The cast of Perry Rhodan, and associated tropes.
Perry Rhodan, born 1936 A.D., was an American astronaut and the first man on the moon in 1971.
- The Chosen One
- The Hero and The Emperor
- Emperor Scientist
- Magnetic Hero and The Power of Friendship
- Actually, I Am Him: Perry seems to enjoy pulling this one on the hapless Julian Tifflor.
- Heroic Willpower
- The Fettered
- Dysfunctional Family: let's just say that Perry has not the best of luck when it comes to having a normal family.
- Omniglot: Fluent in about twelve languages.
Reginald "Bully" Bull, born 1938 A.D., accompanied Rhodan on the lunar mission and has been his friend and right hand ever since.
- Face–Heel Turn (The Emperor / Big Bad)
- Gunboat Diplomacy
- Heel–Face Turn
- Heroic Spirit: or in his case, bullheaded stubbornness
- The Lancer
- Jerkass
Atlan (Mascaren da Gonozal), born 8045 B.C. (10,479 da Ark in the Arkonide calendar)
- Action Hero
- Ancient Astronauts: Atlantis is named after him
- Blue Blood
- The Casanova
- The Chosen One
- Cosmic Plaything
- Deadpan Snarker: Atlan's logic sector
- Defeat Means Friendship
- Defector from Decadence: Atlan's chosen home is Terra
- The Emperor: Ruled the Great Empire for 69 years
- Officer and a Gentleman
- The Older Immortal
- Photographic Memory: Graduate of the famous and dangerous Arkonide trial, the ARK SUMMIA.
- Rebel Leader: In his youth.
- The Rival
- White Hair, Black Heart: Subverted. He may be Rhodan´s cynic rival, but he is one of the good guys.
Homer G. Adams, born 1918 A.D., is a financial genius who joined Rhodan early. His holding "General Cosmic Company" provided money and economic influence for Rhodan, in exchange for Arkonide technology. A hunchback.
- The Smart Guy
- Organization with Unlimited Funding: the General Cosmic Company, which generated enough wealth to fund a country.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Money!
- Photographic Memory
Pucky (Gucky in the German original, his alien name is Plofre), a small, mischievous and far too powerful furry alien psychic.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Supernatural Powers!: The textbook offender
- Psychic Powers: telepathy, teleportation, telekinesis.
- Last of His Kind: his species survived the destruction of their homeworld (thanks to him) but their descendants developed shorter lifetimes and eventually went extinct about 2000 years later. And he was estranged from them for most of the time.
- Vitriolic Best Buds with Reginald Bull
Julian Tifflor, born 1961 A.D., gormless cadet who keeps getting pitched into the deep end.
- Accidental Hero
- Super-Soldier : went through the Upanishad and was granted with the title Eternal Warrior, which most autors tend to overlook.
- Break the Cutie Recently forced to walk for several million years through a white corridor of nothing, which made him start to behave like The Stoic, and effectively turned him into a Time Abyss.
Ronald Tekener
- The Gambler and Professional Gambler
- The Magic Poker Equation
- Anti-Hero
- Dating Catwoman: Fittingly, Tekener was married to Dao-Lin H'ay for a time.
Icho Tolot, a four-armed, 3.5 meters tall alien from the planet of Halut
- The Big Guy (Class 2 and 5)
- Immune to Bullets: He is literally immune to bullets. Haluters can transform their whole body into a nearly indestructible form of matter on a cellular level, although they cannot move in that condition.
- Genius Bruiser: is well regarded as a scientist and capable of calculating faster than most computers (which is a racial trait for his species)
- Gentle Giant: has motherly feelings for "his" Terrans.
Roi Danton (actually Michael Reginald Rhodan), born 2405 A.D. as son of Rhodan and his second wife
- Luke, You Are My Father
- The Emperor
- Obfuscating Foppishness: Not wanting to stand in his father's shadow all his life, the young Michael Rhodan went underground and invented the foppish persona of the rake "Roi Danton" for himself, completely with the historical costumes of an 18th century French aristocrat, and finds himself allies in a bunch of space traders.
Alaska Saedelaere, born 3400 A.D., victim of a transporter accident that fused him with something else
- Blessed with Suck: what he hides behind his mask.
- The Faceless
- Go Mad from the Revelation: what happens if a sentient being looks at his face without him wearing his mask. Usually ends with the hapless onlooker being Driven to Suicide.
