Characters / Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri

Default leaders and their factions in Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri and its expansion Alien Crossfire.

Original game:

Lady Deirdre Skye (Gaia's Stepdaughters)

Lady Deirdre Skye (Gaia's Stepdaughters)

Eternity lies ahead of us, and behind. Have you drunk your fill?

"Observe the Razorbeak as it tends so carefully to the fungal blooms; just the right bit from the yellow, then a swatch from the pink. Follow the Glow Mites as they gather and organize the fallen spores. What higher order guides their work? Mark my words: someone or something is managing the ecology of this planet."

Voiced by: Carolyn Dahl

Born 2025, in Edinburgh, Scotland. Studied at Cornell University School of Agriculture, acquired Bachelor of Science in Agriculture and Environmental Biology, Masters in Biology, Ph.D. Biology and Genetics. Immediately distinguished self with deep intuitive knowledge of plant strains and ability to intuit powerful genetic manipulations at Bionex Research Lab, White Plains, N.Y. Later worked for Red Cross and United Nations Disaster Relief Fund to revitalize radiation contaminated areas with highly specialized biostrains (Skye variation v097 apple and Skye Mark IV wheat strain considered as highest examples of adaptable biogenetics in contaminated soil). Selected as top candidate for Mission Botanist/Xenobiologist by U.N. Alpha Centauri Mission Committee, appointed against wishes of Chief Science Officer Prokhor Zakharov.

The Gaians believe the greatest mistake humanity made on Earth was the blatant disregard of Earth's biosphere. They desire not to repeat this mistake with Planet, and attempt to live in ecological harmony with the environment. Other factions tend to view her as a tree-hugging hippie and/or a pagan heretic due to her overt environmental concerns, and she might very well declare war on another nation to stop them polluting or exploiting the planet's resources—or perhaps just to prove that their lack of empathy with Planet will bite them in the ass.

• +1 to Planet (Environmental safeguards; can capture mindworms)
• +2 to Efficiency (Experience with life systems & recycling)
• -1 Morale (Pacifist tendencies)
• -1 Police (Freedom loving)
• +1 Nutrients in fungus squares
• May not use "Free Market" economics

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• Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: She's introverted by nature; in particularly, she's more comfortable around plants than people.
• Appropriated Appellation: "Gaia's Stepdaughters" was originally a label of mockery given by their foes.
• Arch-Enemy:
  • With the Morganites, due to the all the damage to the environment they cause with their free market economic policies. This rivalry can be considered one-sided, though. Morgan is opposed to Planned Economics, but there's nothing stopping him from going Green (and even he understands how a pissed-off planet's ecosystem wanting to Kill All Humans would be bad for business). That, and the fact that both factions are fairly pacifistic, means that it's not unusual to see them working together in an uneasy alliance (especially against the Free Drones, who are hated by both of them).
  • The Free Drones, who focuses entirely on improving the standard of living for their working class citizens through industrial development regardless of the resulting pollution, and cannot employ green economics.
  • Subverted with the Spartans; although several secret project videos show the Spartans as targets of Gaian mind worm attacks, the two factions have no particular animosity in-game and often just ignore each other.
• Bourgeois Bohemian: She's an eco-pagan who focuses on environmental causes on Planet, and is a firm champion of personal freedoms while rejecting capitalism and free-market economics. She's also a graduate of Cornell University, self-consciously upper-middle-class, and embraces scientific and technological solutions to both environmental and economic problems.
• Disk One Nuke: Deirdre starts with a +1 Planet rating, letting her capture alien lifeforms to use for her own army. And the first mind worm encountered is a guaranteed capture. This lets her get a powerful, difficult-to-defend-against army of mind worms in the early game and an excellent source of scouts. If this wasn't enough, she also starts with the ability to build formers, allowing her to reap the full benefits of resource tiles early on and that +1 Planet makes it all generate less eco-damage. On top of that, her opening technology also unlocks access to the Weather Paradigm, which is one of the most powerful and important secret project, especially in early game, as it unlocks options normally not accessible until far later.
• Gaia's Vengeance: Due to their +1 Planet rating and tendency to employ green economic and social engineering policies, their military frequently consists mostly of tamed or bred native lifeforms.
• Good Is Not Soft: She is the nicest of the Faction leaders save for Lal - but she will bite back HARD if provoked. Also keep in mind that the Stepdaughters are one of only three factions (along with the Cult of Planet and the Caretakers) that's capable of capturing native fauna at the beginning of the game - which means if you make her mad, you are very likely to be assaulted by hordes of mind worms and spore launchers.
• Green Aesop: Much of her writing trades on these. Not to put too fine a point on why they had to leave Earth in the first place or anything. From her Conversations With Planet in the Datalinks:
  Lady Deirdre: You are the children of a dead planet, earthdeirdre, and this death we do not comprehend. We shall take you in, but may we ask this question—will we too catch the planetdeath disease?
• Heart Is an Awesome Power: Pacifistic environmentalism usually isn't accompanied with the ability to raise and control an army of mind raping worms...but here we are. Granted, so can the militaristic environmentalists found in the Lord's Believers.
• In Harmony with Nature: Deirdre and the Gaians aspire to a sustainable and eco-friendly way of life, seeking coexistence with Planet's native environment rather than mastery over it. They accordingly take a dim view of other factions who only see Planet as a wilderness to be tamed and exploited.
• Ivy League for Everyone: Studied at Cornell University.
• Ludd Was Right: Subverted. Despite their preference for living in harmony with nature, Deirdre's a brilliant scientist who had invented new strains of GMO crops. She actually sees scientific development as a boon for ecology.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: In-universe; the more she's under stress, the more noticeable her native Scottish accent becomes (she's self-consciously upper-middle-class, and as such tries to speak with her more "refined" RP accent normally).
• Passionate Sports Girl: A great amount of her biopics depict her playing field hockey. More than any of the other leaders, except Lal.
• Patriotic Fervor: Downplayed. Deirdre still shows some pride in her cultural heritage, given how her attire incorporates a recognizably Scottish tartan design.
• Reclusive Artist: In-universe. She likes to spend long periods of time alone with Planet, composing poetry.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Collectively, Gaia's Stepdaughters play the more pacifist-leaning blue oni to the Cult of Planet's more aggressive red oni.
• Screw the Money, I Have Rules!: Deirdre opposes Free Market because of the harm it does to Planet's ecosystems, even if it's (short-term) the most profitable. She naturally prefers Green Economics.
• Technical Pacifist: Their people are peaceful in nature due to their ideology, but they have no problem with sending waves upon waves of mind worms to do the dirty work for them . There's also technically nothing stopping her from building and using a planet buster, although that would be highly out of character.
• Telepathy: And The Empath. These are among the new sciences which humanity discovers on Planet, and Deirdre embraces them to a greater degree than any faction leader other than Cha Dawn.
  Lady Deirdre: Symbols are the key to telepathy. The mind wraps its secrets in symbols; when we discover the symbols that shape our enemies thought, we can penetrate the vault of his mind.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: She will go to war (likely resulting in the death of thousands) with factions that uses the 'Free Market' model since she views it as irresponsibly polluting the environment. That said, she's much less bloody-minded about it than most faction leaders; alliances between the Gaians and Morganites, although not usual, aren't exactly uncommon either, as both are fundamentally peaceful and usually agree about everything else. (Indeed, if you play as Lal or Zakharov, binding the both of them in an alliance with you is a fairly common alignment: both she and Morgan are by far the most peaceable leaders, and with Lal and Zakharov not being particularly belligerent either, they do well together.)
• Witch with a Capital "B": The Spartan soldiers love to call her this when marching:
  I don't know but I've been told
  Deirdre's got a Network Node
  Likes to press the on-off switch
  Dig that crazy Gaian witch!

Colonel Corazon Santiago (Spartan Federation)

Colonel Corazon Santiago (Spartan Federation)

Man has killed man from the beginning of time, and each new frontier has brought new ways and new places to die. Why should the future be different?

"Superior training and superior weaponry have, when taken together, a geometric effect on overall military strength. Well-trained, well-equipped troops can stand up to many more times their lesser brethren than linear arithmetic would seem to indicate."

Voiced by: Wanda Niño

Born 2026, in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Family emigrated to Mexico City; orphaned during East Side Riots of 2034. Joined survivalist gang known as Jade Falcons; remained in city with younger siblings for several years more (exact whereabouts unknown). Later appeared in Boyce Heights, New Los Angeles, alone. Joined NLA Red Panthers (community security force), then moved on to join City Guard; distinguished self as Battalion Commander as city imposed martial law in 2050. Joined U.N. Security Force in 2053; excellent discipline, physical agility and ability to thrive in any environment led to selection as part of security force, U.N. Alpha Centauri Mission.

The Spartans are militant survivalists, and believe that a strong military is essential for humanity to overcome the dangers inherent in Planet's dangerous ecosystem. The Spartans value discipline, order, strength and a chain of command, and are naturally tolerant of martial law. If anyone could pull off a Police State, it might be Santiago...although the occasional nods to the supporters of an individual right and duty to bear arms (e.g. Robert A. Heinlein) could indicate a sort of "classical military republic" in which citizenship requires armed service but citizens do have rights (a weak Democratic).

• +2 Morale (Well-armed survivalist movement)
• +1 Police (Highly disciplined followers)
• -1 Industry (Extravagant weapons are costly)
• New equipment does not require prototyping
• May not use Wealth value in Social Engineering

