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Description
Digital painting, shading and editing over this sketch.
Original sketch, character design, character concept and background story by me (a.k.a Guiler-717, Zamahel, Guilherme M.).

In Tahuantinsuyu (from the quechua "Four Regions", a.k.a the Inca Empire), the Mallki were royal mummies - the mummies of rulers (Sapa Inca) and nobility.
Mallku, a similar name, is the aymara name for the Condor (Vultur gryphus, which common name is derived from the quechua "kuntur"), and also the title of the aymara leaders.
The Apu Mallku is the aymara "supreme sovereign".

As you can tell, these "cyborgs" are visually inspired on other works of science-fiction, comics and tokusatsu, while they're conceptually inspired (except for Ichneumon, named after a genus of wasps) by elements from the pre-hispanic Inca and Aymara cultures, and in Naymlap's case, the pre-Inca Moche and Sicán/Lambayeque cultures, as well the Chimú culture, contemporary to the Inca. They're also updated versions of some original characters I've created between 2003-2004, when I was 9-10 years old, for a series of stories I called BYDURAK. These four haven't, however, any relation to the BYDURAK storyline, they rather play a major role in my current story project - the IN LAK'ECH Mythos (which I plan to release as a series of comic books. It's, however, in the initial stages of development, though it already takes a lot of time from me and is the main theme of my current art study, practice and production).

By the time I created these characters, fourteen-thirteen years back, I was bothered or tired not to see major popular science fiction, fantasy & comics characters inspired on pre-hispanic cultures. I still am, and I want to change that with my own characters and stories. And just a reminder, I only refer to these distinct cultures as pre-hispanic because of their age, for most of them exist up to this day independently of a western globalization ideology. In the territories of Peru and Qollasuyu/Bolivia, the aymara and Inca peoples keep their languages, and among some communities, some of their traditional lifestyles, economy and organizations. I strongly encourage you to read and study about the past and present of those cultures, through scientific/academical means, verifiable resources available through the internet and also through the voice of its locals.

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The IN LAK'ECH Mythos' main story follows the path of a young Brazilian student, William Mattoni, who after a troublesome vacation trip in a farm at northwestern Brazil, in August 2008, acquires the power to transform into a CUETZPALIN (from the nahuatl "lizard"), a super-fast lizard-man, after finding the Tonalcoatl (a snake-like structure which contains the consciousness of an ancient Cuetzpalin) of an ancient Cuetzpalin, Moctezuma Xocoyotzin - revealed to have been a super-fast Cuetzpalin himself, in his lifetime, when he ruled the Confederation of Mexico by the time the Spanish invaders arrived. The symbiosis between William and Moctezuma allows the young boy to transform into a new Cuetzpalin, and Moctezuma to telepathically communicate with him. Their goals surely differ - Moctezuma, who just woke from a 488 years old slumber, has some hard time adjusting to this new world, accepting he lost the crown of an expanding empire and that several stuff he believed in, such as a paradisiacal afterlife for those who died in battle, were just a tale. Still, he wants William to take the crown back, to restore Mexico's old glory. William, on the other side, has a goal slightly more ambitious than conquering the world, he means to destroy the means by which anyone would rule. As a vegan for ethical reasons (more specifically, a negative consequentialist) and a self-proclaimed anarcho-primitivist, harboring a critique of mass society and civilization, William seeks to use that power to liberate sentient animals from their cages, in the way connecting the dots with other struggles - like that against global capitalism, the struggle for the land (against the landlords who concentrate a major part of wasted territory in their own hands), the struggle for the autonomy of the indigenous peoples and overall against the status quo, in which previously established economical conditions act like a caste-system imposed over different communities, with different needs, and the maintenance of social order over such a huge population can only be possibly acquired through slavery, tyrammy, suppression. Does he want to start a revolution? Not necessarily, more like a lone wolf taking matter into his own hands, he just started to target owners of businesses related to animal exploitation, killing them and their employees whenever they tried to get in his way, and of course, this brought him against private security, the military, the cops, the law enforcers, the protectors of the bourgeoisie and even those who claim to protect "the people" (but who deliberately ignore the condition of the animals bred and used by a wide array of industries - from meat to dairy, from egg to fishing, from fur to testing, from trafficking to exhibiting, from hunting to manipulating, most non-human animals experience a lot of suffering in their shortened and calculated lives at the hands of petty activities related to profit but utterly unnecessary to human survival). In other words, within his first months of action, the self-proclaimed " Cuetzpalin Paynal" (Paynal from the nahuatl "fast", name of a pre-hispanic Mexican deity who's reputedly the messenger of the God of War and patron of Mexico Huitzilopochtli) has made many enemies, from the clueless simpletons who defend their own slavers up to influential politicians, landlords, bureaucrats, corporatists and of course, the armies they have at their disposal. And this is where these guys enter into action.

      The Republic of Tahuantinsuyu, named after the Inca Empire, was formaly proclaimed on the streets of Cusco in 1969, after the capture and assassination of the Peruvian Emperor, Urcon Verbo, by the forces of a self-proclaimed Socialist Guerrilla group led by an ecletic revolutionary named Tupaq Amaru III - after the late 16th Century Inca ruler and the 18th Century indigenous leader . The war has started rhoughly four years before, within the countryside of southern Peru, after years of exploitation and taxation imposed by Urcon's government - the self-proclaimed "post-colonial Emperor of Peru" was but a puppet to foreigner corporate interests , that already turned pretty much of its Latin American neighbors into a playground for their own business with the employment of military dictatorships that defended an anti-communist nationalism while privatized several of its resources at the hands of foreigner enterprises. The capital, that was changed from Lima (in the Colonial era) was set back to Cuzco during Verbo's rule, and was changed once more after Tupaq's associates, the now ruling and popular Communist Party of Tahuantinsuyu, took control of the executive power over most of Peru, restablishing the capital at the coastal city of Moche. That was just the beginning, as following principles of an indigenous socialism, Tupaq vouched for the nostalgia of an Inca sovereignty, and Peru was no longer for the Tahuantinsuyu has risen once again. Some areas strongly supported the revolutionaries, while others didn't, so Tupaq didn't take charge immediatly, instead, he let some allies of his such as Umaq Granado to oversee the modernization of Moche and as well take care of the bureaucratic stuff alongside a group of individuals who'd later be known as the Council of Advanced Technological, Energetic and Industrial Development of Tahuantinsuyu. Several of those had great positions in Tupaq's army's biggest sponsor, a secret inter-galactic enterprise there called as the Saqraruna Organization. Because its operations outside the galaxy were unknown, it became a little more smooth to put a "statized" image over their growing industrialization. Several of its nonhuman agents, as well, that have been populating some strategically hid areas in Peruvian territory - like Nazca, on Quntisuyu, and the Titicaca Lake, on Qollasuyu - established representatives among the human population, and the "new government" would establish itself as The Socialist Republic of Tahuantinsuyu, as it earned vocal support from the Soviet Union and Cuba, and enmity from the US-UK axis.

