The Silver Guardians, typically referred to as Silvermen, are a type of automaton created by the Super-Ancient Beings for defending the vaults of the Secret Cities.
History[]
Early History[]
The silver-coloured automatons known as the silvermen or silver guardians were created by the Super-Ancient Beings long ago at a currently unknown point in Earth's history, and may have been designed to look like their creators.
As the Super-Ancients devised a series of trials for a race that might appear on Earth after them to undertake to confirm they were worthy enough to survive the Omega Event, they decided to implement their silvermen in their fourth trial, the Trial of the Cities. Four silver guardians were stationed within a cupola in each of the Secret Cities of Thule, Ra and Atlas, and set to attack any who tried to pass them to reach the vaults, so that only those who understood how the Three Immortal Weapons were to be used could get past them safely. For any intruders that might enter the cities, the Guardians' bronze counterparts would slowly force them towards the silver guardians cupolas.
Several other silvermen besides the ones on the cupolas were stationed at each of the cities, as well as presumably being stored in the silver coffins in the Underworld.
More silvermen were left inside the Supreme Labyrinth, contained within "stone shells" that would break off when the conditions for waking them was met. A few silvermen were stationed on each bridge in the First Cavern, and a pair at each of the six entryways to the Endless Tunnel. When Imhotep made a pilgrimage through the ancient maze, he managed to obtain the head of a silverman, and was inspired by the designs on its skull to tattoo clues to the Supreme Labyrinth on his own head, before going on to wear the silverman's hollowed skull as a skullcap.
The Three Secret Cities[]
When the time for the fourth trial began, King Orlando Compton-Jones, unaware of the conditions of opening the way into Thule and of the mistake he was making, prematurely initiated the Trial of the Cities and sent Cardinal Ricardo Mendoza and his Swiss Guards into the city to empower the Sword of the Rock. Upon reaching the cupola, the Cardinal and his men found themselves unable to pass as the silver guardians reacted and attacked anyone who stepped onto their cupola. Despite their various attempts to try and attack and damage them, the silver guardians were impervious to the bullets and blades, leaving Mendoza's group trapped between the silvermen and their slowly approaching bronze counterparts.
When she and her troops arrived at Ra, Chloe Carnarvon encountered the same problem as they encountered the silvermen on that city's cupola.
After Jack West Jr's team retrieved the locations of the Cities, Stretch and Pooh Bear headed to Thule, Iolanthe Compton-Jones, Nobody and Mae Merriweather went on to Ra and Jack and Aloysius Knight made their way to Atlas, all with the intention of backing Orlando's people up in case they needed the help. When Jack realised that the Weapons were the key to getting past the Guardians, using the Trident of the Sealord to command the bronze guardians to stop their attack, he advised his teammates of the situation.
With Jack's advice, Stretch took the Sword from Mendoza, and proceeded to use it to slay three of the silver guardians on the cupola, but after being injured by the final guardian, Pooh Bear took up the Sword and finished it off. Meanwhile, Iolanthe donned the Helmet of Hades, and as she stepped onto their cupola, the silvermen reacted as they had been programmed; to not see whoever was wearing it, allowing her to cross to the vault. As he and Knight swam up to the hourglass-shaped city, Jack opted to swim by the cupola to confront the silver guardians with the Mace in case the trial require them being overcome, and the guardians followed the order to stop, allowing Jack and Knight to reach Atlas's vault.
After all of the Weapons had been empowered, the silvermen once again made no reaction as Iolanthe made her way past them on the cupola.
The Two Lost Mountains[]
After Hardin "Sphinx" Lancaster completed the Trial of the Cities and was awarded the Rings of Command, he transferred the "power" of the Trident into the rings, given him command over all of the automatons. Keeping the emperor's ring for himself, Sphinx handed two of the lesser rings to Jaeger Eins and Dion DeSaxe, instructing them to begin gathering the numerous bronze and silver guardians.
Eins arranged for several C-5M Super Galaxy cargo planes to be requisitioned to transport the automatons, since they were the only aircraft capable of transporting so many. Over the next few weeks, Sphinx's entourage continued consolidating his forces and resources, including the silvermen and bronzemen from the Secret Cities, as Sphinx began preparing for the Trial of the Mountains.
When Sphinx went to undertake the Fall at the first iron mountain at Mont Saint-Michel, he brought four silvermen and several bronzemen with him. When Hades was captured after trying to make peace with Dion, Sphinx ordered one of the silvermen to decapitate him, which it did by wrenching the former king's head off at the neck with all its strength.
Later, once Sphinx arrived at the Supreme Labyrinth, he deployed most of his forces to defend the five gates into the maze, including several silvermen. As the defences began taking place, 40 silver guardians were stationed at each of the four gates into the maze.
After Alby Calvin and Rufus located Imhotep's tomb in the Siwa Oasis, Alby noticed that the skullcap the ancient architect's mummified body wore the skull of the silverman he had claimed.
As Jack's team approached the gates to the Supreme Labyrinth, they spotted General Garthon Rastor's men engaging with one of the defensive squads of silver and bronze guardians, before making into their gate. The team then undertook Jack's "Russian Doll" plan; tearing into the midst of bronzemen at the far left gate, but were soon stopped short of the gate and trapped between several silvermen. Thanks to last-second help from Rufus and Alby in the Black Raven and Easton and his "palemen", Jack, Lily and Zoe made it through the remaining silver and bronze automatons and into the gate.
