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Characters / Borderlands: Dahl

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Spoilers Off for games prior to Borderlands 3 as well as for spoiler characters that are marked as such. Proceed with caution. You Have Been Warned.


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"Dahl has been outfitting the defenders of freedom for over a century, and isn't about to stop anytime soon. We've built our company on the foundation that dead customers can't be repeat customers — keeping you alive is in our best interest! We also know that those of you doing the government's secret dirty work have enough to contend with and don't need to fight your weapon, too. That's why we at Dahl have strived to manufacture the smoothest and most stable guns on the market. And when you get surrounded — and you will — you'll be glad to know your Dahl has been precision machined to remain as accurate during sustained fire as humanly possible. So make sure you bring a Dahl with you the next time you go on assignment. It just might bring you back."

Founded by Stanton Dahl, the Dahl corporation is one of the major corporations of the six galaxies and play a major role in the backstory of Pandora, being the original colonizers of the planet. Establishing mining operations using a workforce of convicts, they eventually abandoned the planet, leaving the workers to eventually become bandits. This happens many times.

They produce guns for the "professional mercenary", meaning that they are fairly balanced in all categories save for recoil, which is generally incredibly low. Their guns also feature a burst-fire mechanic for precision damage. Dahl lasers penetrate targets, and Dahl barrels turn lasers into blasters. Dahl shields drop shield-recharging boosters when damaged, while their grenades utilize Bouncing Betty technology to shower an area with bullets.

In Borderlands 3, Dahl has seen it fit to provide their guns the ability to switch firing modes as their wielders please.


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General

    In General 
  • The Aesthetics of Technology: Dahl weapons resemble modern-day military tech and come decorated in varying camouflage patterns.
    • In Borderlands 3, the designs are somewhat more futuristic, though they retain the camouflage coloring. Their SMGs in particular gain a bolt-locking notch not unlike the ones on the MP5 family, and are slapped in the same way.
  • Archaic Weapon for an Advanced Age: Not to the same extent as the Jakobs Corporation, but the small arms of Dahl are heavily influenced by firearms from the late 20th and early 21st century.
  • Badass Army: While the Dahl executives tend to turn tail and flee the moment things go badly for them, the actual military arm of Dahl are surprisingly tenacious and dedicated and are more than able to hold their own in a battle, even when they've been abandoned for years on end by their executives.
  • Boring, but Practical: Their whole deal is simple, well-engineered tech that favours function at the complete expense of form. Dahl merch won't be pretty or exciting (unless futurizations of 21st century firearms are your thing), but it'll get the job done, which is perhaps why the Dahl brand and their signature boxy, army-green product range is the most ubiquitous in the universe. In-game, this is reflected by Dahl guns having few-to-no special gimmicks (Borderlands 3 lets you choose between two settings for rate of fire and weapon zoom, and that's it), and having a reduced chance to deal elemental damage, but making up for it with excellent accuracy, reload speed, and magazine capacity and respectable per-shot damage.
  • Bottomless Magazines: One of their Unique guns in Borderlands 1, the Dove - a Repeater Pistol that doesn't consume ammo.
  • Consummate Professional: Dahl weapons are advertised as weapons for the professional soldier, with an emphasis on a military aesthetic.
  • Difficult, but Awesome: In 2 and Pre-Sequel, Dahl sniper rifles shares the burst fire mode of their other weapons, meaning that if you are really good at leading your shots, you can take out several enemies in a single burst, or put several bullets into one tough enemy's critical hit spot.
  • Dirty Coward: For all their gung-ho marketing bluster, Dahl in general has a habit of pulling out of endeavors the second things go even slightly south and leaving next to all of their personnel and materiel behind. Almost every villainous faction outside of Jack, Steele and the general wildlife are because of them abandoning their troops - Banditsnote , Lost Legion and New Pandora, to name the major ones.
  • Drill Sergeant Nasty: Dahl Field Reconstruction Stations in Borderlands: the Pre-Sequel, which are licensed off-shoots of Hyperion New-U Stations, speak to their users like drill sergeants to cadets (though unlike New-U stations, these are usually more motivational than passive-aggressively insulting).
    No time for slacking off! Get back out there!
    There is no afterlife, just an eternity of duty!
    Death is just God's way of making you angrier! YOU ANGRY YET, SOLDIER?!
  • Eagleland: Both types, the Beautiful for its corporate image, but the Boorish in practice.
  • Greater-Scope Villain: They are responsible for Pandora being in the state that it is now, primarily the Bandits. Their decision to abandon Elpis after the Crackening also indirectly kicked off the events of the Pre-Sequel, and therefore 2 by extension. They are also responsible for Commander Lilith and the Fight for Sanctuary, thanks to their decision to deceive Hector and his troops into believing that Pandora would be a paradise before sealing them into a mine there.
  • Jack of All Stats: Dahl weapons feature relatively well-rounded stats, with their primary benefit being a low recoil and burst-fire.
  • Law Enforcement, Inc.: Much like Atlas, but as a commercialized, interstellar Military-themed corporation that never leaves its post without stating at least a Semper Fi.
  • Paper Tiger: Don't let the military theme and aggressive ways fool you, they are THE most cowardly of all the corporations, turning tail and running away the second anything slightly dangerous or problematic starts to happen.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: The reason there's so much infrastructure with Dahl's name on it on Pandora, but no Dahl personnel still flying the colors? They up and left after Atlas took an interest in the Vault and other alien tech on the planet. No, they didn't bother getting their hired workers off the planet, thus... the bandits.
    • This was also the case with Dahl's attempt to control Elpis. Dahl sent a legion of their men under the command of Colonel Zarpedon to secure the moon for their miners. Then the Crackening happened, and Dahl once again turned tail and ran without bothering to get their workers off the moon. And thus, the Lost Legion came about.
    • Commander Lilith and the Fight for Sanctuary reveals this happened again. Dahl transferred their venerated 191st Brigade to what they promised to be a cushy security job on a paradise world, only to actually force them into grueling mining work in a particularly bad part of Pandora... then sealing the mine up with them still in it as soon as they start to find alien artifacts. There's not even that much of a reason for it this time, they just... do. This leads to the leader, Hector, working with a mutagenic compound to form New Pandora and force the planet into the Paradise they were promised. It's so bad that even the game itself mocks their cowardice in the side mission detailing this. We must stress this - it's in an Echo, not from a character, but an actual mission brief upon turning it in:
    Echoes of The Past mission: ""Whaat, Dahl abandoned their employees on an inhospitable wasteland AGAIN? What are the odds?"
  • Starter Equipment:
    • Lilith's starting weapon in the first game is the TEK2 Simple SMG.
    • The very first gun you attain in 2 without the Premiere Club is a "unique"note  Basic Repeater that always spawns with a Tediore grip and Bandit barrel. It's obviously of little use once you actually get a better gun, mainly the Jakobs pistol (or if you're lucky, the Legendary Hornet pistol) that drops from Knuckle Dragger.
    • This repeats in Pre-Sequel, as Wilhelm starts a new game with a similarly part-fixed React Repeater, though his has a Tediore barrel instead of a Bandit one.
  • Small Role, Big Impact: The Dahl corporation has little to no presence as a faction in Borderlands but their actions not only lead to the Lost Legion being the main antagonistic force in the Pre-Sequel, but the existence of Bandits on Pandora and Scavs on Elpis and the New Pandora faction in Commander Lilith and the Fight for Sanctuary. They also have ties to the Olmsteads in Guns, Love, and Tentacles.
  • What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: In-Universe example, but 3 reveals that Dahl has a Dahl Kidz brand that produces toy guns like water pistols. You know, a massive, intergalactic weapon manufacturer making kids toys - imagine Colt making a line of toy guns and it's kind of the same thing. The water pistol, by the by, is used to cool down COV pistols when they overheat.
  • You Mean "Xmas": Dahl had an event known as "Mercenary Day", where all mercenary operations were free of charge for a day. The denizens of Pandora adopted it as an equivalent to Christmas.