      It's borders with Brazil, mostly around the area of the Amazon Forest, became a battleground. Tupaq would command more guerrillas to secure the Peruvian territory, and would hear the call of independent paramilitary groups formed in Ecuador and Colombia, including the ELN (National Liberation Army). Their victories over official and unofficial bounty hunters sent by the CIA-backed satellite dictatorships, however, ended up being victories for Tahuantinsuyu, as the newly christened official army of Tahuantinsuyu, composed of, among revolutionaries that survived repression, some of their own enemies (that switched sides after realizing it would be more productive for the nation), would take Quito, the Ecuadorian capital, and the prefectures of several cities in souther Colombia. After years, in a decade, the mixture of popular support and military pressure has formally accepted the annexation of those populations into Tahuantinsuyu. But it would also expand south, even beyond Bolivia. The capital of La Paz, originally Chuqui Yapu, has also been taken by the Tahuantinsuyuan forces, that included among their own several Aymara and Utu Bolivians. Unlike Ecuador, however, the current Bolivian governor, the head of the US-supported military dictatorship, has escaped, and a new capital has been set on the city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra. It didn't last long, however, and the new Bolivian president Juan José Torres, would pledge allegiance to Qollasuyu. Not for long, too, as the secret military operation carried out by the CIA eliminated him and placed another dictator in his place, in 1976. For years, what remained of Bolivia refused to annex itself or cooperate with Qollasuyu (the southernmost region of Tahuantinsuyu), but its attempts of boycotting the Tahuantinsuyuan government only damaged its own economy, leading to several concessions in the next years, if not to Tahuantinsuyu, to Brazil, which means the US.

      The conflicts that led to Tahuantinsuyu's expansion, however, didn't stop at Bolivia, neither did they stop around the seventies. In 1981, independent socialist guerrillas, in great number composed by Mapuche peoples from northern Chile and Argentina (both nations under yet another bloody dictatorship promoting neoliberalism and patriotism, and backed by the CIA) took their constant resistance to the next level, claiming independence from the government. In one of its first efforts to intervene internationally, the Tahuantinsuyuan military forces supported the rebels, in a war that lasted from 1981 up to 1985. By the time, Tupaq was in charge of the executive power in Tahuantinsuyu since his first official electoral participation and victory, in 1979. He would remain in power at Moche until 2000, but that's another chapter. The war on Chile (Qollasuyu) witnessed the involvement of international armies, and could be classified as a world war, for the Soviet KGB supported Tahuantinsuyu, while the US and UK military were sent to support the Chilean dictatorship. This was also a pioneer occasion for the employment of American weapons industrialist Joseph Bridges (CEO of ABEL Inc.) latest project, the super-powered Alpha-Omega armors. The Alpha, Gamma and Epsilon units were employed by private agents (respectively, Angus Houston, Edwin Murdock and Neil Ford), but they were defeated by the official Mallki guardians of Tahuantinsuyu. One of them, Ichneumon, the latest to be introduced, was reported by agent Ford to look almost exactly like the stolen Beta armor - the second of ABEL's Alpha-Omega series, it was sold to the japanese military in 1974 but never made it to their hands, instead, a popular japanese thief, stole it and started to use it as a vigilante, "Bumblebee", exposing corrupt relations between the government & military and some cells of the Yakuza mafia. The vigilante, reputedly Kenshiro Shimada, was reported captured, and the armor would finally reach the military, as Shimada's execution was announced in 1981, but it never happened. This led Ford, the last survivor of his team, to believe that whether or not Ichneumon was still Shimada, the Tahuantinsuyuan government may be involved with this crime. Because of the secret nature of the Alpha-Omega project, however, Bridges faced difficulties in earning any valuable reward from the UN, and once again the Tahuantinsuyu emerged victorious, as several communities from northern Argentina and Chile expected the annexation as a modernization. That was the last expansion Tahuantinsuyu would reach in the following years, as eventually with the dissolution of the USSR the Tahuantinsuyu slowly returned diplomacy with some of its original enemies. Moments of tension between both nations would return in 1997, when Tupaq and some of his military were visiting Cuba and some islands near Mexico's Atlantic Coast, what some agents reported as a planned attack. There were also reports of his presence in Arizona, though these have also happened in 1974. Following Tupaq's mysterious disappearance in 2000 (no official claim about his death was launched, however after some years several people started to believe he died. Some people know better what happened, but guard that as a secret), Tahuantinsuyu has left aside its Socialist name - becoming the Republic of Tahuantinsuyu, and its Communist Party, the traditional power since the victory of 1969's revolution and following the return of elections in 1979, has ceded some of its bureaucratic positions to new social democrat or centre-left parties.

From the beginning, there were independent left-wing armed groups that either fighting alongside Tupaq's Communist Party or not, stood against Urcon Verbo, and after the establishment of Tahuantinsuyu's new Socialist Republic, still stood against the government. This kind of conflict has been constantly ignored by the mass media, that for the sake of governability (after all, they invest in the parties' campaigns, and once they win the elections, they pay back what they due to the media corporations) preferred to portray an idealized globalized world being threatened by the rise of a left block, that not only still deal with other governments as a member of the UN, but still use the same measures to repress its own populace whenever their control is threatened, and extend those actions even when the control isn't directly threatened, but the intention is believed to exist. The same surveillance, the same persecution of individuals, the same police, the same military, the same propaganda, the same role - to take and play like they're offering something in exchange of your work. Besides independent radical left-wing militias, other figures from Tahuantinsuyu's poorest locations had been equally persecuted by government authorities, including indigenous populations that chose to keep their traditional ways of life and traditional lands, not as a private corporation, but as a communal area in which they could practice their semi-nomadic lifestyle, what also includes civilized techniques like agriculture. The matter was never about "privatization vs. statization", neither "modernization vs. tradition" not even "civilization vs. wilderness", all it's been is keeping the slaves enslaved for the petty desires of its small ruling classes, and rule comes from appropriation, theft (like "private property" - and not a personal-use toothbrush, but a huge lot of land that could be used for a diverse agriculture, and yet is used to feed livestock and keep their lives miserable so someone would pay something they don't need to eat something they don't need) and repression. This face of a Tahuantinsuyu that looks for a strengthened national industry, to collectivize access to consumption of goods and for technological development at any costs, which breaks the international community's popular belief that Tahuantinsuyu has turned it from a collective of poor communities into an actually indigenous, socially aware plurinational representative democracy and a self-government (or does it break any of this idealized vision?), is something Paynal gets exposed to, the first time his actions (liberating farm animals, killing landlords, bounty hunters, their employees, farmers, hunters and other people remotely related to animal exploitation businesses) cross through its borders, in December 2009. What makes an indigenous? it's lifestyle or its ethnicity? If the land is still used for livestock breeding, mining, gas and oil, then would it make a difference? These questions plagued William's mind, and besides becoming a target for the Mallki, he would also have a time arguing with each of them. Enough about Paynal, let's take a look at each Mallki, for they're very different from each other.

NAYMLAP - Named after the culture hero of the pre-Inca Sicán/Lambayeque culture, the descendants of the Moche and ancestors to the Chimú, who were contemporary to the Inca and were conquered by Tahuantinsuyu and its armies during a campaign led by the 15th ruler Topa Inca Yupanqui in 1471. His facial features are present in several motifs from these cultures' artifacts, and it's believed he reorganized the communities that split following the collapse of the Moche society sometime between the 6th and 7th centuries. Naymlap is the Mallki officially in charge of Quntisuyu, a region which comprehends several historically relevant spots of Inca administration, like Cusco, Tahuantinsuyu's original capital and later the Ciudad Imperial under Verbo's rule, and Lima, the capital during the colonial era and one of the country's biggest metropolis. Quntisuyu also houses the Nazca lines, where the Saqraruna Organization has uncovered an ancient base which they restored and started to use for their own purposes since the 20th Century's second half. On its border with Chinchaysuyu, there's the Pachacamac district, where the Shadow Government (the union between the saqraruna, in charge of Tahuantinsuyu's council for advanced technology, energy & industry development, and other international secret societies from other sectors, like the Palarokhian Council today based mostly around Kaliningrad and Belarus, and the Vovin Brotherhood based in the hidden underground realm of Dantalia, somewhere in Russia) keeps the entrance to the realm of Uku Pacha (named after the underworld in the Inca cosmology), a breeding ground for the Amaru (referred to as Vovin by their Eastern European fellows, it's the quechua name for dragon). Naymlap is one of the most secret and collected, therefore less public guardians of Tahuantinsuyu, and his armor is cirtualli impenetrable. He uses electrical-based magic and creates force fields around him, which increase the distance between him and possible assailants even more. Regarded by part of the population as the reincarnation of a Chimú leader, he originally fought at the area of nowadays Chinchaysuyu (Northern Peruvian Coast and most of northwestern Peru, the original location of the Moche, Lambayeque and Chimú communities) during his activation, in the years of the Tahuantinsuyuan Revolution. Despite the name Mallki and generalized naming of the guardians after historical or mytho-historical figures gives a sense of secret identity to the guardians, the fact is that Naymlap is a cyborg, artificially crafted by the Saqraruna and designed after local motifs. He is, however, sentient, intelligent and conscious, not some obedient machine. He has a role to fill, however, that's to brutally keep the social order whenever it's slightly threatened in his area. The capital of Quntisuyu is Cusco, often labeled the Imperial City, for its unique blend of Inca architecture, colonial era baroque and a post-colonial victorian inspired one, all merged into a modern and dark metropolis.

