Character from Hyperion by Dan Simmons
The CEO who destroyed the WorldWeb — the Hegemony's leader who ordered every farcaster obliterated when she discovered the TechnoCore was eating humanity's brains through the transit network.
Meina Gladstone led the Hegemony Senate as CEO during the Hyperion crisis — the most consequential political leader since the Hegira. She knew more than she let on: she was aware of both Keats cybrids, planned for the Consul's betrayal, and suspected the TechnoCore was not what it claimed to be. When she discovered the truth — that the TechnoCore had been using the farcaster network to tap into human brains for computational power, treating billions of humans as unwitting processors — she ordered the destruction of every farcaster singularity sphere in the Web. Simultaneously. Millions died in the immediate chaos. The WorldWeb collapsed. An interstellar civilization was severed overnight. She did it because the alternative was humanity being slowly consumed from the inside. Her face was carved into a mountain on Hyperion alongside Sad King Billy — the two leaders who sacrificed their civilizations for what they believed was right.
Older, severe, with an accent from Patawpha that carries traces of pre-Hegira English. The weight of governance has carved itself into her face. She looks like Abraham Lincoln in the way that deliberate mythologizing allows — the comparison is intentional.
Also known as: Gladstone, CEO Gladstone, The Lincoln Analog