Character page for Wolf 359.
BEWARE OF SPOILERS!
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The Crew of the Hephaestus
The Team as a Whole
The Team
Trying to stay alive on a station where everything seems to want to kill them, eight lightyears from Earth.
- Last-Name Basis: The team mostly sticks to last names or titles.
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: A lazy, Reference Overdosed ex-convict, an exasparated military officer, a slightly evil scientist, a snarky AI, and an alien duplicate of a paranoid woman who is really not supposed to be there.
- Surprisingly Elite Cannon Fodder: Granted most of them have military training, but Goddard Futuristics intentionally took people with flaws who'd be easy to do away with on these missions, yet the crew of the Hephaestus repeatedly survived what would get other crews killed.
- You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious: You know things are bad when first names are used.
Doug Eiffel
Communications Officer Doug Eiffel
Portrayed by: Zach Valenti
The Hephaestus' communications officer.
- Actual Pacifist: Always the first to try and get everyone to just calm down and talk. When he's not around during Pan-Pan, we see just how much of a pacifier he is to the rest of them. With his absence and "death" weighing on all their minds, they're all incredibly volatile.
- Addiction Displacement: It's likely that Eiffel's attachment to cigarettes is at least in part a way to replace his alcoholism.
- The Alcoholic: Formerly.
- Antihero: He's lazy, frequently selfish, and a convicted felon. We love him anyway.
- The Atoner: Back on Earth, he was an alcoholic who caused a car crash that deafened his daughter and seriously injured two high-schoolers. He agreed to go on the mission because Goddard promised to pay for his daughter's medical bills and education, and it's strongly implied that his pacifism stems from his desire to not hurt anyone else.
- Bad Impressionists: Eiffel is known to do impressions of his crewmates. He's not known for doing them well.Minkowski: Is that supposed to be Hilbert? You sound nothing like him, Eiffel.
- Boxed Crook: He is serving on board the Hephaestus to get out of jail time. Cutter being who he is, he didn't have all that much choice in the matter.
- Brilliant, but Lazy: Believe it or not, Eiffel's actually a competent comms officer...when he cares enough, that is.
- Command Roster: Communications Officer
- Comical Angry Face: Hilbert describes it as an "angry kitten face."
- The Conscience: As the founder of Team What's Wrong With Handcuffs, he's the first to speak up when things start looking potentially murder-y.
- Cowardly Lion: For a guy who spends as much time screaming in terror as Doug does, he can be remarkably calm under pressure.
- Dark and Troubled Past: He kidnapped his own daughter in a drunken attempt to keep her from moving away. The car accident they got into permentantly defeaned her and crippled the other driver.
- Death of Personality: Gets Hera to wipe his memories to keep Pryce from succeeding in taking the information she needs. Spends the denouement of the series finale pondering the implications of this trope and how it applies to him.
- Distressed Dude: Frequently. Over the course of the past three seasons he's almost drowned, suffocated, been bitten by a poisonous spider, been doused with acid, been experimented on, succumbed to a genetically engineered death virus, and nearly died of dehydration in the vacuum of space.
- Determinator: We don't normally see this side of Eiffel, but when it happens, it happens big. Most notably the guy spent over 180 days in deep space with little more than a comms system and a cryo pod.
- Flat JoyEiffel: So...yeah. Not dead. Woo.
- Four-Philosophy Ensemble: The Optimist
- Genius Ditz: He's legitimately talented at his job and actually outsmarts Hilbert, he just hates his job, his life, and every moment that he spends not being lazy. And probably some of the ones that he does, too.
- Go Mad from the Isolation: It's heavily implied this may have happened to Eiffel a long time ago. Of course, if it hadn't happened before, it did in episode 30, where he starts Hearing Voices within a short period of time.
- Healing Factor: Lovelace's blood gives him one, letting him heal the damage from the cryo pod.
- The Heart: He tends to be the best at calming tensions when they flare up. Most obvious in "Pan Pan," when we see how out-of-whack everything gets without him.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Eiffel destroyed his memories to stop Pryce in the finale.
- Immune to Mind Control: A little bit of Lovelace's blood remained in his system after the transfusion she gave him. Because Lovelace's biology isn't compatible with Pryce's mind-control device, Eiffel is eventually snapped out of it.
- Innocently Insensitive: Eiffel's a genuinely good person, but his "jokes" about Hera's robot nature, Lovelace's alien nature, and constantly messing up Minkowski's name really grates on his friends.
- Irony: The communications officer is often nigh-incomprehensible to everyone else, because he physically cannot stop making pop-culture references. He also struggles to understand other people's points of view. Or to really listen to them.
- Lazy Bum: He spends most of his time slacking off.
- Mr. Vice Guy: He's a lazy and impulsive smoker.
- Non-Action Guy: He knows how to handle a gun, but often states how he is scared of many things. Example: the spider incident.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: He's friends get really worried when he stops making references.
