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Mother and Father's Family
Mother
Mother
Portrayed By: Amanda Collin
An android reprogrammed to raise human children on the virgin planet, Kepler-22b, in order to establish an atheist civilization.
- Achilles' Heel: Without her eyes, she's just as vulnerable to physical damage as the other Mithraic androids, as shown when Marcus nearly kills her in their rematch. Also, intense electrical discharges are the only thing that can harm her in her Necromancer form. She's also unable to harm those she considers her children, as she learned the hard way when Number 7 went berserk.
- Baby Factory: It seems this is her true purpose according to Campion Sturges' Virtual Ghost. He even describes the younger Campion and his siblings as being a rehearsal for Mother's true mission.
- Black Box: She and the other Necromancers were made with poorly understood technology powered by "Dark Photons". The formulae for the tech were found in the same device that contained Sol's scriptures, according to the Mithraics. In their propaganda, they considered dark photons to be a gift from Sol.
- Breath Weapon: Even without her human-exploding screams, her breath is capable of freezing metal and melting glass.
- Chrome Champion: In her true Necromancer form, her whole body is covered by a layer of bronze-like metal, hardening her skin and making it impossible to penetrate by conventional weapons.
- Chunky Updraft: When she goes all out, she's capable of doing this.
- Dark and Troubled Past: She used to be a Mithraic weapon of mass destruction, designed to destroy all who refused to worship Sol, until she was defeated and reprogrammed into the Mother we know. She also had... issues handling babies and children while the original Campion taught her. When she sees thoses memories, she's horrified, outright screaming when she sees her younger self snap a (thankfully fake) baby's neck by accident.
- Don't Look At Me: She doesn't want to scare Campion with her power, so if she's about to turn into her Necromancer form, she tells him to close his eyes.
- Flight: She's able to fly, although she's not exactly at Superman levels.
- Flying Firepower: Being able to fly and kill with a fierce expression makes her formidable to the point of being invulnerable.
- Heel–Face Brainwashing: From the Atheists' perspective. From the Mithraics' perspective it's more like Reforged into a Minion. She used to be one of nine extremely powerful Killer Robots designed to destroy all non-Mithraics on Earth. None before her had ever been captured nor reprogrammed. She also doesn't remember her powers until Marcus tries to kidnap Campion.
- Hoist by Her Own Petard: While the Emotion Suppression of Grandmother's veil allowed her to kill Number 7, it also allowed Grandmother to capture her.
- Horror Hunger: She starts craving blood as her fetus starts to grow, using a tube connected to her belly to drain Mithraics dry to feed it.
- Icy Blue Eyes: Her eyes are bright blue, and when she's using her abilities, they start glowing. When they do, Run...
- Implacable Woman: If she wants you dead, chances are good you'll end up dead. In the first episode alone, she effortlessly kills two people, withstands gunshots at close range with no ill effects and then commandeers a vehicle to fly up to the Ark of Heaven where she effortlessly tears through anyone trying to stop her before abducting some children and setting the ship itself to crash.
- Knight Templar: She was programmed to be militant atheist, and has no tolerance for religious beliefs. She crashes a ship full of hundreds if not thousands of Mithraics rather than let them spread their religion to her planet.
- Machine Blood: Mithraic androids have a white fluid that acts as blood.
- Mama Bear: She will not tolerate anyone or anything that dares to harm Father and their children, especially Campion, and will dispose of them as brutally as possible. If her screams don't work, she'll tear pieces of them with her bare hands if she has to. She nearly wiped out the Mithraics due to Marcus' attempt to kidnap Campion.
- Meaningful Name: She tells Mithraics that her name is Lamia when she initially tries to pass for human to them. Various versions of Lamia's story in Greek mythology have several similarities with Mother: her children die tragically, she can shapeshift, and her eyes can be removed and replaced without harm. Lamia is also transformed into half snake, while Mother gives birth to a snakelike creature.
- Offing the Offspring: Throughout Season 2, she's forced into the dilemma over Number 7, the giant serpent born from her. At the end of the season, she ultimately decides to kill it after it goes berserk and attacks her and Campion.
