Milo Rambaldi
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Milo Giacomo Rambaldi is a fictional character from the TV series Alias. The work of Rambaldi, often centuries ahead of its time and tied to prophecy, plays a central role in Alias.
Rambaldi's technological developments are sought after by numerous governments and rogue organizations in the series. The character of Arvin Sloane in Alias is generally obsessed with obtaining Rambaldi's work and unlocking its secrets. The subplot pushes Alias into the genre of science fiction, or more accurately, Clockpunk.
Bio
Rambaldi (1444-1496), a renaissantial homo universalis, artist, alchemist, engineer and mystic, served as chief engineer to Pope Alexander VI.
The character draws its inspiration from Leonardo da Vinci and Nostradamus. Da Vinci is well known for his inventions and ideas which were also said to be years ahead of their time. Rambaldi's artistic-looking manuscripts, written in code, are a direct reference to da Vinci's method of recording his work. Behind the scenes, amongst the writers of Alias, the character Rambaldi is often referred to as "Nostravinci".
According to the Alias fiction, Rambaldi was educated by Vespertine monks and worked as a student of the arts till he reached 12. On his 18th year and during his travels to Rome he was introduced to Cardinal Alexander and was retained privately as an architect, consultant and prophet, when Alexander became Pope in 1492. There seems to be no limit to Rambaldi's genius as he was highly capable in automatism, life extention, protein engineering, mathematics, cryptography and cartography. Rambaldi is said to have preceded the digital information age. He invented a machine code language around 1489, through his use of prebinary 1 and 0 and the introduction of cryptic algorithms while he even sketched the designs of a portable vocal communicator and a prototype that reflected the properties of a transistor.
His writings and plans are written in multiple languages ranging from Italian and Demotic hybrids, to elusive mixtures of symbols (pre-masonic cipher encryptions). Rambaldi also created the earliest known watermark which used on all of his documents: a naked eye visible only when held to black light, known as the eye of Rambaldi, which helped telling apart original works from forgeries, many years later. His waterpapers were all hand-made from a unique polymer fiber.
Despite Alexander's benevolence, Rambaldi and his works never became famous due to the Archdeacon Claudio Vespertini, who feared the revolutionary implications of technologies defined in Rambaldi's belief system: Rambaldi believed that science would someday allow us to know God. Vespertini attempted to pursue and destroy everything he could find and keep the name of Rambaldi 'invisible'.
When Alexander VI passed in 1503, Vespertini ordered that the name Rambaldi be erased from all inscriptions between 1470 and 1496, Rambaldi's workshop in Rome destroyed, himself excommunicated for heresy and sentenced to death by flame. However Rambaldi died in the Winter of 1496, a lonely man without a known surviving heir.
Legacy
Not long after his death, a second workshop was discovered in San Lazzaro, but was also destroyed by the Vatican. Plans and sketches were sold and traded as if without value during a private auction. These plans however have been located during the 15th century and later, even during recent years, around Italy, France, Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Plans were also found in private collections or museum warehouses. During the Third Reich, documents interpreting his designs and teachings were highly sought-after. It was then when the nickname Nostravinci arouse among auctioneering circles. The design directive for many of these drawings remains unclear to this day, and has even inspired some impressive forgeries, even prime examples of digital piracy. However the eye of Rambaldi was proven to be the only test of accuracy against them.
According to Alias, all the known surviving documents to this day number 22, while known forgeries are counted to be 102! The original works are formally unpublished, due to am international ban on his name, its fascistic legacy, and especially its invisibility. A conspiracy of containment is possible to precede many of the discoveries of our century, and the knowledge contained under private sanctioning, remains under the firm "hand" of the Trilateral Commision.
One of Rambaldi's prophecies which is central to the Alias story arc is that he predicted the coming of a woman of great power who would bring "utter devastation to the greatest power" (the United States, as it is assumed). The identity of this woman has been variously speculated in the series to be Sydney Bristow, her mother, Irina Derevko, and her half-sister, Nadia Santos. Rambaldi's works from centuries earlier include a drawing of a woman identical in appearance to Sydney.
The Rambaldi subplot, which dominated the first two seasons of the series and was greatly explored in the second half of the third season, was virtually nonexistent in the early episodes of season four. However it continued to lurk in the background of the series and, as creator J.J. Abrams has promised, is resurfacing again.
Trivia
Rambaldi is named after Carlo Rambaldi, the creator and operator of many special creatures for Sci-Fi movies. Rambaldi won the 1983 Best Effects-Visual Effects Oscar Academy Award, for his work on the E.T. movie creature.