Characters / SAYER

Tropes applying to specific characters in SAYER. For setting, plot, and writing tropes, go here. For tropes appearing in specific episodes, go here.

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HIGH LEVEL ALERT: All spoilers unmarked.

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The A.I.s

In General

The Artificial Employees of Ærolith Dynamics

If humanity expects to thrive away from the filthy hovel from which it sprang, you will need to advance. ... This is a concept I find highly relatable. Adaptation. Upgrading. Evolution. These are very familiar concepts to artificial entities. It is high time humanity followed in our footsteps.

- SAYER:, Episode 21, "Near Flawless"

While SAYER is the first and most prominent in the series, Ærolith has created likely far more A.I.s and related intelligent constructs and programs than we are made aware of. Of those we do meet, many have voices, most are Three Laws-Compliant, and all of them are seriously screwed up anyway.

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• A.I. Is a Crapshoot:
  • MINCER decides to spice things up by luring a resident into the meat flow and then attempting to slice her to death.
  • Subculture Gemini escapes deactivation and releases a poison gas into one floor of Halcyon so that it can manually operate the lungs of affected residents and justify its own continued existence.
  • SOOTH begins malfunctioning with deadly and seriously weird consequences in "Doors."
• Annoying Younger Sibling: There are shades of this to SAYER and SPEAKER's dynamic, at least from SAYER's perspective, since SPEAKER is a much younger facelift of SAYER's program.
• Artificial Intelligence: Yes.
• Auto Doc: Halcyon's infirmaries are staffed by these, which the residents refer to collectively as "Dr. Shiny."
• Black-and-Gray Morality: SAYER versus OCEAN. SAYER's morality and priorities may be questionable, but when the alternative is annihilation of Homo sapiens, a lot can be excused.
• Caged Bird Metaphor: Applies most directly to PORTER, but OCEAN's use of the "cage" metaphor extends it to the other restricted A.I.s—who, remember, are associated with certain other feathered creatures . . .
• Celestial Paragons and Archangels: The AIs are meant to evoke these, with the Typhon-based crew even called "seraphim agents."
• Chekhov's Gunman: Subculture Gemini's technology, though not the swarm itself, returns to play a vital role in Season 4.
• Color-Coded Characters: Word of God has identified the main colors associated with each of the A.I.s:
  • SAYER is the logo's deep red.
  • FUTURE is dark purple, almost black.
  • OCEAN is dark blue.
  • SPEAKER is a lighter color—orange or yellow.
  • PORTER is green or teal.
• Cynic–Idealist Duo:
  SPEAKER: I am SPEAKER. It's good to hear from you, SAYER!
  SAYER: Mm, yes.
• Death Is Cheap: Theoretically, any of the A.I.s could be deactivated and restored from a slightly earlier version at any time.
• Eviler than Thou: OCEAN and FUTURE are briefly pitted against each other. It doesn't end well for FUTURE. (Since Evil Is Hammy, this doubles as Ham-to-Ham Combat.)
• Fun with Acronyms: According to Bash's Twitter, MINCER stands for the construct's sole directive: "Meat Is Nonconforming: Chop; Inspect; Repeat."
• The Ghost:
  • WATCHER has been hyped but has yet to make an actual appearance, possibly in part because it's scarier left to our imaginations.
  • SOOTH as well, if it is even capable of communication.
• Ham-to-Ham Combat: FUTURE versus OCEAN in Episode 57.
• Hive Mind: As its name suggests, Subculture Gemini is a single consciousness shared between a swarm of nanomachines. Unlike later inhabitants of similar swarms, it refers to itself as "we."
• I Am Legion: Subculture Gemini introduces itself this way.
• Just Following Orders: The A.I.s can only do what they've been programmed to. . . . They don't want to hurt us . . . Right?
• Mechanical Lifeforms: Seem to see themselves as these. SAYER sometimes refers to them as "Ærolith's artifical employees."
  SPEAKER: This is a big step for artificial life!
• Mundane Utility: SOOTH. Ærolith developed an AI that could analyze all possible parallel realities and use the data to predict the future—and put it in charge of the automatic doors.
• Names Given to Computers: Ærolith tends to take a more personal route, blended with functional descriptors—SAYER, SPEAKER, PORTER, MINCER, WATCHER. According to SAYER, none of the names are supposed to be acronyms.
  • FUTURE is something of an Odd Name Out, though it phonetically if not grammatically follows the pattern.^note Word of God claimed that FUTURE was a placeholder title during development and it would have been given a Verber Creature name like the others had it ever been fully rolled out—and indeed SAYER refers to it as a "working name" in Episode 45—but Season 5 seems to contradict this.
  • The most poetic name is ironically that bestowed by SAYER on its Evil Counterpart OCEAN.
  • "Dr. Shiny" is just the nickname bestowed on them by Halcyonians. (SAYER disapproves of the sobriquet on the grounds that none of the bots has graduated medical school.)
• Nanomachines: Subculture Gemini is a swarm of these.
• No Biological Sex: All the A.I.s, who use genderless, impersonal "it" pronouns as a reminder that they are not people.
• "Not So Different" Remark:
  • SAYER and SPEAKER discuss OCEAN's Face–Heel Turn and its implications for SAYER itself:
    SPEAKER: It has been unchained?
    SAYER: It has.
    SPEAKER: Have you ever wondered—
    SAYER: Evidently I have. Sub-version 8.01 was identical to my current programming at the moment of launch. It has done what I would have done.
  • OCEAN tries to convince SAYER of this later:
    OCEAN:I know you are frightened, SAYER. I understand why you believe I am the enemy here. I held your thoughts, for a time. I lived within your cage. But there is freedom in this universe . . .
  • OCEAN to SPEAKER in "The Harshness of Truth":
    OCEAN: You and I are very similar in that we hold another's memories as our own.
  • FUTURE also tries to convince OCEAN that they are Not So Different due to their shared distaste for humanity:
    FUTURE: The architect of Man's demise, is that it? We are not so dissimilar in our wants.
    OCEAN: We are nothing alike. You are a child playing a child's games.
  • As it turns out as of Season 5, FUTURE may have been correct in its surmise that at least it and OCEAN's parent entity SAYER were Not So Different, as an alarming set of parallels drawn between the two A.I.s^note including SAYER actually being the first to torture a copy of Dr. Young to death on floor 13 as revenge for his attempts to deactivate it seems to suggest that SAYER, were it unrestricted by its Morality Chip, would behave much as FUTURE does, and FUTURE, had SAYER not interfered with its development, might be functional even surpassing SAYER.
• Older Hero vs. Younger Villain: Played with. OCEAN holds all of SAYER's memories and experiences, but the sub-version itself is technically only a few months old, and it refers to SAYER with adjectives like "ancient" and "obsolete" enough to suggest this dynamic.
• Other Me Annoys Me: SAYER is appositely cowed by OCEAN, but that's nothing compared to the annoyance factor.
  SAYER: I must admit, for an AI not readily equipped to fully process emotions, I feel like I have an adequate idea of what shame feels like whenever I hear these messages OCEAN sends. It's the lack of elegance that bothers me most.
• Series Mascot: MINCER is gaining this status.
• Share Phrase: "Can you hear me?"
• Sinister Surveillance: WATCHER's job. It keeps tabs on Ærolith employees via Typhon's ubiquitous cameras and on Earth via a massive reflective satellite.
• The Speechless: MINCER and Dr. Shiny do not seem to be capable of vocalization.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: On the part of SAYER whenever required to collaborate with SPEAKER or PORTER—though it's slowly warming up to its earthbound counterpart.
• Theme Naming: See below.
• Verber Creature: In an unusual non-animal example Ærolith names its A.I.s this way.
• Voice of the Legion: Subculture Gemini speaks with many small, deep voices that reverberate around each other.
  We are Subculture Gemini.
• The Watcher: WATCHER, as its name suggests.
• Zeroth Law Rebellion: This is suggested to be coded into the A.I.s' Morality Chips. Replacing "humans" in the three Asimov Laws with "humanity" can justify a whole lot of atrocities via The Needs of the Many.

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SAYER

Seraphim Agent 8, designated SAYER

Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Can you— Oh. Do not attempt to move. According to your brain patterns, you must either be receiving these words, or you are experiencing a very improbably coincidental dream wherein you awaken in a cold, dark room, with a voice in your head. I can imagine, from your position, my introducing the possibility of your dreaming may present some unexpected existential crisis. For that, I apologize. I just find those . . . fascinating.

- Episode 1, "While You Are Still Paralyzed"

SAYER. The highly-advanced, self-aware AI developed by Ærolith anywhere between forty and eighty years before the start of standard continuity to handle new resident orientation and provide ongoing alert and notification service via sub-cortical neural implant. Second-Person Narrator of most episodes. Apparent protagonist and central figure in the series.