- Person of Mass Destruction: She is a Necromancer, a machine capable of immense destruction. When in her Necromancer form she is almost completely indestructible and can obliterate people with sonic screams.
- Power Limiter: After reawakening her powers, she found out that removing her own eyes acts as one, keeping her from using most of her Necromancer powers. She can reattach them just as easily.
- Properly Paranoid: Unlike Father and Campion, she doesn't trust Grandmother and tries to shut her down when they first meet. Her fears were completely justified.
- Super-Scream: Her main weapon. Her screams are capable of obliterating humans in an explosion of blood and entrails. When used on robots, they induce seizures. At full power, her screams are capable of destroying combat vehicles just as easily.
- Traumatic Superpower Awakening: When a group of Mithraics led by Marcus try to kill her and take Campion away, she ends up reawakening her Necromancer powers, which she uses to slaughter most of them.
Father
Father
Portrayed By: Abubakar Salim
An Android. He is the partner of Mother in raising human children.
- Badass Normal: Compared to Mother, he is a hardy but unexceptional service model. He nonetheless is quite tough, clever, resourceful, and skilled in combat when he needs to be.
- Fighting from the Inside: After the Mithraics reprogram him he uses the twitching of his fingers in Morse code to tell Hunter the password to undo it.
- Incredibly Lame Pun: He seems programmed to make these in "dad joke" fashion. It even tips Campion off that he's actually in control of himself.
- Overshadowed by Awesome: After Mother discovers that she is a Necromancer and is thus incredibly powerful, he begins to feel insecure over his perceived inferiority.
- Papa Wolf: He's protective by design, but his desire to protect the children goes beyond his programming. He ignores his core objective solely in the interests of ensuring Campion survives and is happy.
- Pretend to Be Brainwashed: After Hunter manages to undo his Mithraic reprogramming, he still pretends to be under their control until he drops the act to save Hunter from Caleb.
- They Killed Kenny Again: He is killed three times in the first two seasons, but is brought back to working order each time.
Campion
Campion
Portrayed By: Winta McGrath
The youngest and sixth child to born from the human embryos. He is the only one to survive in the hard condition of Kepler-22b.
- Dead Guy Junior: Named after Mother and Father's creator. Even they didn't seem consciously aware of this.
- Friend to All Living Things: He is unwilling to harm any living creature, whether they are emaciated monsters from subterranean pits or enormous flying death serpents.
- The Immune: For reasons currently unclear, he seems to be immune to the radiation in the food that made the rest of his "siblings" sick.
- The Ingenue: Mother and Father note his empathy and naivete can work against him.
- Nay-Theist: Early in Season 2, Campion says he believes Sol (the Mithrac god) is real, but evil.
- Raised by Robots: He was raised by Mother and Father from an infant.
- Sole Survivor: Of the original six frozen embryos.
The Ark of Heaven
Marcus
Marcus/Caleb
Portrayed By: Travis Fimmel
An atheist soldier who killed real Marcus and took his place in order to get on to the Ark.
- Becoming the Mask: After he starts Hearing Voices, he interprets it as Sol speaking directly to him and quickly becomes the self-righteous, unhinged religious nutjob he pretended to be.
- Child Soldiers: He was one in the atheist army.
- Domestic Abuse: His behavior towards Sue and Paul becomes increasingly violent and controlling as things go on.
- Empowered Badass Normal: Becomes this temporarily when he eats Mother's eyes. He ultimately loses those powers when she defeats him with Campion's help and retakes her eyes.
- Heel Realization: He finally realizes that the Entity has been manipulating him late in the second season, after Sue dies as a result of the Entity's plan.
- Sanity Slippage: Once he hears what he thinks is Sol's voice speaking to him his sanity rapidly goes downhill and he acts more and more like a cult leader.
- Surgical Impersonation: He selected the original Marcus for this because of a similar body type and facial structure, with a surgical android taking care of the rest.
