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Protagonists
Saturn
Insufferable horror creature. Forward all complaints to Mercury.
The second choice to pilot Celestial Mechanics' Super Prototype ship-self String of Pearls, until she stole it and forced their hand.
- Badass Adorable: String of Pearls is described as looking "cute enough to hug," but that doesn't stop it from being an incredibly powerful ship-self.
- Blood Knight: Really likes fighting and flirting, and both at the same time.
- Contrasting Sequel Main Character: Contrasts with Jupiter from We Know the Devil. Jupiter was a Broken Ace who was almost effortlessly good at things, but was riddled with insecurities and self doubt, and tried to be the good girl even though she didn't really believe she was one. Saturn, by contrast, is a reject who knows she's awful at things, but keeps trying to win by cheating, and openly embraces being bad. In the Golden Ending of We Know the Devil, Jupiter is the most reluctant of the three to embrace the Devil, only doing it when the others assure her that it's permanent and there's no way back. By contrast, Saturn is the one advocating for eversion, and convinces the other two when they get reluctant.
- Cute Little Fangs: As seen in her image, she's drawn with small fangs, which fits the roguish and playful parts of her personality, as well as her love for combat.
- Cyborg: As a third generation Pilot, she had some spinal implants meant to make her better at piloting, though they're not ever explicitly described or detailed. Saturn herself considers it "cheating" to catch up with the naturally strong pilots like Pluto or the ones who had a headstart like Luna-Terra.
- Gone Horribly Right: String of Pearls is deliberately designed to push the limits of the pilot to make them evert, which is Iapetus' ultimate goal. Saturn uses this to her own advantage in the Celestial Mechanics ending, but it's subverted in the other endings, where it doesn't actually come up.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: At first glance, Saturn seems frivolous and reckless, often antagonizing others seemingly for fun, but as time goes by her goals are revealed to be surprisingly noble and consistent. This is perhaps seen best in her chats with Mercury— despite spending most of the game trying to get his goat while he frets about her safety, she cares about him deeply.
- Like Brother and Sister: With Mercury.
- Poisonous Person: String of Pearls' unique ability is bubblegum pink electrotoxins; unlike the standards of the trope, however, it's presented more heroically as part of Saturn's disruptive nature.
- Production Throwback: Like Jupiter, she has a patch on her left arm that references the planet with her name's most well known feature— namely the rings of Saturn.
- Spanner in the Works: The plot kicks off when she breaks the de-facto Solar System truce by stealing the ship-self that Celestial Mechanics swore up and down they weren't making because it would be a war crime, and, in classic spanner fashion, she only did so to get back at Celestial Mechanics for benching her.
- Stellar Name: She's named after the planet Saturn, and her ship-self is named after a term for the banded cloud formations on Saturn.
- Telepathic Spacemen: Not to the point of Pluto, but still present.
- The Unchosen One: She was the backup test pilot for String of Pearls. Until she stole it, anyway.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: She and Mercury may be near-constantly arguing, but they're basically family.
Pluto
I'm thankful for my Cradle's Graces, but we're not coming back.
The princess of Cradle's Graces, and pilot of the ship-self Krun Macula.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Pluto may be a Friend to All Living Things, but she's also by far the most powerful of the ship-self pilots, and everyone knows it.It's the girl with the love to be the mother of stars they're afraid of.
- Contrasting Sequel Main Character: To Neptune from We Know The Devil. Neptune was a person who viewed the world with suspicion, and could be abrasive and angry to people, while kind and compassionate to those close to her, but ultimately viewed herself as a rotten person. Pluto has the same insecurities, but decided to assume the best of everyone, but by being perfect and kind all the time, when she genuinely does try to confide in people, it gets immediately brushed off since she's supposed to be effortlessly perfect.
- The Gadfly: Her sweet nature doesn't stop her from gently teasing other members of the cast, with a special mention towards the easily flustered Mars.
- Meaningful Name: The planet Pluto's most notable feature is a large heart-shaped region, and Pluto herself has an enormous heart.
- Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: Pluto isn't absurdly strong by Earth's standards; she'd be unremarkable down there. But the Culture is so thin and gravity so weak far from Earth that she borders on Story-Breaker Power.
- Reality Warper: Krun Macula's main ability is creating and changing things, such as creating a star and collapsing it to a black hole in a moment, or twisting space and time so that an enemy has no way of escaping Pluto.
- Rule of Symbolism: Krun Macula, which is basically near Physical God-levels of power, has holes in its palms reminiscent of stigmata wounds.