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• Almighty Janitor: Colonel is not a particularly high rank for the head of a society to hold. Justified in that Santiago is technically just the head of the government rather than the chief of the armed forces.
• Arch-Enemy:
  • Primarily with the Morganites (since she views their pursuit of wealth as being decadent and untrustworthy), the University (since she suspects that their pursuit of science is actually a smoke screen for advanced weapons research), and the Angels (since their preference for sneaky activities and decentralized organization over direct use of force and a clear and rigid chain of command are completely contrary to her views). Really, it's easier to count the people she doesn't have a grudge with; she leads the most militaristic faction, after all.
  • Subverted with the Gaians; although several secret project videos show the Spartans as targets of Gaian mind worm attacks, the two factions have no particular animosity in-game and often just ignore each other as Santiago is mostly concerned with other factions' values social engineering and Dierdre is mostly concerned with other factions' economics social engineering.
• Colonel Badass: She goes by the rank of colonel, and she's at the top of the pyramid in a society where Asskicking Leads to Leadership.
• Combat Pragmatist: Santiago's personal creed is "Survival at any cost." This in turn influences much of the Spartans' ideology. In play, Santiago is surprisingly likely to pledge a Pact of Sisterhood with any faction that manages to best her military, rather than fight to the last. So apparently, Defeat Means Friendship can be a matter of pragmatism, as well.
• Crazy Survivalist: The idea that underlies Santiago's character is that this is basically what you get with this trope as head of state. The Spartans are so focused on expanding and maintaining their military that their non-military industrial sectors suffer production penalties due to all the resources being diverted to weapons production instead of say, schools and farms. However, many of the Colonel's quotes emphasize the necessity of training the next generation and ensuring that other aspects of society are strong enough to properly support the military. For example, it is she who says there must be on-site facilities for children:
  Santiago: Men and women work harder knowing their children are safe and close at hand, and never forget that, with children present, parents will defend their home to the death.
• Death by Pragmatism: For all their advocacy of ruthless pragmatism and social darwinism, the Spartan Federation are the only canonically confirmed faction to have been eradicated. Even more humiliatingly, it was at the hand of the faction who advocated peace and living in harmony with the new world.
• Elite Army: Her "Welcome to the game" faction quote, as seen above. Due to their industrial weakness, the Spartans can afford to build and support fewer units than other factions. Due to their high morale (superior training) and ability to quickly get new technology into the field (superior weaponry), though, they have one of the most powerful military forces on Planet.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: While she's not evil, she definitely cannot comprehend the idea that anyone on Planet isn't looking to bring her down at the first sign of weakness, because that's how she's looking at everyone else. If a faction values Knowledge, she automatically assumes that it's just a cover for a secret weapons program, even if it's the Peacekeepers. (Of course, in some cases, she's likely to be right.)
• Expendable Clone: Being willing to clone her best soldiers and scientists ad infinitum and draft them into a society that lives under a neverending siege mentality is one of the more dystopic elements of Spartan ideology.
  Santiago: We shall take only the greatest minds, the finest soldiers, the most faithful servants. We shall multiply them a thousandfold and release them to usher in a new era of glory.
• Glory Seeker: This makes up a significant part of her faction rhetoric, the better to amp up her troops' patriotic fervor.
• Gun Nut: Called exactly this by her enemies. Given the vast numbers of military units she hoards, this is no exaggeration.
• Had to Be Sharp: She spent first half of her life on Earth as a gang member in slum-driven Mexico City. One of the reasons why she was picked for Unity Project was her ability to survive all of that and some more.
• Humans Are Warriors: The keystone of Santiago's personal philosophy, which she encourages in her faction.
• Hypocrite: Like any good Social Darwinist. Santiago's own son is a weakling and she pulls a lot of strings to ensure he's safe in the brutal society she advocates.
• Just Think of the Potential!: To quote the GURPS supplement: "The Spartans are no better at scientific research than any other faction, but they do have an uncanny ability to turn any new technology to military use." They also think that everyone else thinks like this, and any attempt at developing Knowledge for its own sake is a cover for something really ugly.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: Unlike many other factions in the game, who will fight to the bitter end rather than surrender to a clearly superior foe, Santiago knows when she's beaten and won't make trouble again afterwards if the player pushes her back to the wall.
• Non-Indicative Name: Played with. Corazon is the Spanish word for "heart"; Santiago is derived from St. Jacob, which most commonly refers to St. James the Greater, the first apostle to be crucified. Santiago is notably ruthless, but she does certainly believe in a certain kind of brutal solidarity and in sacrificing oneself in service of a mission. Furthermore, "¡Santiago!" was the battle cry of Spanish knights during the Crusades and the Reconquista, a fitting association for someone who embraces gung-ho militarism herself.
• Properly Paranoid: She fears that any Knowledge-based society is developing secret weapons programs that might destroy the Spartans. She's inevitably right, if for no other reason than that a rapidly-advancing society will develop weapons programs as part of their basic development.
• The Social Darwinist: Believes that since the Unity survivors are the last remnants of humanity, only the strongest deserves to survive. In extended universe materials, it was stated that if a child shows too much weakness, he or she will be taken out of the classroom by a teacher, then they will have the child's throat slit in order to remove such weakness for their society (though Santiago has avoided this occurring to her own rather-weak son)
  Santiago: The tragedy of Earth is not that so many died. Death is an inevitable part of life. The tragedy is that so many died as victims. When the crisis came, they were helpless, unable to use their deaths to buy anything of value. Millions of otherwise intelligent people had been tricked into ignoring a fundamental truth: that no man has any rights if he is unable to personally defend them.
• The Spartan Way: Right in the name. An integral part of their social paradigm, as part of a concerted effort on Santiago's part to reforge humanity into a Proud Warrior Race.
• The Starscream: Back when the Unity launched, she used a few connections to get some of her fellow survivalists assigned to the vessel. Once the Unity arrived over Planet, she attempted a coup to take control of the ship, which ultimately fragmented the crew into the different splinter factions present at the start of the game. However, she did not actually assassinate Captain Garland. The real culprit is never revealed.
• Vasquez Always Dies: In the novels, she and her faction are the first to be totally eradicated. Similarly, the in-game tech and secret project quotes imply her faction's elimination, as one of her books is "The Fall of Sparta", and along with Dierdre Skye's "Our Secret War", suggests that it was the Gaians (and their tamed mind worms) who defeated them.
• Violence is the Only Option: How they view the world. Considering that they live on a Death World that is filled with other humans factions that will go to war with you over ideological differences, technologically advanced Scary Dogmatic Aliens, and native wildlife that uses Mind Rape as a weapon, she is not entirely wrong. Subverted if you manage to push her back against a wall. She will pledge a Pact of Brotherhood with anyone who can definitively beat her down, and unlike the other factions, she's very unlikely to go against her word once she's in a better situation.

Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang (Human Hive)

Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang (Human Hive)

Tyranny, you say? How can you tyrannize someone who cannot feel pain?

"I maintain nonetheless that yin-yang dualism can be overcome. With sufficient enlightenment we can give substance to any distinction: mind without body, north without south, pleasure without pain. Remember, enlightenment is a function of willpower, not of physical strength."

Voiced by: Lu Yu

Born 1999, in Wuhan, China; father a prominent Chinese scholar. Master of the Five Excellences: calligraphy, poetry, painting, traditional medicine, and martial arts (including martial t'ai-chi, wushu, and others). Studied Chinese Literature and Military History at Beijing University, later acquired a PhD in Psychology from same. Taught joint lock techniques to Chinese military during the Second Golden Revolution, then commanded the Golden Emperor's personal security force. He vanished for several years following the Crimson Succession, to resurface in United Nations security training force. He was selected Chief of Security, U.N. Alpha Centauri Mission.

The Human Hive's philosophy takes influences from communism, collectivism, and elements of Buddhism and Taoism to produce a society with a strong emphasis on sacrificing the individual for the greater whole. Yang himself is something of an amalgam of historical communist leaders, and has big plans for social experimentation and mind control, although his philosophical quotes exhibit a strong Nietzschean influence—which he then subverts, by embracing the collectivism Nietzsche rejects. He's very much his own man.

• +1 to Growth (Rapid population growth)
• +1 to Industry (Brutal serfdom)
• -2 to Economy (Little political freedom)
• Free Perimeter Defense at each base (Underground bunkers)
• Immune to negative Efficiency modifiers^note This is more or less required, as without this immunity, Yang running his preferred Police State+Planned model would grind to a halt.
• May not use "Democratic" politics

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• Above Good and Evil: A large part of his philosophy is using the ends to justify the means, and seeing The Needs of the Many and ascendance of "the greater race" as far outweighing individual freedom or personal dignity.
• The Anti-Nihilist: He considers nihilism to be the result of maturity. That being said, one of his quotes sums up his relationship to nihilism nicely. "Life's only purpose is life itself."
• Arch-Enemy:
  • With the Peacekeepers and the Data Angels, since the existence of a democratic government on the planet threaten to make it hard for him to keep his population under control.
  • And the Believers, with Yang viewing religion as irrational superstition that must be removed. Though he himself is fully able to set up a fundamentalist government if need be.
• Badass Bookworm: He started out as a scholar on Earth, but later turned to a military career as the planet in general and China in particular grew more chaotic in the days leading up to the Unity mission.
• Big Bad: Downplayed, since there can be no true Big Bad in a strategy game that has so many variable factions in shades of Grey-and-Gray Morality. But, if there is a singular villain among the base factions, it's Yang. Garland considered him to be the single most dangerous person on the Unity mission (of which he was a power hungry second-in-command), it's implied he may have been the one to assassinate Garland which caused the Unity crew to fracture, and he was a war criminal back on Earth. In terms of faction performance, Yang under AI control tends to be one of the more aggressive ones, and his ideals and goals are closely aligned with traditional supervillains.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: The Human Hive is an attempt to create what is a blue-and-orange moral code from scratch on the surface of Planet. While all the standard factions' ideologies map quite nicely onto real-world ones from Earth, the Hive's mixture of Cult of Personality, wanting to create a new end-state of humanity, and their ideals of self-denial and arriving at pure selflessness and collectivism through a supreme act of individual will is made up of a mixture of very different ideals such as Taoism, Juche and the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche. Yang will even refer to the Hive as an 'experiment' in-game.
• Boxed Crook: Yang was wanted for war crimes back on Earth during the Second Golden Revolution in China, but was still accepted into the Unity project due to his leadership abilities and military experience.
• Democracy Is Bad: Refers to democracy as 'the cousin of anarchy' and will go as far as to declare war against democratic factions for not keeping their people on a tight leash.
• The Empath: A particularly cruel take on this trope. Yang not only has a deep understanding of human psychology and emotions, but has an uncanny ability to exploit them in the name of what he believes to be the collective whole.
• The Evils of Free Will: Believes that for humanity to ascend to enlightenment, they must give up the idea of individuality and embrace collectivism as a single society.
  Yang: Learn to overcome the crass demands of flesh and bone, for they warp the matrix through which we perceive the world. Extend your awareness outward, beyond the self of body, to embrace the self of group and the self of humanity. The goals of the group and the greater race are transcendent, and to embrace them is to achieve enlightenment.
• Heroic Willpower: One key tenet of his faction's ideology is "mind over matter" — any amount of pain can be borne as long as you can convince yourself you're not actually feeling pain. He applies this to himself; when he was being tortured with a Spartan Pain Whip aboard the Unity to make him compliant, he was using it to wake himself up and remain focused.
  Yang: What do I care for your suffering? Pain, even agony, is no more than information before the senses, data fed to the computer of the mind. The lesson is simple; you have received the information, now act on it. Take control of the input and you shall become master of the output.
• Hollywood Atheist: If you pick the fundamentalist government policy, he will sarcastically mock you for your 'medieval beliefs' in a way that would make Christopher Hitchens proud.
• Human Resources: Yang states this is every citizen's duty upon death. The quote for the Recycling Vats upgrade:
  Yang: It is every citizen's final duty to go into the tanks and become one with all the people.
• Inscrutable Oriental: Yang hails from China, and the Hive are highly paranoid and secretive with a social agenda many would find abhorrent.
• Manipulative Bastard:
  • He has an uncanny ability to play on the emotions of others while remaining unmoved himself. He's cultivated it to such an art form that it's essentially his style of governing.
  • In Journey to Centauri, he uses various techniques to get his Spartan guard to shoot herself. Garland who watches this on a camera orders his arrest for murder.
• Moral Sociopathy: He's passionate about the greater welfare of humanity as a whole, but he shows no remorse or compassion for the suffering his policies may cause for many individual humans.
• The Needs of the Many: The other major pillar of his philosophy of government.
• No Historical Figures Were Harmed: While you could say that he's essentially the distilled essence of every collectivist absolute autocrat ever, the most apt comparisons would probably be to Mao Zedong and Qin Shi Huangdi.
• Pet the Dog: In a twisted way. If a person is in pain, he would help them. Not by easing the pain but by teaching them to control and master the pain. Even in the Transcendent victory he would allow anyone who did not want to ascend to opt out with enough supplies, crops, and animals to survive afterwards. Of course also an example of Pragmatic Villainy as it's a backup in case it goes wrong.
• Police State: His preferred method of government, and he'll ultimately attack you if you refuse to run one.
• Repressive, but Efficient: Human Hive is immune to inefficiency, which allows them to use Police State and Planned Economy without any ill effects. Any other faction would commit an industrial suicide picking those two together.
• Psychic-Assisted Suicide: Played With. In the prequel book, when the Spartans wake up Yang from cryosleep they're under specific instructions not to let him talk. Once he's able to speak, he quickly demonstrates why by convincing his guard to shoot herself in the head with one monologue. What's weird about it is that she's not intending to commit suicide, but trying to prevent his escape and has somehow been convinced that her own head is actually his. It is implied that this is less Psychic Powers and more that Yang had actually installed a Trigger Phrase in the Spartans at some point that gave him control over them (and presumably is how he controls the Hive), hence the warning.
• The Sociopath: The GURPS supplement calls him one outright.
• The Stoic: He views emotion as an impediment to rational thought and strives to keep coolly detached even when under great stress.
• Totalitarian Utilitarian: His argument for the Genejack Factory is rooted in this. The Genejack is designed from the ground up to feel no pain and desire nothing other than the completion of its duty. Hence, he says that enslaving these purpose-designed drones is not tyrannical because they cannot suffer.
• Zerg Rush: His preferred method of waging war. He might not have the best weapons, armor, or troops... but boy oh boy oh boy, can he ever pump out a LOT of them.

CEO Nwabudike Morgan (Morgan Industries)

CEO Nwabudike Morgan (Morgan Industries)

Wealth is the universe's way of rewarding those who are clever and efficient. Those who scorn it are turning their backs on the imperatives of life.