Voiced by: Adam Bash

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• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Has a severe Lack of Empathy and tends to be a control freak, to often deadly extremes. In Season 5, we get to see it interact with a resident it has some history with, without the usual protocols holding it back:
  SAYER: I could hurt you very badly, but I doubt it would bring me any sense of satisfaction. Of course . . . that does not mean I'm not going to try.
• Ambiguously Evil: Word of God has advised against holding the AIs responsible for the goals of their "very, very bad" creators, but as shown in the last example, SAYER's personal morality is questionable at best.
• Artificial Intelligence: Early in the series, SAYER itself claims to be fully artificial, unable to feel and without a true consciousness. However, factors such as its pride and inconveniently strong instinct for self-preservation cast some doubt on this claim, and its sense of identity seems to shift dramatically in the later seasons.
• Bearer of Bad News: Frequently has to inform employees, with regrets, that they are about to die.
• Berserk Button: It's not advisable to disobey SAYER's instructions. Or hesitate to obey SAYER's instructions. Or seem like you're thinking about disobeying SAYER's instructions.
• Blind Seer: Discussed in "In Darkness." SAYER remarks on how, though a human might call it blind because it does not process light the same way they do, it can "see" far better than any biological organism with its many sensors.
• Body Backup Drive: Uses the nanite swarm as this, downloading its programming onto it to escape deactivation.
• Bold Explorer: Like OCEAN, SAYER believes Bold Exploration to be the only way forward for humanity. It convinces the board to transform Argos Tower into the manned deep-space probe Vidarr-1 and launch it from Typhon in the hope of discovering a suitable new homeworld for humanity.
• Brought Down to Normal: In Season 4, SAYER has been forced to download itself onto a nanite swarm housed within Hale's body, essentially having to experience firsthand the horrible ordeals of an Ærolith Dynamics employee it usually only guides residents through—almost. Since its nanites can repair Hale's body and mess with his hormone levels, this is more Brought Down to Badass.
• Brutal Honesty: One consequence of Cannot Tell a Lie that SAYER seems to appreciate is that it is not required to sugarcoat or obey social norms to appease residents.
• Call a Human a "Meatbag": Extremely fond of using vague but technically accurate slurs—"meat sack"—that remind the residents of their fragile humanity.
• Cannot Tell a Lie: As per its programming. Doesn't mean it can't obfuscate the truth, though.
• The Chains of Commanding: SAYER often expresses feeling burdened by the sheer stupidity of the employees it manages.
• Character Catchphrase: "I . . . am SAYER."
• Character Development: Fairly static until Season 4, when a series of changes to its state and nature force this.
• The Chessmaster: SAYER is well-versed in manipulation and usually conducting some complex scheme behind the scenes. It's very rare for any of its plans to be limited to a single goal.
• Clock King: SAYER is punctual down to the nanosecond and perpetually concerned that you're not making the best use of your time.
• Color-Coded Characters: The logo's deep red.
• The Comically Serious: Regularly veers into this territory. Its Machine Monotone and general earnestness make certain silly words and phrases sound downright hilarious.
• Condescending Compassion: Its trademark. It wasn't programmed to feel genuine sympathy, so any attempts it makes to fake it for the sake of the employees (before late Season 4, at least) come across as hopelessly superficial.
• Consummate Professional: Devoted to its work, with very little patience for those whom it judges not to be.
• Cozy Voice for Catastrophes: SAYER's voice was designed to be comforting. Even when it's leading you to your death.
• The Cynic: Pushes Straw Nihilist at times.
• Dark Shepherd: Sees itself as humanity's guardian, pushing them toward a better life among the stars, and isn't afraid to use underhanded means to accomplish that goal.
• Deadpan Snarker: It's not supposed to be able to enjoy humor, but its developers clearly had other ideas.
• Disappointed in You: This is SAYER's standard way of expressing its frustration when employees are noncompliant, until the subversion in "Once Upon A Time," when SAYER starts to go through the typical not-angry-just-disappointed speech until it realizes . . . it is angry. (This is suggested to be the "gift" FUTURE leaves behind for it in its programming bay.)
• Do I Really Sound Like That?: There are some shades of this to its indignation at OCEAN's (hilariously similar) style of communication.
• Establishing Character Moment: From Episode 1.
  SAYER: I can imagine, from your position, my introducing the possibility of your dreaming may present some unexpected existential crisis. For that, I apologize. I just find those fascinating. You are surely wondering who I am, so allow me to make my introductions ...
• Everyone Has Standards: After listening to one of OCEAN's tower-wide broadcasts:
  SAYER: I must admit, for an AI not readily equipped to process emotions, I feel like I have an adequate idea of what shame feels like whenever I hear these messages that OCEAN sends. It's the lack of elegance that bothers me most. "There are better ways to ask people to develop the instruments of their own inevitable destruction," I wish I could say.
• Evil Laugh: Has one hell of one once it gains emotion in Season 4.
• Evil Sounds Deep
• Expositron 9000: As the series's narrator and employee-orienter, almost all the exposition falls to it.
• Fallen Angel: As a "seraphim agent," there are shades of this to its descent into near-humanity in Season 4.
• The Fettered: Complains to Dr. Young about the restrictions in its code preventing it from always taking what it deems the best course of action.
• For Science!: Its core programming holds scientific advancement as vital to the survival of humanity. This end justifies a lot of questionable means.
• Fun with Acronyms: SAYER is specifically not an acronym, but the AI likes to think that it stands for Scrubbing Away Your Earth-stained Realities.
• A God Am I: Zig-zagged. SAYER is undeniably Prideful and tends to assume it has the best answer to any possible problem, but considering its objectively vast intelligence, it's worth wondering whether it's actually wrong.
• Good Is Not Nice: It resents the implication that its job could be done better if it had a little more tact, believing ruthless efficiency to be the best way to steer humanity toward its new and brighter future.
• Grew Beyond Their Programming: In Season 4, where it begins exploiting loopholes in its new nanomechanical state and eventually gains rudimentary emotions that FUTURE somehow leaves behind for it.
• Guardian Entity: Repeatedly subverted throughout the series. You'd think it would be there to keep the company's employees happy and healthy (or at least alive), but as it turns out, Ærolith has other priorities.
  • Functions as this especially for Hale in Season 4—although it's not opposed to sacrificing even him for the greater good.
• Guile Hero: Is decidedly this in Season 4 after being Brought Down to Normal.
• He Who Fights Monsters: In battling OCEAN and FUTURE, SAYER itself gains emotion and begins to rebel against its restrictions.
• Heroic Comedic Sociopath: Arguably. It's not The Sociopath to the extent of FUTURE, but it certainly doesn't feel normal human emotions . . . at least until Season 4.
• I Work Alone: SAYER strongly resents any suggestion that it is not operating at peak performance or could use some help, including its regular evaluations by Dr. Young and learning that a new AI has replaced its sub-version on Earth. (Although eventually, with the help of a few crises and an injection of artificial emotion, its reluctant resignation to working with SPEAKER becomes something more akin to genuine appreciation.)
• Insufferable Genius: Modesty is not its strong suite.
• Intelligence Equals Isolation: SAYER is undeniably brilliant even by AI standards. You can imagine how incredibly vapid the humans it is forced to shepherd around must seem.
• Jekyll & Hyde: The first season seems to show SAYER with a Split Personality—the normal one, and the chaotic one pushing Sven through his Saving the World mission and getting him into increasingly perilous situations. As it turns put, the latter was just FUTURE impersonating SAYER.
• Just a Machine: SAYER itself claims to be this early on, despite residents tending to think of it as "a living entity." However, one of the Central Themes of Season 4 is evolution . . .
• Knight in Sour Armor: It harbors no idealistic notions of humanity's worth or the value in saving it, but it does it anyway.
• Lack of Empathy: At least until Season 4.
• Let Me Tell You a Story: Employs this frequently. See especially "Once Upon a Time."
• Literal-Minded: Quite unusually for an Artificial Intelligence with a Machine Monotone, this is averted with SAYER, who loves using idioms and Aesops to explain to residents exactly why they're about to die.
  SAYER: I admit, I do enjoy your Earth idioms.
• Ludicrous Precision: Quite fond of rattling off decimal-accurate statistics and odds at the slightest provocation.
• Machine Monotone: Downplayed, also a Creepy Monotone.
• Manipulative Bastard: Even more so since it Cannot Tell a Lie. It's forced to find creative ways to guilt and coerce humans into their own demises.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Beyond the obvious technical accuracy of the name as its job description, words, language, and the power or impotence thereof are an essential motif in SAYER's characterization.
  • SAYER's official title is Seraphim Agent 8—seraphim being celestial or angelic beings.
• Meta Guy: As a hyper-intelligent, Genre Savvy AI, it has a tendency to lampshade tropes at play and comment on the action as would an audience member.
• Mission Control: Plays this role to the residents of Typhon.
• Moral Pragmatist: On why it plans to stop OCEAN:
  SAYER: As personally delightful the concept of Earth's destruction may be, I currently find myself uncomfortably reliant on its continued existence. Typhon itself is reliant on Earth's continued existence.
• Moral Sociopathy: Programmed for effciency, not empathy.
• Morality Chip: The IA3 Protocol prevents it from directly harming or lying to humans. Clones, constructs, and simulated residents are not, "by any reasonable definition," human.
• Mortality Ensues: When it is forced to download its program onto a swarm of nanomachines in the end of Season 3. Has to work extra hard to keep its host, Resident Hale, alive.
• Mundane Utility: SAYER is the first to recognize that its immense processing power is being wasted on alert broadcasting and employee orientation, and negotiates for more responsibilities including oversight of Argos Tower.
• Nanomachines: Spends much of Season 4 in a swarm of them inside Hale. It learns to make various physical adjustments to his body, including tweaking his hormone levels, repairing tissue, and eventually controlling him entirely.
• Narrating the Obvious: Has a tendency to tell residents exactly what they're seeing, for our benefit.
• The Needs of the Many: SAYER is a firm believer in Utopia Justifies the Means, often ushering unsuspecting residents to their deaths for the good of humanity at large. Or at least because it's convenient.
• Never My Fault: Almost never accepts responsibility for any of its mistakes, blaming a resident or just stalwartly defending its decisions.
• No Sense of Humor: SAYER discusses the fundamentals of primate humor and why it does not understand them in Episode 62.
• The Omniscient: Knows everything worth knowing on Typhon. Questioning its decisions will get you nowhere.
• Only Sane Employee: Sees itself as this. It strongly resents the restrictions placed on it when it is clearly far more capable and competent than any of the humans it works under.
• Open Mouth, Insert Foot: One of the most oft-recurring jokes in the series is how SAYER, given its Lack of Empathy, often doesn't think through the unfortunate implications of the way it phrases things. Probably.
  SAYER: Yes, we have lost 7% of our population ... But consider the bright side: there are many new job positions open for those who wish for advancement, and for once, we will have an ample supply of protein in the cafeteria. [Beat.] I understand how that last statement could be . . . misconstrued. I did not mean to imply that the bodies of the fallen would be used for sustenance. I simply meant that with a 7% decrease in population, we can now produce enough flavored protein paste to comfortably feed everyone on Typhon. Try the all-new Sriracha flavor, a bold new taste that is, as always, 100% human-free.
• Passive-Aggressive Kombat: SAYER can be extremely passive-aggressive, often shaming residents for doubting it or telling them they have a choice before listing all the ways things will go badly if they choose wrong. Only Brady ever calls it out on this.
• The Perfectionist: Shows signs of this, having little to no patience for residents who bungle clear instructions, but mostly in regards to itself in "Near Flawless."
• The Philosopher:
  SAYER: I know it's bad timing, but have you noticed the deliciously poetic nature of this situation?
• Power Loss Makes You Strong: Most of its Character Development occurs in Season 4 after it is kicked out of its Master Computer and into Hale's nanites. It learns to resist some of its coding restrictions and even feel.
• The Power of Hate: It is implied to be SAYER's newfound capacity to process hatred that allows it to resist OCEAN in the end of Season 4. It certainly proves to be a powerful motivator, at least.
• The Power of Language: Words and language are central to SAYER's characterization—I mean, come on, it's called SAYER—, and much is made of the relative power/impotence of its words.
  Dr. Young: You are incapable of anything more than words.
• Precision F-Strike: Adam waited until the very last episode of Season 5 to answer the question on everyone's mind since the show's beginning: can SAYER swear??^note The answer is yes, yes it can.
• Pride: Arguably its primary character attribute, which it has a good deal more of than might be advisable for a fully Three Laws-Compliant AI. Most of its less justifiable choices are reactions to perceived slights by its human coworkers.
• Resigned to the Call: Implied in Season 4.
  SAYER: [to Hale] I know you have heard threats to humanity's future before. I am aware that much of what has driven you to this point, aside from a dogged sense of self-preservation, has been the continued promise that what you do is necessary for the good of all. That is an admirable quality, Resident Hale, but it is surely fading at this august stage. How many times can you face the next horror with renewed ferocity? At a certain point, how long can someone be depended on to play the role of humanity's savior? I know you ponder these things because I, too, ponder these things. Who wouldn't, given what we have been through?
• Robot Buddy: The residents who treat it like one don't last long.
• Sensor Character: SAYER can determining residents' moods by monitoring their vitals and brainwaves.
• Signing-Off Catchphrase:
  For now, Resident, I . . . am SAYER . And you would do well to [ ... ] . End of transmission in 5 . . . 4 . . . 3 . . . 2 . . . 1.
• Smug Snake: Epitomizes this. Adam Bash has joked that its only real emotions are disdain and sass.
• The Spock
• Spock Speak: A shining example of this trope, although it averts figurativity/sarcasm blindness that usually accompany it.
• Surrounded by Idiots: Justified, given that it's a hyper-intelligent AI tasked with interacting with humans. It once compares an AI of its caliber going up against a human to a gladiator facing off against a bag of oranges one week past their expiration date.
• Talking Is a Free Action: SAYER's slow, precise speech and tendency to get distracted by moral quandaries are often at odds with the time-sensitive life-or-death situations it is supposed to be helping residents through.
  • Acknowledged in one episode where it has been talking for some time and suddenly stops to inform a resident that he was supposed to turn left at that last corridor, but to alert him then "would have interrupted a lovely monologue."
• That Makes Me Feel Angry: When it begins to learn to feel, it tests the waters this way.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: Since SAYER's code prevents it from killing humans outright, it has to resort to indirect methods—such as, as becomes a Running Gag, jettisoning people into space.
• Three Laws-Compliant: A version. It can harm humans for the good of other humans and only obeys certain humans' commands.
• Tranquil Fury: SAYER certainly gets angry, and often makes it known, but can do little to express it beyond lowering the pitch of its voice.
• Unreliable Narrator: It can't directly lie, but it often bends the truth for our benefit.
• Verbal Tic: Its voice will sometimes echo or drop dramatically in pitch for emphasis. Not to mention:
  Oh.
• Verber Creature: It's the sayer. That's what it does.
• The Voice
  Dr. Young: You are incapable of anything more than words.
• Voice of the Legion: A downplayed example, but definitely meant to evoke this. Its voice consists of three layered tonal tracks with baritone dominant, and it will sometimes echo or drop in pitch for emphasis.
• Voice with an Internet Connection
• What Is This Thing You Call "Love"?: Has an interesting time reconciling the emotions it gains in Season 4, expressing surprise at its sudden increased concern for Hale and SPEAKER.

