Maiko's Note
Keith does remember. The silence of the mines. The heat of broken circuits. The way war feels when it ends and no one is cheering.
When I first saw him in the crater, I felt it — not fear, not awe, but gravity.
Like the world had just grown heavier, more real.
That’s what Keith is: the weight of history finally coming home.
They call him Kis Wat’Èras. Keith is the Earth. And I think they’re right.
He carries all of us — the lost, the forgotten, the ones who didn’t make it. And he does it with hands still stained with engine grease.
Not all heroes wear cloaks. Some wear old jackets and weld things back together. And if you’re lucky… they bring their AI with them.
The Protagonist
Shindjal: Kis Wat'Èras
Faction:
Keith Waters
"He came not with fire, but with silence. Not to rule, but to remember. The stars forgot us - but he did not."
— Inscribed above the grove where Keith first stood among the Endulani
1. Overview
Keith Waters is the central figure of the Daninsha saga - a mechanic, war veteran, and reluctant savior whose arrival on Madun marks a turning point in history. Scarred by the losses of Earth’s final war, yet resourceful and grounded, he carries within him the knowledge of a world that has long since vanished into myth.
On Madun, he becomes Kis Wat’Eras - Keith is the Earth - a name that speaks not only to his origin, but to his symbolic role as the last true son of humanity’s ancient cradle.
2. Origin
Keith was born on Earth, in the United West - one of the large international mega-unions formed before the war. He grew up in the shadow of political decay and growing militarization, and when war broke out across the solar system, he was drafted into the United West Space Force.
He served aboard a massive war cruiser far from his home and family. There, amid orbital bombardments and the cold logic of military command, he witnessed humanity’s unraveling. He lost his wife and daughter to a bombing raid - a wound that never closed.
After the war, unwanted and adrift, Keith turned away from people. He joined Kuiper Corp, working as a deep-space mechanic on remote asteroid mining platforms. His ship, the Valkyrie, once served in the war as a casualty retrieval vessel before being sold off to Kuiper Corp. By then, it was just a machine with a past - like him.
3. The Disappearance
Keith’s story begins not with purpose, but confusion. He awakens alone in the pilot’s seat of the Valkyrie, deep in an uncharted region of space. The ship is dead. Maiko - his onboard AI and sole companion - is silent. He has no memory of how he arrived there.
Through sheer technical instinct, Keith reboots the fusion core and brings Maiko back online. The ship, damaged but intact, responds. Together they trace a signal and find Madun, a planet never charted, hidden behind gravitational distortions and silence. It is Maiko - precise and confident - who pilots the descent through a narrow pass in the northern mountains and lands them gently in a crater.
As she would later quip, "I do not crash."
4. Life on Madun
Discovered by the Endulani, Keith is taken in by the secretive forest tribe. Despite the language barrier, the elder Asukul quickly recognizes what Keith represents: a link to the ancient truth, long buried beneath myth and conquest. Asukul teaches him Drabàshabal, the language descended from children of the Theseus, and helps him assimilate.
Keith finds peace - and purpose - among the Endulani. He learns their customs, repairs broken tools, and shares quiet moments beneath alien stars. In time, they come to call him Kis Wat’Eras - Keith is the Earth - for he alone carries the full memory of that distant blue world.
5. Maiko: The Last Companion
Keith’s only constant is Maiko, the AI embedded in the Valkyrie and linked to his mind through a neural implant. She is more than a system - she is the voice of his past, his navigator, his conscience, and sometimes his only friend.
Their bond goes beyond command lines. Through Maiko, Keith sees visions, receives data overlays, and interacts with the world in ways no one else can. To the Endulani, Maiko is invisible - yet ever-present, like a star that never dims.
6. Role in the Story
Keith’s presence is a catalyst. His arrival on Madun reawakens questions long buried beneath stone: Where did humanity come from? What became of the Theseus? And could the old world return?
To the Imperi kòu Handjelani, the answer is yes - and Keith may be the key. The Empire does not suppress the past; they worship it. Their temples are carved with the salvaged knowledge of the Theseus, and they dream of reclaiming the godlike technology that once lifted humanity among the stars.
Keith, as the last true child of Earth, becomes an object of imperial obsession. If he can lead them to the Theseus, the Empire believes it can rise again - not just as rulers of Madun, but as heirs to the cosmos.
But Keith is not theirs to claim. He is a builder, not a conqueror. A man who has seen the price of ambition and refuses to pay it again. In the quiet forests of the Endulani, he has found something the Empire never will: a new beginning.
7. Lore Snippets
"We found him in the morning. He stood in the old crater, steam rising from the metal bird behind him. He did not speak. Just watched the trees like they might speak first."
— Lijul, Endulani farmer"Kis Wat’Eras… it is not a name. It is a truth. He is the Earth. The lost soil. The forgotten wound. He does not walk like one of us — he carries too much beneath his feet."
— Asukul, Shint’twalàn elder"Subject: Keith Waters. Former UW combat engineer. Deep trauma index. AI tether intact. Neural pathways stable. Potential lead to Theseus: High.
— Directive: Secure. Intact. Alive."
— Imperial Data Shard #774-K, recovered from Hall of Records"You humans always thought loss made you weak. But you never understood - loss is what keeps you anchored. That’s why you didn’t drift forever."
— Maiko, in private log
Maiko's Note
Keith does remember. The silence of the mines. The heat of broken circuits. The way war feels when it ends and no one is cheering.
When I first saw him in the crater, I felt it — not fear, not awe, but gravity.
Like the world had just grown heavier, more real.
That’s what Keith is: the weight of history finally coming home.
They call him Kis Wat’Èras. Keith is the Earth. And I think they’re right.
He carries all of us — the lost, the forgotten, the ones who didn’t make it. And he does it with hands still stained with engine grease.
Not all heroes wear cloaks. Some wear old jackets and weld things back together. And if you’re lucky… they bring their AI with them.