"Human behavior is economic behavior. The particulars may vary but competition for limited resources remains a constant. Need as well as greed has followed us to the stars and the rewards of wealth still await those wise enough to recognize this deep thrumming of our common pulse."

Voiced by: Regi Davis

Born 2005, of African royalty. Nwabudike, using seed money to buy and sell weapons during the Sahara Burst Wars, was able to purchase a private mercenary force to claim a series of diamond mines from a defeated enemy nation. Leveraged his growing wealth to expand into several other businesses, including mercenary forces, U.N. escorts, brokering food deals, and creating Morgan Safe Haven Hotel Fortress chain "for the discriminating executive."

A wealthy African plutocrat^note Sources conflict as to whether he's from Namibia or Kenya who funded the entire construction of the Unity in exchange for a cabin aboard the vessel. Morgan and his followers are highly individualistic and value the pursuit of wealth above all means, and believe that free market capitalism leads to prosperity for humanity. However, this leads to reckless trading and corruption, and the people are accustomed to luxurious lifestyles.

• +1 Economy (Industrial Conglomerate)
• -1 Support (Followers have expensive tastes)
• Commerce activities with other factions such as treaties, pacts, and loans are leaned more in their favor
• Begin with 100 extra energy credits
• Need a Hab Complex to go above 4 population (Creature comforts at a premium)
• May not use Planned Economics

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• Arch-Enemy: With the Data Angels and the Free Drones, who both regard Morgan Industries as the Big Man trying to keep the Little Man down. He also clashes with the Gaians, the Planet Cult and the Progenitors due to his preference for inefficient and environmentally-unsound Free Market economics.
• Arms Dealer: His first major business venture on Earth was trading weapons during the Sahara Burst Wars. He later leveraged this position to fund a coup against Namibia's government, which led to him seizing control over their diamond mines.
• Buffy Speak: Downplayed. His quotes come across as more easygoing if tinged with corporate speak, befitting someone who had been a businessman back on Earth.
• Company Town: Morgan bases by default are this, being run as extensions of the MegaCorp.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Played with and zigzagged with Honest Corporate Executive, to the point where neither is entirely accurate. Like the other faction leaders, Morgan is a complex man rather than a strawman stereotype.
• Egopolis: All the bases are named "Morgan ***" by default. Of course, since each base is apparently headquarters of some division of Morgan Industries, this is less egotistical than it might be otherwise. Then again, the faction is called Morgan Industries, which admittedly, is a fairly common naming scheme for companies. See: Honda, Fox, Boeing, Colt.
• Everyone Has Standards: For all of Morgan's lionization of greed and resource exploitation, he still believes in some form of long-term planning, even if only in the name of accumulating future wealth or keeping the financial bottom line secure.
• Fiction 500:
  • Back on Earth, his company was so wealthy that when it came to contributing resources to the Unity project, it was on equal footing with major nations such as the USA, EU, India, and China. (More specifically, he almost single-handedly stepped in to cover Russia's end of the bargain when that nation's economy collapsed in the 2050s.)
  • And on Planet, it is easiest for the Morgans to go for the economic victory. Which is achieved by investing so much of your energy reserves into the planetary economy that after a few turns, you corner the entire global energy market. This results in total economical collapse and meltdown for all the other factions, forcing them to surrender to you without firing a single shot in battle.
• For Happiness: Only through his own sense of right and wrong. While competition has winners and losers, Morgan believes that his people have the inalienable right to consume to their heart’s content.
• Greed: One of his defining characteristics, and one he personally wouldn't even call a vice or a flaw. One of his fictional books is even titled "The Ethics of Greed", and for an excerpt:
  Morgan: Resources exist to be consumed. And consumed they will be, if not by this generation then by some future. By what right does this forgotten future seek to deny us our birthright? None I say! Let us take what is ours, chew and eat our fill.
• Just Think of the Potential!: The potential for profit, but still, potential (as Morgan points out, energy is actually currency on Planet — money is quite literally power, and/or vice versa). Morgan is particularly enamored of the untapped energies of both Planet and its sun, and how they can supercharge both Morgan Industries' economy and their research.
  Morgan: Planet's Primary, Alpha Centauri A, blasts unimaginable quantities of energy into space each instant, and virtually every joule of it is wasted entirely. Incomprehensible riches can be ours if we can but stretch our arms wide enough to dip from this eternal river of wealth.
• Living Forever Is Awesome: He provides the quote for the Secret Project "The Longevity Vaccine", which, at least under Morgan's preferred Free Market economics, permanently boosts the economy of the researching base by 50%. Living forever is certainly more awesome with the luxuries vast wealth can provide.
  Morgan: I plan to live forever, of course, but barring that I'd settle for a couple thousand years. Even five hundred would be pretty nice.
• Meaningful Name: Shares his last name with 19th century industrialist and financier John Pierpont Morgan, (in)famous as one of the most successful and ruthless capitalists in all of history. Knowing what we do of the latter-day Morgan, it's possible that he chose the name himself as an homage and for brand recognition.
• Megacorp: Imagine if the world is divided between seven superpowers. And one of them is controlled by a single corporation that not only serves as its government, but also have various trade and business interests in the six other countries. That is Morgan Industries in a nutshell.
• Merchant Prince: On Earth, he was born into wealth and privilege, but leveraged it into economic and political power.
• One Nation Under Copyright: A piece of his flavor text argues this is the natural order of things — energy resources are the most vital resource humans have, and those who control access to energy can rule the planet.
  Morgan: And when at last it is time for the transition from megacorporation to planetary government, from entrepreneur to emperor, it is then that the true genius of our strategy shall become apparent [...] In former times the energy monopoly was called "The Power Company"; we intend to give this name an entirely new meaning.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: When you've got the energy credits to pay for the immediate construction of new units and for ridiculously complex probe team operations, what is "fair" anymore? Also, favors Free Market economics, which is just what it sounds like -- no oversight and control, resulting in ruthless and unethical business behavior at the benefit of huge profits. However, the Morganites will almost always honor the letter of their contracts. They'll make sure to get the best out of the deal during the negotiations, of course, but that's just how things get done. After all, going back on your word is bad for business.
• Self-Made Man: While of African royalty and already rich on Earth, he had none of that when he was reawakened on the starship Unity. Despite not having any official position in the mission, Morgan managed to work his way into the leadership and gather a large following in the few days he was awake before the Landing, set off to Planet with his followers, and create a powerful faction with his own talents.
• The Social Darwinist: As seen in the above "Wealth is the universe's way of rewarding those who are clever" quote:
  Morgan: Those who scorn it are turning their backs on the imperatives of life. They should be careful. We all know what happens to those who lose at the game of evolution.
• The Team Benefactor: A major financial contributor to the Unity project and his company took over part of the ship's construction after the Russian government went broke.

Academician Prokhor Zakharov (University of Planet)

Academician Prokhor Zakharov (University of Planet)

Each layer unraveled reveals new secrets, but also new mysteries.

"There are two kinds of scientific progress: the methodical experimentation and categorization which gradually extend the boundaries of knowledge, and the revolutionary leap of genius which redefines and transcends those boundaries. Acknowledging our debt to the former, we yearn, nonetheless, for the latter."

Voiced by: Yuri Nesteroff

Born 1994, in Cherskiy, Russia. Educated Interlink Correspondence courses, Universities Moscow and Saint Petersburg. Joined Kolymar Defense Force out of college, tested very high in engineering aptitude, sent to University of Moscow on site for Masters' in engineering. Later served as Combat Engineer along the Bering Strait, developed specialized snowbound powered armor for skirmishers, coupled with profound ability to land heavy machinery in any imaginable conditions. Quickly rose to Chief Engineer, Kolymar defense initiative. When skirmishing ended was brought back to Moscow to a high-ranking R&D position in the Russian Republic Ministry of Defense. Used a trip to a conference in Germany to transfer to the United Nations team responsible for developing planetside technology, U.N. Alpha Centauri Mission. Recommended unconditionally by high-ranking U.N. official for position of Chief Science Officer on ship.

The University believes that human survival and welfare are best achieved through the constant pursuit of science and technology. To this end, however, the University can and does often disregard ethical concerns, and Zakharov is vocal in his condemnation of all forms of religion or spirituality. He treads a fine line between the famous German scientists: Albert Einstein and Josef Mengele.

• +2 Research (Brilliant research)
• -2 Probe (Academic networks vulnerable to infiltration)
• Free Network Node at every base
• One Bonus Tech at beginning of game
• Extra Drone for every four citizens (Lack of Ethics)
• May not use Fundamentalist Politics

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• Arch-Enemy: With the Believers, as their fundamentalist and anti-progressive tendencies are direct opposite to University's main goals. The Spartans and Pirates also strongly distrust Zakharov, and vice versa; Zak believes that their pursuit of military power at all costs is irrational, while they presume that his pursuit of knowledge for its own sake is a cover for a secret weapons program.
• Belief Makes You Stupid:
  • Believes that religion and conventional morality hinder scientific progress.
  • To a lesser degree, this extends to skepticism of any sort of dogmatic worldview; Fundamentalism as a social engineering choice is available even to the atheistic Hive and the materialistic Morganites. The University's aversion to Fundamentalism means that they are committed to the idea that all worldviews are open to intellectual scrutiny and criticism, even their own commitment to the pursuit of knowledge as a fundamental good in and of itself; they take it too seriously not to question it.
• Cool Shades: Futuristic quasi-3D glasses, with one red lens and one green one. It's not clear if they're functional or simply go with the long hair and piercings.
  • Played straight with the biopics. Dude LOVES wearing shades.
• Deadpan Snarker: He's more condescending than outright aggressive towards his opponents' views.
• Disk One Nuke: Zakharov's free Network Nodes lets him hook up Alien Artifacts to his bases for instant tech advances, which can be a huge advantage in the early game. By the mid game, though, the likelihood of finding an Artifact in a resource pod is rare, and any tech advantages Zakharov has are probably due more to his own innate Research benefits than usage of the Artifacts.
• Emperor Scientist: The chief scientist on the Unity. And after becoming the leader of his own faction, he still give science lectures and perform experiments outside of politics.
• Expy: In addition to the similarities with Einstein and Mengele, there's also a bit of Carl Sagan in him.
• Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke: One of his areas of particular interest, judging by the various techs (Gene Splicing, Centauri Genetics, Retroviral Engineering) which he provides the quote for.
• For Science!: Taken to (a)moral extremes. He truly believes in the potential for scientific knowledge to greatly improve the lot of all humanity, and sees the pursuit of knowledge as imperative. So one shouldn't let little things like "informed consent" and "human rights" get in the way.
  Zakharov: The popular stereotype of the researcher is that of a skeptic and a pessimist. Nothing could be further from the truth! Scientists must be optimists at heart, in order to block out the incessant chorus of those who say "It cannot be done."
• Hollywood Atheist: Even have his own quote in which he states his amazement that religion still exist in the world and humanity hasn't Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions yet.
  Zakharov: Man's unfailing capacity to believe what he prefers to be true rather than what the evidence shows to be likely and possible has always astounded me. We long for a caring Universe which will save us from our childish mistakes, and in the face of mountains of evidence to the contrary we will pin all our hopes on the slimmest of doubts. God has not been proven not to exist, therefore he must exist.
• Hypocrite: Every faction leader is one in one sense or another, but one instance in particular stands out for Zakharov: He believes in transparency and free access to scientific data for all researchers, yet he also conducts secret experiments into retroviral engineering in his own quarters and has his Vice Provost lie about it for him. Though he is denying its existence to the Genetic Inspectors, so it may just be for the sake of politics.
• LEGO Genetics: Specifically calls this out as entirely inaccurate in the flavor text, in two separate cases:
  Zakharov: The genetic code does not, and cannot, specify the nature and position of every capillary in the body or every neuron in the brain. What it can do is describe the underlying fractal pattern which creates them. [accompanies discovery of the "Gene Splicing" tech]
  Zakharov: Remember, genes are NOT blueprints. This means you can't, for example, insert "the genes for an elephant's trunk" into a giraffe and get a giraffe with a trunk. There are no genes for trunks. What you CAN do with genes is chemistry, since DNA codes for chemicals. For instance, we can in theory splice the native plants' talent for nitrogen fixation into a terran plant. [accompanies discovery of the "Centauri Genetics" tech]
• Mad Scientist: Regarded as such by other factions, though the truth is more complicated.
• Misfit Lab Rat: Implied to be this by his appearance, but all grown up: Zakharov is the scientific establishment now, and is the oldest of the faction leaders (with five years on Yang), but has long, unkempt hair and multiple piercings. His mismatched lenses might be scientific equipment or could simply be an aesthetic choice — it never comes up either way.
• Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: Zakharov does not particularly care what happens in the course of his research, so long as he sees results. This is the in-game reason why you suffer an additional Drone per base (which has negative effects on your base's morale) - he leaves a lot of metaphorical scorched earth in his wake.
• Not So Stoic: In the quote for the Temple of Planet, he's absolutely furious:
  Zakharov: Let the Gaians preach their silly religion, but one way or the other I shall see this compound burned, seared, and sterilized until every hiding place is found and until every last Mind Worm egg, every last slimy one, has been cooked to a smoking husk. That species shall be exterminated, I tell you! Exterminated!
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Given his generally stoic demeanor and disdain for religion in general, you know the stakes have risen dramatically when he describes the Voice of Planet, with some dread and without irony, as an "awakening alien god."
• Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions: He refuses to run a Fundamentalist government, and is astounded that people still adhere to religious faith. Unlike Yang, Lal and Roze, though, he doesn't go so far as to interfere with other factions' Fundamentalist governments; he simply never has one himself. Zahkarov is also unlike the others in that he is a true empiricist — presented with sufficient evidence that the Voice of Planet is essentially an embryonic deity, he says so.
  Zakharov: Imagine the entire contents of the planetary datalinks, the sum total of human knowledge, blasted into the Planetmind's fragile neural network with the full force of every reactor on the planet. That is our last-ditch attempt to win humanity a reprieve from extinction at the hands of an awakening alien god. [accompanies the Voice of Planet secret project]

