Factions, Secret Technologies, and campaign Commanders of Age of Wonders: Planetfall.

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Races

The various core races you can play as. Your choice of race determines some of the skills of your faction leader, the populace of your first colony, various long and short term bonuses for your faction, and the two weapon types your faction specializes in. Each race also comes with a unique military tech tree, and you may pursue the technologies of any race present in your faction as a colony.

Amazons

The Amazons

ORIGIN: The Amazons originate from the Terratech BioTech & Terraforming Company that prepared newly conquered planet for habitation by the Star Union. After the fall of the Unions, a Terratech expedition was trapped on a remote world.
What befell the men of the expedition is a tightly kept secret, but the Amazon now rely on biotechnological methods to procreate. This ability to manipulate life extends through all aspects of Amazon culture, they see each world as a canvas, ready to be painted into a paradise.

When the Star Union collapsed, a group of bio-engineers were trapped on an untamed planet. In order to survive, they resorted to their own experimental genetic alterations. Generations later, they developed into an all-female species who have grown to dominate and utilize their environment.

Army Scout: The Shrikes are their flying scouts, with their ability to fly and Farsight extending their vision, they can bypass natural barriers to scout out the map.
Attack Animal: Half of their units consist of these such as the Shrike, Arborian Sentinel, and the Tyrannodon.
Bat Out of Hell: The Harrier is an alien creature which the Amazons ride into battle as air-cavalry, it appears to resemble bats and pterosaurs.
The Beastmaster: Amazons have various ways of gaining access to wildlife units that are otherwise exclusively independents or marauders, and said units gain extra buffs such as +2 shields when under the control of an Amazon Commander.
Crystal Spires and Togas: With their white, shiny, eco-friendly aesthetic, Amazon architecture leans strongly towards this. The Amazons themselves are no better or worse than anyone else, but they want to look the part.
Domesticated Dinosaurs: Biologically grown Tyrannodon and the alien Shrike and Harrier.
Dreadlock Warrior: Many of their units and heroes have dreadlock on their heads.
Earthy Barefoot Character: The Amazons use their advanced technology to live in harmony with nature, and their heroes and infantry walk around barefoot.
Enemy Scan: One of the signature abilities of their Biomancer unit, which applies a -2 resistance to all damage channels to a particular enemy unit and all others like it, making them much easier to damage and affect with debuffs. The Amazon version of the Synthesis Hacker gains this ability too.
Energy Weapon: The Amazons have access to the laser tech path, with laser guns mainly attached to their Attack Animals (at least, the ones that don't naturally have projectile attacks).
Forced Sleep: Biomancer can attempt to put a single target to sleep, allowing the Amazons to knock out a dangerous enemy while they can deal with its weaker allies. If it fails to put the enemy to sleep, it slows them instead.
Future Spandex: All the Amazons wear form-fitting mesh bodysuits, with sparse armor components worn over them.
Healing Factor: The Amazons can eventually research two potent regeneration mods, the first one being Regenerative Bioregulator, which grants a decent health boost, basic regeneration and biochemical resistance, and the second, much later one,are the Blood Fury Inducers, which are exclusive to heavy bio/cyborg units and gives them up to three stacks of bonus damage and regeneration every time another biological or cyborg unit from any side on the battlefield dies, which can easily be exploited by expending a combat summoned animal from the Luring Pylon operation or a high-level summon skill that Amazon Heroes/Commanders can get, in case the enemy has no bio or cyborg units on their side.
Heroic Neutral: The Amazons' Neogalactic Sisterhood is supposedly fairly isolationist.
Lady Land: Like their mythological namesake, the Amazons are an exclusively female society, and they're the only faction whose commanders are locked to one gender. It's ambiguous how their population grows, but it's implied that they employ the same cloning and genetic engineering technology they use to create their tamed animal mounts. Typical of the trope, the Amazons are portrayed in flavor text as misandrist, blaming men for the environmental follies of the Star Union and proselytizing that women are better off without them.
Master Poisoner: The Amazons have access to the biochemical tech path, and a few of their race-unique unit mods and doctrines relate to poisons and disease.
Monster Allies: The Amazons have an operation that allows them to permanently take control of independent T1 and T2 wildlife units and their short-term bonus grants them a free animal unit to accompany their starting armies. They also have a late game operation called "Clone Predator" that can summon a random T3 or even T4 animal unit, including one of the Quartzite or Psionica mineral wildlife, and at maximum level, their District Structure can summon a random T1-T3 animal unit every time they research a new society tech.
Nature Is Not Nice: They may live in harmony with nature, but the flavor text of various techs make it clear that they know it is a bloody, dangerous thing. Which they utilize to lethal effect.
One-Gender Race: All Amazons are female. They reproduce through cloning.
Plant Aliens: The Aborian Sentinel and Aborian Queen are bio-engineered Planimals originally engineered by Terratech to aid in their terraforming projects, which the Amazons now use as Attack Animals.
Space Elves: Though they lack the pointed ears, they are forest-dwellers and guerrilla warfare specialists who use archers and trained animals. They're distinctly based off the elves in the mainline Age of Wonders series.
The Straight and Arrow Path: As mentioned above, the Amazon's main infantry are archers who use bows despite their faction having access to laser guns. Naturally they have a shorter range than most guns, but they are capable of arcing over cover and units in the way, and their users typically tend to gain a slight range bonus when standing next to cover. Their arrows are also loaded with biochemicals and can accept mods such as armour melt to contend with heavy armour. In the case of Promethean Amazons, their variant of the Purifier makes use of bows too, firing plasma arrows instead of bio ones.
Terror-dactyl: The Shrike and the Harrier are vicious pterosaur-like beasts that the Amazons tamed and use as Attack Animals and mounts respectively.
Weaponized Animal: Most of the beasts Amazons ride are equipped with lasers of some sort (they save the biochemicals mostly for the Bombardon and their own archers).

Assembly

The Assembly

ORIGIN: During the Collapse a colony of test subjects rebelled against their scientist masters, leaving their world devasted and the people sick and infertile. From the wastelands, a hybrid race emerged patched together using cloning, prosthetics and scrap metals
The Assembly thrive on conflict, with frequent civil wars leading to widespread destruction. The assembly see this as a good thing though, the victors prove their superiority and rebuilt their defeated foes in their own image.

At a distant blacksite planet, the next generation of bionic and genetically enhanced soldiers were being produced. But during the collapse, the cloned test subjects rebelled against their Imperial masters. Facing extermination and without any way to reproduce naturally, the Ancestors started patching themselves up using organs, body parts and machinery from the battlefields. From this, a new race emerged — The Assembly.

Adaptive Ability: One major bonus Assembly-led empires have is they never have downtime for switching out mods on their units. Their technology is plug-and-play and you can re-equip a force to match a specific enemy rapidly.
After-Combat Recovery: One of the Assembly's specialties is their units getting a flat but generous amount of HP back after every battle, because they strip the battlefield for parts afterwards. If a Disassembler is in the stack they get even more, for gruesomely obvious reasons.
And I Must Scream: The flavor text for Constructs and Water Constructs suggests that some Assembly creatures — ones quickly converted from corpses in the heat of battle — retain at least some degree of self-awareness, recoiling in horror at what they've become.
Appendage Assimilation:
- Assembly Scavengers can leech health from enemy biological, mechanical or cyborg units by performing a melee attack, and their flavor text notes that this is achieved by amputating the limbs or tearing scrap metal off their enemies to replace damaged parts. Assembly Commanders and Heroes can also acquire this capability through skill upgrades, and they can upgrade Scavengers, Wreckers and any melee units that have claw-type attacks with the "Hyper Assimilation Implants" mod that grants or further improves this trait.
- All Assembly units have the "Scavenge Spare Parts" passive trait, which heals them for 6 HP after every victorious battle, as "the Assembly restore themselves with parts taken from fallen foes".
The Apunkalypse: They share this trope with the Spacers NPC group. Mowhawks, spiky shoulder pads, leather jackets and "chopper" motorcycles as hero vehicles are all common sights within the Assembly. The main difference is that these guys are macabre cyborg villains rather than generic wasteland bandits.
Army Scout: The Inspector is their main scouting unit, which can fly and have extended vision through Farsight. In addition, they are capable of repairing cyborgs and mechanical units when forced into a fight.
Artificial Zombie: Nearly all members of the Assembly are corpses that have been chopped up and put back together with crude cybernetic parts.
The Assimilator: Though it's not a universal motive, mainstream Assembly are motivated by a desire to conquer and "reassemble" everyone else.
Back from the Dead: The Wrecker can self-reassemble in a few turns and come back to life to fight a second time after their first death in each battle unless their corpse is destroyed. The Assembly can also research the late-tier mod Reassembly Module which can be given to all mechanical and cyborg units, including the Wrecker, which grants Regeneration and Resurgence, a trait that resurrects a dead unit after combat if its owner won the battle, provided once again that its corpse isn't destroyed.
BFG: The Vorpal Sniper and Electrocutioner carry fairly large guns, but their T3 artillery unit, the Disassembler, takes the cake, being a human who has had his lower half replaced with a massive weapon consisting of a gatling cannon and nanite shell launcher carried on Spider Tank legs.
Brain Transplant: The Assembly can swap the heads of Commanders and Heroes from any race and put them on one of their heavier cyborg bodies such as the Wrecker◊ and Lightning Rider as their equivalent to piloted vehicles. Funnily, they can be freely swapped back to their original bodies and/or other more conventional vehicles and steeds with no side effects or strange consequences.
Cool Bike: Assembly Heroes and Commanders with the Piloting skill can choose to ride in a "Chopper" bike equipped with automatic mounted guns and a repulsor attack that can push back and stagger enemies.
Cold Sniper: The Vorpal Sniper, which specializes not in quick executions, but in disabling targets nonlethally so they can be captured and processed by the Assembly. While it can do hefty damage from a stationary position, it's even better at disabling or blinding enemies which is why it's listed as a "specialist" type unit.
Dark Is Evil: Their color scheme, besides player's chosen color, is primarily black and blue, and the Assembly themselves are all hideous techno-zombies that want to spread their brand of transhumanism to everyone they meet, regardless of consent. Most Assembly characters in the story mode are hostile to the player, with only a few exceptions.
Does This Remind You of Anything?: The Disassembler has the human portion placed atop the gun turret from the midsection-up, giving their gun phallic undertones, while the flavour quote in their unit profile has Mah Reg'nib talking about a "strain of humanity enamored with guns" that willingly joined the Assembly, who "delight to discharge themselves".
Expy: Culturally they are somewhat like the Borg. Hell, winning with them for the first time nets the "Resistance is Futile" Achievement. They're also very reminiscent of the Strogg, in regards to their ramshackle appearance and their harvesting of "spare parts" from their victims. Downplayed according to Word of God in their dev diary in that they are not as hive-minded as the former or as overtly subjugating or malicious as the latter and more like MadScientists as described below.
Lightning Gun: The Assembly prioritize arc weaponry, which usually takes this form. The Electrocutioners in particular carry electricity-spewing Chainsaw Grip BFGs.
Mad Scientist: Their dev diary describes them as "a faction of engineers and scientists who do not fear technology but rather embrace it with open arms, not even stopping to consider the question ‘Are we going too far?’."
Mythology Gag: The central operating system of the Assembly, according to the Reaver's flavor text, is called the "Intelligent Neural Interface & Oracular Conscience Hypercore", or I.N.I.O.C.H. for short. This is a refrence to the elven King Inioch of the mainline Age of Wonders series, who was resurrected as a lich and became a leader of the undead.
One to Million to One: Reavers are capable of dismantling themselves into a swarm form, swapping out their Shock and Awe powers for a health-regaining melee attack and the ability to rip victims apart and build Constructs.
Shock and Awe: The Assembly make extensive use of arc damage, and their T2 air unit and naval units are described as having the ability to draw power from storms and call down lightning from the sky. Part of this is because of their affinity for electricity, and the other part is because they like the stunning and disabling effects of arc weapons on potential valuable body parts for assembly.
Smash Mook: The Wrecker is a large and heavily-armored Assembly creature that resembles an ape made of scrap metal, with a proportionately undersized organic head. Its primary purpose is to destroy terrain, as it has two melee attacks with the Demolisher trait (double damage against terrain obstacles) and the Wrecker itself has the Juggernaut trait (destroy light cover by simply walking through it).
Transhuman Treachery: The majority of the Assembly loyal to CORE are intent on transforming everyone else in the galaxy into more Assembly. Furthermore, the flavor text of the Disassembler has Mah Reg'nib speculate that some humans joined the Assembly willingly, for the opportunity to become powerful killing machines.
The Usual Adversaries: Until the Shakarn upstaged them in Invasions, Assembly were the default bad guys of the setting, almost always hostile to the player (with the exception of one Celestian Assembly commander) and intent on consuming the galaxy for spare parts.

Dvar

The Dvar

ORIGIN: The Dvar originate from the mining consortiums sent out to strip worlds of their natural resources. Dvar pride themselves as being the hardiest of survivors, after the collapse the Dvar' were marooned on a barely habitable planet with an elliptical orbit, causing it to be scorched during short blazing summers and then frozen by eternal winters. To make matters worse, their world passes through an asteroid belt, causing a yearly bombardment of giant rocks. This environment has caused the Dvars to evolve into a bunker dwelling species who see nature as something that needs to be distrusted and looted as soon as a window of opportunity arises.

The Dvar have evolved to survive and profit. Stranded on a barely habitable planet when the Star Union fell, they were left with only one choice — to dig in and develop new technology that would allow them to withstand the harsh environment. They built vast processing complexes to tear nature apart and exploit every resource they could get their hands on.

