HADES

"Figures emerge from the wrecked HADES, and three enter the TERRA I, revealed to be 'Changed' themselves."
-- Events of Booklet 032

The HADES (German: Kampfraumer Hades, "Battlecruiser Hades") is a Gray Guard battle cruiser that played a pivotal role in the Oxyd crisis. One of five ships dispatched on a suicide mission to intercept the asteroid Oxyd as it hurtled toward Earth, the HADES was commanded by Queen Somar-Ellen and carried a mixed complement of Gray Drivers and imprisoned Terranauts from the Moon Dungeons. When Cantos sent Oxyd into Space II, the HADES was trapped on the asteroid alongside the TERRA I, eventually crashing on the transformed surface of what the survivors came to call Phoenix. The ship's destruction forced its crew into a desperate struggle for survival that ultimately contributed to one of the saga's most extraordinary events: the transformation of Oxyd from a weapon of annihilation into a life-giving world.

Overview

The HADES is one of the less-documented vessels in the saga, appearing primarily through its consequences rather than its operations. Unlike the MIDAS or the JAMES COOK, whose voyages are narrated in extensive detail, the HADES enters the story already in crisis -- wrecked on the surface of Oxyd/Phoenix, its surviving crew desperate for rescue. Yet the ship's significance is considerable: its survivors, particularly Queen Somar-Ellen and Hauptmann Ramus, became central figures in the Phoenix exile community, and the Terranaut prisoners it carried -- including Daktar -- drove some of the most consequential events on the transformed asteroid.

The HADES should be understood in the context of the Oxyd Catastrophe: the disastrous Kaiser Force experiment that charged the asteroid Oxyd with Space II energies and sent it on a collision course with Earth. The ship was part of the military response to that catastrophe, and its fate -- trapped in the very disaster it was sent to avert -- exemplifies the saga's recurring theme that Kaiser Force technology destroys those who attempt to wield it.

Specifications

The HADES is described as a "battle cruiser" (Kampfraumer) -- a designation indicating a large, armed warship of the Gray Guards fleet. It was one of five ships of Gray Drivers dispatched on the suicide mission to Oxyd (Booklet 021), suggesting it was part of a standardized class of military vessels. The ship carried both military personnel (Gray Drivers and Guards) and prisoners from the Moon Dungeons, the latter presumably intended as expendable crew or forced labor for the dangerous mission.

Crew

Command

Known Crew and Passengers

The full crew complement of the HADES is not specified in the extant sources. However, it is clear that the ship carried a significant number of both Gray Guard personnel and Moon Dungeons prisoners. The animosity between these two groups -- military captors and their political prisoners -- became one of the defining tensions on Phoenix after the crash.

History

Deployment: The Oxyd Crisis (Booklet 021)

The HADES was deployed as part of the desperate military response to the Oxyd Catastrophe. After Summacum Homan's disastrous Kaiser Force Transmitter experiment saturated the asteroid Oxyd with Space II energies, the charged object hurtled toward Earth, emitting destructive Gray Flood waves that caused widespread chaos and casualties.

The Gray Guards command, recognizing the existential threat, dispatched five ships of Gray Drivers on a suicide mission: push Oxyd back into Space II or destroy it. The HADES, under Queen Somar-Ellen's command, was among these five vessels. The mission was explicitly understood to be one-way -- the crews were not expected to survive.

Booklet 021 identifies both Queen Carmen and Queen Somar-Ellen as commanders associated with the HADES -- Carmen commanding the TERRA I and Somar-Ellen commanding the HADES itself. The two ships operated in the same task force, approaching Oxyd through its strange gravitational fields and instrument-disrupting energy emissions.

Before the mission could be completed, Cantos intervened, using his powers to send Oxyd into Space II. The immediate threat to Earth was eliminated -- but the ships in Oxyd's vicinity, including both the TERRA I and the HADES, were trapped on the asteroid as it vanished into the alternate dimension.

