History Characters / Sunrider

* TomatoInTheMirror: [[spoiler:She's one of the Prototypes, designated Prototype [=C8=]]], a realization she does not take well.

* YouAreNumber6: [[spoiler:[[HiveQueen Alpha]] refers to her as Prototype C8 during their chat in the mind stream]].

* RogueDrone: By ''Sunrider 4'', Lynn has deliberately cut herself off from the Prototypes' HiveMind. She saw the madness that was starting to take hold of the Mindstream after [[spoiler:Chigara's death]] and wanted no part of it, so she invented a Q-Jammer headband which isolates her from the Mindstream. This resulted in her developing a proper sense of self over the intervening years.
* SquishyWizard: The Dominator starts with no armor and the least health of your initial Ryders in ''Sunrider 4''. It makes up for its frailty by being able to cripple enemies with StatusEffects, provide area-of-effect damage or healing, and protect allies from laser weapons with its shield generators.
* TragicVillain: In ''Sunrider Academy'' she is a constant thorn in Kayto's side and a huge threat to his relationship with Chigara but given how her parents treated her a degree of resentment and misanthropy is understandable.

* RightForTheWrongReasons: [[spoiler:She turns out to right about Chigara's being a Prototype agent meant to manipulate Kayto's heart, but it wasn't out of malign intent like she thought; Chigara [[ManchurianAgent didn't know]] what she was, truly did fall for Kayto and her eventual betrayal was [[DemonicPossession completely unwilling]]. The same applies to thinking Chigara stole Kayto's heart out from under her; while that did happen, it was more sheer luck in timing than anything else with coming in right after Ava [[BreakHisHeartToSaveHim rejected Kayto's desperate, stress-induced confession to her]]]].

* HeroWithBadPublicity: Became this after ''Liberation Day'', [[spoiler:due to it getting via Fontana out that the (albeit [[DemonicPossession wholly unwilling]]) triggerman for the Liberation Day Massacre was the girl Kayto was banging - and the Solar Alliance isn't a big fan of him either anymore, given Admiral Gray and much of their senior leadership were among the casualties. [[MaliciousSlander Not that Fontana was content to stop there]], as he went on to paint Kayto as guilty of every war-crime imaginable; by the time of ''The Captain's Return'', Kayto's been disowned by even his own homeworld of Cera, who's new Prime Minister Miirage Foster rubbing salt in the wound by throwing her personal support behind Fontana and PACT - the very people he spent the first three games trying to free it from]].

** [[SubvertedTrope Granted, she has her own quirks]], mainly bothering everyone by being a hardass ObstructiveBureaucrat.
* PleaseDontLeaveMe: In her ''Sunrider 4'' ending, [[spoiler:a somewhat buzzed Ava admits that she missed Kayto during the six years they were apart and asks him never to leave her side again. He promises her that he won't, leading her to pass out with a contented smile]].
* PragmaticHero: A downplayed example. While Ava is focused on reclaiming Cera from PACT and advocates missions that will further the war effort over general heroics like freeing slaves and busting pirates, she respects Kayto's decisions and will go along with whatever mission he chooses without complaint.

%%* SugarAndIcePersonality

* UnprovokedPervertPayback: Subverted in her ending of ''Sunrider 4'', when Kayto accidentally walks in on her while she's in a nightgown. Kayto clearly expects her to yell at him or make him fill out sexual harassment paperwork, but to his surprise, she lets it slide.

* GenkiGirl: She's the most energetic Ryder pilot in your team, a self-styled "hero of justice" prone to spouting off lines like "I'ma firin' mah lazors!" in the middle of combat, and a constant annoyance to Ava because of her lack of discipline and her attempts to gamble with the crew during her downtime.

