Tropes concerning US Army personnel, including those facilitating the Program, announcement fluff characters, and world figures.
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Introduced in Program Version 1
Brigadier-General David Adams
David Adams
- ""Hello again, my patriots!"
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Moreso in V1, but Adams is a wisecracking and easily distracted man who frequently digresses from and interrupts his own announcements with whatever random thought crosses his mind. He's also the inventor of the Program and there is no indication that his rank was earned by fluke or nepotism. Notably, he has the ear of The General himself and is entrusted with both salvaging the disaster of Program V3 and prior to that, handling the media and national morale crisis following America's defeats in South America.
- Characterization Marches On: Although Adams has always been an oddball, he was particularly zany during his debut version. In later appearances, his antics are toned down with more of a balance between his professional side and his goofy behaviour, which is very apparent in announcement narrative from his POV.
- Depending on the Writer: As SOTF announcer characters go, Adams is a notable aversion as he has been written by the same person in a far greater proportion than most in order to ensure his rather unique voice remains consistent. This is very uncommon for staff characters.
- Hurricane of Puns: Both his announcements and his evaluations are absolutely replete with wordplay.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Whenever Adams drops the goofy fun persona, it's to impress in no uncertain terms that he can and will order students killed if they break the game's rules.
- "Wait. Hold on. Can't call you that. You're British."
President/General Marius Clark, AKA The General
- All There in the Manual: The General's full name is only supplied in supporting timeline information.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": In time, General Clark began to be referred to only as The General, and his title is ubiquitous in the roleplay.
- Greater-Scope Villain: The setting's bleakness owes much to his influence over the USA. However, he is completely outside the context of the student characters of the game.
- First-Name Basis: He calls his subordinate officers by their first names, with even odds this is to show he knows who all his personnel are, or to demonstrate the gap in rank between them.
- Legacy Character: He is the fourth man to hold the office of President after the title of General supplanted it
- Permanent Elected Official: As of Program V3, he's in the middle of his seventh term as General/President.
- President Evil: President of a totalitarian and warlike regime that rubberstamped The Program's death game.
Introduced in Program Version 2
US Military
Robin Charrell
- Evil Genius: Charrell and his team conceptualised and then built the The Program universe's explosive collars, explicitly a means of more tightly controlling the death game by enabling the students to be killed at the flick of a switch.
- Face of a Thug: Described as looking 'like he'd be more at home putting someone's eye out with a screwdriver than crafting with it', but is a quiet man who is a stickler for rules and regulations.
- The Engineer: Most of Charrell's appearances involve him running tests on the collar technology, and he's very fixed on diagnostics and ensuring everything is operational.
Lieutenant Donny Parr
- A Day in the Limelight: Parr gets one announcement's worth of POV narration, mostly bemoaning that he isn't getting more praise for his part in the creation of the collars.
- Dude, Where's My Respect?: Parr believes he came up with fifty percent of the concept of the collars and a third of the design, and he's pretty bitter that Charrell was put in charge over him and seems favoured by Adams.
Introduced in Program Version 3 Prologue
The Argentinians
In general
- La Résistance: They are this to the American invasion force.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Considering their uprising accelerates into almost pushing the US out of the entirety of South America, they pulled off something spectacular.
- Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: The US are fond of referring to them as 'dissidents', and they mostly use guerrilla tactics due to being vastly outnumbered.
Graciela, AKA Bear
- Child Soldier: She's been fighting the US since she was twelve.
- Code Name: Necessitated to keep American spies and informers off her trail.
- Hero of Another Story: Features only in Prelude Two, but has been actively resisting the American occupation for fifteen years, and presumably participates in the operation against them which takes place shortly afterwards.
Fernando
Manuel
- The Voice: He's only heard over the radio, since he's the group's lookout.
Rogue US Soldiers
Sergeant Janice Marshall AKA Shaman
- My Country Tis of Thee That I Sting: Marshall expressly states that she's working against America's regime because she thinks that the US should be better than it is.
- The Mole: She is this for the Argentinians, feeding them information on the Americans' movements and deployments.
Major Groves
- Cavalry Betrayal: He and his reinforcements show up to relieve Colonel Vane's forces, then immediately turn on them.
- Highly-Conspicuous Uniform: Groves takes off his uniform jacket to reveal a bright blue shirt after shooting Vane. Justified, however, since he and his soldiers are betraying their own army and presumably need to know who to shoot.
- Majorly Awesome: Groves has a small role in the story, but it takes some serious guts to turn on the world's foremost military superpower, much less by waltzing right into a commander's tent and singlehandedly gunning down everyone inside.
US Military
Major General Daniel Frye
- General Failure: Frye spectacularly fails in his responsibilities as military governor of Brazil, more focused on having a good time than monitoring the USA's interests. In peacetime, he gets away with it, in wartime, his chronic delegation gets him court martialled.
Colonel Michael Vane
- A Death in the Limelight: Vane is Prelude One's POV character and he doesn't make it out of his one and only scene.
Crowther
- Communications Officer: Crowther is Vane's radio man, relaying information from the active engagements.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: He is unceremoniously shot in the head to spark off Major Groves' betrayal.
The British
In general
- Big Damn Heroes: They come charging in midway through the Prologue to rescue as many surviving students as possible.
- Unwanted Rescue: Several students refuse to accept the British soldiers' help or outright attack them, and they don't really spend much time trying to convince the reluctant.
Introduced in Program Version 3
