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Main Characters

Ethan

The main character. Until the Drama Bomb Finale.

• Achey Scars: On Ethan's shoulder and caused by Rory - which has only been mentioned once and never again.

• Cain and Abel: The Abel to Rory's Cain.
• Character Death: He dies in the finale.

• Flanderization: He began as The Ditz, but moved on to Cloud Cuckoolander. More recently, he has surpassed this, and some fans are starting to suspect he is in fact clinically insane. (This may explain why Ethan made a Heroic Sacrifice to prevent a dystopian future from happening, and the entire strip is going to be rebooted.)
• Genius Ditz: It's stated that for 7 seconds a day, he enters into this zone that grants him insight into the universe, which in turn lets him do amazing things like build sapient robots or dispense amazing relationship advice, before returning to "normal". To cap off this bit of insight into his character, he puts slices of pineapple over his eyes to make pineapple goggles.
• Growing the Beard: While some of Ethan's more recent acts are downright insane, his position as Manager of Gamehaven resulted in a lot more times where he actually is intelligent and insightful. Of course, he's still the same old Ethan.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Sacrifices himself to turn off the time machine. Results in Character Death.
• Jerkass: When it comes to customers and Rob, due to his limited experience or ignorance of videogames.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: In spite of his flaws, he truly loves his wife Lilah and at least respects his friend Lucas when he's not trying anything stupid.

• Only Sane Man: Inverted. Everybody else can come across as sane when compared to him. In fact, during a period in which he starts acting sane, everyone else starts acting insane to compensate, as though he's a lightning rod for the universe's insanity.
• Passing the Torch: He got back from marrying Lilah to be handed a envelope by his boss, who was about to quit the business. And had apparently just handed Ethan the deed.
• Prone to Sunburn: He chances going out into the sun on the beach and immediately regrets it.

• Too Dumb to Live: According to Zeke, if you run the data from Ethan's various misadventures, his life expectancy comes out negative. Negative forty.
• Unexplained Recovery: He jumped off a second or third-story fire escape in his underwear because according to video game logic if he's lighter he'll be less injured. He lands on concrete and winds up with about two inches of bone sticking out of his arm. He goes to the hospital and is sent home the same day (in real life he'd probably have to stay for at least one night's observation) with "Paaaaaaaiiiiiiiiin killers!" and a cast. The next comic he's featured in there's no evidence he was ever injured despite having a break that would've taken months to heal (then again...) and would've at least left a nasty scar.

Lucas

• Babies Ever After: Lucas's wife gives birth to a son in the last strip, whom he affectionately names Ethan.

• The Straight Man: He's this to Ethan.

Lilah

Ethan's gamer girlfriend and eventually widow.

• Gamer Chick: She's as big of a gamer as Ethan and Lucas.
• Her Heart Will Go On: Founds the Ethan MacManus Church of Gaming.
• Nerd Nanny: As another Straight Man to Ethan.

Zeke

Formerly known as X-Bot, Zeke was built by Ethan from an X-Box console.

• Instant A.I.: Just Add Water!: How Ethan managed to build a fully functional artificial intelligence out of an x-box console is a mystery.
• Player Killing: In episode 5 of season 2.
• Super-Strength: Comes with being a robot.
• Took a Level in Badass: After Ted reveals his Evil Plan, Zeke rescues Ethan in a Badass way.

The Players

Feeling that he had taken the original cast as far as he could go with, Tim Buckley announced on his blog that the strip will now feature the Players (side characters once used for violent gags) as the main cast. They consist of Player 1 (Blue), Player 2 (Red), Player 3 (Yellow) and Player 4 (Green).