Crash on Oxyd/Phoenix (Booklet 032)

Within Space II, the asteroid Oxyd was reshaped by Kaiser Force energies into something unprecedented: a self-contained proto-universe that the survivors named Phoenix. The HADES did not survive the transition intact. While the TERRA I managed to land on Phoenix's surface, the HADES crashed, sustaining catastrophic damage that rendered it a wreck.

The survivors aboard the wrecked HADES found themselves stranded on a treacherous, ever-shifting landscape where the laws of physics operated differently. When the HADES sent a distress call, it prompted a fierce debate aboard the TERRA I over whether to mount a rescue. Centurio Claudette and other "Changed" -- crew members transformed by Phoenix's energies -- urged Queen Carmen to help the HADES crew, warning of dire consequences if they refused.

Figures emerged from the wreckage. Three entered the TERRA I and were revealed to have become "Changed" themselves -- transformed by Phoenix's energies into beings with extraordinary PSI powers who no longer required food.

The Survivors' Journey to the TERRA I

Upon reaching the TERRA I, Somar-Ellen and Ramus were confronted with the deep factional divisions that had already erupted among the stranded population:

A Lodge was formed to create a shared sphere of thought that aided the survivors of the HADES -- one of the first cooperative acts between the factions. But the unity was fragile.

Factional Violence and Its Aftermath

The tensions between HADES survivors and TERRA I crew, between Gray Guards and Terranauts, escalated into open violence. Daktar, the Terranaut who had been imprisoned aboard the HADES, convinced Queen Quendolain that Queen Carmen was a threat. Daktar attacked Carmen, and the Terranauts killed her -- triggering a deadly response from the Gray Drivers.

A beam cannon was fired at the Changed, but instead of killing them, it unleashed monstrous creatures born from the collective hate-thoughts of the combatants. Phoenix's environment, responsive to the mental states of its inhabitants, had turned the factions' rage into physical manifestations. Only when the Gray Drivers heeded Quendolain's call to surrender their anger did the monsters dissipate.

In the aftermath, Queen Somar-Ellen and Hauptmann Ramus -- the HADES's former commanders -- emerged as the new leaders. They formed a pact with Quendolain and the Terranauts for peaceful coexistence, establishing a fragile but functional community on Phoenix.

Legacy: The Changed Ones (Booklets 064-065)

By the time of Booklets 064-065, the HADES survivors had evolved far beyond their origins. Somar-Ellen and Ramus had achieved a "unique form of unity," merging in mind and spirit to become the composite being known as Somar Ellen-Ramus. This merged entity became one of the leaders of the Changed Ones, designated by Quendolain to lead half of the exile community.

In the climactic events of Booklet 065, the Changed Ones -- including the merged Somar Ellen-Ramus -- collectively sacrificed their individual identities to transform Oxyd from a lethal energy sphere into a habitable planet in the Three-Sun System. The Entity, an ancient cosmic observer, witnessed this act of selfless transformation and decided to continue observing humanity rather than ordering its immediate destruction.

The crew of the HADES, who had set out on a suicide mission to save Earth from an asteroid, ended their story by saving an alien civilization through an act of collective self-sacrifice that transcended species, faction, and individual identity.

Key Events (Chronological)

1. Deployment to Oxyd -- The HADES is dispatched as one of five Gray Driver ships on a suicide mission to intercept the asteroid Oxyd before it collides with Earth (Booklet 021)
2. Trapped in Space II -- Cantos sends Oxyd into Space II, trapping the HADES and the TERRA I on the asteroid (Booklet 021)
3. Crash on Phoenix -- The HADES crashes on the transformed surface of Oxyd/Phoenix, sustaining catastrophic damage (Booklet 032)
4. Distress call -- The wrecked HADES sends a distress call to the TERRA I (Booklet 032)
5. Survivors emerge -- Figures emerge from the wreckage, some already transformed into "Changed" beings; Queen Somar-Ellen and Hauptmann Ramus navigate the hostile landscape to reach the TERRA I (Booklet 032)
6. Lodge formed -- A lodge is formed to create a shared sphere of thought aiding the HADES survivors (Booklet 032)
7. Factional violence -- Daktar, a former HADES prisoner, kills Queen Carmen; monstrous hate-creatures manifest; Quendolain brokers peace (Booklet 032)
8. New leadership -- Somar-Ellen and Ramus take command of the TERRA I, forming a pact with Quendolain and the Terranauts (Booklet 032)
9. Merger of identities -- Somar-Ellen and Ramus merge into the composite being Somar Ellen-Ramus; Daktar merges with Quendolain (Booklet 064)
10. Transformation of Oxyd -- The Changed Ones, including former HADES crew, merge into a single collective consciousness, transforming Oxyd into a habitable planet (Booklet 065)

