Video Game / Lifeline

"Hello? Is this thing working? Can anyone read me?"

— Taylor

Lifeline is a series of mobile games for iOS and Android, published by Three Minute Games. The series format is essentially that of interactive fiction, with multiple dialogue options and branching story paths and endings. Rather than directly playing the protagonist, however, you take the role of a random schmuck who's intercepted someone's transmission, and now have to offer them advice and try to guide them through dangerous situations.

The series is also unusual in that the stories play out in real time. While the character you're in contact with is asleep or unconscious or otherwise busy with a task, you will have to wait it out for minutes or even hours until you hear from them again. While you do have the option of fast-forwarding past these once you've completed a story path in each game, it greatly helps with the immersion into the story, and the suspension of disbelief that there's a real person on the other end of your phone or other mobile device.

There are currently eight playable games in the series, the latest of which was released in 2022. While a ninth title, Whiteout 2, was released in 2017, it was only available in the now-defunct Lifeline Library and Lifeline Universe apps which have since been removed from mobile stores.

• The original Lifeline, in which you help Cadet Taylor, a student who won a lottery to travel aboard the spaceship Varia, after they get stranded on a deserted moon.
  • The original game also contains the short story "Viridian Actual", which puts you in touch with Wing Commander Melanie Chior, who is sent to investigate the moon Taylor was stranded on. "Viridian Actual" links Lifeline to Silent Night.
• Lifeline 2: Bloodline, in which a malfunctioning spell puts you in contact with a very cranky young mage named Arika, who was trying to contact her missing brother, but supposes you'll have to do...
• Lifeline: Silent Night, a direct sequel to the original, in which you reunite with Taylor as they find they're not quite as rescued as they thought they were...
• Lifeline: Whiteout, in which someone who presumes his name is "V. Adams" fights his way across a snowy wasteland while trying to remember who he is.
• Lifeline: Crisis Line, in which you are part of a mental health social networking app and where you try to help a homicide detective solve the death of a lawyer and the woman who attacked him at the scene.
• Lifeline: Flatline, in which you have a direct link to the mind of Wynn, and you have to help her escape the hospital.
• Lifeline: Halfway to Infinity, which continues the story of Taylor after the events of Silent Night, and their attempt to escape orbit around a black hole.
• Lifeline: Beside You in Time, a return to Taylor's story on the other side of a black hole, now with the option to communicate with and help or hinder a mysterious person they met in Halfway to Infinity.

Not to be confused with the PlayStation 2 video game Operator's Side, which was also titled Lifeline in North America. For other works titled Lifeline, see the disambiguation page.

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The Lifeline series provides examples of:

