Index: Equus Prime | The PHL and UNAC | Imperial Equus | People and Ponies on Earth
Human Liberation Front
Verity Carter
Verity Carter
The daughter of the HLF's founder Michael Carter, who was mysteriously transformed into a pony without losing her personality to Conversion.
- Anti-Hero: She used to be an operative for the HLF, so it comes with the territory.
- The Atoner: By the time of Light Despondent and the main story, Verity has cemented her Heel–Face Turn, to the point of reforming the Harriet Thomas Foundation. There is also the implication that her relationship with Dearheart and custody of Aegis' children, creating a surrogate pony family, is her means of atonement for some very bad things she did while in the HLF.
- Closet Geek: Has a love of comic books which stems in no small part from her mother being a comic book artist. Verity introduces herself thusly to Cadance in Chapter Nineteen ("When The Dust Settles") of the main story, paraphrasing the "we live in a society" meme.
- Color Me Black: She was a member of the HLF, who are so violently anti-pony that they refuse to believe there actually are good ponies out there who really do want to help humans. Her transformation into a pony forced her to gain some perspective on this.
- Defector from Decadence
- Expy: In-universe, even. According to Verity's adoptive mother Jazmin, a renowned comic-book artist, the character of Verity Carlo from an IDW comic-book run on Transformers was named after her by artist Simon Furman.
- Makes for an interesting case in her interactions with Dearheart. In looks, Verity and Dearheart could be said to be physically modeled as pony versions of Luz Noceda and Amity Blight, respectively. In personality, their interactions are switched around a little.
- Foil: To Viktor Kraber. Both are former HLF members, known for being especially fanatical, who get taken in by the PHL; both undergo a Heel–Face Turn, partially through finding love with a pony. Where Verity differs from Kraber lies in her commitment to turning away from the path of violence, and her regret over her hate crimes is not limited solely to PHL members and civilians. As such, when Verity reappears in the main story, she's left the custody of the PHL, who seem grudgingly tolerant of her independence; by contrast, the PHL keep as tight a leash they can on Kraber, a precarious condition which Yael Ze'ev and Aegis may be the only ones to keep in check.
- Just to underline the point, Light Despondent sees Kraber developing an attachment to Aegis and his children, with hints sprinkled of them forming a surrogate family; the main story subverts this, as it shows the PHL didn't so easily forgive Kraber for his murder spree, Aegis went down with Kraber for not bringing him in upon finding out who he really was, and Aegis's children were left parentless after his placement alongside Kraber on a punitive squad. In effect, Amber and Rivet are adopted by Verity instead, together with Dearheart.
- Gayngst: Back in high school, she had a girlfriend named Astrid who broke up with her, calling their relationship "wrong". This is just one of the many, many bits of baggage hanging off of her.
- Going Native: As best demonstrated, cheekily, by her and Dearheart's hip-bump. It isn't full-on Starting a New Life, because Verity holds on firmly to her human heritage and owns up to her actions with the HLF, but she appears to be comfortably settling in as a pony.
- Happily Adopted: Verity was the result of an unplanned pregnancy and her birth mother put her up for adoption. She went on to live a happy life with the Carter family... until things went down the drain.
- Heel–Face Turn
- It's Personal: Verity's mother, Jazmin, suffered from the early symptoms of Alzheimer's and took the ponification serum at a Boston hospital to cure it. Not only did Jazmin undergo the personality changes that come with being a Newfoal, but she was also Transgender, and was turned into a stallion by the potion, and left the family shortly after getting turned, causing Verity and her father Mike to join the HLF.
- Karmic Transformation: Her transformation into a pony and the resulting hunt the HLF has put out for her. The "karmic" part also turns out to be quite literal, as her transformation was triggered by falling into a batch of poison-joke in a PHL greenhouse.
- Love Redeems: By the time of the main story, Verity is engaged in a two-way example of this, having found love in Dearheart, a former pony member of the PER.
- Metamorphosis: Per Friendship is Magic, getting afflicted by poison-joke should not have resulted in permanent effects; however, because the experimental batch in a PHL greenhouse which Verity fell afoul of was a mutated strain, she's stuck like this, even if The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body does not seem to be overly in effect and she's retained her human personality.
- Verity later tells Princess Cadance that she believes it is possible to reverse her transformation, which she personally wouldn't mind, but she claims that she chooses to stay this way so as to facilitate her relationship with Dearheart. Underneath those words, it is implied that Verity has come to accept living out her life as a pony, raising a pony family. The revelation of her cutie mark, shaped like a Transformers logo, further hints at it.
- Parental Substitute: Once the main story rolls around, she's become this to Amber Maple and Rivet, due to Aegis' placement on Kraber's penal squad.
- Phlebotinum Rebel: She is the only human-turned-pony in existence that has managed to still retain her original personality and free will. This is because she is not actually a Newfoal.
