud and Abashe remain: Scanner Cloud and his daughter Abashe doNhor stayed on Shondyke to help the Clone-Queens adapt, establishing a permanent Terranaut presence on the former Gray Guard homeworld.

In a grim irony, Ares 17 -- sent by Valdec to weaken the Gray Guards -- succeeded beyond his master's intentions. The Guards were not merely weakened; they were overthrown. But the new rulers who replaced them proved far more dangerous adversaries for Valdec than Chan de Nouille's rigid hierarchy ever was.

Key Actions (Chronological)

Relationships

Master and Program

Fellow Super-Drivers

Adversaries

Thematic Significance

The God of War Unchained

The naming of the Ares series after the Greek god of war is not merely decorative. In Greek mythology, Ares represented war at its most brutal and uncontrollable -- not the strategic warfare of Athena but raw, destructive violence that consumed everything in its path, including those who invoked it. Ares 17 embodies this quality precisely. He does not wage war strategically; he annihilates indiscriminately, destroying his allies before his enemies, consuming the mission before completing it. He is war without purpose -- the god of destruction named aptly.

The Weapon That Exceeds Its Parameters

Ares 17 is the saga's clearest demonstration that Super-Drivers cannot be aimed like weapons. Valdec sent him to weaken the Gray Guards; Ares 17 instead murdered his own teammates, pursued personal ambitions, and attempted to sever Shondyke's connection to the empire -- an act that would have had consequences far beyond anything Valdec intended. The weapon exceeded its parameters, as every Super-Driver eventually does.

This pattern -- the tool that turns in the hand -- is the central motif of Valdec's entire program. Kaiser Force destroys Zoe. The Ebberdyk Computers rebel. Prometheus 107 breaks free. And Ares 17, sent to break the Gray Guards, instead breaks the political order that replaced them, creating a matriarchal society that ultimately helps defeat Valdec himself.

The Killer Block's Only Confirmed Kill

Ares 17's death occupies a unique position in the saga's analysis of the Killer Block. He is the only Super-Driver whose block is confirmed to activate and kill him -- the single case where the control mechanism functions exactly as designed. Yet even this "success" is a failure: the block activated only after Ares 17 had already murdered one teammate, incapacitated another, devastated a city, and attempted to destroy the Control Pin. The Killer Block did not prevent the catastrophe; it merely ensured the weapon destroyed itself after the damage was done.

This makes Ares 17 the strongest evidence in the saga that the Killer Block is not a control mechanism but a cleanup mechanism -- a failsafe that ensures the weapon self-destructs once it has run out of destruction to cause. It does not make Super-Drivers safe. It merely guarantees they die.

Contrast with Other Super-Drivers

Ares 17's arc gains meaning through comparison with the saga's other named Super-Drivers:

Where Prometheus 107 represents the Super-Driver who transcends his programming, and Isis 31 represents the Super-Driver who fulfills it, Ares 17 represents the Super-Driver who corrupts it -- pursuing the mission's goals through means so destructive that the distinction between success and failure dissolves.

Appearances (2 booklets)

See Also

• Super-Drivers -- Genetically engineered psionic weapons; the broader category to which Ares 17 belongs
• Alpha-Order -- The Kaiser Corporation's secret breeding program that created him
• Killer Block -- The mental conditioning mechanism that ultimately killed him; Ares 17 is its only confirmed lethal activation
• Artemis 11 -- Fellow Super-Driver; manipulated to her death by Ares 17
• Plutos 23 -- Fellow Super-Driver; incapacitated by Ares 17
• Llewellyn 709 -- The Riemenmann who killed Ares 17 in psionic combat
• David terGorden -- Terranaut leader who helped confront Ares 17
• Scanner Cloud -- Psyter who organized the defense against Ares 17 and joined forces with Ci Anur
• Baby -- The Yggdrasil offshoot that transported Ares 17 away from Shondyke
• Max von Valdec -- Creator and ultimate master of the Super-Driver program
• Kaiser Corporation -- Institutional sponsor of the Alpha-Order
• Hermano Lotz -- Station commander of the Alpha-Order on Sarym
• Sarym -- Prison planet and breeding ground for Super-Drivers
• Shondyke -- The Gray Guard homeworld attacked by Ares 17
• Arda-City -- The underground city devastated by Ares 17's psionic assault
• PHOENIX -- The pirate freighter aboard which Ares 17 was captured
• STEELFIST -- The Gray Guard cruiser seized by the Super-Drivers
• Control Pin -- The orbital structure Ares 17 attempted to destroy
• Clone-Queens -- The matriarchal rulers who seized power in the aftermath of Ares 17's attack
• Ci Anur -- Leader of the Clone-Queen revolution, triggered by the crisis Ares 17 created
• Fire Bowl -- The cosmic energy shell surrounding Shondyke, threatened by the Super-Drivers' attack
• Isis 31 -- Fellow Super-Driver; the loyal counterpoint to Ares 17's self-serving ambition
• Prometheus 107 -- Fellow Super-Driver; the fully rebellious counterpoint to Ares 17's partial autonomy
• Valhala 13 -- Fellow Super-Driver; the tragically obedient counterpoint to Ares 17's destructive independence

Ares 17 appears in 2 of 99 booklets of Die Terranauten. He is the only Super-Driver whose Killer Block is confirmed to activate and kill him -- a distinction that makes his brief, violent arc the saga's definitive case study in the futility of controlling manufactured weapons.