• Ascended Extra: They've taken over as the main cast of the comic.
• Amazing Technicolor Population: As mentioned, Player 1 is blue, Player 2 is red, Player 3 is yellow and Player 4 is green,
• Ax-Crazy:
  • Green, literally.
  • Yellow if you mess up his cards, literally.
• Berserk Button: See Ax-Crazy above. Don't ever mess up Yellow's cards after a game.
• Butt-Monkey: Yellow, who is often the victim of gruesome acts of violence by the other players.
• Character Development: Undoubtedly as the comic progresses.
• Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Green. She is seen here casually drinking a bottle of mustard. She also never knew the Player's apartment had a ceiling,and thinks it's plotting something.
• Color-Coded Characters: They're all different colors.
• Comedic Sociopath: Red in the old strips. His violent temper has yet to be seen in the reboot.
  • It seems to be resurfacing.
• Death Is Cheap: The only reason they're still around after killing each other so much is that they have a respawn chamber in their house.
• Genius Ditz: Green in this strip.
• Jerkass: Blue, but Red and Green can also qualify for this.
• Only Sane Man: Yellow. Doesn't seem to have changed at all in the reboot, judging from this.
• Shrinking Violet: Yellow is said to be this.
• Those Two Guys: Blue and Red, par for the course as they're Players 1 and 2.
• Took a Level in Dumbass: Red seems to be steering towards this. See random pools of blood on the ground? Sample them and get horrible diseases. Get offered a lot of useful healing items? Opt for a stick and use it to plug up a gushing wound.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Somewhat. They don't seem to try to brutally kill each other as often as they did when they were side characters, and get along quite amicably nowadays. Red is the most noticably changed, all of his past appearances had him trying to kill somebody.

Others

Scott

• And I Must Scream: Some of his arguments with Ted seem to imply that this trope is, at least partially, in effect. Particularly when it comes to killing Ethan off.
• The Dragon: To Ted

Ted

• Arch-Enemy: Of a sort to Zeke.
• Big Bad: Until he leaves via Exit Villain, Stage Left, followed somewhat shortly after by the Drama Bomb Finale.
• The Dog Was the Mastermind: He's Scott's pet penguin. Nominally at least.
• The Speechless: Being a penguin, he's incapable of actual human speech. So he shares a body with Scott sometimes.

Post-Reboot Characters

Ethan, aka Analog

• Adaptational Nice Guy: Ethan pre-reboot was a pretty thoughtless and selfish guy a lot of the time who constantly got his friends wrapped up in his various shenanigans. Post-reboot, he's significantly more empathetic and more consistently intelligent. He does do things that threaten his life just as often as pre-reboot Ethan (and actually dies from them often), but his recklessness is justified here by the fact that he has Resurrective Immortality.
• Blessed with Suck: Ethan's superpower is, in his own words, "I don't stay dead." He's not immortal; he does die each time. It just doesn't stick, so he experiences death over and over again every time it happens.
• Blue Is Heroic: His costume is predominantly blue, and he's a superhero in this continuity.
• Characterization Marches On: Keeps his position as the manager of Gamehaven, but, outside of things like randomly falling asleep and random geeking out over game releases, he seems to be much more thoughtful and have an actual strategy to when he does things.
• Draw Aggro: Instead of the usual adage of 'Don't feed the Troll', Ethan decides to feed the Troll in small amounts here and there. When Lucas questions his decision, Ethan explains that feeding him would keep his attention on Ethan instead of going after the civilians. Lucas couldn't refute Ethan's reasoning and is impressed.
• The Empath: This version of Ethan is able to put himself into the shoes of others when Lucas and Scott can't, allowing him to sympathize with Elijah Carter and this version of Zeke.
• Empowered Badass Normal: Fights like Batman with his gadgets, but he does have Resurrective Immortality.
• Expy: Of Batman.
• Hidden Depths: Despite being sort of The Ditz and geeking out at the superhero life, Ethan's capable of surprising empathy as well - he feels guilty about his part in what happened to the Troll, and sympathizes with both Elijah and Zeke.
• Jumped at the Call: Once he and Lucas gained their powers, he was the one who suggested they become superheroes. Not just for thrill-seeking, either - he's driven by his sister's murder, and the hope to prevent another tragedy like that.
• Love Hurts: His relationship with Emily, given all their differences of opinion on things like preferred games and superheroes, fits this. It definitely hurts when she breaks up with him after catching him in a lie for the last time.
• My God, What Have I Done?: He's horrified by the possibility that when the Troll slipped out of his grasp when they were both hanging off the side of a building, he might have intentionally let him fall.
• No Body Left Behind: Part of his Resurrective Immortality involves his corpse disappearing, then himself re-materializing alive and well.
• Once Done, Never Forgotten: Much to his exasperation, that whole letting the Troll fall incident has gained him some infamy.
• Resurrective Immortality: Weaponized - jumping himself and an opponent out a window is a net gain.
  Analog: "I have infinite continues. Do you?"
• Superheroes Wear Capes: This seems to be his motivation for including a cape in his costume. And yes, by his own admission, it's resulted in more than one Cape Snag.
• 10-Minute Retirement: After his fight with the Troll, Ethan's rattled enough by the possibility that he subconsciously dropped the psycho from a rooftop that he considers hanging up his costume. Lucas being attacked by the Red Ring of Death gets him back in the saddle, though.
• Too Dumb to Live: Can be as bad as pre-Reboot Ethan, except for the fact that, for Analog, such insane acts, as mentioned above, actually are good strategic choices!

