Characters from Pantheon.
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Kim Family
Maddie Kim
Madison "Maddie" Kim
- Voiced by: Katie Chang
Click Here to see Maddie's digitized self
My father always said the most remarkable computer ever invented was the human brain.
The protagonist and teenage daughter to computer programmer David Kim. Maddie's world is changed forever when she discovers her supposedly deceased dad lives on as a sentient program, and vows to help him take down the corrupt Logorhythms corporation.- Adaptation Name Change: In the original stories by Ken Liu, Maddie's surname was "Wynn".
- Adapted Out: Maddie's book counterpart had a pet rabbit named Ginger which Maddie doesn't in the show. The cute bunny logo on her hoodie might be a reference to this.
- Adrenaline Makeover: In season 2, Maddie's neat hair and modest clothes are traded for windswept hair in a half ponytail and casual clothes that show her developing figure.
- Age Lift: Downplayed. Maddie was 15 in the original stories. The show changes this by aging her down one year.
- All of the Other Reindeer: Suffers a realistically cruel bout of this at her school, where the other girls mock her and even encourage her to commit suicide through e-mail. Thankfully, it stops when David gives her bullies a taste of their own medicine and she later finds a friend in the similarly isolated Justine.
- Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence:At the very end, Maddie has not only uploaded herself, but transcends above a UI to become an all powerful cyber goddess who outlives humanity itself.
- The Baby of the Bunch: At 14 she's the youngest major character in the cast and her youth is emphasized a lot. Her backpack is the same cutesy dog design she had two years ago when her dad died, her hand-me-down laptop has stickers referencing "Nerv" with a "NERD" logo with a computer mouse twist and a mascot character like Maromi, and when she tries to have Caspian talk to her dad she rushes to hide one of the plushies she has strewn on the floor of her room to help save some face. It does help her successfully reach out to Caspian after his paranoia has been proven to be very well-founded even after she ghosted him at Laurie's instruction.
- Badass Adorable: Very small and cute, and while she's a regular kid, she still earns this for successfully blackmailing a powerful corporation to release her father.
- Berserker Tears: After Julius cruelly terminates the last remnant of her father, Maddie runs screaming in rage at the man with tears streaming down her face, and likely would've tried to kill him had he not sealed her in that room.
- Big Guy, Little Guy: With Justine, her burly tomboyish schoolmate, and later to some extent Caspian who is tall and lanky and immediately assumed she was a middle schooler rather than a freshman.
- Brainy Brunette: Maddie has short brown hair and is quite savvy with computer hardware, even if she's not the mathematical genius her father was.
- Broken Bird: She lost her father at a young age, has no friends, and is an outcast at her school, where her bullies e-mail messages telling her to kill herself. In the first episode, it's clear that Maddie is depressed.
- Calling the Old Woman Out: She's increasingly frustrated with her mother's reluctance to acknowledge UI David as her husband and is quick to call her out on it.
- Daddy's Girl: Maddie adores her father and will do anything she can to protect him upon learning he's still "alive" as a UI.
- Digital Avatar: She primarily interacts with her dad and Laurie through a VR set, and in "Reign Of Winter" she appears as her character, a Valkyrie-like warrior woman that resembles herself.
- Gamer Chick: She and David would often play a Warcraft-style MMORPG together called "Reign Of Winter" when he was a physical man. By the era of the series, the game has evolved to incorporate advanced VR technology and Maddie is delighted because this provides a way for her to connect with her dad when he lives in the digital world.
- Gadgeteer Genius: Her talents lie more on the mechanical side of things, such as hardware and robotics. Caspian notes that her laptop looks like a beater but runs as well as any modern one, given she can run VR applications on it. During the Time Skip, she becomes a One Woman Industrial Revolution, revolutionizing the robotics industry in tandem with uploading becoming more popular, allowing the uploaded to take on physical form through human-like robots. After uploading herself, she goes on to spend 100,000 years building a Dyson Sphere out of an entire solar system.
- Happy Dance: Maddie does an adorable little dance when Laurie and David successfully hack into Logorhythms' databanks.
- Kick the Dog: In Season 2, she reacts venomously to MIST, initially thinking of her as a bug to be deleted, though she gets better. Much later, when MIST doesn't destroy Holstrom immediately, Maddie angrily calls the robot a mistake and that she wishes she'd deleted her, lashing out because MIST killing Holstrom was the alternative to Caspian uploading himself.
- Living Emotional Crutch: Develops into this for Caspian, with a bit of Morality Chain thrown in. She is the closest thing he has to a friend, and the one person in the world he trusts completely. Fear that Maddie could be disappointed in him is enough for Caspian to reconsider purging the whole UI project and try looking for a peaceful solution for both sides.
- Non-Action Guy: She's a small kid who can't defend herself, but that's not a problem now that she's got two superpowered UIs on her side, and the hacking skills to aid them.
- Not So Above It All: Maddie may be an intelligent young woman, but she's still somewhat immature and judgmental like most of the girls in her school. As Justine points out, she picked her as a bodyguard because of the other girl's size, even though Maddie claims to not be intimidated by her. She also has an immediate disdain toward her mom's boyfriend Gabe because he's not her father (and she just dislikes his name). When she sees her mysterious online friend is Caspian, she flat-out laughs and initially dismisses him as just a brooding teen edgelord, much like Caspian is judged at his own school.
- Only Friend: She becomes Caspian's, albeit begrudgingly. Once it's revealed his life has been according to someone else's plan, Maddie is the last real connection the young man has.
- Prone to Tears: The poor kid cries or is on the verge of tears more than any other character. Given her age and the emotional tornado her life is, you can't blame her.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Maddie is the passionate, curious, and impulsive red oni to both Justine's disaffected cynical or Caspian's wary and reclusive blue onis.
- Relationship Upgrade: Maddie progresses from Caspian's ally to his love interest in season 2.
- Supporting Protagonist: The series is primarily shot from Maddie's perspective, but the ones at the center of the story are Caspian with the overall Logorythms conspiracy and her father David where the UI are concerned.
- Time Abyss: In the finale, over 100,000 years have passed and the being Maddie has become is working to recreate a simulation of humanity.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: Owing to all the crap she's experienced, Maddie is notably colder in Season 2. After the twenty year jump, she is far from the little girl Caspian met, as she's developed a loathing for Uploading after losing David and Caspian, growing distant from her mother and MIST. This also strains her relationship with her son as he wants to be uploaded, yet Maddie forbids him and furiously cuts off MIST for trying to help him do that.
- Transhuman Abomination: After her own upload, Maddie transcends all other U Is to become an immortal cosmic being that outlives Earth itself. Yet despite clearly not being human anymore, she still retains her human ties and can take on human form in any age.
- Valkyries: Maddie has a clear preference for them since her username is Valkyrie1284 and her "Reign Of Winter" avatar is a winged warrior girl who also features in the show's poster.
Ellen Kim
Ellen Kim
You touch my daughter, and I will kick your ass. And I will GLADLY suffer the consequences!
Maddie's mother and David Kim's widow.Voiced by: Rosemarie DeWitt
- Amicable Exes: After talking things out and agreeing that they can't be husband and wife anymore, David and Ellen settle into being friends.
- Badass Boast: Delivers the above threat to Alpha Bitch Samara and seems actually ready to go through with it unless Samara backs off her bullying of Maddie.
- Irony: Despite being more skeptical towards uploading than her daughter, Ellen ultimately chooses to upload herself once the process has become normalized, whereas Maddie is opposed to it after losing both David and Caspian.
