Lordgenome

"In his hand was hope. The hope of evolution. With enormous strength, the man fought..."

- Lordgenome

Lordgenome (ロージェノム, Rōjenomu), once addressed as the Spiral King, is the creator of the Beastmen and the antagonist of the first arc of Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann. He was a cruel and ruthless tyrant who employed legions of Beastmen to eradicate all mankind on the planet surface, commanding them from his gigantic castle of Teppelin. He is also the father of Nia Teppelin and the archenemy of Simon.

After his defeat and supposed death at the hands of Simon, Lordgenome becomes an important supporting character in the second arc of the show after he is revived by Rossiu as a Biocomputer seven years later.



Appearance
In contrast to most of the antagonists in Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann, Lordgenome is a full-blooded human being, though his Spiral Power signature is red rather than the usual green. His precise age is not stated, though Guame estimated him to be over 1,000 years old. Lordgenome is a large, bearded and muscle-bound man towering at over seven feet tall. His bearish figure is further emphasized by robust patches of hair, which take the shape of a spiral galaxy on his chest. He has tanned skin and dark-brown or black hair which is in heavy contrast with the light-colored hair and pale skin that he possessed in his youth. It is implied his usage of Spiral Power had drastically altered his appearance over time. He is usually bald, though in the heat of battle a red fire (presumably a visible form of his spiral power) can erupt from his scalp. He has red irises that resemble a concentric set of spirals. Lordgenome's normal garb appears usually consists of white pants and a black belt with a long white garb resembling a robe wrapped around his body. Throughout his appearances, he is shown consistently going barefoot.

Personality
At the start of the series, Lordgenome is shown as a highly intelligent, callous, and tyrannical ruler who ruthlessly oppresses humans by forcing them to stay underground under penalty of execution. He is portrayed as somber and shrewd but belies hints of weariness with his role as ruler and long lifespan. He often shows bemused surprise at opposition by those who oppose his rule and excitedly engages in any opposition to his rule to give himself a level of entertainment. However as the series progressed he was shown to have a much more complex side to his personality and actions.

He was once a potent Spiral Warrior who had a level of determination and drive that surpassed other Spiral Beings of his time. It is implied he once had a personality that was reminiscent of Kamina's which is shown during battle where is shown willing to throw himself into a frenzy during a battle when excited by his opponents. He personally led other humans against a war with the Anti-Spirals which was said to last a considerably long period of time. After being worn down by the attrition of endless warfare and being exposed to the truth of the Spiral Nemesis, he mentally cracked from the horrific revelation of an ostensibly meaningless war which destroyed his determination and audacious spirit. He was shown to be a ruthlessly pragmatic individual throughout his lifetime since he chose to ensure humanity be suppressed rather than face extinction by personally culling their numbers. Despite his cruelty, Lordgenome saw himself as the guardian of humanity and emphasized that all his actions were to ensure mankind's survival.

As the Biocomputer, he acquired a cynical wit, which he believes comes from his change of environment. During the final battle against the Anti-Spiral, he chose to sacrifice himself to give Team Dai-Gurren their chance at victory while simultaneously reigniting the determination and heroic drive he felt he had lost in the past.

Lordgenome is also implicitly shown to have a lecherous and libidinous side to his personality due to ritually having multiple young attractive girls from Beauty Village sexually satisfy him and be impregnated with his children to occupy his time.

First Anti-Spiral War
In the distant past, Lordgenome was part of a previous human civilization that lived on the surface of Planet Earth, and it is implied that he was mostly a loner, his only company being a small group of animals that he took care of, one of which was Guame in his original form. When the Anti-Spirals, a group of aliens bent on suppressing the Spiral culture, attacked Earth, Lordgenome, armed with a Lagann he found, joined the ranks of the Spiral Warriors, eventually becoming a Spiral General. In his time, Lordgenome was known as a renaissance man, famous not only as a powerful warrior but a brilliant scientist who made many breakthroughs in the field of genetic engineering through his experiments with cloning technology. His perfection of this process would allow for many miracles, such as a human body in biological stasis which he applied to both himself and Guame, a self-replicating asexual food supply through the various animals that populated Earth, and humanoid warriors (the Beastmen) who would not emit Spiral Power. Lordgenome and the Spiral Warriors valiantly resisted the powerful Anti-Spirals, but they were ultimately unable to discern the location of their enemy’s home world and were thus unable to make any permanent progress in the war. In time, nearly all of the Spiral Warriors were slain, worn down by years of attrition against endless waves of opponents. It was at this time that the Anti-Spiral himself appeared directly to Lordgenome in an attempt to fully thrust him into despair, beating down his valiant urges to continue resistance by revealing to him the Spiral Nemesis. Defeated and spiritually broken, Lordgenome attempted to stop his comrades from continuing their futile conflict, however, even though proceeding would either lead to their complete annihilation at the hands of the Anti-Spirals or the realization of the Spiral Nemesis, Lordgenome's allies refused to listen, and, in fury, Lordgenome eliminated any Spiral Warrior who disagreed with him. Utterly immersed in the despair the Anti-Spiral had instilled within him, Lordgenome activated his most powerful weapon, the Cathedral Lazengann, and pushed humanity back to Planet Earth, determined to preserve the remaining spiral population by conceding to any demands the Anti-Spiral had. He constructed an imposing castle fortress called Teppelin, and created the Beastmen as enforcers to slaughter human beings living on the planet surface, driving them underground in hope their fear would keep them there along with burying the Lagann in the depths of the Earth's crust. He compromised with the victorious Anti-Spirals who allowed the Spirals to continue their existence as long as only a small population of humans were allowed to survive within subterranean communities. He then further organized the Beastmen into a military body known as the "Human Eradication Army," arming them with Gunmen and ordering them to patrol the world's surface and slay any human who emerged from the ground.

