Name | Shanath |
Gender | Male |
Battlestyle/Job Class | Son of Emperor Olgan, right hand man of Baelheit, assassin for Verus, father of Savyna |
Hometown | Alfard |
Age | 27 |
Eye Color | Brown |
Hair Color | Black |
Voice Actor | English-Kirk Thornton |
Weapon/Element | Machina Weaponry |
The son of Emperor Olgan and prince of Alfard, Shanath renounced his royalty after becoming a victim of his father's twisted ambitions and plans. He works his way up through the empire, cutting off all previous ties to his father and his status as the next heir to the throne, developing a cold and sadistic mind with little remorse or sympathy. Serving both Baelheit and Verus for his own ends, Shanath murders his own father in cold blood and embarks on Baelheit's plans for pro-machination, all the while seeking to end the life of all the malideiters, the representations of his father's twisted treatment towards him, especially Sagi.
Victim of his father's ambition[]
Shanath is the son of Emperor Olgan and the prince of Alfard. He is also a failed Malideiter and a double agent for Quaestor Verus. Olgan initiated the Malideiter project in order to artificially create a Spiriter who could lead Alfard to glory; Shanath, his son, was intended to be that Spiriter. However he never got the power of the other Malideiters, and he grew to resent his father, believing him to be a power hungry tyrant who cared more for power rather than the welfare of his own son. Over the years, this resentment would turn into raw hatred and anger, which would soon be shared by a lust for power and control in order to run the empire and prove his father wrong.
While working his way up in the empire, Verus made contact with the young man and preyed upon his hatred and anger towards Olgan to enlist him in his plans to seize control of the empire. With Verus's influence throughout the years, Shanath became a sadistic and cruel man and by the age of 27, he had become Lord Baelheit's adviser and confidante, the commander of The Dark Service, the leader of the Machina Vanguard, and the father of Savyna. These positions would serve him well as he was able to gain immense resources through the machina Baelheit invented as well as popularity and prestige. At the same time, Shanath was making his own plans to use the power of the machina to wipe out all the malideiters and become more powerful than his father could have ever dreamed. He had no intentions of showcasing this to his father however and simply lusted for vengeance against him, a goal that he was promised to soon have in his grasp by Verus.
The Assassination of the Emperor[]
By the start of Baten Kaitos Origins, Shanath was put in control of The Dark Service, a secret organization for Baelheit's own plans and schemes. This organization did everything from terrorism to assassinations, often to serve for the political aspirations of Baelheit. Unknown to the soldiers in this organization, Shanath, as a double agent, was using this organization to embark on many plans and operations that aid Verus's schemes for power and assume control of the empire.
Soon, Baelheit made his plans to use his machina to pro-machinate every continent to bring them all the under the empire's control and to also capture all the afterlings and transfer their power into mechanical armor he developed called machina armor. This would be accomplished by finding all the malideiters of the malideiter project from the list of experiments he recorded on his list, which he planned to use in conjunction with a list that Olgan has as his own record.
Baelheit soon learned that a soldier in his very own Dark Service was one of these experiments, named Sagi, and planned to release the afterling within in him. This could be accomplished if Sagi was overcome with extreme negative emotions. To accomplish this, Baelheit ordered for the Dark Service to assassinate the emperor, while secretly telling the captian to turn on them before this could happen, hoping this would make Sagi become so panicked, that he would resurface as an afterling.
Shanath used this information to his own benefit and informed Verus of this scheme, who decided to use it to escalate his own plans. He gave Shanath his order to assassinate Olgan during this operation and then steal his list of malideiters so they can use it to capture them while Baelheit works to secure the ones on his list.
Shanath eventually breaks into his father's residence and confronts him after so many years, finally revealing just how much he hates him and what he plans to do to him. Olgan is disgusted to see his son and suspects that Baelheit was the one who sent him, having long thought he would turn traitorous. Shanath calmly rebuffs this claim, which, ironically enough, would later turn out to be correct as Shanath was following Verus's orders.
Shanath then brutally murders Olgan without any hesitation or remorse, stealing a list of Malpercio's afterlings and framing Sagi in the process; the assassination ultimately forces Sagi to seek refuge with Verus. On Baelheit's orders, he then leads the Machina Vanguard into the other islands, using pro-machination to systematically rob them of their cultural identities. Shanath simultaneously oversees the destruction of Malpercio's Afterlings; they are later used to power Tarazed. He consistently disobeys Baelheit's will during these operations, sending an afterling to fight Sagi without informing Baelheit and tearing out the wings of the defenders of Anuenue's Celestial Veinroots, possibly killing several as tearing out Wings of the Heart can lead to death over a period of time.