Armor-Piercing Attack: The Ironbreaker Modifications mod, which allows units with a melee attack to bypass up to three armor points when dealing damage.
Army Scout: The Prospector is their main scouting unit, with its ability to prospect the sector for additional resources.
Corrupt Corporate Executive: Of the "Ruthless Industrialist" variety with a bit of Crazy Survivalist thrown in. The Dvar, struggling to survive in a hostile universe, are ultimately resource- and profit-focused and are prepared to smash apart the very planets themselves to achieve their goals.
Death World: The miners who eventually became the Dvar were marooned on a world with a highly elliptical orbit, causing it to be scorched by short, blazing summers and then frozen by prolonged winters. On top of that, the planet passes through the system's asteroid belt, causing a yearly bombardment of giant rocks. The Dvar evolved to be Crazy Survivalists as a result, shunning the open sky in favor of armored bunkers and sealed environment suits.
Elves Versus Dwarves: They have a very hostile relationship with the Amazons, the setting's equivalent of nature-loving elves, due to the Dvar's tendency to destroy nature and build polluting industry wherever they settle.
Enclosed Extraterrestrials: While they're a Human Subspecies, the spirit of the trope is still in play. After generations of adapting to the bulky environmental suits required to survive on their homeworld, the Dvar are now incapable of surviving without them.
Gas Mask Mooks: Their infantry and commanders all wear gas masks or some breathing apparatus.
Gaia's Lament: The Dvar see nature as little more than an obstacle to industry, and they have the terraforming technology required to tear up a planet's surface to create or demolish mountains, or to reduce fertile fields to volcanic hellscapes. This tendency frequently brings them to conflict with the Amazons.
Heavyworlder: Never explicitly stated, but strongly implied.
Human Subspecies: Due to the extreme circumstances of the world they were marooned on, the Dvar have diverged significantly from the rest of humanity. The flavor text for the Exploitation Campaign research openly states that Dvar physiology is different enough from other humans that their technology isn't suitable for their use (though this might have just been a convenient excuse to evict the community they were talking to).
Like a Duck Takes to Water: The Dvar are able to use any Secret Technology as well as any other race, but they have a particular affinity with Promethean tech.
- They have a racial variant of the Phoenix Walker battlesuit, an advantage shared only with the kir'ko.
- The Promethean "PyrX Flash Strike" operation that blasts a sector and turns it volcanic works well with the Dvar's unique colony building that negates the penalty of settling volcanic terrain, freeing up a doctrine slot that would have otherwise been expended on "Phoenix Colonization Protocols".
- Like the Vanguard, the weapon techs available to the Dvar both provide ammo mods that set targets aflame, which synergize with the Thermal Targeting Array mod (+10% accuracy and +20% damage against burning/immolated targets).
Line-of-Sight Name: The Dvar take their name from the "D-VR" suits their ancestors used to survive their homeworld.
Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: The Dvar Trencher carries a massive riot shield, giving them an armor bonus against frontal attacks. Dvar Hackers, available with the Synthesis secret tech, follow suit, making the delicate support unit a bit less squishy.
No-Sell: The Dvar aren't as bothered by hostile volcanic terrain as the other races - one of their unique buildings makes their colonies immune to the penalties that come from taking volcanic sectors without having to use the Promethean hazard immunity doctrine or grab a late tier research that negates volcanic penalties.
One-Hit Kill: If used on a light unit (i.e. infantry), the Earth Crusher's "Crush and Process" attack has a chance to instantly destroy them, as they're swallowed up and ground to paste within the crusher's digging machinery.
Our Dwarves Are All the Same: As the name implies, they're based on classic high fantasy dwarves. The main differences are that they're technically human, their "beards" are actually oxygen tubes on their environment suits, and they're themed after Russians rather than Scots or Danes.
Power Fist: Dvar Foreman can Kinetic Punch foes, inflicting Concussion to remove their action points.
Prospector: The Prospector has the ability to prospect sectors on the world map to gain extra production and occasionally energy or research, giving Dvar an early boost to their economy. In battle, they can toss bombs to stagger foes and use the ability "Eat Dust" to refresh their movement and inflict Blind to adjacent hexes.
Ramming Always Works: The Dvar love ramming so much that they built an aircraft called the Ramjet with a reinforced fuselage specifically so that they could ram things with it. Their Excavator tank also sports a massive, high-powered ram too, and come the Triceratops patch, these rams count as explosive weapons.
Russian Guy Suffers Most: The Dvar had a rough time of it during the Cataclysm, and their Russian stoicism merges well with their dwarven gruffness.
Splash Damage: The Dvar have a lot of explosive weapons, and one of their early armour mods and late game weapon mods allow them to greatly reduce harm or outright avoid damaging allies caught in the blast radius, respectively.
Stout Strength: Related to Heavy Worlder above: Dvar are short and thick but all the tougher for it. Racial hero abilities for them include "Stubborn" which makes the hero completely immune to staggering and "Juggernaut" that lets them smash through obstacles.
Stuff Blowing Up: The Dvar are (so far) the only race that has access to an entire Explosives tech tree for military weaponry. The Vanguard has explosive weaponry, but to a much lesser extent (though a Dvar player with access to Vanguard units can kit them out with the superior Dvar explosive mods for spectacular result). This goes all the way up to tactical nuclear strikes that blind enemies as well as blasting them to smithereens.
Tank Goodness: The Dvar Excavator Tank is equipped with a "demolisher cannon" that bombards a 1-hex radius area, and an explosive-powered ramming attack. For defense, it sports flamethrowers that strike all adjacent tiles, setting nearby targets on fire.
Terraform: The Dvar have several methods of re-arranging the terrain to suit their needs; they can use the strategems Tectonic Shift to throw up impassible mountain ranges and Mountain Breaker to make impassible mountains passible or break passible mountains down into fertile plains. They can also use their Earth Cracker units to strip-mine entire regions into volcanic wastelands.
Weaponized Exhaust: The Dvar Dreadnought ship has to vent a lot of smoke and steam after firing its giant barrage of cannons, and this makes for a nice smoke cover in battle. While the Prospector can supercharge its engines to restore its movement points, which in turn sprays a massive cloud of dust and smoke around it that can potentially blind nearby enemies. Downplayed in that neither of these abilities cause direct damage but can be a thorn in the enemy's side.

Kir’ko

The Kir'ko

Origin: The Kir'Ko were the only reported sentient xeno lifeform discovered by the Star Union. The psionic abilities of this insectoid species were seen as a threat, which lead to the Kir'Ko hive queens being lobotomized and their race enslaved. Broken free from their shackles, the Kir'Ko are ready to shape their own destiny.

The collapse of the union broke the chains of the Kir’Ko and these former slaves now swarm free. Destroying their way of life and shattering their hive mind did not break their will. Once the Star Union fell, the Kir’Ko quickly rose to power on several worlds due to hyper evolution and pillaging the technology of their fallen masters.

Army Scout: The Unleashed is their main scouting unit, which are flying and has extended vision through Farsight, and both its melee and ranged attack are effective against flying enemies.
Bad Powers, Good People: Kir'ko bonuses dovetail nicely with Psynumbra Secret Technology. The potential happiness debuff to your cities is countered by their natural happiness boost, and the Human Sacrifice needed to summon the ultimate demon unit is similarly offset by their huge population growth. The fact that they're one of two races with psionics damage users is a big bonus as well.
Blue-and-Orange Morality:
- The kir'ko see nothing wrong with sending their larvae into battle to die as expendable cannon-fodder, even right from the moment they're birthed by the ravenous caste; in fact it's part of their culture, as the kir'ko believe that swarming with the rest of the hive is a necessary part of what approximates "childhood" and that emergent who don't fight become sluggish and weak. Partially justified in that their larvae are more mentally developed and capable from the start than human children, being more akin to a Xenomorph or Attack Animal than a toddler.
- An early Kir'ko research item has a kir'ko explain that they need to learn from the humans by nursing their sick and wounded back to health, instead of following their natural instincts and eating them.
Bug War:
- Inverted in the backstory, as they were minding their own buisness when the Star Union came along and enslaved them for being psionic.
- Of course, your decisions during actual gameplay, however, can see this trope getting played any way under the sun.
Deflector Shields: All kir'ko units have the ability "Swarm Shield" in battle, which grants them two extra shield points so long as they're standing or hovering mid-air adjacent to a friendly unit with the same ability.
Evolutionary Levels: Kir'ko Emergent can grow to become either a Hidden or Transcendent upon reaching Prime rank.
Expy:
- Of the Draconians from Age of Wonders 2 and 3, another nonhuman race with a long history of enslavement and prejudice, whose military is composed of a Hive Caste System, and whose young are available as a unit that can eventually morph into more advanced creatures.
- Their physical appearance and unit roster (along with the aforementioned evolution mechanic) is also similar to the insectoid Shadow Demons from Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic. An optional quest in the second Kir'ko story mission, which reveals the Kir'ko were born from the Void rather than their supposed homeworld, implies it may not be a coincidence.
Extreme Omnivore: The Ravenous. Human? Enemy Kir'ko? Sapient Plant? Spike-covered cyborg? Doesn't matter, the Ravenous will happily try to eat any light biological or cyborg unit, and if it succeeds it will birth a squad of Emergent after the battle.
Fantastic Racism: Suffered from this pretty badly at the hands of the Star Union.
Fast Tunneling: The Emergent and the summon/hero mount-exclusive Abyssian are capable of rapidly burrowing underground to appear on another side of the map. The Frenzied and Ravenous can also be upgraded with Tunneling Claws that grant them this ability.
Healing Factor: Transcendents have innate regeneration to better survive damage absorbed from the friendly unit they're linked to, while the rest of the Kir'ko can acquire a Regenerative Carapace as one of three mutually-exclusive mods that improve the survival of their units.
Heroic Sacrifice: The Transcendent is the Kir'ko's main support/healer unit, and has a Transfer Pain ability similar to the Martyr's Absorb Pain from the previous AoW game. Kir'ko Commanders and Heroes can also learn a skill called Selfless Sacrifice that grants them this ability too, though it is often preferable to build another Transcendent instead. This can potentially make key units tougher, but the damage transfer can be cancelled by staggering the Transcendent.
Hive Mind: They used to have one, but the Star Union destroyed it. There is some debate among the remaining Kir'ko as to whether they want to bring it back or not. Their latent telepathy and affinity for psionics is a leftover of the hive mind in general.
Horde of Alien Locusts: Downplayed. The race as a whole isn't this trope, but the Ravenous unit is a caste explicitly bred for their purpose; they not only can consume other units, but then immediately convert the metabolic energy into biomass for newborn Emergents.
Humanoid Alien: Their units are either an insectoid variety of this trope, or else look like something straight out of Starship Troopers with almost no in-between. They are implied to all be equally sapient, however.
I'm a Kir'kotarian: The Flavor Text of one of their early research items has one Kir'ko remarking that they need to take a page from their human oppressors by resist the natural Kir'ko urge to eat the sick and infirm and instead try to nurse them back to health. Given that the research item in question involves building a hospital, presumably this is exactly what they do.
Insectoid Aliens: Unlike every other faction (besides the Shakarn), which are Transhuman Aliens or just plain human, the Kir'ko are distinctly non-human. Many of their castes aren't even humanoid, though the Swarm Herald and a number of others (especially those using human Secret Technology equipment) necessarily are.
Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: The Kir'ko Hidden are a female caste of Cold Sniper types who shoot psionic energy from their sniper rifles, and can do a Flash Step that doubles as a Smoke Out because it covers areas in dense fog where it arrives. So they're sniper ninja psychic bug women.
Starfish Aliens: The Kir'ko have an incredible breadth of form, with only a few castes even being recognizably humanoid.
Super Spit: Almost all of them have some way of belching nasty biochemical attacks at the enemy.
Weaponized Offspring: One of the units they can deploy on the world map and in combat are their Larval "Emergent." They're summoned via a strategic operation or produced by a Ravenous during combat after it successfully eats someone, and they will mature into a Hidden or Transcendent if they level up enough.

Oathbound

The Oathbound are a knight-like group consisting of champions who pilot battlesuits called Paladins, and the Seers, mysterious people who use hyper-advanced data processing systems to predict the future. They claim to be bent on saving mankind and planting the seeds of a new empire.

They are the second DLC race after the Shakarn, and are introduced in the third DLC, Star Kings.