ICHNEUMON - Named after the genus of wasps, this is alongside Naymlap one of the less public guardians, and is surely the most controversial. All the other three are understandably inspired by traditional figures of the realm, so why this one seems to be visually inspired by some sort of bee or wasp? The other three were created by the saqraruna during the time Tupaq Amaru III led the frontlines against Urcon Verbo between 1965 and 1969. Ichneumon, however, was only introduced and put in charge of Chinchaysuyu's public defense (originally, not officiallly but practically overseen by Naymlap's troops) in 1981, around the same time he was activated to support the other in the war which was rampaging through Chile. Like previously stated, the Ichneumon is shaped after the Beta armor from the Alpha-Omega armor series publicly believed to have been developed by the american corporation ABEL Inc. In Beta's case, it was sold to the japanese military but never made it, instead it was stolen and used by a vigilante between 1974 and 1981, when he was captured and his execution announced - but never materialized. No official claims about Ichneumon's identity have been stated other than his role as an official guardian of the Chinchaysuyu province. The region of Chinchaysuyu is the most populous one, and covers several administrative territories of Tahuantinsuyu, besides the capital, Moche, which contains one of the world's most advanced administrative and also industrial complex out there, the Intihuaca (from the quechua "Inti" meaning Sun and "Huaca", a concept of no literal meaning which referred either to ancestors materialized in natural phenomena, personified mountains and also abandoned construction sites from pre-Inca civilizations, including the Moche pyramids. Inspired on a concept from a story I created years ago). The cities from the northern peruvian coast have witnessed major reforms, becoming large metropolis from the eighties up to 2000, and are regarded as some that benefitted the most from Tupaq's government. And again, with this "modernization" also comes surveillance and repression, including Ichneumon and other cyborg cops designed especially for persecution and attack. Other regions in Chinchaysuyu include the Chachapoyas fortress, that historically served as a training ground for the Chasqui - messengers of the Inca ruler Tupaq Inca Yupanqui, they were dragon riders and brought messages from all corners of the Tahuantinsuyuan empire and beyond. It's greatly due to their action that the Inca engaged in a war against the Mexica confederation between 1481 and 1493 (a story not mentioned on history books and not publicly known, completely erased from spanish accounts and barely remembered by nowadays populations of those areas). The capital of the ancient Chimú empire, Chan Chan, has also been greatly reformed into a military base. Other than that, it's worth mentioning that Ichneumon is gradually attaining more influence so he can lead his own special squad of official mercenaries, the Insect Syndicate, as part of an initiative by the Saqraruna that means to capture and modify other Alpha-Omega series armors. They already count with a double agent infiltrated among the current owners of those armors, all they need is the right time to strike. Ichneumon's main powers are derived from the Beta armor - he can fly, and also release and launch poisonous, venomous and acidic substances through his stings and weapons. With the armor's modifications, he can also control a large population of artificial nanorobotic drones shaped after Ichneumon wasps, that can act like Ichneumon wasps, or worse, they can combine themselves into larger units, that infect victims with meat-eating parasites. When they're not killng someone, these drones can also watch over several distinct, select victims - political opponents and dissenters, for example. Whether or not Ichneumon is Kenshiro Shimada, he's likely produced from the bond between the Beta armor and an user's body - even if the body is undead, as long as it powers up the suit and fits it's necessities in order to walk, act and think, the fact is that Ichneumon is largely believed to be a cyborg. It just happens he may very well be a self-conscious necro-cyborg.

PACHAKUTI - Named after the 15th Century Inca ruler and founder of Tahuantinsuyu, whose name translates as "Earth shaker" (and also has a deeper meaning than its literal form, as a founder of an empire and social order he also reputedly shaped nature itself, and to some his name can mean he who overturns space and time. In a tale set on the time the Inca's original kingdom of Cusco was threatened by a military advance from the Chancas, Pachacuti has gained the aid from soldiers made of stone itself, that helped the Inca to survive. He wasn't the one his father and antecessor, Viracocha, intended to succeed him in the throne, instead he wished Urco to become the next Inca, but Urco left the fortress at the time the Chancas would attack, while Pachacuti's resolve miraculously led the Incas to win the day, and him to earn the kingship). One of the most popular Mallki, Pachakuti oversees the area of Antisuyu, covering Peru's eastern border with Brazil and reaching up to Ecuador and southern Colombia. By the time those areas were secured and annexed by the Socialist Republic of Tahuantinsuyu in the seventies, following Tupaq's victory, the exploration of the Amazon Rainforest has increased due to its use for military purposes, other than the already expanding uses for livestock breeding, creation of crops, mining, oil and gas - activities that in most cases threatened its traditional communities and forcefully employed some of them under slavery conditions. Eventually, after the formal annexation of most of Ecuadorian and southern Colombian territories into Tahuantinsuyu, Pachakuti secured the development of industrial poles on the area, and the admission of several of its native populace into the industry. Pachakuti is a disciplined soldier and military leader, and affirms that the industrial civilization isn't a foreigner or colonial exclusivity, indeed, the original Tahuantinsuyu developed industrious architecture and road networks that most of foreigner kingdoms didn't hope to understand. While facing and simultaneously arguing with Paynal during a fight in a semi-private Oil facility on the Amazonian Forest area of Antisuyu, Paynal argued that while Pachakuti's right about the native population being completely able and equally credited for the development of an industrial stage of civilization and mass society organization, his vision of an indigenous industry isn't new, but is just the natural exchange of one ethnicity for another, while keeping the same increasingly exploiting system of production, profit and tax-gathering. Most people are forced to work in this you call "industry" because otherwise they'd be vulnerabe to death, and those conditions, instead of being improved upon by the effort of the "industrious" magnates, are used in their favor, by pushing the slaves to their limits, and making sure someone can replace them when the time comes. If there was any difference between this state of existence and that of the native communities of the area, it was that they found other ways to live and yet reproduced under other forms of social order, without the need to subject that many human and non-human animals as the industry-level he defends has been doing. In other words, other peoples' conditions aren't even being improved upon like a cyborg with no needs claims. The need they're being induced is the same which keep them obedient, which is the need not to die from hunger, because in first place, the food they need has been taken from them by those who claim they're helping them. Pachakuti loses his cool and eventually fights Paynal across the jungle after these "insults". He reports to his batallion that Paynal is a savage who wants to destroy for the sake of destroying, deliberately ignoring Paynal's actual motivations. Pachakuti defends something Paynal could describe as authoritarian policy, industry and capitalism with an indigenous face. But this duel is what eventually introduces Paynal to what lurks beneath the Tahuantinsuyuan reality - a private corporation from some far away land. Pachakuti also secure the building of some dams in the amazonian area's rivers which were previously part of the Colombian territory, and on another occasion is sent to prevent Paynal from damaging a dam. Pachakuti is popular among some cities as a fist of justice, however several peoples in less benefitted jungle areas know him for what he really is - a weapon, and it doesn't matter if he claim to defend indigenous sovereignty, some Ashaninka, Yaminawa, Shipibo, Piro and other who live traditional communities know his idea of indigenous doesn't include those who are truly natives, instead they're a mere representation instead of reality. The idea, itself, isn't even his, it's an elaborate propaganda from Tahuantinsuyu to possible tourists and the international communities. Moctezuma, who shares Paynal's vision, reminds him that despite unused to the indigenous title (a colonial denomination), in the rule of Tupaq Yupanqui he brutally conquered the peoples from the northern Amazonian and Ecuatorial areas, and only left some eastern populations out of his way because deemed them as savages and useless (the former Ecuadorial and now Antisuyuan capital of Quito was originally an Inca estate, in an area first explored and conquered by Tupaq Yupanqui, then formally founded by his successor Huayna Capac after 1493). Agreeing with Moctezuma's observations, Paynal also points that trying to create an identity which amalgams these derogatory "civilizatory" authoritarian ideologies from an emperor and the ethnicity of a large variety of peoples whose contact between their own varied as much, and in some cases, even put them at odds, is a cynical attempt to keep people in line - as it's dishonest to claim authorship for something like "civilization, progress, industry and development". These things aren't done because of good intentions like improving one's conditions, or because of a race, a culture and lifestyle (like the so-called "Western Civilization", as if there was any union between so many distinct communities for something if not systematic misery and exploitation) or because of religion. These happen independently of any vertical authority or a later forced social contract, these things (material culture and labor that people try to describe as civilization, and the lifestyles resulted from the expansion of those means) they're there before people notice, before new generations are born, and the authorities are merely the ones that take what most spend time working in or working for. There's no cookbook for creating civilization, founding a town, and there's no such thing as uncivilized people if civilization is taken as the same as culture - even some non-human animal societies like some ants produce fungus for their own, so how come it isn't regarded a culture? And even the most basic tools are technology, culture and in a certain way a modification of "nature" (in this abstract sense, nature doesn't even exist. Like a concept of a god, it's not self-conscious nor is it an entity, unlike animals, who are sentient individuals).