* HeroWithBadPublicity: Became this after ''Liberation Day'', [[spoiler:due to it getting via Fontana out that the (albeit [[DemonicPossession wholly unwilling) triggerman for the Liberation Day Massacre was the girl Kayto was banging - and the Solar Alliance isn't a big fan of him either anymore, given Admiral Gray and much of their senior leadership were among the casualties. [[MaliciousSlander Not that Fontana was content to stop there]], as he went on to paint Kayto as guilty of every war-crime imaginable; by the time of ''The Captain's Return'', Kayto's been disowned by even his own homeworld of Cera, who's new Prime Minister Miirage Foster rubbing salt in the wound by throwing her personal support behind Fontana and PACT - the very people he spent the first three games trying to free it from]].

* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler:At the end of ''Liberation Day'', he [[RammingAlwaysWorks rams the Sunrider]] into an enemy superweapon to save his homeworld. He survives, if only by sheer luck of Lynn's presence and Asana's return]].

* BeatThemAtTheirOwnGame: Comes across as this, as she commands an upgraded variant of Kayto's Sunrider in the fourth game. [[spoiler:In the endgame, this gets inverted when Kayto flips the tables on her and does [[{Irony} the very same thing Kuushana herself made a name for herself doing to others]]; pulling off a miraculous win against a superior fighting force]].

* BeatThemAtTheirOwnGame: Comes across as this, as she commands an upgraded variant of Kayto's Sunrider in the fourth game. [[spoiler:In the endgame, this gets inverted when Kayto flips the tables on her and does [[((Irony} the very same thing Kuushana herself made a name for herself doing to others]]; pulling off a miraculous win against a superior fighting force]].

* DavidVsGoliath: If Fontana's talk is any indication, she's made a career out of defeating New Empire fleets using forces a fraction of their size. In ''Sunrider 4'', she is instead the Goliath to Kayto's David: her Wolf Squadron has better Ryders, she has a better flagship, she has a vast fleet to draw upon versus Kayto's one ship, and she's at least as good of a strategist as him if not better.

* FrontlineGeneral: The High Admiral of the PACT Navy has no qualms about jumping into a Ryder's cockpit and taking the fight directly to the enemy at the head of her personal Wolf Brigade squadron.

* MirrorBoss: She fights with a small squad of elite ryders supported by a powerful ship, making her tactics and units very similar to your own.

* WorthyOpponent: She grows to respect Kayto over the course of ''Sunrider 4''. By the climax of the Battle of the World Fountain, she challenges Kayto to prove which of them is the greater captain and which has the superior ship. When Kayto pulls off his spectacular victory and gets away Scott free, Kuushana is clearly impressed, though she vows that PACT will get him one day.

* EveryoneHasStandards: She really disliked how Alice did things, including the Sack of New Eden that devastated the Imperial elites and killed the first Arcadius. Upon her Rousing Speech, she declares to have the People's Alliance reformed back into LaResistance.

* AFatherToHisMen: Do ''not'' threaten the people under Kayto's command. It will not end well for you. However, this very trait gets [[DeconstructedTrope deconstructed]] in that it [[spoiler:prevents him from accepting Chigara is a Protoype despite mounting evidence. In ''[RE]turn'' it takes his own future self literally beating some sense into him before he wises up - while in ''The Captain's Return'' his six years of stewing in bitterness takes getting the band back together, getting [[TheReasonYouSuck dressed down by]] Fontana, Lynn and Claude, and lastly a confrontation with the insane Omega Prototype and her Chigara offshoot that nearly gets Asaga killed before he finally accepts there's a difference between stubbornness and resolve]].

* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: [[spoiler:While Kayto and Sola were living together on Tydaria, Kayto--who had become a surly alcoholic by that point--once lashed out at Sola in a drunken rage. He came to his senses once he realized she was crying and immediately tried to apologize, but the damage was already done; Sola fled the house and never came back, leaving him to wallow in his misery.]]

* RagsToRoyalty: Kayto starts out as a normal guy from a middle-class background, but in ''Sunrider 4'' he is made an honorary count of Ryuvia.