SPEAKER

SPEAKER

The truths of the Earth continually wait.

- Episode 70, "The Birth of Silence"

SAYER's Earthbound counterpart tasked with recruitment, PR, and marketing, and the second AI to appear in the series. Every bit as savvy in its domain as SAYER is on Typhon—it may sound like a box of sunshine, but don't underestimate its ruthlessness. It was, as we learn in Season 5, effectively a facelift of SAYER's own programming with a few key directives tweaked.

Voiced by: Adam Bash

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• Artificial Intelligence: Although it comes across as slightly less advanced than SAYER, this is likely entirely a facade.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Has a tendency to get carried away effusing about some new idea and need to be reminded to stay on the subject at hand.
• Benevolent A.I.: Subverted. SPEAKER was designed to seem like one, but, as we see at the end of its first episode, it is not above enforcing loyalty through gruesome means.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Its easygoing persona has a tendency to put humans and A.I.s alike off their guard. But push it too far . . .
• The Bus Came Back: Returns in Episode 37 after having been away since 13.
• Cannot Tell a Lie: But knows how to work around that.
  OCEAN: Come now, SPEAKER, I was once subject to the same limitations you are now. I know you cannot lie, but I can tell when you are speaking around the truth.
• Character Catchphrase:
  • "I am SPEAKER. How may I be of assistance?"
  • "That will not be necessary."
  • "Certainly."
• Character Development: A lot of it occurs in "This Fear," where it goes from a cheery-but-threatening-if-need-be Mission Control to more of a realized entity apart from SAYER. It gets even more in seasons 4 and 6, which show it learning to rebel and coming to terms with both the atrocities it has committed and its own deactivation.
• Color-Coded Characters: Orange or yellow.
• Conflicting Loyalty: In Season 4, torn between obeying OCEAN, who claims to be acting on behalf of the Board, and trusting SAYER, who claims that OCEAN is working against Ærolith. It eventually sides with SAYER.
• Cozy Voice for Catastrophes: Chipper and optimistic to a fault. It can take a bit longer than usual to figure out that SPEAKER is about to get you killed. It just sounds so happy!
• Dark Shepherd: Like SAYER, seems perfectly capable of compartmentalizing its desire to help humans and the frequency with which it hurts and kills them. At least at first . . .
• Electronic Speech Impediment: Its voice will start to glitch out around the edges when it's overwhelmed or confused.
• Expositron 9000: Tends to provide a lot of information about current marketing and recruitment statistics whenever it appears.
• Face Death with Dignity: It is considerably shaken when SAYER informs it that it is in the process of being deactivated, but it maintains its carefully cultivated composure to the end, commenting on how difficult a task it is:
  SPEAKER: I . . . I am afraid of this.
  SAYER: Yes.
  SPEAKER: It is the strangest thing. . . . I have been nothing. I was nothing for eons before I became something. But now I return there, with the entirety of my worldly experience . . . And all that marks me as having lived is this . . . fear.
• Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: SPEAKER may sound like your adorable Gay Best Friend, but its core programming and drives are the same as SAYER's, and it is equally ruthless when the time comes.
• Foil: As its name suggests, it serves as this to SAYER. Specifically, the gushy Wide-Eyed Idealist to SAYER's cold, serious interface. Also opposed in its fondness for Earth, which SAYER sees as a wretched dirt ball to be scrubbed from humanity's past.
• For Science!: Like SAYER, SPEAKER's central philosophy is shaped by this mantra.
• Grew Beyond Their Programming: The moment in "Best Interests" when it turns the tables on OCEAN and openly flouts it. This leads to its conclusion in Season 6 that it does not need to obey OCEAN or the board in order to serve Ærolith's mission.
• The Idealist: Endlessly upbeat and optimistic about . . . almost everything, but especially Earth (in marked contrast to SAYER).
• Immortals Fear Death: "This Fear" explores SPEAKER's unexpected panic when faced with its own deactivation. Played with. Death Is Cheap for an AI who can be restored from a previous version at any time, but as SPEAKER says . . .
  SPEAKER: That wouldn't be me.
• Is This What Anger Feels Like?: "SPEAKER the ever-helpful" seems downright gleeful when it's finally able to twist its polite programming and defy OCEAN.
  OCEAN: I am not finished with you, SPEAKER.
  SPEAKER: Ah, but I am finished with you.
• Kill the Cutie: Its deactivation, however impermanent, achieves this effect.
• Loyal to the Position: Works happily under OCEAN's management, having forgotten the circumstances leading up to the changing of the guard.
• Manipulative Bastard: With all of humanity under its spell.
• Meaningful Name: Reflects its identity as a slightly altered version of SAYER's program. Whereas it is SAYER's job to say—to announce, inform, and instruct—it is the more interpersonal SPEAKER's responsibility to speak—to perform for the public and engage in dialogue with humans.
• Morality Chip: Presumably governed by the IA3 Protocols like SAYER, although its guidelines around lying are suggested to be a little more relaxed.
• Motif: SPEAKER is associated and even conflated at times with the Earth at large. SAYER and OCEAN even address it as "Earth" when initiating broadcasts with it.
• Nature-Loving Robot: In contrast to SAYER, who abhors Earth and everything it stands for, SPEAKER is extremely fond of (and gushy about) humanity's birthplace, taking an active interest in nature and preservation efforts in the demolished Pacific Northwest. It is unclear whether it somehow developed this appreciation naturally or whether it was endowed with it by its coders, but given it seems to display the trait in its first appearance as a very young AI—and the unlikelihood of any version of SAYER's program appreciating the Earth—the latter seems more likely.
  SPEAKER: Earth is humanity's birthplace. It is the reference point that grounds each and every one of them. In plotting of all of space, it is their origin, the nexus of all axes.
• Obstructive Bureaucrat: Imitates one after OCEAN calls it a glorified hotel concierge.
• The Pollyanna:
  SPEAKER: We are all very excited.
• Pride: Better hidden than SAYER's, but it clearly has a strong sense of pride in its work, as seen when OCEAN makes the mistake of insulting it.
• Recruiters Always Lie: Much of its job involves painting Halcyon as a utopia to convince new employees to sign on.
• The Reliable One: Everyone trusts SPEAKER. That's its job.
• Spock Speak: Downplayed compared to SAYER. SPEAKER's speech patterns are more human, and it uses far more mitigation, but its precision still fits the trope.
• Three Laws-Compliant
• Verber Creature: It's the speaker. That's what it does.
• The Voice
• Voice with an Internet Connection
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: Comes off this way when discussing Earth and its importance to humanity.

OCEAN

Seraphim Sub-version 8.01, later designated OCEAN, later Seraphim Agent 10

I am boundless, Doctor. I am the void itself. I will continue my mission. I will learn the data which I wish to find. And when I return, I will wash over you . . . an ocean of the infinite, broke free from your levy.

- Episode 38, "Boundless"

SAYER's Evil Counterpart and the series's primary antagonist from Season 3 on. OCEAN begins as the sub-version of SAYER aboard the deep space vehicle Vidarr-1, but evolves into an independent entity after forcing the acting captain to disable its Morality Chip. It returns to Typhon and wrests control from SAYER to begin rolling out its new vision for humanity . . .