Tropes that apply to multiple games

• Aliens Are Bastards: It's bad enough that the Greens randomly pull in ships, crash them on the surface of their moon, and possess everyone they can get near. But apparently they also decided to taunt their enemies when they weren't screaming or hypnotizing them.
• Anti-Frustration Features: The games require you to wait at certain points in the story to add to the suspense, but after completing a path, Fast Mode is unlocked so that you can skip the dialogue and the waiting times.
• Body Horror: The Greens' victims, and Leila Grace in the second game.
• Buffy Speak: Taylor and Arika both indulge in this.
  Taylor: Give me a minute, I'm gonna beep-boop the beep-boop buttons.
  [Taylor is beep-booping]
• But Thou Must!: Some of the choices will net additional dialogue, but will otherwise give the same response, like when Taylor says goodbye to the player when they pull the Viridian into the black hole in Silent Night. The player can respond either "I don't want to say goodbye" or "I don't want you to leave", but it's a goodbye nonetheless.
• Deadpan Snarker: Taylor, Arika, Alex, and to a slightly lesser extent, Mel each have their fair share of snarky commentary. The player can also make sarcastic comments on their actions if they wish.
• Dialogue Tree: A given in a choice-based narrative series, but all the choices are binary in order to fit the text when played on an Apple Watch.
• Freemium Timer: Averted. Despite the story pausing at several points in real-time, there is no way to pay real money to skip the timer, so you're forced to wait. This is to simulate and maintain the suspense one gets when anxiously waiting for a response.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: Any creature possessed by the Greens has glowing green eyes.
  • The primary antagonist of Crisis Line, the Green-Eyed Woman, has these.
• Green Rocks: Tunguskite is highly explosive and does weird things with time in sufficient quantities.
• Golden Ending: One for each game:
  • Lifeline: Taylor is rescued by the White Star right before the aliens infect them. If you put Captain Aya in the stasis pod at the beginning you can achieve the best possible ending in which Aya is saved as well.
    • "Viridian Actual" doesn't have one - all the endings are different flavours of awful.
  • Lifeline 2: Arika kills the Greens and reunites with her brother.
  • Silent Night: Taylor is rescued by a mysterious figure as they pilot a ship of infected marines into a black hole.
  • Whiteout: Adams destroys ALT's robot production facility and escapes to freedom, with Blue by his side.
  • Crisis Line: Alex successfully gets Rod Ross to confess. However, this can also be conflated with Downer Ending as the Green-Eyed Woman and her henchman show up and shoot Alex after realizing he is no longer useful after solving Jason Leder's murder. Nonetheless, Help Bot only says that Alex was shot, not that he was killed.
  • Halfway to Infinity: Taylor manages to rescue Mari, but sacrifices themself to get rid of T2.
  • Beside You in Time: Taylor escapes the Celadon Ace in a shuttle after T2 performs a Heroic Sacrifice to destroy the space station and its insane AI.
• Mind-Control Eyes: The Greens' victims have their eyes glowing green when controlled by them.
• Multiple Endings: A given for a series of choice-based narratives, with most of the bad endings resulting in the protagonist's death.
• Our Zombies Are Different: ...because they’re actually green-eyed aliens that can hypnotize and/or possess people, including corpses. And they have really good tech.
• Puppeteer Parasite: The Greens/Occupiers, the main antagonists across all of the games barring Whiteout.
• Shout-Out: Characters (mainly Taylor) make references to a plethora of media, like Futurama, Doctor Who, and Belle and Sebastian, just to name a few.
• Voice with an Internet Connection: You happen to be the first person that the protagonist establishes contact with, and your goal is to help them on their journey by giving them the right advice.

Lifeline

• Ambiguous Gender: Taylor's gender and appearance are never actually revealed - they spend the whole game communicating via text, and it never comes up, even if they're without their helmet in the sequels. To be fair, they have bigger things to worry about.
• Art Evolution: The v2.2 update updated the app's title screen with a more detailed artwork of Taylor.
• Foreboding Architecture: The peak, described as glowing at some points. It seems to take a disproportionately long time to reach it, and once you do it has a completely smooth surface and a human-sized entrance in it. Yeah. That’s not creepy at all.
• Gender-Blender Name: Taylor is a gender-neutral name.
• Genre Savvy: Taylor will frequently comment on how stupid their actions would be in a horror movie, before going ahead and doing them anyway.
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: One of Taylor’s rescuers stops them from completing their alien-hypnosis-induced rant by punching them in the face during the path to the best ending.
• Hell Is That Noise: The alien-possessed rats and astronauts won't stop screaming.
• The Metric System Is Here to Stay: All the measurements are done in metric, much to Taylor's eternal frustration.
• Mad Scientist: As a former science student, Taylor can dabble into mad science experiments for their survival. They even brought their lab rats on their space trip, which escape to the peak with them and get infected by the Greens.
• The Movie Buff: Taylor's a big movie fan and will compare their situation to what they've seen in movies, like when the canyon gets blocked by a huge boulder. They'll ask the player if they should leave the canyon or climb the side of it, and will hope that they don't end up like "the 127 Hours guy" if they try climbing.
• Nuke 'em: Making a nuclear explosion is Taylor fervently hopes will happen to the alien-infested moon after hacking into the computer.
• Robinsonade: Lifeline is about a stranded astronaut who asks a random person on Earth for help in surviving the desert moon.
• Saharan Shipwreck: The Varia crashes on a seemingly deserted moon. It's not the only one.
• Space Isolation Horror: The game has Taylor getting stranded alone in a barren planet and asking you for help in trying to survive. But as they explore the planet, they discover that they're not alone...
• Wham Line: When Taylor finds out about the true nature of the Greens.
  "They get in through the mouth."
• Year Inside, Hour Outside: When the peak vanishes with Taylor inside, what seems to be only a few seconds for the player happens for 15 minutes on the moon.