* SurvivorGuilt: Though Kayto does a good job of hiding it, he feels immense guilt for abandoning Cera to PACT at the start of the story (even though he knows there was nothing his one ship could do to stop the [[MileLongShip Legion]]) and is haunted by the ghost of his sister Maray, who was in Cera's capital when the Legion nuked it from orbit. ''Sunrider 4'' then adds his surviving the Liberation Day Massacre and the destruction of the Sunrider to the list.
* TookALevelInJerkass: In ''[RE]turn'', where his past self refuses to believe the increasingly obvious truth of [[spoiler:Chigara]] being a spy and antagonizes any crew members who confront him about it, instead accusing [[SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong future Kayto]] of being the [[spoiler:Prototype]] spy. ''The Captain's Return'' has him also dip into moments of this, the game itself starting with Kayto as a bitter alcoholic miner on a backwater world who feels everyone has abandoned him.

* AlwaysSaveTheGirl: He can adopt this attitude near the end of ''Mask Of Arcadius'' by refusing to let Ava sacrifice herself to take down the Legion, outright declaring that he doesn't care if he dooms humanity, he will ''not'' lose her. [[spoiler:His eventual failure to save Chigara in ''Liberation Day'' severely worsens this need and, well into ''The Captain's Return'', he outright descends into rabid desperation by attempting a nanite-infusion that would kill him in order to save his crew from Crow Harbor]].
* ArchEnemy: He comes to see the [[MileLongShip Legion]] as this during ''Mask Of Arcadius'', because it has taken so much from him over the course of the game: his home, his sister, the lives of his crew, his potential victories... By the end of the game he's determined to sink that ship, no matter the cost. Come ''Liberation Day'' and he comes to see Alice as this for how she masterminded the war that devastated his homeworld - [[spoiler: and after her death, he then sees Fontana as one after he kills Chigara. In ''The Captain's Return'', he also comes to see Kuushana as this for constantly hounding him and her commanding an upgraded version of the Sunrider]].

* TheAtoner: ''The Captain's Return'' is about this trope, combined with HesBack. Apart from stopping [[spoiler:Crow Harbor]], the whole game is about him getting his team back together, cleaning up the mess he left behind following [[spoiler:the Liberation Day Massacre]], and slowly pulling him out of his drunken stupor and RevengeBeforeReason that have consumed him.

* TheCaptain: Captains the Sunrider, and is in charge of commanding all attached forces and the [[WaveMotionGun Vanguard Cannon]]. Later on, he commands the Maray.

* CosmicPlaything: He starts to feel this way in ''The Captain's Return'' after everything he's been through, and some scenes imply he started feeling this way as early-on as ''Mask of Arcadius''. [[spoiler:It only gets worse when he finds out he ''literally was'' a plaything at the hands of Claude, who is a PhysicalGod that took an interest in him - and who made a secret alliance with the Prototypes, actively manipulating events on the Sunrider to push him and Chigara into their ill-fated relationship at the Alpha Prototype's behest. A severe hallucinatory episode near the endgame sees him openly vent about this, angry and afraid at the idea that he has no real agency of his own and any choices he makes will inevitably lead to the same end. By the end of the fourth game, he seems to make an effort at coming to terms with this after accepting that he can't live the rest of his life always fearing what may or may not happen]].

* HeWhoFightsMonsters: Can dip into this. Depending on player choices, he can make a series of moral compromises, prioritizing military targets over civilian lives. Most notably shown in ''[RE]turn'', where [[spoiler:his past self becomes a {{Jerkass}} who acts as if he’s possessed by the Prototypes]] and several characters [[WhatTheHellHero call him out on it]]. Ava outright calls him insane.
* TheHero: The captain of the Sunrider and leader of LaResistance.

* IHatePastMe: In ''[RE]turn'', a temporally-displaced Kayto quickly grows exasperated with how his past self refuses to even consider the possibility that [[spoiler:Chigara is a Prototype spy]], and apologizes to Ava for his past bullheadedness.[[spoiler:His mainstream self likewise grows into this mindset during ''The Captain's Return'', apologizing to his crew over where his need for validation led them all]].