MALLKU - named after the Aymara authority and the Condor on its language, the Mallku appears like a tall, hi-tech Condor-like guardian of Qollasuyu. Like all the other guardians, his identity is simply taken by the people and official sources as a guardian who personifies traditional national values, and in doing so he earned a lot of popularity - as much as fear and respect (is there a difference between respect for an authority and fear for worse consequences?) - from certain sectors of Qollasuyu's society. Unlike the other Mallki, however, and this fact isn't publicly known, he's not a Cyborg, but an old man in an enhaced Condor suit. More than that, he fought side by side with Tupaq in the sixties, and unlike Tupaq continued to fight in Bolivia - not as the Mallku, however, for the Tahuantinsuyu and what remained of Bolivia declared a truce since the later adopted an indigenous government through its own elections, which witnessed the victory of Evo Morales. The Mallku, however, is critical of Morales' government as it's not any better than neoliberal policies, something the Paynal would agree, if he knew who the Mallku is. Tupaq's latest years as the president and the years that came after have put the Mallku mostly out of an enemy battlefield and more into a battlefield against what could be called his own people - when there's no war, the armed forces arrange one, and the class struggle takes an extreme shape, as the armed forces start to persecute individuals from marginalized sectors of society with the justification that their only way to exist would eventually be joining crime, and whether or not they claim that, the State makes sure they function that way, for if some lives can't be more profitable than their deaths (weapons move more money than basic education and independent arts, of course) their deaths will be caused by either private security or police force. If the people of Qollasuyu still believe Mallku to be a face of justice and even if they don't, his role, as well as that of his guardians, is no different from an official vigilante or punisher, a take no prisoners who kills whoever he labels as criminal. Does it matter if he fought in a guerrilla against a tyrannical government, if he became something like what he previously fought against? Those questions would only pester Paynal's mind after he discovered Mallku's actual identity - the veteran guerrilla soldier, sometimes political prisoner, and other times Aymara leader Alvaro Quispe, a close friend of Umaq Granado and Tupaq Amaru -, in June 2009. Despite the Mallku sees his action somewhat limited by the Tahuantinsuyuan government's apparent diplomacy with its neighbor Bolivia, that have fairly increased since the 21st Century, his region, Qollasuyu, is the self-proclaimed most autonomous region (in relation to the capital's decisions), for with the Mallku's aid, it developed a differentiated hybridization of a representative democracy and an ayllu-based government, recalling the pre-hispanic quechua and aymara social organizations. For Paynal, however, it doesn't make a lot of difference - as apparently, in neither ways the interests of non-human animals as sentient individuals are taken into account. Since 1997, Bolivia has adopted its own national council of ayllus, a measure which international community believed to be the eventual final annexation of Bolivia into Tahuantinsuyu, however each institution doesn't harbor particularly expansionist or imperialist interests, and were created out of the communities' necessities. As the Mallku claims, however, this organ barely functions to improve the people's life quality when its interests collide with the Bolivian government, that is still tied to foreigner interests. Paynal finds it ironic, or contradicting, that the Mallku has a strong sense of community when it comes to the towns he oversees, yet he practices acts of violence against some individuals, but for Mallku, as any other military authority, and even a lot of people that have no touch with society or reality, even being closely related to it, criminals aren't people - and that is as poor an excuse as it sounds like. No need to ask if Paynal is "a criminal", too, right? He kills people who are paid to kill other people (the non-human animals). And this is where the old Mallku tries to play Paynal's "arguing game", by declaring they're the same, then, if they're wrong to kill people who'd kill other people. The difference, as Paynal points out, is that Mallku has the State's authorization to kill because his deaths are calculated on how much one's death would cost, so that's why he only kill criminals on crime scenes, not the official wealthier criminals dealing with the official authorities while Paynal hasn't even his basic rights acknowledged, has no wealth, property or identity, he's like a wild animal, who kills independently of class, judging only by the consequence of the victim's actions over a much larger quantity of sentient beings which daily suffering their daily work is based upon. Mallku, then, loses his cool and starts to believe Paynal is mad. Unlike his secret boss, Spectro (head of the Saqraruna), he never saw a Cuetzpalin in his life before, so he didn't have some kind of prejudice. But after meeting Paynal, he got into his nerves. As I stated previously, some of these characters are inspired on characters of stories I created during childhood. There's something about Mallku's original counterpart here .

These aren't the first and won't be the last to claim Paynal as an enemy. But their struggle against the velociraptor is something that will change both belligerents' views for a long shot.
Representativity, when it comes as acceptance into a system of exploitation, has nothing to do with the autonomy of the people. But then, why should someone still be surprised there's no consent in the so-called "social contract"? Why does the social contract sound like yet another dogma of vertical authority, of a caste system? Mass societies can never mean anything good or fruitful for most individuals, and it's only kept existing because people are controlled by fear of worst consequences, some of them that are conveniently materialized by authoritarian groups which profit from others' constant state of misery. But giving in to hopelessness, a messiah complex or individual remorse aren't the only exits. Destruction also brings construction.