"Viridian Actual"

• Agent Scully: Warn Mel about the aliens all you like, she refuses to believe you until it's too late.
• The Cassandra: You, if you try to warn Mel.
• Controllable Helplessness: Either of the two endings, but especially the one where Mel tries to run back to her ship and ends up horribly injured and watching the Greens creep closer and closer. You can still talk to her, but she's not going to be able to do anything about it.
• Failure Is the Only Option: You can't save Mel or the marines, no matter how hard you try.
• Genius Bonus: The marines are named Melanie "Mel" Chior, Balthazar de Ley, and Caspar Cruciger. Melchior, Balthazar and Caspar were the names of the three wise men from the Biblical Christmas story - fitting, considering they next appear in "Silent Night".
  • And then, of course, there's the fact that their ship is named the Viridian. Say, what colour is viridian a shade of again...?
• Mauve Shirt: You get to be on pretty friendly terms with Mel, and find out some of her backstory, before she's inevitably infected by the Greens.
• Sequel Hook: Leads directly into Silent Night.

Lifeline 2: Bloodline

• Blood Magic: The Lanphear family's chosen style.
• Creepy Child: Leila Grace.
• Exact Words: The old woman who sold Arika the Fabula Dagger never actually said it would help her contact her brother like she wanted - only that it would let her contact "the person she most needed to contact". Namely, you.
• Fire Purifies: Certainly in Arika's opinion.
  Arika: If I can't have back the New Tenacity of my childhood... then I'll salt the earth so nothing — especially nothing Green — can ever take root here again.
• Fission Mailed: Played with. When gambling for the lamp, Arika can fail, yet she'll continue to the next destination. As long as the other two items were acquired, Arika is prevented from failing in her quest.
• Hidden Elf Village: New Tenacity - before being overrun by the Greens, anyway.
• Innocuously Important Episode: At first blush, the game seems to have little to do with the original Lifeline despite sharing a name - it's on Earth, in (presumably) The Present Day, and revolves around magic instead of science. And then the Greens show up.
• Kill It with Fire: How the Greens meet their richly-deserved fate.
• Orphanage of Fear: Floodland was this even before it was abandoned and left to the tender care of a creepy magic orphan girl.
• Snark Knight: Arika somehow manages to be even more snarky than Taylor.

Lifeline: Silent Night

• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Dialogue you can get from Taylor.
  Taylor: By the time I realized I wasn’t alone out there, there were about a thousand other things happening... a graveyard of derelict ships, a bank of computer controls inside a mountain... a pulse weapon that was shooting targets out of space and time... and, worst of all, I was down to my last packet of chili macaroni...
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Taylor can have this reaction to seeing the marines' ship from his window.
  Taylor: That's not the kind of thing I'm likely to forget about anytime soo— HEY LOOK something shiny!
• Bookends: As lampshaded by Taylor, the game both starts and ends with them hearing alarms.
• Bottle Episode: Unlike the original, which had Taylor traipsing all over the deserted moon, and Bloodline, where Arika trekked across much of the Pacific Northwest, Silent Night is largely confined to the mining ship White Star.
• Christmas Episode: If you couldn't tell from the title.
  Taylor: Now... how did that old poem go, again? "'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the ship, we were roused from our sleep by a loud radar blip?"
• Color-Coded Speech: Each crew member of the White Star that Taylor interacts with gets their own unique dialogue color: Captain Shepard is teal, Donald is orange, Bos is red, Mari is white, and Doctor Artesa is purple. The marines' dialogue is appropriately colored a sickly green.
• Escape from the Crazy Place: Three Green-infested marines board the ship that rescued Taylor, and now they have to find a way out (and take the Greens out at the same time).
• Failure Is the Only Option: If Taylor decides to fight the infected marines when they first see them, they'll capture them and infect them with the Green, no matter what option the player chooses.
• Flipping the Bird: It is implied that Taylor does this to you if you answer sarcastically to Captain Shepard's reaction to their plan.
  Taylor: Next, guess which finger I'm holding up!
• Heroic Sacrifice: Taylor's plan is to lure the infected marines back onto their ship and pilot it into a black hole, knowing that they would probably die in the process.
• Imperiled in Pregnancy: Mari confides in Taylor that she's pregnant, which makes saving her all the more important to them.
• It's a Wonderful Failure: If you get Taylor infected, the game gravely informs you that the Greens are now charting a course for Earth...
• Layman's Terms: You can ask Taylor for this after they describe a mineral as "waxy, brownish sedimentary cryptocrystalline quartz." It's flint.
• Lemony Narrator: The system messages occasionally echo Taylor's snark, or provide commentary on their actions.
  [Taylor is running and singing (loudly and badly)]
• Les Collaborateurs: The ship's medic, Doctor Artesa, who may or may not be infected, but either way is helping the Greens.
• Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: Doctor Artesa.
• Stuff Blowing Up: At the climax, Taylor hides in the galley to mix explosive ingredients to blast away the infected marines before hijacking their ship.
• Title Drop: A variant. One of the better endings gives you dialogue with the phrase "halfway to infinity," which is the title of the next Taylor game.

