Illyn Tydale
The virtuoso
The man. The legend. In other words, me.
Since his debuts in the War of the Chosens, the infamous Illyn Tydale has only grown in influence, his talent acknowledged even by the greatest of the galaxy. He refused hundreds of high positions in various organizations, and even the title of Cantor according to some hearsay. A free spirit, none but one person ever managed to pin him down.
The best violinist of the war of the chosen, that is to say the best ever. Perhaps the best musician overall.
From the ashes
I was born in the chaos. I revel in it.
Not much remains from the early life of the virtuoso. Like most earthborns, he had a hard time before the Day of Unison. His was even rougher as he came to life in a region at war, an ancient country known as Afghanistan. For over a century, the area had known nothing but a violent war that shifted from ideological and religious to a conflict over water. Orphaned before he was ten, Zalmay Bakht was enrolled as a child soldier, then as a mercenary offering his services to the highest bidder.
A skilled fighter and expert in stealth operations, he was an efficient killer and a cruel torturer, lacking both compassion and ideology. All these qualities made him an ideal recruit for a specialized unit of the US Army. An unofficial elite corp conducting illegal or delicate international operations.
During his life in America, he discovered the violin and learned to play by himself. Despite having no basic knowledge of music theory and being unable to read a score, he quickly realized that he had talent. He played mostly by hear, trying to reproduce the songs he heard on the radio. At the time it was no more than a hobby that earned him his first nickname in the company: Zaymal the artist.
The Revelation
Hey, the artist, Bakht. Did ya just hear that? Ya got magic powers?
Zaymal Bakht heard the Voice like it was speaking to him specifically. He was a musician, a talented one, but he never thought much of it. To be honest, he felt that he played differently than the rest. When he poured his soul into the art, it seemed like the room was brighter, and he could swear that some objects floated slightly in the air, even though nobody ever believed him. But this Voice had unlocked something inside him. Before, it was just a hunch. Now a certainty.
[This part seems to be missing. Paywalled content? Or lack of inspiration? Hard to tell.]
The Fall of the First Stardom
The whereabouts of Zaymal Bakht during the First Stardom are widely unknown, though it is possible that he led a quiet life in a remote world. However, the chaos that ensued from the fall of unity reunited him with the war. He joined the human army as a regular soldier and fought with all his might. His comrades of the time described him as a maniac who loved a bit too much the madness of a battlefield.
He was noticed by the high command in the Battle of the Pillars , in which he turned the tides of an already lost engagement. He was already then a master of his Song, and had a dangerous affinity for entropy, which led him to disfigure the Pillars of Creation by accelerating the birth of several stars in the midst of a battle, frying almost every ship, enemies and allies alike.
Made colonel for this deed, he was chosen to be part of the personal guard of General Alan Pieta in the final showdown of the war. Unfortunately, things looked grim for humanity as they sustained a fatal blow when the bridge of Pieta's flagship, the Herodote, exploded. As per the rules agreed by the belligerents, humanity was now to retire its troops and surrender. However, that was not how Zaymal viewed things.
After all, he decided, the period was already engulfed in chaos and rules meant little. He took the rank of Alan Pieta and declared himself to be Illyn Tydale grand general of the army of man. Though it was a name no one ever heard before, the situation was too dire to rest and think about it. He led both ground and space skirmishes, winning every single battle he joined. He had the second-highest kill count, with thirteen enemy generals felled by his hands.
No one won the war, but humans were one of the only ones with a champion standing on top of countless bodies, and that was a victory in itself. But when Tydale was to be celebrated as humanity's greatest war hero, he disappeared again.
In the following thousands of years, he would appear from time to time, fighting for nothing other than his own sake, causing ruckus and chaos wherever it pleased him. A veritable force of nature wielding a heretic and dangerous Song, he is said to have disposed of the two Inquisitors that were ever sent after him.
The woman that made Illyn Tydale yield
[To come]
War of the Chosen
At the apogee of the First Stardom, the Revelation shook it to its core. Desperate and blinded by their own greed, the representative of each species fell into petty rivalries and internal conflicts. People were assassinated over the control of a system or mining rights of an asteroid belt.
When everyone thought things could not escalate further, each race declared war against all others, breaking ancient alliances and newly founded nations. After countless casualties and millions of billions of losses, an ultimate showdown took place between champions of all races and their armies. After the annihilation of several systems, only a handful of them were still alive, and none emerged victorious. Soon after, the remains of the Stardom collapsed due to the weight of the losses and chaos engulfed the galaxy.
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