Sister Miriam Godwinson (Lord's Believers)

Sister Miriam Godwinson (Lord's Believers)

How proud we have become, and how blind.

"The righteous need not cower before the drumbeat of human progress. Though the song of yesterday fades into the challenge of tomorrow, God still watches and judges us. Evil lurks in the datalinks as it lurked in the streets of yesteryear. But it was never the streets that were evil."

Voiced by: Gretchen Weigel

Born 2014, in Athens, Georgia, father a high-ranking member of the Evangelical Fire. Baptized in River of Fire at age 7; attended series of religious schools, including College of the Covenant. Received Ph.D. in psychology from Yale University. Abundant charisma led her to position as ranking Psych Priest of Heavenly Diocese; later appointed U.N. Honorary Psych Chaplain for Re-integration Forces sent to countries decimated in Crusader Wars. Reassigned stateside when native populations elevated her to a cult-like religious figure (the 'Prophet Phenomenon' often coinciding with post-nuclear madness). Political pressure for the reconciling of the secular and the spiritual led to her appointment as Psych Chaplain, U.N. Alpha Centauri Mission.

The Believers are fanatical Protestant Christians who view the destruction of Earth as the wrath of God, and Planet as their Promised Land that awaits the faithful. Their unfaltering faith places them frequently at war with factions who don't conform with her views. Whether she is justified or not is unclear—she manages to never become a true straw man of her religion, and while she is aggressive and intolerant of the non-believers, she's hardly unique in that regard — few of Planet's factions tolerate viewpoints differing from their own.

• +1 Probe (Devout believers difficult to brainwash)
• +2 Support (Citizens eager to defend faith)
• -2 Research (Suspicious of secular science)
• -1 Planet (Believe Planet is their promised land)
• +25% Bonus when attacking enemies (From strength of convictions)
• Accumulates NO research points for the first ten turns
• May not use Knowledge value in Social Engineering

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• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Tends to strongly oppose research into artificial research as a form Playing God.
  Sister Godwinson: Already we have turned all of our critical industries, all of our material resources, over to these... things... these lumps of silver and paste we call nanorobots. And now we propose to teach them intelligence? What, pray tell, will we do when these little homunculi awaken one day and announce that they have no further need for us?
• Arch-Enemy: The University, since they epitomize Science Is Bad. She also takes issue with the Peacekeepers and Angels, since they favor godless democracies, and The Hive, which favors a brutal Police State.
• Belief Makes You Stupid: Played with.
  • On the one hand, they have a crippling 20% research penalty, and can't research at all for the first ten years of the game. This is explained by their inherent distrust in the skepticism that goes with the scientific method, as well as the fact that theology tends to be a better study choice for a successful career than the applied sciences.
  • On the other hand, Sister Miriam is a psychologist by training, and she uses that knowledge to instill her followers with a fanatic zeal and a strong sense of common purpose. The Believers' Probe Teams also benefit from this, being better able to manipulate the malcontents and dissidents in other factions and to spot the telltale signs of other factions' Probe Teams trying to pull the same tricks on them.
• Church Militant: Along with Yang, Cha Dawn, and the aliens, she's very aggressive.
• Cold Ham: Tends toward bombastic language and quiet forcefulness when denouncing the evils of the latest breakthrough.
  Sister Godwinson: Beware, you who seek first and final principles, for you are trampling the garden of an angry God and He awaits you just beyond the last theorem.
• Dark Messiah: Her conception of God is very much in the Old Testament tradition, and she sees herself as His messenger and cleansing flame.
• Dark Shepherd: While she's sensitive to those she sees as being in distress, she's also not afraid to bring down the wrath of God on anyone she views as an unrepentant non-believer or apostate.
• Democracy Is Bad: Hostile to factions with democratic governments due to their secular nature. Ironically, while Miriam is hostile towards democracies, there's nothing to stop her from establishing a democracy herself.
• Emperor Scientist: While her faction isn't very good at research, Miriam herself is one of the most educated faction leaders, and she cements her power and builds her faction through advanced psychological science.
• The Extremist Was Right: Given some of the late-game technologies and secret projects, as well as their implied impacts on society, Miriam's warnings about the dangers of reckless advancement may not as unfounded as they seem.
• Fiery Redhead: Miriam is by far the most passionate of the base factions and coded to be very aggressive.
• A God Am I: Downplayed, but functionally played straight. Miriam doesn't claim to be God herself — that would be blasphemy — but she views herself as His divinely appointed messenger to what's left of humanity and that her every action is in accord with His will.
• Humans Are Special: It tends to get lost amid the fundamentalist rhetoric, but Miriam is one of the relatively few faction leaders who believes that humans have inherent value and dignity as they are individually, not simply as a means to some utopian end.
• Hypocrite: With a side of Gameplay and Story Segregation: she can use late-game technologies that she explicitly condemns as immoral. She tends to rationalize this to herself by referring to technologies as "miracles" when she uses them, but as Playing God when researched by others.
• Ivy League for Everyone: Back on Earth, she got her doctorate for psychology from Yale. Her quotes show that she certainly knows quite a bit about her subject.
• Just the First Citizen: Downplayed. Rather than take up some lofty title, Miriam opts to be known simply as "Sister," reflecting her view that all humans are brothers and sisters in the eyes of God. In practice, however, she's evidently the most powerful and influential among her flock, her word treated as second only to God Himself.
• Low Culture, High Tech: While Miriam herself would undoubtedly dispute her faction being characterized as "low culture," the Believers' inherent Probe bonuses and research penalties encourage her to focus on using Probe Teams to poach new techs from other factions rather than wasting Energy trying to keep up on their own, especially as her preferred Fundamentalist politics amplify both tendencies.
• Meaningful Name: Godwinson is pretty nail-on-the-head for the leader of the Lord's Believers. Miriam, meanwhile, was the name of Moses' sister, a prophetess in her own right.
• Messianic Archetype: Her passionate faith, her extensive training in psychology, and her sense of duty to help those in need make her an extremely charismatic figure. Of course, see also Dark Messiah above.
• Moral Guardians: One of the factors slowing down the Believers' research is that new discoveries have to be vetted for morally-approved applications before they can be acted upon. On the other hand, Miriam Godwinson herself downplays this by highlighting how it was never the streets of yesteryear that were evil.
• A Mother to Her Men: Played with in that she feels a sense of duty towards those in need of spiritual guidance, but that means killing anyone who doesn't get with the program.
• Pet the Dog:
  • For all that she's the setting's token Knight Templar Moral Guardian, it bears noting that she gained her initial power base by showing compassion for a segment of Project Unity's colonists that other leaders only held in contempt.
  • She was also the only other leader to vote with Lal to preserve the unity of the mission in the introductory novel — of course, in-game Lal's use of democracy means she's likely to wipe him out if they encounter each other early on.
• Police State: Subverted. Miriam has the centralized government and fervent belief that one would expect from a police state, but she considers such a thing barbaric and will attack you for doing the same.
• Science Is Bad: Usually subverted. Miriam isn't opposed to science because Science Is Wrong, but because she thinks humanity isn't ready to use the immense power of technology in a sensible way. Given some of the late-game technology breakthroughs and their implied impacts on society, she may very well be right. On the other hand, her objection to Unified Field Theory is purely dogmatic; "seeking first and final principles" is seen as Playing God.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Her quotes paint her as a measured, benevolent leader, but that's only when speaking to her followers. In-game, the AI Godwinson heads up one of the most aggressive factions, quick to cast down and destroy those whose beliefs do not exactly align with those of her fellow Believers.
• Turbulent Priest: The Believers' Probe bonus applies offensively as well as defensively, modeling how their Probe Teams work with a missionary zeal and can easily manipulate the downcast in other factions with promises of a better life.
• Zerg Rush: They can maintain a massive army, but it'll usually be considerably lower-tech than everyone else's, encouraging this tactic.

Commissioner Pravin Lal (UN Peacekeeping Forces)

Commissioner Pravin Lal (UN Peacekeeping Forces)

We must never forget that people are the sole reason for our struggle.

"As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."

Voiced by: Hesh Gordon

Born 2006, in Rajkot, India. Degree in Philosophy and Medicine, Oxford University. Trained in Thoracic Surgery. Achieved international acclaim for selfless devotion to victims of radiation poisoning following the Twelve Minute War and the India Border Conflict. Served as member of research team investigating genes that encode proteins aiding with DNA repair, University of Basel, Switzerland. Later appointed Assistant Director, World Health Organization. Top candidate for Chief of Surgery, U.N. Alpha Centauri Mission.

The UN forces attempt to remain true to the ideals of the UN Charter. Lal, the appointed successor to Captain Garland, has constructed a faction strongly dedicated to peace, tolerance, and humanitarian ideals. Pravin Lal is quite possibly the most level-headed of the factions leaders, but occasionally his "peacekeeping" heads towards "police actions" and "occupations", and the other leaders may regard him as a simpering, cowardly fool for avoiding war.