People

    Dr. Patricia Tannis 

Dr. Patricia Tannis

Insane(ly smart)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tannis_288.png
As of Borderlands 2. Click to see her in Borderlands 1 
Played by: Jamie Lee Curtis (film)

A socially maladjusted archeologist sent to Pandora by the Dahl corporation to investigate the alien ruins. Then a skag ate one of her coworkers alive while she hid under his corpse, and she went from "antisocial" to "completely cuckoo."


  • Allergic to Routine: In 3 sometimes she mentions needing to keep her mind active or else she can get bored. And to quote Tannis herself: "Nobody wants that."
  • Apocalyptic Log: Detailing her descent into insanity. She makes a hobby of recording her insane ramblings, spreading said recordings around random places, then hiring individuals to gather them back for her.
  • Ascended Extra: In 1, Tannis was a late-game quest-giver and Ms. Exposition who lost importance the moment her mini-arc was over. In 2 she has slightly more impact in the game, but is still largely unimportant in the main story. By the end of 3 Tannis is one of the most important NPC in the series as a Siren, the leading authority on Eridian civilization, and one of the highest-ranking Crimson Raiders still alive.
  • Ax-Crazy: Her insanity at times manifests as murder.
  • Black Comedy Burst: In Borderlands 2, her echo logs detail how she and her friends, Phillipe and Clork, a pair of "brothers" who were "ceiling chairs" were captured by Hyperion agents and tortured for information on the vault. It starts out as a ridiculous premise, but the way Tannis anthropomorphizes the chairs and the way the Hyperion agents torture Tannis and the brothers until they kill Phillipe makes the account pretty harrowing. Then Tannis describes how Clork was trying to admit some info until the agents sat on his face.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: She was driven mad after being stuck on the planet for way too long. As such, she has developed strange habits such as getting romantically involved with inanimate objects, among other things.
  • Commonality Connection: In an ECHO Log in the "Fantastic Fustercluck" DLC, she states that she finds a kindred spirit in Krieg, noting that despite not understanding a word he says she does relate to his atypical nature.
  • Companion Cube: She's had numerous offscreen relationships with inanimate objects.
    • In the first game, she had a romantic relationship with an ECHO recorder that apparently ended in a messy breakup.
    • Between the first and second games she had a polyamorous relationship with Phillipe and Clork, two "ceiling chairs" who were brothers, one of which was "killed" in front of her eyes by Hyperion.
    • The entrance to her secret lab in the third game is activated by "caressing" (melee-ing) a minecart named Kate who Tannis had a brief and tumultuous affair with. She promises to catch up with her after the mission.
  • Crazy Sane: By Pandoran standards Tannis is only a bit, erm, "off". She has beyond strange habits and mannerisms, but she's far from being the most insane person you'll meet even at her craziest.
  • Dissonant Serenity: Even when talking about the death and violence that surrounds her or her own torture, she rarely drops her condescending tone.
  • Fangirl: In the third game, she tasks the players with finding the ECHO Logs of Typhon DeLeon and is clearly enamored with his escapades. Even after it's revealed that he's not the most handsome person ever, she's still thrilled at the fact that he's a widower.
  • Flanderization:
    • An interesting and likely deliberate case. While her ECHO logs make it clear early on she isn't exactly all there, in the main game she's not so much crazy as she is insufferable. It isn't until Robot Revolution and the second game that her insanity really takes the spotlight.
    • Especially noteworthy is that she goes from hoping everyone she meets (and tends to end up killing) will be her friend (and indeed being so lonely that she builds a robot duplicate of herself!) in the first game to being so horrified by the idea of contact with other people that she has a High Pressure Nosebleed at someone saying hello and a panic episode from someone calling her "pretty" in the second.
    • Oddly enough her crazy streak is still very much present in 3, but Tannis doesn't seem as manic and loony as she was in 2. Maybe she got Bored with Insanity, maybe years living with the Crimson Raiders and getting used to the Pandoran insanity got her crazy-ness to settle down a little (key word being "little").
  • Foreshadowing: When the Vault Hunters enter the Promethea Vault her image appears suddenly portrayed in real life, just like Angel and Lilith, which she claims is "a new form of Echo communication." This "Echo communication" also has the same vignetting as Angel's Siren communications, hinting that Tannis has become the new "Phaseshift" Siren.
  • Goggles Do Nothing: Wears a pair of goggles on her heads that serve no real purpose. They're available for Maya as a Old Save Bonus.
  • Go Mad from the Isolation: Well aware of it, but too far gone to care much.
    Tannis Recording: Day 172. The fat girl, Chimay, was crushed under an alien ruin that collapsed today. She didn't... die right away and begged me to put her out of her misery as she choked on various fluids and bile. I hesitated because she was the last one alive that wasn't me. As she was choking, and coughing and dying, I tried to enjoy the interaction, I imagined it to be a conversation, as I knew it was the last I would have for a while. When I finally got around to smothering her so that I could continue my research, I could tell that she regretted the decision. The Skags had been waiting for this meal for a while; they will not go hungry tonight.
  • Humble Pie: Her ECHO Logs in 1 shows her being extremely condescending (without her madness) about being sent to Pandora to search for the Vault which she, back then, considered to be just a myth... Then her descent into crazyness starts after her team gets slaughtered by Pandora's ruthless wildlife with her only surviving by hiding under the body of one of her colleagues... which was being eaten by a skag. It all goes downhill until she meets the Vault Hunters. While her Insufferable Genius never goes away Tannis definitely starts to appreciate human interactions a bit more after everything she goes through, although her ability to do so, especially in 2 is still extremely limited.
  • I Just Want to Have Friends:
    • She repeatedly claims this, but ends up murdering or driving away potential friends. This also seems to be exhibited in her tendency to create Companion Cubes despite otherwise being disdainful of other people. However, she warms up to Roland in particular after she got spittle on him while she was ranting and he was not disgusted. She claims that it was the first time in her life that she felt truly safe. She may have even developed a crush on him as ECHO recordings of the Torture Chairs mission have her mention "Roland, and his well-defined pectoral muscles" entrusting her with the Vault Key.
    • It's also shown in the tie-in comics that she thinks very highly of Marcus. She goes so far as to identify him as her hero due to the fact that he took her in after she'd been living alone for years, after only meeting her in passing once years prior.
    • Zig-zagged in the Hidden Journals questline as she literally popped a vein when another human being greeted her (with enough pressure to cover both of them in blood). She also apparently barricaded her home to soundproof it from other people's merriment, and dry-heaving into a bucket for 3 hours was considered an improvement for dealing with compliments.
  • Insufferable Genius: As one of the smartest people on Pandora, she is incredibly condescending towards everyone. Lampshaded by Zed in the second game.
  • It's All About Me: She always tells you to drop whatever "irrelevant" task you're doing to help her. At least a little of her behaviour can be written off as a combination of extreme isolation and the trauma that left her isolated (skags ate the rest of her team; she survived by hiding under a corpse). A little more because it's Pandora, planet of self-serving lunatics. The rest is just part of her... charm.
  • Misanthrope Supreme: Downplayed, as she doesn't really hate people so much as finds them to be a nuisance and just wants to be left alone.
  • No Social Skills: Upon relocating to Sanctuary, one of her neighbors said hello, causing her to have an explosive nosebleed on the spot from sheer stress. Later, a young man calls her pretty, and she spends three hours dry-heaving into a bucket, which she considers progress. According to the mission text of the quest that has you gather the ECHO entries detailing said events, Tannis has Asperger's Syndrome, no doubt exacerbated by events in the first game.
  • Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Downplayed with some fairly realistic limitations. She's an archaeologist, and throughout most of the series, rightfully proves herself to be the foremost expert on all things relating to the vault key. However, she also extends into other subjects. Robot Revolution has her trying to engineer a robotic version of herself with enough confidence that it'll work. In Fight for Sanctuary, with her and Zed being the only "scientists" left around, she shows that she's knowledgeable enough in biology to work on an antidote for The Virus, although she admits she lacks the expertise to properly synthesize one. In Borderlands 3, she takes over for Doctor Zed as Sanctuary 3's physician and medical doctor (though he still runs his vending machines), but she's covered in head to toe in blood from surgery, which shows that she's not the most experienced there either.
  • Pet the Dog: In the Son of Crawmerax DLC of 2, it's vaguely implied that she was the one who killed Maya's assassin for her, judging by how Maya's personal message matches her speech patterns.
  • Psychopathic Manchild: A female, Type C version. She's still as smart as ever but the long term trauma has made her kooky and a little childish.
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Why does she want Jack dead? It's not that he tortured her. It's not that he ripped the Vault Key out of her hands after breaking them. It's because his minions sawed off the legs of a "ceiling chair" that she was falling for.
    "Revenge is as pointless as music, but on this occasion, I will allow myself the revenge, I will allow myself to aid in his downfall. Mark my words, Jack, you're going to die."
  • Robot Me: The reason she has the original Vault Hunters collect Claptrap parts for her.
  • Running Gag: Within each game, there is always a hidden Easter Egg that involves Tannis riding a fish. Taken to its logical (or illogical) extreme in Claptastic Voyage where Claptrap's scientific curiosity is represented as a fish with Tannis' head.
  • Sanity Slippage: Her Apocalyptic Log portrays her going from vaguely anti-social to hallucinating dead people and entering a relationship with her ECHO recorder. Mostly Played for Laughs.
  • Skewed Priorities: Due to her insanity she often puts whatever she fancies at the moment above whatever it is you're doing, such as collecting audio logs or handling hazardous material while you're on a rescue mission or trying to find a cure respectively. Similarly she also does bizarre things to whatever you collect for her that is completely unrelated to what you thought you got them for, like listening to the Eridium experiments (which includes the horrifying deaths of many people) as entertainment.
  • Technopath: Having inherited Angel's "Phase Shift" siren power, Tannis can now do the same.
  • Too Kinky to Torture: In Borderlands 2, her audio logs of her time under Hyperion torture indicate that she was less concerned with the actual torture and more concerned with the two "ceiling chairs" she had fallen in love with, and making sure the torturers' equipment was properly sterilized to prevent unnecessary infection. When you turn the audio logs in to her, she says that she'll whip up a cup of cocoa and listen to them as relaxation.
  • Took a Level in Badass: In 3, Tannis reveals that she has become a Siren, having inherited Angel's powers and trained with them in total secrecy. After being captured by the Children of the Vault, she is forced to expose her powers to break free of Pain and Terror's captivity.

    Shep Sanders 

Shep Sanders

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/shep_sanders.png

Shep Sanders was a foreman employed by the Dahl Corporation. After Dahl pulled out of Pandora, he and his family were left behind, and the latter was eventually skinned by Sledge and a tent was built using their hides. Shep continues to oversee the operation of Zephyr Substation.


  • Alliterative Name: Shep Sanders.
  • Bit Character: While he does have somewhat of a role in the series, most of it happen off-screen. His only appearance is as a quest giver in the first game.
  • Cruel and Unusual Death: Brick gouged his eyes out and cracked his skull open in retaliation for the fall of New Haven.
  • Killed Offscreen: Killed sometime between 1 and 2 by Brick. His death is referenced in 2 by way of an ECHO recording.
  • Ungrateful Bastard: He sold out New Haven to Hyperion, in spite of everything the Vault Hunters did for him.
  • The Voiceless: He can and does talk but only through the mission summary interface, meaning he never got voice acting.

    The Skipper (Unmarked spoilers

Felicity

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/felicity_borderlands.jpg
Voiced by: Amanda Bishop
"Ahoy, landlubber. You look a little too much like trouble."