- Loners Are Freaks
- The Quiet One
- Cosmic Traveller
- Celibate Hero
- Teleporter Accident: what caused his face to become a miniature Eldritch Abomination
Dao-Lin H'ay
- Cat Girl
- Psychic Powers: weak telepathy, unless she is using an Upgrade Artifact
- Action Girl
Bostich (really Gaumarol da Bostich, or Emperor Bostich I.), born 4799 A.D. (the year 21,345 in the Arkonide calendar)
- Blue Blood
- I Gave My Word: when Bostich gives his word, he sticks to it
- Photographic Memory: Graduate of the famous and dangerous Arkonide trial, the ARK SUMMIA.
- Badass Bookworm and a Gentleman and a Scholar: Fluent in several old languages, encyclopedic knowledge of Arkon's imperial history and court etiquette, and has impeccable manners if he wants to.
- Dark and Troubled Past
- Beware the Nice Ones: In his youth, Bostich was a gentle, erudite person and a dutiful son. Then, his family was murdered.
- Start of Darkness put him on the Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism to Anti-Villain status.
- The Emperor and The Prince: A textbook example of Machiavellian politics, but he is never cruel for cruelty's sake.
- Emperor Scientist: Sorta, as Bostich outsources the science part to his childhood friend and Hypercompetent Sidekick Aktakul.
- The Chessmaster
- Determinator
- Heroic Willpower
- Dreaming of Things to Come / With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Bostich's logic sector, when first activated, exhibited multiple personality disorder and spoke to him only in visions and dreams until Bostich finally managed to exorcise himself in a dream by killing all his "advisors" who had prophesied he would be emperor one day. Only afterwards was he able to hear the voice of his normal Extrasinn. Years later, when he received his own immortality device, Bostich got confirmation that the same cosmic entity who had granted Rhodan immortality had been manipulating Bostich's dreams (and maybe his life) all those years ago.
- My Country, Right or Wrong: "For the might and glory of Arkon."
- Worthy Opponent and Enemy Mine to Rhodan
- Authority Equals Asskicking: Bostich is a skilled swordfighter.
- Might Makes Right
- Necessary Evil and Dirty Business
- Grey-and-Gray Morality
- Shoot the Dog turned him into the Big Bad: During his darkest time, Bostich crossed the Moral Event Horizon when he had a former friend (who had started a rival empire) tortured and executed as a traitor and all of the 20,000 enemy spaceships mercilessly destroyed after they had been shut down by a computer virus and were helplessly drifting in space - with the crews still in them. Shortly afterwards, he had the Terran minister of defense, Reginald Bull, abducted and tortured for information.
- Heartbroken Badass: Bostich considers himself a pragmatist, but he has the hidden heart of a romantic. Unfortunately, as a young man he fell in love with Atlan's daughter Jasmyne da Ariga although they only spent a few days together as a couple, and decades later he is still yearning for her, despite the fact that she has rejected him and threatened to slit his throat if he continues on his dark path.
- Mind Rape: Which happened to Bostich when an evil newly ascended cosmic power named SEELENQUELL took over his mind and the minds of everyone on Arkon and forced Arkon into a direct war with Terra.
- Break the Haughty
- Heel–Face Turn (see the entry in the main Perry Rhodan article), but oddly enough not due to Love Redeems.
- The Unfettered: both as the Villain Protagonist and later as the elected President of the New Galacticum
- Lonely at the Top
- Married to the Job: He's still single.
Monkey (actual name!), a human from a high-gravity world, a former Terran secret agent and trained assassin, leader of the New United Stars Organisation.
- Sinister Shades
- The Stoic
- Implacable Man and more or less Immune to Bullets
- The Big Guy (Class 1)
- Dirty Business
- I Did What I Had to Do
- The Unfettered
Mondra Diamond (really Agalija Teekate), born 4843 A.D. on Horrikos, Rhodan's latest female companion, originally a circus artist
- Circus Brat
- Charles Atlas Superpower
- gave birth to a "star child" that ascended
- Action Girl
IT, the main higher entity of the series. IT rules the local group of galaxies and gave Rhodan and the others their immortality. Unlike other beings of its level, IT usually doesn't command the peoples in these galaxies (but tends to secretly nudge them in the "correct" direction).
ESTARTU shares a common origin with IT and refers to IT as her brother.
Mirona Thetin, born ca 25,000 B.C. on Tamanium, was a lemurian scientist and Factor I of the Masters of the Island.