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Description
Digital painting, shading and editing over this sketch.
Original sketch, character design, character concept and background story by me (a.k.a Guiler-717, Zamahel, Guilherme M.).

In Tahuantinsuyu (from the quechua "Four Regions", a.k.a the Inca Empire), the Mallki were royal mummies - the mummies of rulers (Sapa Inca) and nobility.
Mallku, a similar name, is the aymara name for the Condor (Vultur gryphus, which common name is derived from the quechua "kuntur"), and also the title of the aymara leaders.
The Apu Mallku is the aymara "supreme sovereign".

As you can tell, these "cyborgs" are visually inspired on other works of science-fiction, comics and tokusatsu, while they're conceptually inspired (except for Ichneumon, named after a genus of wasps) by elements from the pre-hispanic Inca and Aymara cultures, and in Naymlap's case, the pre-Inca Moche and Sicán/Lambayeque cultures, as well the Chimú culture, contemporary to the Inca. They're also updated versions of some original characters I've created between 2003-2004, when I was 9-10 years old, for a series of stories I called BYDURAK. These four haven't, however, any relation to the BYDURAK storyline, they rather play a major role in my current story project - the IN LAK'ECH Mythos (which I plan to release as a series of comic books. It's, however, in the initial stages of development, though it already takes a lot of time from me and is the main theme of my current art study, practice and production).

By the time I created these characters, fourteen-thirteen years back, I was bothered or tired not to see major popular science fiction, fantasy & comics characters inspired on pre-hispanic cultures. I still am, and I want to change that with my own characters and stories. And just a reminder, I only refer to these distinct cultures as pre-hispanic because of their age, for most of them exist up to this day independently of a western globalization ideology. In the territories of Peru and Qollasuyu/Bolivia, the aymara and Inca peoples keep their languages, and among some communities, some of their traditional lifestyles, economy and organizations. I strongly encourage you to read and study about the past and present of those cultures, through scientific/academical means, verifiable resources available through the internet and also through the voice of its locals.

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The IN LAK'ECH Mythos' main story follows the path of a young Brazilian student, William Mattoni, who after a troublesome vacation trip in a farm at northwestern Brazil, in August 2008, acquires the power to transform into a CUETZPALIN (from the nahuatl "lizard"), a super-fast lizard-man, after finding the Tonalcoatl (a snake-like structure which contains the consciousness of an ancient Cuetzpalin) of an ancient Cuetzpalin, Moctezuma Xocoyotzin - revealed to have been a super-fast Cuetzpalin himself, in his lifetime, when he ruled the Confederation of Mexico by the time the Spanish invaders arrived. The symbiosis between William and Moctezuma allows the young boy to transform into a new Cuetzpalin, and Moctezuma to telepathically communicate with him. Their goals surely differ - Moctezuma, who just woke from a 488 years old slumber, has some hard time adjusting to this new world, accepting he lost the crown of an expanding empire and that several stuff he believed in, such as a paradisiacal afterlife for those who died in battle, were just a tale. Still, he wants William to take the crown back, to restore Mexico's old glory. William, on the other side, has a goal slightly more ambitious than conquering the world, he means to destroy the means by which anyone would rule. As a vegan for ethical reasons (more specifically, a negative consequentialist) and a self-proclaimed anarcho-primitivist, harboring a critique of mass society and civilization, William seeks to use that power to liberate sentient animals from their cages, in the way connecting the dots with other struggles - like that against global capitalism, the struggle for the land (against the landlords who concentrate a major part of wasted territory in their own hands), the struggle for the autonomy of the indigenous peoples and overall against the status quo, in which previously established economical conditions act like a caste-system imposed over different communities, with different needs, and the maintenance of social order over such a huge population can only be possibly acquired through slavery, tyrammy, suppression. Does he want to start a revolution? Not necessarily, more like a lone wolf taking matter into his own hands, he just started to target owners of businesses related to animal exploitation, killing them and their employees whenever they tried to get in his way, and of course, this brought him against private security, the military, the cops, the law enforcers, the protectors of the bourgeoisie and even those who claim to protect "the people" (but who deliberately ignore the condition of the animals bred and used by a wide array of industries - from meat to dairy, from egg to fishing, from fur to testing, from trafficking to exhibiting, from hunting to manipulating, most non-human animals experience a lot of suffering in their shortened and calculated lives at the hands of petty activities related to profit but utterly unnecessary to human survival). In other words, within his first months of action, the self-proclaimed " Cuetzpalin Paynal" (Paynal from the nahuatl "fast", name of a pre-hispanic Mexican deity who's reputedly the messenger of the God of War and patron of Mexico Huitzilopochtli) has made many enemies, from the clueless simpletons who defend their own slavers up to influential politicians, landlords, bureaucrats, corporatists and of course, the armies they have at their disposal. And this is where these guys enter into action.

      The Republic of Tahuantinsuyu, named after the Inca Empire, was formaly proclaimed on the streets of Cusco in 1969, after the capture and assassination of the Peruvian Emperor, Urcon Verbo, by the forces of a self-proclaimed Socialist Guerrilla group led by an ecletic revolutionary named Tupaq Amaru III - after the late 16th Century Inca ruler and the 18th Century indigenous leader . The war has started rhoughly four years before, within the countryside of southern Peru, after years of exploitation and taxation imposed by Urcon's government - the self-proclaimed "post-colonial Emperor of Peru" was but a puppet to foreigner corporate interests , that already turned pretty much of its Latin American neighbors into a playground for their own business with the employment of military dictatorships that defended an anti-communist nationalism while privatized several of its resources at the hands of foreigner enterprises. The capital, that was changed from Lima (in the Colonial era) was set back to Cuzco during Verbo's rule, and was changed once more after Tupaq's associates, the now ruling and popular Communist Party of Tahuantinsuyu, took control of the executive power over most of Peru, restablishing the capital at the coastal city of Moche. That was just the beginning, as following principles of an indigenous socialism, Tupaq vouched for the nostalgia of an Inca sovereignty, and Peru was no longer for the Tahuantinsuyu has risen once again. Some areas strongly supported the revolutionaries, while others didn't, so Tupaq didn't take charge immediatly, instead, he let some allies of his such as Umaq Granado to oversee the modernization of Moche and as well take care of the bureaucratic stuff alongside a group of individuals who'd later be known as the Council of Advanced Technological, Energetic and Industrial Development of Tahuantinsuyu. Several of those had great positions in Tupaq's army's biggest sponsor, a secret inter-galactic enterprise there called as the Saqraruna Organization. Because its operations outside the galaxy were unknown, it became a little more smooth to put a "statized" image over their growing industrialization. Several of its nonhuman agents, as well, that have been populating some strategically hid areas in Peruvian territory - like Nazca, on Quntisuyu, and the Titicaca Lake, on Qollasuyu - established representatives among the human population, and the "new government" would establish itself as The Socialist Republic of Tahuantinsuyu, as it earned vocal support from the Soviet Union and Cuba, and enmity from the US-UK axis.