- Stellar Name: She's named after the planet Pluto, and her ship-self is named after a dark region on Pluto's surface.
- Story-Breaker Power: Discussed but defied. Pluto is so powerful, so big, that the other players in the story orbit around her, but Pluto isn't invincible, or immune to buckling under the weight of people's expectations.
- Telepathic Spacemen: She's a very powerful psychic, enough to read someone's narrative at a glance, though it doesn't work as straight Telepathy.
- Wide-Eyed Idealist: With a Decon-Recon Switch. She tries to believe the best of everyone, but it's partially affected, and partially because it's what people expect her to do. Ultimately, her faith in people pays off, and smooths over some of Luna-Terra and Saturn's cynicism.
- Young and in Charge: She's the one who gives the orders in Cradle's Graces.
Luna-Terra
Pilot First Class. Don't send me messages.
A veteran of the Cold War, and pilot of the ship-self Mare Crisium. She once betrayed Memorial Foundation, but later returned to them.
- Ace Pilot: She's a veteran of the Cold War, and is known as Memorial Foundation's ace. Not only is she a first generation pilot, but Mare Crisium is a bit of a relic, and doesn't allow for its pilot to directly interface with it like later ship-selves did. The fact that she's still considered the best pilot in the system despite having to pilot in manually is a testament to her skill. Also subverted, however. Luna-Terra herself says that she's only considered to be Memorial Foundation's ace because everyone who was better than her already returned to Earth.
- Affectionate Nickname: She has two: 'Luna-T' from Pluto and 'LT' from Saturn.
- Arc Words: Invoked, as she mentions the 9.8 m/s^2 of Earth's gravity explicitly on several occasions, as the person who's advocating for all the pilots to return to Earth.
- Chick Magnet: She gets quite a lot of attention, even when she's not trying to.
- Cold Sniper: What most people believe her to be.
- Contrasting Sequel Main Character: To Venus from We Know The Devil. Venus was a very timid and naive person, who had a tendency to go along with whatever everyone else was doing, eager to please, and looked down on by others for it. She was more awkward when it came to romance than the other two, not even realizing she was transgender until the Devil brought it out. Luna-Terra is a celebrated ace, but holds herself at a distance, drifting from faction to faction as the gravity pulls her, never really being trusted or seen by people, or even trusting herself enough to develop strong convictions, while leaving a trail of broken hearts all across the solar system.
- Heel–Face Revolving Door: She started out with Memorial Foundation, then left them along with the rest of Cradle's Graces, but later left Cradle's Graces to return to Memorial Foundation. Lampshaded with an achievement for getting any ending other than the Memorial Foundation one while playing as Luna-Terra, which is titled "I've Never Betrayed Anyone In My Entire Life."
- Loners Are Freaks: Self-enforced. Luna-Terra doesn't know how to deal with people, and, because of her betrayals, she's barely trusted even by her allies. By contrast, Saturn and Pluto have close friends who they depend on, but the closest thing to a friend at Memorial Foundation that Luna-Terra has is sarcastic arguments with Europa, her boss.
- Meaningful Name: As part of the Meaningful Rename of the Native Sphere, Luna-Terra as a concept exists in universe and is discussed. The idea is that the Moon will become terraformed and Earthlike to the point that the two will become inseparable and indistinguishable, which symbolizes things in between and duality. Luna-Terra as a person, on the other hand, is distant and aloof, making her (at least initially) the antithesis of the concept.
- The Musketeer: She prefers using her hard light rifle, but uses a spear and a knife at close range. It's lampshaded, as Mare Crisium's weapons were designed by people who didn't quite know what they were doing, so Luna-Terra had to mold them to fit her style.
- Noodle Incident: Parts of her past are referred to but never explicitly detailed, such as how she got her facial scar, and Mare Crisium's wound.
- Rugged Scar: She has one across her face.
- Rule of Symbolism: Mare Crisium has a constantly bleeding wound on its side that refuses to heal, even though the rest of the ship is fine, likely referencing one of the Holy Wounds: the lance injury in Jesus' side. In the final confrontation between Pluto and Luna-Terra, it's also used as a metaphor for both of them being transgender."Sooner or later, every girl bleeds."
- Statuesque Stunner: She's a little over six feet tall, a fact which Saturn is very pleased to learn.
- Stellar Name: She's named a combination of the Roman names for the Earth and the Moon, and her ship-self is named after a lunar mare.
