The 37th Emperor Risson

Risson was Emperor of the Race when the American starship Admiral Peary arrived at Home: the first visit of Home by a non-native species travelling on a vehicle of its own manufacture in known history. He descends from the line of the Ssumaz dynasty.

Risson was relatively open-minded for an Emperor of the Race. He refused to make Atvar a scapegoat for the failure of the Conquest Fleet to conquer Tosev 3, though his efforts to rehabilitate the disgraced fleetlord were largely eviscerated by his ministers. He named Atvar, along with Ttomalss and Kassquit, to be diplomats dealing with the American diplomatic mission travelling aboard the Admiral Peary. He became the first Ssumaz emperor to receive a foreign ambassador in a hundred thousand (Home) years when he granted Sam Yeager an audience.

Despite his willingness to treat with the Americans in good faith, the threat posed to his empire by a sovereign interstellar species led to several fundamental diplomatic impasses. He considered ordering Kirel to go to war with the Tosevite not-empires, fully aware that this would assure the destruction of his own Tosevite colonies and was less than certain to destroy those not-empires, and would also provoke the Admiral Peary to use nuclear missiles against Home. He did not even entirely rule out this option when the FTL starship Commodore Perry arrived in orbit of Home, clear evidence that the Tosevites had eclipsed the Race as the technologically dominant species of the known galaxy.