Desty Nova is a character in the popular manga, '
Battle Angel Alita'. He is a professor, specialising in
nanotechnology, and karmic research. He believes if we battle our karma, we will finally rest in peace. He believes Alita is his karma, and wishes to perform experiments on her to find out more about her past.
Nova is a typical 'nutty professor' laughing insanely and performing grotesque experiments on inocent people. He lives in the 'Granite Inn', a huge laboratory, with a room filled with mutated humans and cyborgs. He performs such experiments for the sake of 'karmic research'...
Nova and Alita are mortal enemies. Her first encounter with him was when she went to his laboratory, she had a feeling Ido was in trouble when he went there to buy back Alita's bezerker body, bought by Nova. In a saddening conclusion, Ido is killed in an explosion, caused by Zapan in the Bezerker body. Alita kills Nova, but he only comes back to life with the help of nanotechnology. He tells her he can bring Ido back to life, which is fufills, but only with a small side effect.
Desty Nova is from Tiphares, and fled there to begin his karma research, after he learned the secret of Tiphares. Himself and Ido are the only Tiphareans that have escaped Tiphares, though it is not certain why Ido left in the first place.
Nova also has two assistants, Bazarld and Eelai.