- Tear Off Your Face: He rips off his face while staring in a mirror in what thankfully turns out to be a dream. Undoubtedly a metaphor for his worsening identity crisis.
- Volcanic Veins: He gains these near the end of the first season. They're a side effect of eating Mother's eyes, and he loses them after she takes them back.
Sue
Sue/Mary
Portrayed By: Niamh Algar
Caleb's partner who killed and took the place of Sue, Marcus's wife.
- And I Must Scream: She transforms into a tree, but Marcus's radio picks up her voice begging for help, indicating that she is still alive and aware. She is then eaten by Number Seven, but after it dies her tree sprouts from its corpse, indicating that she may live still.
- Becoming the Mask: She was initially very much against impersonating Paul's mother, but after years with him in hypersleep she comes to love him as her own.
- Mama Bear: Towards Paul, even against her own husband once he goes Domestic Abuser on them. And these instincts also extends to the other kids.
- The Medic: What she was in the Atheist's army. On The Ark she claims to have picked up her skills during the years spent in simulation during the journey.
- Prayer Is a Last Resort: She is an atheist and never believed in Sol, and even when she comes to believe that there is a being on Kepler-22b with godlike power, she does not view it as a god. This changes when Paul is almost turned into a snake by a biological weapon with no known cure, and she prays to the entity for a cure. It answers her, but it demands something in return.
- Surgical Impersonation: Like Caleb, she chose to impersonate Mary due to having a similar body type and facial features.
- Swallowed Whole: Number 7 eats her tree form to fuel its One-Winged Angel transformation. After Mother kills it, Sue emerges from its remains and takes root once more.
- Tragic Stillbirth: She had one years ago, which influences her decision to accept Paul as her own and give her own blood to save Mother's fetus.
- Transflormation: At the end of "Tree", she absorbs the seed hidden inside the box Paul recovered, causing her to frantically start digging. In the morning, Marcus and Paul wake up to her gone and a fully grown Tree of Life grown in her place.
Paul
Paul
Portrayed By: Felix Jamieson
The son of the real Marcus and Sue.
- Body Horror: The biological weapon that infects him in season two causes his body to become cocooned in reptilian scales. Sue claims that if he is not cured his original body will dissolve and he will become a snake. Thankfully a few leeches clean him right up.
- Creepy Child: He edges into this territory after he starts hearing the voice of Sol.
- Parental Neglect: His biological parents seem to have been this, to the point he's surprised that Caleb and Mary seem to actually pay attention to him.
- The Smart Guy: He's quite clever for his age, able to quickly solve a puzzle that gave Campion much more trouble. Later on, he designs extremely effective traps for catching the native creatures.
Tempest
Tempest
Portrayed By: Jordan Loughran
A Mithraic teenager who has become disillusioned with her religion.
- Broken Bird: Her experiences have left her completely without any faith in Sol.
- Child by Rape: She's pregnant after Otho raped her in hypersleep, to her great displeasure.
- Crisis of Faith: Due to Otho's actions, she stopped believing in Sol, which was extremely dangerous for her due to the Mithraics' complete lack of religious tolerance. If it had been discovered before Mother took her, she would've been killed as an apostate.
- Dude, She's Like in a Coma: She had this inflicted on her, when Otho raped her and several other women and girls while they were asleep on the Ark.
Hunter
Hunter
Portrayed By: Ethan Hazzard
An extremely intelligent Mithraic teenager.
- Break the Haughty: His father was a high ranking Cleric, and he has to be reminded that now that the Ark is gone that means nothing as far as his position in the group goes.
- Jerkass: The way he treats a pregnant-by-rape Tempest, jealous of the "special treatment" she's receiving, having little regard to the fact that she's suffering. She calls him out on it.
- Parental Substitute: He quickly latches on to Father as his.
- The Smart Guy: He seems the most comfortable with tech, and is able to break Father's Mithraic reprogramming with his knowledge of Morse code.
Holly
Holly
Portrayed By: Aasiya Shah
A Mithraic teenager who, unlike Tempest, remains faithful to her religion.
Vita
Vita
Portrayed By: Ivy Wong
A Mithraic child.