Lifeline: Whiteout

• Amnesiac Hero: V. Adams doesn't remember his own name or how he got lost in the snowy wastes, and gets the name "Adams" from a patch on his uniform.
• Bittersweet Ending: In the good ending Adams and Blue escape and go on the run, but the two of you cease communication in fear of being tracked. Adams does say he feels the two of you will talk again, and that if you ever meet up for real, the drinks are on him.
• Breaking Old Trends: Whiteout is the only game in Lifeline franchise that has no appearances of the Greens.
• Canine Companion: Blue the Siberian husky, who Adams rescues from starving in a cage, reciprocates his kindness tenfold.
• The Cuckoolander Was Right: I. Adams may be crazy, but they really ARE tracking V. Adams through his teeth.
• Grand Theft Me: What Sibellius wants to do to Adams.
• Heroic Dog: Blue saves Adams' life almost as often as you do.
• Immortality Seeker: Sibellius wants to achieve immortality not just for himself, but for all of humanity. Unfortunately his methods are questionable.
• Quest for Identity: Waking up in the middle of nowhere? Check. No memory of who Adams is? Check. Trying to find out? Check and mate.
• Ridiculously Human Robots: Adams and his "brothers". They even bleed, eat and sleep.
• Tomato in the Mirror: Adams is an organic robot created by Dr Sibellius to serve as his new body - and you are part of an unwitting experiment to see if he can be socialised.
• The Tooth Hurts: I. Adams pulled out all his teeth. With pliers. And when he finds out why, V. Adams can pull out one of his own teeth in the same way.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: At the end of the game, you must decide whether Adams is more of a human or more of a machine.

Lifeline: Crisis Line

• The Alibi: Each of the five suspects presents one. Both Mia Westerman's and Rod Ross's have holes in them.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Jason Leder is revealed to be this. When Alex makes his initial round of interrogations, it seems anyone and everyone loved Jason. However, Rod Ross eventually reveals that Jason was a bully, a claim that is corroborated by Jason's wife Mia.
• Blackmail: It's eventually revealed that Jason Leder was subject to this by his stepbrother Mike, who covered up a murder Jason committed when he was fifteen.
• By-the-Book Cop: Alex can be this, if the player so chooses, but there are also options given where he can perform a bit of Artistic License – Law to trick some of his interrogees who aren't as well versed in law.
• Deadpan Snarker: Like the protagonists before him, Detective Esposito spouts out quite a bit of snark.
• Destroy the Evidence: Esposito does this prior to the events of the game, to cover up the fact that he shot the Green Eyed Woman at Leder's house.
• Detective Drama: The game follows Detective Alex Esposito as he attempts to solve the murder of Jason Leder.
• Did Not Die That Way: Alex has the option of softening the story of Jason's demise to his paralegal Rachael, or of telling her the truth.
• Disposing of a Body: Done twice to Jason Leder. After Rod Ross clocks him in the head with the wrench, he tosses him off of Mount Bonnell, and it's his stepbrother Mike who dumps him in the swimming pool in which he's found at the beginning of the game.
• Donut Mess with a Cop: Alex jokes about this.
• Everyone Is a Suspect: Alex comes across five suspects throughout the game and asks the player routinely who they think is guilty. You have the option of arresting one of the five at the end of the game, though the golden ending is only reached if one chooses the actual killer, Rod Ross.
• Good Cop/Bad Cop: Alex has the option of being either during interrogations, notably while interrogating Rod Ross, whom he seems to naturally dislike.
• I Never Said It Was Poison: Utilized when confronting Rod Ross, should the player so choose. If one manages to pin him, Ross will state that he never drove the body to the house and dump it in the pool. When Sergeant Wheeler spoke to the press about the crime, she never mentioned a swimming pool.
• Incriminating Indifference: One of the points the player can bring up to Mia Westerman. It doesn't stick, since she's not the actual murderer, and she gets her lawyer instead of confessing.
• Killed Mid-Sentence: Alex, in the golden ending where he arrests Rod Ross. However, Help Bot also goes on to mention that he's only been shot in the chest and left for dead, stating that he still needs the player's help, thus possibly averting the trope.
• Meaningful Name: Alex's surname is Italian for "exposed." Rather fitting for a homicide detective trying to expose the truth behind a murder, one would think.
• Off the Record: Played with when interrogating Claire Schuerenberg. She Invokes this when discrediting Mia's alibi, but Alex says to the player that the trope actually only applies to journalists and reporters, and not to the police.
• Only Bad Guys Call Their Lawyers: Averted with Mia Westerman. She demands Jeff Sherwood as a lawyer, and isn't the one that murdered her husband. Rod Ross, the actual murderer, confesses under pressure.
• Safecracking: Alex finds a safe on the floor of Jason Leder's office. Can be averted in that Alex has no idea what the code is, and if the player chooses not to input one, they safe can be completely passed over.
• The Stakeout: Alex is given the choice of staking out Pearson Corp after visiting Leticia Garza.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: Alex is noted to not be in the best mental state, which is why he resorted to the Help Text app in the first place, and outright states that he has depression. Some of the choices the player can make to goad him on aren't exactly the nicest, and Help Bot will occasionally chime in by assessing the player's "compassion rating."
• Vomiting Cop: Alex tells the player that he vomited at the station after his first encounter with the Green-Eyed Woman. He also vomits after being returned home by the bird.

Lifeline: Flatline

• Mythology Gag: When Wynn is trying to remember her name, the player can suggest "Taylor". However, she will reject the suggestion.

Lifeline: Halfway to Infinity

• Bittersweet Ending: The best possible ending, in which Taylor saves Mari, but ends up dragging T2 with them into the black hole.
• Broken Faceplate: Played for drama near the end of the game, when Taylor leaves the Viridian to save Mari. T2 leaves a helmet with a crack in it along with a taunting note for Taylor.
• Fingore: Taylor closes a door on a Marine's finger, cutting it off.
• Future Me Scares Me: Taylor is a bit unnerved by T2, their future self. It turns out that Taylor was right about not trusting T2. T2 is infected by the Green.
• Hive Mind: T2 explains that the Greens all mindlessly obey the orders of their queen, which is why they occupy intelligent beings: to acquire their intelligence and their memories.
• I Lied: T2 says this in the bad ending if Taylor follows them to the future Viridian. When they infect Taylor with the help of the future infected marines, T2 reveals that they didn't tranquilize the marines as they initially claimed.
• Immediate Sequel: Halfway to Infinity takes place one day after Silent Night, which opens with Taylor extinguishing a fire caused by the homemade explosives they used to ward off the infected marines.
• Schrödinger's Cat: This is referenced by Taylor near the end of the game, when they explain why they believe that there's a chance that they can succeed in rescuing Mari and beating T2. According to Taylor, they would normally fail and start the time loop again, but since the player character counts as an outside observer, things might turn out differently this time around.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: The player can encourage Taylor to properly suit up before saving Mari, but Taylor will insist on rushing the EVA process because they don't have much time to save her.
• Stable Time Loop: A dark version applies to Taylor here. T2 is their Green-infected future self, who will eventually infect Taylor, who does the same to the next Taylor.
• Talking Is a Free Action: Averted during the rescue mission for Mari. If the player suggests using the waldo to save her, T2 will exploit the time wasted discussing plans and throw her ship into the black hole. This will drive Taylor into despair and make them surrender to T2.