Lucas, aka D-Pad

• Adaptational Sexuality: Lucas was straight in the original comic. Here, his talks about past flames mention them being guys.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: In the beginning of the comic, he was getting tired of being stuck catching petty crooks and wanted to face some real supervillains. Then the Red Ring of Death Clan showed up...
• The Casanova: He's had multiple flames in the past, but hasn't gone steady.
• Deadpan Snarker: He's always quick with a dry remark to Ethan's latest attempts at being dramatic or badass.
• Freak Out: His reaction when he first discovered his powers. To be fair, this is a rather natural reaction to spontaneously generating Hard Light arrows and accidentally slicing your friend's head off with one of them. Luckily, Ethan gained the power of Resurrective Immortality.
• Hard Light: His "D-Pad" arrows are formed from this.
• Red Is Heroic: His costume includes red highlights, and he's very much a good guy.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Being the more rational and grounded of the heroic duo, he's the Blue to Ethan's Red. Ironically, his costume has red elements; wheras Ethan's is blue.
• Straight Gay: If not for a few passing remarks in conversation regarding his dating life, you wouldn't know that Lucas was gay.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: When faced with the choice of either destroying Zeke or giving him a chance to turn over a new leaf, it's telling that Lucas agrees with Ethan - recognizing the sentience behind Zeke's anger, he can't bring himself to sign the death warrant on what might be a new form of life right out of hand.

Scott

• Adaptational Heroism: He's not a mouthpiece for a diabolical penguin this time.
• Gadgeteer Genius: He's the one who makes the tools that Analog and D-Pad use for their superheroics.
• Genius Cripple: He's confined to a wheelchair in this continuity, but also happens to be skilled enough with technology and electronics to make crime-fighting toys for Analog and D-Pad.
• Good Is Not Soft: He might be part of the hero team, but he's not above leaving the Explosive Leash in Zeke in case the latter proves irredeemable.
• Mission Control: His role on the team is to provide strategy and intel via radio communication.
• The Mourning After: He was in love with Ethan's sister, and isn't ready to move on after her death.

Lilah

• Brainy Brunette: Downplayed, as she's by no means an inventor; but she's a solid and sensible person.
• Going for the Big Scoop: She's willing to accept an invitation from Analog to witness their battling the Red Ring of Death in order to get a big scoop.
• Intrepid Reporter: Despite (initially) being a video game columnist, she doesn't back away from the opportunity to record superheroics.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Well, she's not really a jerk, but she's being honest when she explains that her report of Analog dropping the Troll into a tanker truck was based on what she could see. She's also willing to give Analog a chance to set the record straight with an interview.
• Only Sane Woman: Upon realizing that the Troll might be up to something, she tries to talk Da Editor out of reporting on it, knowing it'll just encourage the Troll.
• Ship Tease: Given the pre-reboot dynamic between her and Ethan, and how much Analog seems to like talking to her, they seem to be heading in this direction.

Zeke

• Adaptational Villainy: While Zeke only went into Kill All Humans mode in the Bad Future of the original comic, they start out as an antagonist here.
• The Dragon: To the leader of the Red Ring of Death clan.
  • Dragon with an Agenda: By their own admission, they're biding their time until their "master" lets his guard down so they can kill him, too.
• Elite Mook: Compared to their drone counterparts, they're a lot more dangerous.
• Explosive Leash: Why they serve his creator.
• Freudian Excuse: Zeke hasn't had any choice in who they are, or what they're allowed to do. Their hatred of humanity is one of the few exceptions, which is why they hold onto it so tightly.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: When Captain Prime shows up, Zeke decides to pull a Villain: Exit, Stage Left.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Well, two of the four - they're a robot with a ninja motif.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: Their color scheme is black and red this time, and they're not one of the good guys.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Their optics are red by default in the reboot.

