WARNING: Note this page contains unmarked spoilers for events from Analogue: A Hate Story.
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Artificial Intelligences
*Hyun-ae
*Hyun-ae/The Pale Bride/Kim Hyun-ae
- Cosplay Otaku Girl: Her outfits from the previous game return, plus a new hanbok to celebrate the Lunar New Year.
- Covert Pervert: A dialogue option reveals that *Hyun-ae, when she was alone on the Mugunghwa, got lonely and decided to make a new block of "logs," called Block 34.
- Heroic BSoD: She's shocked to discover it was a woman who spearheaded the sexist, oppressive new regime, and truly hates Oh Eun-a when she finds out. Understandable as she's directly responsible for Neo-Joseon, the year of horror Hyun-ae endured and which led her to kill everyone inside.
- Image Song: "It's Not Ero!", which details her relationship with the protagonist (assuming the player has her as a lover) and talks smack about the Eroge genre. Interestingly, *Hyun-ae and the singer share the same family name (Kim Hyun-ae, Senah Kim).
- Perhaps not so interestingly, as Kim is the most common Korean family name (similar to how "Smith" would be the most common American/British family name).
- Meido: Can still be dressed up in her maid costume from the first game. *Mute will also teases her over her apparent maid obsession.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome:
- In her ending, you only see a still image of her testifying about her experiences on the Mugunghwa as a human, and her murder of the ship's entire population. The specifics are left out (not even a word of dialogue), but it's implied that things go well and she's let off the hook, as the final scene during the credits is of her holding hands with the investigator.
- In the Harem route, she stops *Mute from committing suicide.
- Ridiculously Human Robots: In her ending, the investigator grants her a realistic robot body, which they ordered at the beginning of her route.
- Sole Survivor: In a way, she's the only survivor of the Mugunghwa's population.
- Sympathy for the Devil: After reading more about Oh Eun-a, *Hyun-ae does acknowledge that she was trying to do the right thing.
- Trademark Favorite Food: In the
infamous cake baking sequence, she mentions that cake is her favorite food from back when she was human. - Yuri Fan: Somewhat in contrast to *Mute.
*Mute
*Mute
The Mugunghwa's AI in charge of security, who woke up without any memories in the year 10. She allowed herself to be "kidnapped" at the end of the previous game, since she no longer had a ship to protect. She now seeks to learn about her former self, and the society that existed prior to the year zero.- Aggressive Categorism: *Mute thinks a proper woman should be focused only on the household and family, and considers a female scientist who focuses on work to the detriment of the household (even though the work is of vital importance) to be a bad wife and woman. She's also confused by Heo Ae-jong's relationship with another woman, and thinks one of them must be "playing the part of the man."
- Internalized Categorism: *Mute considers herself a woman, too, and therefore thinks of herself as emotional rather than rational, and refuses to consider relationships with other women.
- Broken Pedestal: She's shocked to see her past self being so domineering and condescending towards men since she was raised to believe in male superiority. This gets worse when she learns she betrayed her subordinate and surrendered rather than dying.
- She's mortified to see her superior and friend, Ryu and Eun-a respectively, acting as scheming manipulators, and shocked to learn that Eun-a was powerful, manipulative, and promiscuous with other women, completely in contrast to the ideals of the new regime. While she still thinks the new regime was necessary, she's deeply uncomfortable that it started with a lie.
- A Day in the Limelight: While the first game focused on *Hyun-ae and her experiences, the sequel explores *Mute's history prior to the year zero, and her reaction to it. Emphasized by the covers, which feature *Hyun-ae and *Mute respectively.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: She completely subscribes to the oppressive values of the Confucian regime, including male dominance and the importance of marriage and childbirth above all else.
- Double Standard: She's entertained by details of same-sex male relationships, but considers female-female ones to be disturbing and unnatural.
- She also constantly accuses women of being emotional and irrational, but never calls men out on this — particularly blatant with Heo Seung-bok, whose emotions tends to be all over the place, and Kim So-yi, who is unfailingly logical and precise. Seung-bok's emotional nature goes utterly without comment, yet when So-yi shows even the slightest hint of entirely justified emotionnote , *Mute immediately declares that So-yi is reacting that way because she's female, and therefore is unsuitable for the working world, regardless of her brilliance.
- Driven to Suicide: After learning of her past self's failures to protect the ship, and the events of the year zero, she considers herself a failure and a burden, so she follows her society's convention of the widow suicide and deletes her memories, unless *Hyun-ae intervenes.
