History Characters / BlackMirrorUSSCallister

* PsychopathicManchild: Robert Daly is clearly stunted both emotionally and socially. He is entitled to the point of viewing even harmless slights as disrespectful. He vents his frustrations on sapient clones of his co-workers by torturing them into playing along with his fantasies. While reliving his favorite TV show with himself as the hero, Daly does a lot of immature things such as resolving a showdown with an "enemy" by yelling that there was a naked lady behind him. Daly appears to be uncomfortable with anything even remotely sexual, despite an implied desire for a romance with the real life Nanette Cole. When kissing the female crew members after "saving the day", Daly insists on keeping the kiss close-mouthed. He also [[KenDollAnatomy removes all the clones' genitals]], and feels very awkward when Cole's clone tries to distract him by flirting. Walton's clone refers to the ''Space Fleet'' mod as a "playground", and Robert Daly is shown enjoying other child-like things such as pizza and chocolate milk. Daly's actor, Jesse Plemons, has even compared the character to a 12-year-old boy who is confused about his own feelings and actively wishes for control.

* NiceToTheWaiter: Averted, Daly is dismissive and needlessly rude to the pizza delivery guy who gets on his case.

* PsychopathicManchild: Robert Daly is clearly stunted both emotionally and socially. He is entitled to the point of viewing even harmless slights as disrespectful. He vents his frustrations on sapient clones of his co-workers by torturing them into playing along with his fantasies. While reliving his favorite TV show with himself as the hero, Daly does a lot of immature things such as resolving a showdown with an "enemy" by yelling that there was a naked lady behind him. Daly appears to be [[VillainousAromanticAsexual uncomfortable with anything even remotely sexual]], despite an implied desire for a romance with the real life Nanette Cole. When kissing the female crew members after "saving the day", Daly insists on keeping the kiss close-mouthed. He also [[KenDollAnatomy removes all the clones' genitals]], and feels very awkward when Cole's clone tries to distract him by flirting. Walton's clone refers to the ''Space Fleet'' mod as a "playground", and Robert Daly is shown enjoying other child-like things such as pizza and chocolate milk. Daly's actor, Jesse Plemons, has even compared the character to a 12-year-old boy who is confused about his own feelings and actively wishes for control.

* VillainousAromanticAsexual: While Daly enjoys tormenting his coworkers without end, he shows no interest in sex or romance of any kind, and even seems reluctant and a bit scared when confronted with the concepts; while his space adventures always end with a required kiss from one of the female ensigns, he clearly does it because he views it as an obligatory trope of the genre and insists on it being closed-mouth. He even goes so far as to remove the genitals of the crew's avatars to keep the simulation as chaste as possible. When Nanette tries to flirt with him in an attempt to distract him, he appears curious, but also somewhat uncomfortable with the situation.

** Daly's in-game persona is this to [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries James Kirk]]. Both are [[LargeHam dramatic]], [[TheAce super-competent]] space captains who are adored by their crews. However, Kirk is a noble OfficerAndAGentleman who [[TheMenFirst puts his crew first]] and has genuinely earned their love and respect in return. Daly is a BadBoss who puts his crew in degrading situations to boost his own ego and abuses them into cooperating.

* LaughablyEvil: Some of Robert Daly's dialogue and actions are actually humorous to watch.

* NaiveNewcomer: Being new to Daly's private Space Fleet simulation, lots of exposition is needed to get her up to speed with the situation. She’s this in the real world as well as she is new to this job.

* TookALevelInBadass: In the virtual world, she steels Daly’s Ship, traps him in his own brain and becomes the new captain of the USS Callister.

* NoNameGiven: His name is never spoken in the real world and it’s unclear if “Valdack” is his surname or the name of an actual antagonist in the ''Space Fleet'' TV show.
* NoodleIncident: Justified. We never learn what he did to justify Daly's hatred, but the crew admits it could've been literally anything. Early on in the episode, Daly trips and falls over his gym bag and while he’s apologetic over it and even helps Daly back up, he and Lowry later share a laugh about it at Daly’s expense. Additionally, given that he’s good-looking and seems to be well-liked around the office, it’s possible that Daly put him in the game out of a generalized resentment rather than any particular slight.