Aristocrats Are Evil: Averted in contrast to the Syndicate, as the Oathbound appear to be genuinely benevolent, with their bonuses encouraging maintaining a positive reputation and the flavour text for their scout and infantry unit stating that they actively care for even their lowest citizens, and are usually more pleasant to live under than most Vanguard leaders, respectively. However, this can still be played straight if you choose to play them in an extremely hostile and aggressive manner, especially if you are making use of Psynumbra tech or decide to join the Voidbringers. It is also played straight by the Apostates, their non-playable Evil Counterpart.
Boom Stick: The main weapon of the Oathbound's T1 infantry, the Paladin Aspirant, is the volt pike — a spade-like polearm with an with arc blaster built into it. Oathbound heroes can also equip volt pikes.
Combat Clairvoyance: Precognition is one of the main defensive measures of the Oathbound and is granted by their Seer scout unit called the Scryer, as well as a doctrine that grants one stack of Precognition to all units owned by the Oathbound player (including those from Dwellings or other races) at the start of each battle. Each stack of Precognition negates one attack that hits due to the user seeing it coming, this makes Oathbound very good at resisting single and full action attacks and wasting the action points of many enemy units, though it is somewhat less effective if an enemy has plenty of aoe and repeating ranged attacks.
- To a lesser extent, the Paladin Aspirant units manage this as well, not by manipulating the future directly but getting flashes of insight that grant them the "First Strike" trait (having a polearm also helps in this regard) that lets them trigger their melee overwatch before an adjacent enemy uses its abilities (unless the Aspirants are flanked by the latter), and "Against All Odds" (increases ranged evasion for each nearby enemy) that is part clairvoyance, part courage.
Crystal Spires and Togas: The Oathbound aesthetic strongly looks this part, perhaps even more so than the Amazons'.
Entropy and Chaos Magic: The Seers of the Oathbound make use of entropy weapons, and it is their race's secondary weapon tech. However, they are not the Oathbound's main damage dealers, and are more focused on support and debilitation unless a specific late game doctrine is enabled.
Feudal Future: The Oathbound are stated to run this type of society, though their "noble" Paladin pilots are selected from the common people.
Good Feels Good: The Oathbound have numerous benefits for maintaining a sterling reputation. An early doctrine magnifies the relationship progression with NPC factions the more good you are, and Oathbound heroes can get a skill that increases their health and armor the higher you get on the reputation meter. While nothing technically stops you from being mean and morally dubious, it seems the Oathbound put their money where their mouth is culturally regarding noblesse oblige.
- A flavor quote indicates that understanding that their actions have repercussions not only improves their chances of success, but helps them make the most fulfilling choices that satisfy morality as well as pure combat effectiveness. Having a moral compass helps guide their actions.
Humongous Mecha: Many of the Oathbound's units are Paladin battlesuits, including their variations of the Promethean Purifier and Celestian Light Bringer, which otherwise appear as infantry for other races. They tend to have the Heavy Unit and Large Target traits, making up for their inability to take cover with special defensive modes instead.
Luck Manipulation Mechanic: The Seers' probability manipulation and precognition abilities are this, being able to grant buffs such as making a friendly unit automatically negate the first hit against them because they saw it coming, or causing one enemy to automatically fumble its attacks for one combat turn. Fatalism is arguably the nastiest of the Seers' abilities, negating almost all accuracy penalties towards that enemy and guaranteeing success for all status effects applied to them.
Powered Armor: The Aspirant battlesuit, despite technically being a Paladin, is merely one of these. Thus, it sees use primarily among the Oathbound's basic infantry Mooks, as well as their variant of the Echo Walker. Though Commanders and Heroes who are not piloting vehicles also wear one.
Prescience by Analysis: The Seers have this as their schtick, courtesy of their super data processing equipment.
Shock and Awe: Pretty much all of the Paladin units (apart from Secret Tech variants) make heavy use of arc damage. Ironically, due to being Mechanical units, the majority of them have a slight weakness to arc damage.
Support Party Member: The Seers, if it weren't obvious enough already. In addition to their probability manipulation abilities, they also grant a bonus to non-Seer units in the same stack that makes them earn experience faster. The Oathbound racial variants of a number of Secret Technology units also happen to have the "Seer" quality affixed to them.
The Straight and Arrow Path: The Warden and Paladin Light Bringer are both equipped with a pair of Great Bows that shoot arc and thermal-based arrows respectively. Much like the ones used by Amazons, said bows ignore cover as well, albeit they don't gain a range bonus from standing in cover of their own because they're too large to take cover.

Shakarn

The Shakarn

ORIGIN: Not much is known about the Shakarn, although their agents seem to have been among us for much longer than we realized. This reptilian race originates from an oceanic homeworld covered in atolls and archipelagos. Having conquered the seas, they took to the skies to further expand their empire, but when they first encountered the size and power of the Star Union, any invasion plans they had were postponed.

While the majority of the Shakarn forces bided their time on the edge of the known universe, their agents infiltrated key locations by mimicking the appearance of its inhabitants through advanced holo-tech, stealing any knowledge and technology they considered interesting. After the Cataclysm left the Star Union in ruins and chaos, the Shakarn have seized the opportunity to conquer the remnants of the human empire.

Achilles' Heel: Between their high damage weaponry and limited Healing Factor, they're extremely powerful in a war of attrition, but they're also unusually vulnerable to status effects.
Adaptive Ability: They claim this but it's mostly cultural posturing about their epimorphic regeneration. They back it up with technology, however: the Xeno Defense Module gives their units damage resistance against the last damage type they encountered.
Alien Invasion: They've been laying the groundwork for an invasion of the Star Union for an unknown length of time, secretly infiltrating the ranks of humanity with spies and saboteurs, but these plans were presumably delayed by the Cataclysm disrupting FTL travel. Now that the void storms have subsided, the Shakarn are entering human territory in force.
Always a Bigger Fish: While their military is busy invading former Star Union space, their own empire is in turn invaded and swiftly conquered by the Voidbringers.
Amazing Technicolor Population: Shakarn units will match the chosen skin and eye shade of their commander, so two different shakarn factions could appear wildly different in coloration.
Army Scout: The Recon unit is their main scouting unit, capable of flying and seeing far with its Farsight ability. It can camouflage in the water and fight by staggering enemies with its sonic weaponry and deploy a buoy that makes enemies easier to hit in its field.
Attack! Attack! Attack!: Not all of them, obviously, but their primary soldier unit, the Raider, has no overwatch and the kinetic half of the damage from their omni-carbine falls off quickly with range, so to get the most out of them, they are meant to get in the enemy's face and blow them away, possibly with the concussive blast that temporarily disables an enemy. Good thing they can regenerate.
- This aspect can be further emphasized by equipping Raiders and other biological/cyborg units with the mod known as Trigger Phrase Systems, which, when activated, turns them into Brainwashed and Crazy Determinators that gain a hefty damage and resistance boost as well as Resurgence at the cost of becoming uncontrollable and attacking enemies at random.
Awesome, but Impractical: The Infiltrator, which has the ability to copy a Tier I or II unit in its range, allowing it access to their abilities. Unfortunately, it lacks any mod slots and cannot even copy mods from the units it imitates, likely for balance reasons. Later on in the game, Infiltrators can be massively buffed via research and one specific Doctrine to make up for all this, but leaning on them when the enemy is outpacing you with mods is a bad idea.
Bifurcated Weapon: Shakarn laser units make use of "omni" weapons, which deal both kinetic and thermal damage and can accept both sonic and laser weapon mods.
Bizarre Sexual Dimorphism: Like with crocodiles and certain other reptiles, the Shakarn females are bigger than the males (the deeper Shakarn announcer voice is not tied to a specific gender but is implied to be either a Gama or Domok voice, while the more nasally voice is a Zardas).
Charged Attack:
- The Refractor and the Hero-only Glaukos vehicles have a potentially devastating secondary "flow" attack that requires them to gather up to two 'ebb' with their main attack, gaining more damage and a wider area of effect for each stack of ebb.
- The Sonokarn, the Shakarn T4, can spend a full action charging up their Omni Beam so that it hits a very wide and generous area the next time it is fired.
Canned Orders over Loudspeaker: Propaganda towers and Propogator units can carry out additional effects —beneficial to you, bad for the enemy — when certain broadcasting operations are in effect. The Propogator unit is no slouch in combat, but this trope means it's also effectively blaring Shakarn propaganda out of its loudspeakers during battle.
Deep Cover Agent: They have a lot of these - so many that every low-tier infantry unit in the game potentially has an embedded Shakarn sleeper agent awaiting the signal of their Tactician elite unit.
Dumb Muscle: The Domok caste are extremely strong and resilient, but not particularly bright, while the Zardas caste are weaker but far more intelligent.
Enemy Scan: While not as extensive as the Amazon version, the Shakarn are also capable of applying a scan-like debuff to enemies through one of their early mods, or an AoE ability belonging to their one dedicated naval unit and their own version of the Synthesis Hacker.
Furry Reminder: They make numerous references in flavor quotes to how their biology differs from humans and how that even affects their psychology and warfare tactics. One of the best is the early quote imploring fellow Shakarn to celebrate by making their eyes bleed and raising their dorsal fins high, and another likens hologram deception to how their ancestors used caudal autotomy (leaving a tail behind) to confuse enemies.
Gale-Force Sound: They use sonic weaponry, which deals kinetic damage and often inflicts Stagger. Other effects include disorienting the enemy so they fumble their attacks, using focused sonolysis to shatter enemy armor, an accute pitch to make enemies more vulnerable to kinetic damage, and using cavitation to inflict the "reverb" debuff that makes enemies physically explode when it reaches three stacks.
Genius Bruiser: The Gama caste possess both the Domoks' physical strength and the Zardas' intelligence. Shakarn Commanders/Heroes and the pilots/crews of their higher-tier vehicles belong to this caste.
Hard Light: They make extensive use of this technology, especially in their disguises and to help them Walk on Water.
Healing Factor: Downplayed. Their biological units all have "Epimorphic Regeneration", which lets them regenerate some health, but only after a turn in which they take damage.
Hover Bike: Shakarn Heroes with the Piloting Skill can use the Glaukos, a vehicle that somewhat resembles the Syndicate's own Hover Bike and is armed with a chargeable sonic ebb-and-flow weapon.
Hover Tank: The Refractor, a floating tank that acts as the Shakarn's artillery, being able to hit enemies and destroy obstacles in a 2-hex wide radius once its secondary attack is fully charged.
Hugh Mann: The pseudonyms adopted by their sleeper agents can be a bit on the nose. Examples include "S. Kay Lee", "Camille Ian" and "Drake Izzard".
Inferiority Superiority Complex: They seem to have a species-wide one, as they are obsessed with proving their superiority to other beings. Most of the flavor quotes indicate they used to be a prey species before evolving and the hunter became the hunted.
Memory Gambit: Their sleeper agents are completely unaware of their own true nature, and can be drawn from the ranks of even those who have become Indentured, mind controlled, or enthralled by Voidbringers.
Mix-and-Match Weapon: In addition to regular sonic weapons, the Shakarn also make use of so-called Omni Weapons, which make use of both lasers and sonics and can be upgraded with mods from both weapon tech paths.
Ninja Log: The Infiltrator unit does not die if it's killed while holo-shifted; instead the hologram vanishes and the real unit appears a safe distance away, similar to the Escape Module effect that some Syndicate units can have.
Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: The Shakarn spent a lot of time becoming the apex species of their planet and it appalled them to the core to find out that humans had already populated the entire galaxy ahead of them. They bitterly resent the mammals (and occasionally insects) for this and it's a big part of their Inferiority Superiority Complex.
Outside-Context Problem:
- For centuries, the only other sapient alien race humanity had encountered were the Kir'ko, and the Star Union was believed to have no rivals on the galactic stage. Now, on top of all the other problems caused by the Cataclysm, the remnants of humanity need to deal with an Alien Invasion from beyond known space.
- They end up on the receiving end of this trope in turn, thanks to the Voidbringers — an extra-dimensional threat nobody (aside from Empress Carminia) saw coming.
Our Dragons Are Different: The first T3 Shakarn unit is the Firebrand, a Domok unit that resembles a flightless dragon with shielded arms, each mounting a crab-like Omni Claw and Blaster
Power Nullifier: The Firebrand's ranged secondary and some of the mods found in the Shakarn's racial and sonic weapon tech trees have a chance to inflict Impair, which temporarily disables all equipped mods on units affected by it. Since modification slots are the primary way all units are strengthened as the game goes on, this can seriously hamper an advanced enemy that is lacking in dispels or kinetic status effect immunities.
Powered Armour: The Assault Exoskeleton, a late-tier Shakarn mod that can be equipped to any non-Mechanical unit, including Ethereal ones. Not only does it grant the user extra armour and stagger resistance, but also a hefty boost in accuracy and critical hit chance.
Propaganda Machine: The Shakarn make use of sound and hologram-based 'broadcasts' which they can project in their colonies' domains with buildable towers unique to them, or on the battlefield through their Propagator air unit. These broadcasts come in three types: one which boosts the morale of all friendly units in the battle, another which slightly boosts their shields, and last but not least, the third one which has a chance of causing all enemy units in the battle to Hallucinate.
The Remnant: The voidbringers wipe out the shakarn homeworlds while their entire military is focused on the campaign against human space. The invasion fleet is all that is left of their civilization after that point, bringing the shakarn down to the same desperate state as the other playable races.
Reptiles Are Abhorrent: The most warlike and hostile faction, by far.
Reptilian Conspiracy: They're based on this concept.
Sapient Eat Sapient: Flavor text and campaign events indicate they have developed a taste for human flesh. Their announcer even occasionally exclaims "Cattle for the slaughter!" when you kill an enemy unit.
Shield Bash: The Firebrand can do this to enemies as a tertiary attack, hitting them with enough force to concuss most non-mechanical and non-ethereal units. While it is simply tagged as a generic melee attack and cannot benefit from weapon mod effects like its regular claw and blaster attacks do, its sheer damage and concussion effect make up for this.
Snake People: The Domok caste Deadeye, a naga-like unit that carries a powerful Omni Cannon.
Vibroweapon: Shakarn sonics are not limited to ranged weaponry, as they also have "Reverberating Blades" for their Sleeper Agent combat summons and as an option for their Hero units, as well as the aforementioned "Omni Claws" for the Firebrand which are somehow both this and a Laser Blade at the same time.
Support Party Member:
- The Tactician, the Shakarn's second T3 unit, is a Zardas caste unit that can grant any friendly unit an Extra Turn with no secondary effect or requirement, pull back friendlies while healing and cleansing them (similar to the Voidtech Phase Manipulator), or summon a unit of Sleeper Agents from any T1 or T2 enemy infantry, damaging them in turn.
  - Through research, heroes can also equip the Tactician's sono-fins to gain the first two abilities, and Shakarn heroes can unlock the third ability as a skill at a very high level.
- The aforementioned Propagator, which can not only project broadcasts, but also heal and cleanse friendly units through Hard Light holograms somehow, and use its secondary area of effect attack to demolish walls.
Voluntary Shapeshifting: By way of Hard Light disguises.
Walk on Water: Their ground units are all amphibious, but not just because they're reptillians; they use their Hard Light holograms as stepping stones when on the water so they can just walk out there without sacrificing movement points and suffering any damage resistance or mobility-related penalties from embarking.

Syndicate

The Syndicate

ORIGIN: The Syndicate is a reformation of the trading enterprises that spearheaded the discovery and exploitation of the universe in the early days of the Star Union. The Houses controlled entire star clusters, commanded private armies, and monopolized trade of exotic resources, including Kir'Ko slaves. The Houses developed their own feudal societies and waged bloody wars among themselves.