A woman who used to lead the Drakensburg ship, the Bosun now has her as his captive. She turns out to be a Dahl ship A.I. reprogrammed to be the Bosun's girlfriend.


  • A.I. Is a Crapshoot:
    • She goes rampant upon being uploaded into the prototype Constructor, attacking you in her attempt not to be wiped, forcing the Vault Hunters to subdue her violently.
    • It's implied in Tales from the Borderlands that Felicity's personality may be reappearing within the Loaders that were built by all the Constructors that used her subsequent AI.
  • Apologetic Attacker: When fighting scavs in the prototype powersuit, she will voice her disdain and utter distaste for violence.
  • Be Careful What You Wish For: Initially, she's a military A.I. that resents having been reprogrammed into a computer girlfriend by the Bosun. When Jack tries to reassign her to military duties (namely serving as the A.I. for his prototype Constructor), she quickly learns that she's actually not a big fan of violence. Eventually, Jack outright erases her developed personality and reboots her back into a purely military A.I.
    • Jack and his Vault Hunters also suffer from their wish of wanting a killer robot to help them take Helios back. Felcitiy puts it best when she goes on the attack after being plugged in.
    "If hate is all you want, that's what you'll get!"
  • Break the Cutie: Is enslaved by an insane bandit only to be eventually rescued by Jack's Vault Hunters. She's then put into a 'bot and has to kill a bunch of people only to find out she's a pacifist. Last but not least she gets her identity wiped and placed in an unmoving shell, forever.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: Her fate. She cannot leave the premises she's being held in, her personality is messed with, and she is forced to produce offspring for those who imprisoned her.
  • Dramatic Irony: Her change of name and ultimate fate.
  • Fate Worse than Death: Being held as the Bosun's girlfriend. Being forced to control the proto-Constructor, then memory wiped.
  • Good Is Not Nice: Is polite and respectful to the Vault Hunters, and actively goes out of her way to help them... while having no problems at all with crushing people in doors.
  • I Am Not a Gun: Despite being a military-grade AI, Felicity comes to realize that she can't stand killing and finds that having a physical body is immensely uncomfortable, pleading with Jack and his Vault Hunters to not force her to be a Constructor. She even offers to let herself be copied, but Jack decides that it would take too long.
  • High-Heel–Face Turn: Not long after you enter the Drakensburg, she secretly starts helping Jack's Vault Hunters.
  • Hero Antagonist: When you fight her as the boss, as her only crime is not wanting to get her personality erased (which basically kills her).
  • Meaningful Rename: She decides to name herself "Felicity" after being rescued, derived from the Latin word for joy or good fortune.
  • Monster Progenitor: She's the first Hyperion Constructor to be built and deployed, and you can hear her feminine Australian accent gradually turn into the deep and emotionless Constructor voice heard in 2.
  • Reforged into a Minion: She is eventually pacified by the Vault Hunters and had her personality wiped.
  • Robot Girl: She's a military AI that the Bosun reprogrammed.
  • Sadistic Choice: What ultimately causes Jack to forcibly turn her into the combat AI without making a backup of her. Jack doesn't have time to wait for Felicity to create a copy of herself, which would take days, as he deems it would take too long and Zarpedon would've "popped Elpis like a zit" by then.
  • Super Prototype: Of the Constructors, her model in particular is built more like a mech than a hovering robot, has much stronger shields, and an overall more deadly and intense amount of firepower in her missile barrages and laser beams. As a tradeoff however, her robotic minion spawns are not well-equipped at all compared to the GUN Loaders and Surveyors seen in 2.
  • Tragic Monster: Forcibly turned into the Constructor AI. If only Elpis had more time, indeed...
  • Walking Spoiler: What happens to Felicity is a turning point for the story, and even for players who may judge Jack's action regarding it.

    TR4NU 

TR4NU

A hologram-projected training AI that oversees the Abandoned Training Facility. He appears for the Shock Drop Slaughter Pit DLC, hosting a five-round series of arena challenges for the Vault Hunters.
  • A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Despite being a training AI, who even admits that he was programmed to use safety ammo, he uses actual Scavs as his training dummies.
    [TR4NU]: My gun-mother programmed me to use safety ammo, but that's about as fun as a BOOK!
  • Drill Sergeant Nasty: Parodied. He's a hologram projection of a Dahl Sergeant and speaks using stereotypical military jargon, which is exaggerated to the point where barely anything he says makes sense.
  • Punny Name: He is called TR4NU and his role is to train you.
  • Training from Hell: His idea of training is rounding up actual hostiles and sending them your way.
  • Talkative Loon: Imagine Krieg, instead of rambling about violence, blood, and poop, it would be whatever word he could pull out of the dictionary that he could use as military jargon.

     Eleanor and Vincent Olmstead 

Love Will Consume You.

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/eleanor_intro_bl3.png
Voiced by: Emily Fajardo and Andrew Love

Former Dahl researchers and married couple who came to Xylourgos to study Gythian, and became totally enthralled to its power.
  • Alas, Poor Villain: Both of them were once decent people whose exposure to Gythian's power caused their sanity to decline, and they truly did love each other and just wanted to be together again. (Though their means of trying to reunite are pretty irredeemable.)
  • Body Surf: Vincent can possess the body of anyone who puts on his ring, which he then reshapes into a copy of his original. Including his disease, which is why the bodies inevitably die and he has to get a new one. He once did this to a little girl. It's unclear if Eleanor could do the same, but the way she insists that they are both immortal would imply that she could.
  • Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: Vincent and Eleanor ultimately just want to reunite with each other, while Tyreen was willing to sacrifice her family to reach her goals. They're also an older couple compared to the younger Calypso twins.
  • Cthulhumanoid: Eleanor's legs have been fully replaced with tentacles, and many of the Bonded also hide tentacles within their robes.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Her goal is to revive Vincent.
  • Freudian Excuse: Downplayed: Their motivations for obtaining immortality are similar to Tyreen and Troy’s situation with Vincent trying to figure out a way to prevent himself from dying from illness. It’s obvious that their love and ambition were what ultimately drove them to madness.
  • Happily Married: Despite being marooned on a desolate planet and madness creeping into their minds, Vincent and Eleanor remain true to their love.
  • Heteronormative Crusader: Eleanor comes off as this somewhat unintentionally. Her dialogue makes it clear that she thinks Wainwright and Hammerlock's love is "lesser" than her and Vincent's and that he'd be better off as a host body for her husband. She isn't homophobic however, she simply thinks every love is lesser than her and Vincent's.
  • Immortality Seeker: The reason that the Olmsteads sought Gythian to begin with, in part due to Vincent dying of disease.
  • It's All About Me: Eleanor spends the entire DLC thinking that everyone who isn't her is a "worm" and that her love is the only true love. She completely fails to comprehend that Hammerlock and Wainwright's relationship dynamic being more about two people whose interests are different instead of her and Vincent's mushy same personality and interests connection isn't any better or worse, just different.
  • Knight of Cerebus: They are the most dead serious antagonists in the entire franchise. Their powers are horrifying, they have no comedic moments, and even the moments where we see their past lack any humor. Their slaughter of various people and their cult are treated as nothing but horrifying.
  • Lack of Empathy: She constantly contacts the Vault Hunters and Hammerlock throughout the DLC attempting to convince them that Wainwright and Hammerlock's differences mean their relationship was doomed to fail anyway and that they should just let her have him as a flesh puppet for her husband, completely ignoring the Vault Hunters desperately trying to save their friend from such a fate. She also kicks Gaige when she's down during Deathtrap's Disney Death by stating the only reason she couldn't save him was that she just didn't love him enough.
  • Love Makes You Evil: Alongside a desire for immortality, their love for each other was what drove both of them to commit the atrocities they committed in the DLC.
  • Soul Jar: Vincent trapped himself in Gythian's heart to sustain his dying body, but he can't leave it. To get around this, Eleanor crafts a special ring out of Gythian's heart that allows Vincent to remotely possess those who wear it.
  • Unholy Matrimony: They were deeply in love... and then they discovered a way to live forever by stealing bodies.