Before Beastmen War Arc
Assuming the identity of the Spiral King, mankind's one guardian, he divided the Human Eradication Army into four branches, each headed by a Supreme General modeled after the Spiral General system of antiquity. Guame came to be the leader of the Supreme Generals, having attained a vaguely human form after centuries of absorbing Lordgenome's weakening Spiral Power. Later, Lordgenome ordered Guame to monitor the "Beauty Village," a village made up of young, beautiful girls abducted from other villages that Lordgenome deduced as having the highest chance of producing humans with an artificial dummy gene. This gene upon detection of high amounts of Spiral Power would trigger a transformation into an Anti-Spiral scout. Over the years, he would select girls from this village to sexually satisfy him, producing thousands of children who he summarily executed before they could mature into a powerful enemy. This purpose was kept a personal secret so that even Guame misunderstood the meaning; he had thought Lordgenome killed his children out of a disgust for self-awareness. Meanwhile, the Anti-Spirals configured Lordgenome’s old flagship, the Cathedral Terra, to assume the shape of the moon so that they could use it as an ultimate destructive tool against mankind should its numbers become too large. The Anti-Spirals hid the actual moon in another dimension, preventing adverse effects from the two large celestial bodies acting on the magnetic fields of Earth. As the centuries passed, Lordgenome grew mentally and physically weary, a side effect of the very Spiral Power within him acting against him as more humans are starting to surface and challenging his armies.

Beastmen War Arc
Lordgenome first appears some time after Kamina's death. After gathering the three remaining generals, he informs them of Thymilph's death. Adiane leaves to take care of it and later, Guame decides to take matters into his own hands, an act which causes slight annoyance in Lordgenome. When Simon and Dai-Gurren finally reach Tepplin, Lordgenome reveals himself to Simon. Lordgenome activates Dekabutsu's battle mode and it forces Team-Dai Gurren to sacrifice Dai-Gurren to destroy the Dekabutsu's large iron hammer. Simon, Nia and Rossiu are able to infiltrate Lordgenome's throne room and confront the Spiral King directly. Lordgenome first attempts to stab Nia by remotely manipulating one of Lazengann's extendable drills, then powering up Lazengann and engaging Gurren-Lagann in battle. Though Gurren-Lagann puts up an admirable fight, it is overwhelmed by Lazengann's maneuverability and speed, forcing Simon to detach Lagann and face Lordgenome without Rossiu's help. Lagann is able to destroy Lazengann, but before the Gunmen falls apart Lordgenome tears off Lazengann's hatch and walks over to the implanted Lagann, punching it into the head of Dekabutsu. Lordgenome then engages Lagann in physical combat, overpowering it and ultimately shattering its arms. As the excited Spiral King gloats in victory, Simon plunges his Core Drill into Lordgenome's chest, twisting it and sending a surge of Spiral Power into Lordgenome's body that explodes his torso. With his dying breath, Lordgenome warns Simon with a cryptic message:"When the land overflows with a million apes, the moon shall become Hell's messenger and completely destroy the world of the spiral." He then smiles without any further explanation, allowing his lifeless body to fall off of Dekabutsu into the ground below.

Anti-Spiral War Arc
Seven years later, Rossiu manages to recover Lordgenome's brain and regrows the likeness of Lordgenome's head from a tissue sample collected from the Spiral King's corpse.