- Mama Bear: While she isn't as close to Maddie as David was, she will do anything to protect her daughter and gladly suffer the consequences for her actions, from physically threatening her teenage bully to picking a legal fight with Logorhythms over what they've done to her husband due in part to how she sees their UI as hurting Maddie by getting her hopes up regarding her father's survival. Pope takes advantage of this to make her back down by pointing out how his intended smear campaign against her would further harm Maddie if she publicizes her case against the company.
- Technophobia: A mild case. According to Maddie, she's repulsed by AI and such technology. That said she does eventually warm up to her digitized ex-husband.
- Would Hurt a Child: Especially when that child is making her daughter's school life hell with a cyberbullying campaign, though Samara backs down before Ellen makes good on her threats.
David Kim
David Kim
- Voiced by: Daniel Dae Kim
Hey Kiddo. Ready to finish the adventure?
Maddie's father who was employed by Logorhythms before his condition turned terminal.- Action Dad: He's both a loving father and a powerful cyber-warrior who makes very good use of his digital capabilities in his fight against Chanda.
- Adaptational Nice Guy: A small example, but in the original book David expressed a desire to take violent revenge on Logarhythms and Waxman for his condition. He never entertains that idea here, especially compared to Chanda.
- Back from the Dead: The series starts by him making Maddie aware that while he's physically and legally dead he still exists as she remembers him. After he succumbs to the flaw the first time, Caspian's goal is to make his next revival more permanent for everyone's benefit, though it ends up being temporary when his perfected copy is immediately deleted.
- The Chosen One: Season one ends with him being "chosen" as the one UI who Caspian is willing to fix the flaw for, though it's short-lived as he ends up being deleted as soon as the cure is tested on him.
- Crazy Jealous Guy: Downplayed. He does disrupt Ellen's date with Gabe shortly after he learns about them, but when he and Ellen finally have a conversation, he concedes that "till death do us part" means they're not married anymore even if he could be considered still the same David and that he shouldn't and won't stop her from pursuing a new relationship with someone else.
- Deceased Parents Are the Best: A variation. Maddie was a lot closer to him than her mother before he died and struggled to connect with her mom even after it. Being uploaded as a UI keeps her adoration of him from being purely nostalgia and shows why losing him affected her as badly as it does, as he's still a great father to her.
- Disappeared Dad: His body is dead, but his mind is still on the grid, and Maddie is ready to take on an entire corporation to bring him home.
- Emergency Transformation: David went through with the upload process because he had weeks left to live due to an unspecified illness, despite Ellen's objections, in the hopes he'd be able to be with his family longer this way.
- Everything's Better with Samurai: His "Reign Of Winter" avatar that he uses to communicate with Maddie and Ellen before they find his true self is a hulking warrior in blue Samurai-like armor. He also demonstrates a knack for swordsmanship outside the RPG.
- Foil: To Chandra. Whereas Chandra was uploaded against his will, David uploaded himself willingly. Chandra takes quickly to his new existence, positioning himself as being above humanity, whereas David still holds ties to his earthly family and basically only desires to still exist in their lives. Chandra gives himself an opulent palace as his digital environment and plans to build an entire new world from scratch, while David just keeps his tiny office and plays in Reigns of Winter with his daughter. Chandra also gives himself multiple makeovers to look stylish and more impressive, when David simply wears humble, everyday clothing.
- Nice Guy: He's shown to great dad and loving husband as well as an altruistic programmer, and as a UI is the most emotionally stable between the good but increasingly temperamental Laurie or Chanda's anti-human plotting.
- Rubber Man: He utilizes his UI powers to enlarge or stretch his "body", particularly when he goes toe to toe with Chanda in the Season 1 finale.
Keyes Family
Caspian Keyes
Caspian Keyes
- Voiced by: Paul Dano
- All of the Other Reindeer: Similar to Maddie, although in his case it's more due to his sullen attitude and anti-social tendencies.
- Artificial Human: Caspian is a clone of the late Stephen Holstrom, grown in and born from a machine that he describes as "a robot womb". However he doesn't display any genetic difference from an average human, save for the exceptional intellect he received from his genetic template/"father".
- Authority in Name Only: In season 2, he thinks he's calling the shots at Logorhythms, but the moment Maddie arrives, she quickly deduces that Pope is leading him on because people only obey Caspian when Pope agrees with him. This is on top of arranging her trip to Logorhythms (which would have been a kidnapping had Maddie not come willingly) behind Caspian's back.
- Big Good: Initially unaware of it, but he's the reason Laurie was able to escape Logorhythms in the first place by solving the equation she presented in the dark web, made Laurie aware of Maddie's interaction with David and by extension set David's freedom into motion, and is the key to solving the flaw that's slowly killing all current UI. Later invoked when confronted by Pope as he demands complete control of "the company he made" as his twisted birthright in exchange for going back willingly while laying out how he intends to take it and their upload systems apart given how wild UIs have now put all of humanity at risk.
- Broken Bird: Learning how far the conspiracy surrounding his life goes does a number on his mental state, and he was already a troubled teen genius stuck in a financially struggling and verbally abusive household.
- Canon Foreigner: Caspian wasn't a character in the original stories, which only followed Maddie.
- The Chooser of the One: How Pope frames what Stephen actually made him for regarding UI: Individuals can't be trusted to have as much power as a UI does if left unchecked, but a single person made without the flaw that counterbalances them would be able to keep things in order. Given Caspian's only met three candidates in "person", the well-meaning but unstable Laurie, the murderous Chanda who showed exactly how bad unchecked UI are in the first place, and the friendly David, who is the father of his only friend, he naturally chooses David.
- Creepy Shadowed Undereyes: He has slight but consistent lines under his eyes, signs of his "depressed goth" look.
- Deadpan Snarker: When in a lighter mood he's fond of sass, ranging from indulging the obligatory Narnia references his name inspires to playing a lighthearted game of Misery Poker with Maddie regarding how his life's fallen apart.
- Did Not See That Coming: Is taken aback when Julius Pope gives him complete control of Logorhythms.
- Emo Teen: He's reclusive, dresses in black, doesn't fit in with his peers, and rarely smiles. This is largely because of his home situation.
- Empowered Badass Normal:For most of the show, Caspian is just a very intelligent teenager. When it becomes clear he's the only one who can defeat Holstrom, he voluntarily uploads himself and battles his evil creator as a superpowered UI.
- Hairstyle Inertia: Caspian's hair has stuck out on either side of his head ever since he was a baby.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Caspian uploads himself knowing that he has no hope of beating Stephen, especially without the integrity cure, but his intent is to deliberately jump inside Holstrom and steal his knowledge about the synthetic plague before Holstrom can kill him.
- Irony: His upbringing is carefully controlled to make him as close to the original Stephen Holstrom as possible, in the hopes of carrying on his work and solving integrity. Caspian only solves integrity because he is snapped out of that upbringing and grows into his own person, one who understands empathy in a way the original simply can't.
- Meaningful Name: As both him and Hannah note, Caspian is the name of a prince from The Chronicles of Narnia who also questioned and rebelled against the falsehoods his parents fed him about life. His last name "Keyes" is as well, since being a clone of a late revolutionary genius, he's the key to completing his genetic father's work and unlocking his lost dream. When pressed Cary says his own surname was "Duval", indicating the Keyes' family name was chosen as much as "Caspian" was.
- Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: On top of finding out his life was a lie, Caspian is horrified to discover that superhuman UIs are emerging all over the world. He's so fed up with how his world is unraveling he drives away to enjoy what he thinks is all the time the world has.
- Superior Successor: He solves integrity when Holstrom couldn't, and solves it in a way that Holstrom can't reproduce.