* EyeScream: If she goes through with the below-mentioned HeroicSacrifice, she’ll lose her right eye when a console blows up in her face.
* EyepatchOfPower: She’ll receive a bionic eye resembling an eyepatch to replace the one she lost if she went through with her HeroicSacrifice.

* AmbiguousSituation: [[spoiler:While its strongly implied that Chigara chose for herself to love Kayto, her interactions in the Prototype midstream imply her initial attraction was a suggestion they implanted in her and it's not made fully clear how much of her feelings were her own or not]].
* CameBackWrong: Played with; [[spoiler:Her and Alice's wills [[FusionDance blending together]] in the Prototype hive-mind created an insane mutant abomination in the form of the Omega Prototype and an obsessed stalker in the form of the Widow Ryder's pilot. Whether or not one or both are actually an extension of Chigara or just something inheriting the remnants of her memories isn't clear, but either way they act as a far cry from how Chigara wished to be or be remembered]].

* DemonicPossession: [[spoiler:She's taken over by Arcadius/Alice during the Liberation Day ceremony, causing her to massacre the assembled delegates.]]

* DyingAsYourself: [[spoiler:Thanks to Kayto's efforts, she dies free of Alice's control. Unfortunately, it's implied her mind - or at the very least her memories - were absorbed into Alice and the Prototype's mindstream, either driving them insane or causing DeathOfPersonality for both as what was left became the deranged Omega]].

* EvenEvilHasStandards: He's not too blind over his obedience to Arcadius. Knowing the true Arcadius, he is disheartened over PACT's path of bloodshed and the current Arcadius's SanitySlippage. When Arcadius goes too far, he exposes the one behind the mask and seizes control PACT. Even after Kayto earns his ''very'' personal enmity after ''Liberation Day'', he still maintains some decorum to him and his crew. [[spoiler:In ''The Captain's Return'', he not only accepts Kayto's surrender but agrees to let Kayto's crew go free in return, willing to let them off the hook as mere accessories to Kayto's actions so long as he gets the man himself locked up]].

* CynicismCatalyst: The events of ''Liberation Day'' made him far more distrustful and vengeful of others. [[spoiler:He lost all faith in the Alliance's trustworthiness after a dying Admiral Gray ordered Cera's destruction in a [[TakingYouWithMe last act of spite]] towards PACT, convincing him the only road to peace was to drive the Alliance out of the Neutral Rim. He also came to resent Kayto for his blind faith in Chigara allowing Alice the means to cause the Liberation Day Massacre - especially when Kayto seemingly put more blame on Fontana simply for retaliating - while Chigara's actions seemed to reaffirm his belief that no Prototype could truly be trusted and that they all needed to be eradicated]].

* DragonAscendant: By ''Sunrider 4'' he's become the unquestioned dictator of a unified PACT and is actively competing with [[spoiler:Crow Harbor]] for the position of BigBad.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: He's not too blind over his obedience to Arcadius. Knowing the true Arcadius, he is disheartened over PACT's path of bloodshed and the current Arcadius's SanitySlippage. When Arcadius goes too far, he exposes the one behind the mask and seizes control PACT.

* ExcuseMeWhileIMultitask: She demonstrates her tactical chops at the climax of ''Sunrider 4'' by directing both the macro-level battle against [[spoiler:the Prototypes]] and the micro-level battle against the Maray while simultaneously duking it out with Kayto's Ryders in her own machine.

** In ''Mask of Arcadius'', [[spoiler:he abandons a sure victory at Ongess when Admiral Gray threatens to detonate the volatile fuel stores mined from the planet, unwilling to sacrifice the countless lives - civilian and combatant alike - that would be caught in the destruction. Later on, in order to save the PACT fleet from being destroyed as collateral damage in Alice/Arcadius's madness, Fontana outright usurps them by publicly unmasking them as a fake]].