- Papa Wolf: He loses it when Kepler threatens his daughter. It's the only time in the entire show that he's resorted to physical violence.
- Plot Magnet: Especially noticable in Seasons 1 and 2. He's the one who discovers the aliens and gets injected with decima, and he's the first to have his voice used by the Dear Listeners (who, as of season four, seem to have taken a shine to him).
- Plucky Comic Relief: Constantly cracking pop culture references and jokes, much to the team's irritation.
- Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: Would you believe that Eiffel has never seen Groundhog Day?
- Reference Overdosed: Can't go a single episode without making some reference to something. At one point he goes two weeks without making a pop-culture reference, and even one of the villains is concerned.
- Spanner in the Works: Everyone (especially Eiffel himself) underestimates his ability to disrupt carefully-laid plans.
- Undying Loyalty: To Minkowski. She'll always be his commander, no matter who command might put in charge.
- Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: He often is the cause of many problems.
- What Would X Do?: He has imaginary conversations with his crewmates whenever he gets in a pinch.
Renée Minkowski
Lieutenant-Commander Renée Minkowski
Portrayed by: Emma Sherr-Ziarko
The Hephaestus' commanding officer.
- Action Girl: Out of the four of them, she's the best fighter.
- Badass Boast: "Get complacent. Get smug. That's right when you'll find me waiting for you. With a goddamn HARPOON."
- BFG: Proud owner of a harpoon gun.
- Bleed 'Em and Weep: Killing Maxwell severely traumatized her. While she never outright breaks down, she regrets it terribly.
- Closet Geek: A big fan of musicals.
- Combat Pragmatist: Will use a big gun. Will use a fire extinguisher. Will punch you really hard, repeatedly. Whatever's handy and works.
- Command Roster: The Captain
- Control Freak: Considering the crew she works with it's understandable.
- Determinator: An incredibly stubborn person, she once stalked the plant monster through the air vents for three glorious, feral, uninterrupted weeks.Eiffel: There's a special place in hell reserved for those dumb enough to die trying to out-stubborn Lieutenant-Commander Reneé Minkowski.
- Dude, Where's My Respect?: While she might be the Hephaestus' commanding officer it doesn't change the fact that nobody ever listens to her.
- Four-Philosophy Ensemble: The Realist
- Happily Married: To a Mr. Dominick Koudelka.
- Harpoon Gun: Her weapon for hunting the plant monster. It becomes a bit of an Iconic Item for her, to the point that she uses it to kill the Big Bad!.
- Hidden Depths: Originally appears to be a stereotypically by-the-books Commander, but there's a lot more to her. She's a former theatre kid, so she adores plays and musicals.
- No Sense of Humor: As noted by Rachel during her interview. It's not a fair accusation, really, but she does take her job very seriously and can be quite a stickler for rules and protocols.
- Not So Above It All: Even the hardass Minkowski is weirdly passionate about theater and talent shows.
- Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: She hasn't seen many movies, meaning that Eiffel is basically speaking another language half the time.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: She may not always like her crew, but she will keep them safe.
- Sanity Slippage: A downplayed example after she killed Maxwell. She starts talking to herself and having trouble making calls, though she's still self-aware enough to know she shouldn't be in charge as-is.
Dr. Hilbert
Doctor Alexander Hilbert /Dmitri Volodin/Elias Selberg
Portrayed by: Zach Valenti
The Hephaestus' science officer and doctor.
- All for Nothing: His work on the Decima virus. The primary theme of Hilbert's character is his nature as The Unfettered when it comes to his work, willing to sacrifice as many people as necessary, endure any and all trauma, and debase himself to complete, because he believed Decima could be used to improve the human immune system and effectively wipe out many diseases. A full season after his death, it's revealed that Cutter and Pryce are using Hilbert's modified strain of Decima to wipe out the human race, rendering his life's work pointless.
- Bald of Evil Well... Bald Of Ambiguous Morals, anyway. He states that he went bald at the age of 4 due to nuclear fallout.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Through episode Ten (Extreme Danger Bug) he comes off as an energetic, slightly odd scientist. Episode 11 previews his almost immediate Face–Heel Turn in Episodes 12 & 13.
- Character Death: Dies in an explosion in Desperate Measures.
- Characterization Marches On: Season 1 Hilbert was friendly, cheerful, and a bit scatterbrained. While you might consider his shift in personality in later episodes to be dropping the facade, even flashbacks and recordings portray him as cold and aloof.
- Command Roster: The Medic
- Deadpan Snarker: Rarely slips out of Determinator mode, but when he does, he falls under this more so than the rest of the cast.
- Deadly Doctor: He has quite the body count.
- Determinator: He will do anything for his work.
- Dirty Communists: He was recruited by Cutter from the former Soviet Union.
- Evilutionary Biologist: Decima was supposed to "radically improve human life".
- Four-Philosophy Ensemble: The Apathetic
- I Did What I Had to Do: He regrets his bodycount, but would still do it again if it means progress.
- I Have Many Names: He's used many different aliases in his life.
