For each factions see Freelancer Factions.
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The Player
Trent
Edison Trent ("Freelancer Alpha 1-1")
Voiced by: Ian Ziering
The main character of Freelancer. After years of apprenticeship on Planet Leeds, Trent sets out to make his fortune. This eventually lands him on Freeport 7 for a major transaction. Then the station is destroyed, costing him everything but his life and 500 credits, forcing him to start again in Liberty.
- Big Damn Heroes: Along with Juni, King and Walker, he arrives just in time to stop President Jacobi from being possessed by aliens.
- Butt-Monkey: Has shades of this in the single-player story-line, over the course of which he's been shot at, knocked out by a stun baton, held at gunpoint, falsely accused of numerous crimes, almost skewered by alien parasites — hell, he's taken more abuse than any other character in the game! All he wants is the million credits his "friend" owes him and a good drink, both of which he never gets. He lampshades this right before the final mission.
- The Call Knows Where You Work: Trent gets dragged into the single-player campaign plot kicking and screaming by this. There's the obvious attack on Freeport 7 that starts the whole shebang, sure, but there's also the fact that he is effectively shanghaied into the LSF in order to escape being stranded on Manhattan, which in turn results in he and Juni being identified as troublesome and targeted for elimination by the Pro-Rheinland/Nomad-infected conspiracy via being framed. And it just keeps going from there...
- Character Development: Subtle and mostly (though not only) found in Trent's Logs. At the start of the game, Trent had a purely mercenary attitude and expressed scepticism about "being part of something bigger" when Juni brings it up. Over the course of the game, the numerous sacrifices he witnesses, especially those of Ozu and Walker, softens his scepticism. By the end of the game, he is willing to use the Artefact on the Nomad City even after Juni warns that it could kill him to do so.
- Embarrassing First Name: Edison Trent. He usually just introduces himself by his surname for this reason. In fact, until Tobias mentions it, it goes almost entirely unheard of outside of his neural logs.
- Frame-Up: He's victim of one after Mission 4: He's accused of murder, artifact smuggling, treason and the destruction of Freeport 7 due to the false manifest and Lonnigan being framed post-mortem as the Order's leader, Orillion.
- Guns Akimbo: While shooting the Chancellor Trent does this because the Nomad controlling the former was centimetres away from taking control of Liberty President Jacobi. That, combined with Rule of Cool and the mission being a life-or-death one.
- I Need a Freaking Drink: One of his first acts upon arriving on planet Manhattan on the medical transport from the Sigma systems is to seek out the local bar for a drink. There, he meets Juni.
- Noodle Incident: Part of the reason why Trent left Bretonia in the first place was apparently because he somehow managed to annoy the entire Bretonian government. It's never made clear exactly what this was about, as it is never alluded to beyond it's one mention.
- Not Even Bothering with the Accent: Trent is Bretonian (aka, British), and his father-figure Tobias has a rather prominent British accent, but Trent himself sounds very much American.
- Outrun the Fireball: In the single player campaign, any station Trent sets foot on has roughly a two-thirds chance of being blown up within two minutes, so he becomes a professional at this.
- Here a list of the places that blew up after Trent set foot on it: Freeport 7, Benford Research Station, the Planet Sprague dig site and Docking Ring, Baxter Research Station, Tekagi's Arch and Planet Toledo's base and Docking Ring.. Crikey.
- Sole Survivor: By the mid-point of the game, he is the only remaining survivor of the destruction of Freeport 7; Lonnigan, Syd, and Brandon Rowlett are all knocked off one-by-one in front of him, and others are noted on the news to have died in LSF custody.
- Universal Pilot's License: Flying a freighter is undoubtedly very different from flying a Heavy Fighter, and the different houses probably have different control schemes for their ships, but Trent has no problem flying anything he buys.
Liberty Characters
Liberty Security Force (LSF)
Juni
Commander Jun'ko Zane
Voiced By: Jennifer Hale
A senior LSF agent who serves as Trent's handler within Liberty. She later goes on the run with him when they are both the subjects of a Frame-Up.
- Ace Custom: Flies her own modified Liberty Defender heavy fighter.
