Osman Kristján

*"So this is the soundtrack to the death of the worlds."* -- Last words of Osman Kristján

**Osman Kristján** was a civilian scientist of Noveautrea and long time colleague of Wilhelm F. Keigel. Born in **SY 70** as a sixth generation Noveautrean, his ancestors were part of the founders of the project in **100 BSC** and some of the few non-Cyrillics. He completed his doctoral research under Keigel at the University of Noveautrea and began a long career in the public civil service as a neuroengineer and bioscientist. He worked in close cooperation with others in his field to advance psychic radio technology, wrote many papers on the psychology of transhumans, and advocated for new approaches to the further integration of humanity with it's own creations. His work was also utilized by Arthur Feingold to create the ALTERRA technology utilized by the Progress fleet.

## Biography

Notoriously apolitical, Kristján was quietly and studiously devoted to his work and never married but was not unknown to have warm relationships both platonic and romantic; his personal views were unknown even to his closest colleagues, and were not discovered until his private journals were released after his death. However, he was not adverse to Technocracy sympathies and openly worked with many of it's defenders while remaining staunchly silent on the matter of war, even when it finally came. Many Noveautreans were Technocracy idealists. He also willingly collaborated and communicated with Confederate and Consortium colleagues until the outbreak the Solar War.

Due to his apolitical position, he was called upon by World Congress to testify as an expert witness on the subject of artificial intelligence during the freebooting scandal of **SY 132:** a trial-in-absentia of Hadyn von Dehlin for his decades long plot to create an artificial trade differential between the Consortium and the Confederacy by assigning Solarnet addresses to complex artificial intelligence programs written by members of the Third Alliance under von Dehlin's direct instruction. Kristján argued that it was impossible to tell at a glance whether the AIs in question were able to pass a Turing test but were certain that they were not in any way comparable to HELENA and that the subject demanded further research; ultimately, he recommended the appointment of a joint independent committee staffed by members of Noveautrea, the Consortium, and the Confederacy to handle the subject as a matter of scientific philosophy. This was to all parties unsatisfactory and he returned to Noveautrea himself dissatisfied with the further politicization and polarization of the pan-Solar academic community.

Kristján continued his civil work until **SY 134**. Having never discovered nor even suspected his mentor's double life as **Thorstein Rautenstrauch** until his public revelation during the Battle of Earth, Kristján was deeply horrified and his entire worldview came crashing down in an instant. He suffered a complete breakdown when he realized his work on the omniphony was being used by a now-thoroughly-mad Keigel to live broadcast an operatic depiction of the Battle.

Deeply betrayed and with his last bits of free will, Kristján contacts the Protectorate during the broadcast and shares thousands of terabytes of research and data previously privy only to the Noveautrean scientific elite. His final journal entry reasons that the entire war was senseless, there were no right sides or correct actions in the war, and he refused to allow his life's work to be utilized to such ends. Not ceding moral high ground to the Protectorate, he insists that he only wanted to take away the Technocracy's monopoly on Noveautrean high technology rather than give the other spacers an advantage.

After the broadcast of the Battle of Earth, he commits suicide in a confrontation with Keigel.