Hess reveals that he is over 400 years old, a feat he has achieved by turning himself into a cyborg, with all of his body except for his brain having been converted from flesh to metal. He was on Terra 2 a century before the Mesapotamia's arrival, part of an even earlier scouting mission called the Frontier Project, whose purpose was to find a habitable planet to ease Earth's pollution and over-population problems. He was the first to go down to the planet's surface, but only barely survived the landing due to Terra 2's violent plasma storms. His shipmates, unable to follow, were left with little choice but to return to Earth, swearing before they left that they would return to rescue him. He waited for years but nobody ever returned for him; as a result, he was forever separated from his family on Earth, who were left to believe that he had died in space. His rage and grief at his abandonment drove him to build a ship powerful enough to weather the plasma storms and return to Earth on his own, where he plans on exacting his revenge. Firmly believing that humanity as a whole is an irredeemable species, he feels no regret for the countless thousands of people on Terra 2 who have suffered as a result of his plans for revenge.