Captain Prime

• The Ace: She seems to be this world's equivalent of Superman in regard to her reputation, and has the success record and power set to back it up.
• Action Girl: She's one of the top superheroes, so she definitely qualifies.
• Ambiguously Brown: Her skin is darker than others, but her exact ethnicity remains unclear.
• Berserk Button: Downplayed, but she's been shown to be unhappy by the idea of rookie heroes like Analog and D-Pad getting involved in her work.
• Dude, Not Funny!: Apparently, the Troll went after her shortly after her debut by Photoshopping her face onto a bunch of Victoria's Secret models. She...was not amused.
• Hero of Another Story: At one point, Analog and D-Pad run into her while she's trying to track down a "Tentacle Bomb" planted by one of her arch-foes.
• Government-Employed Superhero: She's specifically mentioned as being backed and equipped by the government.
• Technician Versus Performer: She's more serious and down-to-business compared to Analog and D-Pad.

Sam, aka Gameboy

• Time Stands Still: Has the power to stop and start motion, causing someone he touches to be frozen in place, or "Pause" as he prefers to describe it.

The Red Ring of Death

• Arch-Enemy: So far, they've been the chief recurring threat to Analog and D-Pad, and the conflict is becoming increasingly personal with each of their encounters.
• Bad Boss: The leader isn't above using an Explosive Leash to keep his chief operative in line.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Their leader's apparent motive? his precious Xbox 360 suffered a malfunction, as did its replacement. He claims this opened his eyes to how much humans have become dependent on technology, but Ethan's still Disappointed by the Motive.
• Evil Luddite: The leader of the group, Eugene Howard, is firmly convinced that humans need to be "freed" from their reliance on technology...by destroying it all.
• Fighting a Shadow: The leader of the group controls his Mecha-Mooks by remote, often talking to Analog and D-Pad through them.
• Hypocrite: The leader of the Red Ring of Death hates technology...so he uses high-tech robots to carry out his mad crusade to rid the world of modern technology.
• Kick the Dog: Eugene's treatment of Zeke is pretty dickish.
• Knight Templar: In his own eyes, the leader is this, instead of an Evil Luddite.
• McNinja: The leader of the Red Ring of Death fashions himself after a ninja grandmaster, despite not really having the build, skillset, or traditional nationality of a ninja.
• Mecha-Mooks: The field agents of this group are remote-controlled robot ninjas.
• Non-Action Big Bad: The leader of the Red Ring of Death, Eugene Howard.
• Pet the Dog: The leader of this group would rather avoid killing civilians.
• Oddly Small Organization: As it turns out, the only human member of the clan so far is the creator of the robot ninjas, Eugene Howard. Technically, Zeke isn't human, but he's sentient.

Alex Nguyen / The Black Hat

• Antagonist Abilities: His phasing and super-speed make him a slippery customer to pin down.
• Didn't See That Coming: Being unfamiliar with Analog's Resurrective Immortality, he was not expecting Ethan to blow himself up so he could respawn in his blind spot.
• Entitled Bastard: His Freudian Excuse aside, he's not much more than a cocky punk who thinks the whole world owes him for his misfortunes.
• Freudian Excuse: It turns out he was born with symbrachydactyly, and built himself a prosthetic glove so he could do mundane things normally. Twenty years of mocking and teasing, however, made him decide to cheat and steal out of bitterness.
• Glass Cannon: His power set makes it hard to land a hit on him, and he can phase his pursuers into the sewers to get them out of the way easily. Take away the glove, though, and he's just an average kid.
• Intangibility: His main shtick is phasing through walls to escape pursuit or carry out his crimes.
• Starter Villain: He's one of the first proper supervillains that Analog and D-Pad have to deal with.
• Tricked-Out Gloves: Well, one glove, anyway. It's the source of his powers.