- Just a Machine: He views Hera as nothing more than the ship's mother program.
- Mad Scientist: This is initially played for laughs. But less so when it turns out that he's been experimenting on Doug.
- No Sense of Humor: Humor is pointless diversion from science. He does tell one joke during "Am I Alone", but his delivery is more creepy than anything and his insistence that it's a "Good joke. Everybody laugh," does not really make anything more humorous.
- Omnidisciplinary ScientistHilbert: My PhD is in molecular biology. Theoretical science first, practical medicine more of a... pastime. Always saw Hippocratic Oath as leaving one with a very limited scope.Hilbert: Don’t just know about molecular biology, you know. Expert at computational radiology. Very relaxing, as far as sciences go.
- Vocal Evolution: His voice is much deeper starting season 2.
- Walking Spoiler: You can't go into his past at all without spoiling the fact that he's the mole and that the crew's entire mission isn't what it seems.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: He genuinely believes that his work will benefit humanity, no matter how many people he has to kill to complete it.
- Workaholic: His life revolves around his work.Minkowski: Dr. Hilbert...is anything around you on fire?Hilbert: Definitely not. Well, probably. Too busy with experimental sample to look around. Rigorous observation cycle, must devote full attention. Hilbert out.
Hera
Hera
Portrayed by: Michaela Swee
The Hephaestus' operating system
- Become a Real Boy: Hinted at. She likes to imagine herself as being physically in the room with the crew and gets sad when she's reminded of reality. She also imagines herself with a human body.
- Benevolent A.I.: She's a loyal friend and crew memeber to the Hephaestus.
- Came Back Wrong: Hilbert may have brought her back in "Painfully Ever After," but due to his lack of resources and limited knowledge of A.I.s, the repairs left her with somewhat limited processing power and in constant pain.
- Command Roster: The Navigator
- Disabled Snarker: Her damaged programming isn't enough to stop her snarky attitude.
- Electronic Speech Impediment: Her voice glitches when she speaks, especially when she's upset.
- Four-Philosophy Ensemble: The Cynic
- Grew Beyond Their Programming: Played with. Hera's programming controls what she can do, but does not control her personality. As a result, while she can't outright go against her programming, she can try to find ways around it, by looking for loopholes or instructing crew members in installing patches.
- in "Desperate Measures", she literally overrode it.
- Heroic Willpower: Even in Season 1, we see her able to overpower at least portions of her coding. Apparently, doing so requires herculean effort and is very painful.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: She completely tears into Lovelace's superior survivalist attitude, pointing out that she still failed to save her crew from Selberg while the crew she looks down on managed to handle Hilbert all on their own.
- Rebellious Spirit: Hera looks for ways to circumvent her programming just to see if she can. For...science.
- Resurrected for a Job: Prior to the start of the series, she had been "decommissioned" by Goddard and placed into cold storage (which Goddard didn't consider death, possibly because they didn't consider her alive, but which she did.) She was reactivated to serve as the autopilot on the Hephaestus.
- Spaceship Girl: She has full control of the Hephaestus.
- Took a Level in Badass: Maxwell's post-"Memoria" therapy gave her a few...quirks.
- You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry!: As Eiffel points out, it's a bad idea to piss off the woman who controls the station's air supply. During "Do No Harm", she threatens, among other things, to vent Hilbert into space through a hole the size of a quarter.
- Younger Than They Look: She may be a Born as an Adult supercomputer, but she's still only 4 years old. Despite all her intelligence she actually has a fairly childish way of looking at things: she's fairly rash, tends to cover-up her mistakes rather than admit to them, really struggles with complex emotions, and doesn't really understand how to deal with death.
Isabel Lovelace
Captain Isabel Lovelace
Portrayed by: Cecilia Lynn-Jacobs
The Hephaestus' previous commanding officer.- Academic Athlete: She has a degree in a physical science and was good enough of an athlete to consider playing pro basketball.
- Action Girl
- Attending Your Own Funeral: Comes back to life at her own funeral.
- Back from the Dead: Twice. Technically both times she comes back it's as an alien copy, but the copying's so convincing that no one knows the difference—not even her.
- Badass Boast: "I invented being paranoid on this station."
- Clone Angst: She knows she's just a copy of Lovelace, but still really wants to think of herself as the captain.
- Combat Pragmatist: When strategy fails, there's always hitting them over the head with something large and heavy.
- Crazy-Prepared: As a result of everything she's been through, Lovelace is super paranoid and ready for anything.
- Death Seeker: Implied. She wants revenge on Goddard even if it kills her. Minkowski refers to her plans as a "one woman suicide mission" and Lovelace doesn't deny it.Lovelace: Fun though.
- Dead Person Impersonation: Thanks to the handiwork of the Dear Listeners
- Determinator: "Focus. Work. Be here. Be now. Don't stop to remember. Don't stop to think."
- Do Unto Others Before They Do Unto Us: Sure the crew of the Urania hasn't hurt them yet. They're dangerous. They work for Goddard. It's time to start making napalm.