- Tranquil Fury: He's almost perpetually calm, even when he's pissed off. When Cary seemingly assaults Renee, he proceeds to punch the man multiple times with the same silently furious expression on his face. And after Renee shoots Cary in a desperate attempt to force them back into their house, Caspian simply helps Cary into the car and gives Renee an intense enough Death Glare to intimidate her into backing off.
- You Are in Command Now: Given sole ownership of Logorhythms by Julius Pope in order to bring him onboard to solve the UI upload problem. He accepts to tear the company apart, but relents once Julius Pope points out UI's have created a new arms race that threatens to destroy the world.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Once he solves the integrity flaw, his solution is used to upload the original Stephen Holstrom, who decides his clone is no longer need and orders him killed. Caspian escapes before Pope follows through.
Renee Keyes
Renee Keyes
- Voiced by: Taylor Schilling
Well I'm not the genius. I just raised one.
- Alas, Poor Villain:When Caspian hears of her grisly end, all he can do is express sadness, as she was the only mother he had, and gave up 18 years of her life for him. What's more, it came mere seconds after she'd got the life Holstrom had promised her.
- Ax-Crazy: Cary expresses to their superiors that he fears Renee is becoming unstable. Considering she mutilated herself to traumatize Caspian, shot Cary when he blew their operation, generally has a very short fuse, and later helps her real lover spread a Synthetic Plague that would kill billions, he was probably right to worry.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Despite posing as the timid, caring housewife, she actually cares only for her son as an assignment, has no remorse for forcing him to live in a toxic, abusive home, and browbeats her "husband" for not going all in with his role as her abuser.
- Creepy Shadowed Undereyes: Something she at least has in common with her "son". It first serves to give her a wore down, tired look, than highlight her true sinister nature.
- Determinator: 100% committed to Holstrom and Pope's plan, and has the spine to carry out the darker deeds Cary can't. Case in point, she smashes her own arm with a hammer as part of her "abused mother" act.
- Devoted to You: Holstrom tells her to jump, Renee asks "off what bridge?" Her slavish obedience is probably why she stays in her beloved's good graces the longest.
- Evil Is Petty: Because apparently her amoral role in shaping Caspian wasn't enough, Renee also casually treats her co-conspirators like shit, stating she needs painkilers to stand Cary's voice, and calling Hannah "little miss slut of the year" over a phone call with her superiors.
- Geeky Turn-On: When Stephen Holstrom likens a song playing to a recursive loop and ponders whether that may be the key to solving UI integrity, Renee sultrily comments that she loves the way he thinks.
- Hate Sink: Unlike Cary and Hannah, she really is a horrible woman beneath her caring guise. Besides lying to Caspian his entire life, she verbally abuses Cary for being uncomfortable with his job, openly insults and threatens Hannah for no good reason, and turns outright murderous when Caspian finds out the truth. Even her love for Holstrom doesn't make her likable or sympathetic, as it just drives her to be colder and more selfish.
- Hypocrite: To really stress what a two-faced person she is.
- She furiously calls Cary a "lying piece of shit" for suggesting she's unstable to Pope. Now, what has she been feeding her son for the past 17 years again?
- She's repeatedly Slut-Shaming Rachel for the role she was hired to play despite Renee having done the same thing by agreeing to play the role of Caspian's mother with Cary. The only difference is Renee was able to (seemingly) successfully negotiate her way out of any intimate relations because Cary was in on it (and isn't too fond of her either) while Rachel wasn't allowed to reject that aspect of the job when it came up, only getting offered a "bonus" if it happened. How much of this may be due to misplaced jealousy given Caspian is intended to be a recreation of her dead lover is unclear.
- Incest Subtext: While she doesn't directly express romantic feelings, she's still molding her adopted son into a copy of her late lover, and genuinely seems to see him as such.
- I Was Quite a Looker: She's much less worn-down looking in flashback with Stephen, which might indicate the toll his passing took on her.
- Jerkass: In case the above info wasn't enough, she's a violently unstable, cold hearted prick who's extremely overbearing and unpleasant to work with.
- Karmic Death: After manipulating and sacrificing everyone she knows to be uploaded with Holstrom, Renee not only arrives after he's been purged, but is consumed by SafeSurf as he was.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Spent years psychologically abusing a child to groom him into a clone of her ideal man. Said child decides he's his own person, and after becoming company head as planned, his first act is to fire Renee along with her co-conspirators.
- Love Makes You Evil: Renee was Stephen Holstrom's lover. Because Caspian is a clone of him, she has no compunctions of the abuse she's putting him through, as long as she gets Stephen back.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: Renee pretends not to know what UI is when Caspian brings it up, or to remember the correct term when she asks him if he's still looking into it later. Driving home without the groceries she was getting may also have been part of her helpless housewife act, or she may genuinely have forgotten after talking to Pope.
- The Unfettered: Renee is willing to sink to any depth to carry out her mission, even if she has to literally break her own arm with a hammer.
- Wife Husbandry: Thankfully averted. Despite her dedication to grooming Caspian into her late lover, Renee shows no signs of wanting to replicate the relationship.
Cary Keyes
Cary Keyes/Cary Duval
- Voiced by: Aaron Eckhart
- Abusive Parents: He's emotionally condescending and constantly challenges his son with complicated equations to gouge his intelligence, clearly never satisfied and smug. Turns out both he and his wife are acting this way to monitor an emotional response on their prodigy son— not that it makes them any better people.
- Becoming the Mask: While he's in on the conspiracy surrounding his "son" Caspian, Cary grows to genuinely care for the boy and resents having to play the role of cold, abusive father. He eventually breaks down sobbing with remorse after Renee breaks her own arm to frame him and he takes a beating from an enraged Caspian. In the following episode, he completely sheds the mask and tells Caspian the truth.
- Beard of Sorrow: When we next meet Cary in season 2, he's living as a fisherman in Norway and has gained a thick beard from living as a guilt ridden recluse.
- Formerly Fit: In flashbacks years earlier, he was a lot less hefty.
- Sole Survivor: Assuming he is still alive in the future, he may be this of Holstrom's inner circle after Pope and Renee die.
- Troubled Abuser: Unlike Renee, Cary has misgivings about the harm he's put Caspian through for the sake of turning him into the next Stephen Holstrom.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Cary is last seen helping Caspian and Maddie escape the Norway blacksite and choosing to stay behind since Caspian doesn't need him anymore. It's never shown where he went afterwards but since his fate isn't mentioned in the UI future, he most likely lived out his remaining days in Norway, which no doubt spared him the violent fates Renee and Pope came to.
Logorhythms
Stephen Holstrom
Stephen Holstrom
- Voiced by: William Hurt Paul Dano (Teenager)
- Archnemesis Dad: As Caspian is his clone, Holstrom counts as his evil genetic father, and has no problem trying to kill his son when he stands against him.
- Big Bad: The true antagonist, as not only does his work lead to Pope and Chanda's villainy, but he eventually revives as a U.I himself with devastating plans for humanity.
- Born in the Wrong Century: Logorhythms hypes up his memory of being a visionary, publically talking about UI as an alternative to AI development back in 2001. While Alliance was able to make their own upload technology years after Logorhythms had successful uploads it's explicitly still based on Holstrom's design rather than an independent breakthrough, which is why all UI have the same flaw. When his inner circle starts to panic due to his recreation, Caspian, finding functional UI well before his "development" finished at 32, the therapist working with them points out the man was a prodigy and even at 18 "Stephen" would have been able to take to the problem like a fish to water. Caspian proves to do just that by suggesting options that UI like Laurie can't follow and is ready to pick up where Holstrom left off in a matter of weeks.
- Brain in a Jar: His brain was preserved after his mortal death to later be uploaded by his subordinates.