The Troll

• Berserk Button: Despite his constant grin, it seems that there's one thing that does get under his skin - the targets of his badmouthing not rising to his bait.
• Disney Villain Death: His struggle with Analog sends him plummeting from a rooftop and into a truck full of chemicals. It's explicitly mentioned that he survived, however, albeit winding up in a coma.
• Driven to Suicide: Did this to a hero called Icewave after he moved on from Captain Prime.
• Evil Laugh: He cracks a few wicked snickers while making his plans. And when plunging from the rooftop, he literally goes "Lollollollollollollollollollollol" all the way down.
• Expy: Let's see...Slasher Smile? Real identity unknown? No real motivation for what he does except getting a sick laugh? Fell into a tank of chemicals? Whoever this jerk is, he seems to be set up as this story's equivalent of The Joker.
• For the Evulz: When Analog demands to know what his motive is, he just grins and admits that, for him, it's fun.
• The Gadfly: He lives to get a rise out of people; failing to get a visible reaction out of Analog and D-Pad is enough to trigger his Berserk Button.
• No Name Given: If this guy has a name, it hasn't been revealed yet. His disfigurement by falling into a chemical truck's container has confounded attempts to ID him.
• Mysterious Watcher: He watches Analog and D-Pad on his computer monitor before enacting his plans.
• Never My Fault: He blames Analog and D-Pad for his escalation to hostage-taking, claiming that it's their fault for ignoring his taunts at first.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: At first, his smearing of Analog and D-Pad is dickish, but otherwise harmless. When they refuse to publicly rise to his bait, however, he kidnaps four innocent people with the intention to force a Sadistic Choice on the heroic duo. And as it turns out, he ended up accidentally killing one of them before setting up his hostage situation.
• Sadistic Choice: He tries to force one on Analog and D-Pad by planting explosives on three innocent people and threatening to set them off...but he'll let them save one of the hostages while letting the other two die. D-Pad gets around this by manifesting his light arrows between the hostages and the bombs, letting his constructs absorb the brunt of the explosion, then manifests other arrows to catch the hostages.
• Slasher Smile: Considering that he's a Troll, this fits him perfectly. Gets even worse when we see him after the arsonist in Myriad is captured. What little was shown looked like mix of a literal troll and the Green Goblin.
• Small Role, Big Impact: He doesn't have super powers, or a flashy costume, and he doesn't get away at the end of his head-on clash with Analog and D-Pad. However, the outcome of said fight triggers a Heroic BSoD in Ethan for a while.
• They Look Just Like Everyone Else!: No costume, no tricky gadgets... just a regular dude in regular clothes who happens to be a major creep. Not after his chemical bath, though.
• Trap Master: In contrast to the likes of the Red Ring of Death, he doesn't seem to be much of a physical combatant, but he sets up a Death Trap that challenges Analog and D-Pad to save captive civilians.
• Troll: He literally calls himself this; everything he does is meant to upset other people. In particular, he's been described as targeting heroes.
• We Are Everywhere: Turns out he has a group following him, called Myriad, one of whom made a fake video where they dressed up as Analog and claimed he was changing his name, while another is a serial arsonist using the fires to torment Ethan about letting The Troll fall from a building.

Starcaster Chronicles Characters

Cort Ryder

The main character.

• Anti-Hero: He's an ex-Marshal who now takes jobs in the grey area (or as he put it, morally flexible). He's a good person at heart, but often he takes less savory decisions for pragmatic reasons, such as delivering highly volatile explosives when he knows they will be used for bad ends. When called out on it, he points out that he doesn't want Ssimias to be added to the list of people who wants him dead.
• Armor-Piercing Response: His relationship with Nyrah becomes strained after she's disillusioned at Cort's own wrongdoings and past as a Dirty Cop. Eventually he gives a rebuttal that he is not Nyrah's late brother who's a paragon in her eyes.
  Cort: You're disappointed? I can live with that. I've spent my whole life failing to live up to the expectations people set for me... However I won't spend the foreseeable future constantly apologizing just because you can't look at me without being reminded I'm not Dristim. ...I know Dristim was the perfect soldier, Nyrah. But I'm not him. And I can't be him. I'm just... me. Trying to make the best of a situation neither of us planned for. That's... all I can offer. You need to decide if it's enough.
• Blessed with Suck: The Starcaster lets him harness the power of a star. It could also kill him, and everything around him, if he can't master it.
• Dirty Cop: He was one in the past, before his days as a freelancer.
• Person of Mass Destruction: Becoming a Starcaster Wielder makes him this by default.