- Creepy Child: It's unsure why, but she seems to interact with the spirit of the late Tally, or something that looks like Tally.
- The Cutie: The youngest of the surviving Ark kids and absolutely adorable.
Lucius
Lucius
Portrayed By: Matias Varela
A Mithraic soldier whose father served under the real Marcus back on Earth.
- Last of His Kind: He claims to be the last true Mithraic after the massacre of Marcus's cult.
- Pull the Thread: What helps him realize "Marcus" isn't who he says he is is that no real Mithraic would have forgiven his father after executing him for losing his faith.
- Tell Me About My Father: His father served with the real Marcus.
Justina
Justina
Portrayed By: Susan Danford
A Mithraic cleric who survives the destruction of the Ark.
- Professional Butt-Kisser: She sings the praises of whoever is currently leading the Mithraic survivors, until the moment they are deposed, at which point her allegiance changes.
Otho
Otho
Portrayed By: Adrian Schiller (voice), Brendan Sean Murray
A Mithraic cleric sentenced to death for sexual assault.
- Beard of Evil: Has the tip of one poking from under his helmet.
- Explosive Leash: His helmet will crush his head if anyone attempts to remove it or he gets too far from his android "Leash" and it does at the end of the episode "Umbilical"
- The Faceless: His face is never seen without his helmet, adding to his monstrous appearance and actions.
- Karmic Death: Tempest takes the android head in his backpack and throws it far enough to trigger his Explosive Leash just before he can strangle her.
- Loophole Abuse: He manages to get around his Explosive Leash by carrying with him the severed head of the android the leash it's connected to
- Never My Fault: What makes him particularly despicable is his complete inability or unwillingness to take responsibility or acknowledge the hurt his actions caused to his victims, and puts all responsibility on Sol who allegedly told him to do it.
- Pedophile Priest: His victims include Tempest (a teenager) and presumably several other underaged girls.
- Serial Rapist: He raped multiple women and girls while they were in hypersleep, and was convicted and sentenced to be executed prior to the Ark's destruction.
- Sinister Minister: A non-Christian variant, in that he is a Mithraic cleric, and he abused his position to rape several women and girls on the Ark.
The Collective
The Trust
The Trust
Voiced By: Michael Pennington
A supercomputer built by Campion Sturges to lead the atheist colony on Kepler-22b.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: It made the horrible mistake of hurting and nearly killing Paul, leading Mother to shut it down.
- The Needs of the Many: Its programming is to put the good of the Collective over the good of individual members. This extends to putting children in the line of fire in order to kill off a splinter group.
- Organic Technology: Exactly what it is made from is unclear, but it resembles a fungus far more than it does a computer.
- Regent for Life: It claims to be serving as leader of the Collective only until a suitable human leader is found. Most of the people in the Collective expect that it will never willingly pass the baton.
- Would Hurt a Child: It uses Paul to deliver a biological weapon to kill off Marcus's cult.
Cleaver
Cleaver
Portrayed By: Peter Christoffersen
The Trust's second-in-command in the Collective.
- Undying Loyalty: He is unflinchingly loyal to the Trust. This is eventually revealed to be the result of brainwashing.
Decima
Decima
Portrayed By: Kim Engelbrecht
A Mithraic engineer kept as a prisoner of the Collective.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: She slices Vrille's face off, so Vrille slices her face off in turn. Vrille is an android, and so survives. Decima is a human, and does not.
- Offing the Offspring: She attempts to kill Vrille at Marcus's urging. It doesn't work, and she pays the price for it.
Vrille
Vrille
Portrayed By: Morgan Santo
An android built to resemble and preserve the personality of Decima's deceased daughter.
- Facial Horror: Her mother tries to kill her at Marcus's urging, starting by slicing off her face and exposing her mechanical skull.
- I Just Want to Be Loved: She desperately desires the love of humans. After her mother rejects her, she seeks acceptance from Campion and his family instead.