- Telepathic Spacemen: Because Mare Crisium is old, and she's not innately a psychic like Pluto or a cyborg like Saturn, Luna-Terra doesn't have much ability to read someone's narrative or to feel her ship-self as her own body. According to Pluto though, that's because Luna-Terra herself is reluctant to develop the burgeoning abilities she was developing due to so much time in space. Near the end of the story she eventually lets Saturn and Pluto try to teach her more and makes some progress.
- Trans Nature: She's a trans woman, and joined the trainee pilot program to "[not] let the gravity of Earth choose [her] body." Her transition served as a catalyst for other trans people in the trainee program (specifically Pluto and other "girls like her") to come out as well.
- Wild Card: Nobody really trusts her, and even she doesn't really know where she'll end up when everything's over. While she's loosely advocating for Memorial Foundation's goal of returning everyone to Earth, she's far less vocal about it than Pluto and Saturn are for their respective factions' goals. In the Memorial Foundation ending, she admits to having come up with a different plan just a few seconds before actually doing it.
Celestial Mechanics
Opening futures, closing pasts.
Mercury
A boy in space on purpose. Consummate bridge bunny. Not responsible for Saturn.
Mission Control to and Vitriolic Best Buds with Saturn.
- Bridge Bunny: His own profile refers to him as a "Consummate Bridge Bunny," though his bickering with Saturn undercuts that more than a bit.
- Happily Married: To Ganymede.
- Like Brother and Sister: With Saturn.
- Meaningful Name: Mercury having a planetary name has significance in-universe in that all other characters with planetary names are pilots, while Mercury was pulled from the pilot program.
- Mission Control: To Saturn.
- Trans Tribulations: He's a trans man, which got him poked and prodded at a lot, and eventually seems to have been the main reason he was pulled from being Celestial Mechanics' Ace Pilot.
- Uniformity Exception: He's the only male character in the game whose face is shown.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Almost always arguing with Saturn, but they're practically family.
Iapetus
The leader of Celestial Mechanics, which was once Memorial Foundation's research division. He's committed to something called Eversion, which he believes will secure humanity's future in space.
- Anti-Villain: Toyed with. Nobody likes him personally, but the idea of eversion has appeal even to those who hate him, like Mercury. Iapetus just wants to do it to be celebrated as the genius who codified the Unified Culture Theory and have to have a Forever War with something truly alien; in a way, he's doing a good thing the wrong way for the wrong reasons.
- Dirty Old Man: Deliberately preyed on the trainee pilots, and his victims include both Saturn and Mercury. Even years later, he still makes their skin crawl just to talk about how he lavished attention on them.
- The Faceless: When he actually appears, his face is deliberately pixelated out. This also applies to his ship-self, the Roncevaux Terra, which is pixelated enough to only be able to discern a basic outline and color.
- Meaningful Name: He's named after one of the moons of the planet Saturn, and is the leader of the faction that the character Saturn belongs to. Roncevaux Terra also refers to a surface feature of Iapetus.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Preyed on teenage students who trusted him, and deliberately pulled Mercury from being Celestial Mechanics' Ace Pilot for being transgender.
- The idea of eversion is an outgrowth of what Iapetus calls the "inversion impulse"... aka, the tendency for some people to be gay or trans; "invert" is even an archaic term to refer to gay people. Iapetus' plan revolves around turning queer people into aliens just so that humanity has something to fight against. He even has the audacity to laugh at Saturn and call it a plus: "You'll have yours and we'll have ours."
- Smug Snake: Always laughing, always has the upper hand and redundancies upon redundancies. Europa even says he's so confident about it that it's not really a weakness.
Ganymede
Mercury's husband and boss who also works for Celestial Mechanics.
- The Ghost: He never actually appears, but Saturn and Mercury talk about him, and the player can read one of his emails to Mercury.
- Happily Married: To Mercury.
- Meaningful Name: Ganymede is the largest of Jupiter's moons, and the largest moon in the Solar System. It's also roughly the same size as Mercury, probably to signify that the two treat each other as equals.
- Satellite Love Interest: Even literally!
Cradle's Graces
Thankful for our Cradle's Graces, but we're not coming back.
Mars
Generation 2 Pilot, First Class. DMs open for fight requests.
Pluto's friend and Mission Control, and also Luna-Terra's ex who's still angry about the her betrayal of Cradle's Graces.
- Blood Knight: She frequently gets in fights, and seems to like fighting in general. Her description in the chat window even says "DMs open for fight requests."