      It's borders with Brazil, mostly around the area of the Amazon Forest, became a battleground. Tupaq would command more guerrillas to secure the Peruvian territory, and would hear the call of independent paramilitary groups formed in Ecuador and Colombia, including the ELN (National Liberation Army). Their victories over official and unofficial bounty hunters sent by the CIA-backed satellite dictatorships, however, ended up being victories for Tahuantinsuyu, as the newly christened official army of Tahuantinsuyu, composed of, among revolutionaries that survived repression, some of their own enemies (that switched sides after realizing it would be more productive for the nation), would take Quito, the Ecuadorian capital, and the prefectures of several cities in souther Colombia. After years, in a decade, the mixture of popular support and military pressure has formally accepted the annexation of those populations into Tahuantinsuyu. But it would also expand south, even beyond Bolivia. The capital of La Paz, originally Chuqui Yapu, has also been taken by the Tahuantinsuyuan forces, that included among their own several Aymara and Utu Bolivians. Unlike Ecuador, however, the current Bolivian governor, the head of the US-supported military dictatorship, has escaped, and a new capital has been set on the city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra. It didn't last long, however, and the new Bolivian president Juan José Torres, would pledge allegiance to Qollasuyu. Not for long, too, as the secret military operation carried out by the CIA eliminated him and placed another dictator in his place, in 1976. For years, what remained of Bolivia refused to annex itself or cooperate with Qollasuyu (the southernmost region of Tahuantinsuyu), but its attempts of boycotting the Tahuantinsuyuan government only damaged its own economy, leading to several concessions in the next years, if not to Tahuantinsuyu, to Brazil, which means the US.

      The conflicts that led to Tahuantinsuyu's expansion, however, didn't stop at Bolivia, neither did they stop around the seventies. In 1981, independent socialist guerrillas, in great number composed by Mapuche peoples from northern Chile and Argentina (both nations under yet another bloody dictatorship promoting neoliberalism and patriotism, and backed by the CIA) took their constant resistance to the next level, claiming independence from the government. In one of its first efforts to intervene internationally, the Tahuantinsuyuan military forces supported the rebels, in a war that lasted from 1981 up to 1985. By the time, Tupaq was in charge of the executive power in Tahuantinsuyu since his first official electoral participation and victory, in 1979. He would remain in power at Moche until 2000, but that's another chapter. The war on Chile (Qollasuyu) witnessed the involvement of international armies, and could be classified as a world war, for the Soviet KGB supported Tahuantinsuyu, while the US and UK military were sent to support the Chilean dictatorship. This was also a pioneer occasion for the employment of American weapons industrialist Joseph Bridges (CEO of ABEL Inc.) latest project, the super-powered Alpha-Omega armors. The Alpha, Gamma and Epsilon units were employed by private agents (respectively, Angus Houston, Edwin Murdock and Neil Ford), but they were defeated by the official Mallki guardians of Tahuantinsuyu. One of them, Ichneumon, the latest to be introduced, was reported by agent Ford to look almost exactly like the stolen Beta armor - the second of ABEL's Alpha-Omega series, it was sold to the japanese military in 1974 but never made it to their hands, instead, a popular japanese thief, stole it and started to use it as a vigilante, "Bumblebee", exposing corrupt relations between the government & military and some cells of the Yakuza mafia. The vigilante, reputedly Kenshiro Shimada, was reported captured, and the armor would finally reach the military, as Shimada's execution was announced in 1981, but it never happened. This led Ford, the last survivor of his team, to believe that whether or not Ichneumon was still Shimada, the Tahuantinsuyuan government may be involved with this crime. Because of the secret nature of the Alpha-Omega project, however, Bridges faced difficulties in earning any valuable reward from the UN, and once again the Tahuantinsuyu emerged victorious, as several communities from northern Argentina and Chile expected the annexation as a modernization. That was the last expansion Tahuantinsuyu would reach in the following years, as eventually with the dissolution of the USSR the Tahuantinsuyu slowly returned diplomacy with some of its original enemies. Moments of tension between both nations would return in 1997, when Tupaq and some of his military were visiting Cuba and some islands near Mexico's Atlantic Coast, what some agents reported as a planned attack. There were also reports of his presence in Arizona, though these have also happened in 1974. Following Tupaq's mysterious disappearance in 2000 (no official claim about his death was launched, however after some years several people started to believe he died. Some people know better what happened, but guard that as a secret), Tahuantinsuyu has left aside its Socialist name - becoming the Republic of Tahuantinsuyu, and its Communist Party, the traditional power since the victory of 1969's revolution and following the return of elections in 1979, has ceded some of its bureaucratic positions to new social democrat or centre-left parties.

From the beginning, there were independent left-wing armed groups that either fighting alongside Tupaq's Communist Party or not, stood against Urcon Verbo, and after the establishment of Tahuantinsuyu's new Socialist Republic, still stood against the government. This kind of conflict has been constantly ignored by the mass media, that for the sake of governability (after all, they invest in the parties' campaigns, and once they win the elections, they pay back what they due to the media corporations) preferred to portray an idealized globalized world being threatened by the rise of a left block, that not only still deal with other governments as a member of the UN, but still use the same measures to repress its own populace whenever their control is threatened, and extend those actions even when the control isn't directly threatened, but the intention is believed to exist. The same surveillance, the same persecution of individuals, the same police, the same military, the same propaganda, the same role - to take and play like they're offering something in exchange of your work. Besides independent radical left-wing militias, other figures from Tahuantinsuyu's poorest locations had been equally persecuted by government authorities, including indigenous populations that chose to keep their traditional ways of life and traditional lands, not as a private corporation, but as a communal area in which they could practice their semi-nomadic lifestyle, what also includes civilized techniques like agriculture. The matter was never about "privatization vs. statization", neither "modernization vs. tradition" not even "civilization vs. wilderness", all it's been is keeping the slaves enslaved for the petty desires of its small ruling classes, and rule comes from appropriation, theft (like "private property" - and not a personal-use toothbrush, but a huge lot of land that could be used for a diverse agriculture, and yet is used to feed livestock and keep their lives miserable so someone would pay something they don't need to eat something they don't need) and repression. This face of a Tahuantinsuyu that looks for a strengthened national industry, to collectivize access to consumption of goods and for technological development at any costs, which breaks the international community's popular belief that Tahuantinsuyu has turned it from a collective of poor communities into an actually indigenous, socially aware plurinational representative democracy and a self-government (or does it break any of this idealized vision?), is something Paynal gets exposed to, the first time his actions (liberating farm animals, killing landlords, bounty hunters, their employees, farmers, hunters and other people remotely related to animal exploitation businesses) cross through its borders, in December 2009. What makes an indigenous? it's lifestyle or its ethnicity? If the land is still used for livestock breeding, mining, gas and oil, then would it make a difference? These questions plagued William's mind, and besides becoming a target for the Mallki, he would also have a time arguing with each of them. Enough about Paynal, let's take a look at each Mallki, for they're very different from each other.

NAYMLAP - Named after the culture hero of the pre-Inca Sicán/Lambayeque culture, the descendants of the Moche and ancestors to the Chimú, who were contemporary to the Inca and were conquered by Tahuantinsuyu and its armies during a campaign led by the 15th ruler Topa Inca Yupanqui in 1471. His facial features are present in several motifs from these cultures' artifacts, and it's believed he reorganized the communities that split following the collapse of the Moche society sometime between the 6th and 7th centuries. Naymlap is the Mallki officially in charge of Quntisuyu, a region which comprehends several historically relevant spots of Inca administration, like Cusco, Tahuantinsuyu's original capital and later the Ciudad Imperial under Verbo's rule, and Lima, the capital during the colonial era and one of the country's biggest metropolis. Quntisuyu also houses the Nazca lines, where the Saqraruna Organization has uncovered an ancient base which they restored and started to use for their own purposes since the 20th Century's second half. On its border with Chinchaysuyu, there's the Pachacamac district, where the Shadow Government (the union between the saqraruna, in charge of Tahuantinsuyu's council for advanced technology, energy & industry development, and other international secret societies from other sectors, like the Palarokhian Council today based mostly around Kaliningrad and Belarus, and the Vovin Brotherhood based in the hidden underground realm of Dantalia, somewhere in Russia) keeps the entrance to the realm of Uku Pacha (named after the underworld in the Inca cosmology), a breeding ground for the Amaru (referred to as Vovin by their Eastern European fellows, it's the quechua name for dragon). Naymlap is one of the most secret and collected, therefore less public guardians of Tahuantinsuyu, and his armor is cirtualli impenetrable. He uses electrical-based magic and creates force fields around him, which increase the distance between him and possible assailants even more. Regarded by part of the population as the reincarnation of a Chimú leader, he originally fought at the area of nowadays Chinchaysuyu (Northern Peruvian Coast and most of northwestern Peru, the original location of the Moche, Lambayeque and Chimú communities) during his activation, in the years of the Tahuantinsuyuan Revolution. Despite the name Mallki and generalized naming of the guardians after historical or mytho-historical figures gives a sense of secret identity to the guardians, the fact is that Naymlap is a cyborg, artificially crafted by the Saqraruna and designed after local motifs. He is, however, sentient, intelligent and conscious, not some obedient machine. He has a role to fill, however, that's to brutally keep the social order whenever it's slightly threatened in his area. The capital of Quntisuyu is Cusco, often labeled the Imperial City, for its unique blend of Inca architecture, colonial era baroque and a post-colonial victorian inspired one, all merged into a modern and dark metropolis.