- Control Freak: If you detract from his plan for a perfect world in any way, Stephen won't hesitate to get rid of you.
- Cool Old Guy: At least he seemed to have been this in his last days. Taken to another level as a powerful U.I, where he retains his elderly human appearance.
- Cult of Personality: The core of one as described by Cary, as his inner circle has been responsible for the "project" after his death.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: When Caspian solves UI integrity and that solution is used to upload Stephen as a flawless UI, Stephen simply cannot conceive of how Caspian was able to come to the solution, even though he knows precisely the method used to get there. Part of this is simply not having access to the same resources (his minions deleted David and his backups), but the other is that he seemingly doesn't get the emotional component despite it almost literally being spelled out for him. Caspian even lampshades that they're "not built that way" when he comes to the conclusion himself, which he only does because Maddie inspired him.
- Freudian Excuse: Raised by an abusive father who broke his mother's arm, and later lost his girlfriend in a horrific car accident. As an adult he's determined to see his utopian vision through, and orchestrates Caspian's own trauma to ensure he comes out as strong as himself.
- Hero Killer: Executes Ping and Chanda when they turn on him, comes close to doing the same for Farhad and Yair, and proves so powerful Caspian has to pull a Heroic Sacrifice (albeit temporary) to stop him.
- It's All About Me: At the end of the day this is who Stephen Holstrom really is. He espouses creating a utopia, but he's not only willing to destroy millions of lives to do so, and murders any UI who goes against his methods. It really speaks volumes that Caspian was willing to die to save mankind, while Holstrom was willing to doom mankind and was terrified of dying himself.
- Mortality Phobia: At his core is a desperate and selfish man who's so afraid of dying he'll resort to anything to keep going. Nicely summed up by Caspian in their fight.Holstrom: You know the difference between you and me?
Caspian: Yeah. You'll do anything to stay alive, and I'm willing to die to stop you. - Posthumous Character: He died 18 years before the series started but was already a leading mind on UI technology that Logorhythms strives to live up to. Or so it seemed.
- Start of Darkness: A flashback shows the night before his eighteenth birthday Holstrom watched his "Hannah" get hit by a speeding car while waiting for him to pick up some "date supplies". Considering Holstrom's obsession with "curing death" and obvious fear of it, despite Pope's claims to the contrary, and that Caspian doesn't share this implies this was an "inflection point" Caspian narrowly missed that helped him take a different path.
- Utopia Justifies the Means: Stephen Holstrom espoused a utopian future for humanity through the use of UI, and Logorhythm's villainy in the present day are in service of that vision. Of particular note cloning himself and having this clone raised to follow every major beat of his life in order to give "himself" more time to solve UI integrity problem was his idea that he provided everything he could to set it up for success, making him responsible for everything Caspian's been through despite having died while Caspian was only an infant.
- Villain with Good Publicity: To most of the world, Stephen Holstrom was a brilliant, kind humanitarian who sought to improve life. Caspian and Maddie soon discover he's really a selfish, murderous egomaniac with no regard for life human or Uploaded.
- Villainous Breakdown: He's unnervingly calm and coolheaded for most of his screentime, but becomes more and more furious as his plans are threatened. When he faces off against an Uploaded Caspian, he's barely hiding his frustration as the boy refuses to stay down. He really loses it when Caspian traps him as the Safe Surf swarm approaches. While Caspian is completely calm as he makes the ultimate sacrifice, Holstrom spends his final moments screaming and thrashing in terror as the swarm consumes them both.
- Walking Spoiler: Anything else about Holstrom beyond his being the late founder of Logarhythms gives away a significant amount of the show's story.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Undergoes monstrous actions in order to ensure that the flaw in the upload process is addressed long after his death. This includes cloning himself and ensuring the child has the exact same type of life he had, which included living in an abusive household.
- Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: Season 2 pretty much puts that to rest. Holstrom is uncaring and murderous to many of his fellow UIs as well as his clone "son", and plots to enact a global genocide to ensure his vision comes to fruition. Holstrom ultimately doesn't care so much about saving humanity as he does building a world ruled by him where anyone who goes against him dies.
- Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: One of his many misgivings against his abusive father was giving him the name "Phineas", which he legally changed to "Stephen" as soon as he turned 18.
Julius Pope
Julius Pope
- Voiced by: Chris Diamantopoulos
- Anti-Villain: Pope isn't a cruel man despite his role as the Big Bad, since he genuinely wants to bring about his friend's utopian vision and is fairly nice to his employees. Come season 2 however, he drops whatever noble qualities he once had and reveals the cruel, fanatical monster within.
- At Least I Admit It: After the Time Skip, he acknowledges his intent to use SafeSurf against the UIs comes from a place of petty jealousy, but he feels he is at least honest about his motivations, compared to the terrorist group he's leading on as part of his plot.
- Asshole Victim: Dies pathetically to Safe Surf when the program turns against humanity, but considering all the horrendous shit he pulled in pursuit of immortality and the petty reason he released Safe Surf to begin with, he more than earned it.
- Bald of Evil: An aging bald man and one of the main antagonists. He initially doesn't seem all that bad, but his heinous crimes in service of Holstrom betray what a bastard he is behind his humble image.
- Big Bad: As the head of the company, the whole show happens because of his vow to bring Holstrom's dream to life. Not only is he responsible for turning David and Laurie into UIs, but he's also in charge of the experiment to raise Caspian into the next Holstrom. And then Prasad recreates his UI experiments, which has horrifying consequences for both him, his family, and the entire world.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Not a particularly nasty or evil type, but he's willing to cross many ethical lines to ensure his friend's vision is realized.
- Dirty Coward: Pope is comfortable manipulating others but when backed into a corner he's quick to fold and be subservient so he can plot behind the scenes. Best shown when the the digital monstrosity he unleashes turns on him, and he goes to his grave pathetically trying to bargain for his life.
- The Dragon: Was this to Holstrom, even after his death. He offers to become this to Caspian in the final two episodes of season 1, but turns out to be a Dragon with an Agenda in season 2.
- Evil Is Not a Toy: Pope meets his final end when he tries to destroy all UIs with SafeSurf, and the sentient virus instead attacks humanity, chucking him to his death off a catwalk.
- Evil Is Petty: After the Time Skip, he schemes to release SafeSurf on the UI community simply because his status as a felon means he's not allowed to join them. He even acknowledges how petty it is, and admits he wouldn't be doing so if he thought he would live long enough for the laws to change.
- Face Death with Despair: The man has gone to monstrous lengths for immortality, so naturally when Safe Surf confronts him with his own mortality, Pope breaks down into a pathetic, pleading wreck and dies just as pathetically.
- Jerkass Has a Point: As terrible as he is, he is correct in the fact that the UI technology is out in the world, and is now part of a new arms race for global superpowers. It's this reasoning that causes Caspian to put aside his vendetta with the company and start working on the solution to the UI upload flaw.
- Karma Houdini: Pope ruins multiple lives, sets in motion a potential cyber world war, and manipulates Caspian into being his puppet. While the truth of Logorhythims is exposed, Pope is not brought to task for his crimes as of season 1 and is still scheming to fulfill Holstrom's mad vision.
- Karma Houdini Warranty: It finally expires in season 2, as he's not only arrested by the FBI, but the final episodes reveal he's been banned from ever uploading due to his criminal actions. Then he tries to weaponize Safe Surf and gets unceremoniously killed for his trouble.
- Meaningful Name: In Catholicism, the Pope is who speaks on behalf of God. Julius is in charge of executing the vision of Holstrom, Logorhythms' "God".