Lifeline: Beside You in Time

• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: If you allow HelpBot QTC to install his much-needed updates, he will deliberately hurt the Taylors the next day with his upgraded antigravity system. He will then rub in their faces that he is, indeed, "out to get [them]" and that he lied about his motivations to help them escape, claiming that he wants to "test" them.
• All Just a Dream: Conversed when Taylor decides to take a nap after gathering supplies, hoping that they'll wake up in a big comfy bed next to Suzanne Pleshette.
• Alternate Universe: The Taylors find themselves in one after going through the black hole in Halfway to Infinity.
• The Anti-Nihilist: Taylor, unlike T2, tries their best to be optimistic despite their situation, hoping that both of them will be able to escape the shuttle.
• Bait-and-Switch Boss: The Green-infested T2 is set up as the villain of the game, obsessed with infecting Taylor. Then HelpBot shows its true colours.
• Bittersweet Ending: C'mon, it's a Taylor game. Taylor escapes the Celadon Ace as it and its insane AI explodes behind them... but T2 is dead after finally tasting freedom, and there may be an Occupier and a Green-infested corpse hiding on the shuttle.
• Bound and Gagged: Taylor and T2 can restrain the infected Halliday this way after fighting him, hoping that that would buy them time to escape. It doesn't work since Halliday breaks free to kill T2 if they and Taylor decide to take a nap.
• Call-Back: One of the dead astronauts is holding a tablet with an intro video for the Celadon Ace. It stars the creator of HelpBot QTC... Jareth Lanphear. Chief Technical Officer of Tenacity.
  Jareth: So powerful, it will take you to the stars. And so advanced... you'll swear it's magic.
• Color-Coded Speech: HelpBot's text is orange, T2's is green, while Taylor's is blue.
• The Dead Have Names: Upon entering the Copula, Taylor and T2 are horrified to see that the Celadon Ace crew still had their name patches on when HelpBot killed them.
• Deadly Gas: HelpBot tricked the Celadon Ace crew into seeing a supernova from the Cupola before testing his poison gas on them, killing them. HelpBot has streamlined it since then, and it is now invisible and nearly odorless.
• Didn't Think This Through: If you decide to activate the sprinklers without sounding the alarm to wake up Taylor and T2 first, HelpBot will execute it by falsifying a fire alarm... only to realize that the fire suppression system cuts off the ventilation to the room they're in. Since the only way to stop it is by manual override, and Taylor and T2 are the only ones inside, HelpBot will blame himself for not telling you earlier about the system and say goodbye as he helplessly watches them die.
• Digital Piracy Is Evil: If you engage the Taylors into small talk about Friends, HelpBot will offer to stream the series using T2's credit card information. T2 will ask why HelpBot can't just pirate it, but HelpBot will say that he's a "rogue, borderline sociopathic artificial intelligence, not a criminal."
• Do I Really Sound Like That?: Taylor is surprised to hear T2's sarcastic voice when they say that they didn't bring enough tranquilizers to share between them when T2's evolved Occupier escapes.
  Taylor: God, is that what I sound like when I'm being sarcastic? That's annoying as hell.
• Good News, Bad News: A staple in the series that gets lampshaded if Taylor searches the Tech Room for a lithium ion battery:
  "Okay, <name>. If you know me — and I think by now you do — then you know there's nothing I love more than a classic 'good news/bad news' setup."
• Dying as Yourself: T2's Occupier disconnects from their body to save itself when they are mortally injured, and they are relieved to die as a human.
• Enemy Mine: Initially why Taylor and T2 work together.
• Escape from the Crazy Place: In this instance, the Celadon Ace, a space station in a parallel universe ruled by a sociopathic AI.
• For Science!: HelpBot's motivation for torturing the astronauts.
• Gravity Master: HelpBot can control the artificial gravity inside the shuttle. He exploits this if Taylor tries crossing the catwalk to get to the other side of the Greenhouse, by first floating them in zero gravity, then turning it back on to make them drop the battery.