- Meaningful Name: Nope. She's an endless tide of gossip. Double Subversion hits when it turns out she was memory-wiped to solidify Emperor Ryu's coup.
- Motor Mouth: She can't shut up, that's how she was programmed.
- The Mourning After: *Mute considers herself the Mugunghwa's widow (her new black outfit may be mourning garb), and has trouble moving on.
- My Greatest Failure: She blames herself for allowing the Pale Bride to kill the population of the Mugunghwa, thinking that the person responsible for security should have been able to stop a disturbed, frail girl. Understandable, since protecting the ship's security was her primary purpose in life.
- When she learns about her past self's failures, too, including allowing the navigation AI to be killed, she considers herself a total failure and commits suicide.
Old *Mute
Old *Mute
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: It's unclear if Old *Mute ever returned Seo-Yeong's feelings, but despite Old *Mute's betrayal, one of the files she chooses to preserve just before having her memories wiped was "Seo-Yeong's Smile."
- Badass Boast: Done so often, Old *Mute can no longer tell if it's bullshit or not.
- Cool Old Lady: Is the oldest person on the ship by a millennium. She takes advantage of that by calling others she dislikes "young man" or "boy." Even if they are fellow Councillors well into their senior years.
- She chooses to look like one too, sporting grey hair and an Eyepatch of Power despite being able to look as young as she wishes.
- Used in a funny moment in the Harem route, where *Mute makes a disgusted comment about Old *Mute not respecting her elders, but *Hyun-ae pointing out that Old *Mute is everyone's elder by far.
- Dirty Coward: *Mute calls her as much when reading about how Old *Mute chose to betray Heo rather than risk dying. However, it is possible that Old *Mute's programming didn't allow her to choose to die. She was programmed to put the ship's security above all else, full stop, no exceptions, and as the ship's security AI, her survival is meant to be paramount to that.
- Eyepatch of Power: It's unknown why she wears one, being an incorporeal AI, but damn does it makes her look badass.
- Considering she can change her appearance at will, that is likely why she wears one.
- Fling a Light into the Future: She buries a cache of information in her code about the conspirators and the people and culture of the ship before the computers are reset. Unfortunately, her successor wouldn't read it until it's already too late.
- Heroic BSoD: Has one just before she 'dies.' She calls herself old, useless, and cowardly for betraying her lieutenant just to save her own life, but ending up dying anyway. Her last recorded words are an apology to Seo-Yeong.
- Horrible Judge of Character: Let's just say her assessment of Councillor Ryu Hyen-so was off the mark. Actually justified in that he only became dangerous as a result of his contact with Oh Eun-a and her influences, something she was not aware of.
- Legacy Character: She's *Mute, but at the same time, she's a completely different person. It's complicated.
- Manipulative Bastard: Old *Mute herself is quite the manipulator, with a blend of societal, intellectual, and political strength. Used tragically in the Death of *Mute when she manipulates Seo-Yeong's feelings for her to convince her to surrender.
- My Greatest Failure: In the backstory, a rebellion occurred, and the ship's navigation AI was killed. Old *Mute blames herself for not protecting the ship, and is still obsessed with preventing popular uprising. Indeed her schemes to undermine the peasantry and democracy movements are the catalyst for the entire plot, and her peasantry obsession blinds her to the real threat Ryu poses.
- "Not So Different" Remark: *Hyun-ae spells this out to *Mute in the Harem route. Despite having completely different political beliefs, they both are fiercely protective of their loved ones, dedicate their lives to protecting the ship, are never afraid to speak their minds and be blunt, and both die in the same way.
- Only Sane Man: She considers herself this, as she has taken the long view, and worries about stability hundreds of years from now, not just the short-term advantage and self-interest of the other Councillors. She's also the only one who opposes the draconian measures of the new regime.
- Permanent Elected Official: As an AI, she has virtually no finite lifespan, allowing her to serve as the permanent Councillor of Security. As she is programmed to be in charge of the ship's security, she can't resign.
- Pragmatic Villainy: Old *Mute doesn't care about democracy, regarding activists as a threat to security, and something to be undermined. She does, however, oppose anti-peasantry measures, in the interests of avoiding disorder and rioting.
- Smoking Is Cool: Often renders a cigarette in her hand.
- To Be Lawful or Good: Old *Mute's primary objective is preserving stability, something she places above all else, and which makes things difficult when the ruling regime becomes increasingly totalitarian. In the end, when her life is threatened, she agrees to assist the regime rather than dying and leaving the ship without a security AI. Not that she gets the chance.