The Lost Legion

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screen_shot_2019_09_24_at_40838_pm.png
The primary antagonists of The Pre-Sequel, the Lost Legion are a band of former Dahl soldiers who were deployed to secure Elpis for mining, where they were left behind when the upper management turned tail and fled from Elpis during The Crackening. Left to fend for themselves, they turned to Colonel Zarpedon for guidance on what to do next. Having peered into the Vault on Elpis, Zarpedon witnessed a terrible future where a madman would bring genocide to the galaxy should he reach the Vault. Thus, Zarpedon and her Lost Legion appointed themselves as the guardians of the Vault in anticipation of Hyperion's (specifically Jack's) arrival to open it. After seizing the Hyperion Moonbase, they planned to use its laser cannon to destroy Elpis and everyone on it, sending its remains to come crashing down on Pandora and destroy most it in order to prevent any further openings of the Vaults.
    In General 
  • Anti-Villain: Everyone thinks they're insane ex-military psychopaths hellbent on destruction. While it's true to an extent, their end goal still has some noble intent, especially considering the events of Borderlands 2 which occur afterwards, and the revelations about Pandora itself in Borderlands 3.
  • Airborne Mooks: A variant of the standard soldier can come with a jetpack made for zero-G fighting. Killing them makes them do a satisfying flip or two in the air before exploding.
  • Cool Starship:
    • The RK-5 is a spaceship that's seen deploying Colonel Zarpedon's mech suit before flying off. It comes back as a proper boss fight when you're on your way to the Vault itself as its last line of outer defense, zooming by to unload massive amounts of bombs, nuclear payloads and energy blasts.
    • Many other larger warships are seen attacking Helios Station and deploying legions of troops to invade, particularly in the games introduction.
  • Deader than Dead: If Jack and his Vault Hunters severing their chain of command eradicating what remains of their army on their way to the Vault didn't end them, then Moxxi sabotaging the Eye of Helios to create a massive black hole / singularity that absorbed all of their warships definitely did.
  • Eagleland: Despite their Well-Intentioned Extremist goals, they're shown to be skewed toward the Beautiful, with Zarpedon and her army expecting and willing to perform a Heroic Sacrifice in the process of preventing the Vaults from being opened.
  • Elite Mooks: They have some amongst their ranks. Namely, the Eternals, who are Lost Legion exposed to powers within the Vault that mutated them. They're tough and sturdy on their own, but when injured enough they can ascend to stronger forms that can mimmic Siren powers.
  • The Engineer: Lost Legion Engineer's can deploy a variety of support tools against you. These are sentry guns, bubble shields, and gravity devices (which pull you in towards the gadget and likely into the waiting gun barrel of the Engineer).
  • Faceless Mooks: The majority of Lost Legion soldiers wear space suits suited for the moon environment they're stationed at, but there're exceptions: Sergeants and Medics go to battle without helmets.
  • Freeze Ray: Ice Marines come equipped with cryo-spewing weapons that will slow the player down heavily, making them easy targets for the rest of the Legion.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: The grand majority of the Lost Legion knows full well that they'll die in the process of stopping the Vault from being opened, and they're prepared for it.
  • Lost Colony: Similar to the bandits and scavs before them, the Lost Legion is comprised of former soldiers and employees who formed their own group after being left for dead. They utilize Dahl equipment and uniforms, but are considered separate from Dahl as a whole.
  • The Plague: They introduced a disease known as Space Hurps to a large section of Helios Station, which causes uncontrollable tumor growth, insanity, severe weight loss, and an intense desire to consume flesh (preferably human). This created the precursor to the Rats from the second game.
  • Sword and Gun: Sergeants and Badasses come with a pistol on one hand and a large, serrated sword in the other, which they put to deadly use.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: Their entire plan will result in countless deaths, but they believe that the ends will justify the means when they prevent the galaxy from falling under the chaos the Vaults will bring when opened. As the events of 2 and 3 would show, they weren't particularly wrong about the incoming dangers.
  • Would Not Shoot a Civilian: Averted. Jack himself laments on how merciless the Lost Legion is when they first attack the Helios Station, pointing out that Hyperion doesn't even have a military stationed there, they're just shooting employees.

    Colonel T. Zarpedon 

Colonel Tungsteena Zarpedon

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/maxresdefault_1_78.jpg
Voiced by: Constance Janes

The leader of the Dahl soldiers left over on Pandora and Elpis.