This is done because Lordgenome's memories could not be accessed directly from a normal computer, so a special "Bio-Computer" had to be built to allow Lordgenome to relay his memories personally to the whoever wished to access them. Once activated, the bemused Bio-Computer explains the existence of the Anti-Spirals to Rossiu and later serves as a power source for Arc Gurren when the Mugann have overrun Kamina City. The Bio-Computer's information later proves invaluable, helping to prevent the moon drop and provide the means to reach the Anti-Spiral's dimension. However, though programmed without a personality, Lordgenome eventually regains self-awareness and assumes the identity of the man he used to be, joining as navigator of the newly recommissioned Super-Galaxy Dai-Gurren just to finally come face to face with the Anti Spiral. Once Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann is formed, Lordgenome uses the Super Spiral Space's power to temporarily recreate his body to serve as one of the thirteen key pilots. He then later detaches a reborn Lazengann to block the Grand Zamboa's Infinity Big Bang Storm and willfully sacrifices himself to convert the massive attack and himself into a galaxy-sized drill of Spiral Power that Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann absorbs to ensure Lordgenome's intent of paving a path for the spiral beings of future generations.

Nia Teppelin
Nia has a complicated relationship with her father. For much of her life Lordgenome was the only human she had contact with, all the others being beastmen. After traveling with Team Dai-Gurren and seeing the oppression of humans she expresses anger and questions her father when she confronts him. When Simon defeats Lordgenome and throws himself off the capital, she runs and tries to save him, yet sheds no tears and expresses a desire to move forward when he is gone. At the end of the series/movies, she shows to still care for him when he sacrifices himself to give team Dai-Gurren a chance in battle.

Powers and Abilities
In the beginning and up to his death, Lordgenome is depicted as one of the most powerful Spiral warriors in the Gurren Lagann multiverse, both with and without the use of his Gurren Lagann mecha variants.His prolonged usage of Spiral Power over a number of years has given him the ability to render his body and mind immortal. He also uses it to increase his physical attributes to grant himself superhuman attributes of strength, speed, durability, and reaction time to battle without assistance. The only human said to possess more power than Lordgenome is Simon due to his limitless Spiral Power.

Spiral Power
Lordgenome has the ability to use spiral power since humans are spiral beings and is shown as the oldest human user of Spiral Power. Lordgenome has a massive amount of spiral power that, despite being finite, can be used to quickly dispatch opponents of lesser skill. A testament to his once vast Spiral Power was his ability to pilot and transform his Cathedral Terra into humanoid form by himself while he was a Spiral Warrior when it took Simon a considerable amount of effort and time to do so in his battle against the Anti-Spiral. He is shown to be able to use his spiral power to create structures from nothing and has been shown to be able to convert other forms of energy include his own matter into Spiral Power. He is shown to be able to absorb and convert energy equivalent to multiple universal "Big Bang" explosions and control his own body to exist in the Anti-Spiral Dimension outside that of a Gunmen. He is also been shown to be able to use Spiral Power to survive life-threatening injuries albeit for a short period of time. This is seen when he is able to keep himself alive after having a large hole blown through his torso long enough relay a final warning to Simon and Nia about the Anti-Spirals plan for Human Extermination.
 * Reality-Warping Abilities: Lordgenome has been shown to be capable of using Spiral Power to achieve feats that defy many physical laws. He has been shown to use his control over spiral energy to suppress and convert energies equaling a Big Bang explosion for a short period of time. He managed to use the Super Spiral Space within the Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann that allows the pilots' recognition to become reality to create an entirely new body for himself and generate his Lazengann from supposedly nothing.

Other Skills
Skilled Gunmen Pilot and Creator: Lordgenome has been shown to be a supremely skilled Gunmen pilot due to his years of experience and familiarity with Gunmen. He was known to have defeated all the other Spiral Warriors on his side who attempted to stop him from driving humanity underground during the War against the Anti-Spirals. Despite centuries of indolence and sexual gratification, he is shown to be highly skilled as he quickly overpowered and defeated Gurren Lagann and nearly destroy Gurren. He comments, though, that he hates using Gunmen showing that despite being skilled, it is by necessity rather than choice that he uses them. He is notable for being the only Gunmen user who does not require physical controls to pilot a Gunmen, only his mind and will. Lordgenome originally owned all of the Gunmen in the series save Simon’s Lagann, but over the course of the story many were stolen from his subordinates or destroyed. On hand, he possessed a Personal-Class Lagann-Type Gunmen known as Lazengann which controls a grounded Space Gunmen known as Dekabutsu ostensibly referred to as “Teppelin”. He also controls a Space Dai-Gun (later renamed “Arc-Gurren”) that sleeps below Teppelin’s site. He was also the owner of the moon-sized galactic battleship Cathedral Terra (later renamed to “Chouginga Dai-Gurren”) Skilled Hand-To-Hand Combatant: Lordgenome is shown to be a highly skilled fighter in his own right, relying on brute strength, resilience, and tenacity to overpower opponents who engage him. His usage of Spiral Power allows him to increase his strength to immense levels that render him capable of smashing through stone with ease and defeating Simon who was using Lagann with his bare hands. Genius-Level Intellect: Despite his hulking exterior and brutish air to his appearance, Lordgenome is an exceptionally intelligent being whose knowledge and intellect surpasses nearly all other humans in the series including Leeron who himself could only grasp Lordgenome's concepts through theory deduction. A prodigy without formal training in his past, Lordgenome was a brilliant scientist who made many breakthroughs in the field of genetic engineering through his experiments with cloning technology and physics through his experiments in spacial-temporal travel and engineering. His perfection of this process would allow for many miracles, such as a human body in biological stasis which he applied to both himself and Guame, a self-replicating asexual food supply through the various animals that populated Earth, and humanoid warriors (the Beastmen) who would not emit Spiral Power. He also possesses a sufficiently advanced knowledge of biology to grant other beings such as Viral the state of physical immortality and tireless body. All of the scientific breakthroughs seen over the series originated from his designs and genius which was pivotal in the final fight against the Anti-Spirals. His disembodied head is referred to as the "Biocomputer", implying that his brainpower may be comparable or superior to that of a computer.

