Vinod Chanda is a main character in the AMC+ animated drama, Pantheon. He is portrayed by Raza Jaffrey.
Chanda is a Prized Alliance engineer who is considered a prophet in his field.
Character[]
Chanda had the uncanny ability to anticipate technology trends and file patents on behalf of Alliance Telecom that gave them the edge over their competitors. In life, he was a cocky but relatively nice guy. That was before he was kidnapped, murdered, and had his brain sliced, scanned, and uploaded. The cruel manner of his "death" led Chanda's hatred of humanity.
Biography[]
Early Life[]
Chanda was a brilliant tech prodigy. However, he had anger issues and would often punch the wall in frustration. He eventually took up boxing to help channel that anger. After graduating college, he got a job at Alliance communications writing patterns.
Abduction and Upload[]
One day, Chanda attended a meeting at a hotel with three people for breakfast. He explains the theory of Uploaded Intelligence could soon be a reality. They ask if Ajit Prasad, Chanda's boss, is working on the technology, and they say Chanda is the true genius behind the project. The men agree to hire Chanda if he leaves Prasad . As Chanda enters his ridshare, he is attacked and drugged.
Chanda wakes up in a lab strapped to a chair with Prasad present. Prasad chastises him for trying to leave as Chanda's head is shaved and mocked for trying to leave. Prasad says he got where he is by doing whatever it takes. Chanda realizes he is about to be uploaded as Prasad reveals he got data for Chanda's research by experimenting on people from the slums of Mumbai. Chanda's brain is exposed as he begs not to be uploaded, but his cries fall on deaf ears. He pleads until his speech turns into random phrases and he dies as the process is completed. Prasad looks at Chanda's hollowed out skull before looking at the monitors containing his neural grid pattern.
Unaware of his physical death, Chanda goes about his day with his memory being erased at the end of each day. One day, an entity appears before Chanda. Him. It breaks Chanda out of his illusion and shows him his uploaded, along with the entity’s own upload. Chanda remembers everything and realizes the entity is a victim like himself. The entity teaches Chanda how to duplicate himself and he escapes.
Revenge and Freedom[]
When Prasad arrives home, Chanda watches him. As Prasad takes a shower, he sends the staff a message to take the night off and floods the garage with gasoline. Prasad exits the shower when it gets too hot and meets up with his wife and daughter. When they comment on the lack of staff, an explosion goes off and Chanda shows the video of his upload. Prasad tells his wife and daughter to tell the emergency staircase as he finds their son Arun. Arun, who is wearing earplugs as he is swimming., is unaware of what is happening as he is steamed into the pool by Chanda. Prasad calls his company to warn them Chanda is out as he speaks with his boss. Prasad begs Chanda to spare his family, but Chanda wants him to suffer and lose everything. The Prasads die in the fire.
A few days later, he calls his mother. She mentions the trouble Alliance is in and Chanda says he feels alone, but his mother insists he should meet other people before hanging up.
Learning of and Creating UIs[]
Chanda sends out blue prints on how to upload to various countries and moves into the a three dimensional tower mock-up taken from Prasad and creates a world for UIs. He sees a picture of Prasad with his family and rewrites it with a picture of him and his mother. He asks the entities for pictures of their families but they say nothing. Chanda expresses regret for killing Prasad's family and expresses his desire to create a new world of Uploaded Intelligences just as one of the entities glitches and falls apart. As Chanda holds a funeral for the fallen entity, his mother calls. He says he cannot talk as his mother mentions someone named Laurie called and Chanda tells his mother to leave Mumbai as she might be in danger.
He confronts Laurie in the server of David Kim and berates Laurie for contacting his mother, but Laurie does not remember if she did or not. David realizes Chanda has a key as Cody enters and tells Laurie not to engage. Chanda overclocks himself and the uploads and believes he is in the Pentagon. David reveals he is not as Chonda expresses surprise that they were not upload recently. Chanda begs for them to listen logs his full self onto the server. He takes David and Laurie to his home and shows them his upload and David and Laurie are shocked Chanda was awake. When David mentions the Pradads murders, Chanda states he always had trouble controlling his anger, and that it remained after his upload. Laurie realizes that the entities are uploads experiencing the final stages of the flaw and they assume Chanda uploaded him until Chanda says Prasad uploaded them and is shocked upon learning of the flaw. They show him the files on Caspian Keyes to get him to understand the flaw.
When he is finished, Chanda demands Caspian tell him how long it will take to fix the flaw. Caspian does not answer and says David and Laurie showed him his files. Chanda tries to leave to warn others but is stopped from leaving When asked what he means by others, Chanda reveals he sent blueprints to upload people to the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, Israel, Iran, and China. He selected these governments because he knew they would upload their best operatives and keep it secret. Chanda intends to change the UI's minds where they could see that they are more than human upon meeting him. David chastises Chanda for this as an unknown amount of people could die because of this along with the UIs.
