Nikolai Balthasar

Nikolai Balthasar is a character from Xenogears. He is the father of Maria Balthasar.

Appearance and Personality
Nikolai has long brown hair and brown eyes. He is a very intelligent man with a specialty in Gear engineering. He cares deeply for his wife and daughter, and worked for Solaris in order to keep them safe. He would work in secret to undermine Solaris in order to help his daughter.

Story arc
Nikolai is a scientist with a specialty in Gear engineering and neurological machine fusion. He has experimented in enabling the connection between the human brain and a Gear. He was married to Claudia and is the father of Maria. Shortly after Maria's birth, Nikolai was captured by Solaris, who desired to use him to help advance their Gear development through the M Plan. His wife and daughter were captured soon afterwards to act as hostages. After a few years of being in Solaris, he conspired with his wife to enable his daughter to escape with the Gear he was developing, Seibzehn. Because he needed Maria's brain to be able to synchronize with the Gear's nervous system, he arranged for Claudia to have herself fused with the Gear. They made it appear like an accident and as such Maria never knew what happened to her mother.

While Maria was able to escape Solaris through this event and the help of Nikolai's grandfather, Balthasar, Nikolai remained in Solaris and continued to work on Gear development, now moving onto a new Gear, Achtzehn. At some point during its development, Nikolai became fused with the Gear, similar to what occurred with his wife. When Maria was 13 years old, Achtzehn was used to launch an invasion on Shevat. Nikolai's personality seemed changed, with him being pleased to be part of the invasion plan. Eventually however Maria would take him on in Seibzehn. After initially telling Maria about how she too could be reborn in a Gear, he was able to transmit a secret message to the Seibzehn which displayed his true feelings. He said goodbye to his daughter and had the Seibzehn destroy the Achtzehn.