ICHNEUMON - Named after the genus of wasps, this is alongside Naymlap one of the less public guardians, and is surely the most controversial. All the other three are understandably inspired by traditional figures of the realm, so why this one seems to be visually inspired by some sort of bee or wasp? The other three were created by the saqraruna during the time Tupaq Amaru III led the frontlines against Urcon Verbo between 1965 and 1969. Ichneumon, however, was only introduced and put in charge of Chinchaysuyu's public defense (originally, not officiallly but practically overseen by Naymlap's troops) in 1981, around the same time he was activated to support the other in the war which was rampaging through Chile. Like previously stated, the Ichneumon is shaped after the Beta armor from the Alpha-Omega armor series publicly believed to have been developed by the american corporation ABEL Inc. In Beta's case, it was sold to the japanese military but never made it, instead it was stolen and used by a vigilante between 1974 and 1981, when he was captured and his execution announced - but never materialized. No official claims about Ichneumon's identity have been stated other than his role as an official guardian of the Chinchaysuyu province. The region of Chinchaysuyu is the most populous one, and covers several administrative territories of Tahuantinsuyu, besides the capital, Moche, which contains one of the world's most advanced administrative and also industrial complex out there, the Intihuaca (from the quechua "Inti" meaning Sun and "Huaca", a concept of no literal meaning which referred either to ancestors materialized in natural phenomena, personified mountains and also abandoned construction sites from pre-Inca civilizations, including the Moche pyramids. Inspired on a concept from a story I created years ago). The cities from the northern peruvian coast have witnessed major reforms, becoming large metropolis from the eighties up to 2000, and are regarded as some that benefitted the most from Tupaq's government. And again, with this "modernization" also comes surveillance and repression, including Ichneumon and other cyborg cops designed especially for persecution and attack. Other regions in Chinchaysuyu include the Chachapoyas fortress, that historically served as a training ground for the Chasqui - messengers of the Inca ruler Tupaq Inca Yupanqui, they were dragon riders and brought messages from all corners of the Tahuantinsuyuan empire and beyond. It's greatly due to their action that the Inca engaged in a war against the Mexica confederation between 1481 and 1493 (a story not mentioned on history books and not publicly known, completely erased from spanish accounts and barely remembered by nowadays populations of those areas). The capital of the ancient Chimú empire, Chan Chan, has also been greatly reformed into a military base. Other than that, it's worth mentioning that Ichneumon is gradually attaining more influence so he can lead his own special squad of official mercenaries, the Insect Syndicate, as part of an initiative by the Saqraruna that means to capture and modify other Alpha-Omega series armors. They already count with a double agent infiltrated among the current owners of those armors, all they need is the right time to strike. Ichneumon's main powers are derived from the Beta armor - he can fly, and also release and launch poisonous, venomous and acidic substances through his stings and weapons. With the armor's modifications, he can also control a large population of artificial nanorobotic drones shaped after Ichneumon wasps, that can act like Ichneumon wasps, or worse, they can combine themselves into larger units, that infect victims with meat-eating parasites. When they're not killng someone, these drones can also watch over several distinct, select victims - political opponents and dissenters, for example. Whether or not Ichneumon is Kenshiro Shimada, he's likely produced from the bond between the Beta armor and an user's body - even if the body is undead, as long as it powers up the suit and fits it's necessities in order to walk, act and think, the fact is that Ichneumon is largely believed to be a cyborg. It just happens he may very well be a self-conscious necro-cyborg.

PACHAKUTI - Named after the 15th Century Inca ruler and founder of Tahuantinsuyu, whose name translates as "Earth shaker" (and also has a deeper meaning than its literal form, as a founder of an empire and social order he also reputedly shaped nature itself, and to some his name can mean he who overturns space and time. In a tale set on the time the Inca's original kingdom of Cusco was threatened by a military advance from the Chancas, Pachacuti has gained the aid from soldiers made of stone itself, that helped the Inca to survive. He wasn't the one his father and antecessor, Viracocha, intended to succeed him in the throne, instead he wished Urco to become the next Inca, but Urco left the fortress at the time the Chancas would attack, while Pachacuti's resolve miraculously led the Incas to win the day, and him to earn the kingship). One of the most popular Mallki, Pachakuti oversees the area of Antisuyu, covering Peru's eastern border with Brazil and reaching up to Ecuador and southern Colombia. By the time those areas were secured and annexed by the Socialist Republic of Tahuantinsuyu in the seventies, following Tupaq's victory, the exploration of the Amazon Rainforest has increased due to its use for military purposes, other than the already expanding uses for livestock breeding, creation of crops, mining, oil and gas - activities that in most cases threatened its traditional communities and forcefully employed some of them under slavery conditions. Eventually, after the formal annexation of most of Ecuadorian and southern Colombian territories into Tahuantinsuyu, Pachakuti secured the development of industrial poles on the area, and the admission of several of its native populace into the industry. Pachakuti is a disciplined soldier and military leader, and affirms that the industrial civilization isn't a foreigner or colonial exclusivity, indeed, the original Tahuantinsuyu developed industrious architecture and road networks that most of foreigner kingdoms didn't hope to understand. While facing and simultaneously arguing with Paynal during a fight in a semi-private Oil facility on the Amazonian Forest area of Antisuyu, Paynal argued that while Pachakuti's right about the native population being completely able and equally credited for the development of an industrial stage of civilization and mass society organization, his vision of an indigenous industry isn't new, but is just the natural exchange of one ethnicity for another, while keeping the same increasingly exploiting system of production, profit and tax-gathering. Most people are forced to work in this you call "industry" because otherwise they'd be vulnerabe to death, and those conditions, instead of being improved upon by the effort of the "industrious" magnates, are used in their favor, by pushing the slaves to their limits, and making sure someone can replace them when the time comes. If there was any difference between this state of existence and that of the native communities of the area, it was that they found other ways to live and yet reproduced under other forms of social order, without the need to subject that many human and non-human animals as the industry-level he defends has been doing. In other words, other peoples' conditions aren't even being improved upon like a cyborg with no needs claims. The need they're being induced is the same which keep them obedient, which is the need not to die from hunger, because in first place, the food they need has been taken from them by those who claim they're helping them. Pachakuti loses his cool and eventually fights Paynal across the jungle after these "insults". He reports to his batallion that Paynal is a savage who wants to destroy for the sake of destroying, deliberately ignoring Paynal's actual motivations. Pachakuti defends something Paynal could describe as authoritarian policy, industry and capitalism with an indigenous face. But this duel is what eventually introduces Paynal to what lurks beneath the Tahuantinsuyuan reality - a private corporation from some far away land. Pachakuti also secure the building of some dams in the amazonian area's rivers which were previously part of the Colombian territory, and on another occasion is sent to prevent Paynal from damaging a dam. Pachakuti is popular among some cities as a fist of justice, however several peoples in less benefitted jungle areas know him for what he really is - a weapon, and it doesn't matter if he claim to defend indigenous sovereignty, some Ashaninka, Yaminawa, Shipibo, Piro and other who live traditional communities know his idea of indigenous doesn't include those who are truly natives, instead they're a mere representation instead of reality. The idea, itself, isn't even his, it's an elaborate propaganda from Tahuantinsuyu to possible tourists and the international communities. Moctezuma, who shares Paynal's vision, reminds him that despite unused to the indigenous title (a colonial denomination), in the rule of Tupaq Yupanqui he brutally conquered the peoples from the northern Amazonian and Ecuatorial areas, and only left some eastern populations out of his way because deemed them as savages and useless (the former Ecuadorial and now Antisuyuan capital of Quito was originally an Inca estate, in an area first explored and conquered by Tupaq Yupanqui, then formally founded by his successor Huayna Capac after 1493). Agreeing with Moctezuma's observations, Paynal also points that trying to create an identity which amalgams these derogatory "civilizatory" authoritarian ideologies from an emperor and the ethnicity of a large variety of peoples whose contact between their own varied as much, and in some cases, even put them at odds, is a cynical attempt to keep people in line - as it's dishonest to claim authorship for something like "civilization, progress, industry and development". These things aren't done because of good intentions like improving one's conditions, or because of a race, a culture and lifestyle (like the so-called "Western Civilization", as if there was any union between so many distinct communities for something if not systematic misery and exploitation) or because of religion. These happen independently of any vertical authority or a later forced social contract, these things (material culture and labor that people try to describe as civilization, and the lifestyles resulted from the expansion of those means) they're there before people notice, before new generations are born, and the authorities are merely the ones that take what most spend time working in or working for. There's no cookbook for creating civilization, founding a town, and there's no such thing as uncivilized people if civilization is taken as the same as culture - even some non-human animal societies like some ants produce fungus for their own, so how come it isn't regarded a culture? And even the most basic tools are technology, culture and in a certain way a modification of "nature" (in this abstract sense, nature doesn't even exist. Like a concept of a god, it's not self-conscious nor is it an entity, unlike animals, who are sentient individuals).