After power became consolidated in the era of the Imperial Star Union, Territories held by the Houses had to submit to Union control, or face annihilation. Some submitted and were rewarded with hereditary positions, while others didn't and fled to the Outworlds. The Houses continued to practice their business in secret, until the Fall of Star Union created a new opportunity for the survivors. They formed a new collective, called the Syndicate ensuring they would never again lose their freedom to do business their way.

The Syndicate began as a group of ruthless trading Houses, who in their prime controlled entire star systems, commanded massive armies and held a monopoly on the trade of valuable goods. Now with interstellar travel moving again, the Syndicate consider the galaxy “open for business.”

Agony Beam: The Subjugator's "Project Agony Field" ability, which staggers and has a chance of immobilizing enemy units.
Amazing Technicolor Population: Most Syndicate individuals are blue or purple-skinned.
Aristocrats Are Evil: The Syndicate are both aristocratic and one of the most morally dubious factions.
Armor-Piercing Attack: Many of the Syndicate's weapons use psionic damage, which bypasses a target's armor points when dealing damage.
- The Enforcer has the rare distinction of wielding a psionic-element melee attack, ignoring both armor and shields.
- The Guild Assassin can prep a "breach round" for their Sniper Rifle, which bypasses 5 armor and 5 shield points.
Army Scout: The Runner is their main scouting units, which has Floating so they can go through many terrains and Universal Camouflage so your enemies cannot see them scouting. Should they enter combat, they are equipped with bolas to immobilize enemies and have Escape Modules that effectively grant them an extra life each.
As Long as There Is Evil: Political version. The last Syndicate social techs to be unlocked mention that they and their houses can take on whatever form of government is required by the changing times. Even if they find themselves within a democracy, the Syndicate will take the form of the ruling party, every time. As long as there are people in some form of power, they will take the form of that power.
Attack Drone: The Sentinel, which is summoned to the battlefield by a tactical operation. It flies, has Deflector Shields, gains more evasion than usual from defense mode, and is armed with both a repeating pulse lance with an Anti-Air bonus, and a long-ranged heavy pulse cannon that can stagger and demolish cover in an aoe, allowing it to act as flying artillery. Its most noteworthy feature, however, is the ability to enter overwatch in all directions (when most units can only perform overwatch in a broad cone towards a single direction), which pairs nicely with its damage bonus to overwatch attacks.
Barrier Warrior: Enforcers can project a psitech-based energy dome that grants bonus shields to themselves and their allies.
Bread and Circuses: The name of a strategic operation researched at tier V, which launches festivities and other distractions to boost happiness and the rewards of happiness events at a targeted colony.
Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: The Syndicate practice this as a way of life.
Cool Chair: The Subjugator rides on a hover chair, and its abilities include mind controlling infantry, and resurrecting Indentured.
Energy Weapon: The entire Syndicate roster uses either "pulse" weapons (that deal arc damage) or "psitech" weapons (that deal psionic damage).
Evil Brit: The Syndicate announcer speaks in a high-class British drawl, packing every line of dialogue with smug contempt.
Extra Turn: The Overseer's "Cerebral Override" ability restores all action points on a targeted friendly Indentured or Control Collared unit at the cost of slight psionic damage. It also temporarily renders them immune to stagger and unable to go below 1 HP, though they remain susceptible to status effects.
Full-Contact Magic: The Enforcer is a melee master that punches foes with psionic-element attacks.
Hover Bike: Syndicate Heroes and Commanders with the Piloting Skill can ride one equipped with a psychic blaster that hits foes in a line and a device that can immobilize enemy units.
Hover Tank: The Wraith tank is a Magitek-powered example, which is armed with a psychic energy cannon, Deflector Shields, a "wraith drive" that allows it to teleport short distances (arriving with an area-of-effect burst of psychic damage), and Universal Camouflage on the world map.
Humans Are Psychic in the Future: At least, the one human faction that uses Psionic firearms and powers regardless of Secret Tech.
Last Chance Hit Point:
- Escape Module is an ability that allows the unit to survive a fatal blow, leaving them at 15 HP, and teleports at a random hex within 3 range of the unit's original position. The Runner starts with this ability, while Syndicate heroes can learn it upon reaching Level 4.
- Indentured units under the influence of an Overseer's "Cerebral Override" ability are incapable of dropping below 1HP until the start of their next turn.
Magitek: The Syndicate makes extensive use of psitech, which can take the form of guns that fire bolts of psychic energy, Deflector Shields, field projectors that cause people to hallucinate, and slave collars that can brainwash people and reanimate the dead.
Mercenary Units: The Syndicate can generate much more Influence than any other race due to the Noble Diplomats doctrine (generates additional energy and Influence based on your relationship status with each NPC faction) and Ambassadors Quarters residential structure (generates Influence at the cost of energy). Since the fastest and easiest way to raise favor with an NPC faction is through Influence purchases, Syndicate commanders can field more faction units and unlock the higher-tier purchases faster than any other race.
Mook Commander: Overseers and Subjugators provide a +10% critical chance bonus to all Indentured in the same army stack as them, on top of their other support abilities such as the Overseer's Extra Turn and Last Chance Hit Point power and the Subjugator being able to revive dead Indentured or capture and turn enemy infantry into one.
Mushroom Samba: The Mirage gunship is equipped with a "hallucination projector", which as the name implies can inflict the Hallucinating debuff on non-mindless enemy units, causing them to lose 30% accuracy and count as being flanked by any attack due to their inability to recognize what is and isn't a threat.
Mah Reg'Nib: "I lost track of the caravan as a wave of mind-bending energy convinced me I was being attacked by a giant muffin. I now realize that I was hallucinating."
Proud Merchant Race: Of the scheming, slaving, corrupt variety... usually. There are a few nice-ish ones (like House Antares) mixed in, but their play style necessitates at least a little abuse of their Indentured soldiers.
Slave Mooks: The Indentured who work for the Syndicate as indentured servants. They have collars on their necks which let Overseers and Subjugators control them, and use psionic abilities on their bodies. Which include shocking them to do more movements, or even resurrect them from death. In addition, you can apply the Indentured bonuses to any non-Syndicate biological, cyborg or battlesuit units of tier 2 or below through the Cerebral Control Collar unit mod, or straight up turn them into Indentured after battle with the Subjugator's Deploy Cerebral Control Collars ability. Promethean Syndicate also draw their Purifiers from the Indentured, with all the benefits to the Syndicate described above.
Support Party Member: The Overseer's job is to occasionally jab Indentured with a stick to make them take an Extra Turn, grant stagger immunity and ensure they cannot drop below 1HP for a single turn. They can also provide friendly biological/cyborg units with 20 points of healing and a status effect dispel once per battle. On the passive side, they grant Indentured units in the army +10% critical hit chance by simply existing, and give biological units in their stack an additional +6 health regeneration per turn on the world map.
Wave-Motion Gun: The Zenith's prow-mounted "cataclysm cannon", which blankets a large area in heavy arc damage, deals an Immense Impact that can stagger any unit that isn't outright immune, inflicts Electrified, and demolishes terrain obstacles.

Vanguard

The Vanguard

ORIGIN: The Vanguard Expeditionary Forces were sent out to claim new worlds beyond the Frontier of the Star Union and its Nexus hyperspace network. When one such expedition arrived at their destination and built the Nexus Portal, they discovered a galactic cataclysm had taken place during their long journey in cryosleep. Now the Vanguard need all their combat and survival skills to prepare for the showdown with the forces that brought down the Union.

The Vanguard originate from the expeditionary forces sent to claim new worlds beyond the Star Union Frontier. Upon arrival, they awake from cryosleep to discover that a galactic cataclysm has taken place and the Star Union has collapsed. They must now utilize all combat and survival skills to reestablish the Star Union.

Appeal to Force: The "Big Stick Diplomacy" doctrine, described as "leverage(ing) military threats to bring peace". It gives you an artifical 200-point boost to your Reputation, removes the reputation penalty for starting wars of aggression, and prevents other factions from gaining casius beli against you due to having a negative reputation. It also prevents Dwellings from jacking up their shop prices in response to a negative reputation.
Attack Reflector: The "Reactive Armor Plating" unit mod found at the higher end of the Vanguard racial tech tree, which reflects 50% of incoming damage back to any attacker.
Army Scout: The OWL is their main scouting unit, which are flying and are capable of seeing far with Farsight. In combat, they can support allies by making enemies more likely to get hit with its Targeting Field ability.
Attack Drone: They have several robot units for support — the OWL which acts as a scout and spotter, and the PUG which has several support abilities to aid in combat. The Drone Carrier unit can deploy pure attack drones in both ranged and melee varieties.
Chicken Walker: The Vanguard Walker stands on two digitigrade legs.
Drone Deployer: Several of their supporting units are drones of some sort, including the PUG and OWL, and their engineers also can put down an automated turret. The Drone Carrier unit best embodies this trope, however, with the ability to spawn short-lived flying drones for ranged combat, melee combat, or healing.
Energy Weapon: Many Vanguard mechanical units make use of Slow Lasers, which deal thermal damage.
The Federation: They become the core of the Egalitarian League of Planets after the events of the main campaign.
Fish out of Temporal Water/Late to the Tragedy: The Vanguard hail from a time when the Star Union ruled the galaxy uncontested. The spread of Transhuman Aliens and the collapse of galactic government are both fairly alarming to them.
Human Popsicle: How they made it to the post-Cataclysm world — the void storms that swept the galaxy rendered FTL travel impossible, forcing the Vanguard to travel in cryosleep. By the time they returned to imperial space, nearly two-hundred years had passed and they're pretty much the only "normal" humans left, everyone else having become Human Subspecies ranging from biochemists with bows, heavyworlders in power armor, aristocrats with psychic powers or horrible cyborgs abominations.
Kill Sat: A tier-VII research available to the Vanguard gives them an orbital laser cannon, which via strategic operation can be fired at armies (to deal damage to every unit in the stack) or colonies (to kill pops and cause unhappiness).
Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better: Despite having Energy Weapons, and existing in a setting where even more exotic tech is widespread, the Vanguard favor conventional ballistic firearms supplemented by unlockable Trick Bullets.
Living Relic: Of the Star Union.
Long-Range Fighter: The majority of their units are ranged specialists, striking from afar with guns or laser weapons while struggling in close quarters. The only native melee units of the Vanguard roster are the Skirmish Drones (spawned by the Drone Carrier) and the Valkyrie (spawned by a tactical operation).
Nanomachines: Used by the Vanguard for healing — The Nanite Injector unit mod provides a single-use medkit, the Nanite Support Station can be summoned via tactical operation for persistant healing and defensive bonuses for units that huddle near it, and the naval Battleship can deploy a repair charge to shower friendly machines and cyborgs in healing nanomachines.
Support Party Member:
- The PUG's role in a Vanguard army, thanks to a number of helpful special abilities: "Blur Cloud" makes allies harder to hit, "Healing Charge" mends 25 hit points on a target once per battle, and "Resupply Charge" resets all ability cooldowns on a target, even restoring once-per-battle abilities. They also grant an additional +6 health regeneration per campaign round to all biological units in their stack.
- The Engineer fills a similar niche for heavily mechanized armies. "Repair Tools" heals 30HP on machines and cyborgs once per battle, and "Targeting Calibration" grants a Vanguard or otherwise mechanical unit increased attack accuracy. They can also provide fire support by deploying a Sentry Gun. On the campaign map they provide a similar per-round regeneration bonus for their stack as the PUG, only for mechanical units instead of biological ones.
Stuff Blowing Up: They don't have access to an entire tech tree of explosive modifications like the Dvar, but they are the second-most explosive faction in the game. All their basic infantry units have hand grenades (their version of the Synthesis hacker even has a "Shrapnel Daemon" which is both a grenade and a hack at the same time, somehow) and any of their vehicle units that don't have lasers are usually equipped with missiles as secondary weapons. A late-game Doctrine they can enact, "Shock and Awe," changes the focus on explosives from secondary to primary weaponry, meaning they do more damage, more impact, and in the case of hand grenades, longer range.
Tank Goodness: The Laser Tank, armed with a laser cannon that can overcharge to penetrate armor and deal double damage. It can also deploy smoke charges to make itself and adjacent units harder to hit.

Secret Techs

Not really characters per se, the "Secret Techs" basically amount to a class system, representing a given faction's personal doctrines and the advanced technologies they can call upon. A faction's choice of Secret Tech determines a large chunk of their tech tree, and you cannot acquire more than one.

Celestian

The Celestian Order was founded a long time ago when Psionic abilities first started to awaken in the human race. They believed this was a new stage of evolution, and advocated a path of inner peace and enlightenment.

