History Characters / SidMeiersAlphaCentauri

* CloningBlues: Being willing to clone her best soldiers and scientists ''ad infinitum'' and draft them into a society that lives under a neverending siege mentality is one of the more dystopic elements of Spartan ideology.
-->'''Santiago:''' We shall take only the greatest minds, the finest soldiers, the most faithful servants. We shall multiply them a thousandfold and release them to usher in a new era of glory.

-->"Imagine the entire contents of the planetary datalinks, the sum total of human knowledge, blasted into the Planetmind's fragile neural network with the full power of every reactor on the planet. Thousands of years of civilization compressed into a single searing burst of revelation. That is our last-ditch attempt to win humanity a reprieve from extinction at the hands of an awakening alien god."

** The Data Angels also have a natural rivalry with the University. While they don't conflict on beliefs [[note]](both value Knowledge over Power, and both believe in freedom of information, at least superficially)[[/note]], the University is especially vulnerable to hacking, which is the Data Angels' speciality. This makes the former an easy target for the latter's probe teams. This also means both will be racing each other for the Hunter-Seeker Algorithm; the University in order to cover up their hacking problem, and the Data Angels in order to keep anyone else from building it to shut them out.

** Deconstructed with their emphasis on Probe. [[spoiler: While their democratic agenda prevents them from running a Theocracy, it won't prevent them from picking Thought Control (+2 Probe) as a future tech. It could be interpreted as them merely cracking the ultimate computer nature has created, but that just makes way free for the best hacker to do as she wants.]]

* ThatManIsDead: Foreman Domai's given name is Arthur Donaldson. He doesn't use it anymore, to emphasize his "rebirth."

* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: Given his generally stoic demeanor and disdain for religion in general, you ''know'' the stakes have risen dramatically when he describes the Voice of Planet, with some dread and without any irony, as an "awakening alien god."

-->'''Zakharov:''' Imagine the entire contents of the planetary datalinks, the sum total of human knowledge, blasted into the Planetmind's fragile neural network with the full force of every reactor on the planet. That is our last-ditch attempt to win humanity a reprieve from extinction at the hands of an awakened alien god. ''[accompanies the Voice of Planet secret project]''

* MoralGuardians: One of the factors slowing down the Believers' research is that new discoveries have to be vetted for morally-approved applications before they can be acted upon.

%%* BigGood: In a sense.

* GoodIsNotSoft: She is the nicest of the Faction leaders save for Lal - but she will bite back HARD if provoked. Also keep in mind that the Stepdaughters are one of only three factions (along with the Cult of Planet and the Caretakers) that's capable of capturing native fauna at the beginning of the game- which means if you make her mad, you are ''very'' likely to be assaulted by hordes of [[MindRape mind worms]] and spore launchers.

* TechnicalPacifist: Their people are peaceful in nature due to their ideology, but they have no problem with sending waves upon waves of mind worms to do the dirty work for them. There's also technically nothing stopping her from building and using a [[NukeEm planet buster,]] although that would be highly out of character.

* DeathByPragmatism: For all their advocacy of ruthless pragmatism and social darwinism, they are the only canonically confirmed faction to have been eradicated. Even more humiliatingly, it was at the hand of the faction who advocated peace and living in harmony with the new world.

* TheSocialDarwinist: Believes that since the Unity survivors are the last remnants of humanity, only the strongest deserves to survive. In extended universe materials, it was stated that if a child shows too much weakness, he or she will be taken out of the classroom by a teacher, then they will have the child's throat slit in order to remove such weakness for their society.

* {{Irony}}: For all their advocacy of ruthless pragmatism and social darwinism, they are the only canonically confirmed faction to have been eradicated. Even more humiliatingly, it was at the hand of the faction who advocated peace and living in harmony with the new world.