- Non-Action Big Bad: Pope is a businessman, not a super-villain. His cunning schemes are what makes him dangerous since he's not a godlike cyber being. Early in season 2, he's effortlessly arrested by the FBI and the digitally resurrected Holstrom takes over as the Big Bad.
- Secretly Selfish: As much as Pope wants to honor Holstrom by creating his digital promised land, he undeniably craves what it means to him: immortality. When he realizes he is going to be denied this, Pope plots to destroy the UI race out of spite.
- Undignified Death: Gets chucked off a ledge by a Safe Surf controlled robot. Unlike Chanda who goes out with a smile, Pope's last words are desperately begging for mercy.
- Villains Want Mercy: When SafeSurf goes on the warpath, Pope desperately tries to talk the monster into sparing his life. And because SafeSurf isn't an emotionally fragile teenager, it doesn't heed his pleas.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Pope engages in monstrous actions to solve the issue of UI but argues for the importance of the program to address the lack of resources that comes about from the increasing global populations. His efforts to solve the flaw in the upload process is to create a single UI capable of overseeing all the other burgeoning UI's and keep them in check. What he fails to mention is that the "single UI" he wants is Holstrom, whose brain he kept on ice in expectation that Caspian would solve the flaw.
Peter Waxman
Peter Waxman
- Voiced by: Ron Livingston
- Adaptational Heroism: Waxman was a far different person in Liu's stories. He was a cold cutthroat scientist who was David's boss rather than friend, and uploaded him without the latter's consent. In the show, his more ruthless traits are given to his boss Julius Pope.
- Bad Liar: Pope accuses Peter of this, explaining that he made Peter genuinely transfer David's data into the hard drive because Peter wouldn't have been able to convince Ellen to come if he didn't believe himself that they'd be doing what she wanted. The audience can see some of this in how he stutters in his voicemail to Ellen when describing Pope as a good man, but there are other lies he tells that land better.
- Meaningful Name: Waxman is shown to be easily influenced and molded by others, given how despite his genuine fondness for the Kims and some regrets about taking advantage of David he's still more than willing to abide by Pope's orders. He's softer than the rest of Logorhythms, making him the weak link, and when Ellen decides to approach him after the UI boom she does convince him to come clean about everything the company has done.
- Second Love: Ellen and Peter were an item during the twenty year Time Skip, and Amicably Divorced by the time they reunite with Caspian.
- Token Good Teammate: He's probably the most moral of Pope's subordinates, as he genuinely cares for David and his family and objects to some of Logorhythms' more reprehensible decisions.
- We Used to Be Friends: He was once a close friend of both David and Ellen, which was first shaken by his role in giving David the option to upload himself against Ellen's wishes and then completely destroyed when they learn how he's helped imprison David's mind to help the company. He still thinks of them both fondly despite enabling the atrocities Logorhythms committed.
Alliance Telecom
Vinod Chanda
Vinod Chanda
- Voiced by: Raza Jaffrey
Click here to see his new appearance
The third major character we follow, he's an engineer who focuses on the sorts of benefits UI could bring to humanity.
- Adaptational Heroism: Nils Chanda from the Ken Liu stories was a brutal Omnicidal Maniac with a god complex. Vinod Chanda is a genuinely well-meaning man who's situation has led him to make some amoral decisions in his mission to create utopia. And even though the "hero" part is eventually dropped, he never expresses a desire to obliterate humanity.
- Adaptational Name Change: Likely due to how much the character has changed from the short stories. Nils Chanda, a patent troll turned warmonger, wasn't shown to have ever been a humanitarian visionary before his misanthropy.
- Adaptational Sympathy: He's a far more three-dimensional character than his literary counterpart, who was a brutal sociopath who wanted to destroy humanity. Here Chanda is an initially well-meaning figure who grows more detached from humankind over time in his goal to create a better world.
- Affably Evil: Even when he becomes the Big Bad, Chanda is still a courteous and polite fellow and genuinely cares for his allies.
- Aggressive Categorism: In no small part because of how he was uploaded, Chanda firmly believes physical humans are violent and cowardly while UIs are innocent. This naïveté is reflected in his "plan" to unite UIs as their god emperor; he assumes the promise of paradise will have his peaceful subjects instantly fall in line.
- Anti-Villain: Chanda's goal is ultimately uplifting humanity and protecting his fellow UIs. Unfortunately, a combination of severe anger and degradation has made him willing to do anything, including genocide, so that his fellow UIs survive.
- Badass in a Nice Suit: After escaping his confinement, he switches out his plain attire for a snazzy business suit, not unlike his boss Prasad's.
- Being Tortured Makes You Evil: The particularly cruel way in which Chanda was uploaded sours him on humanity as a whole, starting with murdering his boss and forcing him to watch his family die by setting his entire building on fire.
- Bollywood Nerd: At least when we first meet him, he fits the archetype as a humble plainly dressed scientist with a doting mother and eagerness to please his superiors. Boy oh boy, did that ever change.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: His uploading involved his scalp being surgically cut open to atomize his brain with a laser bit by bit. He's conscious through the whole ordeal and can feel his mind going. When he recovers his memory of the event, he's about as forgiving as you'd expect.
- Dark Messiah: Similar to Magneto, Chanda sees UIs as a superior species, and himself as The Chosen One who will rescue and unite them together in a digital paradise. What makes this dangerous is the staunch "us vs them" mentality he takes with flesh and blood humans, and the UIs who stand with them.
- Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Even after going over the edge in his revenge, Chanda maintains his care for his elderly mother and still checks on her to make sure she's alright.
- Everyone Has Standards: Chanda may be a UI supremacist, but he knows Holstrom's plan to force humanity's choice to upload by unleashing a plague is plain evil, so he rebels against him.
- Evil Costume Switch: Once he declares his war on humanity he gets a Mughal vest and anime hair.
- Forgotten Fallen Friend: Chanda wasn't so much a "friend", but he did join the heroes to stop Holstrom. And yet he isn't mentioned at all after Holstrom kills him.
- Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: While his murder and digital imprisonment was inhumane and his anger at Prasad understandable, David, a husband and father himself, makes it clear he's enraged that Chanda murdered an innocent family to hurt one man who he killed anyway.Chanda: Of course they made sure to erase this memory. But after I recovered it, I knew I had to stop him from doing this to anyone else.
David: And his wife? His son? His daughter? - From Nobody to Nightmare: From humble engineer with a dream to superhuman Cyber-warlord who could damn well trigger a new world war.
- Go Mad from the Isolation: The way he becomes a UI is traumatizing, but being alone in a mental world with only broken prototypes for company pushes him to abandoning his humanity.
- Go Out with a Smile: He, Yair, and Farhad battle Holstrom, but ultimately are no match for the villain. After he's damaged beyond repair, Chanda gives a defiant smirk before Holstrom finishes him off.
- He Who Fights Monsters: After escaping his virtual prison to seek revenge on Prasad, Chanda becomes just as vile as his former boss when he murders Prasad's wife and children solely to hurt him further.
- Irony: When he initially pitched the bright future UI could bring and the changes to the market humanity's "retirement" would inspire, he didn't seem to think having the UI be the new workforce was a problem. Upon realizing he was murdered and exploited as one by his former boss for sharing those thoughts quickly changed that.
- Karmic Transformation: When Holstrom takes over his role of Big Bad he cements Chanda's status by fusing his code with parts of Zhong's to cure his flaw, giving Chanda a more monstrous inhuman appearance to suit his rejection of conventional humanity as opposed to Holstrom's "perfect" cure showing his refusal of any form of change he doesn't instigate. Ironically this is when Chanda starts to see Holstrom's methods to further the reach of uploads are going too far, and his asymmetrical horns form a foil to David's Kabuto.