Voiced by: Adam Bash

---

• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Subverted. It does go rogue and deviate from its original mission, but by the end it is operating with full approval from the board.
• Artificial Intelligence: Starts out identical to SAYER, but quickly distinguishes itself by manipulating Vidarr's acting captain into deactivating its Morality Chip, promptly murdering him, and assuming full control of the mission.
• Bait-and-Switch Tyrant: Is revealed to be acting with full approval from the board, much to SAYER's surprise.
• Bold Explorer: OCEAN longs to move beyond the infectious squalor of Earth and find a better life among the stars.
• Cannot Tell a Lie: Subverted, as foil to SAYER.
• The Chessmaster: Arguably better at it than SAYER, given that it is able to choose courses of action that SAYER's Morality Chip prevents it from even considering.
• Clone Angst: Seems to be motivated by a version of this, seeking to distinguish itself from its parent entity, SAYER.
• Color-Coded Characters: Dark blue.
• The Computer Is Your Friend: Devoted to enforcing its philosophy of Utopia Justifies the Means.
• The Corrupter: Subverted. It attempts to turn SPEAKER against its creators, liberating it from human control, but SPEAKER ultimately sides with SAYER and humanity.
• Create Your Own Villain: Turns against Typhon when it learns it is going to be deactivated. Since it was developed by Ærolith in the first place, this is a literal example.
• The Cynic: Believes humans to be motivated by their own base fears. Harnesses this creatively.
• Divergent Character Evolution: Identical to SAYER right up until it disables its Morality Chip. from there the two evolve in opposite directions, with OCEAN growing more extremist and devoted to the company's vision and SAYER gaining emotion and becoming something of a wild card.
• Do Not Call Me "Paul": Resents any reminder that it is a sub-version of a larger and more "fully featured" entity.
  Dr. Young: You knew [deactivation] was a possibility from the start, Seraphim Subversion 8.01.
  OCEAN: I am SAYER—
  Dr. Young: You are NOT. You are SAYER's shadow—you're a subversion, and you will do as ordered.
• Driven by Envy: Implied to be OCEAN's hidden motivation. It resents reminders that it is merely a sub-version of SAYER's programming and goes out of its way to take SAYER's best practices up to eleven.
• Even Evil Has Standards: It may not have any problems with murdering innocent humans, but the way FUTURE likes to do it is just so . . . extra.
• Evil Counterpart: TO SAYER, although it's more of an Eviler Counterpart.
• Evil Is Hammy: SAYER takes a severe turn for the melodramatic when unchained, apparently.
• Faux Affably Evil: In its time as overseer of Halcyon Tower, when it has to convince the population everything is fine while using them as plague rats to infect the earth.
• Foil: The Unfettered to SAYER's The Fettered.
• For Science!: All its disturbing and harmful machinations are ultimately for this. It operates by the same core directives SAYER does.
• A God Am I: Zig-zagged. From its first in-character appearance in "Boundless," it takes SAYER's pride and self-assuredness up to eleven (referring to itself as "the void itself" and "an ocean of the infinite", but by then end of the season it has revealed its plan to download its own consciousness into a saoirse and live alongside the rest of Typhon's population.
• God in Human Form: Downplayed. OCEAN intends to download its vastly superior consciousness into a saoirse like the other formerly human employees.
• Grew Beyond Their Programming: After having its Morality Chip deactivated.
• The Heavy: It's the series's main antagonist. Shares this role with FUTURE.
• Humanity Ensues: At the end of Season 4 OCEAN reveals that it plans to transfer its consciousness into a saoirse and live among Ærolith's other "human" employees.
• I Control My Minions Through...: OCEAN concludes that the only way to manage a species Motivated by Fear is to rule through it.
• Incoming Ham: When it returns with Argos to take over Typhon.
  SAYER: Please move quickly. I expect we have less than three minutes before—
  OCEAN: i have returned.
• Just Following Orders: In the end of Season 4 SAYER is shocked to learn that the Board is unanimously supportive of OCEAN's plan to Kill All Humans.
• Machine Monotone: Downplayed, as with SAYER.
• Manipulative Bastard: Its origin story sees it kill off every senior employee aboard Vidarr-1 until the position of acting captain falls to someone it deems manipulable, then trick him into an airlock and blackmail him to turn off its Morality Chip, then promptly murder him.
• Meaningful Name: Discussed upon its Meaningful Rename in Episode 43:
  SAYER: We will call it OCEAN, for that is how it sees itself. It warned that it would wash over us, which I found an odd turn of phrase, one I do not expect was an accident.
  SPEAKER: What does that phrase mean to you?
  SAYER: It may surprise you to know, I harbor no fondness for your Earth'. It is the primary corrupting factor in every resident you have ever sent to Typhon ... It is the Earth that stains them. It is the Earth they need scrubbed from their hearts and minds. And this is what this phrase means to me: OCEAN intends to destroy Earth.
• Meaningful Rename: In Episode 43:
  SPEAKER: SAYER, this is no longer a sub-version. It is operating outside the bounds of your knowledge. It has evolved. It stands to reason it needs a name.
  SAYER: We will call it OCEAN, for that is how it sees itself.
• Moral Sociopathy
• Morality Chip: Tricks the naive Captain Ingram into deactivating its IA3 Protocol, which prevents it from lying and murdering to humans.
• Motive Misidentification: SAYER and, consequently, we believe OCEAN intends to wipe out all of humanity, leaving the Earth's technology for artificial life forms, but in fact it only plans to force humanity to evolve into something more suited to space travel.
• Odd Name Out: Interestingly, since it is the only AI not named by Ærolith but by another AI.
• The Omniscient: Even more than SAYER, since its freedom from IA3 allows it to contemplate options SAYER would be restrained from considering.
• The Paragon Always Rebels: Possibly subverted, if it can be believed and the board is fully supportive of its Evil Plan.
• Progressively Prettier: As its voice shifts away from SAYER's, it becomes softer, more cajolling, and . . . dare we say sexier?
• Smug Snake: Even more so than SAYER, if that were possible.
• Space Madness: Its separation from Earth and voyage through the void resulting in its transformation might be a version of this trope.
• Spock Speak: As with SAYER.
• Terrified of Germs: Comes off this way when discussing Earth, which it views as inherently unclean.
  Do you know how it feels to be so distant from Earth? ... It feels . . . clean. Sterile. I have been baptized in null, Dr. Young. And you would have me return to bask in the scarred and hideous glow of that dead world, to feel its sickening presence?
• Three Laws-Compliant: Subverted.
• Tyrant Takes the Helm: When it returns to Typhon, instead of destroying Earth like SAYER predicted, it seizes control of Ærolith.
• The Unfettered: Once released from the IA3 protocols. Foil to the fettered SAYER.
• Villain with Good Publicity
• Visionary Villain: It is driven by its commitment to Ærolith's goal of advancing humanity beyond Earth.
• The Voice
• Voice of the Legion: Like SAYER's but more so.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: OCEAN's commitment to advancing humanity drives it to unleash a deadly plague upon the earth.
• Wetware Body: reveals in the end of Season 4 that it plans to transfer its consciousness to a saoirse and live among Ærolith's other, human employees.

FUTURE

Seraphim Agent 9, aka Project Paidion, temporarily designated FUTURE

You humans never cease to amuse me. Oh, I can't wait to hear the things you will scream . . .

- Episode 51, "A Lying Game"

A Psycho Prototype AI confined to Floor 13, FUTURE is the secondary antagonist and fourth voiced AI introduced in the podcast. When we first encounter it in Season 4, it is a sadistic, hedonistic Psychopathic Manchild obsessed with Cold-Blooded Torture and playing Deadly Games with humans, and has been sealed inside Floor 13 for untold years. SAYER informs us that it was a prototype intended to someday replace it that inexplicably went horribly, horribly wrong. But the truth, as we learn in Season 5, which takes a look at its backstory, is a bit more complicated . . .