Call to Agriculture: You can take control of enemy units with some Celestian special abilities, but the unit does not remain in your army at the end of combat. Instead they disarm and become a citizen at your nearest colony. This is to emphasize that you're making friends with them rather than enslaving them.
Care-Bear Stare: The basis of their mind control, flooding the enemy with such good vibes they become an Actual Pacifist.
Elemental Punch: Light Bringers are monks that fight with fists coated in psionic fire, dealing thermal damage. Heroes can also equip flaming fists, with the right technology.
Enlightened Antagonist: A disreputable Celestian faction is this; while their philosophy remains unchanged and they still wield the same Holy Hand Grenade powers as before, they've long since dipped into Knight Templar territory when it comes to achieving their goals.
Enlightenment Superpowers: All of the Celestian units to an extent, but the best example is the Ascended Teacher — a member of the order who has managed to become a radiant Energy Being through their psychic spirituality.
Expy: Of the Theocrat class from Age of Wonders 3. Both are themed on religion, are associated with white and gold color motifs, wield powers based on light, and many of their abilities are based on interacting with units that are marked with the Devout/Enlightened or Heretic/Soulburn modifiers.
Gold and White Are Divine: Their special units dress this way, with a few splashes of psionic purple here and there, while most of the pre-made Celestian factions wear yellow or white. Celestian psionic abilities are also colored gold/white.
Good Counterpart: To the Psynumbra tech, a Religion of Evil that uses psychic powers to inflict terror and pain.
Holy Hand Grenade: Their combat mechanics revolve around this.
Humongous Mecha: "Paladin Light Bringers" recruited from the Oathbound pilot modified Warden mechs, turning into a large, mechanical support sniper that fires flaming Great Bow arrows, and can deploy a banner that inflicts Burning and Soulburn on random enemies.
Light 'em Up: A lot of Celestian powers relate to light, particularly the attacks/abilities of the Star Guide and Ascended Teacher.
Light Is Good: A Good Is Not Nice version due to their willingness to invoke a Care-Bear Stare, but the Celestians are all about using psionics to create a utopia of universal empathy and understanding.
- Light Is Not Good: At the same time, there's absolutely nothing stopping the player from sending out waves of Enlightened troops and converting the planet at gunpoint: Soulburn, after all, is all about making your troops do more damage to its victims, and there's a number of mods and operations to make it even more effective. Between its Psionic damage type and multitude of ways to undermine the opponent, making them helpless while your troops cut them down, Celestian and Psynumbra aren't all that different...

Heritor

The Heritors are scions of a theocratic dynasty known as the Es'Teq. Their ancient technology allows them to harness energy and prolong their lives. They seek to reincarnate billions of followers that lay entombed across the galaxy and reestablish their divine rule.

The Es'Teq faith is centered around their god Artok, the Great Creator. They believe all life comes from his holy Essence, and it is their divine service to collect and guard his Essence against the entropy of the universe. The technology and philosophy of the Heritor all stem from this ideology.

Achilles' Heel: Their "convert to Drained" operation has no effect on mindless things like machines and in general they have a Ban on A.I. because of their inability to suck the life out of lifeless machines. The Reaper Robots were created specficially to hunt down and exterminate the Es'Teq because their powers would be all but useless against them and are the reason Heritor technology was only recently rediscovered.
Ban on A.I.: They absolutely despise artificial intelligence of any kind and will go to any lengths to destroy it. They even have a policy called "Technoclast Crusade" which grants a bonus against mechanical and Synthesis-integrated units.
Enemy Exchange Program: Heritor Commanders take this one step further than others. The Drained unit, upon reaching prime rank, gains an ability called Mind Possession that lets it permanently control any non-mindless enemy T1 or T2 (or even T3 with the right mod) unit and unlike most forms of hacking or mind control, which kill or replace the unit after combat, it will allow you to keep that unit after battle. This is one of the only two mind control abilities in the game that do this.
Entropy and Chaos Magic: While it's not their central theme, all of their weapons do Entropy damage.
Extra Turn: The Siphoner's "Devotion" ability allows it to spend an essence charge to restore an allied unit's action points, effectively granting it a fresh turn.
Experience Booster: "Essence Discipline" increases the experience the Drained earns based on the number of essence they possess before the end of battle.
Fallen Hero: Before the High Lords, the Heritors used essence manipulation sparingly, siphoning small amounts of essence from willing, healthy individuals to help cure the sick and infirm. Then the High Lords got greedy.
Last Chance Hit Point: "Deny the Void" is a hero ability that allows the Heritor hero to survive a fatal blow at a cost of their essence charges, healing them at 10 HP plus additional 10 HP for each essence charges lost.
Life Energy: Essence, the stuff they manipulate, is basically this.
Light Is Not Good: The Es'Teq are associated with bright light and the essence of life, and they use a lot of religious imagery, but their High Lords are absolute assholes.
- Dark Is Not Evil: On the other hand, despite being primarily associated with a pyramid scheme run by what basically amount to vampires, Essence manipulation is not itself inherently evil, and there are characters such as Hatyl Es'Ran who use it for good. They also have the least destructive Doomsday after the Celestians, since they just possess all their enemies and force them to lay down arms, leaving the planet itself fine.
Magikarp Power: As a rule, Heritor units need to build up essence charges before they can use their better abilities or deal significant damage, but the Drained exemplify this. Initially decent cannon fodder, Drained gain experience very quickly thanks to an ability that boosts experience for the amount of Essence they have at the end of battle, and once they reach rank four they gain the ability to permanently possess a unit up to tier 3, or even 4 with the proper mod. They can even become this on their own with support from mods and other Heritor units and operations: once it builds up two or three Essence stacks, a Drained can deal catastrophic amounts of damage.
Mutual Disadvantage: Heritor units are completely immune to the offensive operations and special abilities of other Heritor factions.
Pieces of God: Their Quintessence Arks are supposedly made of shards of Artok.
Ponzi: Their attempt at immortality through Essence-draining is condemned as one in the Siphoner's flavor text — there just isn't enough Essence for everyone to live forever, and to perpetuate the High Lords, the common worshipers must be drained to death.
Tautological Templar: In the view of the Es'Teq, only the faithless are destroyed by the process of having their Essence drained. Therefore, becoming one of the Drained proves that you were faithless and deserved to die.
Our Vampires Are Different: The Es'Teq High Lords and Siphoners drained the Essence of others to prolong their own lives, effectively making them little different from vampires.
Zerg Rush: Effective use of the Condemned To Drained Operation can result in multitudes of Drained in a short amount of time. Initially, these units are fragile and weak, relying on sheer numbers to soften up an enemy city's defenders before the heavy hitters move in for the finish blow, replenishing the ranks of the Drained with still more use of Condemned to Drained. It becomes even worse for your opponents once they have Quintessence Arks and High Lords backing them up and making them even deadlier.
Zombie Apocalypse: The Heritor domination strategy can be summed up as: Condemn enemy units, turn them into Drained when they're killed, move on with your new Drained army, Condemn more enemy units, and kill them with your Drained to make more Drained. The Doomsday operation spawns Drained all over the planet turn by turn until either the operation is interrupted or ten turns pass and the planet is overwhelmed by the unceasing flood of them.

Promethean

The Star Union deployed the Promethean Division to cleanse worlds of empire-destabilizing threats. Its PyrX gas was originally developed to immolate areas infested with Xenoplague, but it was rumored the tech was also used to quieten dissenting worlds. Once a planet had been cleansed, the Prometheans would send engineers and colonists to rapidly recolonize the ruins. The Promethean emblem instilled fear in all who saw it.

Apocalypse How: Their doomsday device is a Class 6.
Attack Drone: Plasmoids, small, flame-projecting, spider-like robots that can be summoned on the strategic map.
Deadly Gas: PyrX takes this form before being ignited. Some Operations, including the defensive condition inside Promethean Vaults, spread that gas around before starting a massive explosion. When the Doomdsay Weapon is used, the entire battlefield is filled with the gas, inflicting Choking on enemies and reducing their accuracy. The Kir'ko Prometheans specialize in this. Instead of setting their targets alight , Kir'ko Promethean weapons suffocate their targets with burning smog, trading damage-over-time for a harsh damage and accuracy debuff.
Deflector Shields: The Aegis Tank projects "fallout shields" that grant bonus shielding to allies as well as bio and thermal resistance.
Destructive Savior: When they were deployed against the Xenoplague.
Fire-Breathing Weapon: Pretty much every Promethean unit except for the Aegis Tank is equipped with some kind of flamethrower or Plasma Cannon that uses a fantastical fuel called PyrX.
Fire Purifies: Much of their symbolism revolves around this concept.
Gale-Force Sound: The Aegis Tank is the only Promethean unit that doesn't use flame based attacks, instead possessing a sonic-based "force projector" that can stagger and concuss enemy units. It is one of the few units outside the Shakarn roster (the others being the Thundermaw swarmling and adult) to make use of sonic attacks.
Godzilla Threshold: The incredible destructive power of their weapons was a desperate phyrric strategy. Khansu, "the Burning Emperor" who pioneered PyrX and blew up half the galaxy with it to contain the Xenophage, is considered a monstrous war criminal in the present of the game.
Heal It With Fire: Arguably almost, if not, more prominent than the destructive half, the Prometheans get a Purification Field device that can turn any unit into a medic early, as well as a hero upgrade allowing them to remove debuffs from all allies in a large radius. The epitome of this, however, are the PyrX Absorption Panels, which allow any unit equipped with them to regenerate and deal more damage while standing in flames.
Humongous Mecha:
- The Phoenix Walker, a towering mech immune to stagger and possessing built-in Absorption Panels. Phoenix Walkers for most races are the same, but the Dvar and Kir'ko get unique variants that have increased damage or inflict choking + benefitting from Swarm Shields, respectively.
- "Paladin Purifiers" recruited from the Oathbound pilot modified Warlord mechs, turning them into a large, mechanical melee fighter equipped with plasma-coated twin axes.
Kill It with Fire: What the Promethean Division was created to do.
Plasma Cannon: All of the Prometheans' PyrX weapons are tagged as "Plasma".
Required Secondary Powers: Their units and mods also include protection against Thermal damage and Thermal-based effects, so the Prometheans can survive the fires they start.

Psynumbra

The Psynumbra was a counter-psionics project tasked with stemming the rise of psionics among the population and fighting Outlander psi-agents. Invoking negative emotions allowed them to suppress and dominate their subjects. The project was shut down when Psynumbra leaders began using psionic powers for their own dark agendas, drawing on power from beyond the void.

Action Bomb: The Echo of Despair's Bleak Crescendo ability allows it to self destruct to deal damage to adjacent units, with the potential to inflict "Filled with Despair" and potentially propagate itself.
Bad Powers, Good People: Psynumbra is the most malevolent secret tech, by far, but there's nothing stopping a Psynumbra player from maintaining a high standing on the Karma Meter despite the nastiness of their power source.
Became Their Own Antithesis: The original psynumbra users were trained by the Star Union as a special ops. program to combat the misuse of psychic powers. A single glance at their units and tech tree shows that they've since devolved into a Religion of Evil, and their entire ideology now revolves around exploiting psionics as a tool to inflict terror and pain.
Black Cloak: Malictors wear one.
Dark Is Evil: Almost all the Psynumbra encountered in the campaign are uniformly terrible people, and the flavor text doesn't help.
Eldritch Abomination: The Herald of Oblivion, a powerful psionic creature capable of driving enemy units into a panic by showing them a vision of the abyss.
Evil Counterpart: To the Celestian tech, which is about using psionics to create peace and harmony.
Herd-Hitting Attack: The Malictor is infamous and frequently used by Psynumbra players due to this. His main attack is a Chain Lightning style repeating attack that deals heavy damage with psychic energy instead of electricity.
Human Sacrifice: The Herald of Oblivion, their ultimate unit, can be temporarily created on the battlefield by sacrificing a unit (this gives a good chance to panic nearby enemies), or produced at a colony at the cost of three population units. Its flavor text, of course, describes an eerie ritual sacrifice.
Logical Weakness: Psynumbra is built around psionic status effects and morale damage, so a good way to counter them is with units that are Mindless (like Autonom robots) or otherwise immune to morale debuffs (such as Xenoplague units' Ferocious Determination trait or the Celestian class' Tenets of Tranquility mod).
Magic Music: The more sympathetic Psynumbran characters generally refer to it as "the Harmony Beyond", and Dali Ardelli claims that his music is inspired by it. This theme continues in Psynumbra's spectral units: The Echo of Despair has the trait "Sinister Chorus", which diminishes the combat effectiveness of adjacent enemy units, while the Herald of Oblivion can perform "Oblivion's Refrain" to boost the morale and resistances of its allies. Psynumbra Heroes may also acquire Sinister Chorus and an ability similar to Oblivion's Refrain as character skills.
Mind Rape: Psynumbra units specialize in dishing out mental status effects such as "Broken Mind" and "Filled With Despair" to terrorize enemy units and sap their morale; sometimes intentionally, other times as a consequence of the enemy resisting more severe powers like mind control. The Maledictor's "Cage of Suffering" ability is achieved by locking their target in a mental prison formed from their own discord, while the Herald of Oblivion has the ability to send units into a panic by showing them a glimpse of its native universe.
No Body Left Behind: Psynumbra units simply vanish into particles of black ash when they die, even the non-ethereal ones.
Our Ghosts Are Different: The Echo of Despair and the Whisper of Discord are ghostly beings formed from psionic energy, used by Psynumbra factions as minions. The Echo is spawned whenever a unit under the "Filled With Despair" status effect is slain, and is an expendable melee combatant with the ability to self-destruct. The Whisper is a scout summoned by a strategic operation, equipped with Universal Camouflage and a repeating ranged attack. Both units are ethereal, granting them the ability to phase through terrain obstacles, as well as immunity to all kinetic, biochemical and arc status effects and a bit of damage resistance to the same.
Religion of Evil: Based on the descriptions of Psynumbra technologies and creatures, many Psynumbra factions are little more than cults dedicated to suffering, darkness, and the summoning of Eldritch Abominations like the Herald of Oblivion. Invasions goes even further, suggesting that the Voidbringers are the ultimate focus of their worship.
Spawn Broodling: The "Filled With Despair" psionic status effect common throughout the Psynumbra tech. On top of imposing a -400 penalty to morale, killing the afflicted unit will spawn an Echo of Despair for the duration of the battle.

Synthesis

Synthesis was developed by the Omega group, a dark subculture of hackers within the Spacer faction of the Star Union. The group rebelled against CORE's oppression by hacking into the NexusNet and turning its systems against CORE and the Star Union. They developed technology to manipulate the AIs within NexusNet, going as far as transferring their own consciousnesses into the network, merging with the AI.

