Collector

Taneleer Tivan is one of the oldest living beings in the Universe.

His species at Cygnus X-1 was one of the first to evolve after the Big Bang. Death took Tivan as the last surviving representative of the species and gave him total immortality. Tivan, as well as one representative of each of the first species of the Universe, cannot die. These people have associated among themselves to create the Elders of the Universe. As they are relatively few, they call each other "brother". Tivan spent the first millennia of his existence with his wife, Matani, and daughter, Carina, on a planet he chose as his headquarters. Carina eventually reached maturity and left them. After this, Matani died due to mysterious causes. Tivan could not explain Marani's death as he thought that she too was immortal. He eventually understood that a factor in an Elder's immortality was the will to live and that Matani had lost hers. Tivan then decided he would not suffer the same fate, and looked for a goal to which he could dedicate his life.

Tivan then had a vision seeing powerful things that would rise, determined to destroy the universe. He decided to prevent this from happening and that he would dedicate his life to collecting artifacts and living beings throughout the universe to place them out of danger. Then, after the destruction of the universe, he could re-populate it and bequeath the knowledge and cultures from past. He built a great spaceship and began his work, stopping on every world to collect a sample of its greatest achievements, as well as living representatives of each of their lifeforms.