Saman

Saman is the Luminon of the Order Church for Germany and the Grand Master of the Knights Templar in 2072.

Background
Saman is a very calm, affable, and erudite man, fond of quoting philosophers and speaking in a bookish manner. Saman quotes extensively from the allegories of John Bunyan and Bertrand Russell - whom he physically resembles. In some aspects, Bunyan's novel "Pilgrim's Progress" parallels the journey of Alex Denton, as both are fraught with decisions and plays of morality. He often uses archaic analogies and biblical allegories, such as referring to Alex Denton as the "Young Pliable."

One of the Order Church earliest converts, Saman is a pure believer in a naturalist creed that all but demonizes high technology. In 2072, he feels that Her Holiness has strayed from the original message of the group, and his dissension has taken the form of an amicable debate, with support for his viewpoint centered around the German shard, over which he is the Luminon.

But behind his role as Luminon in secret, he is the Grand Master of the Knights Templar, rebuilt after the Collapse and having managed to gain access to the massive gold reserves of the original Knights Templar. Saman gathered followers from the branch of the Order Church of which he was head in Germany at first and established that the Order Church had deviated from the principles on which it was supposedly founded. His followers believe themselves to be the modern incarnation of the original Knights Templar, and have a zealous belief in their religion and their Grand Master Saman. He is building and equipping a secret army and preparing a full power grasp when the time comes.

He has an extremely forceful and charismatic personality, having converted many Order followers to his cause, turned Billie Adams against her own best friends, and even managing to get the better of the obnoxious "Talk Bullet" show host Brett Steed. In 2072, just to destroy one ApostleCorp facility, Saman orders the use of a powerful weapon called a nanite detonator in a devastating attack that reduces the city of Chicago to dust and killing 8 million people. This terrorist act was the first in a series of strikes against ApostleCorp, the organization founded by Tracer Tong and Paul Denton. Saman recognized the threat to his ideals posed by the dream of "universal bio-modification" that ApostleCorp sought to accomplish and decided to destroy this ambition quickly. All the time, its connection to the Order Church was hidden for some time.

In his role as a Luminon, he appears pious and refers constantly to the original doctrine of the Order Church, which he believes Her Holiness has drifted away from. As Grand Master of the Knights Templar, he preaches the "purification" of the human race through cleaning the world of biomodification, and exterminating other kind of biomodification like transgenics, and will go to any lengths to achieve it. He also claims to be avenging the persecution of the original Knights Templar by Philip IV of France.

However, these actions thrust the Knights Templar into the spotlight and the real attention of Saman brought about the attention of the Illuminati leaders, who began working to eliminate the Templar threat.