- Hot-Blooded: She tends to react very passionately to things, and often violently.
- Mission Control: To Pluto.
- Tsundere: She's really really angry that Luna-Terra left Cradle's Graces, and she doesn't miss her at all.
Dr. Nix
A researcher who developed the theories of Culture and proposed that the way to address the Existential Threat was to explore new ways of being human.
- Meaningful Name: She's named after one of the moons of the planet Pluto, and belongs to the faction that the character Pluto leads. Nix is also the Greek goddess of darkness and night, and Dr. Nix is someone who advocates for the shadows and unwanted children left in the dark, even believing that the Existential Threat is really just something to be embraced rather than defeated.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: She's the only one of the adults in charge of the trainee pilots who actually viewed their growth and change away from the gravity of Earth as a good thing that made them happier. Which is the main reason she defected with Cradle's Graces; she wanted to protect the children they'd pulled into space. She's not immune to treating Pluto as a tool to reach the future she thinks is best, though.
- Wide-Eyed Idealist: Believes in "happiness for all and no one left behind!"
Memorial Foundation
Never forgotten, every story told.
Europa
Director of Combat Operations, Memorial Foundation Existential Safety. Not your mom.
Mission Control to Luna-Terra, and the true power behind Memorial Foundation. She used to be a teacher at the pilot academy.
- Mission Control: To Luna-Terra.
- Team Mom: Deconstructed. Europa treated the trainee pilots better than Iapetus, but still viewed them mostly as a means to an end. However, when the Existential Threat was permanently defeated, she still cared about them enough to convince the Earth-based Memorial Foundation to let her try to convince the wayward pilots of Cradle's Graes to come home, instead of just killing them. She also found it pretty annoying that the students kept accidentally calling her "dad."
Halimede
The leader of Memorial Foundation, who is Europa's niece and Luna-Terra's ex.
- Always Second Best: Part of her character; her older sister used to be the Ace Pilot of Memorial Foundation, until she got bored and went home, leaving her ship-self, the Lo Sulci, for Halimede to get secondhand. Even afterwards, it's apparent to everyone that Memorial Foundation would rather have Pluto as their princess instead, Luna-Terra is their Ace Pilot instead of her, and she doesn't even really hold the power in the organization that she nominally leads.
- Meaningful Name: Halimede is a small moon of Neptune, but isn't especially notable compared to the other moons, much like how Halimede is outshone by others. Lo Sulci refers to a feature on Triton, a different moon of Neptune, and the ship-self is a hand me down from Halimede's sister.
- Halimede as a member of the Nereids was also known as "the lady of the brine", meant to evoke how she is defined by tears.
- Puppet King: Her power is mostly ceremonial, with Europa really calling the shots.
- Young and in Charge: She's the leader of Memorial Foundation, and can't be much older than the protagonists.
- Working with the Ex: She used to date Luna-Terra.
Others
Neith
A trainee pilot who was involved in an accident that ended the Cold War and made Earth turn away from space.
- The Ghost: Discussed a lot near the climax in Saturn's route, but doesn't actually appear. It's speculated in the Celestial Mechanics ending that, if they survived without gravity, they were probably so changed by eversion that they didn't know how to contact humanity.
- Odd Name Out: Neith follows the Religious and Mythological Theme Naming and Stellar Name, but with a twist; Neith was a supposed moon of Venus seen early in the history of astronomy, but later observations showed it to not actually exist. Neith is also an Egyptian goddess, which differs from the rest of the cast following Greco-Roman mythology. Both likely tie in with Meaningful Name to indicate Neith being more detached from humanity than the other pilots.
- Transhuman: In a desperate attempt to make the Existential Threat more substantial, Memorial Foundation had all of the child pilots gather around the Lunar Gravity Well to try to reach through it and make them more solid. But Neith, being less attached to humanity than the others, fell in, and "everted," becoming something truly alien from humanity. This event scared Memorial Foundation enough that they started to pull away from space.
Autonomous Weapons
A vast fleet of weapons just smart enough to kill people that the International Memorial Foundation on Earth keeps as a warning and insurance policy.
- Attack Drone: As the name indicates, they're autonomous weapons.
- Conservation of Ninjutsu: Just one of them is enough to nearly kill Saturn and Luna-Terra combined, and it's a major accomplishment that Luna-Terra killed one by herself in the past. Naturally, in the endings, when the entire fleet descends, they're torn apart with ease.
- Sinister Geometry: Explicitly invoked. They're just human enough to have one thought, and that thought is "die."
