Andrew Cherenkov

Andrew Cherenkov is a supporting character in Xenosaga Episode I.

Appearance and personality
Andrew Cherenkov is a man with ashy blonde hair styled in a classic side part. His eyes are light blue. On the Woglinde, he wears a federation uniform that is unique in color, with a dusty blue as opposed to green base color.

Cherenkov is well-respected amongst his peers and is serious about his work. While dedicated and self-sacrificing, his short temper has complicated his life, and has considerable difficulty interacting with civilians.

History
Andrew Cherenkov was created to be a soldier under the Life Recycling Law 36 years before the events of the game. He fought in the Miltian Conflict. Despite being created as a tool of war, Cherenkov desired to find some meaning in his existence. However, once the war ended, he found himself out of place in the broader society and poorly suited to live a normal civilian life. Becoming increasingly antagonistic towards society and due to his high predilection to aggression, Cherenkov began committing violent crimes.

He was put on trial where his defense attorney argued that Cherenkov was a victim of the Life Recycling Act and it was not humane to seek capital punishment. Rather, Cherenkov's punishment would be to undergo Level 7 Personality Reconditioning. After this treatment, Cherenkov began living a more normal life, marrying his defense attorney. One day, he discovered that his wife had had a successful cloning procedure to produce a child. She revealed that she only married him in order to secure a cloning permit and that she considered his DNA to be abnormal and not worth preserving. Enraged, Cherenkov murdered her.

Cherenkov was put on trial again for the murder of his wife, and was sentenced to Level 8 Personality Reconditioning. This stripped him of his human rights, reducing him to the same status as a Realian, a life form belonging to the Federation. He was referred to at this time as Defendant 12584.

A few years later, while walking through a crowd, he recognized a little girl, the clone of his deceased wife. As he approached her, she turned to him and called him garbage; in a blind rage, Cherenkov strangled her. Locked up once again for his crime, the authorities decided that he would be useful as a test subject for Level 9 Personality Reconditioning. This experiment went horribly wrong, as Cherenkov murdered every person in the facility along with three military squads. Shortly after this mass murder, Margulis visited the facility as Cherenkov had grown quite a reputation. Cherenkov initially attacked Margulis, who dodged his attack and knocked him down. Margulis decided to take Cherenkov with him to be a useful tool and began mentoring him within the U-TIC Organization.

During his time in the U-TIC organization, Cherenkov led an operation to seize a prototype version of KOS-MOS. A mysterious man provided him with a remote control device. Cherenkov then led a group of U-TIC soldiers into the Vector facility where KOS-MOS was being worked on. When he activated the control device, KOS-MOS awakened and began wreaking havoc, killing both U-TIC soldiers and Vector employees like Kevin Winnicot. Cherenkov fled outside where KOS-MOS destroyed a pursuit ship. Eventually, KOS-MOS was stopped by Shion and Cherenkov's involvement in the event was unknown to her.

Cherenkov was also involved in a Link Experiment which caused the disappearance of the planet Ariadne. Before escaping Ariadne, he saw a vision of his former wife and her clone.

Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht
At the start of the game, Cherenkov is stationed undercover on the Woglinde, holding the title of Commander. He first appears on the Woglinde bridge along with Captain Moriyama, expressing the importance of retrieving any salvageable objects in the area such as one of the Zohar Emulators. When Shion reports on the current status of KOS-MOS to him and Moriyama later, Cherenkov becomes quite frustrated at learning that KOS-MOS has no actual field data. He appears quite distressed over the possibility that the Gnosis may attack the ship. Moriyama tells him to let it go and Cherenkov, receiving a message from Margulis, departs the bridge shortly after. Cherenkov reports to Margulis, and is apologetic about the fact that people disappeared upon touching the recently recovered Zohar Emulator. Margulis orders him to keep the Zohar Emulator safe until reinforcements arrive, as well as to encourage the KOS-MOS development team to hurry with its deployment. Cherenkov later complains to Allen offscreen about KOS-MOS.