* CynicismCatalyst: The events of ''Liberation Day'' made him far more distrustful and vengeful of others. [[spoiler:He lost all faith in the Alliance's trustworthiness after a dying Admiral Gray ordered Cera's destruction in a [[TakingYouWithMe last act of spite]] towards PACT, convincing him only road to peace was to drive the Alliance out of the Neutral Rim. He also came to resent Kayto for his blind faith in Chigara allowing Alice the means to cause the Liberation Day Massacre - especially when Kayto seemingly put more blame on Fontana simply for retaliating - while Chigara's actions seemed to reaffirm his belief that no Prototype could truly be trusted and that they all needed to be eradicated]].

** In ''Liberation Day'', he's quite willing to work with long-time enemies like Admiral Gray and Captain Shields for the greater good [[spoiler:and eliminate the insane Alice to reform PACT. When the Liberation Day Massacre happens, he takes no joy at his enemy's leadership being butchered and straight-up shoots Chigara (who'd orchestrated it via [[DemonicPossession possession by Alice) in retaliation for what she's done]].

* PetTheDog: He's introduced saving Asaga from the unwanted advances of the [[SmugSnake loathsome]] Veniczar Cullen (and insulting him for good measure), indicating right away his noble qualities.

* LoveTriangle: During Liberation Day, she and Asaga both end up falling for Kayto, but Kayto only has eyes for Chigara. This places strain on both the two girls' friendship - [[LoveMakesYouCrazy and Asaga's sanity]].

* TheLostLenore: [[spoiler:Becomes this for Kayto in ''The Captain's Return'', with him left haunted by his failure to save her from either the Prototype's body-hijacking or from Fontana's fatal bullet. To a lesser degree, it's also implied she became this for Asaga in both the fourth game and ''[RE]turn'', having reconciled that Prototype or not she was still Asana's friend and didn't deserve what happened to her]].
* LoveTriangle: During Liberation Day, she and Asaga both end up falling for Kayto, but Kayto only has eyes for Chigara. This places strain on both the two girls' friendship and Asaga's sanity.

* ManchurianAgent: [[spoiler:She’s an unwitting Prototype spy. And unlike most Manchurian Agents, Chigara doesn’t require a code phrase to be activated since the other Prototypes can take control of her at any time through their shared HiveMind - nor does she need to approve of them, as her genuine opposition to them let her break free of them in the few moments before Fontana killed her]].

* TheLostLenore: [[spoiler:Becomes this for Kayto in ''The Captain's Return'', with him left haunted by his failure to save her from either the Prototype's body-hijacking or from Fontana's fatal bullet. To a lesser degree, it's also implied she became this for Asaga in both the fourth game and ''[[RE]]turn'', having reconciled that Prototype or not she was still Asana's friend and didn't deserve what happened to her]].

* DyingAsYourself: [[spoiler:Thanks to Kayto's efforts, she dies free of Alice's control.]]

* HoneyTrap: [[spoiler:The Prototypes want Chigara and Shields to fall in love so that they can maneuver him into a position of power and manipulate him through her. Chigara herself knows nothing of this.]]
* IJustWantToBeNormal: A downplayed example. Chigara is both a skilled Ryder pilot and a brilliant scientist whose inventions could be worth a fortune if she sold them, but all she really wants is to open a bakery and raise a family. [[spoiler:This can likewise be inferred a big part of why she didn't believe herself to be a Prototype despite the mounting evidence - and what makes her eventual death all the more tragic]].

* LivingEmotionalCrutch: She becomes this for Kayto toward the end of ''Mask of Arcadius'', giving him the emotional support he needs to keep going after the Legion's latest attack and Ava's rejection brings him to the brink of despair.
* TheLostLenore: [[spoiler:Becomes this for Kayto in ''The Captain's Return'', with him left haunted by his failure to save her from either the Prototype's body-hijacking or from Fontana's fatal bullet]].

* ManchurianAgent: [[spoiler:She’s an unwitting Prototype spy. And unlike most Manchurian Agents, Chigara doesn’t require a code phrase to be activated since the other Prototypes can take control of her at any time through their shared HiveMind.]]
* TheMole: Ava and Asaga begin to suspect that Chigara is this during ''Liberation Day'', given her striking resemblance to the Prototypes and the fact that PACT has been able to anticipate the Sunrider's every move for much of the story. [[spoiler:Played straight in that she ''was'' planted by the Prototypes, but also subverted as she wasn't feeding them information on the Sunrider's movements: Claude was.]]