Meeting his Fate[]
After the successful pro-machination of Anuenue, Shanath returns to Alfard for the Imperial elections. He endorses Baelheit in a speech to the citizens of the Empire, using the defeat of the afterlings and the pro-machination of the the other islands as evidence of Baelheit's skill. However, he was still performing Verus's will and was ordered by him to abduct Gena, Sagi's mother and Verus's former lover and have her Wings of the Heart ripped out in order to bring out the afterling in Sagi. This was done to smear Baelheit's name by bringing out the afterling right in front of him during the elections and entice the senate to elect Verus instead. Shanath does as he is told and rips Gena's wings out, causing Sagi to be transformed into an afterling. Shanath uses a machina tank to subdue him, thereby unknowingly lending even more weight to Baelheit's cause.
Shanath has Sagi restrained in the bowels of the construction site in Tarazed to utilize his powers as a malideiter to increase the power and flying capabilities of Tarazed. However, Sagi proves to be the only malideiter able to become perfectly assimilated with the afterling within him, due to his personal relationship with the Sibling god, Marno, trapped within the afterling.
This allowed Sagi to return to his original, physical form and receives Marno's power, using it to escape. Shanath, however was patrolling the area and engaged Sagi in battle, using his own machina. This however, conflicts with Baelheit's and Verus's plans; he does it to advance his own agenda of proving his own strength and power and destroying all the malideiters. Shanath awakens the true might of Sagi's power, who completely destroys his machina, leaving Shanath on the verge of death.
Shanath then gains some respect for Sagi for his incredible strength and reveals the truth behind his spirit; that it was put inside him as part of a set of experiments initiated by Olgan, Verus, and Baelheit. He is later shown to be one of the malideiters and flees, but is not able to get far, his injuries being too much to bear. Depending on the choice of the player, Shanath is either killed by Sagi in front of his daughter Savyna, or dies from his wounds naturally. Regardless of which scene is shown, Shanath reveals that he is the son of Olgan and wanted to kill him with his own hands for what he did to him in his youth. He dies as his mind is consumed with sadness over the fact that something his own father created was the reason he was about to die.
Abilities[]
Shanath, like the rest of the Machina Vanguard, has his very own Machina Arma. Similar to Heughes' Arma in design, it consists of a pair of rigid metallic wings, a set of head gear, and a claw-like weapon. He wears it strapped to his back.
Personality[]
Shanath is a cold, calculating, and murderous young man who sides with whomever he can reap the most benefits from. Having had an extremely rough childhood, Shanath was scarred with anger and hatred and let his lust for revenge ultimately consume his life. Through his teens to his early twenties, Shanath wanted nothing more than to murder his father in cold blood and obtain power to exert control over the empire to prove that his father was wrong about him and that he can very well lead the empire. To this end, Shanath not only sides with Baelheit, but with Verus as well and reaps from the rewards and benefits he gains from both.
Through these partnerships, Shanath is able to obtain popularity, power, resources, and a chance of ultimate revenge against his father. While Shanath served both these men, it is hinted that he was only truly loyal to Verus and murdered his father under his orders and then used his position as Baelheit's right hand man to spy on him and factor in his activities with Verus's plans.
Regardless of this, Shanath has shown to be a man of many plans himself and does not hesitate to disobey orders if it would serve his own personal agenda. In addition to obtaining power and revenge, Shanath also seeks the destruction of all the other malideiters as they represent his father's twisted ambitions and to also prove his own strength.
With Shanath developing so much hatred and anger at such a young age, he soon grew up to be a man of nothing but raw emotions and rarely showed any remorse. Despite this, deep down, Shanath was a tortured person who could not bear the thought that his own father forced him into a torturous project for his own gain and turned away his own son when he did not produce desirable results from that same project.
This depression turned into raw hatred with Shanath seeing no other option other than killing his father to finally be able to move on with his life. In addition to this, Shanath was also capable of loving and caring for others as he looked after Savyna and showed great attachment to her before his death. In the end however, Shanath never let go of his anger and hatred and it ended up destroying and ending his life.
Trivia[]
His name is a misspelling of the Persian name Shahnaz.