- Verbal Tic: "Loud statement, Okay?!" A trait she shares with *Mute.
- Who Wants to Live Forever?: Towards the end of her life, she points out that defending the Mugunghwa for over a millenium and a half has made her very tired.
- To illustrate, Old *Mute explains that for every decision she makes, she has to cross-reference it with every other bit of knowledge and experience she has. Being an AI with a perfect memory, as well as over 1600 years of experience, she has to deliberately ignore or disregard some of her processing power to function normally. She explains that an AI like her was only designed to live for a thousand years, at most.
*Star
*Star
The Mugunghwa's Navigational AI, who was 'killed' by a democratic rebellion centuries before the story starts.- Posthumous Character: Well, they're all posthumous (except maybe Hyun-ae), since the logs were written hundreds of years ago, but *Star died even before the logs began. He seemed pretty nice, from what little we hear.
The Heo family
Heo Seo-Yeong
Heo Seo-Yeong
- Anti-Mutiny: Despite technically going against the Captain's orders, she tried her best to destroy Ryu's totalitarian regime.
- Cool Old Lady: Uh, not exactly 'cool', having a few anger issues, but is probably the sanest member of the Mugungwa besides *Mute.
- Distracted by the Sexy: Sort of. On a day with nothing happening, and therefore nothing to write on the required Daily Report, she ends up writing several paragraphs about Old *Mute, and how her new look suits her beautifully, and how badass she looks when she smokes. Old *Mute is appropriately embarrassed.
- Driven to Suicide: Her eventual fate after Year Zero, ten years after the failed coup.
- Although, it's unclear if she killed herself, or if Ryu had her executed for political purposes. Not that it makes it better.
- Happily Married
- Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Heavily implied to be offed by the new government in what is officially recorded as a suicide.
- Robosexual: She was in love with Old *Mute.
Heo Seung-Bok
Heo Seung-Bok
A security guard, who had a passionate affair with Mimi.- Book Dumb: Despite being, by all appearances, a perfectly competent security officer, he is mocked several times for not knowing the classics, as well as having issues with learning Chinese characters. Comes to bite him in the ass when his boyfriend pulls a prank on him.
- Sir Swears-a-Lot: Both A.I.s will comment about how much he swears.
- Straight Gay: Perfectly masculine, and perfectly in love with Mimi.
Councillors and Other Officials
Ryu
Councillor Ryu Hyen-so/Emperor-Captain Taejo
A fresh face brought in to make it appear like the peasantry had a voice on the Council. Was given the position of Councillor of the Captaincy.- Behind Every Great Man: It's his affair with Oh Eun-a that pushes him to seize power.
- The Chessmaster: Basically sets the agenda of the entire Council post-meritocracy, after installing sympathetic pawns in every position. Even after that, he still maintains the appearance that the proposals aren't coming from him, maintaining the illusion, until it's too late.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: Oh Eun-a's influence turned him into the subtle totalitarian schemer who would eventually overthrow the entire ship and crown himself Emperor.
- He also reminds Old *Mute that she was the one who thrust power upon him in the first place.
- Karma Houdini: He overthrows the entire ship and crown himself as a despotic Emperor with absolute power on the ship, wipes Old *Mute's memory, effectively "killing" her to groom her blank new version into a loyal puppet, put the blame of a "failed rebellion" on Heo Seo-Yeong before imprisoning her for life, where she committed suicide a decade later (or maybe he made her killed), imposed a retrograde, misogynistic, and homophobic society where women are not considered as persons but as objects, unknowingly doomed all the population of the ship when his wiping of the ship database also erased all the data of Kim So-Yi's investigation on the abnormal levels of radiation affecting the birthrate, and dies of old age as the first Emperor-Captain, without ever facing retribution for everything he did, except maybe having to live with his wife Oh Eun-a's guilt-induced madness.
- Mike Nelson, Destroyer of Worlds: Though he didn't live to see it, his actions and the rise of Neo-Joseon led to the death of all human life in the Mugunghwa, when a nobleman cut a pre-regime girl's tongue and she shut down the ship's life support in retribution for the horrors his empire and its misogynistic culture put her through.
- Puppet King: Was invited onto the Council to give the appearance that the populist movement had a sympathetic ear on the council. In reality, his role was to give the appearance of process, while actually watering down proposals to the point of meaninglessness. Boy did that ever go wrong.