Etymology
Lordgenome's name comes from the English "lord" (a nobleman) and "genome", the blueprint for an organism found in its DNA. For this reason, many people spell his name as "Lord Genome". The name is meant to tie in with theme of biology for Lordgenome's inner circle with each of his generals getting his or her name from one of the nitrogen bases that make up DNA, as well as reflecting upon his position as a king on Earth. Lordgenome's name was combined by Gainax to reduce confusion among Japanese readers about "lord" being a title, rather than a part of the character's first name. In Part III, he is referred to as the "biocomputer" by Rossiu and his staff.

Trivia

 * Lordgenome has been alive for over 1000 years and is offically the oldest human being in the entire series.
 * Young Lordgenome with Lazengann.jpeg a boy, Lordgenome resembled Nia. It is unknown as to why his appearance changed so drastically (from pale skinned and blonde, to rather darker skin and black hair) but it is implied prolonged usage of Spiral Power radically altered his appearance and causes permanent mutations to one's body. This is seen through the image of concentric circles or spirals in the pupils and irises of the users that becomes permanent as more spiral energy is used over time.
 * Guame was originally Lordgenome's pet that, over the years, evolved by absorbing Lordgenome's Spiral Power (similar to Boota and Simon).
 * Lordgenome is the only spiral warrior with red Spiral Power instead of the common green Spiral Power. The possibility that its red is that Lordgenome somehow became an Anti-spiral being since the power of the Anti-Spiral Power is usually seen as red. A supporting fact is that while ruling as the Spiral King he forced humans underground in order to prevent the Spiral Power to develop to a state that would cause conflict with the Anti-Spiral. If this is true, then it could also be a reason why Nia was made the Anti-Spiral's messenger and would explain other key features like how his appearance as a kid changed drastically or why his drills are more narrow compared to other drills.
 * Also, Lordgenome's drills aren't bulky like other spiral drills, but instead narrow and can bend in mid-air (something only he has been seen to do).
 * Sushio, one of the creators of the show, said his personal favorite character was Lordgenome.
 * Simon never referred to Lordgenome as "Father". But Gainax stated "In the Spiral King's last moment, Simon did think of him as a father figure".
 * Lordgenome is the only character to ever defeat Simon in a battle between Gunmen. He was also the first character to defeat a gunmen alone and barehanded. Also, the first time a drill breaks off of Gurren Lagann is when Simon uses Giga Drill Break on Lazengann.
 * Lordgenome is very similar to Master Asia from Mobile Fighter G Gundam. For example, both characters can take on mecha without being in one themselves. Additionally, they are the only characters in their respective series who don't use the same basic means of piloting as everyone else, with Master Asia going beyond the need for the Mobile Trace suit in his Master Gundam and Lordgenome not needing to use the physical controls to pilot Lazengann.
 * The spiral pattern of his eyes closely resembles the Rinnegan from the Naruto franchise.

Quotes
"In his hand was hope. The hope of evolution. With enormous strength, the man fought..."

- Lordgenome

"There was a man who fought as you do. He also was unaware that his actions would doom humanity to extinction."

- Lordgenome "I see. Your power has grown sufficient to outstrip my own. Hear this now, you will soon come to regret it. I will leave you with this warning: When the land overflows with a million apes, the moon will become Hell's messenger, and completely destroy the world of the Spiral."

- Lordgenome's last words following his defeat.

"My soul once drowned in a sea of despair and weariness, but has reawakened! If this body can create a tomorrow for all spiral life, I will gladly give it."

- Lordgenome's parting words to Nia during his sacrifice against the Anti-Spiral