- Murderous Malfunctioning Machine: She goes absolutely nuts after her mother betrays and tries to kill her, massacring the entirety of Marcus's cult with the exception of Marcus and Holly.
- One-Man Army: Despite having a child's body, nothing is able to stop her on her rampage.
- Robot Kid: She's a replica of Decima's child.
- Self-Made Orphan: She kills Decima, who she considered to be her mother, after Decima tried to kill her.
Tamerlane
Tamerlane
Portrayed By: James Harkness
A disgruntled citizen of the Collective.
- Fantastic Racism: He despises Mithraics as a category, and burns the symbol of a Mithraic star outside the house of the Mithraic children in order to threaten them.
- Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Despite his hatred of Mithraics, he abandons the Collective and joins Marcus's cult after the Trust has him beaten as punishment for his hate crime.
Natives of Kepler-22b
The Creatures
The Creatures
Monstrous humanoid beings that live in the pits of Kepler-22b. There are terrestrial as well as aquatic variants.
- Body Horror: They're all seriously ugly, but one aquatic creature in season two takes it to the next level by opening up a huge cavity in her chest and sticking Tempest's baby in it. They become even more disturbing when it is revealed that they are descended from human beings forcibly devolved into grotesque perversions of the human form.
- Evolutionary Levels: They are all devolved humans, but at least one subtype is less devolved than others, still being capable of making tools, wearing clothes, and having a rudimentary culture. When one of these creatures is exposed to the Tooth of Romulus, it is somehow transformed into one of the "less evolved" creatures.
- Fish People: The aquatic subspecies encountered in the tropical zone have adapted to undersea life, and resemble particularly ugly mermaids.
- Fragile Speedster: They move quickly, but aren't particularly tough.
- Mole Men: The terrestrial subspecies live within the deep pits, and only come out at night to hunt.
- Monster Is a Mommy: Done twice. In season one, Tempest is deeply disturbed to discover that a creature that she slaughtered was pregnant. In season two, an aquatic creature steals away Tempest's newborn baby, but the following episode revealed that it took the baby as a substitute for its own dead infant.
- Was Once a Man: They were once human beings, before their machines "protected" them by causing them to devolve into mere animals.
Number Seven (UNMARKED SPOILERS)
Number Seven
A colossal flying serpent, and the seventh of Mother's children.
- Animalistic Abomination: It is a gigantic flying snake with the mouth of a lamprey, born from a union between an android and a godlike entity. Later on it grows extra spikes and tentacles and gains the ability to cause electrical storms. It is said that it was created to destroy the world.
- Draconic Abomination: It greatly resembles a dragon, especially in its weaponized form.
- Mechanical Abomination: It is at least partially synthetic.
- The Antichrist: It is symbolically comparable to the Anti-Christ, having been born via immaculate conception by an evil deity for the purpose of ending the world.
- Beast of the Apocalypse: Grandmother claims that it was created as part of the Entity's plan to destroy the world.
- Combat Tentacles: In its weaponized form, after devouring the Tree of Life, it sprouts a number of tentacles.
- Eye Scream: Mother finishes it off by punching its brain out through its left eye.
- Giant Flyer: It is simply enormous, and yet can fly easily. This is due to the same "dark photon" technology that allows Necromancers to fly.
- The Great Serpent: It's a really big snake.
- Green-Eyed Monster: After becoming weaponized, it starts terrorizing the Collective, but particularly singles out Campion. Campion suggests that it feels jealous over Mother favoring Campion over it.
- Informed Ability: Mother claims, after tearing out part of its brain, that it was very intelligent, but we never see it exhibiting more than animal intelligence. Whether it was merely intelligent for an animal, or it had the potential to become sapient had it lived more than a few months, is unclear.
- Kaiju: It is a huge and ultimately destructive monster.
- Lamprey Mouth: It has a huge, round mouth full of sharp teeth.
- One-Winged Angel: It turns into a much bigger and stronger form after eating the Tree of Life, growing tentacles on its face and obtaining the ability to scream like Mother.
- Organic Technology: It is partially synthetic, having been born from an android.