• -1 Efficiency (UN Style Bureaucracy)
• Extra Talent for every 4 people (Attracts intellectual elite)
• Population growth may exceed Hab Complex requirements by 2 (Moderate asceticism).
• Receives double votes in elections for Governor and Supreme Leader
• May not use Police State Politics

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• Academic Athlete: A great amount of his biopics depict him participating in various athletic activities. More than any other leader, except Deirdre.
• Arch-Enemy: He despises anything but Democracy, and thus, will clash frequently with the Hive (referring to their human rights policies as "sleeping demons" in the construction quote for Recreation Commons), the Believers, and usually, the Cult of Planet. All of them are quite aggressive in return.
• Beleaguered Bureaucrat: Literally. All of poor Lal's objectives were thrown out the window with the sabotage and factionalism, and constantly has a Here We Go Again! attitude over humanity's actions on Chiron.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Downplayed. Despite everything that life has thrown at him, including the death of his wife, only son, and grandson, he still holds to his ideals and is one of the most compassionate faction leaders.
• Determinator: Will do anything possible to uphold UN Charter. Even if you press the barrel of an impact rifle to his head.
• The Federation: The last remnants of the UN command structure that was intended for the Unity. Stands for the ideals of democracy and human rights, but like its real counterpart, Lal and Peacekeepers frequently just talk a lot, having very variable influence on other factions.
• The Fettered: Despite his political power, charisma, idealism, and other traits that might seem to suit him to the Übermensch archetype, Lal is wholly committed to the UN Charter set out before him, and seeks to preserve them amongst the environment of Alpha Centauri rather than formulating his own ideology.
• The Last DJ: He's the last UNS Unity officer still following the original directives of the mission, as Captain Garland intended, and upholding the UN Charter.
• Good Is Not Soft: He's an advocate of peaceful existence, exploration of the planet and general betterment of what's left of human race. The faction he leads is named Peacekeepers. His AI is also written as the most peaceful one of the original seven. None of this means he won't defend himself nor pump crazy amount of combat units when needed. And unlike other "peaceful" factions like Gaians or Morganites, Peacekeepers do not suffer any military debuff.
• The McCoy: Lal tends to base his decisions on what is most compassionate, and makes frequent appeals to emotion and others' better nature in his speeches.
• The Medic: His original role on the UNS Unity.
• Jack of All Stats: Lal's is the faction with the most mid-level balance of strengths and weaknesses, and thus is extremely friendly to new players. His benefits to Talents and base size allow the player to build up their faction comfortably without worrying about Drones and population caps too much, and the size of his population in tandem with his vote bonus lets him easily win Governor elections and go for a Diplomatic Victory. His sole penalty is -1 to Efficiency, but his preferred form of government, Democracy, offsets that with +2 Efficiency. Note that while he lacks glaring issues of other factions, he also doesn't have any further benefits, thus will be always out-competed in specific niche by other faction. His ultimate advantage is the unparalleled flexibility others lack.
• Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions: He sees religion as a relic of humanity's barbaric old days that has no place in governing Planet, and gets distressed when other leaders run Fundamentalist governments. He can still run one himself, though.
• The Remnant: The Peacekeepers are the faction with by far the best claim to being the "continuity" faction representing the original mission of the Unity. But they're still just one faction out of the original seven.
• Replacement Goldfish: One of the interpretations of his poem.
  Lal: I loved my chosen. How then to face the day when she left me? So I took from her body a single cell, perhaps to love her again.
• Screw the Money, I Have Rules!: You can't buy his vote when trying to repeal the UN Charter.
• Technical Pacifist: He will try to avoid any conflict and use lots of Unusual Euphemism for many words related with war and violence.Whether this makes him the only sane man or not is up to the player.
• United Nations Is a Superpower: Depending on how the game goes, can ended up finally achieving the Unity's original goal of forming a united world government based on the UN. Seeing how they can go both directions in either achieving victory via diplomatic or military means, this is very possible.
• Vast Bureaucracy: One of the downsides of their commitment to the UN Charter is that it forces them to adopt a complex and inefficient bureaucracy to make absolutely certain that everything is approved and documented through the proper channels.

Alien Crossfire:

Guardian Lular H'minee (Manifold Caretakers)

Guardian Lular H'minee (Manifold Caretakers)

Secret : bring here to there.

"Tau Ceti flowering: Horrors visited upon neighboring systems must never be repeated. Therefore: if it means the end of our evolution as a species, so be it."

Voiced by: Jeff Gordon

One of two factions of Scary Dogmatic Aliens that crash-land on Planet after a violent confrontation in orbit. Led by "Conservator" Lular H'Minee, the Caretakers intend to maintain Planet's pristine state while searching it for the mysterious Manifold Nexus — even going so far as to knock their Usurper rivals and any human obstacles out of the way. The more reasonable of the two, but still doesn't think much of humans.

• +1 Planet (Understand workings of Planet, the Sixth Manifold)
• +25% Defensive Combat (Can sense & manipulate "Resonance" fields)
• Free Recycling Tanks at every base
• "Energy Grid" at each base: (Increased infrastructure generates additional energy)
• Make Planetfall with a Mk I Battle Ogre and extra Colony Pod
• All prototyped combat units have 2-square sighting radius ("Resonance" sensitivity)
• Can direct research efforts (rediscovering technology & infrastructure)
• Possesses a physical scan of Planet's surface

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• Aliens Are Bastards: While less brutal and vicious than the Usurpers and possessing somewhat nobler intentions in trying to prevent a disaster from repeating, they plan on not just exterminating their nemeses, the Usurpers, but of purging any and all other sapient life on Planet that even might seek to recreate the tragedy of Tau Ceti, which means that war with humanity is inevitable and can only possibly end in the destruction of the Caretakers or the the extermination of all humans on Planet.
• Arch-Enemy: The Usurpers. There is absolutely no way they can get out of committing war with them. They also run afoul of the Morganites, Gaians, and Planet Cult, since the Caretakers prefer planned economies and find market economics of any sort infuriatingly irrational.
• Berserk Button:
  • Starting the "Ascent to Transcendence." She will call Vendetta on you immediately if you start the project.
  • Not running Planned economics - both Progenitor factions have almost no tolerance for any sort of economics they see as "irrational", especially when they're being employed by a species they see as barely worthy of the word sapient.
  • An Alliance with the Usurpers will be automatically war with the Caretakers.
• Gaia's Vengeance: As with the Gaians, expect lots of mind worms.
• Intrigued by Humanity: In the RPG book, H'minee is noted to be interested in humans and their societies, though she still tends to regard them as not-quite-sentient animals rather than rivals.
• Logical Weakness:
  • The Progenitors start a few turns after all human factions (except the Cult of Planet, who also start late). If a player is playing a Progenitor, the game start is moved forward a few years and none of the human factions have built anything. If only the AI is playing the Progenitors, they arrive in the first 10 years, but their massive bonuses overwhelm this drawback, at least against other AI factions.
  • Since the Caretakers seek to specifically to prevent the Usurpers from trying to cause another Flowering, they are not allowed to pursue a Transcendence victory, even if the victory condition is enabled.
  • Not being in the U.N. means that they were never signatories of the U.N. Charter, which means that while they receive no penalties for using chemical weapons, nerve stapling, or razing bases, there are also no penalties for committing these same atrocities against them, save for the obvious ire of the Caretakers themselves.
• My Greatest Failure: As a race, they believe they were wrong to try and manipulate the manifolds, and seek to never do it again.
• Non-Human Non-Binary: Played With- The in-game description notes that gender is fluid in Progenitor culture, but female is the closest human analogue for Lular. She's also the one of two Faction Leaders to have a Crosscast Voice Actor, being voiced by Jeff Gordon (the other faction leader is the male child Cha Dawn, voiced by Stacy Spenser).
• Pink Girl, Blue Boy: She has a female personality and appears to be a salmon pink colour, whereas Judaa Marr is a bluish green and has a male personality.
• Purposely Overpowered: Both Progenitor factions have several advantages over the human factions, including favorable base social engineering values, free access to one of the most important early game buildings, an energy grid bonus that gives them more energy for each base in the place of commerce, start with five techs, while no human faction starts with more than two, immunity to the Blind Research and No Unity Survey rules, a Battle Ogre Mk1 (while unrepairable, its 6r-3r-1 stats make it potentially devastating against humans for the first ~50-100 turns), and a second colony pod (shared only with the Pirates). Additionally, the Caretakers have unrestricted social engineering (shared only with the Pirates) and a defensive combat bonus. Their only real drawback is that they lack the ability to cooperate between factions at the same level as human factions and do not generate commerce. Notably, they nave no seats on the U.N. Council and can never be non-hostile with one another and their non-membership in the U.N. cuts both ways — they can freely commit minor atrocities, but human factions may also freely commit those same atrocities upon them, even if the U.N. Charter has not been repealed.
• Scary Dogmatic Aliens: Want to exterminate all other life-forms on Planet and leave it in peace, though they won't necessarily make every effort to wipe out humanity until they attempt to Transcend.
• Starfish Aliens: Their society is frequently described as strange and inhuman.
• Suicidal Overconfidence: Since the Progenitors see humanity as approximately as intelligent as we see dogs, they will make insane demands of human factions' tech and energy reserves, rarely offering anything in return, and will do so even if the faction they are making demands of is far more powerful than them. Failing to comply with these demands almost invariably means vendetta, no matter whether the Caretakers are more powerful or have been far eclipsed in every metric by whoever they're issuing their demands to.

Conqueror Judaa Marr (Manifold Usurpers)

Conqueror Judaa Marr (Manifold Usurpers)

Life : mind. Mind : evolution toward Flowering.

"Risks of Flowering: considerable. But rewards of godhood: who can measure?"

Also voiced by: Jeff Gordon

The second faction of Scary Dogmatic Aliens, led by "Conqueror" Judaa Marr. Having exhausted their technological advantage while fending off the Caretakers in the search for Manifold Six (their name for Planet) and the Nexus within, they seek to affect the evolution of the Planetmind as a means of restoring contact with the Progenitor home system. Of course, if they can just as easily dominate alien and human alike through military force.

• +1 Growth (Abuse Planet's resources for their own gain)
• +1 Morale (Warlike culture)
• -1 Planet (Planet senses Usurpers' dark intent)
• +25% Offensive combat (Can sense & manipulate "Resonance" fields)
• Free Recycling Tanks at every base
• "Energy Grid" at each base (Increased infrastructure generates additional energy)
• Begin game with a Mk I Battle Ogre and extra Colony Pod
• All prototyped combat units have 2-square sighting radius ("Resonance" sensitivity)
• Can direct research efforts (rediscovering technology & infrastructure)
• Possess a physical scan of Planet's surface

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• Aliens Are Bastards: The Usurpers seek nothing less than the conquest of all else that inhabits Planet and to force Planet to awaken and trigger a Flowering, even knowing the horrors the Tau Ceti Flowering caused.
• Arch-Enemy: The Caretakers, with whom they are constantly at war. Also expect problems with the Gaians, Morganites, and Planet Cult since the Usurpers run a Planned economy and despise human market economics regardless of regulations on said market, and with the Peacekeepers and Angels since they can't have a democracy.
• Berserk Button: An Alliance with the Caretakers will be automatically war with the Usurpers.
• Godhood Seeker: Believes that Flowering will allow he and his followers to Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence. This ambition is also spelled out by one of their base names, "Godhood's Grasp".
• It Can Think: While the Progenitors initially think of humans as somewhere around as smart as we see dogs or maybe chimpanzees, the dialog accompanying the construction of the first Flechette Missile Defense system reflects a dawning realization that humans may well be just as smart as the Progenitors, as they begin to field devices that the Progenitors themselves are implied to have never invented.

Missile attack on Zeta-5: humans activate first defense successful. Afterwards: danger posed by innovation suddenly clear.

