History Characters / ForAllMankind

* LifeSavingMisfortune: She's supposed to go with Paine to Korea for a conference, but then receives word that her father had suffered a heart attack. Ellen goes to visit him, which saves her life when her flight, Korean Air Lines 007, is shot down by a Soviet fighter.

* SmallRoleBigImpact: He has only a relatively minor amount of screen time in season 1, but his death has major impacts on the emotional states of multiple characters. Both of his parents as well as Danny never truly get over his death. Even by Season 4 (which takes place almost thirty years after Shane died), it's shown that Shane's death and Ed's guilt over it and his treatment of Shane while he was alive still weighs heavily and deeply on Ed.

* DecoyProtagonist: In a sense - due to his high billing, many suspected that he would be the new main character going forward to replace some of the older cast. Instead, he quickly became {{the leader of the black market on Mars whereas other characters remain in the spotlight.}}

* DecoyProtagonist: In a sense - due to his high billing, many suspected that he would be the new main character going forward to replace some of the older cast. Instead, he quickly became [[the leader of the black market on Mars whereas other characters remain in the spotlight.]]

* BeardOfSorrow: Has grown a beard during his isolation, as there wasn't much of a reason for him to maintain one.

* PerilousOldFool: In season 4 he is an old man with PTSD and neurological issues that include an uncontrollable shaking of his hand. Yet he stil insists on flying missions as an astronaut including ones that require the pilot to have very precise control of the spacecraft. He gets away with it because he is a LivingLegend and noone wants to go against him.

The NASA Administrator under Presidents Nixon and Reagan

* InnocentlyInsensitive

* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: Shooting one of the cosmonauts after being mistakenly led to believe that he was going for a gun as opposed to a translation card, results in the Soviets attacking Jamestown to retrieve him.

* NotSoDifferent: He attempts to appeal to Ed as another family man and talks about how he nearly lost his daughter in infancy.

A Soviet cosmonaut who becomes Ed Baldwin's "guest" on Jamestown

* GeneralRipper: Quoth General Bradford, "The only way to hold a piece of ground, on this world or any other world, is a man with a rifle." He repeatedly argues they should go on the offensive, claiming ''all'' Soviets (including Sergei, whose worst crime is being a bit of an ObstructiveBureaucrat) can't be trusted. He is also willing to let dozens of Soviet civilians, engineers, and scientists die rather than alert them to the problems with Buran's O-ring.

** He has a more amicable working relationship with Ed during the joint Soviet-Helios mission, however.

* FreudianExcuse: Dev's father was an aerospace engineer who built components for the Saturn V, only to lose his job after the Apollo 23 disaster and spend the rest of his life driving taxis. Dev is afraid to suffer a similar fate, which drives his ambition to land the first humans on Mars. In Season 4, we also felt abandoned by his mother after she left and he refused to come with her and abandon his father.

* HonestCorporateExecutive: He initially starts out this way. Helios is organzied in a non-hierarchical structure, with him having no office or official title. He puts major company decisions up to a vote with all of his employees. He points out that many achievements in aviation were made by private individuals, and sees Helios as no different than the Wright Brothers or Charles Lindbergh. However, he later overrides Ed's desire to help the Soviet crew, showing that he only cares about getting to Mars first. He is also able to intimidate the Helios employees into voting his way out of either loyalty to him or fear that they'll be dismissed.

The new point-of-view character for Season 4, a Blue Collar American who signs on for Helios Aerospace's new colonization efforts, only to find that life on Mars isn't all that it is cracked up to be.

* BlatantLies: Just before his interview with Helios, he lies on his application and claims he went to Florida State University. The recruiter takes a greater interest in him since his own brother went there, and this ends up getting him the job.

* FreudianExcuse: Dev's father was an aerospace engineer who built components for the Saturn V, only to lose his job after the Apollo 23 disaster and spend the rest of his life driving taxis. Dev is afraid to suffer a similar fate, which drives his ambition to land the first humans on Mars.

** Ed is horribly guilt-ridden after Patty's death in a LEM test he was administering, convinced he overlooked some instruction that would have avoided the crash. This leads him to be unhelpfully aggressive while teaching his son to ride a bike.

* TookALevelInJerkass: He's become far more abrasive and cynical by season 4, stemming from guilt over [[spoiler:bringing Danny to Mars when he wasn't ready, which resulted in three people being killed; Danny's subsequent suicide after being exiled to the North Korean capsule; and finally Ed's own declining health, which will ground him for good once it becomes known]].

* BerserkButton: Don't challenge his authority. He tends to react poorly.

* UncertainDoom: [[spoiler:While the rest of the Happy Valley astronauts return to Earth a year later, Danny is not among them and Danielle speaks about him in a hushed tone.]]

* ForWantOfANail:

* ReadTheFinePrint: Dale is told to his horror that if he tries to go back to Earth early, Helios will slap him with a massive recuperation fee to "make up for lost investment" i.e. the resources they invested in training and shipping him to Mars. He is also shocked to discover that his contract allows Helios to charge him for the clothing and supplies they provide him. This means that he is earning way less money then he thought he was.

* ReluctantMadScientist: Before the hearing, people are vaguely aware of von Braun's past but he portrays himself as someone who was forced to give his Aggregat-4 rocket to the ''Wehrmacht'', who then turned it into the V-2. But as Congressman Sandman shows, you don't become an SS member and have your photo taken with the Führer if you're "reluctant."

* StepfordSmiler: Karen always does what is expected of an astronaut's wife. It finally becomes too much when her son is rendered brain-dead and she ends up hiding in her bedroom rather than keep up her façade.

* ScrewTheRulesIAmFamous: By season 4 Ed is a LivingLegend and he uses that status to keep working as an astronaut despite being past retirement age and not able to pass a serious medical exam. No one in NASA wants to risk the public backlash of being accused of mistreating one of Earth's biggest heroes.