Armor-Piercing Attack: The Assisted Breach hero skill allows the Synthesis hero and their allies to bypass an enemy's armor and shield by 1.
Body Backup Drive: The "Total Network Integration" mod creates an emergency backup of a unit's body and consciousness, allowing them to automatically revive from death once per battle.
Cyborg: The Hackers are cybernetic to the point of replacing their faces with holographic screens. Furthermore, any unit belonging to a Synthesis faction can be made at least partially cybernetic via Neural Implanting, allowing them to integrate with daemon AIs.
Hard Light: Some of the daemons they deploy are apparently made of this, since they vanish at the end of combat.
Hollywood Hacking: Their specialty.
Leet Lingo: The Hacker unit talks this way.
Logical Weakness: Downplayed, a portion of Synthesis abilities and operations are dedicated towards compromising, disabling and hacking enemy machines and cyborgs, but they can still fight a largely biological army such as those of the Amazon and Kir'ko (and to a lesser extent, Shakarn) the old-fashioned way via their potentially heavily-buffed Integrated units. The exact skills of Hackers also vary significantly between races, with each race's hackers designed to support their own armies; Amazon and Sharkarn hackers can use their race's associated "Scan" abilities, while Kir'ko hackers get an ability to buff adjacent units that stacks with their innate swarm shield and the ones from the Oathbound can inflict the "Fatalism" debuff that strips all evasion and guarantees status effect checks.
Machine Empathy: According to flavor text, Synthesis hackers treat daemons a lot like virtual pets.
Mind Virus: A Kir'ko hacker can infect any non-mindless enemy with their neuroscrambler virus.
Neural Implanting: Most of their unit mods have the secondary effect of making the unit "integrated", which allows them to be affected by various Synthesis operations and status effects.
The Cracker: The Hacker unit.
The Singularity: Their final goal and Doomsday victory is achieving this.

Voidtech

Voidtech was developed by a covert division of the Star Union's main science institute. It was created in order to find new applications for Void Travel hyperspace technology. Dimensional Manipulation was used to successfully transmit matter and energy, leading to the construction of cataclysmically powerful weapons.

Attack Reflector: Voidtech heroes can learn Dimensional Feedback, which returns 50% of the damage dealt to the hero back to the attacker.
Blade Below the Shoulder: Void blades, which are wielded by most versions of the Echo Walker and can be equipped by heroes. They deal kinetic damage and have a chance of inflicting "dimensional instability" on their target.
Doppelgänger Attack: Echo Walkers do this using versions of themselves pulled from alternate universes. Various Voidtech operations allow you to also create clones of both allies and enemies.
Expendable Clone: The Echo Walker's primary ability to summon an Alternate Self can be played this way — since the duplicate will disappear after two turns, and the ability can be used again after a cooldown, you're encouraged to throw them headlong into the thick of the fighting and use them as a meat shield or distraction. On the flip side, if the original Echo Walker dies, the duplicate unit permanently replaces them in your army, and can then start summoning throwaway duplicates of itself.
Intangibility:
- The first unit mod that can be unlocked in the Voidtech research tree is the "phasewalk modulator", which allows a unit to move through terrain obstacles and cover (though they can't end their turn inside an obstacle), as well as making them 15% harder to hit.
- Weaponized by the Rift Generator's "Dimensional Desync" ability, which as the name suggests causes a target to become slightly desynced from reality, leaving them immune to all damage but unable to perform any of their own attacks and abilities for a short time.
Jack of All Stats: Voidtech units and operations are a grab-bag of useful features that don't overspecialize too much. Their Phase Manipulator can act like a Combat Medic when not abducting enemy units (and is one of the only units in the game that can heal more than once per battle), the Dimensional Instability debuff weakens enemies in four different ways, "Echo Protocols" doctrine makes phantom copies of your citizens so they're all a little more productive, and they have an expensive operation to rewind time and ressurect a dead unit that even Celestians can't do.
Mutual Disadvantage: Voidtech units are completely immune to the offensive operations and special abilities of other Voidtech factions.
Powered Armor: Oathbound "Paladin Echo Walkers" are clad in modified suits of Paladin Aspirant armor; on top of granting them the Aspirant's First Strike ability, it grants them the Battlesuit keyword and enables them to equip relevant mods.
Quantum Mechanics Can Do Anything: Such as summon alternate-universe clones of yourself, teleport you, and conjure an Unrealistic Black Hole, it would seem.
Space Master: Their main underlying theme, in both a lore sense (they manipulate the fabric of reality) and a gameplay sense (they're very good at getting in position and getting enemies out of position).
Teleportation: Many Voidtech abilities relate to teleportation, either as an intentional mode of travel or as a reflexive defense system. Some abilities are capable of forcing the enemy to teleport, moving targets out of cover and breaking up formations.
Time Police: Voidtech units' flavor text and most of the archaeological sites that involve Voidtech make it clear that they operate as a sort of secret agency monitoring temporal anomalies. They act like they knew everything was going to happen before it did, and appear to continue functioning as a government agency despite outliving the Star Union itself.
You Will Not Evade Me: The Phase Manipulator's "Phase Shift: Abduct" ability allows it to forcibly teleport an enemy unit to a hex adjacent to itself, usually leaving the target out of cover and well within range of the Manipulator's allies. It can also perform "Phase Shift: Evacuate", which instead targets a friendly unit.

Xenoplague

Centuries ago, an expedition discovered an alien creature that came to be known as the Alpha Strain. It was a parasite capable of incorporating the DNA of its host into its own body, collecting traits from thousands of species over its life time. The Star Union used it both to improve the physiology of their elite soldiers and to infect enemies with horrifying mutations.

The bio weapon they designed was highly aggressive. The parasite injected cells into hosts that consumed the biomatter around them with using a corrosive bile. This process resulted in an exponentially-growing force of nightmarish monsters named the Xenoplague. After Xenoplague outbreaks turned some planets into throbbing bio-hells, further development was forbidden.

Action Bomb: Bloated Pustules, summoned by an operation, are supersized Pustules whose only ability is to self-detonate and deal biochemical damage to surrounding units, potentially infecting them with the plague.
The Assimilator: The Alpha Strain, the basis of the Xenoplague, has this ability.
Dark Is Not Evil: Downplayed, but when it comes down to it, the Xenoplague is only so terrifying because the Star Union wanted to use it for weapons. It contains within itself the capacity to achieve a biotech singularity where disease is a thing of the past; many campaign characters who use it are actually fairly noble people who want to overcome their factions' physical flaws.
Fearless Undead: For a given value of "undead", but Xenoplague creatures all possess the "Ferocious Determination" trait, which makes them immune to mind control and negative morale effects. Regular units can gain this trait with the "Xenoplague Parasite" or "Parasitic Symbiosis" mods, both of which involve infecting your troops with the Alpha Strain. This is useful when facing off against enemies with morale-draining abilities like Psynumbra units or fighting near an Abyssal Tear, or just having units from races you have a poor affiliation with.
Fungus Humongous: Though they don't resemble mushrooms (the Mycelians fill that role) they make heavy use of spores to reproduce or heal one another, and a special option they have nukes a zone to turn it into a Fungal habitat with a Spore Cloud hazard (that they regenerate from).
Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke: Here's the thing. The Alpha Strain has such a capacity for self-directed biological engineering, that it is capable of any modifications. Absolutely nothing stops its power from being used for medicine and transhuman resistance to disease. The pinnacle tech, the Omega Strain, is explicitly the full control of the Xenoplague and the creation of (the faction using its idea of) a utopia from it.
Godzilla Threshold: In the age of the Star Union, once the Xenoplague got a foothold on a world, everything was on the table to get rid of it. PyrX, the all-destroying napalm of the Promethean Secret Technology, was in particular deployed to burn whole worlds to get rid of infestation.
Gone Horribly Right: The Star Union wanted an unstoppable bioweapon. They got one.
Horde of Alien Locusts: What a rogue Xenoplague infection winds up looking like.
Metamorphosis Monster: As you research more of the Xenoplague tech tree, the little Pustules created from dead units infected by the bioweapon can evolve into Destroyers after a battle where enough infected units die. Later on, Destroyers can evolve into Plague Lords the same way.
Plague Master: Revolves around the unique "Parasitic Infection" Status Effect.
Spawn Broodling: To even get their unique units, they need to infect the enemy unit with the xenoplague.
The Symbiote: The basis of the Xenoplague is the Alpha Strain parasite. Research into the Xenoplague Tech Tree allows the player to produce mods for their organic units that increase HP and morale (or, rather, inure them to fear), as well as grant some Plague Master abilities.
Unstable Genetic Code: Xenoplague units adapt, change, and evolve with every enemy they consume.
Well-Intentioned Extremist: The best Xenoplague leaders edge into this. The power that the Xenoplague promises to those biologists who would wield it is one of the driving conflicts of the main campaign, but it taints everything around it and turns people against each other. The Dvar try to use it to overcome their need for heavy environment suits, an Amazon commander tries to fold it into the already-existing enhancements her people have, a Vanguard scientist does the same, and so on.

NPC Factions

Minor powers present on any given world, NPC Factions prefer to keep to themselves, but will sell you their unique units, mods and doctrines after you gain their trust.

Autonom

The Autonom

The robots providing emergency services within the Empire were run by the Conscientious Omnipresent Regency Engine (CORE), but when it faltered during the Collapse, they relied on internal backup processors. In the centuries since then, these robots have linked up and developed into a new collective of sentient beings. They call themselves the Autonom.

A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Averted. Their only real desire beyond self-preservation is to not fall under CORE's control again, so they won't attack you unless you either attack them first or get too friendly with a rival NPC faction, which is how all NPC factions operate.
Gameplay and Story Segregation: Their main desire is to remain free of CORE's control, but in the story mode your relationship with CORE has no effect on your relationship with the Autonom.
Grew Beyond Their Programming: They were originally a network of civil service droids. After the Collapse and the loss of CORE's oversight, the Autonom developed sapience and started to build a new network with the goal of self-preservation.
Healing Factor: Get to a high enough relation with the Autonoms, and you gain access to the "Self-Repair Systems" mod that can be equipped to the Autonom and any other mechanical units to make them automatically regenerate in combat.
Hive Mind: Of the technological variety. The Monitor and Network Controller units can network with all friendly mechanical units in a battle, granting bonuses to all of them based on how many times the ability is used. The Autonom also sell a mod that allows cyborg units to join this network.
Mook Commander: The Monitor and Network Controller units, which grant various stacking bonuses to all friendly mechanical units (and cyborgs with the correct mod) with "Initialize Connections", as well as provide the networked units with army-wide healing or Deflector Shields, respectively. Shooting them first is recommended, as their destruction will downgrade and eventually remove the network's bonuses.
Robot War: Depending on how you interact with them on a given character or level, this trope can get played any way under the sun.

Forgotten

The Forgotten

These ancient Es'Teq were never meant for reawakening. Some were entombed for faults of the body or mind, some for being criminals or undesirables, all were sealed off in vaults to sleep eternally. Eaters of the Dead roamed these halls, making sure no resident died from a lack of Essence. They were instead devoured, a great honor for those entombed inside these sanctums, for they would live eternally inside the Eater.

When the Collapse occurred, these hospice-like vaults were shattered by the Void Storm that swept the galaxy, awakening the inhabitants and corrupting their Essence. Now they live on a painful substance known to them as Rot, and make outfits of metal and gears to carry the weak and impaired, for living in pain is certainly better than facing the True Death.

Action Bomb: Desolate can self-destruct via "Unstable Decay", dealing entropy damage to surrounding enemies and potentially inflicting a debuff.
Armor-Piercing Attack: The Entropic Transpositioner unit mod, which allows entropy-element ranged attacks to ignore Deflector Shields when dealing damage.
Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Forgotten units are colored blood red, to distinguish them from the teal blue of Heritor units.
Deader than Dead: The Entropic Necrophagy trait on all Forgotten units destroys a target's corpse when they deliver the killing blow, meaning that it cannot be revived by abilities or tactical operations. This also overrides Auto-Revive traits and Resurgence.
Evil Counterpart: To the Heritor Secret Tech, being "undesirables" who were never intended to emerge from their tombs. Many Forgotten units are twisted versions of Heritor units, such as the Desolate and Shattered Ark. It's a Downplayed Trope, however, in that the Forgotten aren't necessarily more evil than their former masters, as much as a grim reflection of the Es'Teq's vampiric immortality.
I Am a Humanitarian: The Forgotten devour corpses to collect their essence, represented by the "Entropic Necrophagy" attribute most of their attacks have, which causes a unit to heal and gain extra essence charges whenever it deals a killing blow. Non-Forgotten units can gain this ability with the Corrupted Incarnation mod.
Our Vampires Are Different: Compared to the Ponzi scheme of the Heritors, the Forgotten are essentially high-tech Feral Vampires, mercilessly preying on each other for survival. The only form of essence they can feed on is something they call "the Rot", which is derived from corpses rather than living creatures.

Growth

The Growth

After being discovered on a distant world, the Growth was cultivated for its stimulating nectar by pharmaceutical companies. Unable to synthesize the drug, biodomes were built to produce nectar in large quantiles. After the Collapse, the Growth broke free overgrowing entire sectors for its goal to expand its biodiversity and spread to new worlds. Its units compose both the plants that are the "main" growth of its biome as well as the giant bees that pollinate it.

Bee Afraid: Their basic units are Worker Bees and Soldier Bees. Both of them are light, flying, and fragile units that can sting their enemies to cause allergic reaction and can Life Drain.
Botanical Abomination: Subverted. They check off every box, save for the fact that they're no more dangerous or hard to get along with than anyone else.
Bullet Seed: The Seed Cluster, a ranged attacker that fires explosive seeds.
Insectoid Aliens: They seem to be a collective group of Plant People and these. Although unlike the Kir'Ko, these guys wouldn't look the least bit out of place in a nature documentary about actual real-world insects.
Mars Wants Chocolate: Played With. One of their quests involves them discovering what sewage is and so paying you to modify your empire's plumbing to flow in their direction. The "Quest complete" message has them remarking on how delicious it tastes.
Plant Person: They seem to be a collective group of both these and Insectoid Aliens, but if you're picturing something like Groot or Swamp Thing then you're very mistaken; see Starfish Aliens below.
Starfish Aliens: Aside from the motility, telepathy, and manipulative tendrils, they could pass for actual real-world plants.

