The Knights of the Teutonic Order of Ancient Prussia are the main antagonists of the Copernicus Legacy series. They seek to find 12 relics crafted by the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus and distributed around the world. Once the relics are assembled, they will make a time machine that will give its user immense power. The Order is failure-intolerant and has members spread out across the globe.
The Order's enemies are the Guardians, who seek to protect the relics from evil.
History
Background
The Teutonic Order originated as the religious/military order based in Jerusalem during the 12th centuries. After the Crusades, the Order grew in power and reached its peak under Grand Master Albrecht of Hohenzollern during the 1500s.
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Grand Master Albert of Hohenzollern
The Order got wind of Copernicus' time machine and his plan to disassemble it. Albrecht repeatedly sent Knights after Copernicus, but the astronomer used his sword skills to defeat them. Realizing that his young wife Cassiopeia was dying of cancer, Albrecht made a deal with his mortal enemy. Copernicus would take Cassiopeia to the future to be cured, and once she rebuilt the time machine, she would go back to 1516 to bring Albrecht and her baby to the future. In return, Albrecht would spare the life of Copernicus and his loyal assistant.
The child was dropped off by Copernicus at Schloss Konisburg in the 21st century. She took the name of Galina Krause and was rescued by Ebner von Braun, a leader of the weakened modern Teutonic Order that held meetings in the castle. Ebner took her to a clinic at Greywolf to have her throat tumor removed, saving her from death.
Galina/Cassiopeia rose through the ranks of the modern Order to become its Grand Mistress. She respected Ebner for saving her life and made him No 2. leader. She led the Order on its quest to find the 12 relics, murdering, bribing, and kidnapping to achieve her goals. Secretly, she desired the time machine so that she could be reunited with Albrecht and her daughter, who she would bring to the future.
Bases of Operation
Copernicus Room
The Copernicus Room could be seen as the Teutonic Order's HQ, located in Madrid, Spain. The street facade disguises it as the former house of an opera composer. The Room was the brainchild of Ebner, who sees the Room as the crowning glory of the modern Order. It is a massive underground base that can only be accessed through secret elevators. Half of it consists of bookshelves and archive storages dedicated to collecting every piece of data about Nicolaus Copernicus and the Guardians. The other half has computers and their programmers, and large servers that are said to rival those of NASA.
In The Crown of Fire, the Copernicus Room is raided by the Kaplans and a group of Guardian soldiers. At this point, it is run only by a skeleton crew. The Kaplans convince a programmer to retrieve Guardian sketches from a master vault, which they use to continue the relic hunt.
Station One: Greywolf
Greywolf was originally built in the 1500s by an Order-allied Russian duke. Later on, it was converted into a secret clinic where serums and medicines were developed. It was destroyed by a fire that happened during the time Galina Krause was a patient there. Over the next four years, it was rebuilt as a testing lab for the Order's Kronos time machine project.
Greywolf appears in The Serpent's Curse, and is where Galina and Ebner go to test Kronos 3. It becomes the site of a major battle between the Guardian Kaplan family, Guardian- allied Russian soldiers, and Teutonic Order forces. During the fight, Kronos 3 is destroyed and its test subject, Sara Kaplan, rescued. Greywolf is never seen again after this, so it is implied that the Guardians destroyed it.
Station Two: Berlin
The Order's Berlin station is shown in The Golden Vendetta, when Galina orders that the newly-discovered parts of the time machine be brought to the Berlin base. Helmut Bern worked here for a period of time before being transferred to the Iceland base.
Station Nine: Montenegro
A station with 2 laboratories and an office is seen in The Crown of Fire. Galina has the rebuilt time machine brought here after Guardians attacked the nuclear lab it was being made in.
Schloss Konisberg
This is the castle where Albert of Hohenzollern worked and lived, located in Poland. It fell into decay after his death and was rebuilt in a Soviet style during the Cold War. The castle was the site where Galina found the Serpens relic and met Ebner four years prior to the series. It has long, winding passages, most of which are flooded and collapsing.
In The Crown of Fire, the Kaplans fight the Order for the Lupus relic in the dirty tunnels of the castle. Although Galina gets the relic in the end, she is forced to leave when the tunnels begin to collapse.
Known members
- Galina Krause
- Ebner von Braun
- Bartolo Cassa
- Markus Wolff
- Archie Doyle
- Feng Yi (defected)
- Sir Felix Ross
- "Redface"
- Oskar Gerrenhausen
- Colonel Radip Surawaluk
- Marius Linzmaier
- Emil "Fish"
- Hendriks "Bigboy"
- Graham Knox
- Uliana Bizku
- a 6000-man mercenary unit in South Asia
- Countless members around the globe
Trivia
- The real-life Teutonic Order is a religious chivalry order run by the Roman Catholic Church, with Bruno Platter as its leader
- By the end of The Copernicus Legacy series, it is implied that the Teutonic Order ceases to exist as the villainous organization it is in the new 21st century. When the Kaplans went back in time to destroy Galina's Kronos machine and prevent Copernicus from building his, it effectively alters the space-time continuum. Cassiopeia never became Galina, and thus the events of the Order never happened