- Action Girl: Both in her fighter and on the ground.
- Friend on the Force: Trent is just a freelancer; she's his contact within the LSF.
- The Lancer: To Trent.
- The Not-Love Interest: Despite potential instances of Ship Tease with Trent.
King
Michael King
Juni's friend within the LSF, who also helps keep tabs on Trent.
- Friend on the Force: Trent's other contact within the LSF, aside from Juni.
Liberty Navy
Captain Walker
Marcus Walker
A Liberty Navy officer who helps Trent and Juni investigate the threat of the Nomads. He's the captain of the LNS Utah, a cruiser.
- Big Damn Heroes: Gives Trent and Juni their crucial opening when they are blockaded in Planet Manhattan orbit after a Frame-Up. He single-handedly destroys Battleship Unity to end its blockade of the Manhattan-West Point trade lane.
- The Captain: Of a Liberty Navy cruiser sporting a definite BFG.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Ends up pulling one of these in Mission 11, by ramming the Utah against the two Liberty Navy battleships blockading the Alaska-New York gate. All three ships are destroyed in the explosion, as the Utah was full of gravimetric mines. Juni is upset, to say the least.
- Unperson: The Nomads tried to do this to him by changing the records to say that his ship had disappeared 5 years before the game. Walker and the Utah were able to escape before they could get him.
Other
President Jacobi
Barbara Jacobi
The current president of Liberty.
- Our Presidents Are Different: Her position is clearly modeled after the President of the United States of America back on Earth.
- Puppet King: Is targeted for assimilation by the Nomads; first Rheinland's Admiral Schultzky tries to come to Manhattan to have her taken over by a Nomad, before Chancellor Niemann later abducts her in an attempt to impose the same fate in the Alaska system.
Sam Lonnigan
Sam Lonnigan
Another Freeport 7 survivor, who came to Planet Manhattan alongside Trent.
- Action Survivor: Barely escapes Freeport 7 with his life; the first we see of him, he is being carted away by medics as soon as he arrives at Planet Manhattan.
- Cloud Cuckoolander: Appears to be overly paranoid and jumpy.
- The Cloud Cuckoolander Was Right: In that the destruction of Freeport 7 was no accident. Ultimately, it was caused by the Nomads, who were seeking to destroy the MacGuffin of the story.
- Deceased Fall-Guy Gambit: After his death, the Nomad-subverted Liberty Navy scapegoated him as Orillion, the leader of the Order. The Nomads were unaware that "Orillion" wasn't a codename.
- Hired Gun: Before the Freeport 7 debacle, he worked as one for Samura Heavy Industries, a Kusari company.
- Killed Offscreen: After fleeing Manhattan, he's killed by the Liberty Navy in the Liberty-Rheinland border in a bloody shootout.
- Properly Paranoid: Firmly believes that the destruction of Freeport 7 was no accident — which is indeed the case.
- You Owe Me: Initially, Trent is only interested in Lonnigan because Lonnigan owes Trent a million credits for a load of boron that Trent was shipping. Trent never gets his money, as the plot takes off shortly thereafter.
Syd
Syd
Voiced by: ?
A Zoner thief that stole the Dom'Kavash artifact from a digsite in Pygar, and one of the few survivors of Freeport 7's destruction.- In the Back: He's killed that way.
- Small Role, Big Impact: His stealing of the artifact led to it falling in Trent's hands and driving the rest of the plot.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: Killed by an Ax-Crazy LSF soldier after he showed Trent the Dom'Kavash artifact. The soldier also tried to kill Trent and Juni before she shot him.
Van Pelt
Professor Hermann Van Pelt
An old friend of Juni who lives in Benford Station, a mostly automated facility in the Badlands.- Small Role, Big Impact:After seeing and analyzing the Artifact, he sets Trent and Juni on the trail to meet Professor Quintaine.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: Dies in the same mission he's met, at the hands of three Liberty Cruisers that destroy Benford Station.
Sean Ashcroft
Sean Ashcroft
An Artifact trafficker with the Liberty Rogues.
- Starter Villain: The first significant enemy that Trent faces as he embarks on his career as a freelancer. Juni and the LSF send Trent to the Colorado system to intercept him as he tries to smuggle Artifacts into the New York system.
- Un-person: He soon vanishes as the Nomads' plot thickens in Liberty space, cluing Juni in to the fact that something is very wrong.
Brandon Rowlett
Brandon Rowlett
Another survivor of the Freeport 7 disaster, who comes to Liberty space thereafter.
- Action Survivor: Of Freeport 7, just like Trent.
- Vagueness Is Coming: He tries to warn Trent of unspecified machinations within Liberty's government, but won't detail his information in public.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: Less than a minute after meeting Trent, he and his ship get blown away in a Curb-Stomp Battle by a trio of Nomad-controlled Liberty Navy fighters. Those Navy fighters are unusual in that they aren't actually part of the Liberty Navy faction, and because of this, they can be killed without repercussions. Doing so drops a unique turret called "Rowlett's Revenge"
Bretonia Characters
Tobias
Richard Winston Tobias
Voiced By: John Rhys-Davies
Dexter Hovis
Dexter Hovis
Voiced By: Xander Berkeley
Doctor Sinclair
Kendra Sinclair
Voiced By: Cree Summer
Professor Quintaine
Roland Quintaine
Voiced By: Charles Shaughnessy
Professor Roland Quintaine is a professor working on Planet Cambridge and one of the Sirius sector's leading experts in the field of xenoarchaeology. Dr Sinclair's discovery of the Dom'Kavash artifact on Planet Pygar led to him being hunted by both the nomads and The Order, but for different reasons. After his laboratory on Cambridge was ransacked by unknown parties and he was approached by Colonel Kress of The Order on the very same night, Quintaine Took a Third Option and fled to the Dublin system, isolating himself in Gas Mining Station Glorious until Trent liberated the station from a Rheinland assault wing. Thereafter, Quintaine chose to work with Sinclair and The Order on deciphering the Dom'Kavash artifact.
- Action Survivor: Quintaine is a professor, not a combat pilot. However, he was able to elude the Nomad-controlled Rheinland forces looking for him far better than any of the Freeport 7 survivors. In addition, throughout the single-player campaign, he's seen his own share of firefights and survived every encounter.
- Badass Arm-Fold: Pulls this pose while proclaiming to Tobias that he is the foremost authority on xenoarchaeology. To his credit, it is not an empty claim.
- Badass Bookworm: By the time Trent found him, Quintaine is on good enough terms with the pirates running Station Glorious that they would outright refuse to sell him out to the Rheinlanders, and he even has a small faction whose only purpose is to protect him from anyone trying to reach him. In a Crapsack World where Attack Hello and Mugging the Monster are norms, this is quite remarkable for someone who is only an academic professor.
- Failure Is the Only Option: After seeing for himself just how persistent the Rheinlanders were in pursuing anyone who made contact with the Dom'Kavash artifact, Quintaine realised that isolating himself from society was no longer an option and accepted an offer from Colonel Kress to hide in his base. This would eventually result in him and Sinclair continuing their research on the Dom'Kavash under the banner of The Order.
- Good Is Not Nice: He and Trent had a very rough first encounter, with him attempting to space Trent until Trent told him that Sinclair was working on the Dom'Kavash artifact. In almost all the neural net logs Trent recorded while he was with Quintaine, Trent also complains about Quintaine's abrasive manner of speech.
- Hidden Heart of Gold: As stuck-up as Quintaine is, his rationale for isolating himself is an indication that he keeps a lookout for people he knows and trusts, and he is very well aware that there are people who are talented in other fields. This is why Sinclair is on a First-Name Basis with him and Tobias received an I Owe You My Life one-liner from him during the escape to the border worlds.
- Insufferable Genius: Quintaine is described by Van Pelt as merely "a respected xenoarchaeologist", but upon his first encounter with Tobias, Quintaine quite haughtily describes himself as "the foremost authority on xenoarchaeology". That said, he can definitely live up to the description—his knowledge in the field was critical in discovering what the purpose of the Dom'Kavash artifact is.
- It's Not You, It's My Enemies: While Quintaine never said this word-for-word, his explanation to Sinclair on why he disappeared, as well as his general trust issues with everyone, points very squarely at this trope. Various groups were after him and, from his rational point of view, none of them could be trusted, so he shut himself off from the wider society in an attempt to prevent anyone associated with him from becoming a target.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Attempted to space Trent even though the latter prevented Station Glorious from being destroyed by the Rheinlanders.
- Non-Action Guy: Quintaine never holds a gun in a situation that may warrant it. In space, he flies an Armored Transport which, in spite of it being up-gunned like every other computer-controlled ship, is more or less a sitting duck in firefights due to its poor mobility.
- Squee: The Dom'Kavash artifact, and anything related to the Dom'Kavash in general. The prospect of finally being able to see the artifact is the only thing that stopped him from spacing Trent and elicits audible excitement from him as he was approaching Planet Leeds. He also chews some scenery with extremely articulated words while describing how the Dom'Kavash travelled around their galactic empire, before proceeding to explain the purpose of the Dom'Kavash artifact.
- Stiff Upper Lip: While he goes full Oh, Crap! upon seeing a Rheinland fleet during the escape to the border worlds, by the time of the Nomads attacking Planet Toledo, he's apparently seen enough battles to very calmly pull a Screw This, I'm Outta Here across the bow of a Nomad battleship.
- The Proud Elite: A professor who works on Planet Cambridge, extremely proud of being one of the greatest xenoarcheologists in Sirius, and considers Planet Leeds, which is essentially an industrial workhorse, to be a blight on Bretonian culture. To his credit, the sheer industrial output of Planet Leeds alone created the numerous nebulae of smog in the system.
- Unseen No More: Was first mentioned during Mission 4, but only appears in the flesh during the second half of Mission 6. The entire Bretonia arc of the singleplayer campaign revolves around finding him and transitions into the Kusari arc immediately after that.
Kusari Characters
Ozu
Ozu
- Taking You with Me: He kills Tekagi by blowing his Arch's room to pieces.
Hakkera
Lord Hakkera
Voiced By: George Takei
Governor Tekagi
Tekagi
- Aristocrats Are Evil: The Blood Dragons considered him a vile man, And that was before his meeting with Niemann and his Nomad possession.
- Big Bad: Of the Kusari arc.
- Glowing Eyes of Doom: A side effect of Nomad possession.
- The Mole: A Nomad-possessed agent
Rheinland Characters
Chancellor Niemann
Florian Gustav Niemann
Voiced By: Tony Jay
- Big Bad: He, or rather, the Nomad that took him over is the main antagonist of the game as a whole.
- Demonic Possession: A Nomad agent took him over.
Admiral Schultzky
Otto Schultzky
- Demonic Possession: A Nomad had taken him over. The reason he went to Manhattan was to do the same to President Jacobi
- We Hardly Knew Ye: His ship, the RNC Donau, is blown to pieces by a wing of Order fighters
Border Worlds Characters
The Nomads
A mysterious race of aliens created by the Sirius Sector's original inhabitants, the Dom'Kavash, to protect the region from trespassers and eliminate them with extreme prejudice.
- Big Bad: The main antagonists of the game.
- Demonic Possession: They can possess humans by shoving themselves inside of them.
- Organic Technology: All their ships seem to be alive in some way.
- Starfish Aliens: They look like blue manta rays with a long snake-like neck.
The Dom'Kavash
The original inhabitants of the Sirius Sector, an ancient race that left the region millions of years before humanity arrived, leaving behind some artifacts, ruins, and the Nomads.
- The Ghost: They're never met in the flesh.
- Monster Progenitor: They created the Nomads to protect the Sirius sector from outsiders.
- Portal Network: They built a network of Hypergates that connected their potentially intergalactic empire. Those gates are to human Jump Gates as those are to Trade Lanes, connecting at far greater distances than any man-made gate has currently achieved. Humanity obtained the tech to make Jump gates and Trade Lanes from their ruins in the first place.
- Precursors: They had highly-advanced tech, as their Hypergates and the starmap show.
- Purple Is Powerful: Their still-functioning technology, like the Hypergate and the ruins in Sprague bear glowing purple marks.