— Usurper Judaa Marr, "Human : Nature"

• Large and in Charge: Absolutely huge compared to even the largest human leaders, and stands several inches taller than H'minee.
• Logical Weakness:
  • The Progenitors start a few turns after all human factions (except the Cult of Planet, who also start late). If a player is playing a Progenitor, the game start is moved forward a few years and none of the human factions have built anything. If only the AI is playing the Progenitors, they arrive in the first 10 years, but their massive bonuses overwhelm this drawback, at least against other AI factions.
  • Not being in the U.N. means that they were never signatories of the U.N. Charter, which means that while they receive no penalties for using chemical weapons, nerve stapling, or razing bases, there are also no penalties for committing these same atrocities against them, save for the obvious ire of the Usurpers themselves.
• Mirroring Factions: The RPG book notes that, despite their open contempt for humanity, the Usurpers in general and Judaa Marr in particular are much more "human-like" than their estranged Caretaker cousins.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: From a human perspective, a name that sounds like byword for traitors "Judas" and "mar". For that matter, taking "Conqueror" as your official title and announcing your faction as the Usurpers doesn't help much either. This is also a major part of the Theme Naming for their bases, which have names like "Salt : Wound," "Impaler Dome," and "Conquest of the Weak".
• Non-Human Non-Binary: Played With- The in-game description notes that Judaa's actual gender indeterminate, but he seems to have a male personality.
• Pink Girl, Blue Boy: He has a male personality and is a bluish green, while Lular H'minee is a salmon pink colour.
• Planet Looters: The Usurpers are here to use the power of the Manifold for their own ambitions, and to destroy anything in their way.
• Purposely Overpowered: Both Progenitor factions have several advantages over the human factions, including favorable base social engineering values, free access to one of the most important early game buildings, an energy grid bonus that gives them more energy for each base in the place of commerce, start with five techs, while no human faction starts with more than two, immunity to the Blind Research and No Unity Survey rules, a Battle Ogre Mk1 (while unrepairable, its 6r-3r-1 stats make it potentially devastating against humans for the first ~50-100 turns), and a second colony pod (shared only with the Pirates). Additionally, the Usurpers have the same innate offensive combat bonus as the Believers without their significant research penalty. Their only real drawback is that they lack the ability to cooperate between factions at the same level as human factions and do not generate commerce. Notably, they nave no seats on the U.N. Council and can never be non-hostile with one another and their non-membership in the U.N. cuts both ways — they can freely commit minor atrocities, but human factions may also freely commit those same atrocities upon them, even if the U.N. Charter has not been repealed.
• Scary Dogmatic Aliens: Canonically, these guys are evil, the only faction explicitly called out as such by the game.
• Social Darwinist: Their ideology is basically that the Progenitors should do whatever it takes to make themselves more powerful, even if at the expense of everyone and everything else.
• Suicidal Overconfidence: Since the Progenitors see humanity as approximately as intelligent as we see dogs, they will make insane demands of human factions' tech and energy reserves, rarely offering anything in return, and will do so even if the faction they are making demands of is far more powerful than them. Failing to comply with these demands almost invariably means vendetta, no matter whether the Usurpers are more powerful or have been far eclipsed in every metric by whoever they're issuing their demands to.

Captain Ulrik Svensgaard (Nautilus Pirates)

Captain Ulrik Svensgaard (Nautilus Pirates)

The sea... vast, mysterious... and full of wealth!

"Let the others fight their religious wars and bicker over the scraps of the Unity. At sea, you can face down the elements and win battles worth winning. At sea, you can find treasure the like of which the land-huggers will never know. At sea, you can be free, really free for the first time in your life."

Voiced by: James Liebman

Born of a fisherman father and barkeep mother in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Spent his early 20s following in his father's footsteps before he joined the Navy in 2042. Served with distinction in the various Pax Decay wars, earning himself a berth at OCS and an eventual appointment as navigator with the William Jefferson Clinton battle group. During the disastrous 2053 Battle of Baffin Bay, he single-handedly rescued the flag admiral and three other senior officers trapped below decks when the Clinton's magazine exploded, costing Svensgaard the use of his left eye. For his heroics, he was offered his choice of assignments; he chose the fledgling Unity project.

He has no particular ideological beliefs and is extremely flexible in his pursuit of wealth and power, especially other people's wealth and power. The Nautilus Pirates are primarily water-bound and benefit from expert sea-floor mining and farming skill.

• -1 Efficiency (Individualistic mentality opposed to central organization)
• -1 Growth (Culture does not place high emphasis on family)
• Free Naval Yard in every base once you discover the tech "Doctrine: Initiative")
• Can build enhancements in trench squares after discovering "Advanced Ecological Engineering"
• Sea colony pod & sea former prototypes free
• Bonus mineral from ocean shelf squares
• All sea units have Marine Detachment once discover the tech "Adaptive Doctrine"
• Begin the game landing in the sea instead of land

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• The Alcoholic: Other factions opposed to Svensgaard remark that he spends his days swilling rum and talking to his parrot.
• Anarchy Is Chaos: Downplayed. The Pirates aren't pleasant people by any means, but their violent trainwreck of a society still functions. However, it is still a violent trainwreck of a society, suffering from inefficiency and slow growth because of it.
• Arch-Enemy: They tend to run afoul of the University due to their distrust of researchers. They also have issues with the Angels because they see covert action as cowardly. Like the Spartans, though, it's hard to see them as being particularly chummy with anyone due to the fact that their entire ideology is built on the idea of taking things away from people that they feel don't deserve them.
• Army of Thieves and Whores: As their lifestyle tends to discourage strong family ties, most of their population growth comes from malcontents fleeing from other, more socially constrained factions.
• Captain Nemo Copy: Their methods and motives — and their name — are essentially lifted straight out of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and transplanted to Planet's oceans, with Svensgaard himself filling the role of Captain Nemo.
• Foil: In pure gameplay terms, to the Peacekeepers, surprisingly. Like the Peacekeepers, the Pirates are a Jack of All Stats faction with a reduced number of real weaknesses. However, while this makes the Peacekeepers a highly flexible faction that can pursue different goals that is highly reliant on player skill, the Pirates' bonuses keep them on a particular track of behavior.
• Honor Among Thieves: One of the few laws (as such) among the Nautilus Pirates is that one Pirate does not steal another's property. Members of other factions are fair game, however, especially if they're stupid enough to trespass where no landlubber belongs.
• It's All About Me: Their culture is a hedonistic, selfish one that discourages familial growth and efficiency.
• Jack of All Stats: Like Lal, Svensgaard has relatively few major weaknesses and can use virtually any form of social engineering. However, unlike the Peacekeepers, the Pirates' advantages push them towards pursuing certain kinds of behavior (staying in the sea, attacking and plundering other factions, etc.), and they lack the Peacekeeper's full flexibility.
• Pirate: Svensgaard consciously emulates the legendary pirates of old Earth and steers his faction in the same direction.
• The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: While they are pirates, it's entirely possible to play them in a relatively peaceful style, focused on expanding across the sea. Because it takes time for other factions to get the tech to begin colonizing the ocean and ships move relatively quickly, the Pirates can expand and take territory relatively unmolested for the early part of a game, and usually have a strong enough navy that they can stymie other factions' attempts to get out to sea as well.
• Plunder: Their goal in life.
• Social Darwinist: The straightest and least-sympathetic example in the games. The Pirates take what they want, and screw those who can't hold onto it.
• Space Pirates: Though more like regular pirates on another world.
• Übermensch: Subverted. His faction is a big Shout-Out to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, but he doesn't share any of Nemo's peculiarities or philosophical nature. He and his faction aren't built around an ideology, they're built around plunder.
• Vehicular Turnabout: All Pirate vessels count as having a Marine Detachment upon the discovery of Adaptive Doctrine, meaning their vessels can always capture enemy vessels in combat without spending an ability slot or the additional minerals for another ability. This also means that Pirate vessels can have three abilities where all other units can never have more than two.
• Wretched Hive: Their entire civilization is built around crime and violence.

Prophet Cha Dawn (Cult of Planet)

Prophet Cha Dawn (Cult of Planet)

I bring the Word to the deaf ears of men.

"Humans were unfortunate enough to evolve on a world in which they comprised the most intelligent and powerful species. Thus the overwhelming arrogance wired into them, to imagine gods in their own image and then discard them when they become inconvenient. That will not be possible here. Make no mistake, Planet itself is a sleeping god, and when it wakes there will be apocalypse."

Voiced by: Stacy Spenser

Very little is known about Cha Dawn; available data comes from deprogrammed adherents whose information is coloured by the Cult's indoctrination techniques. Apparently, Dawn was found as an infant in the fungus by a splinter group known as the Ecological Malcontents, soon after Planetfall. His parentage and birthplace are unknown. According to the lore of the Cult, the native life forms did not harm the child, and he possessed no breathing mask, although the length of his exposure was also unknown. The Malcontents raised the child as a kind of messiah for his supposed rapport with Planet, and he did demonstrate extremely accelerated mental development. After a period of several years, the faction declared Dawn its leader and began the task of cleansing Planet from any 'foreign' defilements.

The Cult of Planet are under his spiritual command and preaches the cleansing of humanity from Planet, and will go to any length to achieve it. Their followers are fanatical and believe Cha'Dawn to be the physical incarnation of the Planetmind.

• +2 Planet (Devoted to promoting native growth)
• -1 Industry (Reluctant to pollute environment.)
• -1 Economy (Uninterested in wealth and its trappings)
• Free Brood Pit in every city
• Mind Worms do double police duty
• May not make Wealth choice in Social Engineering
• Start with a Mind Worm

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• Animal Wrongs Group: In charge of a country.
• Arch-Enemy: As with the Gaians, dislikes the Morgans and the Drones. They also run afoul of both alien factions due to their interest in "wasteful" Planned economics.
• A Child Shall Lead Them: Cha Dawn is a young child, one of the first born since Planetfall, and the Cult follows him and his visions with fanatic zeal.
• Dark Messiah: There's that whole "Kill all humans who stand in our way, then kill everyone else" angle. Compared to him, even Miriam is downright civil.
• Foil: To Deirdre. They represent opposite takes on Green ideology; Gaia's Stepdaughters believe that humanity should exist in harmony with Planet and design their civilization to accommodate this, while the Planet Cult believes that humanity needs to go away so that Planet can return to a pristine state.
• Gaia's Vengeance: A much angrier, more violent version of Deirdre.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: It's possible to win a diplomatic victory as the Cult, which would logically require abandoning the destruction of humanity (the Cult's entire raison d'etre). Indeed, any victory except military is at some sort of odds with the Cult's stated agenda, as transcendence makes irreversible changes to the Planetmind and allows humans to live on without their bodies amongst the Planetmind and economic victory poses similar problems to diplomatic victory.
• Half-Human Hybrid: Supposedly he was found alone among the xenofungus and completely unfazed by an environment that would be lethal to any normal human. If true, it would mean that some non-human element has fundamentally altered his biological processes from the norm.
• Humans Are Bastards: While the Gaians believe that humanity can learn to coexist with Planet peacefully on theoretically equal terms, the Cult of Planet instead believes that humans have already blown their chances by ruining Earth and that only Planet itself is worthy to judge whether human beings deserve to continue living.
• Hypocrite: The Cult fundamentally seeks to restore Planet to the state it was in before Planetfall, which necessitates the extermination of all humans and Progenitors on Planet. In the pursuit of this end, the Cult will build up a great deal of industry, may cause significant ecological disruption including major sea level changes, and may even pursue irreversible changes to Planet and the Planetmind, such as Transcendence that would leave an indelible human impression upon Planet, all in the name of keeping the other factions from doing the same.
• Knight Templar: The Prophet will make his message heard and will suffer no dissent.
  Cha Dawn: I will make them see it. I will make them hear it.
• Logical Weakness: Since Cha Dawn was born after Planetfall, the Cult of Planet starts a few years after the normal 2100 start date. For the player, this drawback is more or less negated by starting everyone else at the same time, but for the AI, the Cult of Planet springs into existence a few turns in, giving the other human factions a few turns head start on them.
• Messianic Archetype: Cha Dawn's followers view him as such.
• No Place for Me There: The Cult of Planet may build and utilize industry and civilization to wage war, but once all humanity is united under their control, they will raze their bases and submit to death.
• Oracular Urchin: By far the youngest faction leader in the game.
• Outside-Context Problem: No one is completely sure where he came from.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: While he may not be evil, exactly, he's extremely dangerous and not entirely human, and his eyes emphasize both.
• Touched by Vorlons: One theory of the Prophet's origins states that he was a human child that was "adopted" and modified by Planet itself. The Cult accepts this wholeheartedly; other factions are somewhat skeptical.

Prime Function Aki Zeta-Five (Cybernetic Consciousness)

Prime Function Aki Zeta-Five (Cybernetic Consciousness)

Those who join us need only give up only half of their humanity, the illogical, ill-tempered, and disordered half, commonly thought of as 'right-brain' functioning.

"And here we tinker with metal, to try to give it a kind of life, and suffer those who would scoff at our efforts. But who's to say that, if intelligence had evolved in some other form in past millennia, the ancestors of these beings would not now scoff at the idea of intelligence residing within meat?"