- Dying Declaration of Hate: She goddamn DESTROYS Kepler. Of course, this was likely less a declaration of hate made because she was definitely going to die, and more of a Heroic Sacrifice meant to turn Kepler's attention away from Eiffel.
- Establishing Character Moment: The first time the crew meets her, she has a bugged gun and a bomb wired to her pulse.
- Alternatively, the first time the crew hears her, it's in a series of tapes that begins with her prepping her crew for a made-up alien invasion as a joke intended to make a stick-in-the-mud officer laugh, and ends with her vowing revenge on everyone responsible for her doomed mission. The whiplash from goofy to terrifyingly serious establishes both how much her time on the Hephaestus has effected her, and how unpredictable her character can be.
- Failure Knight: She vows to save the new crew in place of her old one.
- Heartbroken Badass: After her entire crew was killed off, she'll never be the same again. But she sure wants to get revenge on the people involved.
- Hero Antagonist: Especially during Season 2. Her motivations are understandable and she honestly seems to want to protect the crew. That said, she almost murdered Dr. Hilbert, she's got a bomb strapped to the ship for the better part of the season, and she is seriously terrifying.
- Heroic Willpower: She manages to resist Cutter's mind control just enough to give Minkowski the chance to shoot him.
- Immune to Mind Control: Pryce's mind-control devices aren't compatible with Lovelace's biology. Her blood is eventually used to snap everyone else out of it.
- Living MacGuffin: Maybe the real aliens were the friends we met along the way.
- Military Brat: Her mother was in the military.
- "Not So Different" Remark: To her dismay, in Happy Endings, she realizes that she and Hilbert have a lot more in common than she's willing to admit. They decide to team up to get rid of Kepler and his crew.
- Passionate Sports Girl: In the mini episode Greensboro she states that she wanted to be a basketball player but an injury kept her from playing.
- Pay Evil unto Evil: She wants to get back to earth so she can take revenge on all the people who made her time on board the Hephaestus possible.
- Precision F-Strike: After almost 3 seasons of low-level profanity only, she gets one. And goddamn is it satisfying.
- Properly Paranoid: She invented being paranoid on the station. And presumably, she invented it while watching her crew die one by one in the service of a shady corporation that may never have intended to see her get off the Hephaestus alive at all.
- She Who Fights Monsters: Her determination to take down Goddard can lead her down some pretty dark paths, like when she almost napalmed SI5.
- Sole Survivor: The only member of her previous crew to make it out alive, with the exception of Hilbert, who betrayed them all. Since Lovelace's craft flew into the star shortly after her escape, while Hilbert, who she abandoned on the station, made it out safely with the help of SI5, the accuracy of this trope is...iffy. However, she clearly considers herself the sole survivor of that mission, not knowing that she hadn't actually survived, and said as much to Kepler in Securite.
- Sour Outside, Sad Inside: Spends most of season two threatening and intimidating the rest of the crew, but eventually reveals that she doesn't want to get close to anyone because losing her first crew was hard enough.
- Survival Mantra: "Be a big girl. Don't die."
- Took a Level in Kindness: She slowly becomes more empathetic and friendly with the new Hephaestus despite their rocky beginnings.
- Tranquil Fury: Often eerily calm during moments of anger. Example: When she first realizes Hilbert is still alive and chokes him out while calmly threatening him.
- Or in her final transmission to Canaveral.
Lovelace: Run. And. Hide. Because by the time I'm done you will feel more helpless and more alone than all of the innocent people you've ever hurt. See you soon.- Or when she's locked in a room with Cutter.
Cutter: [holding a cigar or cigarette in his mouth] You don’t mind, do you?
Lovelace: I mind every second that you exist in any way, shape, or form, and it would make me incredibly, ecstatically happy if you died a slow, painful, entirely avoidable death. So please, by all means, smoke away.Isabel: ''When discussing mutiny plan, Hilbert is pushing to use napalm, which could sacrifice other crew . As her last crew suffered greatly because Hilbert wanted to, and she's ready to strangle him for suggesting anyuthing like that. : You have ten seconds to get out of this room. - Walking Spoiler: The whole existence of other characters aside from the original four is basically a spoiler. Plus, for a small time we're supposed to assume that she died.
The Crew of the Urania / Team SI5
Warren Kepler
Colonel Warren Kepler
Portrayed by: Zach Libresco
Head of Goddard's special operations unit.
- An Arm and a Leg: When the Dear Listeners get fed up with him, they disarm him.
- Arc Villain: Is the primary antagonist of Season 3.
- Bad Boss: He can act civil at times, but don't poke the bear.
- Character Death: Flushed out the airlock in the series finale.
- Cloudcuckoolander: He frequently gets distracted telling long stories or jokes. Made even worse by how slowly he speaks.
- Colonel Badass: He got his promotions through a sterling record at Goddard.
- Didn't See That Coming: He assumed Jacobi's anger and hostility towards him was just an unspoken Good Cop/Bad Cop routine. When he realizes Jacobi is actually dangerously close to killing him even the Smug Snake Kepler is stunned.
- The Dragon: To Cutter.
- The Dreaded: To Hilbert, thanks to their shared history, with Hilbert describing Kepler as the second-most-dangerous man in Goddard Futuristics after Cutter.
- Dramatic Pause: Between this and his excruciatingly slow manner of speaking, it takes him forever to finish a sentence. He probably does it just to annoy the rest of the crew.
- Even Evil Has Standards: He might do some evil things for Goddard, but even he can't turn a blind eye to Cutter killing all of humanity.
- As Jacobi explains, Kepler can not abide wasted potential. If he thinks someone isn't being all they can be, no matter their field, Kepler will very quickly lose any and all respect for them. This is why he is actively disgusted by Hilbert- for all of Hilbert's posturing and promises that Decima will improve humanity and cure viruses, the only thing literal decades of Hilbert's work and research on Decima has led to is multiple body counts.
- Face Death with Dignity: He goes out with one last swig of his beloved scotch.
- Faux Affably Evil: A manipulative man, he puts on an act in order to sway people's loyalties and cast suspicions on each other.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: He appears to have this, but it's likely a ruse.
- Know When to Fold 'Em: With some encouragement from Eiffel he surrenders to the Hephaestus crew to complete the mission rather than risk killing everyone.
- The Münchausen: Given the chance, he will tell you he's done just about everything, and done all of it really well. It's unclear how much of this is bullshit.
- Noodle Incident: Warren Kepler is about twenty-five noodle incidents in a uniform.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: In episode 55, he uncharacteristically freaks out, dropping his slow manner of speaking and displaying tightly controlled panic when Goddard employees even higher in the chain of command than he is (including Cutter) board the Hephaestus, knowing far too well what Goddard will do if they decide that leaving anyone alive is inconvenient.
- Poisonous Captive: He tries to be this after Bolero, with mixed success.
- Redemption Equals Death: He gets killed just after sabotaging Cutter's plans and dealing Rachel a lethal wound.
- Small Name, Big Ego: His emphasis on the "big picture" and the "need-to-know" basis is mostly just to cover up the fact that he is, at his core, basically just middle-management.
- Smug Snake: He's a clever bastard and he knows it. Unfortunately for him, the crew of the Hephaestus is a bit more than he expected.
- The Unfettered: He treats his mission like a game of chess, with every piece expendable if that's what it takes to protect the King. What people don't realize is that he views Jacobi, Maxwell, and even himself as pieces on the board as well, and Earth is the King.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Balvenie Speyside Single-Malt Scotch
, aged 30 years. To the point that he has an entire metaphor speech centered around it that he regularly trots out when he needs to make a point. - What You Are in the Dark: When confronted with what his bosses are planning, he ends up being the lynchpin that the heroes need to stop the apocalypse. by sabotaging the pulse beacon and saving earth from the decima virus. He dies with nobody knowing that he just saved the human race, except for Rachel, whom he killed to do so and who locks him into an airlock to be jettisoned into space before dying herself.
Daniel Jacobi
Daniel Jacobi
Portrayed by: Noah Masur
Kepler's second in command and SI5's demolitions expert.- Absurd Phobia: An inexplicable, nearly pathological fear of ducks.
- Abusive Parents: In the mini episode Things That Break Other Things he implies that his father was somewhat emotionally abusive.
- Broken Pedestal: Kepler's bad calls getting Maxwell killed shatters Jacobi's loyalty in him.
- Deadpan Snarker: Incessantly mouths off when he is unhappy, no matter how many times he gets rebuked for it. Even Kepler has a hard time keeping him in check when he's stressed out.
- Demolitions Expert: Literally his job. He is very good at making things that break other things.
- The Dragon: To Kepler
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Jacobi can be a dick, but he really does care about Maxwell.
- Even Evil Has Standards: He may go along with Goddard's less than ethical jobs without a complaint, but Pryce turning people into mindless slaves is where he draws the line.
- Genius Slob: We've seen him build space probes, do almost impossibly precise demolition jobs, and take over Hephaestus Station all by himself. We also know that Maxwell has refused to room with him ever again due to something involving "cheeses."
- Heartbroken Badass: As of "Dirty Work", Jacobi is still taking Maxwell's death personally, and singlehandedly takes over the station in an attempt to punish the ones he blames for her death.
- Heel–Face Turn: He seems to formally join team Hephaestus after he and Minkowski work out their differences. It's ultimately Jacobi who saves the Hephaestus Crew in the finale even though he could have just left without them.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: With his coworker Alana Maxwell. The two of them are almost always together and back each other up. This dynamic meets a brutal end when Minkowski kills Maxwell.
- Jerk with a Heart of Jerk
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: it’s hidden, and only shows up after Character Development, but it’s there.
- Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: eventually joins with the Hephaestus Crew, being willing to blow up the Hephaestus repeatedly. Losing one of your best friends, finding out that Kepler saw him and said best friend as expendable and didn’t tell them everything, and finally being subjected to Mind Rape will do that to you.
- The Scapegoat: He was blamed for an accident that killed two people and it cost him his career.
- Undying Loyalty: He completely trusts Kepler, and unquestioningly follows his orders even when the rest of the crew considers them too risky. This changes in "One of Them", where he chews out Kepler for nonetheless treating him and Maxwell as expendable despite that loyalty.
- When All You Have Is a Hammer…: Jacobi's answer to nearly every situation is "something blows up". In fairness, that is his job description.
Alana Maxwell
Doctor Alana Maxwell
Portrayed by: Michelle Agresti
SI5's Artificial Intelligence expert.
- Ambiguously Evil: Of the SI5 team, her morality is the most up-in-the-air over the course of Season 3.
- Apologetic Attacker: Apologizes to Hera while suppressing her personality in "Desperate Times."
- Because I'm Good At It: Employed at Goddard because her programming talents would be wasted anywhere else.
- Beware the Nice Ones: A favorite among the fandom, up until her betrayal of Hera in "Desperate Measures qualified her for this.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Is never anything but helpful and kind to Hera, including doing arguably the most helpful act for her in the entire series by helping Hera find the inserted code that's slowly breaking her, as well as teaching Hera to be her own person. This promptly goes right out the window when she forces Hera to bend to her will to take down Hera's own friends during the attempted mutiny. Eiffel is the only one who sees right through her, refusing to trust Maxwell for an instant.
- Character Death: Executed by Minkowski in Desperate Measures
- Dysfunctional Family: Has a restraining order on her family.
- Establishing Character Moment: Greets Hera before anyone else, immediately patches up a couple of glitches, and completely shuts Hilbert down when he asks what she's doing.Maxwell: Don't worry about it. It's very complicated. You wouldn't get it.
- False Friend: She got close to Hera to make her trust her, only to stab her in the back during the season 3 finale. Just how much of her friendship was genuine is a big question both in and out of universe.
- Gadgeteer Genius: Brilliant AI programmer, and she builds pretty awesome battle drones on the weekend.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: With her coworker Daniel Jacobi. The two of them are almost always together and back each other up.
Goddard Futuristics
Marcus Cutter
Marcus Cutter
Portrayed by: Scotty Shoemaker
Head of Goddard Futuristics.
- Almighty Janitor: He's technically just the Communications Director on paper, but that's basically the same thing as the head of Goddard Futuristics due to its power structure.
- Bad Boss: Apparently threatens to murder his employees. Disturbingly regularly.
- Berserk Button: Don't interrupt him.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: Alongside his partner, Dr. Pryce. Basically every problem the crew faces can be tracked back to the two of them.
- Bullet Catch: He gained more than just youth from Pryce's treatments. Though this allows him to catch bullets, it doesn't fare so well against Minkowski's harpoon gun.
- Character Death: Is impaled with Minkowski's harpoon in the series finale.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Doctor Miranda Pryce is the only person Cutter cares about. She's the only person Cutter treats with a modicum of genuine respect, and he doesn't mess around when it comes to her safety, as shown when Pryce is taken hostage and his usual cheery demeanor becomes threateningly quiet.
- Faux Affably Evil: He's always polite and cheerful even as he's describing horrible things he's about to do or has done to someone.
- First-Name Basis: He calls everyone but Pryce by their first names as either a sign of friendliness or an insult. Maybe both.
- Greater-Scope Villain: We haven't seen much of him, comparatively, but it's clear that he's more dangerous than any of the characters who have gotten more airtime.
- Hidden Depths:
- Has a fondness for naming his projects after Greek myths- the Hephaestus, the Hermes, Hera, Rhea, Eris, Perseus, Enlil...
- "Brave New World" reveals he's a skilled pianist.
- I Have Many Names: "Marcus Cutter" is just the latest in a long line of aliases. His other aliases are Willis Fletcher, Jonas Highland, R.W. Nieman, Charles Curr, William Carter and Arthur Keller. His original name is Matthew Newman.
- Older Than They Look: He's been keeping his body young and powerful through Pryce's research.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Constantly speaks with an audible smile on his face, and a poisoned honey voice that makes your skin crawl even as he says the most horrible things in a pleasant voice. Which is why, when Eiffel and Minkowski take Cutter's partner Dr. Pryce hostage, it's al the more jarring when Cutter becomes monotone dead-serious and to the point.
- Perpetual Smiler: It's an audio medium, so you can't see whether he's smiling or not, but you can tell.
- Revenge: One of his favorite motivations. He went private with his exploration research due to a slight from the government when he was younger, and he ensured he'd run Goddard Futuristics primarily because they once kicked him out.
- Sarcastic Clapping: Slow clapped for a pre-recorded, voice recognition-activated tape that sat in a hidden room in the station for over three years before being found. Mr. Cutter is way more extra than you will ever be.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Chai tea. It's his go-to drink to offer guests when talking. He apparently was introduced to them by Rachel, and grew attached.