* FreudianExcuseIsNoExcuse: Walton says this to him more or less word-by-word. He apologizes to Daly and admits that he may have exploited his "genius", and mistreated him... then drops the WhamLine that it ultimately doesn't matter, because Daly still created a digital copy of his son just so he could throw him son out of an airlock without any remorse. He then declares "fuck you to death" to him instead.

* FreudianExcuseIsNoExcuse: Walton says this to him more or less word-by-word. He apologizes to Daly and admits that he may have exploited his "genius", and mistreated him... then drops the WhamLine that it ultimately doesn't matter, because Daly still threw his son out of an airlock without any remorse. He then declares "fuck you to death" to him instead.

* CorruptCorporateExecutive: Averted; while being very morally bankrupt privately, it doesn't seem to seep into his business practices or everyday behavior at the office.
* CruelPlayerCharacterGod: A deconstruction; he's an example of [[TheSociopath what kind of person]] would behave like this to ''sapient'' characters. Walton at one point outright calls him "an asshole god".
* CutLexLuthorACheck: Zig-zagged. On one hand, the real Robert Daly is the co-founder of a massively successful video game development company and clearly lives a very comfortable life. On the other hand, based on the reactions of the Digital Nanette, creating a device which can scan someone's DNA (from any source, without any brain needed) and in about a day creating a virtual copy of them with their memories intact is not a normal thing in this universe, and so still would be the sort of thing that could make him far, far richer.

* IJustWantToHaveFriends: Averted. His use of Infinity at first seems like this trope, a way for a nerdy guy to harmlessly live out fantasies of being adored by others. However it soon becomes clear he just enjoys having people to horrifically torture for extremely petty reasons. Daly doesn't want friends, he wants victims.

* MoralEventHorizon: In-universe -- During [[spoiler:the escape attempt, Walton [[CouldSayItBut seemingly starts to give a heartfelt apology]] for his attitude toward Daly in the real world that led to all this, which seems to get through to Daly somewhat, but angrily takes it back as it doesn't make up for his actions in the game and yells ''Fuck you to death!'' before performing his HeroicSacrifice to save the crew.]]

* ParodySue: Played for horror; Captain Daly is an archetypal overpowered SelfInsert venting his frustrations at his co-workers, which would be morbidly funny -- except that his stand-ins are sapient clones of his same co-workers.

* WhatYoyAreInTheDark: He's seen by most who know him in real life as mild-mannered and socially awkward but ultimately harmless, just a smart guy who is more comfortable with computers than people. It's only in the game that his true vile nature comes out.

* JerkassGod: Walton calls him Asshole God in the simulation.

* LargeHam: Invoked by his acting as Captain which is clearly designed to invoke William Shatner in Star Trek.

!!!Science Officer

* VillainousAromanticAsexual: While Daly enjoys tormenting his coworkers without end, he shows no interest in sex or romance of any kind, and even seems reluctant and a bit scared when confronted with the concepts; while his space adventures always end with a required kiss from one of the female ensigns, he insists on it being closed-mouth. He even goes so far as to remove the genitals of the crew's avatars to keep the simulation as chaste as possible. When Nanette tries to flirt with him in an attempt to distract him, he appears curious, but also somewhat uncomfortable with the situation.

->'''Portrayed By:''' Michaela Coel

* TheTransmogrifier: Because he prefers to roleplay being a starship captain rather than play god, Daly mainly uses his influence over the simulation to painfully transform any of his clone NPCs that dare rebel. Among other things, Nannette has her face erased, Shania is transformed into an alien monster, and several others rebellious characters have been transformed during the backstory and abandoned throughout the simulation until Daly feels like getting them involved with the game's narrative again; Daly has even gone so far as to erase the genitals of all his NPCs for the sake of a wholesome setting! Generally speaking, he doesn't use other powers or techniques unless he's really pissed off and wants to torture someone until they break.

* LonersAreFreaks: He is a loner and a vindictive sociopath in private.

* LonersAreFreaks: He is a loner and a sociopath in private.

* RealityWarper: He can do anything within his game, with some limits. He can't transform anyone not in his presence, and he can't change the designed-in speed of space vessels. He probably could mod the game to let him from the outside, but likely wants the game to play as much like the Star Fleet TV show as possible, and doesn't know that he could possibly need these abilities.