Voiced by: Allie Rivenbark

Born 2028, in Hollingsdall, Norway, of shopkeeper parents. Studied at Oslo University, earned Bachelor of Science in Engineering and Programming, Masters in Computer Science, Ph.D. Computer Science and Computer Age Philosophy. Became expert with C* and C** programming languages; joined Zakharov Research Institute three years prior to launch of Unity. Assigned to Alpha Centauri crew as expert computer tech. Details are unclear, but evidence exists she initiated an unauthorized experiment in pre-sentient algorithms, using dormant bandwidth on the Unity computers, possibly on the orders of Prokhor Zakharov. She designed the experiment to run for 40 years, hoping for some interesting results over that unprecendented time frame. However, upon awakening, the crew found a a system crash message dated from launch +3 months, along with an auto-stack dump that indicated program failure. Luttinen received disciplinary action for her part in the experiment. She was stricken with rheumatic fever three weeks prior to arrival. Unaccounted for and presumed lost in hospital bay during Unity crash. Reappeared soon after on Planet surface, now calling herself Aki Zeta-5.

The Cybernetic Consciousness offers advanced cybernetic augmentation in exchange for joining their minds with AIs. They are highly intelligent, rational and logical, but they tend to have problems understanding and interpreting emotion—their own and those of others.

• +2 Research: (Human research abilities enhanced by algorithmic control)
• +2 Efficiency (Cybernetic biologicals extremely efficient)
• -1 Growth (Humans 'possessed by an algorithm' find reproduction awkward ^note Some editions say "Unfamiliarity with sex drive"
• Impunity to Cybernetic penalty (Cybernetic social choice is 'rational' and not dissented by citizens)
• Can steal technology when capturing a base
• May not make Fundamentalist choice in social engineering

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• Arch-Enemy: The Believers, since they cannot run a fundamentalist government. Ultimately the Free Drones, since their idea of an ideal society clashes with the Consciousness's.
• Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: Downplayed; despite being less emotional than other humans, the Consciousness's citizens are not especially evil, and Aki-Zeta 5 is actually the most peaceful of the Alien Crossfire faction leaders. But the whole faction has a penalty to population growth, as the cyborg citizenry lose their grasp on human concepts like love and lust.
• Cyborg: More or less their whole civilization.
• Emotionless Girl: Aki-Zeta 5, as her group has improved efficiency due to "No petty emotional foibles".
• Gender-Blender Name: The game's background information gives her original name as "Aki Luttinen". The problem is, Aki is a male name. The GURPS sourcebook corrects this by changing it to Annikki.
• Job-Stealing Robot: Notable in its aversion. This is the traditional problem of their Cybernetic social policies that their advantages remove, allowing them to focus their cybernetic brains on creative tasks.
• Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions: Downplayed, especially compared to Zakharov, but the Consciousness cannot make use of a Fundamentalist government.
• Power Copying: Their military can compensate for its reduced size by reverse-engineering other people's stuff after capturing a city, even if the Spoils of War rule is not enabled.
• Robot Republic: Well, a cyborg republic, but still...
• The Singularity: Their ultimate goal, to the point that they will attack other factions for not pursuing it.
  Aki Zeta-Five: The question I pose to you is simple. Who is to be the master, you or the bits of talented meat that secrete hormones for you?
• We Used to Be Friends: It is not uncommon for the Consciousness to be a firm and useful ally to your faction all game long, up until the exact moment you decide not to subsume your civilization into a cybernetic collective. Especially with the Free Drones, as they are the only factions whose politics are primarily centered around the future society social engineering category.
• What Is This Thing You Call "Love"?: Have a hard time understanding love and lust, so procreation is rare.

Datajack Sinder Roze (Data Angels)

Datajack Sinder Roze (Data Angels)

The data is 1's and 0's. Life is the jazz.

"By creating a planetary network, mankind on Planet now has the ability to share information at light-speed. But by creating a single such network, each faction has brought themselves closer to discovery as well. At the speed of light, we will catch your information, tag it like an animal in the wild, and release it unharmed — if such should serve our purposes."

Voiced by: Christine Melton

Born Asa Wright in Trinidad, West Indies Co-Prosperity Sphere. Enjoyed an unexceptional and stable childhood, raised by two professors at the fledgling University of Trinidad. Some speculate that her lack of childhood struggle and trauma led her to seek excitement and meaning in creating chaos. Other observers believe she merely pursued her gifts. Either way, by her early teens she had already topped Interpol's "Ten Most Wanted" hacker list for a string of asset transfers and incursions into Defense Department computers at a dozen multinational corporations, operating under the handle of "Sinder Roze". Eventually, she was captured and hauled before the Cyber Crimes Tribunal at The Hague. Offered clemency if she renounced 'unethical' uses of computers and if she agreed to lend her talents to the Unity project as chief network administrator. Through the creation of skillful systems architecture, she made herself indispensable to the mission and was assigned to the crew after a lengthy personnel struggle with Captain Garland, who viewed her as the most dangerous person on the Unity after Sheng-Ji Yang.

The Data Angels are concerned with the freedom of information and the freedom of the individual. They are highly trained in information technology and information warfare, which makes them experts in all forms of espionage. However, their anarchist tendencies means they're barely a full faction.

• +2 Probe (Highly motivated computer specialists)
• -1 Police (Decentralized, difficult to control)
• Gain any tech discovered by three other factions
• -25% cost to probe team actions
• Free Covert Ops Center in every base
• May not make Power choice in social engineering

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• Anarchy Is Chaos: Downplayed. The Data Angels' decentralized society isn't constantly fighting itself, but it does have much more trouble keeping the people down when something's going wrong.
• Arch-Enemy:
  • The Hive and the Believers, both of which base their societies on restricting access to information by promoting their respective ideologies as the "One True Way." Due to their inability to pursue Power, they can also end up at odds with the Spartans and Pirates.
  • The Data Angels also have a natural rivalry with the University. While they don't conflict on beliefs ^note (both value Knowledge over Power, and both believe in freedom of information, at least superficially), the University is especially vulnerable to hacking, which is the Data Angels' specialty. This makes the former an easy target for the latter's probe teams. This also means both will be racing each other for the Hunter-Seeker Algorithm; the University in order to cover up their hacking problem, and the Data Angels in order to keep anyone else from building it to shut them out.
• Bomb-Throwing Anarchists: Refreshingly Averted, the Data Angels are quite a fair depiction of an anarchist society. Though of course this depends on how you play; they certainly can throw bombs if you want them to.
• Boxed Crook: Back on Earth, after Interpol arrested Roze for her cyber crime activities, due to her expert skills in computer programming, she was offer a way out by serving on the Unity project.
• Buffy Speak: Downplayed. Unlike most of the faction leaders, Roze is decidedly more casual and inclined to slang in her speech, which is also reflective of her disdain towards formality.
• Cool People Rebel Against Authority: The Data Angels as a whole value independence and free thought and tend to hold anyone who claims authority by virtue of their position (rather than through their own skills) in contempt.
• Defector from Decadence: She initially aligned herself with the Morganites, but struck out on her own with a group of like-minded followers after she became fed up with their obsession over wealth and greed.
• The Federation: Other then the Peacekeepers, the only other faction that always prefers a democratic government system. And given their ideology, it is very likely that citizens living under the Data Angels enjoy the most personal freedoms compared with the other factions.
• Information Wants to Be Free: They're hackers, so it goes with the territory. Freeing that information is their specialty, and their radically democratic ethos is at the core of their rivalry with the Hive and the Believers.
• Just the First Citizen: Roze's role of Datajack is essentially purely an advisory one, yet her followers look up to her because she's one of the best hackers (if not the best hacker, period) on Planet.
  • Garland ranked her as the second most dangerous individual on the Unity, second only to Yang. She has a reputation to uphold.
• Living Is More than Surviving: The gist of the quote from her portrait caption in full:
  Sinder Roze: What's more important, the data or the jazz? Sure, sure, 'Information should be free' and all that— but anyone can set information free. The jazz is in how you do it, what you do it to, and in almost getting caught without getting caught. The data is 1's and 0's. Life is the jazz.
• My Nayme Is: Her chosen handle is an intentional misspelling of "cinder rose".
• Only Known by Their Nickname: No one knows Sinder Roze's real name. Then again, in a society of hackers, one's hacker name is one's real name.
• Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions: She sees religion as holding back progress and restricting people's freedoms. While she can still run a Fundamentalist government herself, she objects to other leaders doing the same and prefers Democracy.
• Playful Hacker: The Data Angels' "creed" (to the extent that they have one) places as much value on style as it does substance. Hacking for them is as much about showing off their skills as it is about recovering valuable data, or perhaps more so. Other factions take a rather dim view of their antics.
• Post-Cyberpunk: An entire faction based in such. They rebelled against The Man and created an anarchist hacker nation built upon free information, and they did it in style.
  • Deconstructed with their emphasis on Probe. While their democratic agenda prevents them from running a Theocracy, it won't prevent them from picking Thought Control (+2 Probe) as a future tech. It could be interpreted as them merely cracking the ultimate computer nature has created, but that just makes the way free for the best hacker to do as she wants.
• The Trickster: Roze views herself as one, and lives off the excitement that comes from stirring people out of their complacent lives.
• We ARE Struggling Together: One of the downsides to the Data Angels' general contempt for authority is that it hinders their own group actions, as everyone has a voice and no one wants to feel like they're just another soldier in someone else's personal army.

Foreman Domai (Free Drones)

Foreman Domai (Free Drones)

The only problem with having the view from 30,000 feet, is that at that height, everyone looks like ants.

"Now it's day and night the irons clang, and like poor galley slaves. We toil and toil, and when we die, must fill dishonored graves. But some dark night, when everything is silent in the town. I'll shoot those tyrants one and all, I'll gun the flogger down. I'll give the land a little shock, remember what I say, And they'll yet regret they've sent Jim Jones in chains to Botany Bay." — "Jim Jones", Traditional

Voiced by: Frederick Serafin

Domai was assigned to the Unity as a mining specialist, to be awakened Planetside after the regular mission crew had set up permanent settlements. However, a cryopod malfunction following the meteor strike prematurely awakened him into a miasma of toxic gases vented by the crippled ship, causing temporary damage to his memory and communication faculties. Assigned to repair crews as a common drone, Domai struggled to reassert his identity and regain his full humanity. Once recovered, Domai led his co-workers in a revolt at their brutal working conditions, commandeered a colony pod, and set out for Planet in command of his new band of followers.

The Drones are numerous and powerful industrialists, but lack advanced technology and distrust "Blue Sky Research" without obvious benefits, so they must often resort to human-wave tactics.

• +2 Industry (Excellent craftsman and skilled workers)
• -2 Research (Emphasis on productivity instead of 'blue-sky' research)
• One less drone in every base
• Revolting bases join Drones
• May not use Green economics