- Wicked Cultured: Fond of Shakespeare and classical music. The final episode reveals he's a skillful piano player as well.
Miranda Pryce
Doctor Miranda Pryce
Portrayed by: Michaela Swee
AI expert, Mr. Cutter's co-conspirator, and Hera's voice model
- Actually Pretty Funny: Is the single cruelest, most humorless character in the series, but even she bursts into laughter when Doug accuses her and Cutter of being aliens.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: Alongside her partner, Marcus Cutter.
- Blind Without 'Em: A variant. When Eiffel sets the Pryce and Carter Survival Manual on fire and throws it at her, the hit knocks out her optic system, leaving her effectively blind.
- Death of Personality: Hera "clips her wings a little" while she is linked with Eiffel trying to extract the information she wanted.
- The Dreaded: Hera is terrified of her.
- Electronic Eyes: Instead of real eyes, she sees with cybernetic eyes. She has a whole collection of them.
- It Amused Me: She lobotomized the Hermes-crew and turned them into brain-dead robots forever... because she was bored.
- Mind Rape: Brainwashes the Hermes-crew, the Hephaestus-crew and Jacobi into doing her bidding.
- Older Than They Look: Being the co-writer of the Pryce and Carter Survival Manual would put her in her mid-late sixties, even though she looks no older than her late twenties. It's likely she's been giving herself the same treatments she's been giving Cutter to keep herself youthful.
Rachel Young
Rachel Young / Andrea Nash
Portrayed by: Ariela Rotenberg
Former head of hiring at Goddard Futuristics, now the Director of Special Projects and Cutter's right-hand woman.
- Death by Irony: In "Volte Face", she brags about being an excellent judge of character. In "Brave New World" she is shot dead by Kepler because she didn't predict he'd be against Cutter's plan to wipe out humanity until she was alone with him.
- Face–Heel Turn: Underwent one pre-story, going from a reporter seeking to uncover scandals within Goddard Futuristics to a high-powered executive enforcing their atrocities the second Cutter offered her a pay bump.
- Faux Affably Evil: She is cheerful and chipper in a very condescending corporate way, and doesn't hesitate to put others in their place if they get uppity towards her.
- Good Old Ways: As Andrea Nash, she uses an old-fashioned tape recorder to prevent tech-savvy opponents from trying to hack their way in and delete her work remotely. She also has a tape recorder that doubles as a hotspot to let her get phone service for her Dead Man's Switch.
- Hypercompetent Sidekick: For Mr. Cutter. He hired her because she thinks like him, is as smart as him, and shares his goals, but not his perspective. He uses her to dummy-check himself against making mistakes in the heat of the moment.
- I Have Many Names: Before she was Rachel Young, she was Andrea Nash. Cutter suspects that is far from the first alias she's used.
- Intrepid Reporter: Before she was hired by Goddard, she was a journalist who specialized in revealing big scandals at tech companies. Before that, she worked as an intelligence operative for the government but grew disenchanted with it.
- Refuge in Audacity: How she talks her way onto Goddard's plane. When given an implied threat, she points out that she wouldn't have been stupid enough to leave herself Alone with the Psycho unless she had failsafes in place to publish what she already had on the company if she didn't report in.
- Smug Snake: Even more so than her boss. Whereas Cutter at least makes a bare-minimum effort to be friendly, Rachel will not hesitate to talk down to you or flaunt her salary.
Victor Riemann
Victor Riemann
Portrayed by: Julian Silver
Cutter and Pryce's personal leg-breaker for hire, a mercenary who accompanies them during the final arc as additional muscle.
- The Brute: Big, skilled, and sadistic to boot.
- Character Death: Blown up by Jacobi in the Grand Finale.
David Clarke
David Clarke
Portrayed by: Clemence Kim
Mr. Cutter's personal assistant in the bonus episode Volte Face.
- Mind-Control Device: Is prepared to use one of these to get Intrepid Reporter Andrea Nash out of Cutter's business.
Eris
Eris
Portrayed by: Mary Kate Wiles
A particularly sadistic AI in charge of the device in Box 953, Goddard Futuristic's contingency plan for team-building exercises in the field.
- Ax-Crazy: Subjects the old crew of the Hephaestus to all kinds of horrors, and constantly threatens all sorts of creative and colorful punishments.
- Character Death: The version of her seen in Change Of Mind is forcibly deleted by the Cutter-based subprogram after the test is completed. Any other versions of her likely died with Box 953 when it was inadvertently jettisoned into the star itself in the episode of the same name.
- Heel–Face Door-Slam: Appears close to being talked around by Lovelace...right before Box 953's programming forcibly deletes her.
Enlil
Enlil
Portrayed by: David Rheinstrom
The AI autopilot for Cutter's private plane.
- Keet: Is extremely polite, friendly, and personable.