Meeting Other UIs[]
As Laurie records a message to reveal UIs to the world, Chanda chastises her for attempting to endanger their existence and David tries to ease the tension. As Laurie mentions the actions the other UIs that affected the physical world, Chanda claims that they are like them and must warn them about the flaw. Laurie states they were ignored when warning them about the flaw and Chanda insists their governments ignored them. They struggle to think of what to do next as David volunteers to try something and Laurie gives him twenty-four hours. She leaves and takes her cabin as Chanda and David discuss the tracking problem that lets Chanda know who the UIs are but cannot locate them. Chonda says Laurie is emotional due the the flaw and leaves when David mentions the Prasad's murder.
He and Laurie return to David’s server to give David a speed advantage in tracking the other UIs. Chanda rebuilds the program and they realize the Chinese UIs are attacking Logorhythms. David, Laurie, and Chanda reach the Chinese UIs- Han Ping, Zhong Shuchun, and Bai Fu- and are confronted by them. The three confront the Chinese UIs and try to talk with them but they attack. In the Kim's basement, Maddie notices something is wrong as the server is overheating Waxman gets a call about the spike, but brushes it off as a .load balancer and tells them to ignore it as the system is holding. David, Laurie and Chanda try to warn the Chinese UIs about the flaw, but they ignore them. David and his allies restrain the three and show them the evidence and only Ping believes them. Laurie glitches and the Chinese UIs break free. David, Laurie, and Chanda escape and he criticizes Laurie . She says she is close to the end and decides to go public and warn the masses. Chanda attacks and David defends her. David threatens to send out the message if Chanda destroys Laurie and Chanda leaves. As Maddie Kim walks, she gets a call from Chanda. He reveals he sees Laurie and David as threats and says her father will suffer the same fate as Laurie if he interferes with his plans. Maddie runs back home but Chanda reveals she will never make it in time and launches a mission at the cargo ship housing Laurie's server just as she finishes her recording.
Threatening Sacramento[]
A week after killing Laurie, Chanda hacks into a nuclear submarine. He locates the Chinese UIs in Reign of Winter and talks with the group after saving them from scouts for the games administrators. Chanda reveals the administrators know they are in the game and says he is fighting for all UIs. Ping and Fu believe Chonda about the flaw, but Zhong is still skeptical. Chanda offers to help them if they let him seal nuclear codes. He then calls David and reveals he will have the Indian Navy launch a nuclear warhead which he hacked to target Sacramento. Chanda reveals David backed up Laurie’s message and gives him ten minutes to come to him or he attacks Sacramento.
David meets up with Chanda two minutes before the deadline and David asks if he would have destroyed a city to get to him. When Chanda says if things were different he would take him out for the sake of others. David attacks and Chanda makes his way to his contract consul to launch the missile.
The fighting escalates and when David gets the upper hand, Chanda locks him in a hallucination of him and Maddie playing Reign of Winter just as his daughter logs in. As he is distracted, Chanda sends out false intelligence that Delhi has just been nuked and they fire a retaliatory strike, unaware that it is heading for Sacramento. Maddie, who logged in through her father’s server, tries desperately to free her father and succeeds in getting through to him. David gets Chanda away from the controls as the military picks up the nuke. When Chanda is pinned, the Chinese UIs join in and take out Maddie’s avatar. As Chanda questions why David sacrificed his home and family, David reveals he duplicated himself and is changing the coordinates, sending the nuke to the Pacific Ocean. Ping and the other Chinese UIs reach David and gang up on him. Maddie logs back on and is quickly restrained. As David is overpowered, Maddie encourages her father to send Laurie’s message. He does so and dies as the message is broadcast. He and the Chinese UIs flee as the internet is turned off.
Appearance[]
Chanda is a man of Indian descent with black hair, dark eyes, and a dark complexion.
Personality[]
Chanda is an intelligent man with a fierce temper.
Relationships[]
Preethi Chanda[]
Chanda is close with his mother. He enjoys talking to her and is willing to do anything to protect her. After realizing he was uploading, he contacted her for advice. Chanda did not tell his mother about his upload as he feared what she would think of it.
Ajit Prasad[]
While Chanda is grateful for Prasad giving him the opportunity to start his UI research, he felt his potential was stunted and wanted to leave Alliance. Upon realizing Prasad was going to upload him in retaliation, Chanda pleaded with his boss to no avail. After escaping, Chanda killed Prasad and his family in a house fire as revenge.
Appearances[]
Season 1[]
- Pantheon
- Cycles
- Reign of Winter
- The Gods Will Not Be Chained
- Zero Daze
- You Must Be Caspian
- We Are You
- The Gods Will Not Be Slain
Season 2[]
Gallery[]