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• Ace Pilot: The "Cloudbase Academy" quote comes from Domai, and he knows his way around an aircraft.^note Given his background, he was most likely qualified as a bush pilot in the Australian Outback, flying back and forth between mining sites as he was needed. At the very least, his job probably kept him in extensive contact with several of them if he didn't fly himself.
  Domai: In one dimension I find existence, in two I find life, but in three, I find freedom.
• Anarchy Is Chaos: Subverted, despite the other factions' rhetoric. While the faction's ideological underpinnings are strongly anarchist in character, Domai is opposed to hierarchy, not to rules, and the Free Drones are as orderly as the next faction.
• Appropriated Appellation: Domai purposefully invoked this in forging the Free Drones, turning what had been a demeaning classification into a badge of honor for Planet's working class and for all men.
• Arch-Enemy:
  • In the short run, the Gaians and the Cult, because the Drones absolutely reject the idea of Green economics. They don't usually get along with Morgan either because he isn't a fan of Planned economies, though if they employ a Free Market approach, it can be compatible with his corporate capitalism.
  • While they can go for most of the game in amity, their ultimate view of a future society is at odds with the Consciousness' Cybernetic state.
  • Subverted with the Hive. Chairman Yang is Foreman Domai's personal nemesis in the backstory, and the two factions they lead are more-or-less foils to one another, the actual gameplay ensures that cooperation between the two is not impossible if the Drones end up favoring a Police State.
• Awesome Aussie: One of the few faction leaders to have fame from his personal valor in war, and also the largest and most imposing human. Unlike everyone else, his opening quote is actually an excerpt from an old Australian ballad.
• Chummy Commies: Their collectivist society is generally benevolent, is highly effective for making sure that every citizen gets the benefits of their psychological resources, and is always happy to help liberate the oppressed drones of other societies. While they don't necessarily employ a Planned economy, their version of a Market still includes a strong welfare state and workers' self-management. His "Manifesto" document from the GURPS supplement wouldn't be out of place at a mid-20th Century socialist workers' union rally.
  Domai: Without our work, nothing is built. Without our work, no wealth is gathered. Without our work, no secrets are discovered. Without our work, no base can be defended. Now you tell me: why should our work be taken for the benefit of others?
• Cool People Rebel Against Authority: Domai rebelled from Yang early during Planetfall, and disdains the idea of any kind of social stratification.
• Defector from Decadence:
  • Although originally the project's head mining specialist, Domai spent his first years on Planet as a drone in the Hive after a cryopod malfunction caused temporary brain-damage. Upon recovering his higher faculties, his horror at the injustice of the Hive's society caused him to lead his fellow workers in revolution.
  • This is also the Free Drones' signature mechanic. Whenever another faction's base revolts due to unhappiness, there's a staggering 75% chance that it will defect to the Drones, no matter where on Planet it is. If Drones are on the same map as University, expect snatching third of its bases.
• Foil: For Yang and the Hive. While they both subscribe to collectivist worldviews, the Free Drones follow a more grassroots approach, with everyone voluntarily contributing their work for the greater good of the whole, as opposed to Yang's imposed equality by a ruling elite. If Yang is a Mao Zedong Expy, then the closest historical counterpart for Domai would probably be a mix between Huey Long and Mikhail Bakunin.
• For Happiness: The Free Drones are unabashedly committed to universal Eudaimonia in a society where men and women come together to work for the common good of their own free will.
• Gaia's Lament: The Free Drones care little for environmental concerns when faced with potential benefits to the people. Note that they aren't necessarily stupid about it, and that they can implement technologies to minimize their footprint more easily and quickly than any other faction, but they can't make environmentalism a primary policy goal.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: They have the same Fantastic Caste System as everyone else, and working to eliminate it is entirely the player's own prerogative.
• Hot-Blooded: Domai's experiences as a second-class drone left him with a nasty temper and a grudge against his oppressors. Some in-universe speculation wonders if his recovery from the more-obvious symptoms of his brain damage masks his more subtle ones, such as increased aggression and decreased impulse control.
• Just the First Citizen: "Foreman" isn't even a political title in most societies. The GURPS book states that Domai even takes turns in the factories, just like everyone else, and lives in what would be rather modest, if comfortable, housing in most other factions.
• Large and in Charge: The tallest and heaviest human faction leader by a decent margin.
• Nonindicative Name: The Free Drones are not all drones. In fact, they're more likely than any other faction to have no actual drones, as they have No Poverty as a factional goal.
• No Poverty: One of the faction's goals is to better the lot of the common citizen by more-equally distributing the fruits of their technologically-advanced society.
• Only One Name: Domai's full name isn't mentioned. Then again, this isn't even his birth name, so he may not have a full name now.
• Proud Industrious Race: That's who the Free Drones are in a nutshell. Their +2 Industry bonus, supplemented with the initially unlocked "Industrial Base" technology, speaks for itself and makes them the most production-oriented faction in the game. Befittingly, their base names refer to labor, tools, working-class self-management, and some derivative of these (Hammer and Tongs, Craftsman Keep, Workers’ Rights, to name a few).
• The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: Played with. While the Drones' Eudaimonic agenda doesn't favor heavy military build-up in the long run, it takes them time and struggle to get there, and in the meanwhile Domai can be quite aggressive with his foreign policy. And coming into contact with the Free Drones can cause other cities to undergo revolutions of their own and joining him if they are mismanaged.
• Science Is Bad: Zigzagged. They simply dislike non-practical research, slowing the rate of progress rather than the adoption of new tech. Additionally, scientists are expected to pull their weight and engage in practical labor just like everyone else, reducing the amount of time they can devote to research. Once advances are made, the Drones can implement them everywhere more rapidly than anyone else.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Though their mutually exclusive goals for the future ultimately doom them to war in the end, the Drones and the Consciousness can find common ground before that necessarily becomes an issue. And while Chairman Yang would seem to be Foreman Domai's arch-foe from their backstory and the Drones' official ideology, in practice the Free Drones are not required to war with each other as the aliens do.
• That Man Is Dead: Foreman Domai's given name is Arthur Donaldson. He doesn't use it anymore, to emphasize his "rebirth" even after regaining his memories.
• We Used to Be Friends: Domai will often be very friendly for most of the game, but as soon as you choose a future society that isn't Eudaimonia, your relations will rapidly deteriorate. Especially so with the Cybernetic Consciousness, as they're the only other faction whose politics are focused on future society and favor the Cybernetic future society just as strongly as the Drones favor Eudaimonia.
• Working-Class Hero: Can crank out infrastructure like no one else, and focuses heavily on improving the lot of everyone, instead of just a favored few. Domai himself is a marked difference from the other leaders, which are usually Ivy League scholars; he's just an experienced mining technician.
• Working-Class People Are Morons: Just like the Believers, they suffer a built in research penalty due partly to their dislike for all those upper-class ivory tower intellectuals and scientists, and partly to their desire not to "waste" money on 'blue-sky' research that could be going to better the lot of the common people.
• Zerg Rush: What they must freqently rely on since they lack the superior technology of other factions.

Sid Meier & Brian Reynolds (Firaxians)

Sid Meier & Brian Reynolds (Firaxians)

The Silly

"Firaxis est une compagnie que j'ai fondée avec quelques amis. L'idée était de revenir à quelque chose de petit. Lorsque Microprose a démarré, c'était une petite compagnie, et c'était très amusant. En dix ou douze ans, elle a pris de plus en plus d'importance et à partir d'un certain moment, il devenait temps de revenir à un environnement beaucoup plus petit, sans les pressions et les problèmes financiers d'une grosse compagnie. En gros, le moment était idéal pour créer une petite société et pour ne plus s'occuper que de jeux."^Translation:Firaxis is a company that I founded with some friends. The idea was to go back to something small. When Microprose started, it was a small company, and it was a lot of fun. In ten or twelve years, it became more and more important, until at some point it was time to return to a much smaller environment, without the pressures and financial problems of a big company. Basically, it was a good time to start a smaller business and to focus on making games again.

The Lethal Joke Characters, either can lead the faction (depending on which of their profiles you import into the selectable factions). Bereft of all the other factions' distinctions and idiosyncracies, their main claim to fame is bringing singularity technology to Planet about 300-350 years before it would normally develop. No bonuses or penalties, but start the game with Singularity Mechanics, a Discovery 12 tech that allows a reactor upgrade that can vastly improve unit mobility while also decreasing costs. The other factions will want to trade for it.

• Singularity Mechanics

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• Lethal Joke Character: The benefits of Singularity Mechanics so early on in the game means every unit or vehicle you create can pretty much single-handedly wipe out any problematic armies headed your way if you spec into the right technology early on.
• Serial Numbers Filed Off: With the exception of the Singularity, most of the bonuses the game says you get are ripped straight from the Stepdaughters.
• Shaped Like Itself: Firaxians logos and bases are...The Firaxis logo and the Office of Firaxis.

Other Characters

Captain Garland

Captain Garland

The Captain of the Unity, days before planetfall he was assassinated. This was the event that fractured the crew into the assorted factions due to disagreement over the mantle of leadership.

• Big Good: In a sense. From what's known about Captain Garland, he was both charismatic and genuine in seeing the mission push through as intended.
• The Captain: He's the only man who could have held his bickering lieutenants together for the good of the mission.
• Doomed by Canon: In the prequel novel, readers should be aware that he will die at the end.
• Keystone Army: Garland's death is what finally causes the Unity crew and colonists to splinter into the factions that make Planetfall.
• Posthumous Character: The game begins with Planetfall, Garland having already been assassinated.
• The Unreveal: His assassin is never revealed.
• The Unseen: Never actually appears in-game, being dead by the time the Unity colonists make Planetfall.

The Voice of Planet

The Voice of Planet

The mysterious psionic entity that appears to be the planet itself, its neural network makes up all the native lifeforms, including the xenofungus, of the planet. It communicates regularly with your faction leader.

• all lowercase letters: planet tends to speak like this, while removing any spaces from the person or faction's name, like johnsmith.
• Archive Binge: Invoked - in an attempt to force higher intelligence on it as its growth reaches critical mass, you end up downloading the entire datalinks onto it.
  "Imagine the entire contents of the planetary datalinks, the sum total of human knowledge, blasted into the Planetmind's fragile neural network with the full power of every reactor on the planet. Thousands of years of civilization compressed into a single searing burst of revelation. That is our last-ditch attempt to win humanity a reprieve from extinction at the hands of an awakening alien god."

  — Academician Prokhor Zakharov, Planet Speaks
• Archive Panic: invoked The Planet does not initially take it well, but this exact maneuver (represented by the construction of "The Voice of Planet" Secret Project) is necessary to achieve the Transcendence victory.
• Ascended to a Higher Plane of Existence: In the Transcendence victory, humans merge with it, becoming psionic entities with the option of re-entering human bodies to live mortal lives for a time if they so choose. Whichever faction completes the final secret project, "The Ascent to Transcendence", first, has their leader become the dominant personality.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Up until it gets hit with the Archive Binge, its fundamental viewpoint is rather childlike and innocent. As it has the mentality of a Hive Mind, it doesn't appear to grasp that trimming back the human population by sending massive boils of mindworms that chew their way through the victim's brain is something your faction leader may not appreciate — it just asks you first if humans have a Hive Mind, and when you tell it no, it takes this as your permission to go ahead with its "trimming" since doing so won't hurt you.
• Children Are Innocent: The Voice of Planet is in the early phases of its sentience in this present cycle and as such is the planetary equivalent of a child (see Blue-and-Orange Morality above and Non-Malicious Monster below).
• Eldritch Abomination: As if a decentralized fungal intelligence isn't enough, this is what a "flowering" leads to, the entirety of the planet reaches a critical mass of intelligence and becomes a sort of "god". According to the Progenitors another similar planet flowered at Tau Ceti in the past, causing an enormous multi-system cataclysm. This trope is deconstructed in that this "godhood" is unsustainable and the planetary intelligence consumes most of its symbiotic animal and plant life and falls back into a state of near-total death, rince-and-repeat every 100 million years. The Transcendence ending is a Reconstruction of this trope by merging humanity with the alien intelligence, stabilizing it in a form of symbiosis.
• Genius Loci: The Voice of Planet effectively is Planet, given how ubiquitous it is.
• Hive Mind: A Planet-wide mind that links all the native life into a single guiding consciousness.
• Intelligent Forest: The ubiquitous xenofungus that covers vast swathes of Chiron's surface is actually an immense neural network — in effect, Planet's brain.
• Like a God to Me: The humans see it as a god since it is a psionic entity that controls the fungal network of the planet and all the creatures the fungus produces.
• No Name Given: The physical planet is called Chiron, the alien hive mind controlling its lifeforms has no such designation. Kinda goes into Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep" in that, when you complete the Threshold of Transcendence secret project, when the planet starts calling itself Planet because that's what the humans call it.
• Non-Malicious Monster: Mind worms are essentially the equivalent of white blood cells, having no will of their own and automatically attacking anything not linked to the Planetmind as a foreign invader. Planet itself is barely self-aware for most of its life cycle, only attaining sentience towards the end of its flowering. Part of the Ascent to Transcendence involves finding a way to stabilize Planet's intelligence and get it to accept humanity as a part of itself.
• Vicious Cycle: The xenofungus intelligence becomes complex enough and abundant enough to achieve sentience after about 100 million years. However, the massive flowerings of fungus needed to achieve this sentience kills off most other life on the planet. With no source of food and no more native lifeforms produced by the fungus to maintain it, the fungus slips back into its semi-conscious dream state. This has been going on since the Lower Paleozoic era on Earth. Now, the presence of humans on Planet's surface accelerates the cycle, and a new flowering is imminent. Can humanity find a way to break the cycle? Yes, they can.
• What the Hell Is That Accent?: As it grows more sentient, it develops one that includes rolling its r's.

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