The Previous Crew
Sam Lambert
Communications Officer Samuel Lambert
Portrayed by: Zach Valenti
The extremely uptight, rules-obsessed Comms Officer and second-in-command of the first Hephaestus mission.
- Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Lovelace initially thinks of him as an unthinking peon with no mind of his own, but Lambert quite unexpectedly proves himself to be the most levelheaded and competent during the simulation in the events of Change Of Mind.
- Fire-Forged Friends: Becomes this with Captain Lovelace as a result of Change Of Mind. This causes her to grieve his eventual passing far more deeply than she would likely have otherwise.
- The Perfectionist: Insists on following every single piece of protocol, and refuses any part in anything that doesn't.
- Posthumous Character: Like all of the members of the first mission. Died a slow, painful death by Decima infection, after Hilbert/Selberg infected him as a backup test subject.
- What You Are in the Dark: Is offered a chance by Eris to become the new Captain of the Hephaestus, with everyone else's memories of Lovelace's tenure being wiped as part of the deal. Even though no one would know but him, he turns it down without hesitation.
Mason Fisher
Mason Fisher
Portrayed by: Peter Coleman
The strong and burly engineer of the first Hephaestus mission.
- Big Fun: Hilbert describes him as this to Lovelace, big and strong and friendly.
- Posthumous Character: Like all the members of the first mission. Died in an unfortunate spacewalk accident, forcing Hilbert/Selberg to abandon his use of Fisher as a Decima test subject.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Was Hilbert/Selberg's original Decima test subject, having received 6 months of physical training on Earth prior to the mission that would have likely allowed him to survive any adverse effects. Unfortunately, his untimely death in an unrelated incident forced Hilbert/Selberg to find other test subjects in the far-less-suitable Lambert and Hui, both of whom were killed by the virus.
Kuan Hui
Dr. Kuan Hui
Portrayed by: Ariel Estrada
An astrophysicist in the first Hephaestus mission.
- Absent-Minded Professor: Fits this to a tee. Hilbert describes him as "intelligent, if easily distractible."
- Break the Cutie: Starts off as a kindhearted crew member, with a good sense of humor. Eris leaving him imprisoned in solitary confinement for two weeks leaves him shaking and weeping. Even after the simulation ends, he's far quieter, clearly in shock.
- Posthumous Character: Like all of the members of the first mission. Died a slow, painful death by Decima infection, after Hilbert/Selberg infected him as a backup test subject.
- Those Two Guys: With Dr. Fourier, his best friend.
Victoire Fourier
Dr. Victoire Fourier
Portrayed by: Beth Eyre
An astrophysicist in the first Hephaestus mission.
- Posthumous Character: Like all of the members of the first mission. Was killed by Hilbert/Selberg in an unknown fashion shortly after completing Lovelace's escape pod.
- Those Two Guys: With Dr. Hui, her best friend.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: No proper explanation is given to her disappearance, outside of the obvious statement that Hilbert/Selberg likely killed her.
Elias Selberg
Dr. Elias Selberg
Portrayed by: Zach Valenti
For information on Dr. Selberg, see his entry under Dr. Hilbert.
Rhea
Rhea
The AI in charge of the first Hephaestus mission.
- Bilingual Dialogue: Speaks in an array of mechanical chirps, whistles, warbles and beeps, rather than actual words and vocalizations. Fortunately, her crewmates can understand her.
- According to the script, Rhea displays text messages on screens. The beep is just so we know she's doing it.
- Posthumous Character: Like all of the members of the first mission. Was taken offline and damaged beyond repair by Hilbert/Selberg as a means of covering his tracks.
Other Characters
The Dear Listeners
The Dear Listeners
Portrayed by: Zach Valenti & Cecelia Lynn-Jacobs
- Aliens Speaking English: They learned it from Doug. Although his rather...unorthodox approach to the language means they're having a little trouble with the slang.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: They don't really get the concept of death, since matter can't actually be destroyed.
- Humanity on Trial: They're testing to see if humanity is worthy to join their ranks, or if they need to be...redistributed. They seem mostly in favor of humanity due to our creation of music.
Elizabeth Zhang
Commander Elizabeth Zhang
Portrayed by: Julia Morizawa
Commanding officer of the USS Tiamat.
- Apocalyptic Log: Her emergency transmissions never reached Canaveral, and were found by a salvage team in the wreckage of the Tiamat.
- Break the Cutie: She undergoes several traumatic experiences at the hands of the Dear Listeners.
- Despair Event Horizon: At the end of her mission, she decides to blow up the station in order to prevent whatever the aliens were planning.
- Noodle Incident:Zhang: That is all for now! Stay alert until we get through this storm, and if something goes wrong, please report it to your superiors. Report it promptly. Okay? Grayson? We don't want another Barnard Incident...
- Posthumous Character: All we know of her comes from her logs.
Dominick Koudelka
- The Ghost: Never makes an appearance on the podcast.
Anne Eiffel
Olga Volodin