* TomatoInTheMirror: [[spoiler:She's one of the Prototypes, designated Prototype [=C8=]]]], a realization she does not take well.

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: [[spoiler:Ava harshly rejecting Kayto's love confession caused the heartbreak that made him accept Chigara's affections - with him becoming so reliant on her emotional validation that he refused to accept she could be a Prototype until she was [[DemonicPossession taken over by Alice]] to cause the Liberation Day Massacre. Ava herself seems to recognize this by the end of ''Liberation Day'' and, combined with her subsequent stint as Cera's Prime Minister, it seemingly helped her realize that her brusque approach and limiting ties could hurt far more than it helped]].

* AnArmAndALeg: If she goes through with the below-mentioned HeroicSacrifice, her right arm gets blown off when a console explodes next to her. The Sunrider's medical suite is able to regenerate her arm by Liberation Day, but she'll wear a glove until the new arm's skin tone matches the rest of her body.

* EleventhHourSuperPower: [[spoiler: Sola activates a greater Awakening at the end of ''Sunrider 4'', replacing her slow movement with the map-spanning Warp ability.]]

* LoveConfession: [[spoiler:She gives one to Kayto in her ending of ''Sunrider 4'', giving him a surprise kiss and admitting that she fell in love with him while they were living together on Tydaria. He reciprocates her feelings and vows never to make her cry again.]]

* MagicalEye: When tapping her Ryuvian Bloodline's innate abilities, Sola's right eye begins glowing unnaturally, the iris turning a vibrant light blue/blue-green and the pupil turning silver-white.

* MilesToGoBeforeISleep: Being from thousands of years in the past, she's worried her presence could damage or destroy the timeline. She's resolved to die killing Crow Harbor, the other temporal anomaly, and protect the timeline.

* NotSoOmniscientAfterAll: [[spoiler:In ''The Captain's Return'', she reveals her knowledge of the future is limited to knowing the "what-ifs" and "maybes" - while she's aware of everything that ''can' happen, she doesn't know which possibility will become reality until it's actually happening; something that, in her epilogue, she reinforces as the thing that [[ItAmusedMe keeps her entertained]] and invested in the present. This is further evidenced in the epilogue of ''Liberation Day'', where she breaks off her alliance with the Prototypes because she disapproved of the Liberation Day Massacre; had she known for a fact what would come out of their partnership, she likely would have split before it ever happened.]].

* BitchInSheepsClothing: While she’s not exactly all that nice, she does have [[PetTheDog some moments of kindness]], like when she [[ShipperOnDeck helps Chigara hook up with Kayto]]. [[spoiler:It later turns out that she’s a spy, and all her moments of kindness [[BaitTheDog were to further her goals]].]]

* ShipperWithAnAgenda: Claude is unusually supportive of the budding relationship between Kayto and Chigara, despite lusting after Kayto herself, and helps push the two of them together over the course of the first game. [[spoiler:This is because Chigara is a Prototype spy sent to seduce Kayto, and Claude, their collaborator, is making sure that it happens.]]

* TimeMaster: [[spoiler:Thanks to possessing a time machine, Claude is able to: travel through time; teleport at will; speed up or slow down the flow of time, or stop it altogether; [[MesACrowd create]] ''thousands'' [[MesACrowd of duplicates of herself]]; create pocket dimensions within subspace; create and destroy alternate timelines and universes; and even [[ColonyDrop open rifts in space-time through which she can summon meteors]]. The only thing limiting her is that drawing too heavily on her powers can create reality-destroying paradoxes, and even these can be undone as shown in the secret ending.]]

* WellIntentionedExtremist: [[spoiler:For all her [[ItAmusedMe antics]], it’s implied that she’s working with the Prototypes to deal with the [[ParadoxPerson living paradox]] that is [[GreaterScopeVillain Crow Harbor]].]]