This is the Character Sheet for the novel Children of Ruin. All Spoilers are unmarked!
Character name spellings need to be double-checked, where not readily available, they were transcribed from audiobook.
The Terraformers
Yusef Baltiel
Commander of the terraforming expedition.
Disra Senkovi
Eccentric scientist and beloved father-God to a race of sentient octopuses.
Irma Lante
Medical and biological scientist. Studies the biology of Nod and tweaks Baltiel's medication.
- Posthumous Character. Notably, she does her best science after she's already dead.
Rahni
Gav Lortisse
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom. Gets stung by an alien turtle. What's the worst that could happen?
The Voyager
Avrana Kern
Since the events of the previous book, Kern has been copied and forked hundreds of times. This story focuses on the Kern in control of the Voyager, and her daughter-clone in control of the exploration boat Lightfoot.
- Brain Uploading. Lives a torturous path from human, to cyborg, to space station, to running on an operating system of a million ants.
- Heroic Sacrifice. With limited computing resources, one instance overwrites herself with Meshner's copy to save him. After all, there are hundreds of her and only one of him.
- Guile Hero. As a disembodied consciousness, talking is one of the main things she can do.
- Sapient Ship. One of her jobs is to run starships.
- Science Hero. She works wonders with the bio-mechanical ships; repairing and reconfiguring them to adapt to the current situation.
Portia
Spider-half of the linguistics duo.
Helena
Human-half of the linguistics duo.
Zaine
- Action Girl. Of the space explorer variety. She is eager to explore the alien space station, bravely faces the unknown, and decisively escapes peril.
- Foil. To Meshner.
Viola
Crowns herself captain after Bianca's death. Close to Xiaiin.
Fabian
Spider-half of the brain-surgery duo.
Meshner Austin Oslam
Human-half of the brain-surgery duo. Test subject as well as researcher.
- Cyborg. Every Human in the series is, but Meshner notably boasts a dangerous, experimental brain implant.
- Foil. To Xiaiin.
- For Science!. A downplayed, realistic version. He is the willing lab rat in Portiid-Human communication experiments with Fabian. The scientific establishment on Kern's world is aghast at their recklessness. Meshner and Fabian leave on a dangerous mission to another star so they can perform their experiments in peace!
- Non-Action Guy. Reluctantly leaves the Voyager for the scout ship Lightfoot and even more reluctantly explores the alien space station.
Bianca
The Portiid "captain" of the Voyager. Though Portiids don't have a strict chain of command like humans do, nobody is willing to challenge her for dominance.
- Dropped a Bridge on Her. Is killed by a unlucky bullet in the first space battle.
Damascus
- Cannot Tell a Lie. They wear their hearts on their sleeves... well, their skin.
- Escape Artist. With the additional intelligence, the octopodes also become master hackers.
- Theme Naming. Sankovi gives them biblical names as a Take That! at the religious fanatics who oppose the Exaltation of Beasts. They use colored patterns as names among themselves, but continue to use these names as identifiers in computer systems, e.g. Paul 62331240.
Paul
Suffering octopus diplomat responsible for first contact with the alien visitors.
Salome
Lot
Leader of a cult of octopodes who decides, in desperation, that maybe the forbidden capsule contains a weapon they can use on their enemies...
Noah
Octopus scientist who self-exiles to the Nod space station to do dangerous physics experiments.
Nod
Heavy spoilers!These of We
Sentient slime mold and doom of humans and octopodes.
- The Assimilator.
- The Virus.
- Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds. Kills the last remaining humans and the octopus homeworld... but they just want to go on an adventure!
