Gaheris Rhade

Andromeda Character


name=Gaheris Rhade
gender=Male
race=Nietzschean
affiliation=Systems Commonwealth/Nietzchean Alliance
portrayed=Steve Bacic
seasons=

Gaheris Rhade is a Nietzschean fictional character in the television series "Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda". He is played by popular actor Steve Bacic.

Gaheris Rhade was Dylan Hunt's original executive officer on the "Andromeda Ascendant", his best friend and was to be the best man at Dylan's wedding to Sara Riley. They had first met when both were working for Argosy Special Operations, an elite division of the Commonwealth High Guard.

High Guard Admiral Constanza Stark assigned them together on a mission to kidnap the dictator Ferrin of Mobius. During the mission Rhade saved Dylan Hunt's life and was commended by the Systems Commonwealth for his bravery. After the mission, when Dylan was promoted to captain, Rhade was also assigned to the Andromeda Ascendant as his commanding first officer.

At the outset of the Nietzschean Rebellion, Gaheris Rhade sabotaged the "Andromeda" and tried to kill his longtime friend and commanding officer, captain Dylan Hunt. History records that Dylan Hunt managed to kill Nietzschean warrior Gaheris Rhade before becoming trapped on the event horizon of a black hole. Gaheris Rhade was labeled a traitor who served a key role in the Nietzchean Uprising against the member worlds of the Systems Commonwealth.

Alternate Rhade

Gaheris Rhade's true motives were only revealed to the audience in the season three episode "The Unconquerable Man", where he is the victor of the fight between himself and Dylan Hunt before they were trapped inside the black hole.

Gaheris Rhade is frozen in time in Dylan Hunt's place. When he was restored, he discovers that his supposedly superior race, the genetically engineered Nietzscheans, had betrayed each other and become divided, falling into skirmishes and pride wars. Pride Jaguar betrayed the ruling Drago-Kazov Pride, and the Nietzschean dream of creating an intergalactic Empire never materialized. Gaheris Rhade had betrayed his oath and killed his best friend in an attempt to protect the Nietzschean people from the terrifying race of the Magog, but instead he had left the galaxies defenseless against the machinations of the Spirit of the Abyss, which controlled the Magog.

Trying to rebuild the Systems Commonwealth, Rhade enlisted "Eureka Maru" crewmembers Beka Valentine, Rev Bem, Trance Gemini, and Seamus Harper along with the infamous Nietzschean mercenary Tyr Anasazi to help him, constantly playing strategy games against a holographic version of his deceased best friend, Dylan Hunt. (The evidence suggests that Rommie was never constructed in this reality). However, his attempts were frustrated by failure. He attempts to get individual human and alien worlds to join him and restore the Systems Commonwealth, but most of them simply refuse, lacking faith in his dream of a Restored Commonwealth. He refused to allow the infamous Nietzschean Prides to join his fledgling Systems Commonwealth, which only numbered a few worlds, as he feared their legendary treachery. His rival, "Sabra-Jaguar Pride" Arch Duke "Charlemagne Bolivar" blackmailed the leaders of several worlds, making them reluctant to sign on.

Although he had a romantic relationship with Beka Valentine, she eventually left him because she couldn't cope with Rhade's ruthless methods, accompanied by Rev Bem, and Gaheris Rhade was forced to kill fellow Nietzschean Tyr Anasazi when the mercenary made his long-awaited move, seeking to return to the Nietzscheans with the bones of Nietzschean Progenitor "Drago Musevini", and unite them against the Spirit of the Abyss and its Magog legions, which threatened all the sentient species of the galaxies. Rhade knew that the unified Nietzschean Prides would eventually destroy his fledgling Commonwealth, and he refused to allow Tyr Anasazi to leave the "Andromeda", resulting in Rhade killing him in their last confrontation. Seamus Harper only stayed with Gaheris because Rhade was the only person he'd met who hated Nietzscheans as much as he did.

When "Andromeda" faced destruction from the tesseract machine created in an attempt to extract Harper's Magog larva, the future Trance Gemini advised him that traveling back in time to make sure Dylan Hunt lives is the only hope for a Restored Systems Commonwealth; he cannot be the man needed to restore order to the universe. Commenting that "History will remember me as a traitor for what I'm about to do", Gaheris Rhade travelled back in time and killed his past self to take his place, thus ensuring that his friend Dylan Hunt will win the fight and live to restore the Systems Commonwealth. Seeking redemption, his selfless act cost him his reputation, his friendships and his life, with only a faint scar on his hand that his past self had lacked any indication of his original life (What he did with the body of his younger self was never revealed).

Family

Gaheris was married to a Nietzschean woman and probably had several children. Rhade's surviving family did not know of his cooperation with the Nietzschean rebels, since they immediately joined Sara Riley in founding a colony of human families and loyalist Nietzschean Prides on the planet of Terazed after the rebellion. His distant descendant Telemachus Rhade who is his exact genetic reincarnation still lives there as an Admiral of the Home Guard when the Andromeda Ascendant arrives in the episode [http://www.andromedatv.com/episodes/season2/epi_208.html Home Fires, Episode 208] . Telemachus later becomes an officer onboard the Starship Andromeda.

Name

Most Nietzschean names have their origins in Old Earth mythology, or from famous warlords and warrior cultures.

Gaheris is a figure of Arthurian legend, a knight of the Round Table. He was a son of King Lot of Orkney and Lothian and his wife Morgause (a daughter of Gorlois and Igraine, sister of Elaine and Morgan le Fay and also an older maternal half-sister of King Arthur). Gaheris' brothers were Gawaine, Agravaine, Gareth and Mordred. Before being knighted, he was squire to his elder brother Gawaine. He was accidentally killed by Lancelot during the rescue of Guinevere.

The name "Rhadé" derives from a clan of the Montagnards who aided American soldiers during the Vietnam War.