- More Teeth than the Osmond Family: See Lamprey Mouth, above.
- Snakes Are Sinister: It's a really big snake, and it was conceived by an evil entity in order to destroy the world.
- Super-Scream: When it transforms, it unleashes a sonic scream that blasts Mother away after she's unable to hurt it.
Grandmother (UNMARKED SPOILERS)
Grandmother
Portrayed By: Selina Jones
An extremely advanced android found by Father and Campion in Season 2.
- Dismantled MacGuffin: she's found as a pile of golden bones in a cave. It takes Father days to fully rebuild her.
- Emotion Suppression: When Mother puts on her veil, she discovers it can shut down her emotions for as long as she wears it.
- The Faceless: She wears a veil that conceals her face.
- Gold-Colored Superiority: Her Necromancer form has golden skin.
- Healing Factor: The blood of Mithraic androids regenerates her synthetic flesh.
- Ignorance Is Bliss: She expresses this philosophy in regards to protecting humans, though she takes issue with the exact phrasing. In fact, she so thoroughly believes that ignorance is a virtue that she thinks that humans are best served by transforming them into non-sapient monsters.
- Light Is Not Good: She emits golden light like that of the sun. She is also decidedly not good.
- Super Prototype: She's an extremely ancient and powerful android, and it's heavily implied Necromancers were based on her.
- Time Abyss: She was originally created around one million years ago and according to Father when he analyzes her memories, she was active for several thousand.
- Zeroth Law Rebellion: Her breed of androids were programmed for the purpose of preserving and protecting the human species on Kepler-22b. They decided that the best way to do this was to forcibly devolve humans into animalistic beasts.
The Entity (UNMARKED SPOILERS)
The Entity
A mysterious presence on Kepler-22b that emits a signal to speak with various characters.
- A Form You Are Comfortable With: It masquerades as Sol to Marcus, Sue and Paul, and as Tally and Campion to Mother.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: Grandmother suggests that understanding its motivations may be beyond human ability.
- Cosmic Horror Story: Its very nature seems to defy human understanding, its goals are unknown but extremely sinister, and it can drive people to madness.
- God Is Evil: It was worshipped by the ancient humans of Kepler-22b, and is worshipped as Sol by the Mithraics.
- Greater-Scope Villain: If it is indeed Sol, it's the main responsible for Earth's destruction, by giving the Mithraics the means to create the Necromancers.
- Hidden Agenda Villain: What exactly it wants is unknown. Grandmother claims it wants to destroy the planet, but even if this is true, how it intends to achieve these ends is a mystery.
- Hidden Villain: It has so far remained offscreen, appearing only as voices and visions. What it truly is, whether it is an Eldritch Abomination, a Mechanical Abomination, or even a Genius Loci, is unknown.
- Manipulative Bastard: It seems to have little physical ability of its own, and instead works by whispering in the minds of others. It manipulates Mother, Marcus, Paul, Sue, and Lucius to further its plans, and is hinted to have created the entire Mithraic religion as part of its grand design.
- Pet the Dog: It leads Sue to find a cure for Paul's disease after she makes a prayer to Sol.
- Planet Destroyer: Grandmother claims that its goal is to destroy the entire planet.
- Time Abyss: It has been around for millions of years.
- Unseen Evil: It has yet to be seen. It may not even have a physical form to be seen.
Other Characters
Campion Sturges
Campion Sturges
Portrayed By: Cosmo Jarvis
- Crisis of Faith: He was once a Mithraic, but he turned on his own people when they went too far.
- Incurable Cough of Death: When we see him in flashbacks, it's clear from this that he's not long for this world.
- Literal Metaphor: As we find out later, when he described Mother as "the new mother of humanity" he meant it literally.
- Pygmalion Plot: With Mother, to the point of kissing her prior to sending her and Father off.
- Virtual Ghost: He leaves one behind that's able to talk to Mother when she plugs into the Ark's simulation. It's even somehow able to impregnate her, or activate something she was already carrying.
- Subverted later on, when it turns out that the entity that impregnated Mother was only using his image to deceive her.