Paragon

The Paragon

The Paragon were once the elite citizens of the Star Union. After the Collapse, all interstellar trade and communications ended, leaving the surviving citizens marooned on their worlds. The upper class Paragons, named after the company that provided their cybernetics, fell from boundless hedonism to a state of survival. As they could no longer connect with CORE, their disconnected augmentations that gave them eternal youth and superhuman abilities began to falter. Many Paragon fell into madness and decay.

Artificial Zombie: Paragon units have similar cybernetics to their masters, but they aren't quite as good, resulting in emaciation and decay. Coupled with broken armor that puts this rot on full display, most Paragon troops look like animated corpses.
Bling of War: Brass features heavily in the aesthetics of old Imperial military tech, and the Paragon are no exception despite their obvious decay.
Cyborg: Every Paragon unit is a cyborg of some sort, ranging from the zombie-like Soldiers to the life support of the Technoprophets. The Heavy Soldier in particular appears to be a Mini-Mecha at first glance, but the shattered cockpit reveals its pilot to be a limbless torso welded to a robotic body.
Government in Exile: They're the closest thing left to the Star Union's former leadership, at least in their own minds.

Psi-Fish

The Psi-Fish

It is believed that the Psi-Fish originate from the Void, the space between the planes of existence. Their primary goal is the creation of more Psi-Fish. After the Collapse they preyed on the vulnerable survivors of the Star Union, wiping out entire settlements to grow their Shoal - the Psi-Fish race as a whole. They are curious creatures and seekers of knowledge, for as alien as they are to mankind, this universe is entirely alien to them as well.

Blue-and-Orange Morality: Since they hail from a different dimension entirely, they don't really understand human morals like "eating other sapients is bad" or stuff like that.
Expy: Of the Orz - the flavor text for the Chrysalis unit even mentions "campgrounds".
Nonindicative Name: Downplayed. While they are indeed psionic, they bear no resemblance to things like salmon or trout. The sea creature a given unit is based on either only technically qualifies as a fish (like the Chrysalis and Siren bearing slight resemblance to manta rays) or simply has the word "fish" in it's english name (such as the spawn and Medusa resembling jellyfish). The exception is the Hunter unit, which vaguely resembles a dolphin with a mass of tentacles in place of its head.
Power Floats: All Psi-fish units hover or fly, making them as adept on land as they are on sea.
Spawn Broodling: One of their senior unit's abilities is implanting an egg directly in an enemy unit, who runs around in a panic and then pops out a fresh Psi-fish unit after a couple turns.
Starfish Aliens: If the name made you picture something like merfolk or Lovecraft's Deep Ones, then you're sadly way off. Think more jellyfish, manta rays, and siphonophores whose pulsating, glowing organs are perfeclty visible through their transparent skin.
You Taste Delicious: They think humans smell and taste wonderful. They don't seem to understand why this would creep humans out.

Spacers

The Spacers

After the Collapse brought the population violently back to reality, they were left to survive in a devastated and lawless universe. The strongest, craziest, and most ruthless survivors formed violent gangs. They fill their days with raiding, cannibalism, debauchery, and perverse rituals as a poor replacement for the state of bliss the Union once provided.

Action Bomb: The Spacers' Truck unit is capable of self-destructing in hopes of taking enemies with it. Upon death, it leaves behind an Effigy that boosts the damage of its allies.
The Apunkalypse: They descended from former citizens of the Star Union and survive with what ever they can scavenge from the remains of the fallen union.
Gameplay and Story Segregation: They're supposed to be Mad Max Villains / toxic gamers who're most likely to shoot you and tea-bag your corpse for the lulz, but in-game they don't act any more warlike than any of the other NPC factions.

Therians

The Therians

The Therians are a faction of people who originate from the test-subjects of a secret Terratech genetics project, mixing both animal and human DNA to cure genetic diseases and create superior beings. The project was shut down after backlash when their first test subject, called Deer, broadcast the horrible truth of the genetic experiments.

Deer fled and took refuge with her newfound people, taking up arms for protection. Since then, the Therians, with their animal modifications and human weaponry, managed to survive on many of the planets they occupied. Belonging to neither one kind nor the other, Therian refugees are social outcasts, searching for a place they can call home whilst having a positive outlook on life.

Artificial Animal People:
- The Therians were once humans before they were experimented on with animal DNA and became animal-human hybrids. They were used in experiments to cure diseases and create superior beings until their first test subject, known as "The Deer," exposed the horrible truth of the experiments. Since the shutdown of these horrid projects, they occupied many planets as refugees, belonging to neither human nor animals and are no longer welcome in society, yet remain positive on life.
- With the DNA Injectors from trading with the Therian dwellings, you can transform your heroes into a Therian specific to the injector. The transformation grants the hero the Therian's ability, while retaining the hero's racial and secret tech upgrades.
Beast Man: The Therians are humans hybridized with various animals.
Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Including the ones that are actual bunnies. They may look like cute furries, and have a variety of goofy quests for you, but they are no joke in combat.
Critical Status Buff: The "Pheromones", the main combat schtick of the Therians, which triggers a buff on low health depending on the particular Therian unit. Commanders allied with the Therians may also purchase a mod from them that grants regeneration-based Pheromones to non-mechanical, non-Therian units.
Cunning Like a Fox: The Sharpshooter, a Combat Medic whose "Sly" Pheromones can increase the critical hit chance of themselves and friendlies. Their main weapon is a sniper rifle that can fire either viral shots or healing shots
Emergency Transformation: The flavor text for the Chemist, a squirrel-like unit, recalls the story of a man who had to be turned into a therian squirrel to survive the vast quantities of dangerous chemicals he was exposed to.
Healing Factor: Aside from the Critical Status Buff they all do with their various pheromones, the other shared Therian gimmick is regenerating health, but only when standing next to one another. Your non-Therian units get to be counted as honorary Therians by equipping the "Therian Ally" mod, which itself has a pheromone effect of regenerating health.
Rascally Rabbit: Bouncers, cyborg bunnies wielding automatic, belt-fed Guns Akimbo pistols. Their "Prance" pheromones grant bonus evasion to themselves and their allies when triggered which can potentially make them hard to hit, especially if given mods that grant extra evasion and stagger resistance.
Space Pirates: They turned to piracy to support themselves a long time ago.
The Marvelous Deer: The first Therian, Deer, is said to be the leader of the Therians as a whole, and their T4 unit, the Apex, resembles a cross between a deer and a lion armed with a Cool Sword.
Wolf Man: Prowlers, who are the basic Therian unit. They are wolves who fight using their claws and bio shotguns.

Voidbringers

The Voidbringers

The Voidbringers are an invading, extradimensional faction of unknown origin. Their powers include bending dark energy and enthralling units to their will. Only devastation and barren landscapes are left in their wake. The Therians have been known to flee various planets to escape the clutches of the Voidbringers.

Big Bad: Of the Invasions campaign.
Eldritch Abomination
Evil Counterpart: They're distant cousins of the Psi-Fish.
Evil Versus Oblivion: Their conflict with the Shakarn. They're the Oblivion side.
Keystone Army: Both on the tactical and the strategic level. Tactically, while they tend to have numbers on their side, only a few units in each Voidbringer stack will be actual Voidbringer units, the bulk being Slave Mooks. Kill all the Voidbringers in a battle and the Thralls die instantly. Strategically, their entire invasion on any planet hinges on their Beacon. Once that is taken down, they are defeated, no matter how many armies and enthralled leaders they still have on the map.
Mind Control: Their signature power.
Outside-Context Problem: Not even the Shakarn were expecting them.
Palette Swap: Their units are all recolored Psi Fish with extra spikes, lacking only a counterpart to the Chrysalis.
Power Floats: Like the Psi-Fish, all of their units hover.
Slave Mooks: The bulk of their forces are composed of mind-controlled Thrall units drawn from other races' rosters. They can also endlessly respawn these mooks as long as they have active portals on the field.

Amazon Commanders

Berhane Katla

Mahina Wateka's former mentor, and the main antagonist of the Amazon campaign.

Mad Scientist: Works not just with the Xenoplague, but also with Es'Teq technology.
Plague Master: Uses the Xenoplague.

Kelshana Latisiak

A member of the Redeemer cult and follower of Empress Carminia.

My Master, Right or Wrong: She appears to be very devoted to Carminia.

Raxonee Alara

An Amazon Matriarch who meets Poz Tk'nor on Arcadia Caeleste.

Face–Heel Turn: Goes from a relatively benign Amazon Matriarch on Arcadia Caeleste to an insane Assembly commander on CeNex Omega.
Unwilling Roboticisation: She winds up getting Reassembled, and shows up as "Raxonee Reborn" on CeNex Omega.

Zarai Loreg

A follower of Empress Carminia who is helping Cekto Xa'To revive the ancient Kir'Ko hivemind.

Ambiguously Evil: Is she genuinely trying to help the Kir'Ko, or is it all just a ploy to enslave them once again? The campaign never gives an explicit answer.
- 1.3 Patch makes her even more sinister by adding her Treacherous and Operative AI personality traits.
The Atoner: Claims that she's trying to make up for the countless ways in which humanity has wronged the Kir'Ko.
The Cracker: Uses Synthesis technology to stop Gorodin from contacting Poz Tk'Nor.

Assembly Commanders

Azer Starg

An Assembly Celestian who's gone into seclusion on Z17.P2-27.XXX.96.

Token Heroic Orc: He's by far the nicest Assembly commander you meet in the game.

Ellen Shaw

Professor Ellen Shaw

An Assembly First, and the default protagonist of the Assembly campaign.

Pet the Dog: She has a few optional moments in her campaign, such as sparing a Vanguard scientist's life.
We Used to Be Friends: Briefly dated Jack Gelder before the Cataclysm.

Mephilas the Redeemer

A member of the Redeemer cult, who's formed a secret alliance with the Dvar Adamant Council.

Hypocrite: Despite hating his condition, he's still quite happy to Reassemble still-living humans in pursuit of his goals. He justifies it by arguing that only First Generation Assembly are truly sentient.
Unwilling Roboticisation: He's not happy about being Reassembled at all, and his ultimate goal is to find some way to escape the condition.

Dvar Commanders

Eljena Chirkov

A Dvar mercenary with an... unorthodox manner of speech.

Space Pirates: Presumably.
Talk Like a Pirate: Up to and including referring to her species as "the Dvarrr".

Inessa Zhelezo

Korvin Zhelezo's daughter, and the protagonist of the second Dvar campaign mission. A scientist that wants to cure the Dvar's dependence on their environmental suits by harnessing the Alpha Strain.

Bad Powers, Good People: The Xenoplague is a horrifying, mutagenic bioweapon, and its users are often placed in an antagonistic relationship to the player. Inessa, meanwhile, is nothing but nice to her people and foreign commanders, and takes as many precautions as possible with her experiments.
Just Think of the Potential!: She wants to free the Dvar from their imprisonment in their exosuits; an understandable and sympathetic goal. She thinks she can use the Xenoplague to do it, though.
Professor Guinea Pig: She's initially tempted to run experiments with the Alpha Strain on her own body, but backs off and settles for a volunteer instead, acknowledging the needless risk of the Zhelezo director being killed or worse by the contagion.
- Played straight in the Star Kings DLC where she finally gets enough data to try her cure on herself. Unfortunately she is terrified of direct sunlight, wind, bugs and dirt, so she goes right back into her suit.
The Protagonist: Takes Korvin's place as director of the Zhelezo Consortium on Zemestian-4, with her father assuming her original position as Number Two.
Number Two: To her father, Korvin Zelhezo, on Chimera Glacialis.
Sniper Rifle: Starts the campaign with an imperial sniper rifle.

Korvin Zhelezo

Head of the Zhelezo Consortium, and the initial protagonist of the Dvar campaign.

Honor Before Reason: He's actually a bigger obstacle to forming an alliance with the Rassvet than Valodny is - most of the quest involves getting Korvin to acknowledge that honor has been satisfied after Valodny failed to protect Alexandra.
The Lost Lenore: He's still very much grieving over the death of his wife Alexandra.

Nikael Gorodin

A Dvar Psynumbran working for CORE, who warns Poz Tk'Nor against resurrecting the Kir'Ko hivemind.

Affably Evil: Despite using Psynumbra and working for CORE, he's quite easy to get along with on Xa'Kir'Ko, even if you try to resurrect the hivemind.
Confirmed Bachelor: At least according to Stanizoid Zhelezo.
Psychic Powers: Uses Psynumbra.

Valodny Rassvet

Head of the Rassvet Consortium, and Korvin Zhelezo's brother-in-law.

Failure-to-Save Murder: This is the main reason relations between the Rassvet and Zhelezo Consortia have soured - Alexandra Rassvet, Korvin Zhelezo's wife, was assassinated while she was under the Rassvets' protection, and Korvin blames Valodny for her death as a result.
The Rival: To Korvin Zhelezo.

Zhanna Tserber

A member of the Dvar Adamant Council.

Government Conspiracy: She's part of one, which has been conspiring with Empress Carminia and the Redeemer Cult.

Kir'ko Commanders

Chax Uz'kol

Eva Montinga's right hand bug, who works for her in the belief that her experiments with the Xenoplague might be able to restore the lost Kir'Ko hivemind.

Never Be Hurt Again: He did not react well to learning the truth about Montinga.
The Starscream: He turns against Montinga after Ellen Shaw reveals Montinga's role in what happened to the Kir'Ko hive queens.

Chin Til'Trz

Swarm Herald of the Kir'ko Ktalla and guardian of Emperor Tholian's tomb.

