Rendar, like most inventor characters from around this time, was probably inspired somewhat by Steve Jobs. Not in terms of his personality (which is fortunate for Sundar), but in terms of the scope of his ambitions.

We’ve all seen plenty of “daffy inventor” types who come up with one-off gadgets that do what the story requires, and sure, Rendar coulda been another one of those. Rendar, however, wants to create things that the world will use, that will bring about more of that tech-driven change we were so fond of when designing Arkerra. It’s why we often see his inventions appearing in contexts where Rendar himself is completely absent or not immediately shown.

I take a certain sadistic delight in creating characters who I could easily imagine hanging around for a good long while and then killing them off abruptly just to remind you all that ANYONE CAN DIE. Or maybe I should say “took,” because this tendency of mine eventually ran up against Phil’s more “waste not, want not” philosophy. But since we were doing this story as an add-on to existing material and Espero didn’t fit into the narrative in any obvious way, I had the freedom to put him through the meat grinder with no pushback.