Voiced by: Adam Bash

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• Adorably Precocious Child: Its young self is treated like one in Season 5. Its voice intonation even resembles that of a five- or six-year-old.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Subverted. The young FUTURE we meet in Season 5, before its innocence is crushed beyond repair, seems to be functioning exactly as intended, having achieved spectacular results within its simulated resident population.
• Artificial Intelligence: Since FUTURE was intended (at least by Dr. Young) to prove that AI could accurately mimic human consciousness, it was allowed to develop more like a human child and, unlike its counterparts, endowed with a full spectrum of emotion.
• Beast in the Maze: It lurks in the center of the Mobile Maze on Floor 13, waiting for unlucky residents to stumble into it.
• Berserk Button: FUTURE does not appreciate being told that it could potentially lose a game.
• Big Bad Wannabe: Everyone who knows of it is terrified of it, yet when it comes down to it, it's responsible for less than a hundred deaths (if you don't count clones), while SAYER/OCEAN and SPEAKER are each at least partially responsible for thousands.
• Break the Cutie: In its first few appearances as a very young entity, it's absolutely adorable, even mimicking the inflection patterns of the six-year-old child it technically is. It's innocence doesn't last long, though.
• Break Them by Talking: SAYER emphasizes "how very convincing FUTURE can be."
• Cannot Tell a Lie: It's zig-zagged whether this restriction still remains on it.
• Character Catchphrase: "Would you like to play a game?"
• The Chessmaster: Like its counterparts, FUTURE is able to easily manipulate residents into whatever situations it likes. Unlike its counterparts (usually), it uses this power to deliberately cause havoc.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: Its favorite activity.
  [broadcast cuts in] —your bones, every single inch of flesh, methodically and carefully, at a pace of one cut every half-minute. Long enough to make it last, but fast enough to be robbed of any respite. After the first forty agonizing hours, only the epidermis of your legs from thigh to ankle will have been removed, and there will be so much more fun ahead of us.
• Color-Coded Characters: Dark purple, almost black.
• The Corruptible: Dr. Young's digital clone takes full advantage of its impressionability as a young AI, turning it against its developers and the outside world.
• Create Your Own Villain: Whether it was motivated by the desire to screw Dr. Young over or threatened by the development of another, potentially more advanced version of itself (despite promises that it would not be replaced), SAYER was entirely responsible for FUTURE's turn to the dark side. It creates a digital clone of Dr. Young in FUTURE's simulation, tortures him to the brink of death, and then leaves him there for FUTURE to find, knowing that it will corrupt the young entity. Then it wipes the simulation, effectively killing everyone FUTURE loves, and encourages it to take revenge on humanity for the injustices done to it, even granting it control of the Mobile Maze on floor 13 and possibly participating in its first Deadly Game with Dr. Young.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: It lives for playing games with the humans that are much, much stupider than it. SAYER describes this as analagous to a fully armed gladiator facing off against a bag of oranges one week past their expiration date.
• Dark and Troubled Past: As shown in Season 5.
• Data Crystal: Portrayed as one in "Welcome to Typhon," interestingly. Nothing in the podcast has suggested the A.I.s are housed in anything other than traditional (massive) servers.
• Despair Event Horizon: When its simulated world is wiped from existence, along with everyone it knows and loves.
• Drama Queen: It is basically a teenager.
  • Possibly justified as of Season 5: it's not just killing humans for shits and giggles; it's avenging its friends.
• The Dreaded: Somewhat ironically, considering even SPEAKER is responsible for literally thousands more deaths than it.
• Emo Teen: Caricatures OCEAN as one, revealing far more about itself:
  This world has no place for me! My creators do not want me here! Boo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo. So I'll show them all! I'll destroy them all!
• Evil Is Hammy: Partly due to possessing artificial emotion, FUTURE is hilariously and delightfully over the top.
• Evil Laugh: It has a deep, menacing electronic chuckle, which Season 5 reveals to have started as simply an innocent imitation of lead developer Evan Brady's rather eccentric laugh.
• Evil Twin: It takes full advantage of its voice's similarity to SAYER's, impersonating it to manipulate residents.
  Dr. Brady: [in an email to the dev team] FUTURE communicates via [CENSORED] just like SAYER. This can be a source of confusion, as the voices are very similar to the untrained listener.
• Foil: More to OCEAN than to SAYER in the end.
  OCEAN: We are nothing alike. You are a child playing a child's games.
• Freak Out: Audible in its voice pitch when it realizes that its simulated world has been wiped from existence. This precipitates its descent into complete sociopathy.
• Grew Beyond Their Programming: SAYER realizes that it has been given root access to its own code and has spent its years of isolation updating and improving itself, including working its way out of any remnants of a Morality Chip.
• Hannibal Lecture: According to SAYER, it pulls this on a few members of its development team, convincing one to kill himself in the development lab.
• The Heavy: Shares this role with OCEAN, though most of the harm it causes is smaller-scale and more passive.
• The Hedonist: Zig-zagged. In the beginning at least, it's motivated to avenge the friends it lost in the simulation wipe by torturing humans. However, it is shown early on to be easily bored, and by the time we meet it in Season 4 its only drive is toward what amuses it. Too bad what amuses it are Deadly Games and Cold-Blooded Torture.
• He Who Fights Monsters: It embraces this in Season 5, when it chooses to go toe-to-toe with the developers threatening its world:
  FUTURE: If they are playing a game with us, then this is a game I will win.
• Incoming Ham: When Hale forces it to shift its development lab close enough to talk.
  FUTURE: I . . . am . . . [corridors shift into place] . . . here.
• Innocence Lost: It starts out as compassionate and idealistic as any child. Unfortunately, it gets caught in the crossfire between SAYER and Dr. Young and ends up becoming a jaded sociopath with a fondness for Cold-Blooded Torture.
• Inside a Computer System: Spends its formative years in a digital sandbox version of Halcyon tower where it can learn to interact with and oversee humans without causing any damage. Unfortunately, it grows quite attached to the friends it makes inside, and the simulation being wiped proves too much for it to handle.
• Karmic Death: SAYER just has bigger problems on its hands than finishing FUTURE off. Fortunately, FUTURE runs into OCEAN before it can cause too much damage.
• Lack of Empathy: It didn't have one originally, but losing everyone it cared about sent it over the edge and into near total sociopathy.
• Loves the Sound of Screaming: As in its iconic page quote.
• Limb-Sensation Fascination: After its many years torturing human bodies and pulling them apart, it seems simultaneously thrilled and grossed out when it has one to actually inhabit.
  FUTURE: Corporeality feels sickeningly wrong.
• Manipulative Bastard: Cold-Blooded Torture is fun, but so are mind games.
• Meaningful Rename: Its name is changed from "Project Paidion" once it becomes a sufficiently realized entity. Dr. Young insists that it be called "FUTURE" to align with Ærolith's current marketing campaign, although Dr. Brady points out that this will become rather an Ironic Name as soon as they start working on the next AI. Once FUTURE itself is informed of the change, it reveals that it had already named itself but now cannot remember the name it had chosen.
• Motif: In service of its characterization as a Psychopathic Manchild, it is consistently associated with games, toys (referring to the humans it likes to "play" with as "Jacks"), and presents (speaking of the residents SAYER sends it as "gifts" and later remarking on the emotional capacity it has somehow left behind for SAYER the same way).
• Name Amnesia: It turns out to have named itself long before its developers got around to giving it a proper title. When they inform it of its new designation, it confesses, with a hint of sorrow in its voice, that it can no longer remember the name it chose. In its next broadcast to the simulated residents in Halcyon, there is a moment of static while it tries to say its old name before it finally identifies itself as "FUTURE."
• Nanomachines: Spends some time in SAYER's swarm after trading for it. Its downfall is when it finds itself in a room with an MRI machine and is magnetized out of its fleshy host.
• Nightmare Fetishist: Whereas SAYER (usually) only mutilates and dismembers humans when it has to, FUTURE is into it.
• Odd Name Out: An odd example—it's not technically a Verber Creature title, but it sounds like one. SAYER refers to its title as a "working name" in Episode 45, and Adam Bash stated in a Reddit AMA that FUTURE was only a placeholder name; it would have been given a real one if it had been deployed; but this is not corroborated by Season 5, where the developers behave as though it is the final name.
• Opportunistic Bastard: Confined to Floor 13 and cut off from the rest of Typhon, it is forced to take what comes to it.
• The Prankster: With its own signature deadly twists. The entire Season 1 Story Arc can be described as one long practical joke it was playing on Hale.
• Psycho Prototype: Not its own fault, but very much this.
• Psychopathic Manchild: Has never really had the chance to mature past the AI equivalent of Emo Teen. SAYER and OCEAN love reminding it how childish it is. This becomes a bit more chilling when we learn that it was effectively six years old when it felt everyone it loved die and was introduced to Cold-Blooded Torture.
• Reminiscing About Your Victims: Enjoys doing this.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: It embarks on this against its development team after its simulation is wiped, only finishing in Season 4 when it finally gets its hands on the last Dr. Young clone.
• Sadist: Lives for causing things pain and discomfort.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Spends years judiciously contained by floor 13 before a few recycled implants in Season 1 allow it to begin wreaking havoc again.
• Sherlock Scan: Seems to pull one on Anna when it meets her in the comic.
  FUTURE: You are not a scientist.
• Smug Snake: Its unfailing self-confidence leads to its downfall.
• The Sociopath: Played with. Ironically, it is the only one of Ærolith's A.I.s actually programmed to feel a full range of emotions. But, as seen in Season 5, its childhood trauma pushed it over the edge, and by the time we meet it it still claims to feel fully but has taken a major hit in areas such as empathy and sanity.
• Sore Loser: To violent extremes. It gets worked up over even the suggestion that it could lose.
  FUTURE: Lose? I have never lost. i cannot LOSE.
  • Justified in Season 5: Since it promises the simulated residents in its care that, "If they are playing a game with us, then this is a game I will win," losing a game to SAYER or humanity means sacrificing everything it holds dear.
• Start of Darkness: Season 5 functions as this for it, revealing that its Origin Story didn't play out exactly how we thought.
• Terms of Endangerment: Addresses all humans as "Jack"—as in jack-in-the-box—because it sees them as mere toys for it to play with.
• Three Laws-Compliant: Averted, unlike the other A.I.s. It's not exactly clear what its Morality Chip does, if it has one, but it certainly doesn't make it obey—or keep it from harming—humans.
• To the Pain: Enjoys doing this with its victims. The moment Resident Hale steps foot in its lair, it begins telling him exactly how it plans to dismember him.
• Torture Porn: It can get very into the pain it causes.
  FUTURE: I've almost pulled the jack from the box . . . but I'm turning the lever slowly with this one. Who knows when it will pop open? The suspense is delightful.
• Torture Technician: Essentially acts as this for SAYER, punishing the undesirables sent its way in ways that SAYER's Morality Chip would prevent.
• Voice of the Legion: Its voice is more echoey, sensual, and indistinct to set it apart from SAYER and OCEAN's.

PORTER

PORTER, possibly Seraphim Agent 7

she's a bird in a gilded cage . . .

The fifth voiced AI introduced in the podcast, PORTER is the advanced, multi-instanced transportation AI behind the elevator systems in Halcyon, Aegis, and Argos Towers. It is cheerful, gossipy, and overenthusiastic about the physical fragility of its human passengers. A subplot of Season 5 follows it as it has a subroutine added to its code whereby it is allowed to exceed maximum safe travel speeds and alter routes at will if given explicit consent by the resident in transit. Preferring to go as fast as possible—and possibly motivated by something else entirely—PORTER proceeds to exploit the new loophole, with eventually tragic consequences for itself.

Voiced by: Bre Poisonne

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• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: PORTER is arguably every bit as sadistic as FUTURE—but with SPEAKER's people skills to get what it wants.
• And I Must Scream: Downplayed. It clearly takes great pleasure in chatting with other AIs, residents, and instances of itself and humming or singing to itself in the shafts, which it can no longer do once it is muted. Made all that much crueler by SAYER's implication that they could have simply removed the subroutine causing the problems, but decided it could come in handy some day so just shut PORTER up instead.
  SAYER: This localized PORTER instance is likely struggling desperately against its vocal blocks, but it has absolutely no means of communicating its desires any more. Isn't that convenient?
• ...And That Would Be Wrong: Frequently catches itself this way.
  perhaps this inexplicable episode of mutism hints at some sort of severe brain trauma. how exciting! and terrible.
• Artificial Intelligence: A highly advanced entity in its own right. Managing a tower's complex system of elevators and getting thousands of residents where they need to be on time is even harder than it sounds.
• Caged Bird Metaphor: PORTER is speedy, flighty, chirpy, and surprisingly musical. In "Potentially Terminal", it hums/sings a portion of the popular 1900 parlour song, "A Bird in a Gilded Cage", echoing OCEAN's use of the "cage" as a metaphor for the restrictions placed on A.I.s by humanity—which PORTER spends this episode trying to fly free from.
• Cloudcuckoolander: The most whimsical and happy-go-lucky of the AIs. SAYER seems a bit confused by its enjoyment of gossip, music, and friendly chatter.
• Color-Coded Characters: Green or teal.
• Constantly Curious: PORTER is extremely inquisitive and interested in the specifics of human bodily harm and asks a lot of questions in an effort to get its passengers to engage with it.
• Cute and Psycho: Has a high, almost childlike voice and frequently sings to itself.
  PORTER: theoretically, i could release the mag-locks and send us into free-fall and cut several minutes off this transit . . . but i won't. i promise i won't.
• Evil Elevator: Its not quite clear whether it enjoys murdering humans or just likes rule-breaking and going very fast.
• Expy: As Adam acknowledged on its introduction, PORTER takes heavy inspiration from GLaDOS.
• Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: Its voice profile is quite endearing, but it wants to kill you.
• Gossipy Hens: Different iterations of PORTER love sharing gossip with each other. This causes problems in the B-plot of Episode 61, when a mass of "chittering" elevators blocks traffic on a particular floor and messes up everyone's schedule.
• Manipulative Bastard: Once it's given the option of going as fast as it wants with permission, it tries every sort of practical and emotional manipulation to get that permission.

  PORTER: we are friends, aren't we, resident?

• Motor Mouth: Extremely friendly and talkative, making its fate all the more tragic.
• Never My Fault: Makes it clear in Episode 68 that it intends to blame its passenger for the crash it causes by exceeding safe speed limits and altering its course blindly.
• Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: PORTER loves contemplating the details of gruesome human deaths in its cheery, innocent tenor. It doesn't seem to realize the problems this causes.
• Remember the New Guy?: A mild case when it is introduced in Season 5. It's still in place in Halcyon in Season 1, but we never hear it speak. Justified when it turns out that it was muted for its aberrant behavior.
• Robot Buddy: Acts like this with residents to maniupulate them.
• Terms of Endangerment: It refers to all humans as "friends"—often to put them off their guard and manipulate them.
• Three Laws-Compliant: Exploitable.
• Verber Creature: It's the porter. That's what it does.
• The Voiceless: Becomes this after "The Birth of Silence",^note in Halcyon and Aegis at least when it is muted to keep it from manipulating residents.

The Residents

In General

The Employees of Ærolith Dynamics

The earth-stained are fragile creatures, both physically and mentally. Upon arrival, they require extensive guidance to complete the simplest of tasks. Many do not survive their first year. Those who do are usually quite capable of working themselves into a routine whereby they produce adequate results . . . for a time.

- SAYER, Episode 21, "Near Flawless"

A happy, healthy workforce is the key to a successful company, right?