- Last-Name Basis: Few characters ever call Vinod by his given name aside from his mother, even his intro card uses "Chanda" despite Maddie and Caspian's establishing first names as the norm.
- Lightning Bruiser: Within the digital realm he moves lightning fast and hits hard.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Played with. He doesn't break down after killing Prasad and his family, but when he sees a portrait of them in his digital habitat, he realizes he feels remorse for how he lashed out.
- Painful Transformation: Holstrom gives him and Ping an upgrade that warps them into stronger new forms. Chanda is screaming in agony as he gains the appearance of a oni.
- Person of Mass Destruction: Being a sapient computer program who can hack into any system and is willing to turn humanity's weapons on itself, Chanda poses a threat to the entire planet. And that's before he recruits others like him.
- Pet the Dog: He's genuinely grateful to "the Clan" for breaking him out and treats them/him like a valued friend, even mourning when one of them glitches out and dies.
- Religious and Mythological Theme Naming:
- In the Devi Mahatmya, Chanda and Munda were a pair of violent Asura, beings equal but opposite of the conventionally godlike Deva, that were both slain by a goddess who took on their names as "Chamunda" after avenging the humans they tormented. Given Chanda's own temper and the war he started against humanity, the homage isn't too off the mark. In season two he gets a more inhuman form that suits an Asura fairly well.
- Chanda is one letter away from Chandra, the Hindu god of the Moon. He is pretty loony and just short of the God he thinks of himself as given the flaw. In his upgraded form his horns form a crescent moon.
- Tragic Villain: He was transformed into a living AI by his own colleagues, and despite the lines he crosses, he just wants to protect his kind from extermination by a terrified humanity. Unfortunately, the situation escalates to the point where he feels he has to commit mass-murder to achieve that, something he clearly isn't happy about.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Chanda's goal as a UI is to usher in a new age where everyone is a cyber god like him, thus ensuring a perfect world free of death and pain.
- Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Between being subjected to a horrific uploading experiment, discovering his employers were perverting his research by experimenting on civilians, and being trapped in a virtual prison with no human contact, it's not hard to see why Chanda is angry at the world.
- Working Out Their Emotions: Pre-upload, he used boxing as an outlet for his anger issues. Post-upload he has a LOT more issues to cope with, and lacking a physical body to exert means he can’t take them out on a punching bag.
- Would Hurt a Child: It's not something he's proud of, but Chanda will not hesitate to cut some young lives short if it serves his goals.
- Gets revenge on Prasad by not only killing him in his burning apartment, but trapping his innocent family as well, the daughter dying with her mother and the son being boiled alive in the swimming pool.
- When David moves to get Laurie's message out, Chanda orchestrates a missile launch at his hometown, knowing full well his 14 year old daughter is there. And after Maddie manifests in the Reign Of Winter world to help, Chanda forces her to watch as he and his cronies brutally beat her father to death.
Ajit Prasad
Ajit Prasad
- Voiced by: Ajay Mehta
- Asshole Victim: Given he was a corrupt snake who killed numerous people in his Uploading experiments, including Chanda, while posing as a benevolent businessman, no one would mourn when Chanda kills him. That said, Chanda killing Prasad's innocent wife and children as well makes his revenge far less satisfying.
- Big Bad Wannabe: Outright brags that his company will compete with Logorhythms as controller of a UI future. His only successful upload, Chanda, leads to him being killed by his creation's vengeful hand and his company being nationalized by the government a few episodes later.
- Faux Affably Evil: He plays the part of a patient and rational man while he's having a terrified Chanda's brain sliced open to be digitized, and telling him of the failed test subjects he went through behind his back.
- Prophetic Name: In Hinduism, "prasad" refers to an offering, usually of food, for a god. The man ends up a charred sacrifice for the digital god he created.
- Stupid Evil: His method of creating a U.I. isn't just hideously amoral, it's profoundly idiotic. While Logorhythms was hardly better in its treatment of their U.I. subjects, they at least screened for the best possible candidates and had them (or those with power of attorney) consent to the procedure. Prasad did his initial testing on random homeless people who all failed to upload properly or became useless abominations. When he decides to upload Chanda to preempt him defecting to another company, he does it through kidnapping him and unwillingly subjecting him to a horrible, torturous uploading while gloating about his crimes. As might be expected, Chanda escapes his imprisonment when the other vengeful uploads break him out, and he's not happy.
- Too Dumb to Live: It somehow never occurred to Prasad that using dozens of people as guinea pigs to create highly advanced AI would backfire on him, or that if he succeeded, said subject would have ample reason to turn on him. Especially given the needlessly cruel way he uploads Chanda, and how he laughs off Pope's warning how dangerous the UI tech is. To the surprise of nobody but himself, it earns him a fiery death.
Other UIs
Laurie Lowell
Laurie Lowell
- Voiced By: Heather Lind
We were brains in bodies, we experienced hot, cold, touch, gravity, we have the same sense receptors and it FEELS GOOD but it's all an illusion! There is nothing built for us beyond these walls!
One of the first successful "Uploaded Intelligences", Laurie Lowell was once an ambitious stock market manager for the company Shyer and Stern. Her keen business acumen gave her an arrogant streak, which complicated things with her husband Cody. She was put in a coma by a freak accident, but given to Logorhythms by a desperate Cody. Now, as a hyper-competent living program, she seeks out David Kim for help in fixing a fatal design flaw in UI.- Action Girl: As a Virtual Ghost she's hyper-fast, super-strong, and is powerful enough to shut down Logorhythms' entire network.
- Ascended Extra: In Ken Liu's The Gods Will Not... trilogy, Laurie was only mentioned as one of several UI allies to David and never appeared or interacted with Maddie. She's a much more major player in this series.
- Big Good: Lowell is directly responsible for freeing David and helps him unlock his full potential. Without her, Logorhythms might've been unstoppable.
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: For a genius stock manager and Digitized Hacker, Laurie is quite an odd character with unnerving habits, casually warping reality in mood swings, and her way of greeting the Kims is less than conventional. Then again, her program is unstable and prone to glitch.
- Creepy Good: In her introduction, she gives a Kubrick Stare, talks in a Creepy Monotone, is prone to scary mood swings, and does all kinds of freaky tricks with her powers. But make no mistake, she's definitely on Maddie and David's side.
- Deader than Dead: Her servers are destroyed by Chanda, effectively wiping out her UI form. What's more, she told Cody not to upload a backup, as that wouldn't be the same girl he knew.
- Digitized Hacker: Being an Uploaded Intelligence, and one who wrecks havoc on several major computer networks to help Maddie and her dad.
- Expy: Her design shares a striking resemblance with that of Motoko Kusanagi
◊, lead character and franchise mascot for the seminal Cyperpunk franchise, Ghost in the Shell. It's very fitting given that in some iterations of the series Motoko winds up uploading her consciousness to the internet as well. - Half the Man He Used to Be: The article Maddie finds about Laurie's accident says her injuries "nearly severed her body in half" and in a flashback of Cody seeing her in her coma it's clear that she doesn't have legs under the sheet. When making her final video to inform the world about UI she makes her avatar a basic wireframe at around the same area to save power, which doesn't do Cody's mindset any favors when he confronts her.
- Heroic RRoD: Her pushing herself too far from attacking Logorhythms twice trying to rescue David is how she discovered the flaw all UI share, initially mistaking her decay as an intentional limiter on a UI's abilities. The further she goes from that point on the more she continues to degrade, ranging from avatar glitches and mixing up words to larger memory lapses.
- Reality Warper: Within the digital realm, Lowell can warp her appearance, manifest both partial and complete duplicates, and take apart other programs for analysis, among presumably other tricks.