  • Alien Blood: When defeated, she bleeds bright purple liquid.
  • Anti-Villain: She's surprisingly polite and cordial to the Vault Hunters and their allies, even telling them that she doesn't want to fight them if she doesn't have to and gives them multiple chances to simply leave Elpis. Also, she'll thank the Vault Hunters for informing her about a soldier of hers dying. Once they keep rejecting her warnings, she still comes at them full-force. The ending implies the only reason she was trying to blow up Pandora and Elpis was to prevent something even worse happening.
  • Benevolent Boss: Despite her status as a Well-Intentioned Extremist, she's quite friendly to her own men. In one of her ECHOs, she informs the crew that attending a birthday party (for a lowly private, no less) is not mandatory, but that there will be cake. Very nice chocolate cake.
  • Big Bad: The antagonist of The Pre-Sequel, attacking Helios as part of her plan.
  • Climax Boss: Despite being the driving force against the Vault Hunters for most of the game, she is unceremoniously executed at the end of her fight by Jack, who by then was more concerned with the Vault being open and wouldn't even let her finish her warning to him.
  • Colonel Badass: She is very capable in combat.
  • The Comically Serious: She’s not a particularly comedic character in general. Aside from her cartoonish name, which Jack has a field day with throughout the campaign. The fact that such an utterly serious character like her exists in the Borderlands series is worth a laugh.
  • Disc-One Final Boss: While you do fight her near the end of the game, after her death you move on to your original goal of hunting the Vault of Elpis.
  • Don't Make Me Destroy You: She shows this sentiment twice to the Vault Hunters, even offering them a chance to leave Helios despite them having already refused.
  • Doomed by Canon: As a villain in a midquel, it's clear from the onset that she's not going to succeed, much less survive.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones: For a given value of evil, but she loves her daughter and regrets missing her grow.
  • Facial Horror: Her eyes bleed purple and spreads in cracks across her face.
  • Foil:
    • To Commandant Steele from 1. Both are female leaders to military divisions of Mega Corps (Atlas’ Crimson Lance and Dahl's Lost Legion, respectively), both have motivations tied to the opening of a Vault, both have extraordinary abilities (Steele is a Siren while Zarpedon is infused with Eridium), and both serve as the primary antagonist of their respective games. On side note, they also have names that resemble metals (Steele is reminiscent of steel while Zarpedon's first name, Tungsteena, is reminiscent of tungsten). However, while Steele cares little for the Crimson Lance, going so far as to orchestrate the death of Roland's squad prior to the events of the game, Zarpedon cares greatly for the Lost Legion, going so far as to celebrate their birthdays. While Steele is ultimately killed by the Destroyer before she can be fought, Zarpedon is the last opponent the Vault Hunters must face before shutting down the Eye of Helios. And finally, while Steele wants to obtain the contents of the Vault for the sake of herself and Atlas, Zarpedon wants to destroy the Vault, along with Elpis, for the sake of the universe.
    • To General Knoxx, the leader of the Crimson Lance from the Secret Armory of General Knoxx DLC, also from the first Borderlands. Both are honorable soldiers who take their missions very seriously. They also offer the player the chance to surrender along the way and continue to fight the Vault Hunters when said offer is rejected. However, where they differ is how they view their respective militaries, as well as the foes they face. Knoxx ultimately wants nothing to do with the Lance due to their incompetent rank-and-file, corrupt high command, and shady promotion system (read: "goddamn nepotism"), whereas Zarpedon fully believes in her objective and commands the Lost Legion through sheer force of will. Also, Knoxx holds nothing against the Vault Hunters at all and wants to die out of nihilistic despair, and while Zarpedon similarly bears no malintent towards her foes, stating that she doesn't want to fight the Vault Hunters if she doesn't have to, she's still willing to take them on if they keep getting in her way.
    • To Hector, the leader of New Pandora Army in the Commander Lilith... DLC of 2. Both are commanders of a Dahl military force, got involved with ancient Eridian artifacts, got entombed, and abandoned once Dahl left the sector. Both also care deeply for the men under their charge and are likewise adored by their men. Where they differ is that Zarpedon chose to be entombed and stand vigil over the vault while Hector's forces were "accidentally" buried alive so Dahl could steal the Vault Key they unearthed. Both were driven by the love for the people they cared about to their horrific actions. But while Zarpedon did so to avert a greater disaster all the while fully aware of how monstrous her actions were, Hector did it out of spite for being screwed over so many times and could care less about all the lives he destroyed.
  • Go Mad from the Revelation: Apparently, she and the rest of the Lost Legion learned something when they entered the Core and the Vault within, which caused them to militantly prevent anyone from ever reaching the Vault. Come 3 and its hinted that something was that the Destroyer was not even close to dead and locked away still inside Pandora, and that Jack would be responsible for starting the chain reaction which would lead the Calypsos to attempt opening the Destroyer's true prison in order to absorb its powers and destroy the entire universe in the process.
  • Godzilla Threshold: She considers Jack's hunt for the Vault to be the threshold, and as such she and the Legion are convinced that the only way to keep the Vault and its secrets secure is to destroy Elpis and Pandora entirely. That, and it's also implied that opening the Vault on Pandora caused a chain reaction in every Vault across the known universe of Borderlands, and she outright says that everything she does is to save the universe. She was right.
  • Hero Antagonist: Sort of - it's sort of muddled who is and isn't heroic in the game, but it's heavily implied that by trying to destroy the moon and Pandora (and with them, their Vaults) she's trying to prevent something really terrible from happening. 3 reveals that Elpis is the key to the Vault imprisoning the Destroyer, and by attempting to annihilate it she was trying to keep anyone from freeing the monster.
  • The Heavy: Her actions more or less drive the plot of the game. Athena even notes that were it not for her attacking Helios, things might have gone very differently.
  • I Did What I Had to Do: While decidedly emptying Elpis' core in order to smash it on Pandora sounds very abysmal, the in-adverted sequel shows why.
  • Ignored Expert: Pretty much the only person on Elpis who really knows anything about what the Vaults contain and why Elpis needs to be destroyed. Naturally, Jack kills her before she can actually tell him the full consequences of opening the Vault.
  • Kick the Dog: Zarpedon's first actions in the game are to personally blow up a bunch of escape shuttles carrying Hyperion workers and scientists off of Helios. Athena and "Jack" (the Doppelganger) point out that while she behaves honorably and reasonably towards the Vault Hunters, she pretty much made zero effort to minimize collateral damage.
  • Killed Mid-Sentence: After she reveals that she and her army opened the Vault, Jack simply shoots her as she tries to warn him.
    Jack: Bored!
  • Mini-Mecha: She initially fights you aboard a Dahl Powerwalker. After you destroy it, she fights you herself.
  • A Mother to Her Men: She cares a lot about the well-being of her soldiers. If you avenge one of her fallen soldiers in a sidequest, she rewards you by giving you access to a weapons stash, though she reminds you that this doesn't mean she's going to spare you. As shown by the ECHOs on the Drakensburg, she can be quite motherly towards them, hosting a birthday party with chocolate cake for one of the privates as well as ordering mandatory medical check-ups after picking up strange signals from Elpis.
  • Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Played for laughs in that her name is treated as a complete joke due to how ridiculously overblown and cartoonishly evil it sounds.
    Zarpedon: My name is Zarpedon. Tungsteena Zarpedon.
    Jack: Paaahahahahah! Tungsteena Zarpedon — you must have been SUPER popular in high school! My GOD, your parents were assholes!
  • "Not So Different" Remark: Shortly after Jack throws his scientists out the airlock on vague suspicions one of them might be a traitor, Zarpedon calls him up to praise him for it, saying she would have done the same and that he made the right decision to sacrifice a few people who might be a threat to ensure the safety of many more.
  • One-Winged Angel: Uses her Eridian abilities to grow to 9 feet tall when she has to engage Jack and the Vault Hunters personally after her mech suit is destroyed.
  • Purple Is Powerful: Her eyes are glowing purple, possibly due to exposure to eridium.
  • Rank Scales with Asskicking: Zarpedon isn't just the most high-ranked member of the Lost Legion, she's also the most skilled and most dangerous, and is even more lethal with her Eridian polearm than her troopers with their guns.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning: Her eyes are glowing purple, showing she is clearly infused with some sort of power.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: She urges the Vault Hunters to leave Elpis as soon as possible. She really doesn't want to fight them if she doesn't have to. Of course, when the Vault Hunters turn down her hospitality, all bets are off.
    Zarpedon: I don’t want to kill you if I don’t have to.
    Athena: Tell that to the people you murdered on Helios.
    Wilhelm: Nah, got paid to kill you, so that's what I'm gonna do.
    Aurelia: Darling, I’m simply going to kill you for fun. It’s not personal, I just bore easily.
    Claptrap: Sorry madam, but my orders are clear: you have committed crimes against Hyperion and must be brought to justice!
  • Running Gag: Her name being made fun of when mentioned (mostly by Jack).
  • Say My Name: Parodied. Jack and his Vault Hunters are about to make significant progress in reaching the Eye of Helios to shut it down through the use of worker-drones to pave the way, when Zarpedon sets up yet another impenetrable blockade to handicap them by locking Jack out of the drone control system. Jack has this to say:
    Jack: [mockingly] ZARPEDOOOOOOOON! - [laughter] Stupid as that name is, it's still really fun to yell.
  • Shadow Archetype: To Handsome Jack. Two leaders who have declared themselves the only hope of protecting the world from some mysterious threat. Both of them are charismatic and determined, holding the loyalty of their small forces and scraping by with few resources. They're even both parents, and both have close brushes with strange forces that mess up their minds and cause serious Facial Horror. But Zarpedon never declares herself a hero and always remains conscious that her deeds are terrible, even if they're necessary. Jack, on the other hand, becomes gradually less self-aware and more megalomaniacal until he's a terrifying, delusional, dictatorial lunatic.
  • Tainted Veins: Glowing purple veins growing outward from her eyes.
  • Tattoo as Character Type: Like Axton, she has a Dahl-rank implant on the right side of her head. Unlike Axton, she has three triangles instead of just one signifying her higher rank.
  • Tempting Fate:
    • In one sidequest, the Vault Hunters find records of her bemoaning having to leave her prized gear on the ship, before saying that it'll be transferred soon. Yeah, about that...
    • In that same side quest, she says that she's trying to pay for an operation for an unknown loved one named Brittania (as revealed in a later mission, her daughter) and she's looking forward to coming home at the end of the tour. Unfortunately, something... weird... happened to her on Elpis.
  • Touched by Vorlons: She received some undetermined power and knowledge from the Vault on Elpis, judging by her Tainted Veins and possession of an Eridian weapon.
  • Unwitting Instigator of Doom: She assaults Jack's Space Station Helios and tries to blow up the moon because her legion caught Hyperion surveyors out in the field and thought Jack would exploit the vault's knowledge. When you beat her, Jack reveals he didn't even know where the vault was, let alone that it was open. Her actions would then lead to Jack becoming scarred and obsessed with opening the vault to find a replacement for the Eye of the Destroyer, causing the events of 2, the galaxy-wide activation of Vaults, and the coming war she fought so hard to avoid.
  • A Villain Named "Z__rg": Her name so evil-sounding it loops around to being just plain silly.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: It's implied that she's trying to stop something with terrible, universe-shaking consequences by blowing up the moon (and then Pandora).
  • Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: All the player characters think that Zarpedon is an absolutely ridiculous name, too. Even the stoic Athena and Wilhelm snicker. Jack finds it hilarious that anyone would name their daughter Tungsteena. She also has a daughter by the name of Brittania, which is not much better.
  • Worthy Opponent: She comes to see Jack and his Vault Hunters as this, particularly when the former has his scientists spaced out of paranoia. The sentiment is returned by Athena, who states that she was not an unworthy foe.

    Flame Knuckle 

Flame Knuckle

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/flame_knuckle_tps.png
An elite pilot of the Lost Legion who drives an exoskeleton with fire powers. He is the first boss encountered... and that's about it.
  • The Bus Came Back: Can be fought in the Holodome.
  • But for Me, It Was Tuesday: In this case, the game makes clear that for you, the Vault Hunter, he is just another mook to add to the kill count. Upon meeting him, Jack doesn't seem interested beyond asking you to kill him.
  • Playing with Fire: The exoskeleton is equipped with fiery elemental weapons.
  • Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: He delivers one, but neither Jack nor the Vault Hunters are impressed.
    Flame Knuckle: Be cleansed with heat!
  • Red Shirt: His sole purpose is to die by your hands. If Jack telling you to "kill that guy" wasn't enough, his title card also tells you to kill him.
  • Starter Villain: Being the first boss encountered in the Pre-Sequel.
  • Warm-Up Boss: His entire role is to be the first boss you fight in The Pre-Sequel.

    RK5 

Raum-Kampfjet Mark V

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rk5_borderlands.jpg
Voiced by: Micah Solusod
A ship belonging to the Lost Legion, used as their special asset to protect the Vault on Elpis, it must be fought and destroyed to bypass the entry to the Vault.
  • Avenging the Villain: Its pilot is doing this to preserve the legacy of the now fallen Colonel Zarpedon.
    RK5: This is for Zarpedon!
  • Cool Starship: Considered one of the biggest asset of the Lost Legion, and it is a undeniably cool spaceship.
  • Large Ham: Its pilot is very vocal during the entirety of the battle.
    RK5: "Perseverance... Ceaseless, restless perseverance...!"
  • The Remnant: It's only fought after Zarpedon has been killed. Jack even wonder why the Lost Legion keeps fighting him after their leader's death, not understanding that they are fighting for a good cause.
  • Some Call Me "Tim": Its full name is Raum-Kampfjet Mark V, you can guess why it is more often referred to as RK5.
  • Suspiciously Similar Substitute: To the BNK-3R from Borderlands 2. Both are flying starships bosses with a very similar patern. Though the RK5 contrasts with its predecessor by the fact that it has a pilot and he is much more talkative.

The New Pandora Army

The primary enemy force in Fight for Sanctuary. New Pandora is another faction of Dahl personnel left behind to die by Dahl. Dahl had promised the unit Colonel Hector was leading a lush paradise where they can retire into. The reality however was instead Pandora, where they were expected to mine for resources. For reasons yet known, Dahl decided to seal the mine where this unit was deployed when they abandoned the planet, creating a cave in and leaving the soldiers there trapped and isolated from the rest of the world.After the main events of Borderlands 2, the soldiers, now calling themselves New Pandora, emerged from the mines with a deadly spore infestation concocted to forcibly terraform Pandora from a desert wasteland into a green paradise. Unfortunately they have no intention on sharing the paradise, engineering the spores to infect and mutate any unprotected victims caught in its wake.
    In general 
  • Eagleland: In contrast to the Lost Legion, they're Boorish. Hector and his army plotted to bring Pandora to its knees through an all-out war against its people, unleashing a deadly spore infestation because they felt that they were owed the land Dahl promised they'd get.
  • Elite Mooks: Very much so. They're only faced in the final DLC released for the second game, which takes place long after the events of the game before, but for a good reason: these are trained, professional soldiers who know what they're doing. Every one of them is not only quite sturdy and have specialized roles that make dealing with them a pain, almost all of their rank and file carry blue-rarity Bandit E-Tech assault rifles. In short, be prepared for a fight when you encounter a squadron, because they will bring one.
  • Evil Counterpart: To the Lost Legion in a sense. Like the Lost Legion, they were left behind by Dahl when a disastrous event occurred and became separate factions in response. Unlike the Lost Legion though, their motivations are entirely selfish, with New Pandora attempting to kill thousands to create themselves a paradise for them alone to enjoy, rather than killing thousands to save the rest of the galaxy.
  • Evil Gloating: Often taunts you over how you and your friends lost Sanctuary despite being the biggest badasses on Pandora.
  • Hero Killer: Dr. Cassius fell victim to the spore infection, forcing the Vault Hunters to kill him, albeit by his own request. Additionally, they exterminated the Hyperion survivors from Tales from the Borderlands, and during their attack on Sanctuary countless civilians and Crimson Raiders fell victim to the infection and died.
  • Lost Colony: Another set of abandoned workers and soldiers that Dahl left for dead when the situation went sour. The game itself makes fun of this upon completing the quest Echoes of the Past.
  • No-Sell: Downplayed; they're one of the few enemies that can resist explosive damage.
  • Palette Swap: They're reskins of the Lost Legion soldiers from The Pre-Sequel, with some bandit touches like masks. Considering how they were formed, this could not have been more fitting.
  • Plant Person: They like to release gas that can mutate normal people into plant monsters. Notably, these plant monsters never attack them, implying they have some control over the virus.
  • Shoot the Medic First: They have medics that can heal their other teammates.
  • Southern-Fried Private: They all sport notable southern accents. Not the trashy, hillbilly-esque accents that Pandoran bandits have, however.

    Colonel Hector 

The Bad Guy

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/colonel_hector.jpg
The leader of the New Pandora Army, a bitter soldier turned eco-terrorist and aspiring military dictator of Pandora.
  • 0% Approval Rating: Unlike Handsome Jack, no-one on Pandora has any illusions Hector isn't a genocidal madman.
  • A Father to His Men: An extremely twisted example. He wants to create a paradise for him and his men, but is perfectly willing to commit genocide against the rest of Pandora to achieve his goal.
  • Bomb-Throwing Anarchists: Of the "biological" variant. Hector's Paradise Gas bombs are thrown like grenades and trigger the inert spores that every Pandoran has breathed in through the air to grow and mutate the victim. Depending on the infection vector it can take either hours or seconds.
  • Book Ends: In a thematic sense. Abandoned Dahl mining infrastructure defines much of Pandora, especially the first areas of the first game. The send-off for the sequel involves resolving a fragment of that story.
  • Catchphrase: "Point, Hector."
  • Dark and Troubled Past: Zigzagged. While his past is genuinely tragic, its pretty unremarkable by Pandoran standards.
  • Foil: To Colonel Zarpedon from The Pre-Sequel! Both are Ex-Dahl service personnel who commanded the respect of their men, then were cruelly abandoned and left to die when things went wrong (The Crackening, the mine collapse) before being saved by a powerful ally (The Eridians, Dr. Cassius) and discovering a source of great power (The Vault, the Paradise Gas.) And while both were trying to destroy Pandora/Elpis, where they differ is that Zarpedon forsook her own needs (including ever seeing her much-longed-for daughter again) as did her men in order to protect the universe as a whole, whereas Hector selfishly planned to murder everyone on Pandora just to get the broken promise he felt entitled to have. Zarpedon also showed no ill will towards Dahl or the hired Vault Hunters opposing her, whereas Hector seemed motivated to spite anything and everything he possibly could.
  • The Generalissimo: While Handsome Jack was a corporate example, Hector is a straight military one. He has the fancy outfit, vengeful and boastful personality, and his solution to all resistance is death.
  • It's All About Me: Again, his backstory is entirely average for Pandora, yet feels he personally has been wronged the most.
  • The Stoic: Hector is not one for theatrics, especially compared to Jack.
  • The Needs of the Many: Inverted. Hector is entirely obsessed with the empty promise Dahl made to him and his unit, and when it turned out to be false he decided the needs of one mining team was worth more than the lives of an entire planet's worth of people.
  • Plant Person: Hector utilizes a gas that triggers growth of Pandora's natural spores to empower himself and his soldiers, as well as mutate other Pandorans into more of their forces.
  • Unsportsmanlike Gloating: Most of his ECHO calls are him gloating about how easy it was to take over Sanctuary and mocking your military tactics. It makes just about everyone hate him.
  • Utopia Justifies the Means: Hector and his men were former Dahl soldiers sent to Pandora thinking Dahl was going to let them retire in paradise. Instead, they were forced to work on the hellish planet and were later sealed away in their own mines. Despite it all, Hector swore to his men that they would make Pandora their promised paradise... no matter what.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: On paper, his plan is to terraform Pandora so that his men would have a worthwhile place to call home. In-practice however he does so by using a plague to mutate himself and his men while also wiping out everyone else.

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