- Spicy Latina: Downplayed Trope. She's of Hispanic descent thanks to her biological family, but she's not exactly a sexual person and any fanservice of her is nonexistent - unless you count her little hip-bump with Dearheart, that is, which definitely exhibits some trappings of this trope. Even if ironically, it comes after she's no longer got a human body. Regardless, she's definitely tough, brash and confrontational.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: "Buds" would be stretching it, but she and Viktor Kraber do not get along, especially after she gets ponified.
- You Killed My Father: In the figurative sense, yet nonetheless, Verity's key grudge against the Solar Empire is rooted in her mother voluntarily converting in a desperate bid to stave off Alzheimer's - which, to add insult to injury, reverted the Transgender Jazmin back to a male body in the process.
Kagan Burakgazi
Kagan Burakgazi
A Turkish doctor and former member of HLF.
- Badass Normal: Has survived the whole war with a mixture of resourcefulness, smarts and bravery.
- Connected All Along: With his brother Dr. Grimnebulin, known to him as Mehmet.
- Birds of a Feather: He and Kraber are both fans of China Mieville, and they met by staging "lone-wolf" bombing of Conversion Bureau in Istanbul... at the same time. They're also both doctors of the morally ambiguous variety.
- Defector from Decadence: Left the HLF after The Great Purge, but what exactly he's been up to since then is unknown.
- The Ghost: He's only been mentioned in passing in the side stories.
- Take Our Word for It: During his time in the HLF, he was apparently every bit as ruthless as Kraber and killed as many people and ponies as he did.
Civilians
North America - Alaska
Hope Sullivan
Hope Sullivan
A Newfoal whose personality and free will are still intact.
- Emergency Transformation: She was mere weeks away from dying of cancer until she took the serum. Now, she wishes she hadn't.
- Gosh Dang It to Heck!: An Enforced Trope. Even thinking swear words can be like pulling teeth for her at times.
- It Can Think: She's the last of the "Slow Newfoals", pre-war newfoals who were slowly brainwashed overtime, rather than instantly like the ones created during the war. She still has most of her personality and independent thought, but periodically she thinks in ponyisms, childish swear word substitutes, and occasionally forgets her own name.
- Last of Her Kind: The last pre-war Newfoal to still have her identity and free will. Though her story is a Race Against the Clock to gain a Cutie Mark before the brainwashing finally kicks in.
- Loss of Identity: Unlike wartime Newfoals, her personality's dissolution comes at a slow burn. She's remained mostly herself for five years, but goes through extended periods of forgetfulness and a growing fondness for Equestria, all of which frightens her.
- Touched by Vorlons: She was fairly close to succumbing to her brainwashing when the surviving Reindeer found her. They did something to her to delay the brainwashing, but only long enough so she can find her purpose and secure her free will on her own.
North America - New York
Hanne Adler
Hanne Adler
An acclaimed war photographer, responsible for some of the most iconic shots of the war, and an old friend of Ana's.
- Amicable Exes: Had a relationship once with Ana, and by the present day the two are still steadfast friends.
- Audience Surrogate: Fills this role for the first half of Chapter Fourteen ("Silent Night").
- Famed In-Story: Won the Pulitzer Prize of 2020
- Germanic Depressives: Downplayed Trope. She's German, but this has little to do with why by this point in the war, she's not particularly happy with how things are going. Although losing her country certainly didn't help.
- Going for the Big Scoop: Hanne seeks to record as many events as she can before the Barrier arrives. 'Silent Night' shows why she does it with her words on her award-winning photograph, with her explaining why she regards her work as crucial to humanity's legacy.
- Icy Blue Eyes: Her piercing blue eyes is consistently described.
- Innocently Insensitive: She enthusiastically points out to Ana what an achievement it was for her to shoot the Archmage. Ana quickly tells her to cool it, having been strongly discomforted by her actions.
- Intrepid Reporter: It's basically her job.
- Meaningful Name: 'Adler' means 'eagle' in German, and she works as a photographer. In other words, Hanne is eagle-eyed.
- Serious Business: She really takes her job seriously, to the point that Dieter self-describes his job as to rein her in. This is played for drama when she interviews Luna, and she melancholically describes it as a way to preserve humanity's legacy.
South America - Rio de Janeiro
Isaac Acevedo
Isaac Acevedo
The protagonist of Starvation, a young Brazilian man who works as a guard for Crowe Labs in Rio de Janeiro.
- Icy Blue Eyes: Still retains these from his original incarnation.
- Intergenerational Friendship: With Button Mash and Dr. Grimnebulin.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Although he did what he had to do to survive, he feels sick over the fact that he had to resort to eating a Newfoal at one point to stave off his hunger.
- No Party Like a Donner Party: His hunger drove him to eat a dead Newfoal which had tried to kill him.
- Race Lift: While Acevedo in the original Spectrum was fully Caucasian, in the reboot he is half-black/half-white.