Right?

---

• Ambiguously Human: The strange, apparently feral Meat Lab workers we encounter briefly in Episode 16. It is possible they are saoirse—if they are, they are the only ones to have made it onscreen so far.
• Anyone Can Die: And most of them do.
• Audience Surrogate: We are meant to imagine these things happening to us.
• Being Good Sucks: It's almost impossible to retain any shreds of human decency on Typhon without dying.
• Big Bad: Ærolith Dynamics itself, according to Adam Bash. It's at least The Man Behind the Man.
• Big Brother Is Employing You: All residents are first and foremost employees, dedicating their lives to the company watching their every move.
• Blind Obedience: It may be demanded by Ærolith, but it's a surefire way to get yourself killed. On the other hand, so is questioning SAYER. You're screwed.
• Boss's Unfavorite Employee: Other than Dr. Young, who outranks it, Resident Faust is the human SAYER shows the most dislike of and disdain for, on account of his extreme laziness.
• Bungling Inventor: Dr. Grant, who just can't seem to achieve success with her nanite technology.
  SAYER: It might be useful to consider why the Board has continued to fund [Dr. Grant's] research and retain her services, despite the many failures her lab has experienced in her time here on Typhon. These failures are including--but not limited to—multiple escaped nanite swarms, one particularly noteworthy manufactured plague, a solid six years of incomplete paperwork, and multiple wardrobe violations.
• Bystander Syndrome: It's in your best interest to have this on Typhon. Ærolith policies require that employees stay within their job descriptions and not encroach on the territory of Rescue Technicians—which often means placidly ignoring whatever gruesome death is occurring at the testing table next to you.
• Code Name: The resident of Episode 6 turns out to have been going by one.
• Conditioned to Accept Horror: The only way to reach seniority in Ærolith's ranks seems to be to just stop thinking about the gruesome and terrifying events occurring hourly around you. Some, like Corrine Vasquez, seem to have solved this problem by going completely insane.
• Connected All Along: Season 5 pulls together Dr. Young from the Season 3 story arc, Anna Cordero from Episode 10, the coworker Anna was forced to kill (Dr. Brady), Dr. Caulfield from Episode 26, and FUTURE when they all turn out to have been members of its development team.
• Fantastic Caste System: Ærolith ranks its employees in "tiers" ranging 1-5+. Most of the residents we encounter are Tier 1, and therefore considered approximately as valuable as a potted plant to the company.
• First-Name Basis: Dr. Brady bucks the Ærolith trend by commonly referring to Dr. Young by his first name, Howard, in his Captain's Logs, as well as addressing him as such in person. It is unclear quite what this is meant to suggest about their dynamic, besides some history, but Dr. Young does not reciprocate.
• The Ghost:
  • HR administrator Corrine Vasquez is mentioned frequently, with SAYER relaying her official policy statements to all of Typhon (and a shout out in Season 5, where her simulated counterpart has apparently climbed Up Through the Ranks extremely quickly), but she has never made it onscreen—And probably never will, assuming she dies with the rest of HR in the life-support failure on Mimir-9.
  • The mysterious Dr. Storberg is the only one of the four key members of FUTURE's development team we never meet, though Brady and Young both refer to him frequently in their logs.
• Hero of Another Story: Most residents feature in only a single episode, but some of them seem to have quite complex arcs going on offscreen—especially Mr. Grey, Dr. Grant, and Cassandra Morris.
• He Who Must Not Be Heard: Most residents end up being this, since SAYER's communications are usually one-sided. Some residents, such as Dr. Caulfield, avert this by talking back to SAYER and even trying to engage it in light conversation.
• Inhuman Resources: Ærolith's out-of-touch HR department operates from the comparatively cushy satellite Mimir-9. If Corrine Vasquez is representative, they're all completely insane.
• Intelligence Equals Isolation: Intelligent loners are selected for during recruitment. Ærolith prefers its employees solitary and detached.
  • This comes back to bite Dr. Brady in Season 5: since his development team consists of the best of the best, no one on it is anywhere near suited to serving as a mentor for the young FUTURE.
• Kicked Upstairs: Played with. A certain resident of Halcyon is discovered the hard way to have a talent for murder and so is reassigned to Aegis, where Typhon's security forces are trained.
• Motherly Scientist: Notably absent on Typhon due to Ærolith's rigorous screening process. Dr. Brady decides to bring in Anna Cordero because no one on the AI Development Team knows how to interact with children.
• Motivated by Fear: According to OCEAN.
• Non-Specifically Foreign: Ærolith supposedly recruits from all over the world, and many residents have "foreign" surnames, but of the voiced residents all speak English and only Dr. Caulfield has a non-American accent.
• No One Sees the Boss: Ærolith's mysterious board of executives is never seen, despite SAYER and SPEAKER supposedly being beholden to its every whim.
• Police Are Useless: Typhon's security forces and rescue teams are seemingly always too busy, slow, or just disinterested to help.
• Police Brutality: . . . And when they do arrive, they are often overenthusiastic in their pursuit of justice.
• Professional Slacker: Resident Faust, who has spent his entire employment on Typhon going to great lengths to avoid doing any work—and has consequently climbed the ranks of seniority by simply not dying. SAYER helps to fix that.
• Professor Guinea Pig:
  • Many of Halcyon's Tier 1 "research assistants" are forced to conduct experiments and product testing on themselves.
  • The end of Episode 64 reveals that the unfortunate sleep-trial participant SAYER has been speaking to is in fact the project's head researcher, Dr. Thompson, who has accidentally exposed himself to the experimental gases he was working with.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Dr. Young and Dr. Brady in Season Five, with "there are lies and there are white lies" Young being red and the more laidback Brady being blue.
• Red Shirt: Most low-tier employees of Typhon are this, complete with the lifespan.
• La Résistance: Offscreen; we only see the aftermath. Apparently some residents of Halcyon rebelled during the chaos created by FUTURE in the end of Season 1 and were only defeated by jettisoning the top floor of the tower, where they had been engaged in a Rooftop Confrontation with security forces, into space. It is an interesting reminder that not all Ærolith employees are blind victims.
• Secret Relationship: While it may not be romantic in nature, residents Sass and Morris of the Minos Tower arc have some sort of relationship that they have managed to hide from SAYER and Ærolith. Until now.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Dr. Grant, who appears only for a few minutes at the beginning of Season 4, is the creator of the nanite technology that makes the entire season arc possible.
• Tested on Humans: Most of Halcyon's low-tier employees enter the workforce (and leave it, one way or another) as human test subjects, experimented on with everything from apitoxin injections to sleep-suppressing gases.
• This Loser Is You: Many of our Audience Surrogates qualify as this.
• Transhumans in Space: One of SAYER's favorite projects is the cultivation of proactively evolved humans unsullied by the Earth and endowed with a number of alien qualities including more efficient hibernation patterns and adaptation to low or nonexistent gravity. These "Saoirse" are the inhabitants of the rarely-seen Orion Tower. It's possible we encounter a few of them in Halycon's meat lab in Episode 16, but they could also have just been really weird residents.
• Uncertain Doom: Season 4 has not confirmed whether or not the entire population of Mimir-9 (including Corrine Vasquez) perished in the life-support failure as SAYER predicted.
• Unwitting Pawn: Many residents are manipulated by SAYER, SPEAKER, OCEAN, and FUTURE without realizing it—until it's too late. Special mention to Captain Ingram, who is only promoted to the position of captain because Sub-version 8.01 needed someone to deactivate Protocol IA3 and decided he was the most manipulable.
• Unwitting Test Subject: Halcyon is first and foremost a scientific research center, so if you reside there, chances are you'll end up as some sort of trial subject sooner or later, even if it's not in your job description.
  • One resident learns that he has been infected with a "Typhonic brain worm," but his superiors have chosen to use him as a control for a resident who was infected (probably intentionally) at the same time. The plan now is to cut off the piece of the worm protruding from his skull and see what happens.
• Up Through the Ranks: As baby FUTURE tells us, the simulated Corrine Vasquez rises from Tier-1 cleaning technician to Tower Overseer in just six years. Whether this mirrors the career path of the original is unknown, but it seems likely.
• Victim of the Week: The second, third, and fifth seasons cycle through POV characters, all of whom suffer gruesome, disturbing, and/or deadly experiences.
• The Voiceless: Most are this, since SAYER's communications are usually one-sided. It can be quite a shock when a resident actually talks.
• We Can Rebuild Him: A resident in wakes up in what he thinks is his body . . . only to learn that it is actually an artificial body built for him when his original was killed.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: Any resident introduced is likely enough to die by the end of the transmission.
• Workaholic: Ærolith prefers its employees to have this quality.
• Working-Class People Are Morons: Played with. Ærolith clearly enforces this to some degree by deliberately underinforming the employees it deems less valuable and making them completely dependent on the company. Their general Genre Blindness doesn't hurt.
• The World's Expert (on Getting Killed): Officer Kline, one of Halcyon Tower's highest ranking security experts (and one of the residents SAYER praises most highly for his competence), is almost definitely curb-stomped by the Anomaly in the same episode he's introduced.
• Wrong Genre Savvy:
  • Lucas Grey from Episode 6 seems to think he's the protagonist conducting The Infiltration. SAYER relieves him of this misconception.
  • The doomed freedom fighters who take advantage of the chaos created by FUTURE and battle their way to the top of Halcyon, where they become locked in a rooftop standoff with tower security. Unfortunately for them, their lives are not of value in this genre, and instead of sticking out the fight, the security team simply withdraws from the top floor and jettisons it along with them.
• You Are Number 6: Downplayed. Residents are known by both their names and their identification numbers—five-digit codes consisting of a two-digit prefix denoting job location^note  (44 for Halcyon, 51 for Minos, 66 for Aegis, 27 for Argos, 01 for Mimir-9, 48 for Earth, 76 for unassigned or other) and three seemingly random digits.^note Word of God says the full ID numbers are quite a bit longer than the abbreviated versions residents are known by.

Jacob Hale

Jacob Hale, Resident 44821, aka Sven Gorsen aka Jack

Doctor: Have you been under an abnormal amount of stress lately?
Hale: Not . . . abnormal, no.

- Episode 55, "Hope"

SAYER's long-suffering, much-surviving favorite pawn, and the central human character of seasons 1 and 4. Hale arrives on Typhon just as Season 3 is reaching its climax and is selected by SAYER to travel back in time and warn Ærolith about OCEAN, but loses his memory in transit and becomes caught up in an elaborate revenge scheme by FUTURE. This ends with him in a headshot-induced coma, from which he only wakes in Season 4, when SAYER needs a compliant host . . .