Later, when the Gnosis attack the Woglinde, Cherenkov ignores his official Woglinde duties and instead heads to the area of the ship where the Zohar Emulator is stored. There, he orders Vanderkam and other undercover U-TIC members to prioritize getting the Zohar Emulator to Margulis. He orders them to evacuate via escape pods and that he will stay behind with the Zohar Emulator, even if it results in his death. Shion, KOS-MOS, Allen and Virgil arrive soon afterwards as the Gnosis make their way to that part of the ship. The Gnosis seize the Zohar Emulator and Cherenkov survives only by holding onto the outside of Shion and Allen's escape pod.

Cherenkov joins Shion, Allen and KOS-MOS as they board the Elsa and head to the bridge where he asks Captain Matthews to drop him off at Senir. A Gnosis soon makes its way onto the bridge and grabs Cherenkov by the neck until chaos touches it, causing it to disintegrate. Cherenkov survives, but is deeply scarred by the event. While Shion and Allen befriend the Elsa crew, Cherenkov largely keeps to himself. At one point, he stands over KOS-MOS while she rests and pulls out his gun, frightened of the memory of his previous experience with her. Shion arrives shortly afterwards to bring him some food. He refrains from telling Shion his true feelings and says he has a bad habit of holding his gun. He and Shion then have a conversation about KOS-MOS.

Later, after Ziggy and MOMO join the Elsa and the U-TIC pursuers have been fought off, Cherenkov reports back to Margulis about losing the Zohar Emulator to the Gnosis. He also points out that he's on the same ship as MOMO, whom the U-TIC Organization desires to recover. Margulis instructs him not to go beyond the scope of his original mission and to return to headquarters when he is able to.

When the Elsa makes a rest stop at a Dock Colony, Cherenkov wanders outside on his own. Unknown to him, this area is rife with people who hold a grudge against the military. Wandering around in his obvious military uniform, Cherenkov is surrounded by a bunch of street punks who beat him up. Hammer, witnessing this, rushes back to the Elsa to get help. A symbol appears on Cherenkov's forehead, indicating the breakdown of his personality reconditioning, and he murders all the men attacking him. Shion and the others find him afterwards and bring him back to the Elsa to treat his wounds. They are curious as to how he managed his attackers, but Cherenkov fibs that the street punks began fighting each other. MOMO offers to treat his wounds with her nanomachine abilities, but he strongly refuses such treatment.

After heading off on his own to another part of the ship, Cherenkov appears quite distressed and injects himself with something to try to calm himself down. The symbol appears on his forehead again. He tries to sleep but has nightmares. Getting up and going to a vending machine, he sees his arm start to become invisible.

The Elsa is soon caught up by the Cathedral Ship, a giant Gnosis, and Cherenkov is separated from the others. He wanders around, seeing images of the Zohar and other things. He soon realizes that parts of the ship are from Ariadne, but finds it hard to believe. Eventually he makes his way to an area where the Zohar Emulator is located. Shion and the others make their way there as well. Cherenkov's condition has worsened, with more parts of his body becoming invisible. He finds it doubtful they will make it through this alive and admits his role in the disappearance of Ariadne as well as Vector and the Woglinde being pawns in a plan to recover the Zohar Emulator. He transforms into the Gnosis Gargoyle soon after.

After the party defeats Gargoyle, Shion sees a vision of Margulis talking to Cherenkov about the strength of will. Then, Shion appears on a beach with Cherenkov. He explains his past to her and how he had sought meaning, feeling as if the whole world had rejected him until he met Margulis. However, through his experiences he had realized that the world hadn't rejected him, but he had rejected the world. He realizes this place, where there is no anger, sadness, happiness or a future is the place he has been searching for. Before Shion returns to reality, he also indicates that Shion will find herself in that place as well.

Cherenkov's tracking signal disappears. When Margulis hears of this, he seems disappointed.

Etymology
Cherenkov's name may be an allusion to Cherenkov radiation, observed as a blue glow around underwater radioactive materials. Cherenkov radiation occurs when charged particles that are moving faster than the speed of light in a medium like water excite the molecules in the medium temporarily. The molecules then release this extra energy as photons. It is analogous to a sonic boom but on the light spectrum.