MALLKU - named after the Aymara authority and the Condor on its language, the Mallku appears like a tall, hi-tech Condor-like guardian of Qollasuyu. Like all the other guardians, his identity is simply taken by the people and official sources as a guardian who personifies traditional national values, and in doing so he earned a lot of popularity - as much as fear and respect (is there a difference between respect for an authority and fear for worse consequences?) - from certain sectors of Qollasuyu's society. Unlike the other Mallki, however, and this fact isn't publicly known, he's not a Cyborg, but an old man in an enhaced Condor suit. More than that, he fought side by side with Tupaq in the sixties, and unlike Tupaq continued to fight in Bolivia - not as the Mallku, however, for the Tahuantinsuyu and what remained of Bolivia declared a truce since the later adopted an indigenous government through its own elections, which witnessed the victory of Evo Morales. The Mallku, however, is critical of Morales' government as it's not any better than neoliberal policies, something the Paynal would agree, if he knew who the Mallku is. Tupaq's latest years as the president and the years that came after have put the Mallku mostly out of an enemy battlefield and more into a battlefield against what could be called his own people - when there's no war, the armed forces arrange one, and the class struggle takes an extreme shape, as the armed forces start to persecute individuals from marginalized sectors of society with the justification that their only way to exist would eventually be joining crime, and whether or not they claim that, the State makes sure they function that way, for if some lives can't be more profitable than their deaths (weapons move more money than basic education and independent arts, of course) their deaths will be caused by either private security or police force. If the people of Qollasuyu still believe Mallku to be a face of justice and even if they don't, his role, as well as that of his guardians, is no different from an official vigilante or punisher, a take no prisoners who kills whoever he labels as criminal. Does it matter if he fought in a guerrilla against a tyrannical government, if he became something like what he previously fought against? Those questions would only pester Paynal's mind after he discovered Mallku's actual identity - the veteran guerrilla soldier, sometimes political prisoner, and other times Aymara leader Alvaro Quispe, a close friend of Umaq Granado and Tupaq Amaru -, in June 2009. Despite the Mallku sees his action somewhat limited by the Tahuantinsuyuan government's apparent diplomacy with its neighbor Bolivia, that have fairly increased since the 21st Century, his region, Qollasuyu, is the self-proclaimed most autonomous region (in relation to the capital's decisions), for with the Mallku's aid, it developed a differentiated hybridization of a representative democracy and an ayllu-based government, recalling the pre-hispanic quechua and aymara social organizations. For Paynal, however, it doesn't make a lot of difference - as apparently, in neither ways the interests of non-human animals as sentient individuals are taken into account. Since 1997, Bolivia has adopted its own national council of ayllus, a measure which international community believed to be the eventual final annexation of Bolivia into Tahuantinsuyu, however each institution doesn't harbor particularly expansionist or imperialist interests, and were created out of the communities' necessities. As the Mallku claims, however, this organ barely functions to improve the people's life quality when its interests collide with the Bolivian government, that is still tied to foreigner interests. Paynal finds it ironic, or contradicting, that the Mallku has a strong sense of community when it comes to the towns he oversees, yet he practices acts of violence against some individuals, but for Mallku, as any other military authority, and even a lot of people that have no touch with society or reality, even being closely related to it, criminals aren't people - and that is as poor an excuse as it sounds like. No need to ask if Paynal is "a criminal", too, right? He kills people who are paid to kill other people (the non-human animals). And this is where the old Mallku tries to play Paynal's "arguing game", by declaring they're the same, then, if they're wrong to kill people who'd kill other people. The difference, as Paynal points out, is that Mallku has the State's authorization to kill because his deaths are calculated on how much one's death would cost, so that's why he only kill criminals on crime scenes, not the official wealthier criminals dealing with the official authorities while Paynal hasn't even his basic rights acknowledged, has no wealth, property or identity, he's like a wild animal, who kills independently of class, judging only by the consequence of the victim's actions over a much larger quantity of sentient beings which daily suffering their daily work is based upon. Mallku, then, loses his cool and starts to believe Paynal is mad. Unlike his secret boss, Spectro (head of the Saqraruna), he never saw a Cuetzpalin in his life before, so he didn't have some kind of prejudice. But after meeting Paynal, he got into his nerves. As I stated previously, some of these characters are inspired on characters of stories I created during childhood. There's something about Mallku's original counterpart here .

These aren't the first and won't be the last to claim Paynal as an enemy. But their struggle against the velociraptor is something that will change both belligerents' views for a long shot.
Representativity, when it comes as acceptance into a system of exploitation, has nothing to do with the autonomy of the people. But then, why should someone still be surprised there's no consent in the so-called "social contract"? Why does the social contract sound like yet another dogma of vertical authority, of a caste system? Mass societies can never mean anything good or fruitful for most individuals, and it's only kept existing because people are controlled by fear of worst consequences, some of them that are conveniently materialized by authoritarian groups which profit from others' constant state of misery. But giving in to hopelessness, a messiah complex or individual remorse aren't the only exits. Destruction also brings construction.

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