The One Impossible Labyrinth[]
As soon as his team reached the First Cavern, Sphinx jumped onto his corresponding bridge, which activated the lone silverman standing in the middle. But as soon as it began moving, Sphinx raised his hand with the Emperor's Ring, causing the silver automaton to become still and bow its head before allowing the Trismagi and his party to pass. As the Vandals were dispatched to hold off any who might try to follow Sphinx through the Labyrinth, they used the guttering on the other bridges to bypass the silvermen on each one to keep them from activating.
When Sphinx's team reached the entrances to the Endless Tunnel, they chose the correct path, thus keeping the pair of silvermen waiting at the entrance from activating. While High Brother Ezekiel and his Omega monks also chose the right path soon after, when Dion and his team arrived, they picked the wrong tunnel, and shortly after they began venturing on, the two silvermen at the entrance broke free of their stone shells and began pursuing them.
When Jack, Lily, Zoe and Easton arrived on their bridge, they activated the silverman on it, and Jack decided that he and Zoe, along with their palemen, would distract it while Lily and Easton used the gutter to skirt around the guardian. But once Jack fired using the ammunition tipped with slivers from the Sword of the Rock, he quickly saw that his shot had barely dented the silverman's brow. As the force from Zoe's shots knocked its head around, their palemen worked to secure the silver guardian in place, though one was thrown off the bridge by the silverman. Jack managed to hit the silverman directly in the same spot as his first shot, causing the automaton to go limp and drop into the water on the bridge.
After Jack and Zoe passed it by, greystone pellets turned the water around the silverman to stone, and as the silverman was still "alive" in spite of the damage Jack had inflicted, it managed to break free of the solidified greystone. As it began coming after the pair, the other two silvermen stationed on the bridge awoke and began breaking free of their shells. After sending Jack to catch uo to Lily in the well-shaft, Zoe used the aid of the two palemen to slow the first silverman before double-tapping the automaton in the same wounded spot, causing it to freeze again and then topple into the shaft, where it was easily cut to pieces by the super-sharp filament wires criss-crossig the shaft. The palemen then started grappling with the renmaining silvermen as Zoe followed the others into the shaft, and both ended up falling into the chasm below as Rastor used RPGs to bring down the giant stalacite.
Meanwhile, as Jaeger Eins began organising Sphinx's forces as they prepared to relocate, any remaining silvermen by the entrance to the Labyrinth began marching with their bronze counterparts towards the coast of the Red Sea.
When Dion's team came under attack from a goldman in their tunnel, the silvermen that had followed them apparently joined it in its attack, forcing the young King back to the entranceways.
As Jack, Lily and Easton pressed on through the correct path of the Endless Tunnel, they passed by several pairs of statues they suspected contained more silvermen, but none emerged from their shells.
After the Omega Event was averted by Jack and Sphinx and his forces defeated, the upstart Trismagi was sentenced to life imprisonment at the Royal Prison of Erebus, and Jack used the Emperor's Ring to order all of the remaining silver and bronze guardians to Erebus with the single directive to never allow Sphinx to escape.
Description[]
The almost robotic silvermen, like their bronze counterparts, stand around six feet tall, and are largely humanoid in appearance, baring for a faceless head, with only a downturned beak-like appendage in its place. Like the other Guardians, they have no visible seams across their bodies or even in their joints, making them appear like statues when completely still. Additionally, on their skulls, the silvermen have a collection of swirls, geometric shapes and text in the Word of Thoth engraved onto them.
They are crafted out of a silver-like metal that is actually far sturdier than anything found on Earth, making the silvermen able to withstand attacks from conventional human weapons such as bullets, knives and even grenade blasts. The only things that have been able to pierce the silvermen's armour is the Sword of the Rock, as was intended for the automatons at Thule; however, bullets tipped with the strange metal the Sword is forged from do not penetrate their armour as easily as they do the bronzemen, proving that the metal they are made from is more durable. Presumably also like the bronzemen, anti-aircraft weapons might occasionally penetrate the silvermen's armour, and while they can be crushed or pinned beneath extremely heavy objects such as large aircraft, but this does not necessarily cease the silvermen's functions.
The silvermen are programmed to obey the orders of the King of Kings once he has received the Mysteries, which are done in the super-ancients' language of the Word of Thoth, though it does not appear that the Oracles of Siwa could also command the automatons through their natural understanding of the language. Alternatively, they can be commanded by those wearing the Rings of Command; while the emperor's ring can control ever single one of the automatons, the four lesser rings can only control a certain group of the bronzemen, those which come from the location the ring is assigned to. Previously, the silvermen at Atlas could be commanded by the Mace of the Immortal Weapons, but since this "power" was transferred into the rings this is no longer the case.
The silvermen are extremely strong, being able to tear humans apart with their bare hands alone, as seen when a single silver guardian wrenched Hades's head off with ease. They can also easily rip into most metals with their claws. While not as numerous as the bronze guardians, the silvermen are considered more elite, and possess superior fighting skills and defensive armour, as well as greater strength.
Trivia[]
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