Light Is Good: He works on behalf of Big Good Emperor Tholian and uses the Celestian secret technology.
Slave Revolt: Led one on Sorinus Alpha.

Hatyl Ur'Uk

A renowned Kir'ko Dream Reader who has gone into seclusion on the planet of Arcadia Caeleste.

Dark Is Not Evil: As a Heritor.
Hermit Guru: He's considered to be one of the greatest Kir'ko Dream Readers, and traveled to Arcadia Caeleste to seek seclusion.
Meaningful Rename: After becoming a Heritor, he changes his name to Hatyl Es'Ran, after his Es'Teq symbiote.
The Mentor: To Poz Tk'Nor, if you choose to side with him on Arcadia Caeleste. Later, as Hatyl Es'Ran, he becomes one to Marlok Tenor.
Old Master: A powerful Celestian ( and later, Heritor).
Symbiotic Possession: After he becomes a Heritor, both he and his Es'Teq symbiote are in equal control.
Token Heroic Orc: As a Heritor.

Kiri Uz'Kol

A Kir'Ko commander working for Berhane Katla.

The Dragon: To Berhane Katla.

Poz Tk'Nor

Swarm Herald Poz Tk'Nor

Swarm Herald of the Kir'ko Terym, and default protagonist of the Kir'ko campaign.

Dark Is Not Evil: He uses Psynumbra, but canonically chooses to make peace with humanity and is key to forming The Federation.

Roto Cos'Rax

Jikuku Cos'Rax's cousin.

Suspiciously Similar Substitute: If Jikuku dies during the campaign, Roto replaces him in future scenarios.

Tik Ji'Glux

A famous Kir'ko revolutionary who has settled on Arcadia Caeleste.

Kill It with Fire: As you might expect of a Promethean Kir'Ko, she wants to wreak as much damage on humans as they did on her kind, with flaming prejudice.
Revenge Before Reason: She really, really, really hates humans, and will stop at nothing for revenge against them.

Tiri Cos'Rax

Jikuku Cos'Rax's other cousin.

Suspiciously Similar Substitute: If both Jikuku and Roto die, Tiri replaces them.

Shakarn Commanders

Chancellor Kor

Ruler of the Shakarn.

Despotism Justifies the Means: Plans to use the Alpha Strain to force total compliance in subjugated populations, starting with humanity.
Just the First Citizen: Goes by the title of "chancellor" despite ruling a totalitarian dictatorship.

Naranga Od

General Naranga Od

The protagonist of the Invasions campaign, a Gama-caste commander who spent considerable time infiltrating the Star Union.

Complexity Addiction: At least, this is how her second-in-command sees her commitment to deceptive tactics.
Cruelty Is the Only Option: In the first mission. Like the other protagonists, she has an option between diplomacy and war. Unlike other protagonists, diplomacy is "Manipulative Bastard", and war is just plain bastard; the Egalitarian League of Planets will suffer at her hands either way.
Deep Cover Agent: Spent years in her cover identity as Sarah Hitchens.
Defector from Decadence: She has the option to defect to either the Egalitarian League of Planets or the Voidbringers in the second half of the campaign.
Even Evil Has Standards: When she sees Chancellor Kor's plan to control the human population using the Alpha Strain, she's clearly appalled.
Heel–Face Turn: If she chooses to side with the ELOP.
Villain Protagonist: Of the Invasions campaign.

Syndicate Commanders

Dali Ardelli

The youngest Ardelli brother, a musician whose compositions are inspired by Psynumbra.

Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Any alliance he forms with Mara is tenuous at best.
Cool Bike: Rides a hovercycle.
Faking the Dead: His brothers faked his death after he disappeared.
Mad Artist: Again, he's a musician whose compositions are inspired by *Psynumbra*.
The Rock Star: He definitely has the aesthetic down, if nothing else.
Wicked Cultured: He's essentially a rock star Sith Lord.

Givori Ardelli

The oldest Ardelli brother and the original mastermind behind the Psynumbra program.

Amazing Technicolor Population: Has purple skin.
Red and Black and Evil All Over: Uses this color scheme.
Evil Sorcerer: He's a Syndicate Psynumbran and every bit as evil and psionically powerful as that combination would indicate.
Faux Affably Evil: He's extremely polite and respectful when first meeting Jack Gelder. He immediately goes on to explain how delighted he is to meet someone who will be a challenge to torture.
Government Conspiracy: He belongs to the Fifth Order, a conspiracy led by Empress Carminia.
Torture Technician: He clearly takes great delight in mentally breaking people.

Malai of House Antares

A Syndicate noble encountered by the Zhelezo Consortium on Chimera Glacialis.

Token Heroic Orc: House Antares as a whole seem to be one of the few Syndicate Houses with any real morals.

Marlok Tenor

The default protagonist of the Heritor campaign. Marlok is the last scion of House Tenor, which was disgraced when Marlok's grandfather was framed for the plundering of the Syndicate's treasury. Disgraced and enslaved, Marlok befriended Hatyl Es'Ran, and after leading a successful slave revolt, joined him on his quest to begin the Es'Teq Regenesis.

Amazing Technicolor Population: Has blue skin.
Code Name: Uses "Silver Sparrow" as a military codename.
Dark Messiah: He's a liberator of slaves who becomes the prophet of a reborn ancient religion, but his methods can be very dark, and the extent to which the Es'Teq religion is benevolent is debatable.
Face–Heel Turn: If he chooses to side with Rhamenses at the end of the Revelations campaign.
It's Personal: Declares this after learning that Shae Mara was responsible for his house's disgrace.
Made a Slave: Along with the rest of House Tenor.
Meaningful Rename: To Marlok Es'Xito after becoming the host of Xito Rhamenses.
Rebel Leader: The leader of the Syndicate slave revolt.
Symbiotic Possession: With Xito Rhamenses, a former Es'Teq Archpriest.
Token Heroic Orc: For both the Syndicate and the Heritors, if he chooses to side with Hatyl Es'Ran at the end of the campaign.
White Sheep: Compared to most Syndicate, Marlok is surprisingly progressive. His mother outright commits suicide out of shame that he's fighting against slavery and willingly associating with a Kir'Ko.

Rebas Suntoro

A Syndicate slaver operating on Xa'Kir'Ko.

Killed Off for Real: Regardless of which path to victory you choose to pursue on Xa'Kir'Ko, you're going to have to kill him.
Kill It with Fire: Uses Promethean technology.
Hate Sink: Compared to the other AI commanders on Xa'Kir'Ko, he's completely devoid of redeeming qualities.

Shae Mara

The head of House Ny'dar, and the default protagonist of the Syndicate campaign.

Big Bad: Of the Heritor campaign.
The Cracker: Uses Synthesis technology.
Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: As usual for the Syndicate.
Villain Protagonist: Of the Syndicate campaign. Even Ellen Shaw gets the occasional chance to Pet the Dog, but Mara does basically nothing but constantly betray her allies and scheme for power.

Sina of House Timur

A Syndicate noble who encounters Jack Gelder on Leave-6.

Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Claimed her position by betraying her uncle.

Taron of House Timur

A Syndicate noble who succeeds Sina should she wind up dying on Leave-6.

Suspiciously Similar Substitute: He's essentially the emergency backup Sina.

Vanguard Commanders

Adam McKinley

A Vanguard commander whose forces are trapped on Z17.P2-27.XXX.96.

Hero Antagonist: He's considerably more sympathetic than Shae Mara, and you're likely to wind up at war with him.

Daiyu Jiang

Lieutenant Daiyu Jiang

An old friend of Jack Gelder's, serving under his command.

Benevolent Conspiracy: She's part of New Horizon, Emperor Tholian's faction.
Faking the Dead: She is supposedly assassinated on Leave-6, but in reality merely faked her death, and is encountered again in the next mission.
Hero Antagonist: In the first mission of the Invasions campaign.
The Lancer: To Jack Gelder.
Really 700 Years Old: Her exact age is unclear, but she's at least several centuries old.
Walking Spoiler: In case the other entries didn't give it away - there's a lot more to her than is clear at first glance.

Eva Montinga

A Vanguard Xenoplague biologist who works for Empress Carminia.

Blatant Lies: Insisted that she had not lost control of the original Xenoplague project even after it killed her husband.
Eviler than Thou: Compared to Ellen Shaw. Shaw works for a tyrannical AI intent on enslaving humanity, but between her loyalty to Carminia and her complete lack of any sort of medical ethics whatsoever, Montinga is even worse.
Mad Scientist: Goes with the territory of working on the Xenoplague.
Plague Master: Worked extensively on the Xenoplague.
Rival Turned Evil: She and Ellen Shaw were rivals during their school days.
Unholy Matrimony: Her husband also worked on the Xenoplague project, and was just as loony as she is.

Huy Jiang

Daiyu Jiang's nephew, one of the three Vanguard commanders who got involved in the fighting on Leave-6.

Killed Off for Real: Gets killed by Naranga Od's forces in the Invasions campaign.

Jack Gelder

Colonel Jack Gelder

Captain of the F.E.S. Frontier, and default protagonist of the Vanguard campaign.

Colonel Badass
- Four-Star Badass: As of Revelations.
A Father to His Men: If he chooses to side with Daiyu Jiang on Sorinus Alpha, he makes it clear that it's purely because of how long she's served under him.
Necromantic: Flirts with this on Sorinus Alpha, where he makes a few attempts to genuinely resurrect Ellen Shaw. None of them work out.
Noble Bigot: He mentions that he has trouble trusting Kir'Ko, and apparently all Syndicate houses look the same to him. He's still implied to have been key to founding The Federation.
The Protagonist: Of the Vanguard campaign.
We Used to Be Friends: Dated Ellen Shaw briefly before the Cataclysm.

Michael Valentine

One of the three Vanguard commanders who got involved in the fighting on Leave-6.

Agent Peacock: Despite his narcissism, he was an effective enough commander to hold his own in the three-way war on Leave-6.
Big Fancy House: A medium-level Anomalous site involves his manor, which has its own A.I.V.A. to defend it from intruders.
Colonel Badass: As of Revelations, he's a colonel in the army of the Egalitarian League of Planets.
The Dandy: So vain and narcissistic that Marlok actually has to bribe him with perfume.

Nicole Crustus

A Celestian Vanguard commander and friend of Hatyl Ur'Uk.

My Species Doth Protest Too Much: She's actively trying to make amends for the Star Union's Fantastic Racism towards the Kir'ko.

Other Characters

CORE

The Conscientious Omnipresent Regency Engine is an artificial intelligence originally created to assist the emperors in managing the Star Union. In time, however, it became a powerful force in its own right.

A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Originally designed to assist the emperors in running the massive bureaucracy of the Star Union, it later started to get ideas of its own...
Big Bad Duumvirate: Forms one with Empress Carminia - his existence and actions are what led her to cause the Cataclysm.
Evil Chancellor: Despite only being intended to advise the emperors, CORE was effectively the truly ruler of the Star Union.
The Evils of Free Will: Intends to do something about that.
Fun with Acronyms: The Conscientious Omnipresent Regency Engine.
Utopia Justifies the Means: At least to the Celestian leaders in the CORE faction.

Emperor Tholian

Born Thomas Lianhouse, Emperor Tholian was the emperor prior to Carminia.

Benevolent Conspiracy: He was the founder and leader of New Horizon, a Government Conspiracy aimed at liberating the Star Union from CORE's control.
Big Good: Founded New Horizon, and is strongly implied to be the behind-the-scenes leader of the neutral faction in the final free-for-all. Revelations confirms that he's now the First Minister of the Egalitarian League of Planets.
Hero Antagonist: In the Invasions campaign.

Empress Carminia

The last ruler of the Star Union, whose reign ended with the Cataclysm.

Big Bad Duumvirate: Forms one with CORE - whilst she caused the Cataclysm in the first place, she did so to prevent CORE from dominating humanity's future.
Unreliable Narrator: She provides the intro voiceover, telling the player about the Cataclysm and warning them to not repeat the mistakes of the old Star Union. She caused the Cataclysm in the first place.
Utopia Justifies the Means: In her faction's case, Utopia justifies the large-scale use of Psynumbra and Xenoplague technology as well as using the more gullible Kir'ko leaders as pawns.
Well-Intentioned Extremist: A charitable interpretation of her actions would be that she triggered the Cataclysm (killing trillions) to stop CORE from gaining full control of humanity's future.

Mah Reg'nib

A strangely likable man of diminutive stature.

Armor-Piercing Question: The flavor text of the Ascended Teacher shows that Mah Reg'nib managed to pose one of these to a being that had otherwise found supernatural enlightenment:
I’ll admit, Celestians are most impressive in their disciplined pursuit of higher power. I traveled with an Ascended Teacher of the Celestian order. He reminded me of the bright beings from fervent proselyting religions of the forgotten past. They too led armies and inspired worship or burning. This Teacher had the power to convict the souls of whole armies. Teacher’s radiance healed the faithful and scorched the hateful. Yet, I’ll never forget Teacher’s haunting stillness when I asked him the three words I ask all who claim to have found ultimate purpose: "Are you happy?"
Born Lucky: Like his fantasy counterpart, he has a habit of surviving all kinds of disasters, often by literally stumbling into the one truly safe shelter within miles. Others around him tend to be less fortunate, as he's frequently the sole survivor of whatever incident he managed to bumble his way into.
Been There, Shaped History: He apparently helped inspire the Therian Apexes to organize their people to survive the Cataclysm (while moonlighting as a mixmaster for "Fuzzercon"), though he vehemently denies having a hand in their subsequent turn to piracy.
Expy: He's the Planetfall version of recurring Age of Wonders character Ham Binger, a.k.a. the world's luckiest halfling.
The Ghost: Never actually appears in-game but the flavor text snippets for units and technologies are full of his exploits.
Sdrawkcab Name: Mah Reg'nib's name is simply "Ham" and "Binger" spelled backwards and given some extra punctuation.

Characters / Age of Wonders: Planetfall

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