Krelian

Krelian (, Karellen) is a character and the primary antagonist of Xenogears. He is the leader of Solaris.

Appearance and Personality
Krelian is a man with platinum hair and blue eyes. He wears a yellow military uniform with black and white accents, and black and white boots. In the past, Krelian's hair was indigo, with his attire consisting of a chestplate, a capelet with the symbol of Nisan on each shoulder, a purple tailcoat, and brown boots with black accents.

Krelian is a cruel, nihilistic man, who has done terrible deeds which he considers his "sins". Krelian's motivations are a result of the despair after the death of Sophia. He has a god complex, believing himself to be an agent of "God".

History
Krelian was born in excess of 500 years ago. He was born as an illegitimate child, and his mother Elazaru dies the same year he was born. When he grew older, Krelian would enter the Nimrod Empire's Laodicea Military Corps and eventually, through mastering various types of weapons, become its leader. In a conflict with the Penuel Monastery he would come across Sophia, assigned to kill her. But as she greeted him with a smile he instead fell for her and didn't do so. He fled with her and would return to Nisan 7 years later, this time leading the Monastery Corps. At 28 years old, Krelian met Lacan, who also vied for Sophia's love. Krelian grew angry at Lacan, whom Sophia loved. Krelian became interested in nanotechnology and learned about it from his teacher, Taura. Taura had been able to identify research from Kim, conducted 3,500 years ago. Krelian would eventually build upon this technology to fulfill his goals.

War between the land dwellers and Solaris would break out when Krelian was 31 years old. Four years later, Sophia sacrificed herself, crashing the Excalibur into the Solaris aerial fortress, Merkava. Krelian was devastated by her death. He swore that if God didn't exist, he would create it with his own hands. The Day of Collapse would soon wipe out the majority of the human population. Six years later, Krelian met Emperor Cain. By this point, he no longer aligned himself with the surface dwellers, but rather took a role among Solaris to fulfill his ambitions. He revived 8 of the deceased Gazel Ministers in the SOL-9000. With his knowledge of nanotechnology, Krelian was able to greatly extend his own life, ceasing his aging so he could live until Deus was resurrected. He was able to provide the same treatments to Emperor Cain, as well as several members of Shevat as revenge against them for betraying Sophia. This included Queen and all 3 Sages. He also did this in part to isolate Shevat from the surface dwellers.

Forty years before the events of the game, Krelian would advance to the 5th stage of the M Plan and make contact with the Miang of that time. The M Plan's goal was the creation of an army of Angels for the support of Deus when it was resurrected. Many experiments would be performed through the Soylent System and Krelian's research would contribute to matters such as the limiters, memory cubes, and humans fusing with Gears. Sixteen years later, he would create a clone of Emperor Cain, known as 0808191 Ramses. When the current Miang died, she awakened in Fei's mother Karen. Telling Krelian that her son was a contact, Ramsus was abandoned.

During the current day, Krelian is the de facto ruler of Solaris. He continues his quest to create God through the resurrection of Deus. He continues to provide life extension treatments to Emperor Cain and furthers his research of nanotechnology.

Present Day
Krelian first appears after The Ethos is exposed as a cover organization for Solaris and most of its members are assassinated. Traveling near the surface on the ship Ezekiel, he releases Wels to attack the Thames as he heads near the ruins of Zeboim located at the Ethos Dig Site. Krelian sends Bishop Stone there in order to recover Emeralda, through which he hopes to greatly advance with his nanotechnology research. Stone is successfully able to return Emeralda to him and Krelian reports to the Gazel Ministry shortly afterwards. As thanks to Stone he merges him with his Gear, although Stone is defeated by the party soon afterwards. As the party destroys the Gates hiding Solaris from the rest of the world, Krelian sends Emeralda to the third gate, located in the Sargasso along with his underling Rattan. While Emeralda is defeated and joins the party, Krelian had already obtained any information he needed from her.

Krelian next appears during a speech of Emperor Cain's when Fei and Elly are in Arbot Plaza in Solaris. Upon seeing Krelian for the first time, memories come back to Fei from when Lacan and Krelian were friends 500 years ago. Fei, Elly and Citan make their way through the Soylent System then Krelian's Laboratory and Fei and Elly are eventually captured. Krelian is particularly interested in Elly, determining she is both "The Mother" and the Antitype. Elly and the others are able to escape, and Solaris is destroyed shortly afterwards although Krelian makes it out in time. Krelian sends Ramsus after Fei and Elly, providing him an Anima Relic so his Gear becomes upgraded to an omnigear. Ramsus however is so drunk with power that he ends up shooting Weltall out of the sky and fails to bring Elly back with him.

Krelian's plans continue on the game's second disc. Along with Miang he manipulates Ramsus into killing Emperor Cain for him. After Ramsus does so, the Gazel Ministry use the Gaetia Key, activating Mahanon. Krelian heads there along with Miang and Grahf and in addition to obtaining the original body of Deus and Razael's Tree are able to capture Fei and the others. Krelian gets Grahf to leave Fei with him so he can use him and the others as bait for Elly, having their Gears crucified at Golgoda. Elly appears there as expected and while she puts up a fight in the omnigear El Regrs she is ultimately defeated and captured by him. Krelian returns to the Gazel Ministry and, now having no more use for them, promptly deletes their memory banks. He then resurrects his arc, Merkava, and uses it to destroy much of the planet. The party goes there to fight, and Krelian provides Ramsus his own omnigear, Amphysvena, to use along the way. After the party defeats Ramsus and Miang, Ramsus appears again to confront the party. Krelian and Miang reveal to Ramsus that they have been manipulating him the entire time. In a rage, Ramsus kills the both of them, but Krelian is able to revive his body due to the nanomachines implanted in him. He then heads to be absorbed into Deus along with Elly, now awoken as Miang.

Fei has one final confrontation with Krelian after Deus is defeated. Krelian provides a final test for Fei, Urobolus, the final form of Miang, whom Fei defeats. Krelian has been aware of the Wave Existence and the need for Deus to be defeated so it can be freed from the Zohar. Now that it has been freed he plans to travel with it to a higher dimension and go to the place of God. He has one final encounter with Fei and Elly, telling him he envies them before sprouting wings. He releases the two so they can return back to their home.

Lore

 * Krelian's body is comprised of a nanomachine colony, not just for longevity, but to unify with Deus.

Trivia

 * Despite being the primary antagonist, Krelian is never fought at all at any point in the game.
 * Z, the main antagonist of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 resembles Krelian.
 * Additionally, similar how Krelian took the form of a disembodied face in his last encounter with Fei, Z's true form is a giant disembodied face in the final battle.
 * Krelian's motives are similar to Amalthus's from Xenoblade Chronicles 2.
 * Both are the primary antagonists of their respective games.
 * Both are motivated by the death of someone close to them and witnessed the worst of humanity first hand, resulting them to develop a god complex.
 * Both have done horrific experiments on humans.
 * Both desired to destroy everything by using divine power.
 * Both claimed to be agents of their respective gods they worshipped.
 * The character is named after Karellen from the Arthur C. Clarke novel Childhood's End. In the novel, Karellen is an alien being known as an Overlord who acts as a supervisor over Earth and guides humanity in its next stage of evolution. This was mistranslated to "Krelian" for the US release.