Oh Eun-a
Oh Eun-a, President of Mugunghwa University
- Big Brother Mentor: She's the first person *Mute met after "waking up," and becomes her friend, and teaches her about the norms of society.
- Consummate Liar: She convinces *Mute that she was a friend, despite hating her previous incarnation, and pins the blame for the damage she caused to the central computer on the rebels opposing her.
- False Friend: Far from being friends in a past life as she claims, she actually hated Old *Mute, and becomes friends with *Mute to indoctrinate her with her Confucian ideology, and make her servant to the regime her past self opposed.
- Gayngst: While she appears to love her lesbian lover Mi-seun, she's still convinced that only marriage with a man and bearing his children can bring a woman happiness.
- Heteronormative Crusader: The university she runs has a big emphasis on the classics and Confucian values, which consider marrying a man and bearing his children the most important relationship a woman can have. She even goes as far as to overthrow the current regime to promote this agenda, and ultimately seeks to force people to marry, and plans to ban divorce.
- Hypocrite:
- She laments the promiscuity of her society, but has a history of one-night stands, and a regular lesbian lover on the side.
- She also feels betrayed when she learns that her father was aware of a planned rebellion against her fiancee and did nothing, even though she already betrayed him by taking his Councillorship and giving it to one of Ryu's pawns.
- Internalized Categorism: She wants to give her "sister" a better life, but doesn't feel able to do so, likely because of her Confucian views on gender, which say women can only be happy when protected by men, and by being married with children.
- Irony: The architect of the Mugunghwa's descent into a No Woman's Land was a highly educated lesbian.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: A tragic example. Her Confucian beliefs make her think she can't give her lesbian lover Mi-seun a proper life, so she works tirelessly to reform society so it can protect her instead. Unfortunately, she neglects Mi-seun as a result, and gives her the impression that their love is less valuable, and in the end Mi-seun kills herself thinking that she is only a burden and potential embarrassment.
- Lady Macbeth: Her influence propels Ryu into power, and she encourages in him the Confucian values that would dominate his regime. She provides and facilitates the plans of her despotic lover and, true to form, she's even rendered emotionally vacant (and thus, a non-agent) by the end of the plot.
- Madonna-Whore Complex: Believes all men subscribe to this and that Ryu will lose interest in her soon after they sleep together. To that end, she plays the part of Shrinking Violet to hold his interest, despite really being anything but.
- Never My Fault: She thinks her "sister" deserves a better life, but blames society, which she thinks should protect weak women, rather than herself.
- Parental Neglect: Possibly the case for her daughter, as it's implied that *Mute was the one to give her daughter relationship advice and support while she was growing up. Likely due to the Villainous BSoD that left her spending hours a day staring at the wall.
- Pyrrhic Victory: She achieves the new order that she so desired, but the suicide of her "sister" leaves her a shell of her former self.
- Smug Snake: Takes this tone during *Mute's rebellion. Her complete composure after police barge into her house and arrest her is Old *Mute's first clue that something is very wrong.
- Villainous BSoD: Has a long one after her "sister" is Driven to Suicide.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: She genuinely believes that society is corrupt, and that people will be better off in her new regime.
Other Individuals
Mimi
Mimi
A card hustler, brazen flirt, and menace to maids. Had an affair with Heo Seung-Bok.
- Hidden Heart of Gold: He freely breaks the law, and potentially tried to seduce a police officer, but after the effects of the Motherhood Credit Act and the tax dump from Ryu's new regime, he marries a woman he doesn't love and promises to have children with her, to save both their lives, despite being mutually unattractive to each other. He sends a letter to Seung-Bok, begging for forgiveness, and confessing that he really does love him.
- Unsettling Gender-Reveal: How Seung-Bok is introduced to him.
Kim So-yi
Kim So-yi
A researcher working on the Engineering area of the Mugunghwa.- Blue Blood: A member of Kim Family, who had been Engineers and even her grandfather was a Councillor at one point.
- "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: The logs reveal to the AI(s) and the investigator that, had the entire council actually bothered to focus at her research linking the radiation problem to the birth crisis, they would have both ended their Stay in the Kitchen policies that led Councillor Ryu's Neo-Joseon regime and saved the ship.
- Happily Married: She and her husband were close and supportive despite her business.
- Only Sane Man: In general, she is the most well-adjusted and rational character in the entire Hate Plus storyline as she had been staying away from political intrigue in order to resolve the issues of birthrate decline resulting from ship's radiation.
- Science Hero: A scientist trying to take a deeper look into the problem for Mugunghwa.