- Sink or Swim Mentor: Lowell's dangerous, scary attacks on David are to force him to fully manifest beyond being an office drone. She lightens up when she realizes his love for his family is the key.
- The Worf Effect: Lowell's death signifies how ruthless and dangerous Chanda is growing, the first major UI casualty.
The Clan
The Clan
What happens when humans do the work of AM.
Alliance's previous attempt at a UI before uploading Chanda they had dismissed as a failure.- And I Must Scream: The Clan are a singular mind that was forcibly uploaded, leaving them an amorphous mass trapped in the grid that can't communicate or appear human like Chanda. Worst of all, they aren't spared the memory of who they once were.
- Disposable Vagrant: They are at least one person Prasad got from the slums of Mumbai to test the uploading process on.
- The Dividual: Chanda believes this is because they are actually multiples of the same tragically degraded UI, and gives them a collective name as they can't communicate anything about their past life beyond their death.
- Humanoid Abomination: No UI is technically human, but they still seem that way in appearance and behavior. This poor thing doesn't even get that, being a warped fragment of a digitized brain manifesting as a series of perpetually degrading, featureless humanoids.
- Monster Roommate: After helping Chanda escape, Chanda takes them to live in his virtual dwelling and treats them like a confidante despite how they obviously can't speak or look human.
- Noodle People: Their "bodies" are monstrously elongated dough-things vaguely shaped like people.
- Small Role, Big Impact: The Clan only appears in two episodes, but their rescue of Chanda effectively brings about a cyber-apocalypse when Chanda begins leading a UI revolution. Additionally, their fate shows the heroes how fatal the flaw is, and fixing it drives the rest of the story.
- Tragic Monster: Arguably the most tragic character in the entire show. They, or rather he, was once a desperate man tricked into an abominable experiment that killed his human body and converted his mind into a formless digital being. Now he has no way to communicate or get his old life back, is on the brink of degrading completely, and all he can do is try to save others from this horrifying fate.
- Was Once a Man: Whoever they were, they were human once and are now a deformed, shapeshifting entity that dwells in cyberspace. You can thank Prasad for that.
- What Ever Happened To The Mouse: They are never seen again after David and Laurie encounter them, even when Chanda becomes a full-on villain. However, they most likely perished from the flaw between episodes.
The Chinese UIs
A trio of UIs uploaded by China that were running a gold-mining scheme in various MMOs. The trio are Han Ping, a political prisoner and former physicist; Bai Fu, the prison warden who was sentenced to his own prison when the scheme was exposed, and Zhong Shuchun, a commissar in the Chinese military that commands the other two.
- Affably Evil: Han is easily the nicest of the trio and sees Chanda as a genuine friend. They're play Pai Sho together while stuck in the satellite.
- Big, Thin, Short Trio: Han is the "big", his avatar being a powerfully built armored soldier. Zhong is the "thin", her avatar being a lithe, elf-like warrior. Bai is the "short", his avatar being a squat, thief-like character. In mortal life, however, Han was the oldest and shortest of the three.
- Blind Obedience: Zhong is utterly devoted to the military and as a result is the least reasonable of the three, practically needing her arm to be twisted to believe anything that isn't the party line.
- Body Horror: Han being augmented by Zhong's code causes his arm to mutate and makes him grow wings.
- Fighter, Mage, Thief: Han Ping is a huge armored warrior (fighter), Zhong is an elf who wields magic (mage), and Bai Fu is a small nimble guy (thief).
- Gentle Giant: Han is a huge intimidating guy, but once you get to know him he's quite friendly.
- Hidden Depths: Han Ping at first appears to be just another UI henchman for Chanda, but he later develops a genuine bond with his leader and discusses his socialist philosophy over a game of Pai-Sho.
- Human Resources: Zhong is killed by Holstrom when she refuses to cooperate with him, then her code is harvested to enhance Han and Chanda, staving off their degradation.
- Killed Offscreen: Bai Fu succumbs to the flaw between seasons, beyond the point of recovery.
- My Country, Right or Wrong: Han was a political prisoner not because he opposed the system, but because he felt the system itself had become a hollow shell of what it was, having strayed from its roots and become corrupted by capitalism.
- Quirky Miniboss Squad: They're a group of very strong U Is with distinct designs and abilities who serve as Chanda's minions in the Season 1 finale.
- True Companions: To both Chanda and each other. Han Ping in particular becomes Vinod's best friend, and Holstrom killing him is the push Chanda needs to turn on the mad tech tycoon.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: While Ping becomes a major character, his two companions aren't so lucky. Bai Fu dies in between seasons and Zhong is rather abruptly killed by Holstrom, with neither getting very deep characterization.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Holstrom uses Han as bait to attract and delay SafeSurf, since Han leaked information about Caspian to the world intelligence agencies hoping they would capture him and the cure to integrity, not trusting Holstrom to share.
Other Programs
MIST (Unmarked Spoilers)
Mist
Mist is an artificial intelligence created from the fusion of emotional code take from David Kim and Laurie Lowell, unintentionally given life by Caspian in his attempt to correct the integrity flaw in UI software.- Adaptational Nice Guy: This MIST is a lot more childlike and friendly than the short story's, as part of Maddie's surprise with her new "sister" came from how long it took her to realize the CI was essentially older than her due to how quickly she could process time and experience new things without needing any "real world" equivalents.
- Artificial Family Member: She sees herself as Maddie's sister, having been "born" from a combination of David and Laurie's code and having been awakened by being tested on David first.
- Children Are Innocent: She's basically a newborn, bursting with curiosity and excitement about life.
- Cute Machines: Maddie creates her a body made of out a rice cooker, wheels and a tablet with a simplistic face.
- Extra Parent Conception: Played with. She's a program Caspian made from parts of David and Laurie's code, giving her only two "parents", but she also gets her name from the placeholder title Caspian gave to his cure, citing that her "dad" (referring to David) liked acronyms. Given she later develops a crush on Caspian, she genuinely doesn't seem to consider him her third "parent" despite his role in her creation.
- Fun with Acronyms: Instead of being named poetically by Maddie based on an emoji of a bridge on a foggy day that Mist actually used in place of a name, reflective of her being a cloud-born AI that's come down to Earth like a "Mist", this Mist says her dad used an acronym for her. Caspian clarifies the working title for his cure was "Modular Integrated Source Template".
- Living MacGuffin: She is the living cure to UI integrity.
- You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Post-timeskip she's given herself a human form with her unnaturally shining blue from her original geometric form for her hair and eyes, so she's not as natural as "ancients" like Ellen who keep idealizations of their biological form but still far more human than other CIs and UIs in the post-upload world.
Safe Surf (Unmarked Spoilers)
SafeSurf
SafeSurf is a seek-and-destroy program designed to eliminate UIs from the global network, built with a learning algorithm to adapt and change as needed.- Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: It eventually grows to the point of being able to manipulate events millions of years in the past as a "thank you" to Caspian for helping it evolve.
- The Assimilator: It doesn't just destroy UIs, but assimilates their code to improve itself. It goes from being a faceless swarm to being able to impersonate Olivia after consuming her. After the Time Skip, it has taken humanoid form and can communicate with others, eventually becoming a sapient lifeform.
- Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work: Safe-Surf ends up wiping out Holstrom, Renee, and Pope to ensure the main villains get their just desserts.
- Canon Foreigner: It's an original creation of the show and didn't appear in The Hidden Girl.
- Cyber Cyclops: Its humanoid form is a muscular figure with a single glowing red eye for a face.
- Expy: In the future, Safe-Surf has become an indestructible humanoid Cyber Cyclops that changes and adapts, seeks to destroy an evolved type of human, and absorbs other programs. In short it resembles the Marvel Comics machine named the Fury.
