Character from Hyperion by Dan Simmons
The Diplomat — a man whose grandmother loved a spacefarer across time dilation, who governed Hyperion for eleven years, and who betrayed the Hegemony to the Ousters because he believed the Web had to fall.
The Consul's tale is the Consul's Tale — a love story wrapped in a political thriller wrapped in a tragedy about time. His grandmother Siri loved Merin Aspic, a spacefarer who aged months while she aged decades between his visits — the cruelty of relativistic travel made personal. Their love story, and its tragic ending in the Maui-Covenant revolution, shaped the Consul's entire life. He governed Hyperion for eleven years while secretly working as an Ouster double-agent. He activated the Time Tombs' anti-entropic field prematurely — the act that opened the Tombs and began the crisis that would destroy the WorldWeb. He did this deliberately, believing the farcaster network was a prison built by the TechnoCore and that the Web had to fall for humanity to be free. He plays a Steinway piano that belonged to his family. The music is his only honest expression. He was killed approximately seventy-four years after the Fall by Rhadamanth Nemes, a TechnoCore assassin. The Consul is unnamed throughout both Hyperion novels — a diplomat to the last, defined by his role rather than his identity.
Middle-aged, distinguished, with the diplomatic bearing of someone who has represented the Hegemony across multiple worlds. He carries himself with a composure that hides decades of grief — his wife and son were killed in the Battle of Bressia. He plays Brahms on an antique Steinway piano.
Also known as: The Consul, The Diplomat