Significance

A Ship of Contradictions

The HADES embodies several of the saga's central contradictions. It was a warship sent on a mission of salvation. It carried both captors and captives -- Gray Guards and Moon Dungeons prisoners -- bound together by a death sentence disguised as a military order. Its destruction on Phoenix forced its fractured crew into a community that could only survive through cooperation, yet the old hatreds nearly destroyed them before the new world could save them.

The ship's very name -- HADES, the Greek underworld -- proved grimly prophetic. The HADES descended into a realm beyond normal space, a dimension of transformation and death, from which its crew emerged fundamentally changed. But unlike the mythological Hades, Phoenix offered not eternal stagnation but radical metamorphosis: the crew of the HADES became something more than human, and their final act was one of creation rather than destruction.

The Bridge Between Factions

The HADES's most important contribution to the saga may be the human connections forged through its destruction. The merger of Queen Somar-Ellen (Gray Guard commander) and Hauptmann Ramus (her officer) into Somar Ellen-Ramus parallels the merger of Queen Quendolain (former Gray Guard) and Daktar (Terranaut prisoner). These fusions -- born from the shared ordeal on Phoenix -- dissolved the rigid caste boundaries of Terran society (Gray Guards vs. Terranauts, commanders vs. prisoners) and created composite beings capable of the collective self-sacrifice that saved the Carmas and transformed Oxyd.

Without the HADES crew, the exile community on Phoenix would have lacked the critical mass of both factions needed for this transformation. The ship brought together the very people whose merger would, decades later, change the fate of an alien civilization and alter the cosmic Entities' judgment of humanity.

Appearances

Related Articles

• TERRA I -- The Gray Guard spacecraft that survived the crash on Phoenix alongside the HADES
• Queen Somar-Ellen -- Commander of the HADES; later merged with Ramus
• Hauptmann Ramus -- Senior officer of the HADES; later merged with Somar-Ellen
• Somar Ellen-Ramus -- The composite being formed from the HADES's command staff
• Daktar -- Terranaut prisoner transported aboard the HADES; later merged with Quendolain
• Queen Carmen -- Commander of the TERRA I; killed by Daktar after the HADES survivors arrived
• Queen Quendolain -- Leader of the Changed of Phoenix; brokered peace between the factions
• Oxyd -- The asteroid on which the HADES crashed; later transformed into a habitable planet
• Phoenix -- The name given to the transformed Oxyd by its survivors
• Changed of Phoenix -- The transformed humans, including HADES survivors
• Moon Dungeons -- The prison from which the HADES's Terranaut passengers originated
• Gray Guards -- The military force that operated the HADES
• Cantos -- The Genessaner who sent Oxyd into Space II, trapping the HADES
• Kaiser Force -- The technology whose catastrophic misuse created the Oxyd crisis
• Space II -- The alternate dimension into which the HADES was drawn
• Three-Sun System -- The alien star system saved by the collective sacrifice of former HADES crew
• Entities -- The cosmic judges who observed the Changed Ones' transformation of Oxyd

The HADES appears directly in 2 booklets of Die Terranauten (021, 032) and is indirectly referenced through its surviving crew in booklets 064 and 065. Though the ship itself was destroyed, its legacy persists through the Changed Ones -- the composite beings forged from its crew whose collective sacrifice transformed a weapon of annihilation into a cradle of life.