Quentin Butler

Primero Quentin Butler was a military commander during the Butlerian Jihad whose rank equalled that of Vorian Atreides early in the war, though his reputation never matched his colleague's. Captured by the Titans and forced into a cymek body, Quentin turned on his captors and played a decisive part in the destruction of Agamemnon and the last of the Titans.

Military career#

Quentin Vigar undertook basic command training under Vorian Atreides, and as a young Jihadi engineer helped Porce Bludd build New Starda. He earned his early reputation when the Army of the Jihad conquered Parmentier: though only a lieutenant, he defeated an overwhelming force of combat robots with cunning tactics and became known as the "Liberator of Parmentier."

Wandra Butler herself pinned his medals on him at the ceremony. The two loved each other, and after marrying her he followed her lead and adopted her mother's prestigious surname. They had three sons, Rikov, Faykan, and Abulurd. On Abulurd's birth Wandra suffered brain damage and fell into a permanent vegetative state, which led the boy to be effectively shunned by his father and brothers.

Quentin distinguished himself throughout the Jihad with his strength and tactical ability, at one point serving alongside Rikov and Faykan. He had earlier escaped the Titan Juno when a scouting mission to rescue people on Bela Tegeuse turned on him and surrendered him to the Titan, and at the Battle of Ix he nearly buried himself alive after an explosion, leaving him uneasy in confined spaces ever after. With his sons he liberated Honru, eighty-five years after the Jihad's failed first attempt, and while patrolling with Faykan he helped intercept the Omnius spycraft that revealed the machine fleet massing at Corrin. He took part in the Great Purge with Vorian, and the ruthless destruction of human slaves alongside machines on the Synchronized Worlds weighed heavily on him.

Capture and life among the Titans#

In retirement Quentin travelled with the philanthropist Porce Bludd, seeking out and aiding human victims of the earlier atomic blitz against Omnius. During a routine inspection of devastated Wallach IX he was captured by the Titans, who, recognizing who he was, transferred the mortally wounded Primero's brain into a preservation canister.

Quentin unwillingly revealed to the Titans the dangerous reaction of Holtzman shields when struck by lasers. Lasers had been considered obsolete in battle for centuries, so the likelihood of such an accident had been thought negligible, but armed with this knowledge the Titans devastated an entire humanity squadron with a single laser hit. His first forced mission was under the Titan Dante near Relicon, against a squadron that happened to be commanded by his son Faykan. In his terror Quentin used a secret Jihad military frequency to warn Faykan to lower his ships' shields, saving their lives, then rammed Dante's body with his own bulk before being disabled and removed to Hessra.

Turning on the Titans#

The Titans spent years trying to indoctrinate Quentin with limited success, until he was discovered by his old friend Vorian Atreides, who had sought out his own father, the Titan Agamemnon, intending to destroy the Titans from within and had volunteered to become a cymek for the purpose. In the surgical chamber prepared for Vorian's conversion, the Titan Juno explained the surgery to her captive. Quentin seized a surgical laser and, when Juno was distracted, severed her thoughtrodes, paralyzing her. He removed her brain and dissected it while the secondary neos watched without reacting, after which they agreed to help him and installed his brain canister on Juno's body.

As Vorian prepared to cut Agamemnon's brain with a dagger, Quentin, in the Juno form, entered and insisted that such a death would be too quick for the tyrant. After an argument, Vorian pulled rank as Supreme Bashar and ordered a swift but humiliating death; Quentin broke a tower window and Vorian threw Agamemnon's canister out, shattering it on the rocks below. The two then escaped the citadel.

Death#

Quentin helped Vorian escape aboard the Dream Voyager while the last Titan, Dante, went to seek reinforcements. While Vorian held Dante at bay in space above Hessra, Quentin mounted his preservation canister on Agamemnon's gigantic flying body. He explained that once all the Titans were dead, the failsafe keeping their subject neos faithful and alive would fail, triggering the death of all neos including himself, and that he could neither recover his human body nor return to the League as a machine. He pursued Dante until the two collided, killing both. The Titans were no more, and within the following year all the cymeks were dead.