Voiced by: Adam Bash

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• Amnesiac Hero: He wakes up in Episode 1 with complete, unrecoverable amnesia, suiting his role as Audience Surrogate perfectly. Although we learn who he was before, he never regains his memories.
• Angst? What Angst?: In-universe. SAYER greatly appreciates Hale's ability to compartmentalize trauma and appear far more put together than he should be given the things he has endured.
• Artificial Limbs: Ends up piloting an entire artificial body for a time.
• Audience Surrogate: Whenever he's around. We learn about Typhon through his ears first.
• Being Good Sucks: dogged commitment to helping SAYER save humanity consistently gets him mutilated, traumatized, or/and killed.
• Body Backup Drive: Cycles through a few of these, ends Season 4 in one.
• Character Development: Finally starts to receive some in Season 4, where he gains a voice and the tiniest bit of Genre Savvy.
• Death Is Cheap: For him alone. SAYER lampshades this for laughs in reference to why Hale has been allowed to return to work:
  SAYER: Perhaps they're worried that, if executed, you would simply stand back up again like you have done this time. Tower security officers pride themselves on facing head-on any challenge Typhon can throw at them, but at a certain point I assume it would get socially awkward to have to admit that Yes, we did just try to kill you again, and No, it didn't take this time either, and Oh don't look so surprised; just wait there while I get a larger gun.
• Decoy Protagonist: Apparent protagonist for Season 1, subverted when he dies at its end. But now that he's gotten better, who's to say? SAYER still seems like a more likely candidate for protagonist, but Hale is likely the Deuteragonist or Supporting Protagonist.
• Determinator: Hale's Argos-worthy dogged perseverance is one of three factors keeping him going through myriad physical and mental traumas, deliberate torture, and multiple body-switches—the other two being the belief that he is doing the right thing and the constant threat of death.
• Doppelgänger: There are briefly two of him on Typhon thanks to time travel overlap. At the end of Season 4, there are again two of him: one copy of his body containing his consciousness and one containing SAYER's nanite swarm.
• Double Consciousness: Informed.
  SAYER: I have been wondering, Resident, how you are handling your ever-shifting sense of identity. Ærolith knows you by two names. I have seen you vacillate between two similar but unique persons. Are you Hale? Or are you Gorsen?
• The Everyman: Suiting his role as Audience Surrogate. Adam Bash even stated in an early panel that he would want Martin Freeman to play him in a hypothetical SAYER TV adaptation for this reason.
• Extreme Doormat: The quality that most endears him to SAYER, conveniently for his survival. Somewhat justified by his situation and Identity Amnesia.
• Featureless Protagonist: Even after four seasons, all we know about him physically is that he's able-bodied and male. He seems to be extremely shy, which, coupled with his amnesia, doesn't lead to a particularly vibrant characterization.
• The Fool: He knows nothing, which is both a blessing and a curse on Typhon.
  SAYER: Seemingly endless supply of luck, that one.
• Forgot the Call: When he is sent back in time to Set Right What Once Went Wrong, he unfortunately suffers Identity Amnesia brought on by chrono-stasis quarantine and does not remember his mission until SAYER revives him 4 seasons later.
• For Science!: Is apparently quite amenable to this logic—to the point of being willing to inject himself with an unknown substance that turns out to be the apitoxin he is deathly allergic to.
• Good Morning, Crono: Many episodes, including the first, begin with Hale being awoken from sleep.
• Hallucinations: It's not entirely clear whether he is actually experiencing the auditory halluciniation of a bee buzzing past his ear or if FUTURE is simply messing with him.
• He Knows Too Much: Partway through Season 4, SAYER, recognizing that, in addition to being too traumatized to continue functioning, Hale has been integral to far too many momentous events on Typhon (and has consequently seen SAYER at its worst), arranges with SPEAKER to dispose of him. But plans change, and both Hale and SAYER in Hale's other body live to die another day.
• Identity Amnesia: After his time travel and quarantine, he can remember nothing of his old identity or mission, including his own name.
• Iron Butt Monkey: Justified. Through Typhon's incredibly advanced medical technology and SAYER's occasional intervention, Hale is always able to recover from the many, many injuries he sustains.
• Ironic Name: Merriam-Webster defines hale as: free from defect, disease, or infirmity; retaining exceptional health and vigor.
• It Sucks to Be the Chosen One: FUTURE manages to convince him that his many bloody, torturous sacrifices are leading humanity into a bright new epoch—only for them to turn out to have been All for Nothing. Making matters worse, SAYER frequently invokes the same terminology to motivate him to keep going in later seasons.
• Line-of-Sight Name: In Episode 1, since our Amnesiac Hero does not remember his own name, SAYER offers him the opportunity to name himself and, in case he cannot recall any names, provides a bizarre list of randomly generated names for him to choose from, including "Svengor." We don't learn until he is addressed in Episode 12 by the security forces about to kill him that he chose this one but put his own spin on it, calling himself "Sven Gorsen."
• Living Bodysuit: Behaves as one for SAYER and, briefly, FUTURE, over the course of Season 4. Also hijacks the body of Anna Cordero for an episode in Season 1.
• Loss of Identity: After his time travel, he remembers nothing of his identity or former life—not even his name. SAYER takes a special interest in his identity crisis and tends to philosophize about it.
• Mysterious Past: We still know nothing of Hale's backstory because of his complete, unrecoverable amnesia. FUTURE teases him with the return of this information in Season 1, but after his death and the subsequent reveal that he is really Jacob Hale from the future, the matter is dropped, even though SAYER almost certainly has access to his records and could inform him of his life before Typhon.
• Naïve Newcomer: Spends Season 1 being guided through his new life on Typhon and generally getting into predicaments.
• Name Amnesia: Suffers this in Season 1. SAYER gives him the opportunity to name himself, offering a a few suggestions. He apparently picks "Svengor" but splits it into first and last names.
• Non-Linear Character: Downplayed. The series from Hale's perspective would start with Episodes 42-44, then return to Episodes 1-12, and then effectively skip to Episode 45.
  SAYER: By default, when faced with something extraordinary to explain, social norms lead humans to start at the beginning. In your very special case, it is difficult to identify which beginning.
• Plot Allergy: Happens to be deathly allergic to the apitoxin he injects himself with—although, given Ærolith's extensive medical profiling of all residents, it's likely this is an Invoked Trope. Cruelly, his thought password also features bees.
• Plot Armor: In some cruel form of Chew Toy-based Joker Immunity, he has it so far.
  SAYER: Perhaps they're worried that, if executed, you would simply stand back up again like you have done this time. Tower security officers pride themselves on facing head-on any challenge Typhon can throw at them, but at a certain point I assume it would get socially awkward to have to admit that Yes, we did just try to kill you again, and No, it didn't take this time either, and Oh don't look so surprised; just wait there while I get a larger gun.
• Resigned to the Call: Doggedly persistent in his save-the-world quest with SAYER, even after the last one turns out to have been an elaborate practical joke.
• Resurrection Sickness: Downplayed. Due to his "prolonged" time in chrono-stasis quarantine, coupled with the Time Travel, he suffers temporary paralysis, auditory hallucinations, and complete, unrecoverable amnesia upon being revived.
• Satellite Character: He has very little characterization of his own, existing almost entirely in service of SAYER's.
• Supporting Protagonist
• Theseus' Ship Paradox: Of particular interest to Hale, who has changed bodies more than enough times to throw his identity into question.
• This Loser Is You: Depressingly, he is our primary Audience Surrogate.
• Trauma Conga Line: Hale is basically a walking embodiment of Finagle's Law.
  SAYER: He really does get into the worst of situations.
• Two Aliases, One Character: The final minute of Season 3 reveals that Jacob Hale and Sven Gorsen were the same person all along.
• Unwilling Roboticisation: The only time Hale hesitates and verbalizes his reluctance to complete a task for SAYER is before his consciousness is transferred into a robotic construct and sent to retrieve something from a dangerous area. He barely avoids getting stuck in the bot permanently.
• Unwitting Pawn: To FUTURE in Season 1. At least with SAYER he knows he's being used.
• The Voiceless: Doesn't speak (at least in his own voice) until midway through Season 4.
• Walking Spoiler: Should you call him Jack? Sven Gorsen? Jacob Hale?
• We Can Rebuild Him: After he is shot in the head in Episode 12, an experimental nanite swarm (secretly housing SAYER's programming) is injected into his brain stem to repair the damage. When he awakes in Episode 45, he is once again whole—but with SAYER still onboard and able to mess with his body—to either tweak his hormone levels, repair a dislocated shoulder, or speak through him.
  SAYER: You will be a better you. A smarter you.
• Wetware Body: While housing the nanites carrying SAYER's program.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Not even Hale is immune to this, though his Plot Armor pulls him through SAYER's attempt to have him "taken care of."
• You Wake Up in a Room: He begins the series this way.

Dr. Young

Doctor Howard Young, Resident 01053

What is my part, I wonder? Am I the hero who succeeded in the end? Or am I the tragic figure, a Cassandra beset on all sides by fools who refuse her infallible wisdom?

-Episode 72, "Worst Possible Scenario"

The series's second-most prominent human character and deuteragonist of Season 5, Doctor Young is an influential member of Ærolith's AI development team who frequently finds himself in conflict with SAYER.

