Manuel Rey Diaz
Names: Manuel Rey DiazRey DiazSecond WallfacerMr. PresidentWallfacer Rey Diaz
First appears in Book 2: The Dark Forest, chapter 2 (Year 3, Crisis Era)
Appearances
What you know
Book 2: The Dark Forest
- Ch 2President of Venezuela and heir to Chavez's socialism; named Second Wallfacer. He defeated a US invasion using guerilla teams and cheap mass-produced high-tech weapons.
- Ch 3Rey Diaz, a Wallfacer and former president, tells Los Alamos to design a nuclear bomb of at least 200 megatons.
- Ch 3Rey Diaz resents that poor nations must do real nuclear tests while Los Alamos uses supercomputer simulations.
- Ch 3Rey Diaz believes the hydrogen bomb is the most powerful combat-ready weapon, so focusing his Wallfacer plan on it is natural; his studies were in nuclear energy.
- Ch 3Rey Diaz suddenly collapsed at sunrise with nausea and a cold sweat, and developed a phobia of the sun that confined him indoors.
- Ch 3Rey Diaz strongly opposes Tyler's proposal to ease attacks on the ETO.
- Ch 4Rey Diaz's plan is a super-high-yield nuclear stellar bomb; its model needs far more computing power, so he entered hibernation.
- Ch 6Rey Diaz is a Wallfacer who suffers from heliophobia and lives in a basement, where cigars and alcohol fill the air.
- Ch 6Rey Diaz publicly justified his plan as a Mercury base, a last bastion of humanity, and demanded at least a million stellar hydrogen bombs.
- Ch 6Rey Diaz was formerly the head of a small South American country and has an engineering background.
- Ch 6Rey Diaz met astrophysicist William Cosmo in secret three times before becoming a Wallfacer.
- Ch 6Reacts to the Wallbreaker's exposure by laughing, then attacking and strangling him, shouting that his killing is 'part of the plan'.
- Ch 6Wears a black wristwatch device called the cradle, a dead-man's switch tied to his physiological state.
- Ch 6Claims the US and others invested in his plan to obtain stellar hydrogen bombs for future wars among humans on other planets.
- Ch 6Reveals his cradle signal is going to somewhere in New York City, not Mercury; if it stops, something will be triggered, implying 8.2 million lives.
- Ch 6Uses the threat to force the PDC to let him leave for his homeland; a charter plane waits at Kennedy Airport.
- Ch 6Admits his first test on Mercury was a slip-up that confirmed the Wallbreaker's hypothesis; he had insisted on an ultra-deep shaft there.
- Ch 6Rey Diaz admitted his dead-man's switch was a bluff; his watch was merely a converted phone transmitter, used to escape the UN.
- Ch 6Rey Diaz was a Wallfacer who had suffered heliophobia for two decades; it vanished when he left the UN building.
- Ch 6Rey Diaz was stoned to death by a crowd in Plaza Bolívar, Caracas, upon returning home, because his plan would have killed humanity.
- Ch 6Before parting, Rey Diaz urged Garanin not to abort the Wallfacer Project, calling it a hope in the war.
- Ch 7His Mercury chain-reaction plan was deemed unrealizable and criminal, holding all life on Earth hostage.
Connections
- enemy ofMoziWallbreaker of
- member ofWallfacer Project
- related toPlanetary Defense Councilhas the PDC's physicists on his staff and the PDC will send technical requirements
- enemy ofFrederick Tylerhostile, though Tyler's plan depends on Rey Diaz's technology
- enemy ofBill Hines
- ally ofDr. Allen
- enemy ofWallbreakerWallbreaker assigned to expose Rey Diaz's plan
- related toWilliam Cosmomet him secretly three times
- related toGaraninescorted him by plane to Caracas
- related toMercuryblasted a crater there with hydrogen bombs, later site of the secret base
Key moments
- Book 2 · Ch 2Say announces the Wallfacer Project
At the UN, Secretary General Say explains the Wallfacer Project and names Tyler, Rey Diaz and Hines as Wallfacers, then reveals Luo Ji as the Fourth Wallfacer.
- Book 2 · Ch 3Rey Diaz visits Los Alamos
Rey Diaz tours the simulation center and commissions Dr. Allen to design a nuclear bomb of at least 200 megatons, discussing nuclear weapons' limits in space warfare.
- Book 2 · Ch 3Tyler presents mosquito swarm plan
At the PDC hearing, Tyler discloses his plan of a thousand hydrogen-bomb fighters with hibernating pilots; Wallfacers bicker and Luo Ji is absent.
- Book 2 · Ch 3Sunrise at the first atomic bomb site
Allen explains the superbomb is effectively a virtual star and asks for Cosmo. At sunrise Rey Diaz collapses, developing a sun phobia.
- Book 2 · Ch 3Fourth PDC Wallfacer Hearing
Tyler submits revisions to his mosquito swarm plan, including drone control, personal studies of Europa, Ceres and comets, and easing attacks on the ETO. Diaz objects, and a vote is deferred.
- Book 2 · Ch 4Hines and Rey Diaz hibernate
At PDC Hearing #89, with computing power insufficient for their plans, Hines and Rey Diaz agree to hibernate and enter a secret underground facility.
- Book 2 · Ch 6PDC hearing on Mercury tests
Rey Diaz announces underground stellar hydrogen bomb tests on Mercury and a base there, demanding a million bombs. Representatives mock him and the US, UK and France propose P269 to terminate his plan.
- Book 2 · Ch 6Mercury underground test
The stellar hydrogen bomb is detonated in a shaft on Mercury at one-third the planned depth, throwing up a mountain of rock, a five-minute fireball, and a ring around the planet.
- Book 2 · Ch 6Wallbreaker reveals himself
The Wallbreaker visits Rey Diaz, claiming to be a psychiatrist, identifies himself, and explains Rey Diaz's alleged plan to drop Mercury into the sun based on Cosmo's 275E1 research.
- Book 2 · Ch 6Wallbreaker confronts Rey Diaz
The Wallbreaker reveals Rey Diaz's mutual-destruction plan; Rey Diaz laughs, then strangles and beats him before guards separate them.
- Book 2 · Ch 6PDC Wallfacer hearing
Major powers seek to suspend and prosecute Rey Diaz. He reveals his cradle dead-man's switch linked to something in New York City, forcing them to let him leave.
- Book 2 · Ch 6Death of Rey Diaz
Rey Diaz returns to Caracas and addresses the crowd at Plaza Bolívar; the people stone him to death, an old woman delivering the last stone.