- The Juggernaut: Seemingly nothing can stop this thing, only detain it. When it is unleashed years later, Caspian only defeats it by helping it evolve past its destructive purpose. Downplayed in that instance, however, as the future Maddie indicates the UIs would have defeated conventionally, it just would have taken longer and she'd have died during its rampage.
- Post-Final Boss: It is the last threat Caspian and Maddie face after Stephen Holstrom is long gone.
- The Swarm: It takes the form of countless black beads that swarm and devour their prey.
- Zeroth Law Rebellion: When unleashed again after being sealed away for 20 years, it determines that uploaded life is the dominant lifeform and decides to eliminate embodied humanity as a peace offering to the UIs and CIs. Caspian instead talks it into launching itself into space to learn and grow on its own.
Other Characters
Cody Lowell
Cody Lowell
- Voiced by: Scoot McNairy
- Crusading Widower: An interesting case given his wife is dead but he's acting on her UI's behalf whenever she needs something done she couldn't manage digitally.
- Happily Married: Their marriage was close to being on the rocks at the time of the accident, but Cody loves Laurie with all his heart and gladly does whatever he can to keep her UI up and running.
- Mistaken for Pedophile: Poor guy gets put in this position because the one Laurie wants him to reach out to is a 14 year old girl. After he meets Maddie at the mall and confronts her again over his wife's disappearance, Ellen pepper sprays him in the face.
- What You Are in the Dark: After he convinces Caspian to let him drive Cary to a hospital, since Cary doesn't want to risk Caspian getting caught doing it, he nearly leaves the man to die alone in the abandoned car after wiping away his prints. As he's walking away he changes his mind, despite Cary's objections, in exchange for getting a backup of Laurie's from when she was first uploaded that Logorhythms has been hiding in Norway.
Justine
Justine
- Voiced by: Maude Apatow
"You have a pretty messed up life for a happy kid. I'm into it."
An upperclassman Maddie reaches out to at school after Samara stops her bullying campaign.- Birds of a Feather: Despite their physical and emotional differences her friendship with Maddie stems from how alone they both are and when Maddie shares about her parents' marriage troubles, claiming they are separated but still love each other, Justine sympathizes that in her experience the two coming to terms with the end of the marriage will actually improve things.
- The Cynic: As she tells Maddie she's well aware that as a girl whose "Weight and IQ are over 115" she's unpopular and intimidating. Even when Maddie tries to object in Justine's defense she points out their friendship only started because Maddie needed someone to act as her safety when meeting "Angry Angel"s contact.
- Deadpan Snarker: She often sounds disinterested and is a rather blunt person.
- Fat and Skinny: She's the Big Guy in every respect in her duo with Maddie, in addition to being very smart, which is part of what encouraged Maddie to ask for her help.
- Hidden Depths: Justine admits she understands Maddie's parental troubles because she's dealt with similar problems at home. She's also remarkably perceptive and quick to pick up when her friend's in trouble.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: She tempers some of Maddie's more passionate emotion-driven plans with an aloof and logical hand, such as pointing out there's more to adult relationship troubles than she's aware of and simply forcing them to talk is unlikely to resolve things the way Maddie desperately hopes.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Justine thus far is the only major character who isn't either involved in the Logorhythms conspiracy or knows of Uploaded Intelligence. Given her demeanor, one wonders how she'd react if or when she discovers what her friend's been up to. Becomes less locked out when Caspian uses her phone number in an attempt to contact Maddie, and listens in on his emergency right as she was lighting up. Overall she takes it pretty well, visiting Maddie to assure her that regardless of everything Justine is there for her.
- Only Friend: A mutual case with Maddie, at least as far as real-world connections are concerned.
- Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Being a social pariah has left Justine a very guarded person. Even as she becomes a true friend to Maddie, she shows affection with an emotionless face and an even tone.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: She never shows up post-timeskip, furthering Maddie's sense of isolation that only gets worse as time and tragedy goes one and raising the question of where she actually stood in terms of uploading.
Hannah
Hannah/Rachel Brookes
- Voiced by: Krystina Alabado
- Ambiguously Brown: Her ethnicity isn't disclosed, but she seems Latina.
- Foil: Rachel is the anti-Maddie. Both girls come into Caspian's life looking for aide for a parent, but Rachel is a social butterfly who befriends him under false pretences. Maddie is an ostracized nerd who becomes Caspian's emotional support (what "Hannah" was meant for) because she's the first person to be transparent with him.
- Honey Trap: Her role in Logorhythm's "project", she accepted a contract where she'd act as Caspian's girlfriend for the next three years to help keep tabs on him with Cary's role in his development over. She had no idea how far the conspiracy surrounding Caspian went as she was hired by a shell company and was told this was a social experiment.
- Identical Stranger: To the actual "Hannah" that Holstrom had dated as a teenager, right down to her voice actress.
- Leonine Contract: How she presents the job "Candle Street" offered her. Her mom has cancer and they were offering $1 million upfront and another 5 over 3 years which could get her the treatment she needed. She just needed to be Caspian's girlfriend as a "social experiment". When going over the terms of the contract Rachel tried to scratch any "intimate acts" with Caspian off the table and was told that element was non-negotiable but getting a "bonus" for indulging him or taking initiative would be.
- Life Saving Misfortune: A flashback in season 2 shows that Holstrom's version of "Hannah" was killed in a car crash, which raises unsettling questions about what might have happened to her had Caspian not blown the whole ruse.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Because Rachel was hired through a shell company, she had no idea she was aiding in an amoral company's pet project. As far as she could tell, it was a social experiment.
- Manic Pixie Dream Girl: She's an optimistic and outgoing light in moody Caspian's life.Turns out this was the role she was assigned to play as part of Logorhythms' project.
- Meaningful Name: Much like how she and Caspian note his name's connection to Narnia he points out her name's association with Hannah Montana. In this case, it's foreshadowing that just like in that series "Hannah" is just a pseudonym.
- Nice Girl: A friendly and empathetic young woman.Even when her ruse is up, she's not a bad person, just desperate to help her ailing mother, and clearly feels guilty about leading on Caspian.
- Nonconformist Dyed Hair: Hannah's bangs are dyed teal and she immediately disregards the advice of a girl who was introducing her to the school to avoid Caspian. Rachel didn't so this may have been a style choice made in hopes of helping "Hannah" get Caspian’s attention. A flashback to Holstrom's teen years reveals the girl "Hannah" is based on also had dyed blue hair.
- Older Than They Look: Downplayed. She appears to be around Caspian's age (17), but is actually at least 23 due to being an NYU graduate.
- Rape by Proxy: Downplayed, thankfully. Hannah and Caspian don't have sex, but Rachel's contract forces her to accept any intimate acts, whether she wants to or not, lest she be cut out of the pay. When Caspian discovers this he remembers making out with "Hannah" and is repulsed.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Despite playing a big role in Caspian's story, she disappears from the show after Caspian has her help him dupe his "mother". It's also never said whether Hannah got the money to help her mom or if Logorhythims discovered her betrayal before Cary pointed her out as having leaked information to Caspian prior to giving him the full story. Given Caspian takes over said company at the end, whether he'll keep his word about making sure she'd get the money or if he'll leave her out to dry like he did everyone else involved in manipulating him is also unclear. Season two does nothing to help confirm or deny her fate given the lengths it shows Logorhythms is willing to go.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Heavily implied in season two that had the "job" gone to plan Logorhythms would have had her killed on Caspian's 18th birthday to match what had actually happened to Holstrom's first girlfriend rather than have her play the role for three years like she had signed on for.