Speck

Cort's partner and best friend.

• Blessed with Suck: Dissolving things on contact means barred from physical touch with a lot of things. On the other hand, dissolving things on contact has many practical uses too.
• Mobile Fishbowl: Necessary, as he dissolves almost anything on touch.
• Touch of Death: As a Mimion, his skin produces corrosive mucus that dissolves almost anything on contact. His threats often amount to 'giving a hug', but when we actually see it in action, it's not pretty.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: He seems to recognize that as jaded and lawless as Cort acts, he still wants to do the right thing deep down.

Nyrah

An Odrossian Cort found, and kicked off the plot.

• Action Girl: She's a Royal Guard, sworn to follow the order of the Odrossian Royal Family.
• Character Development: Her response to Cort's Armor-Piercing Response is that the brother she worships isn't perfect either, and no matter how disappointed she was at Cort, he was the one who came back and rescued her.
  Nyrah: You once accused me of seeing the universe in black and white... of struggling to reconcile life lived in shades of gray. Perhaps there is... some truth to that. You may be a... darker gray than I thought, Cort Ryder. But I must remember to see the planet as a whole... Not just the side furthest from the sun. If this is going to work... You're right. We have to be willing to adapt. Both of us. I will try. I owe that to Dristim... and to you.
• Last of Her Kind: The last known surviving Odrossian, after the Dranglaex genocide.
• Living Macguffin: The Darkstar Syndicate, and by extension, the Dranglaex Empire want her to locate the Odrossian Starcaster.
• Skilled, but Naive: You don't get to be a Royal Guard by being a pushover. That being said, she wakes up after a century in cryo-sleep in a world where things are a lot less black-and-white and a lot more grey.
• Unwilling Roboticisation: Tortured by tearing her body parts off bit by bit and replacing them with mechanical parts. So far it seems only her internal organs and head are what's left of her original body.

The Grin

A Psycho for Hire sent by the Darkstar Syndicate to recover The Starcaster

• Loves the Sound of Screaming
  The Grin: I've heard a lot of screams... I've caused a lot of screams... And that's a good one.
• Psycho for Hire: As Cort puts it, he's a 'Murder Enthusiast'.

Ssissimias

An Underworld broker whom Cort took a job from for Credits.

• Affably Evil: 'They' are polite in the entire exchange, even understanding when Cort almost vomited at their appearance. But they're still an underworld broker dealing with unsavory business, and they make a point to Cort not to cross them.
• Body Horror: Ssissimias is not a person, rather the corpse of a person infested by the Necro Puppeteers, with multiple holes where they come out on the right cheek. They also threaten Cort of similar fate if he ever cross them. Trypophobiacs, beware.
  Ssissimias: Most important for you to know is that you look upon the face of the last one that attempted to swindle Ssissimias. The rest is details.
• One-Shot Character: Since the audience prefer Cort to keep his end of the deal, there's no reason for Ssissimias to get involved in Cort's life any further. For now, at least.
• Puppeteer Parasite: They are a bunch of Necro Puppeteers infesting the corpse of the last person who tried to swindle them.
• Third-Person Person: Although Ssissimias is not a person, but rather 'them'.

Kelias & Vectanix

Brothers and emperors of the Dranglaex.

• Big Bad: Leader of the Dranglaex, a warmongering empire.
• Fantastic Racism: They see themselves as the Aug's only successful creation, and sought to cleanse the galaxy from their 'inferiors'.
• Stronger Sibling: Vectanix possesses a Starcaster of his own, defaulting him into this.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Kelias is the hot blooded one, while Vectanix is the cautious one.

Quel'Oran

Federation Marshal, and Cort's ex-partner.

• Cthulhumanoid: He's got tentacles covering his mouth. That being said, he's not a malevolent character at all.
• I Gave My Word: Made an unspecified promise with Cort's father, to take care and help Cort.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Sent his men only to pursue, not engage, Cort escaping, and aims to talk with Cort and resolve the matter peacefully, if possible.