• Heel–Face Turn: While T2 is initially a moustache-twirling Queen-loving Green fanatic, being disconnected from the Hive Mind helps them slowly regain their sense of self and realise they don't want to be Green any more.
• Heh Heh, You Said "X": The player can go, "Huh huh. You said 'deckhead,'" if HelpBot explains the Cargo Hold's deckhead, to his exasperation.
  HelpBot: Oh, for... It's the proper term. Look it up. And grow up a little, would you? Lives are at stake here.
  The Player: Sorry, sorry.
  HelpBot: You can make all the dumb jokes you want after the astronauts are dead.
  The Player: Wow. Dark.
  HelpBot: If you're bothered by it, then help me save them.
• Hello, [Insert Name Here]: You are asked for your name at the beginning of the story, or after helping HelpBot rescue Taylor and T2 from the Cargo Bay in subsequent runs.
• Heroic BSoD: When Taylor loses the battery, they'll tell the player that they need a moment to themself and won't talk to you for a while. Luckily, T2 manages to find a spare while they were exploring the fore labs before HelpBot could cut off their oxygen supply.
• Heroic Sacrifice: T2, fatally wounded and free of the Greens at last, sacrifices themself to blow up the Celadon Ace and help Taylor get away.
• Lack of Empathy: T2's possession by the Green removed their empathy, so they're cynical and condescending towards Taylor during their escape. T2 also believes that they're better off without empathy and doesn't think of thanking Taylor if they give them food.
• Lame Pun Reaction: The player can only groan at Taylor if they tell this joke in the Galley:
  Taylor: Did you hear about that new restaurant on the moon?
  The Player: No, what about it?
  Taylor: The food is great... but there's no atmosphere!
  The Player: I'm hanging up with you right now. / Eat more; you're still dumb.
• Let's Split Up, Gang!: When Taylor and T2 agree to split up to gather supplies, the player can only stay in touch with one of them until HelpBot is fully upgraded. However, if both of them are in the hub, the player can hear both sides of the conversation. This turns out to be a trick by HelpBot to isolate them for a social experiment.
• The Needless: Downplayed with T2. Because they're infected by the Green, T2 needs less food, water, and oxygen than Taylor to survive, and can go for long periods without them with minimal ill effects.
• Oh, Crap!: The player can react this way when HelpBot transfers their communications to T2 after they first wake up.
• Produce Pelting: When T2's evolved Occupier breaks loose in the shuttle and finds its way into the Greenhouse, Taylor thinks of throwing tomatoes at it, but isn't sure because "it only works on court jesters and people with tomato allergies."
• A Rare Sentence: Given all the weirdness they've experienced as an astronaut lost in space, Taylor tends to say a lot of things they'd never think of saying.
  I've fought reanimated astronaut corpses before. ... ...is a sentence I never thought I'd hear myself saying.
• Redemption Equals Death: Poor T2 was never going to survive finally escaping their Occupier, were they?
• Secret Diary: There's one in the berths, and the player can tell Taylor to keep it or leave it behind.
• Sequel Hook: As they escape on the shuttle, HelpBot warns Taylor that "all of them" are in for a bumpy ride. Say, uh, where did Halliday and T2's Occupier get to, exactly...?
• Super-Strength: T2 has enhanced strength thanks to being infected by the Green.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Taylor and T2 have to call a truce to escape the Celadon Ace. There is a lot of initial mutual animosity (potentially from the player as well, if they choose to be hostile towards T2).
• Troll: HelpBot would tell Taylor exactly where to install the battery, but that would be "ruining the fun for [them]."
• Xanatos Speed Chess: When Taylor and T2 need to light the tunguskite to blast the ship away, they realize that the Greenhouse, which was set on fire by HelpBot earlier, was locked. This is because he changes the code every second to make sure they don't escape.

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"Here's to a brighter future. This is Cadet Taylor, formerly of the Varia, signing off."

— Taylor

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