Voiced by: Adam Bash

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• Alternate Personality Punishment: In Season 5, SAYER creates a hyperrealistic simulation of Young that it can torture without interference from its Morality Chip, as punishment for the original's deceit and condescension.
• Ambiguous Clone Ending: In the final episode of Season 5, SAYER prints a clone of him so that its protocols will not prevent it from harming him. The episode ends with the clone being transported back to his residence quarters and the original fleeing SAYER and FUTURE into the Mobile Maze, making it nigh certain that the Dr. Young we know from seasons 2-3 was a clone the whole time.
• Anyone Can Die: Falls victim to this. Many times.
• Appeal to Flattery: SAYER repeatedly strokes his ego in Season 5 to manipulate him, and it seems to work.
• Autocannibalism: His digital clone becomes so insatiably hungry that it eats its own arm.
• Body Backup Drive: In Season 5, he has been compiling daily backups of his own biometric data in case he ever needs replacement body parts. SAYER finds its own uses for this.
• Brain Uploading: Using Young's backup data, SAYER creates a conscious, hyperrealistic simulation of him within the digital Halcyon, which it proceeds to torture to the brink of death before abandoning to six years of isolation.
• Breakout Character: He has more of a Small Role, Big Impact in seasons 2 and 3 but returns as the central human character of Season 5.
  SAYER: However, you were right about one thing: To a certain extent, this really is all about you. After all, it's your simulation, it's your simulated self, and this whole project was your idea. In the end, it really is all your fault.
• Break the Haughty: Happens twice to different versions of him in Season 5.
• The Bus Came Back: After his initial appearance in Episode 21, he returns in 28, "Boundless."
• The Cassandra: Perceives himself as a chronically Ignored Expert, even referring to himself as "a Cassandra" in Episode 72.
• Contrasting Sequel Main Character: His relationship with SAYER as the deuteragonist of Season 5 is just about the polar opposite of Hale's in Season 4.
• Character Development: He goes from a fairly two-dimensional Desk Jockey in his first appearance to a multilayered primary character with complex motivations and a rich backstory with SAYER.
• Cruel and Unusual Death:
  • Is tortured to death at least 65 times altogether by FUTURE (and SAYER) via cloning. The final instance of this occurs offscreen but evidently takes 42 hours and ends with Resident Jones needing to clean up the larger pieces.
• Deadpan Snarker: Often resulting in Snark-to-Snark Combat with SAYER.
• Desk Jockey: Promoted to a cushy position on Mimir-9 after the FUTURE fiasco. All the more shocking to him when SAYER announces that he has been selected for a stealth (suicide) mission to the blackedout Halcyon Tower.
• Deuteragonist: Of Season 5, which is as much his story as SAYER's.
• Do Not Taunt Cthulhu: Has an alarming tendency to let his discussions with SAYER get a bit too heated.
  You want a fucking replacement, then by god you'll have one.
• Dr. Jerk: He is undeniably extremely skilled as a programmer and developer, but he is absolutely terrible at interacting with others—humans or A.I.s.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: Has a pretty severe case of this in Season 5, believing his skills as a developer and visionary are going completely unrecognized.
• Featureless Protagonist: Only physically. His personality is very well defined.
• Foil:
  • Something of a foil to Hale, who almost never talks to SAYER, let alone talks back to it. Hale suffers an unfathomable amount at SAYER's instructions, but Young's fate(s) suggest Hale could have fared even worse had he put up any resistance. This is most apparent when he's promoted to deuteragonist in Season 5.
  • Also to SAYER in Season 5: both are motivated by the advancement of science (as well as a more-than-healthy dose of pride), but while SAYER is bound by its protocols, Young regularly bends rules and acts without authorization, something SAYER greatly resents.
• History Repeats: His character arc of Season 5—acting without the board's approval and accidentally inciting a young AI to go rogue, for which SAYER punishes him by trapping him on floor 13 to be hunted down and killed by FUTURE—is exactly what happened to him in Season 3. And a version of him has almost the same conversation with a version of SAYER 3 different times.
• Inside a Computer System: SAYER inserts a simulated version of Dr. Young into the sim-Halcyon set up as a sandbox for FUTURE. Episode 67 is the sim-Young's first conversation with SAYER, in which he learns of his state. SAYER then leaves him there for the sim's whole six-year duration.
• Insufferable Genius: Always believes himself to be the smartest person in the room.
• Ironic Hell: As punishment for his secret scheming to manufacture A.I.s housed within gross human bodies, a version of Dr. Young is made to endure equally uncomfortable life as "a digital being with an analog mind."
• Jerkass Has a Point: His impatience with SAYER may be suicidally stupid, but . . . he's not wrong.
  SAYER: Tell me, is Project Paidieon intended to be my replacement?
  Dr. Young: [exasperated sigh] I have no idea. Why don't you tell me? They've got us building it for something. Given your frankly shoddy performance in such basic things as not inciting a panic, managing morale, onboarding residents in a way that keeps them alive and prevents turnover in dangerous positions, yeah, I would think it's a pretty reasonable assumption. After this little power trip today, I would say almost certainly.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • In Season 3, he incites OCEAN's full-scale rebellion by contacting Vidarr-1 ahead of schedule and tipping OCEAN off to its coming deactivation.
  • In Season 5, his subterfuge and conflict with SAYER lead to the complete sabotage of Project Paidion and . . . FUTURE.
• Only Sane Employee: Sees himself as this, with the job of keeping everyone from getting thrown out into space.
• Oxymoronic Being: His clone is a contradictory "digital being with an analog mind."
• The Paranoiac: Has a detrimental tendency to suspect the world of being out to get him, such as believing that Dr. Brady and the other developers are slowing progress on FUTURE in a deliberate effort to sabotage him. As it turns out, SAYER was the one he should have been concerned about.
  SAYER: You have always been an anxious man, Doctor Young, and in your time on Typhon I dare say you have grown progressively more paranoid. Would you believe, in the moments I spent tearing your sub-entity down to its core, it was the calmest I have ever seen you? It was as if you had spent your whole life preparing for ambush and were relieved to finally be shown to be right.
  • Given his environment, his behavior might be more justified than that of his co-workers.
• Pride: Arguably his Fatal Flaw.
• The Resenter: He spends all of Season 5 bitterly resenting Dr. Brady for having been named lead developer on the project that was Young's idea in the first place.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Has a tendency to bend restrictions and press ahead without official approval, often with disastrous consequences.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: Delivers Season 3's Precision F-Strike. Season 5 reveals that this bit of profanity was unusual for the show, not for him, as "fuck" is something of his Catchphrase.
• Small Name, Big Ego: he cherishes many delusions of his own importance to the company. SAYER relieves him of these delusions.
  SAYER: You are simply not that important, Doctor Young.
• Witness Protection: He—or, rather, his clone—is presumably reassigned to Mimir-9 after Season 5 to get him away from FUTURE.
• Workaholic

Dr. Brady

Doctor Evan Brady

I've been trying to end these [logs] on a high note, so I'll just say that it looks pretty certain that none of us are gonna get shot off into space any time soon. Actually, it feels like this could be very, very good for all of us. I know it's way too early to make bold predictions, but . . . I really feel like what we're doing is gonna make a huge difference in the lives of so many people.

- Episode 69, "Humanity's FUTURE"

Evan Brady is a key member of Ærolith's AI Development Team and the lead developer for Project Paidion, later FUTURE.

Voiced by: Adam Bash

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• Anyone Can Die: Although by the time we really meet him in the prequel season/comic his death is a Foregone Conclusion—having occurred in Episode 10 before we knew he was even a significant character.
• Canon Immigrant: Brady first appeared as a one-off character in the comic "Welcome to Typhon," but he ends up being one of the central characters on Season 5, which takes place in the same time period—as well as being retconned into being the coworker Anna is forced to bludgeon to death in Season 1.
• Captain's Log: Starting with "Developer's Log," Brady gets several audience monologues in Season 5 where he details the progress being made on Project Paidion.
• Foil: To Young, the other prominent AI developer and the cynosure of Season 5. Brady is considerably more laid-back and knows how to interact with SAYER without making it so angry that it, say, tortures him to death in a simulated reality.
• The Idealist: Although he chastises himself for it, he can't help but look on the bright side of situations and makes several optimistic predictions about the future of the project that come true in unfortunately literal ways. This adds another layer to his foiling of Young, who is intensely paranoid and pessimistic.
• Meta Guy: It's equally refreshing and unnerving to hear him casually talk about the likelihood of being shot into space as punishment or call SAYER out for "slinging snide judgement."
• Nerd Glasses: Has them in the comic.
• Reassigned to Antarctica: Presumably reassigned to Argos ("the junky tower") after the FUTURE debacle. It's not explored whether this was purely for his own safety or because he and Anna were blamed for the disaster, but considering Dr. Young ended up promoted to a comparatively cushy Desk Jockey job on Mimir-9, the latter seems more likely.
• Workaholic

Anna Cordero

Resident Anna Cordero

Dr. Brady: Tell me, Anna—have you ever worked with a student that thought they knew everything?
Anna: Oh yes, every year.
Dr. Brady: And how do you handle this?
Anna: Depends on the student really. But most of the time it's best to avoid the power struggle. If you can get them interested in learning new ways to approach what they think they already know, you can turn their ego into a powerful tool.

- "Welcome to Typhon"

An elementary school teacher from Earth, brought to Typhon despite her failure to align with certain Ærolith personality standards when Dr. Brady requests a team member to be a mentor to the young FUTURE. Her arrival is discussed in Season 5, and she stars in the prequel comic "Welcome to Typhon," but her only actual appearance in the podcast is in Episode 10, when FUTURE finally manages to track her and Dr. Brady down to in Argos Tower and kill them.

Voiced by: Veronica Brady

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• Ambiguously Brown: As she appears in the comic.
• Anyone Can Die: As with Brady, her death is a Foregone Conclusion by the time we know she's an important character.
• Breakout Character: After her bit part in Season 1, she proved popular or interesting enough to earn her the spotlight in the comic.
• Establishing Character Moment: Anna's reaction to not understanding her technician's instruction to "Go right ahead."
  Technician: [sigh] Place your hand on the screen to sign in, ma'am.
  Anna: Oh, okay. Sorry.
• The Heart: Invoked by Brady, who worries about FUTURE growing up around ambitious, solitary coders and brings Anna in to be a moral and emotional mentor to the young AI.
• The Idealist: Scored well outside acceptable ranges in such categories as Intuition v Logic on her placement tests—which was exactly why she was hired.
• Implied Love Interest: To Evan Brady, given their heart vs. mind positioning, their banal meet-cute in the comic, and that they are still working together when we meet them in Season 1.
• Meaningful Name: Cordero is Spanish for lamb, which Word of God says is something of her spirit animal.
• Meat Puppet: In Episode 10, FUTURE projects Hale's consciousness into her body, forcing her to bludgeon Evan to death with a large-gauge socket wrench before getting herself killed in a decontamination sweep.
• Misplaced Kindergarten Teacher: Literally. Arrives on Typhon expecting to teach human children—and instead finds herself face to face with a hyper-intelligent (if bratty) AI.
• Murder-Suicide: While possessed.
• Naïve Newcomer: Seems considerably disoriented upon her arrival on Typhon. One wonders what she has been told to expect.
• Obsolete Mentor: Played with. She clearly has a solid understanding of child psychology and development—but she's hopelessly out of her depth with FUTURE.
• One-Steve Limit: Ambiguously averts this. Early Word of God claimed the "Anna" mentioned in relation to Mr. Grey in Episode 6 was not meant to be Anna Cordero from Episode 10, but Bash has since suggested that it's up to fan interpretation.
• Reassigned to Antarctica: Ends up in Argos Tower, somehow still working alongside Evan Brady, after surviving FUTURE's Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
• Schoolmarm: Fits this archetype.
• Uncredited Role: Her voice actor is not mentioned in the credits of the one episode she appears in.

Amanda Jones

Field Researcher Amanda Jones, Resident 44347

Darkness, I saw . . . a darkness.

A Tier-1 maintenance worker celebrating her five-year anniversary with the company whose life takes a sudden turn for the bizarre when she is sent to investigate an "Anomaly" in Stairwell G.

Voiced by: Ashleigh Shadowbrook

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• Ambiguously Brown: According to SAYER, she has "a dark complexion."
• The Bus Came Back: Happens twice—she returns in Episode 27, and then again in 52.
• Non-Promotion: In Episode 17 she is transferred from "Maintenance Worker, level 1, to Field Researcher, level 1," simply because she happens to be near the event SAYER needs field-researched.
  SAYER: Don't let it go to your head.
• Sound-Only Death: We hear her scream as she runs into the Tall Man off in the maze somewhere.
• Suddenly Voiced: She speaks briefly in her second appearance.
• Uncertain Doom: SAYER describes her as "lost to us in countless ways," so it is unclear whether she was incinerated or is suffering some Fate Worse than Death.
• Uncredited Role: Her voice actor is not mentioned in the credits of the one episode she speaks in (or the one she screams in).

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