** Subverted with the Gaians; although several secret project videos show the Spartans as targets of Gaian mind worm attacks, the two factions have no particular animosity in-game and often just ignore each other as Santiago is mostly concerned with other factions' values social engineering and Dierdre is mostly concerned with other factions' economics social egineering.
* ColonelBadass: She goes by the rank of colonel, and she's at the top of the pyramid in a society where AsskickingEqualsAuthority.

* GameplayAndStorySegregation: It's possible to win a diplomatic victory as the Cult, which would logically require abandoning the destruction of humanity (the Cult's entire raison d'etre).

* AliensAreBastards: While less brutal and vicious than the Usurpers and possessing somewhat nobler intentions in trying to prevent a disaster from repeating, they plan on not just exterminating their nemeses, the Usurpers, but of purging any and all other sapient life on Planet that even might seek to recreate the tragedy of Tau Ceti, which means that war with humanity is inevitable.

** Not being in the U.N. means that they were never signatories of the U.N. Charter, which means that while they receive no penalties for using chemical weapons, nerve stapling, or razing bases, there are also no penalties for committing these same atrocities against them.

* SuicidalOverconfidence: [[FantasticRacism Since the Progenitors see humanity as approximately as intelligent as we see dogs]], they will make insane demands of your tech and your energy reserves, rarely offering anything in return, and will do so even if you are far more powerful than them. Failing to comply with these demands almost invariably means war, no matter the power discrepancy.

** Not being in the U.N. means that they were never signatories of the U.N. Charter, which means that while they receive no penalties for using chemical weapons, nerve stapling, or razing bases, there are also no penalties for committing these same atrocities against them.

* SuicidalOverconfidence: [[FantasticRacism Since the Progenitors see humanity as approximately as intelligent as we see dogs]], they will make insane demands of your tech and your energy reserves, rarely offering anything in return, and will do so even if you are far more powerful than them. Failing to comply with these demands almost invariably means war, no matter the power discrepancy.

* ArchEnemy: The Usurpers. There is absolutely no way they can get out of committing war with them. They also run afoul of the Morganites, Gaians, and Planet Cult, since the Caretakers prefer planned economies.

* ArchEnemy: The Caretakers, with whom they are constantly at war. Also expect problems with the Gaians, Morganites, and Planet Cult since the Usurpers run a Planned economy and despise human market economics, and with the Peacekeepers and Angels since they can't have a democracy.

* VehicularTurnabout: All Pirate vessels count as having a Marine Detachment upon the discovery of Adaptive Doctrine, meaning their vessels can always capture enemy vessels in combat without spending an ability slot or the additional minerals for another ability.

* PurposelyOverpowered: Both Progenitor factions have several advantages over the human factions, including favorable base social engineering values, free access to one of the most important early game buildings, an energy grid bonus that gives them more energy for each base in the place of commerce, start with five techs, while no human faction starts with more than two, immunity to the Blind Research and No Unity Survey rules, a Battle Ogre [=Mk1=] (while unrepairable, its 6r-3r-1 stats make it potentially devastating against humans for the first ~50-100 turns), and a second colony pod (shared only with the Pirates). Additionally, the Usurpers have the same innate offensive combat bonus as the Believers. Their only real drawback is that they lack the ability to cooperate between factions at the same level as human factions and do not generate commerce. Notably, they nave no seats on the U.N. Council and can never be non-hostile with one another and their non-membership in the U.N. cuts both ways -- they can freely commit minor atrocities, but human factions may also freely commit those same atrocities upon them, even if the U.N. Charter has not been repealed.

* NonHumanNonBinary: PlayedWith- The in-game description notes that gender is fluid in Progenitor culture, but female is the closest human analogue for Lular. She's also the one of two Faction Leaders to have a [[CrossdressingVoices Crosscast Voice Actor]], being voiced by Jeff Gordon (the other faction leader is the male child Cha Dawn, voiced by Stacy Spenser.

* SpacePirates: Though more like regular pirates.

* AwesomeMcCoolname: Does it get any cooler than Sinder Roze?

* IllGirl: Aki before her merger with the AI.

* {{Fiction500}}: