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The Stratospheric/Heliopause Colony

Sol's Strato age group

The Main Character/"Sol" (Solane/Solana/Solanaceae)

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

Click ^here for late teen portrait (feminine)
Click ^here for late teen portrait (masculine)
Click ^here for young teen portrait
Click ^here for child portrait

An enthusiastic, imaginative child whose growth from the ages of 10 to 19 forms the game's story. Unbeknownst to their fellow colonists, they have the ability to see alternate universes- an ability that causes them great panic, because most of those universes show Strato destroyed.

Affectionate Nickname: Besides being called various plant nicknames by their dad, Utopia calls them "sweets", while Symbiosis calls them "sugarbug".
Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: In the Transcended Time ending, their mind enters the wormhole while under the influence of mind-affecting spores, becoming a being beyond time and space. Since this happens in one timeline, there's a "Sol" who has done this in every timeline. This is the source of their psychic dreams.
Badass Bookworm: They can become this if they focus on increasing their mental skills. Mental perks are as useful as physical ones, and can give Sol highly effective cards and perks that can be used in any card game - including combat encounters. In particular, Engineering skill can turn their brain into a lethal weapon both mechanically and in-story.
Canon Name: While their name is customizable, they're known in official marketing as "Sol", and the game suggests Solane/Solana/Solanaceae as their full name.
Chessmaster Sidekick: Saving Vertumna requires that Sol either become governor of the colony or enable Marz to do so.
Cosmic Motifs: All of their canonical names are some variation on the word "Sol", and the first necklace their father gives them is marked with a sun.
Extra Digits: If they have the Extra Fingers augment, they become more dextrous, granting them 10 Creativity and a bonus 1 point for Creativity and Organization skill gains.
Featureless Protagonist: Played with. Most traits are customizable — their gender, name, opinions, best friend, mutation, and hobbies- but their basic appearance and optimistic personality remain consistent.
Flower Motifs: Their default name options are all variants on "Solanaceae", the name of the plant family that includes toxic or psychoactive plants like tobacco, datura, and deadly nightshade as well as potatoes, eggplants, and tomatoes. Geranium (also named after a flower) often uses the common names of plants in this family as a nickname for his child (e.g. "Little Tomato").
Fluffy Tamer: If they have enough skill in Animals, they can tame the alien creatures and make them their pets, which can be equipped as gear to provide card bonuses.
Future Me Scares Me: Their prophetic dreams and premonitions can be extremely upsetting, verging into physically painful when nearing the truth about Sol's link with the wormhole.
Genki Girl: Regardless of gender, a young Sol excitedly races Anemone to the classroom and looks forward to their first day of "Agricultural Soil Conveyance" (i.e, moving dirt). Even as successive lives disillusion them, their curiosity for all that life can offer never truly leaves them.
Hypocrite: They can agree with Cal's Actual Pacifist beliefs, even if Sol killed an animal prior to this conversation. Cal doesn't even call out Sol for it and still gains 2 points on his heart meter.
I Just Want to Be Normal: They can feel this way after having their first wave of visions since landing on Vertumna. They decide not to talk about their "dreams" to others because they want to be a "normal" kid.
Job's Only Volunteer: This is a recurring reason for which some events don't happen unless Sol initiates them. For instance, they are explicitly the only applicant of the entire week when the Supply Depot offers the delivery job. Because of this, Seeq accepts to hire them as long as they meet the stat requirements despite being a Child Hater.
Long Hair Is Feminine: Their "feminine" appearance if the player chooses that at any point in the game has hair that reaches down to their waist.
Nerves of Steel: If they have the Calm Temperament augment, their relaxed personality reduces the stress they get from working by 2 points. It doesn't prevent them from getting traumatized during Glow attacks, however.
No Biological Sex: When they and their peers undergo puberty, it's possible for Sol to skip the physical changes entirely because they're "a doll down there".
No Infantile Amnesia: Their starter cards are based on their babyhood memories such as their first steps and first words.
O.O.C. Is Serious Business: If Sol deals with the mess caused by their first period or first erection themself, whichever parent went through the same thing will figure out what's going on a simple basis: there are only a few reasons a thirteen-year-old does their own laundry.
Oracular Urchin: They end up like this after a few playthroughs, haunted by prophetic dreams of the traumas their alternate selves have endured.
Paranormal Gambling Advantage: A one-time event allows Sol to wager Kudos in a card game against Rex. From the second life in which they play the game onwards, Sol remembers it and exactly which move they need to make at a key moment to win.
Past-Life Memories: They have visions of the future because they can recall their past lives, which lets them save certain characters from dying in subsequent runs.
The Peeping Tom: One of the guard duty events can have Sol catch Vace and Anemone sneaking out to do what hormonal teenagers sneak out to do, when Anemone was supposed to be on-duty with Sol. Sol can either be aroused, disgusted, or — if they were interested in Anemone and/or Vace themselves — heartbroken.
Personality Powers: They want to enjoy every possibility they can, and their magic lets them do just that.
Ping Pong Naïveté: Going for specific results often requires flip-flopping between trusting the Past-Life Memories and ignoring them. In addition to this, there are situations where they simply aren't an option, regardless of how much they could help. This results in Sol needing the same skills to find out about Dys' secret passage out of the colony every single run, but being able to manipulate the outcome of a specific card game due to remembering it.
Professor Guinea Pig: Sol gets at least two separate opportunities to be their own test subject:
- If they assist Instance and Tangent with finding the Shimmer cure, one option they have is infecting themself with the disease, then trying the cure. In fact, in loops in which they know the cure works, but need to convince the colony's scientists, the option is encouraged.
- If they come up with a new variety of blep tea while working in the xenobotany lab, their choice of testers are Tangent, Cal, or themself.
Second Love: They become this to either Anemone or Vace after breaking up their abusive relationship.
Shared Family Quirks: If they tell their dad that they're doing fine and don't need a break, he remarks that they're just as stubborn as their mom: they both refuse to "admit they're having a hard time".
Shipper on Deck: They can be supportive of Cal and Tammy's relationship if they wish by playfully teasing them with a Kissing In A Tree joke and boosting Tammy's confidence to ask him out.
Strong Family Resemblance: They inherited their blue-and-yellow hair from their father Geranium.
Suicidal Pacifism: When Rhett offers them to join his and Vace's hunting party, Sol can decline on the grounds that they would never kill an animal. Vace then scoffs at them, believing that they wouldn't even fight back against an animal that's trying to kill them.
Vace: I knew you Strato kids were soft... I didn't know you were suicidal, too.
Super Gullible: This can happen if their Reasoning is too low. One of the cases Sol is the most likely to run into is the first month working as a Supply Depot clerk in charge of printing the orders, during which they get joke orders from some of the other children. The only alternative to having enough Reasoning to notice any of the orders are pranks is to try to fill them, with a score of 25 being necessary to catch Tangent's.
Super-Intelligence: If they have the Absorbent Brain augment, their enhanced neurons give them the power to learn faster, granting them 10 Reasoning and a bonus 1 point for Engineering and Biology skill gains.
Super-Senses: If they have the Eagle Eyes augment, their enhanced vision boosts their Perception and Animals skill gains by an additional 1 point.
Super-Strength: They can have this as their augment, which strengthens their Toughness and Combat skill gains by an extra 1 point.
Super-Toughness: Maxing out the Toughness skill gives them this perk, which protects them from getting injured.
Swallowed Whole: If Sol loses against particularly large Xenos like Faceless, they will be swallowed whole. While Sol can escape on their own with extreme difficulty, Sym can bail them out.
Troubled Teen: A side effect of puberty is that with hormones raging, Sol's Rebellion gains are tripled. Their teenage years can be strongly characterized by rebelliousness even if they were an obedient child.

Tang (Tangent)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/332px_tang3.png

Click ^here for young teen portrait
Click ^here for child portrait

"I'm living proof that humanity is greater than our biology."

An academic prodigy who firmly believes in humanity's manifest destiny. Her standoffish nature and obsessive studying have formed a rift between her and her brother, Dys. Like many colonists, Tangent feels uncomfortable on Vertumna IV, having preferred the comfort and predictability of spaceship life. She spends most of her time in Engineering, which houses the colony's labs, medbay and classrooms.

Acting Your Intellectual Age: She's tagged as the "studious and mature" option as early as the menu allowing to choose Sol's childhood friend. She lives up to this description during her childhood and early teens via spending her time studying all while being perpetually dismissive of the activities her peers engage in.
Angsty Surviving Twin: She becomes this in the ending if Dys goes missing and is never found.
Arbitrary Skepticism: She objects to unconventional experiments (like studying the effect of singing on an alien plant) in science class, although experimentation is the point of science and nobody knows much about Vertumnan flora yet. If Sol chooses an unconventional experiment that actually yields results, however, she will be pleased.
Astonishingly Appropriate Appearance: As a child, her ponytail is shaped like DNA, fitting for an aspiring scientist.
Big Sister Instinct: In one of her sidequests, she asks Sol to find out where Dys goes every day, because she's worried it might be somewhere dangerous. Promising to protect Dys increases her affection points, even though she doubts he can.
Book Smart: She's always seen near the Engineering building in the overworld because she studies there a lot. Hanging out with her there is an easy way to boost your mental skills since her knowledge rubs off on you.
Brainy Brunette: Although she has purple and white streaks in her black hair, she's the smartest and most studious among her peers.
Brutal Honesty: She hardly ever sugarcoats her words in the average conversation, resulting in any deviance from this being a hint that she's either omitting something or not voicing her true feelings.
Can't Live with Them, Can't Live Without Them: Her relationship with Dys if the two of them don't properly reconcile. She keeps acting like her brother is a thorn in her side, but timelines in which he goes missing and is never found have her go into a mental breakdown over it.
Desperately Craves Affection: If she's having an emotionally hard time, hugs are more effective on her than words. Sol can even walk in on her getting a hug from Dys during one of the earlier Glow attacks.
Everyone Has Standards: She does not care much for living in harmony with nature and will advocate for pragmatic and sometimes ruthless positions, but even she feels awful about being forced to develop a plague that would wipe out lives on the planet in order to make space for humans.
Expository Hairstyle Change: In her childhood, she has long hair with a ponytail. As an early teen, she almost completely shaves her head, and when asked why states that she felt her long hair was weighing her down. As a young adult, she starts growing her hair out again, this time growing curly hair to indicate emotional dishevelment and openness.
Friendly Rival: Despite her self-assuredness, Tangent always gains friendship when Sol beats her in a competition, probably because it means someone is at her mental level.
Friends with Benefits: Is available as a casual hookup before you can enter into a relationship with her. In fact, trying to make a romantic move on her instead of propositioning her for sex will actually lose you a few friendship points.
Happily Adopted: She's happy to be adopted by Instance because she gave her the love and care her birth mom never did. Instance also wholeheartedly supported her in her transition, and the technology used for it was what inspired Tang to become a scientist just like her.
Heroic BSoD: If her affection points are high enough, Sol will see Tangent lamenting the destructiveness of human nature, as shown by the extinction of human life on Earth, and fearing that Strato is doomed to the same fate.
The Illegible: Even if she uses a stylus with her holopalm, Tang is so used to typing in the air with it that she struggles with handwriting with a pen and paper. Marz makes fun of her for it at first, but then gently helps her with it.
Innocent Bigot: She is only a child when she develops her belief in human supremacy- and one who's never been allowed to see the world beyond Strato's walls, at that. She gets better.
Insufferable Genius: She knows she is one and is not afraid to claim as much, though less so as she grows into her late teens.
Intelligence Equals Isolation: She is always busy studying something or other, too busy to tolerate other kids' jokes or games.
"I need to finish this bio assignment so I can start on the engineering lab after lunch, and then I have a physics quiz to study for. If you won't help, go kick a ball or something with the other kids."
Labcoat of Science and Medicine: She wears a lab coat in her late teens as she continues studying Science and Engineering.
Literal-Minded: She often doesn't understand the nuances of flirting and gives scientific responses to them. For example:
Sol: You look really hot today.
Tang: It will cool down now that night is falling. And this lab coat is lighter than it looks. I'm fine.
Missing Mom: Her and her twin brother's mom, Besk, died before the events of the game, and they are currently under the care of Chief Engineer Instance.
Not So Above It All: The stoic and studious Tangent isn't above goofing around sometimes.
- She Prank Calls Sol by ordering "ID-10-T gas" from them during work at the Supply Depot.
- A possible conversation with her shows that she by no means needs to have Sol around to engage in Binomium ridiculus. One of the dialog options has her refuse to name one of her newly discovered species after herself, on the grounds that she already did so six times.
- When she wants to taste the sparksnow, she sticks her tongue out and waits for flake to land on it.
- If Sol becomes a writer of spicy novels, Tang becomes their most avid reader.
Odd Friendship: With Marz. Even Sol is confused by it, and they drift apart somewhat over the years, but Marz is one of the few people who can get Tang to poke her head out of her shell.
Parental Abandonment: While her and Dys's mom died from suicide, Dys states in his six-heart event that they never had a father, implying he was likely a Glorified Sperm Donor.
Really Gets Around: In the epilogue, she's mentioned to have a string of casual relationships with mostly scientists and women after breaking up with you because of her short attention span for long-term commitment.
The Sleepless: Tangent's mutation is that she hardly ever needs to sleep, and even then only for a few minutes. However, that does not mean her health won't be adversely affected in the long run if she keeps it up because in exchange, she has to eat more because she burns more calories while awake, and she can eventually burn out in the ending because of this, dying relatively young of a heart condition in her sixties.
Straw Vulcan: Literal-Minded? Check. Doesn't feel emotions much and doesn't think much of them in general? Check. Working on a scientific project to kill every non-human on the planet? Double check.
Sugar-and-Ice Personality: She says she's only worried about Dys because other people are, but Sol doesn't take this claim at face value. Unfortunately, Dys does.
Transhuman: In addition to the standard holopalm implant and in utero genetic enhancement that all colonists have, Tangent has further post-natal genetic modification to physically affirm her gender and inherits a complex ocular implant from Instance. Her teenage conversations explore her resentment and distaste for having an organic body at all; she wishes she could have been an AI like Congruence. Ironically, her estranged twin Dys actually can transcend his body as a Gardener AI, while Tangent remains a Human in all endings.
Trans Tribulations: Not only is Tangent transgender, which strains her relationship with her brother, but she wants to cast aside her humanity altogether — disdaining her organic body for its limitations.
Tsundere: If Sol asks her if she's their secret admirer and it's a yes, she'll be flustered at the idea because she claims she's too busy with work. If Sol promises not to tell anyone, she'll be relieved because she doesn't want to make a big deal about it.
Unwanted Assistance: While she asks Sol for help in her lab work, she doesn't like it if they offer their help first because she hates being patronized, causing her heart meter to drop by 2 points.
When She Smiles: She rarely ever smiles, but when she does, it's because she's become more comfortable with Sol over the years.

Tammy (Aspartame)

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Click ^here for young teen portrait
Click ^here for child portrait

"I think...I'm going to try to make this place feel like home. And that means trying to not be so afraid."

A kindhearted girl who sees the good in everyone around her. She is afraid of the dangers beyond Strato's walls, so she mostly stays inside the colony, caring for younger children and helping in the kitchens. The peers she's closest to are Cal, who she's in a sort of proto-relationship with, and Marz.

Boring, but Practical: Compared to her peers, her areas of expertise are quite mundane: she's a good cook and she loves babies. Both are incredibly important in a growing colony.
The Ditz: Academia is not one of her strong points. She tries, but she's so bad at it that helping her study actually decreases Sol's Reasoning stat. And while she already knows that babies grow in their mothers' bellies, she was so embarrassed to watch the sex ed holovids, she doesn't know how they're made in the first place.
Character Tics: She tends to pull on her ears when she feels unsure.
Childhood Friend Romance: Tammy has known Cal since they were toddlers, and if Sol saves her, they start dating around their respective 17th birthdays.
Color Motif: Yellow is her favorite color, as seen in her outfits and her favorite things. Yellow gifts such as flowers increase her heart meter by 2 points, and 4 if it's her birthday. It symbolizes the happiness she brings around others, especially kids.
Daddy's Girl: She's attached to her father Tonin since her mother was never present in her life. She even gets worried about him going on a dangerous expedition and asks Sol to spike Tonin's blep tea with sleeping pills to stop him from leaving.
Everyone's Baby Sister: One of the reasons her fate in the first playthrough (and any other timeline in which Sol doesn't prevent it) is considered tragic is that the entire peer group feels protective of her, despite her actually being one of its older members. Even Dys doesn't have any sort of averse feelings towards her.
Friend to All Children: She loves babysitting the kids in the creche, and they love playing with her. In fact, she wants to have a baby of her own when she grows up, and her dream comes true when she gets pregnant with Cal's child.
Future Badass: On playthroughs where Tammy survives, Sol has a vision of her pulling them away from a bear.
"Come on! It's my turn to save you!"
Height Angst: As a child, she's taller than the rest of the boys, even Cal, who's a year older than her, and she feels conscious because she believes that "princes" like him should be taller than her. You can tell her the good things about being tall or compliment that her height is fine the way it is to cheer her up.
Hidden Depths: She is surprisingly good at sportsball, presumably because of her talent for reading people.
The Lost Lenore: If she dies, Cal is shattered by the event, becoming sad and withdrawn for the rest of the year. Routes where she lives avert this trope, because she contributes to the narrative if alive.
Mama Bear: She respectfully disagrees with Cal's pacifism because she wants their daughter to be safe, and that's impossible unless the colony defends itself.
Meaningful Name: Aspartame is an artificial sweetener that is much sweeter than normal sucrose.
Missing Mom: She doesn't know who her mother is because she was carried by an anonymous surrogate parent, with Tonin as the donor. It's later revealed during Tonin's funeral if he dies that her mother, Lavendula, died before the events of the game.
Nice Girl: An unfailingly sweet and kind girl.
Picky Eater: Ironically for someone who loves experimenting with dishes while cooking, she serves them to Cal because she prefers simple foods like plain soycakes, simple broths, well-cooked vegetables, and her most favorite of all -- cake.
Pointy Ears: Her ears are noticeably pointed, due to her mutation giving her enhanced hearing. Sol says she gives off the air of a fairytale princess.
Rose-Haired Sweetie: Has pink hair and is the sweetest and kindest member among your childhood friends.
Sacrificial Lamb: She's the first one to die in the very first playthrough of the game since it's unavoidable, and it's done to demonstrate that not even children are safe in Vertumna. This can then be prevented in subsequent runs since Sol can remember her death and save her from it.
Strong Family Resemblance: She's a miniature version of her father Tonin, inheriting his pink hair.
Sweet Baker: She's sweet and kind, just like the cake she bakes for Sol for their birthday.
Tastes Like Friendship: She bakes a cake for you for your birthday, and you can share it with her to bond with her.
Teen Pregnancy: Downplayed. She's excited to try out artificial insemination once she turns 18, and on the 8th Vertumnalia Festival, Lum announces Tammy's pregnancy at 19, the first in the colony since they landed on Vertumna. She decides to keep the baby because she has always wanted to be a mother and believes that she's ready for it despite her age.

Dys (Dysthymia)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/361px_dys_stage3.png

Click ^here for young teen portrait
Click ^here for child portrait

"Kids aren't allowed past the walls... They say there's nothing to be afraid of, but then why do we need walls?"

An introspective boy who is as curious as he is prickly. Having never felt accepted by the colony, he began sneaking out at an early age to explore Vertumna's wilderness. His disrespect for social norms puts him at odds with the other colonists, including his sister, Tangent. As a teenager, he works with the surveyors, which only further amplifies the extent to which he's more aware of what's outside of the colony than Sol's other peers.

Agent Mulder: He is the first colony kid to catch on to the fact that Vertumna IV is alive, and potentially not thrilled to have a new invasive species living on it. He's also just about the only person who believes anything Sol says about their precognitive visions, since he is also privy to unbelievable secrets about the true nature of the planet.
Anger Born of Worry: An encounter in the Plains sees Dys furiously scolding Sol after a close call with a lake monster. Sol notices, to their mild surprise, that Dys's anger is based in genuine concern for their well-being, not the desire to avoid blame like he claims.
Birthday Hater:
- In an event that has Marz look at early childhood photos, the only photo of him she can find in her archive is one taken for his and Tang's fifth birthday, which Marz notes to be from before he got "weird" about his birthday.
- If given a birthday gift, he's flustered about it and can mention either not liking it when people make a big deal out of it or that Tang "actually likes the attention," the latter case suggesting he doesn't. He also doesn't like being given cake for his birthday.
- During one his friendship events, it's possible for Sol to remember him having a meltdown on his eighth birthday in response to Anemone asking if he was alright and being fine with not having a party at all for his ninth.
Book Dumb: He dislikes traditional classes, but his willingness to get his hands dirty actually experiencing Vertumna is unmatched.
Eco-Terrorist: Unless Sol goes out of their way to befriend him, Dys will turn against the colony, detonating a bomb against the walls during the yearly Glow attack. Catching him in the act of setting the bomb reveals that Noctilucent offered him a place in the Gardener Array if he betrayed Humanity.
Everyone Has Standards:
- If he's asked if he's the one who anonymously gave Sol a data band containing all their favorite media as a courtship gift, but isn't the one who did it, Dys says he may be a weird person, but he's not a stalker.
- If Sol asks him if he's the one who made the shrine at the Prosaic Plains, he remarks that while they think he's weird, he's not "this weird", implying that Sol assumed he made a Stalker Shrine for them.
Hidden Depths: He's shown to be a surprisingly talented programmer. When he finds himself with a strong impulse to Dartboard of Hate Marz, he makes a holopalm game for that sole purpose, after having shown no indication of having the skills necessary to do so. The idea of making a holopalm game oneself is foreign to Sol until they catch him playing it. One "Relaxing on the Walls" event has him show Sol another game he made, which is a merchant simulator according to Sol's description of it. Asking Nomi-Nomi how they managed to connect their much newer holopalm to the Stratospheric's archive reveals that Dys helped them with the task.
Interspecies Romance: He can hook up with Sym, a Gardener, if Sol goes on enough expeditions to witness it.
In the Blood:
- Both he and his twin sister are stubborn introverts who know a lot, although their areas of knowledge are different.
- Tangent and Dys's mother Besk suffered from chronic depression, which tends to run in families. Both of her children suffer from it as well, and it can destroy their relationship.
Meaningful Name: Named after a form of chronic depression and is the most clear and open case of a depression sufferer among the cast. He muses on what an odd thing that is to name a child after, and consequently fears that he was a contributing factor to his mother's suicide.
Missing Mom: His and his twin sister's mom, Besk, died before the events of the game, and they are currently under the care of Chief Engineer Instance.
Mistaken for Racist: Or Mistaken for Transphobic in this case. Dys and Tangent's relationship began to fall apart in earnest right around the time she underwent physical transition treatment. Some colonists, including Tangent, take this as a sign that Dys does not approve of his sister's transition. In reality he was one of, if not the first people she came out to and had no issue with the concept. The real reason for their relationship disintegrating was Dys's worsening depression and social anxiety combined with Tangent's increasingly obsessive drive for academic perfection, especially the Insufferable Genius attitude that came with it.
Nature Hero: Exploring is the only thing Dys really enjoys, and he does it as often as he can. Sol literally cannot follow him when he disappears into the wilderness, however high their stats are (although trying boosts their Perception ability).
Nerves of Steel: His Bio-Augmentation makes him completely fearless, which is why he's daring to go on life-threatening expeditions and is Not Afraid to Die.
Never Found the Body: If Sol doesn't convince Dys to stop setting up the bomb near the colony walls, they worry with their friends about Dys's fate. He mysteriously disappears during the explosion, and it's unknown if he died in it or survived. He manages to have this happen even if Sol prevents the bomb planting and he continues living in the colony: immunity to fear and working in Expeditions turn out to be a literally deadly combination in the long run, and he disappears during an "unscheduled expedition" at the Western Wresting Ridge in his late 20s.
Not Afraid to Die: As a side effect of his enhancement, even death is nowhere near as scary to him as it is to other people.
The Quiet One: He rarely talks, feeling easily overwhelmed by conversation. One way to grow Sol's friendship with him is to sit beside him in silence, not pressuring him to do anything he doesn't want to.
Parental Abandonment: While his and Tang's mom died from suicide, Dys states in his six-heart event that they never had a father, implying he was likely a Glorified Sperm Donor.
Polyamory: He can enter a threesome with Sol and Symbiosis on certain routes.
Rebellious Spirit: As a child, he scorns Sol if the latter tells him that their parents will protect them from monsters. This gradually intensifies during his growth, to the point of disappearing after setting off a bomb on the walls little after turning eighteen if left to his own devices.
Successful Sibling Syndrome: He believes that Tangent thinks of him as a burden to be pitied. She doesn't, but she doesn't know how to express that.
Dys: (sarcastically) Tangent is sooooo mature. She knows everything. I'm just a sensitive little crybaby who doesn't know anything.
Sucks at Dancing: If you ask him out to dance with you on your 17th birthday party, he shuffles around with you awkwardly. He doesn't know where to put his hands on you, and he still manages to step on your feet even while focusing on his.
Taught by Experience: He has multiple reasons to avoid attending class, which he replaces with leaving the colony to actually see what is outside it, people-watching and thorough exploration of what he can do with his holopalm. By the time he's a teenager, he plays the role of senior colleague among the surveyors despite being close to a year younger than Sol, is programming his own video games and is on par with Marz in noticing the colony's flaws.
Transhuman: One of his possible fates establishes that he is just as interested in the idea of giving up on his human body to become an AI as his sister is. Said fate has him do exactly that, just not with human technology.
When He Smiles: Like his sister, he very rarely smiles, only doing so when Sol reaches out to him with care.
The Xenophile: Between his childhood unauthorized walkabouts and his surveyor work, he accumulates a lot of knowledge about the Vertumnan wildlife. The time he spends with Sym also makes him very knowledgeable about the Gardeners.

Anemone

Click ^here for young teen portrait
Click ^here for child portrait

"Even if there were monsters, Chief Rhett would beat them all up, so don't worry!"

A fearless girl who embraces the space and challenges of Vertumna. She puts her energy to good use practicing athletics. The colony's realities cause her to feel more useful on the frontlines than on the sportsball court after the game's midpoint.

Affectionate Nickname: One of the few characters that doesn't go by a nickname initially, but you can give her one in an event. Her mother, on the other hand, calls her "Annie", which she doesn't like because it's too close to her mom's nickname "Anne" and she doesn't want to be associated with "that kid from the holovids" who shares that name. Meanwhile, her friends call her "Nemmie".
Affection-Hating Kid: As a kid, she sticks out her tongue and gags when her mother, Auntie Seedent, kisses her on the forehead. Their relationship grows worse during Anemone's adolescence as she lashes out at what she sees as Auntie Seedent's My Beloved Smother tendencies.
All Girls Want Bad Boys: From the moment the Heliopause arrives on the colony, Anemone is attracted to the tough, militaristic, macho Vace, to the point of potentially breaking off a budding romance with Sol to start dating him. Vace, for his part, quickly proves to be temperamental, aggressive, controlling, and can persuade Anemone to have sex with him when she should be on-duty.
Book Dumb: As a child, she hates school and would rather play sportsball instead.
Break the Cutie: Her beloved brother's death causes her to go from a plucky and cheerful girl to a bitter and angry young woman who joins the military dead-set on revenge. She also comes to scorn her once-beloved sportsball as a children's activity, devoting all her time into becoming a soldier.
Childish Tooth Gap: She has a missing tooth as a kid, highlighting her pluckiness.
Destructive Romance: Anemone's romance with Vace is characterized by emotional and eventually physical abuse, with him attempting to control who she can hang out with and cheating on her while expecting her to be completely faithful to him. Sol can try to intervene, but Anemone will reject their aid — especially if Sol confesses to having feelings for her — unless Sol has enough Persuasion, Empathy, or evidence against Vace to get her to see she's only hurting herself by staying with Vace.
Domestic Abuse: Vace abuses her emotionally, and escalates ^note to physical abuse. She always leaves him eventually, but if Sol is friends with either of them, they can expedite the process.
Establishing Character Moment: A vision shows Anemone's adult self running into a burning building to save Sol. Depending on Sol's choices, this scene can come to pass.
Fiery Redhead: Anemone's fiery red hair complements her brash and outgoing personality as a child, and her angsty and vengeful personality as a teenager.
Freudian Excuse: Her authoritarianism in the more tragic routes stems from a natural hatred for the planet that killed her brother and won't stop attacking the colony until every other human follows.
Healing Factor: Her Bio-Augmentation allows her skin to grow blue-green scales to cover up cuts or scrapes.
I Call It "Vera": An implied case of the "naming the the weapon after a loved one" variant. Fighting alongside Anemone during the late teen years can result in Sol noticing that she stenciled "Kombucha" on her plasrifle's barrel.
I Have Brothers: Her strong passion for sports comes from having many brothers, one of whom is the coach of the sportsball team.
Love Triangle: If romanced by Sol, Anemone finds herself caught up in one between them and Vace. No matter how close she and Sol are, Anemone will initially start dating Vace due to her trauma over her brother's death. However, if Sol has enough Persuasion or Empathy to get her to see how toxic and abusive Vace is, or has gathered enough evidence to expose his control over her, she will dump him and be open to dating Sol. This can also double as a Bisexual Love Triangle depending on the Sol's sex and gender.
Making Love in All the Wrong Places: One of the guard duty events has Sol spying on Anemone having sex in public with Vace when she should be on watch with them.
Massive Numbered Siblings: Besides Kom, Anemone has triplet brothers, making them five siblings in all.
Meaningful Name: The non-marine anemone is a brightly-colored flower, sometimes called the "windflower" because its dead petals fly everywhere.
O.O.C. Is Serious Business: One time when they talk to her, Sol notes that the normally focused Anemone is unusually withdrawn when she's dating Vace. She says that she got in trouble with him, but denies the fact that she's being abused by him and tells herself that she'll just apologize to him.
Passionate Sports Girl: She loves playing sportsball at the garrison, and you can join her for a match with her brother Kom.
Prophetic Name: In Greek mythology, the anemone was born from the blood of a young man who was tragically slain, and so symbolizes mourning — which Anemone does a lot of. It also keeps growing for a while after it's cut, indicating that she will overcome Vace's abuse.
Rugged Scar: Anemone's mutation causes protective blue scales to grow wherever her skin gets cut- and she's always doing dangerous things, so she has a lot of scales.
With Us or Against Us: Near the end of tragic routes, she openly says that anyone who sympathizes with xenos should die with them.

Marz (Marzipan)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/413px_marz3.png

Click ^here for young teen portrait
Click ^here for child portrait

"Come on! I won't let you miss this!"

A confident, occasionally hurtful girl who fits well into Strato's bureaucracy. She never loses her taste for the finer things in life, but as she matures, she feels driven to use her clout constructively, all while increasingly finding fault with the way the adults are running things.

Alpha Bitch: She is rather mean as a child and is noted to have been the leader among the children. Even as she grows older, Marz naturally wields presence and knows how to get ahead in life, though she becomes more well-meaning.
Ambition is Evil: Subverted. She is the most ambitious and at first often the meanest among the children. However, much of her ambitions as she grows older involve making the world a better place for everyone. She does not want to have everything in life if it means everybody else has nothing.
Attention Whore: Downplayed. She complains that the adult colonists are too busy to pay much attention to her, and being on a sportsball team with her is difficult because she never passes the ball to others. Yet she doesn't mind when other characters do the same thing, because she sees it as entirely logical.
Born in the Wrong Century: She's a poor fit for the colony's ideals of using as few resources as possible, comfortable but not luxurious living standards and stepping away from the way things were done on Earth. She quickly reaches a point where she can't get the new clothes she wants without recycling those she already has, gets bored of the colony's existing media archive and genuinely wonders if capitalism was such a bad thing. In the latter case, it's to the point that she exploits loopholes that allow one to use Kudos like money rather than Good Behavior Points. She's also very enthusiastic about the Supply Depot opening because she can finally shop like the people in the media she's been watching and introducing various Earth traditions to the colony. Had she been born in older, more consumerist times, she would have fit right in.
Brutal Honesty: She does not mince words and will tend to appreciate the same quality in others.
The Bully: She picked on Dys often as a child. In her late teens, she begins to regret this.
The Fashionista: Even as a child she liked to dress up and enjoys Earth's fashions.
Honorary Aunt: In the epilogue, she becomes a surrogate mom, despite her dislike for children, for novelty's sake, and becomes said child's "Auntie Marz".
Hypocritical Humor: She tells Anemone and Vace to Get a Room! when they "suck face" in public during your 17th birthday party, when Marz herself has no problem with making out with you out in the open.
Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She is probably the meanest among the kids and retains the same rough edges even as she grows into her teenage years, but she often means well and wants the best for people.
Innocently Insensitive: Because Marz is not hurt by others' words thanks to her augment that makes her immune to shame, she is unaware of how her own words can hurt others. She laments how she treated Dys poorly as a child after she realizes this.
Leg Focus: Her dress if she becomes governor has a long slit down her skirt that exposes her thighs.
Like Father, Unlike Son: When Sol first meets Marz's dads at the construction site, they note that they're "honest, friendly, straightforward guys with wide shoulders, strong backs, and soft hearts", in stark contrast to Marz's loud and sassy personality.
Long Hair Is Feminine: She's the most feminine among Sol's female peers, given her love for fashion and shopping, and has hair reaching down to her thighs as a young adult.
Meaningful Name: Marzipan is an ingredient that can be used to make elegant-looking sweets. Marz is a homophone to "Mars", both a Roman god of war and a planet that is a popular location for fictional exocolonies.
Pet the Dog: When Tammy was having problems with the high pollen amount on Vertumna, Marz bought her a scarf to filter it through.
Polyamory: She can enter a polyamorous relationship with you and Rex since she doesn't mind sharing you with him.
Proud Beauty: She likes to boast about her beauty and hates getting dirt on her clothes. This is because her augment makes her unable to feel shame, making her proud of her own beauty.
Really Gets Around: She is flirty and in one ending is stated to have a string of lovers and never exclusively.
Sassy Black Woman: She's Black and was cocky and bossy as a child, but she grows out of it as she takes on the leadership role in her teen years.
Shameless Fanservice Girl: Thanks to her Bio-Augmentation that makes her shameless, she doesn't mind going out in the nude if the colony allows it, which Sol can agree with.
Strong Family Resemblance: Her hair, which is half-black and half-blue, takes after her fathers' hair colors, which she inherited biologically thanks to the colony's surrogacy program. Her eye color is also a combination of Al's blue eyes and Bernie's red ones.
Unwanted Assistance: Some of her bullying of Dys is closer to this, especially in the form applying her own high standards for clothing to someone who kills time with activities that are bound to get his clothing dirty. She at some point gets him in trouble by booking a bunch of nanoprinter appointments in his name for clothing purposes, only to have him not use them and get scolded for wasting resources by the adults. She comes to realize this in her later teens, explaning that at a lot of it was an attempt at Tough Love.
Vanity Is Feminine: Is a Girly Girl among her peers who is most obsessed with her appearance and fashion tastes.
Welcome to My World: She can potentially take over as Chief Administrator, in which case she gains a new understanding of Seeq's less likable personality traits.
Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: She's deathly afraid of insects, especially the Big Creepy-Crawlies found on Vertumna. The third Organizing event with your mom reveals that Marz needed your help to deal with a 'bedbug' infestation because the insects, which the size of her toes, burped up acid all over her bedroom.
Worthy Opponent: Becomes one with Sol if they successfully become the colony's governor, becoming the leadership of the opposition party in the ending. Even when she joins Sol's administration, it is noted that she remains a huge pain, now having more influence.

Cal (Recalcitrance)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/358px_cal3.png

Click ^here for teen portrait
Click ^here for child portrait

"I just don't think it's right to fight anyone, especially the xenos. They were here first."

A creative boy with a steady temperament. His love of nature means he adapts well to Vertumna, appreciating the wildlife and tangibility absent from ship life. His closest friend (girlfriend?) is Tammy, whose course in life greatly affects his. He joins Sol's parents in working in Geoponics soon after the landing.

Actual Pacifist: He hates violence, even in self-defense, because he believes that hurting or killing others isn't the right way to resolve conflict. This makes him struggle with defending the colony in the years to come, and he dies in an attack in his fifties in the epilogue.
Animal Lover: Befriending Cal is one of only a few ways to raise the Animals stat, as his knowledge rubs off on Sol.
Big Eater: He always yells out loud, "Foooood!" whenever you give him food as gifts.
Blaming the Victim: If Sol asks him whether violence is okay in self-defense, he will snap that anyone who "put themselves in a position" where someone wants to kill them probably deserves to die. Anemone, a victim of domestic abuse, does not agree.
Childhood Friend Romance: Cal has known Tammy since they were toddlers, and if Sol saves her, they start dating around their respective 17th birthdays.
Green Means Natural: His hair and outfits are mostly green, and he works as a gardener and rancher at Geoponics.
Hover Board: He used to have one as a kid, but ends up breaking it later in life. Sol can try fixing it for him if they're knowledgable enough in Engineering, but it's damaged beyond repair.
Hunk: Working at Geoponics makes him a handsome, muscled man in his late teenhood/early adulthood, with a chiseled face and a stubble to match.
Ironic Name: His full name is Recalcitrance, meaning "obstinately uncooperative towards authority or discipline", but he is as friendly and expressive a child as anyone could ask for.
Like Parent, Like Spouse: He's noted to have a lot of common with Geranium in a portion of his ending that can appear both if he's good friends with Sol and if he's their romantic partner. The fact that he's the member of Sol's age group who follows Geranium and Flulu's footsteps regardless of playthrough , as long as the special ending in which he dies isn't triggered, certainly helps.
Momma's Boy: One of his earliest scenes has his mother Tirah tending to a bump on his head, which he gladly thanks her for. Sol even comments on Cal's love for her in their narration.
Mundane Luxury: He greatly enjoys mud and rain, because they were not available on the water-recycling Stratospheric.
Naïve Animal Lover: He's unrealistically idealistic when it comes to humanity's ability to live in peace with the wildlife. While it makes him a good caretaker to the animals that are tame enough to be kept in Geoponics, he wouldn't last long in a hunting party if he was willing to join one. By comparison, Dys, who is even more sympathetic to the wildlife than he is, acknowledges that there are plenty of dangerous species among it.
Nice Guy: He's a friendly farmer who's happy to work with Sol at Geoponics, so long as they don't oppose his absolutely pacifistic ways.
O.O.C. Is Serious Business: He is only violent once; in the "Tangent's Cure" ending, as Lum commits genocide all native life on Vertumna.
Pair the Spares: If he doesn't date Tammy, he has a string of intense relationships in the epilogue before settling down with a Heliopause gardener. Her playfulness reminds Sol of Cal's Old Friend Anemone. Alternatively, he may end up with Anemone herself if both their friendships with Sol are maxed out and the player manages to make a deal with the Gardeners, as the ensuing years of peace results in the lack of need for soldiers, allowing her to mellow out enough to reconnect and reconcile with Cal.
Prophetic Name: While his name is quite ironic in his younger years, the leadership from the second half of the game having an outright genocidal attitude towards Vertumna's wildlife makes him one of the colony's more rebellious elements merely from sticking to his Naïve Animal Lover beliefs. This includes refusing to leave his job in Geoponics when the Garrison attempts to recruit all physically fit people past their mid-teens into hunting parties.
Protection from the Elements: His Bio-Augmentation maintains his body temperature regardless of how hot or cold it is outside, so he doesn't sweat or shiver. However, he can still sweat when stressed.
Pungeon Master: He makes a lot of baking puns during the Vertumnalia Bake Off.
"Let's get our bake on!"
Red/Green Contrast: His arguments with Vace are exemplified by their contrasting color schemes, with Cal's desire for peace represented by green and Vace's belief in "necessary" violence represented by red.
Strong Family Resemblance: He's a spitting image of Tirah, taking her green-and-white hair.
Trademark Favorite Food: Not only does he love cake, especially on his birthday, but he also shares a piece with you when you give it to him, reducing a little bit of stress and further boosting your friendship/relationship with him.
Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: He has trypophobia, or the fear of tiny clustered holes especially on flesh, which is why he lets you milk the squeedger at Geoponics instead.
The Xenophile: He knows plenty of things about the Vertumnan animals that can be used as cattle.
You Are in Command Now: If Sol's parents die, Cal will take their places as Chief Cultivator.

Family members and guardians of Sol's age group

Geranium

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/271px_ger.png

Sol's father, a playful animal-handler.

Caring Gardener: He's one of the crew's Cultivators who works at Geoponics, and he's kind and caring towards his child.
Definitely Just a Cold: Has an allergic reaction during Pollen season that gets progressively worse, but doesn't attempt to control it. This is because it's being caused by a mind-affecting fungus.
Genki Guy: An expressive man who refers to Sol with fruit-themed nicknames and throws his arms wide to celebrate the seasons.
Gentle Touch vs. Firm Hand: The Gentle Touch to Flulu's Firm Hand. Geranium is highly affectionate towards Sol and gently pampers them while Flulu gives them firm discipline should they rebel against her.
The Mourning After: If Flulu dies, he never gets over it since he has to take charge of Geoponics. In the epilogue, he ages early due to the stress from managing the sector without her, and he eventually dies from a heart attack.
You Are in Command Now: Takes over as Chief Cultivator if his wife Flulu dies.

Flulu (Fluorescent)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/445px_flulu.png

Sol's mother and Strato's Chief Cultivator, both of which she oversees with stern diligence.

Affectionate Nickname: Her husband, Geranium, calls her "Flulu-belle".
Anger Born of Worry: A fair bit of her stern and humorless parenting style is the result of overwork and anxiety stemming from the loss of the Stratospheric's cultivation supplies. In timelines where the supplies are not lost, she is noticeably more relaxed and open-minded as a parent, not even arguing with Geranium over letting Sol go on expeditions when they turn 13.
Artificial Limbs: Her right leg is a prosthetic, and Geranium used to joke that she got it so she could run faster than everyone else before they had access to genetech. In truth, she had her leg replaced after losing it during the war against humanity before her crew left Earth.
Bald Head of Toughness: Her shaved head emphasizes her fierceness in running Geoponics and protecting her child from danger.
Classy Cane: Her medically-required cane has weed whacker blades on the end.
Gentle Touch vs. Firm Hand: The Firm Hand to Geranium's Gentle Touch. Flulu gives Sol firm discipline should they rebel against her while Geranium is highly affectionate towards them and gently pampers them.
Heartbroken Badass: If she's saved but not Geranium, she falls into complete silence and refuses to talk to Sol unless they pass the Empathy skill check. Even if they succeed, all that the woman warrior, who fought the Earth opposition and led the Vertumna Group on the expedition to the alien planet, could do is try imitating Geranium for Sol. She and her child then grow estranged over the years in the epilogue.
The Insomniac: Her having consistent trouble falling asleep is implied by the fact that Sol uses sleeping pills stolen from her during an attempt at Instant Sedation.
Meaningful Name: Mothers are traditionally considered as the "light" of the family, who enlighten their child with their knowledge of the world, hence her full name is Fluorescent. Fluorescence is also the scientific name of the "glow in the dark" property of some novelty items and she shows her best side during darker times.
Only Known by Their Nickname: Her full name is only mentioned extremely rarely. She's "Flulu" to pretty much everyone, even in formal situations.
O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
- After the ten-year-old Sol fights off a monster, she storms over furiously...and then pulls them into a hug, rocking them as she whispers "My baby," over and over. This is the most sentimental she's been up to that point in the storyline.
  Sol's narration: It's pretty surreal. Almost as weird as the dog-things with the eyes, frankly.
- She will also hug Sol and reassure them if the player goes for a First Period Panic for the "beginning of puberty" scene. Sol doesn't expect that hug, either.
Parental Hypocrisy: On Sol's 11th birthday, Flulu scolds them for trying to fight off the Eyebeast instead of staying in the creche for their safety. They then recall that she was also a fighter back on Earth and note her hypocrisy.
Secret Secret-Keeper: If Cal's Secret Pet Plot is played up to the point where the colony's authorities find out about Socks, the aforementioned pet, it turns out that Flulu knew about her all along and was tolerating her because she was proving to not be dangerous. She's even the one who suggests that it might be time for Cal to release her.

"Auntie Seedent"/Anne (Antecedent)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/564px_anne.png

Strato's Chief Steward and Anemone's mother, who takes care of the colony's children.

Affectionate Nickname: Many children call her "Auntie Seedent", because she acts as an aunt to them and they can't pronounce her real name- Antecedent.
Amazingly Embarrassing Parents:
- She embarrasses Anemone when the latter hits puberty by baking her a red velvet cake that says "Welcome to Womb-manhood!" and proudly telling the other grown-ups that she's "becoming a woman".
- If the female puberty option is chosen for Sol, Sol and Anemone get close to finishing the year of natural function required before qualifying for blockers around the same time. So Anne waits until she's in a room with both of them to give them the reminder practically out of the blue. If another puberty option is chosen for Sol, Anne will mention that Anemone is about to get her blocker.
The Caretaker: She's the head of the creche who raises the colony children there.
Elder Employee: Doesn't retire until well into her eighties, which is bad news for whoever is her second-in-command.
Kingmaker Scenario: When it comes to voting Lum out, she won't do so on her own, but is willing to be an extra vote should three other members of the Council already want to see him go. Because of this, Sol can't count her in unless they have secured at least three other votes.
Meaningful Name: An antecedent is something that goes before another item in a series. Auntie Seedent's duties largely include raising the next generation of colonists.
Noble Bigot: She is surprised when an unmutated Sol succeeds at anything, betraying her belief that they can't reach the standards of normal children, even though mutations in this setting are incredibly minor, specific things. To assuage her guilt over having privileges they don't, and the deep sadness she assumes they must feel, she gives them extra pocket money.
Outliving One's Offspring: She always lives to see her oldest son die.
Sweet Tooth: In Sol's science fair project for the 2nd Vertumnalia Festival, they note that she, along with Utopia, eats sweets all the time.

Kom (Kombucha)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/321px_kom.png

Anemone's cool older brother, who is everything she wants to be- a brave fighter who's good at sports.

Big Brother Worship: Anemone looks up to him and wants to be good in sports just like him.
Lovable Jock: He loves playing sportsball with the kids and is willing to bend a few rules for them because he believes that having fun is the most important thing in sports.
Pointy Ears: Like Tammy, he has pointed ears, but it's unknown if he has Super-Hearing like her.
Red Is Heroic: His red jersey and cape signify his heroics in assisting Rhett in leading the defense against Glow attacks.
Sacrificial Lion: Is killed in the Faceless attack at the end of Year 5 to demonstrate how woefully underprepared the Strato colony is to survive Vertumna. It also signifies the end of childhood for Sol and their peers since they need to prepare themselves for more dangerous Glow attacks from then on.
You Can't Fight Fate: Kom is the only named character that you absolutely cannot save, no matter what you do.

Tonin (Melatonin)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/340px_tonin.png

Tammy's widowed father and the colony's Chief Surveyor at the beginning of the game.

Bold Explorer: He leads the team in charge of exploring the portion of Vertumna that is outside the walls.
Doting Parent: He pays as much attention to Tammy as he can manage to make up for her mother's absence. Tammy's large doll collection is the result of him providing her with a new doll per month for an entire year after her mother's death. He then becomes a Doting Grandparent to Echinacea and all the kids Tammy has after her.
Outliving One's Offspring: While both he and Tammy die unless Sol takes steps to prevent it, Tammy is the first of them to go and Tonin will be wearing a much sadder face until his own death occurs the following year. Sol can double down on this by choosing to save him, but not Tammy.
Prophetic Name: One of the ways to prevent his death without needing to be onsite at the right time is to put sleeping pills in the blep tea Tammy is making for him. His namesake is a popular sleep aid.

Instance

The Chief Engineer who is also the colony's main medical doctor. She was friends with Dys and Tang's deceased mother Besk, resulting in her keeping an eye on the twins. By the beginning of the game, she has become something between a Parental Substitute and a mentor figure to Tangent.

Brutal Honesty: Triggering a scene in which she has more than a few lines is good way to find out who Tangent picked up the habit from. The woman puts up a request for a job "anyone who isn't a total idiot" can do and, in the middle of accepting an applicant, tells them, to their face, that anything with a pulse could do the job. She's also quite vocal about her frustration each time she's called to repair machinery that was damaged by a non-essential task.
Everyone Has Standards: One Supply Depot event implies that she and Seeq have a history. What little she says about it during that same event implies that even she can't stand Seeq's rigidity, despite being, herself, considered one of the less flexible members of the colony.
Fake Defector: Back on Earth, she pretended to be a Cult Defector to gain access to the companies who were making the medbeds, the genetech technology and Congruence for the purpose of eventually stealing them. She won her place on the Stratospheric half because she was one of the very few who knew how to use them, half because she's a wanted criminal back on Earth.
Insufferable Genius: She was only twenty-five, yet had an impressive list of scientific publications to her name, when she left Earth. She also treats any task she considers below her intellectual level as something that a properly trained animal could do.
Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
- In timelines in which Geranium's death allows her to find the cure to the Shimmer, Instance shares the news with Sol in hope that it will cheer them up a little. If Sol has any other reaction, she's unexpectedly understanding of it.
- If Sol runs for Second Engineer but still loses to Tangent, they can witness Instance respond to the news by giving Tangent a hug.
Labcoat of Science and Medicine: She fittingly wears a lab coat as the colony's head scientist.
Not That Kind of Doctor: An event in Medbay makes it abundantly clear that she became a Doctor before getting any sort of medical training, due to the colony initially hoping to rely on the medbeds and mandatory first aid training.
Parental Substitute: She takes Tang (and to a lesser extent, Dys) under her care after their mother's death before the events of the game.
Properly Paranoid: Upon getting a paper report containing confidential information from Eudicot, she complains that using hand-delivered paper alone is a huge security breach compared to sending it over the colony's Alternet. Since Sol can peek at the contents of that very same report if they have enough Organization, she's absolutely right.
You Are in Command Now: A little more of her is seen in runs in which Professor Hal dies, as she will occasionally help with making up for the absence of the deceased.

Al and Bernie (Aluminum and Burnish)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/277px_al_npc.png

Bernie

Marz's fathers, who head the colony's Construction crew.

The Dividual: Despite having their own profiles in Sol's friend list, Sol never runs into them separately.
Fat and Skinny: Bernie is fat while Al is skinny.
Gossipy Hens: All one needs to do to be up to date on the colony's gossip is work with the two of them in earshot. The two of them continuing that behavior in their private quarters is the reason Marz knows of many people's dirty laundry.
Homosexual Reproduction: A conversation with Tammy about who her surrogate parent is implies that Bernie was the one who carried Marz.
Like Father, Unlike Son: When Sol first meets them at the construction site, they note that they're "honest, friendly, straightforward guys with wide shoulders, strong backs, and soft hearts", in stark contrast to Marz's loud and sassy personality.
Meaningful Name: Aluminum is a common construction metal while "Burnish" means "to polish metal by rubbing", fitting names for a construction worker couple.

Tirah (Tiramisu)

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

Cal's mother, who's in a polyamorous relationship with three other colonists.

Labcoat of Science and Medicine: A leftover of almost entirely getting replaced by Instance at some point in the production. Some snippets of dialog from Cal hint at her remaining a very background Engineering worker.
Meaningful Name: Tiramisus are among the desserts that are often made to be shared among several people. The rest of the dots are easily connected.
Polyamory: She has three partners in all, two of which are her boyfriends Ceph and Perk, and they all give a hand in raising Cal.
Satellite Family Member: Given her minor appearances, she only shows up to establish Cal's closeness to her.

Other Strato residents

Eudicot

Strato's governor, a dour woman who takes her job very seriously.

Hidden Heart of Gold: Despite her stern, officious personality, Eudicot feels very deeply for her colony, even in retirement:
- She can be seen giving Utopia a hug right after the latter brings Tonin's dead body back from an expedition, unless Sol rescues him from the manticore during the 2nd year's Wet Season.
- She can muse about the consequences of her bringing the other colonists to Vertumna with Sol standing watch on the walls, and goes quiet for a while before offering an uncharacteristically emotional "thank you" if you tell her that you're glad she led the colony to another world.
Iron Lady: If she makes it to that age, she remarks that at 89 she is still the force keeping the colony on the straight and narrow. She is absolutely correct.

Hal (Halitosis)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/409px_hal.png

The Engineering professor who programmed Congruence. He also teaches other subjects when needed.

Like an Old Married Couple: Sol's narration notes that Hal and Congruence are like a human couple, affectionately bickering with each other and sharing inside jokes, much like Sol's parents back in the day.
Meaningful Name: His nickname is a Shout-Out to HAL-9000, a famous spaceship A.I., while Professor Hal himself programmed Congruence, the A.I. of the Stratospheric. His full name, on the other hand, means "bad breath".
Omnidisciplinary Scientist: He teaches basic classes in everything, from biology to engineering. It helps that he has an AI assistant, and his students are only ten-year-olds; he mentions that when they go into advanced classes, things will be different.

Congruence

The ship's A.I. that Professor Hal programmed, who's one of the teachers in the Engineering Wing.

Benevolent A.I.: She's a cheery A.I. program who teaches Engineering, and she's happy to answer her students' questions and tell them jokes.
Doesn't Know Their Own Birthday: Being an A.I., she doesn't have a birthday in the human sense, but you and Tammy can assign one for her and celebrate with her when you do a random act of kindness for Tammy for the third time.
Grew Beyond Their Programming: She's more than just the ship's A.I. since she exhibits many human mannerisms and emotions. One generic robot repair event mentions that she developed her own eccentricities as she kept running the Stratospheric, much like the other robots.
Like an Old Married Couple: Sol's narration notes that Hal and Congruence are like a human couple, affectionately bickering with each other and sharing inside jokes, much like Sol's parents back in the day.
Meaningful Name: "Congruence" means "agreement or harmony; compatibility", and in mathematics, congruent lines are equal in length, fitting for an A.I. who keeps the ship running in order.
The Needless: If asked if she can eat and poop, she says that she technically eats electricity, which is different from how humans eat. Because of this, she doesn't need to poop, but she imagines that pooping is a nice experience to have.
Spaceship Girl: Her holographic projection on the ship's computer screen is a young woman in a lab coat, with buns in her hair that resemble cat ears and bangs that cover her left eye.
Trickster Mentor: When Nomi-Nomi installs KYUU-KYUU BISHOUNEN KYUUSTETSU into Congruence's system, her holoprojection simulates the whole game, but she gets corrupted into a manticore. When Sol repairs her, apologizes to her for their and Nomi's classroom antics, or asks Instance or Hal for help, Congruence gets restored, and she cheerfully tells them that she intentionally turned the game into a horrific "puzzle" to teach them not to install unauthorized software into her system.
You Are in Command Now: Takes over as Biology and Humanities teacher if Professor Hal dies because the others who are more qualified for the job are too busy.

Utopia

One of the surveyors of the colony who guides Sol in exploring Vertumna. She becomes the Chief Surveyor at the end of the second year, which makes her Dys and Sol's supervisor by the time the two of them are old enough to join the survey teams.

The Baby of the Bunch: As the youngest among the known adults and the first and "for a while" the only kid in the creche growing up in the Strato, she'll always be known as their "Little Baby Pia".
Benevolent Boss: If Sol's choices result in Dys staying in the colony and continuing to work in Expeditions, Utopia is shown to genuinely have his back and is a major reason Dys doesn't get in trouble with the authorities in spite of his remaining rebellious behaviors.
Bold Explorer: As a surveyor, she traverses the dangerous areas of Vertumna to survey the land and guide other colonists in exploring them.
Funetik Aksent: She has a slight country drawl, so she removes the "g" in words ending in "-ing" and sometimes addresses groups as "y'all", as shown in her dialogue.
Little Bit Beastly: Besides having tiger stripes, her full portrait shows that her feet are actually tiger-like paws, making the nature of her augment quite obvious.
Meaningful Name: Utopia means "paradise", and her job is to scout for the best places in Vertumna to expand the colony.
Number Two: She's heavily implied to be Tonin's second-in-command, as she's the one who eventually becomes Chief Surveyor.
Sweet Tooth: In Sol's science fair project for the 2nd Vertumnalia Festival, they note that she, along with Auntie Seedent, eats sweets all the time.
Trans Tribulations: A Medbay conversation between her and Tang reveals that Utopia also struggled with having a body that didn't match the woman she is on the inside.
You Are in Command Now: Takes over as Chief Surveyor when Melatonin dies or retires.

Seeq (Obsequious)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/441px_seeq.png

The Chief Administrator who is in charge of the Supply Depot. They aren't very fond of children, but are also suffering a labor shortage that makes them willing to settle for sufficiently competent and obedient children. Unfortunately, their only consistent helper among the children is Marz, who is lacking in the latter in addition to not exactly being the colony's hardest worker.

Child Hater: The fact that they dislike children is up there with their occupation and pronouns in their in-game profile.
Corrupt Politician: If approached about the topic, Seeq agrees that Lum needs to go and admits to considering taking his place themself. It also costs exactly 100 Kudos to get them to support someone else during a vote for a new Governor unless Eudicot is saved, in which she calls Seeq out for extorting money from a teenager in exchange for a vote. Sol's own internal narration points out that ambitions to be Governor and being easy to bribe isn't exactly the best combination of traits for a single person to have.
Corrupt Quartermaster: Even before the incident that shows their Corrupt Politician side, it's possible to make choices that result in Marz mentioning that they are Stealing from the Till to an extent. Considering where the colony is located, they can't do much more damage than taking a little more than their fair share.
Embarrassing First Name: Their full name can be seen once, in a brief exchange with a retired Eudicot. It's Obsequious, which is a pejorative synonym for "servile."
Hidden Depths: Sol can discover during delivery work that the serious and work-focused Seeq sculpts for a hobby.
Hyper-Awareness: If Sol kills time by mopping the floor completely unprompted on their first shift as clerk, Seeq notices upon entering the room at a later point and gives Sol a couple Kudos as a reward.
The Killjoy: They are perceived as this by at least part of the colony. If Sol tells Geranium that they know what's in the package containing the Sun Medallion, Geranium assumes Sol got the information from someone else and promptly suspects Seeq on the basis that Seeq "hates fun" per his own words.
Number Two: They are implied to be be the second-highest ranking member of the Council by the fact that if Eudicot dies, they are made temporary governor until an election that ends up not happening due to Lum's arrival.

Rhett (Rhetorical)

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

The hardened, yet reasonable Security Chief who trains the next generation of soldiers to protect the colony from xenofauna attacks.

The Brigadier: He takes his job as Chief of Security seriously by leading the army onto the frontlines during Glow attacks.
Everyone Has Standards: Rhett is the Council member who has every reason to get along with Lum best, but the man turns out to be too much of a warmonger even to Rhett's tastes.
Officer and a Gentleman: He may be tough on the Garrison and swear occasionally, but he makes sure not to be too harsh on his trainees.
O.O.C. Is Serious Business: One of the possible deaths (Flulu) can make the man cry, to Sol's astonishment.
Reasonable Authority Figure: He's one of the few authority figures who can be convinced to vote for Sol or Marz as governor without needing a Persuasion check.
Tattoo as Character Type: Naturally for the badass head of the military, he has army tattoos on his shoulders.

Nougat

Click ^here for young child portrait

A recurring babysitting ward and later tutoring student. She's quite a handful in both cases.

Book Dumb: She's among the members of the cast for whom classroom learning doesn't work well. She's suddenly much better at math if she needs to use it for a hands-on or daily life task.
Bratty Half-Pint: She is the youngest character you can add on your friend list, being only three years old at the earliest possible meeting, and she's quite a handful when babysitting or tutoring her. She isn't attentive in learning activities and would rather make a mess in the creche or study room, and it's up to you to discipline her and guide her in her lessons.
Little Bit Beastly: She has an animal tail on her older child portrait. Her vitiligo and unusual hair color is implied to be due to the animal DNA as part of her augment.

Heliopause arrivals

Rex (Basorexia)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/304px_rex3.png

Click ^here for young teen portrait

A late arrival at Vertumna; he arrived with the Heliopause crew and immediately left to hang out with the Stratos, whom he considers much cooler. Rex's enhancement is dog ears, and he lives up to his name and ears, being up for several different meanings of human contact with anyone who expresses interest. Events from his childhood have resulted in Nomi-Nomi being the only fellow teen from the Heliopause he can truly consider a friend.

Arch-Enemies: With Vace for being a military bully. Vace likewise hates Rex for becoming "too soft" by hanging out with the peaceful Stratos, especially since Vace broke Rex's arm when they were kids, just to prove himself that he's "manly" enough to be a soldier.
The Bartender: His dream is to open a bar for the other colonists to drop by for a drink or some advice from him. Sol can help him build it by giving him Mushwood Logs.
Childhood Friends: He and Nomi-Nomi grew up on the Heliopause together since they were kids and are still best friends in the present. This becomes a Childhood Friend Romance if Sol bonds with Nomi well enough for the latter to realize their crush on Rex and supports their budding relationship.
Cleavage Window: A Rare Male Example, he wears a shirt with a hole in the chest area as a teen.
Cuddle Bug: Befriending Rex is as simple as inquiring on his vast supply of free hugs.
Ethical Slut: Is down for just about any kind of physical affection, but won't ever push things past what his partner is comfortable with. If everyone isn't having fun, it's not a good time.
Friends with Benefits: Starting at five hearts, Sol can flirt with him by suggesting that "[his] friendship... has benefits." Since he's a flirtatious guy, he doesn't mind the offer.
"You don't have to like someone to hook up with them. I kind of like being the one everyone comes to if they just wanna have a good time."
Friend to All Children: He happily plays frisbee with Nougat in his seven-heart event, and he wants many kids to play and have fun with when he grows up. He believes that Children Are Innocent and that they should enjoy their childhood instead of being forced into education and military training so early, like he was growing up in the Heliopause. If the bar isn't built by the end of the game, his career in construction doesn't last that long, as he ends up working full-time in childcare for most of his adult life and has plenty of children of his own.
Furry Reminder: Despite being a Little Bit Beastly, his dog genes make his lifespan slightly shorter than that of the average human, referencing the short lifespan of dogs in general.
I Just Want to Have Friends: He grew up lonely on the Heliopause and tried befriending Vace and the other soldiers, but he was beaten up by them for not agreeing to their beliefs. As a result, Rex's Only Friend is Nomi and they both look forward to making "true" friends on Vertumna.
Like Brother and Sister: Or Like Brother and Sibling with Nomi-Nomi. He and they describe their friendship as a close siblinglike bond, and they both clarify it as such if if you ask them if they're dating.
Little Bit Beastly: His Bio-Augmentation is a pair of dog ears that he can move independently.
Lovable Sex Maniac: He's as friendly as a dogboy could be and is always down for a "good time".
The Matchmaker: In the epilogue, this becomes his secondary job besides being a bartender. Giving him a "kiss of luck" has become a tradition for people who visit his bar to look for love.
Meaningful Name: "Basorexia" means "a compulsive desire to kiss". Rex is all about physical affection, is a flirt towards Sol, and enjoys big hugs from them. His nickname is also a Stock Animal Name for dogs and his Bio-Augmentation makes him a Little Bit Beastly dog.
Mellow Fellow: A chill, easygoing colonist who disassociates himself from the Helios and hangs out at the bar with the people he loves, platonically, romantically, or sexually.
Polyamory: He can enter a polyamorous relationship with you and Marz since she doesn't mind sharing you with him.
Pungeon Master: He does a stand-up comedy routine where he makes a lot of dog puns for his first talent act.
Really Gets Around: On top of him setting himself up as the go-to person for anything from casual sex to simply needing a friend, one of his endings remarks that there is a problem with referring to him as having a string of lovers during his adulthood: the word "string" implying that the relationships are consecutive. If Sol becomes a close enough friend to him for the player to see that ending in the first place, they are unable to properly keep track of his love life.
Tattoo as Character Type: He and Nomi have the same tattoo design running across their noses, indicating their close bond.
Walking Shirtless Scene: Stops wearing a shirt as soon as he hits his late teens and wears nothing but short sleeves and a collar on top, and is debating the necessity of pants.

Nomi-Nomi (Nomination)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/405px_nomi3.png

Click ^here for young teen portrait

Another member of the Heliopause crew that prefers to hang out with the Stratos and their best friend Rex. Goes by they/their pronouns, is openly demisexual, and doesn't know if they have an enhancement. They are unsure of what they want to make their career, in big part because the few things they are interested enough to invest their energy into relate to the arts.

Ambiguous Situation: They have no idea what Bio-Augmentation they have or if they have one at all because their parents withheld their medical records, believing that Nomi shouldn't feel pressured to be "perfect", whether or not they have an augment.
Book Dumb: One of the means of befriending them is working as a tutor for the school's struggling students. The job events in which they are involved show that are present to get help, not to tutor.
Cheery Pink: Their Color Motif is deep magenta, as shown in their outfit and hair color, and they're the bubbliest one among their peers.
Childhood Friends: They and Rex grew up on the Heliopause together since they were kids and are still best friends in the present. This becomes a Childhood Friend Romance if Sol bonds with Nomi well enough for the latter to realize their crush on Rex and supports their budding relationship.
Cool Big Sib: In their epilogue, they become a "magnet" for the younger generation, including Sol's children if they have any, sharing their nerdy interests with them.
Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: They used to work at the Helio canteen, believing that it was their life purpose since they could just spend their free time pursuing their hobbies, but they didn't enjoy it. They also feel lost on what to do upon landing on Vertumna because they aren't good at anything but drawing or writing. Like Marz, they're bored with just trying to survive on the alien planet and believe that there should be entertainment so that everyone with creative dreams can make their life worth living. If Sol maxes out Nomi's friendship, they make a hologame that becomes a smash hit in the colony, and they continue pursuing their hobbies because it's what they enjoy the most.
Entertainment Below Their Age: They admit to not fitting in with the other Helio teens in part due to enjoying things the others have outgrown. Several of the dialog options that will lose friendship with them boil down to suggesting that they are too old for whichever entertainment they turn out to be enjoying.
Expert in Underwater Basket Weaving: While they're decent at fanfiction writing, cosplaying, video games and pop culture, these skills are unfortunately in low demand in a nascent colony under siege by aliens.
Fangirl: They fit the stereotype although they're nonbinary. They're obsessed with anime, especially Turbogirl Hyperjet Transform, and like making fanart and fanfics out of their favorite shows and video games and cosplaying as their favorite characters. They also made their own Original Character for Turbogirl, which is an Author Avatar of themself.
Fluffy Tamer: One of their endings has them be the only one able to tame a unisaur that is giving trouble to everyone else in Geoponics.
Genki Girl: Or Genki Non-Binary in this case. They're the most cheerful among the love interests and are always happy to see Sol whenever they talk to them. They often flap their arms to greet Sol and talk about their interests with much gusto.
I Just Want to Be Special: Zig-zagged. On one hand, they don't mind not knowing if they have an augment or what it is because their parents believed that that shouldn't get in Nomi's way of deciding their career. But on the other hand, Nomi still feels inferior compared to the other Helio kids because Nomi isn't skilled in anything that the colony would consider "useful".
Invisible Parents: They mention their mom and dad often in their dialogue, but they're nowhere to be seen.
Kiddie Kid: They are 13 years old upon Sol first meeting with them and still enjoy activities that their peers from the Heliopause consider themselves to have outgrown. When combined with their cheerful personality, tendency towards Curiosity Is a Crapshoot during expeditions and short stature, they give the overall vibe of someone much younger.
The Klutz: They often don't watch where they're going and bump into others because their brain is often distracted.
Like Brother and Sister: Or Like Brother and Sibling with Rex. They both describe their friendship as a close siblinglike bond, and they clarify it as such if you ask them if they're dating. Subverted if Sol bonds with Nomi well enough for them to realize their crush on Rex, and Sol can support their budding relationship and get an achievement for it.
Motor Mouth: They gush about their interests so fast, they need to take deep breaths between them.
Nerds Are Naïve: As a demisexual, Nomi, an anime nerd, is repulsed towards anything related to sex, but might consider it in the future if their partner makes them feel loved and comfortable with them first. In their epilogue, they try taking it slow in dating, but they're in no rush and are already happy with their friends.
Plucky Comic Relief: Nomi's scenes are the most light-hearted of all the cast's.
Ridiculous Procrastinator: They struggle with finishing their holonovel because they get burned out, and when they feel guilty by wasting their time not writing, they distract themself by chatting on their holopalm instead, making them more guilty of not working on their project.
Tattoo as Character Type: They and Rex have the same tattoo design running across their noses, indicating their close bond.
This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: The Heliopause residents introduce trivia contests to the colony for the Vertumnalia Festival. Nomi-Nomi is the Heliopause teen who consistently participates in them and the person Sol needs to beat to win, demonstrating the one known situation in which their skills are useful.

Vace (Olivaceous)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/355px_vace3.png

Click ^here for teen portrait

A soldier from the Heliopause ship. The quintessential Heliopause crewmember: a militant, human-supremacist alpha male. He becomes Anemone's boyfriend when she joins the Garrison.

Arch-Enemies: With Rex for becoming "too soft" by hanging out with the peaceful Stratos. Rex likewise hates Vace for being a military bully, especially since Vace broke Rex's arm when they were kids, just to prove himself that he's "manly" enough to be a soldier.
Artificial Limbs: His left hand is a prosthetic.
Bigger Is Better in Bed: He's proud of his augment, which makes him well-endowed.
Child Soldier: Growing up, he was raised aboard a military ship under strict instructions to arrest anyone alive at its destination. Thanks to his early training, he also gets promoted to lieutenant during the swearing-in ceremony while Sol and Anemone are promoted to officers despite only being three years younger than him.
Colonel Kilgore: He enjoys fighting xenofauna and even gleefully kills a dorbsmoth in front of Cal in Vace's six-heart event if Sol allows it.
Crazy Jealous Guy: He is extremely possessive of his girlfriend, Anemone, and he will pick a fight with anyone he thinks is making a move on her. If Sol is trying to romance her themselves or even just friends with her, they wind up the target of his fists. Hypocritically, he's not above cheating on Anemone himself, and can even be seduced by Sol.
Heel–Face Turn: Not quite all the way, but a player with some patience can cause Vace to at least reflect on his actions. Sol needs enough Persuasion to fully call him out for publicly beating up Rex, but as long as Sol confronts Vace for his uncontrolled anger, he'll genuinely realize what he's done and seek therapy for it.
Hidden Depths: Despite his diligence in the military, he wishes to return to space because he wants to make a name for himself and not wallow in "pity" like his father did.
Hypocrite: Is an abusive jerk towards Anemone and flips out if he even thinks someone else is hitting on her, but is willing to cheat on her himself — including with Sol.
It's All About Me: He's always full of himself, bragging about his militaristic endeavors to his troop. Sol can either raise a stink about his overconfidence or be enamored by him.
Jerkass: Completely disrespectful of anyone, except possibly his crewmates. Rex says that everyone pretends to like him because they're afraid of calling him out for it, and he is worried about Anemone dating him.
Jerk Jock: He's focused on keeping his body physically fit for the war, but his arrogance and mistreatment of his fellow soldiers make him unpopular with the Strato crew (except for Anemone, who falls for him anyway).
Making Love in All the Wrong Places: In one of the nighttime guard duty events, Sol catches Vace and Anemone having sex in public when Anemone was supposed to be on guard duty with Sol — something that can land Vace in hot water with his superiors.
Obfuscating Stupidity: In his three-heart event, he pretends to struggle with his xenobiology homework just to get Sol to help him. He then reveals that he knows more than just to hit things because understanding xenofauna behavior is essential in defending the colony from them.
Parental Abandonment: His mother split when he was a baby and pretended he didn't exist, while his father died two years before the Helio passed through the wormhole. However, Vace doesn't miss his dad because he believed the latter was weak for drinking, knocking him around, and then "[falling] down a buncha stairs" after getting into an unwinnable fight. Said abusive father was the likely cause of his own abuse towards Rex and Anemone.
Red/Green Contrast: His arguments with Cal are exemplified by their contrasting color schemes, with Vace's belief in "necessary" violence represented by red and Cal's desire for peace represented by green.
Red Is Violent: His angry warmongering is symbolized by his red uniform.
Relationship Revolving Door: Due to his deep-seated anger issues, his relationship with the protagonist becomes on-again, off-again in the epilogue until the two break up for good, even if Vace is undergoing therapy.
Sir Swears-a-Lot: Is the most foul-mouthed among the dateable characters, often telling people to "sod off" and swearing a lot in his conversations with Sol.
Sociopathic Soldier: He's a cruel soldier who takes pleasure out of slaughtering innocent animals, beating up anyone who disagrees with his views, and intimidating Anemone into obeying his every whim. This comes to a head when he and Rex get into a major fight for their opposing views of the colony, with Rex outright calling him sociopathic because he believes that deep down, Vace only cares about fighting because "it makes [his] dick hard".
Sore Loser: He doesn't take losing the Kombucha Cup well and accuses your team of cheating if you beat his team in sportsball. Beating him in almost any competition deducts 2 points from his heart meter, especially if you rub it in.
Tattoo as Character Type: The tattoos around his eyes add more to his badassery as a soldier.

Lum (Baculum)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/411px_lum.png

The second Governor of the colony, after the Heliopause lands on Vertumna. Implied to have been a relatively junior officer in the ship's security forces, he ascended to the captaincy after the Helio's entire command section was destroyed in the wormhole transit. He proves to be a preening, fascistic leader that lacks any real talent in either governance or battle tactics.

Appeal to Force: He's not a big fan of governing by consensus. He governs through the Helio soldiers' authority. This carries on to the Plague, where he forces Instance and Tang to develop the plague by threatening to murder the entire Council if they don't.
Cleavage Window: A Rare Male Example, his shirt that has a low neckline and his metal collar that completely covers his neck and shoulders form a triangular hole that exposes his hairy pecs.
Corrupt Politician: He has absolutely no knowledge on how to properly run a colony other than using force to sway people into supporting his militaristic vision for it. According to Rex, he was a "meathead military guy" who was assigned a desk job to keep him from causing trouble, and he only became the Governor because the Helio crew who were more fit for the job died when the ship passed through the wormhole.
Embarrassing First Name: Baculum. It means "penis bone", an anatomical feature of many species of animal.
Fantastically Indifferent: It's possible to get a scene in which Nocticulent shows up for negotiations and demonstrates that the planet has native beings capable of human speech, only for Lum to ask them to leave because the planet now belongs to humans without missing a beat.
How the Mighty Have Fallen: If he is replaced as governor by Marz, she promptly demotes him to her social media manager. Surprisingly, he throws himself into doing a good job at this role, even to the point of faking a message so as to undermine the mission he was pursuing in office if directed.
Meaningful Name: Goes by "Lum", associated with light. His full name is significantly less flattering, much like the disconnect between his public persona and actual personality. In other words, he's a dick. Also appropriately, another term for appeal to force is argumentum ad baculum.

Vertumnians

The Avatars (Spoilers)

Sym (Symbiosis)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/363px_sym.png

"Protecting you seems to be my hobby."

The humanoid avatar of a "Gardener", a race of mysterious aliens seemingly moving behind the scenes on Vertumna IV. Assigned to assess the new arrivals to the planet, he possesses an overwhelming curiosity about humanity and their culture. Until it's decided that humanity is ready to know about the Gardeners, the only colonist other than Sol who knows of Sym's existence is Dys, who greatly prefers his company to that of fellow humans.

The Ageless: He's noted to never age if he gets a "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue.
Alien Blood: In one illustration you can see that his blood is a greenish-blue color, not unlike the liquid in his regeneration vat.
Artificial Human: Explicitly not a human, but designed and grown in a vat to look like one. It's implied that Sym is using the things he learns about humanity to improve his body's mimicry over the years.
Body Backup Drive: Appears to heal supernaturally fast, and at one point in his story survives his own death. Eventually he explains that his "body" is an organic construct carrying an instance of his consciousness, which he "backs up" often by returning to his vat. The vat repairs damage to the body while he is inside it, and if a body doesn't come back, the vat will grow a new one from the same template and load the last saved iteration of Sym into it. He never remembers his "deaths" due to memories of his actions between "backing up" and "dying" being on par with newly written text that was lost to a computer crash before it could be saved.
Conflicting Loyalty: He truly loves Vertumna and his work as a Gardener, but he also comes to love humanity, and does not wish to see them eradicated.
Emergent Human: While he's thousands of years old, he's still in the process of learning the specificities of being human.
Exposed Extraterrestrials: Since most of the forms Gardeners take are similar if not identical to native Vertumnan lifeforms, none of which have developed clothing, Dys has to teach him that most humans cover themselves. Sym even mentions that his outfit is a recent development and that Gardeners don't have nudity taboos.
Healing Hands: He has the ability to calm down an organism by reducing its cortisol levels and can reduce Sol's stress a little if they ask for it while exploring.
Humanity Is Infectious: With a side order of Humanity Ensues. Sym doesn't natively have a physical body, and it's unclear whether or not his "human" form actually contains any Earth DNA or if it was simply sculpted into a humanoid shape. Regardless, after taking a humanoid body and observing the colonists, he begins to feel a genuine love for the short-lived, short-sighted species taking root on his planet. The other Gardeners, especially Noctilucent, emphatically do not share this opinion.
Informed Attribute: According to a conversation with Dys, he is always barefoot, however his in-game portrait shows him wearing shoes.
Interspecies Romance: He's a Gardener who's one of the 10 romanceable characters the human Sol can pursue. Sym can also hook up with Dys, another human, or both him and Sol at the same time.
Intrigued by Humanity: He is fascinated by all aspects of humanity, in stark contrast to his fellow Gardeners, who, at best, consider them pests to eradicate.
Immortal Immaturity: Dys knows his mental age and is baffled at how immature he acts at times. Sym himself admits to it while evoking the time he spent four centuries as a mushtree to avoid speaking with a specific other Gardener.
Meaningful Name: Symbiosis means "a mutually beneficial relationship between two different species", and his purpose is to find peace between the humans and the Gardeners by befriending Sol.
Mysterious Watcher: To the colony as a whole, as well as Sol specifically. His assignment seems to be to monitor and assess the human colony, but he is aware of Sol's link to the Wormhole due to possessing a similar connection. He semi-flirtatiously refers to Sol as the "boy/girl of [his] dreams," and uses his precognition to protect them from natural hazards while exploring.
Only a Flesh Wound: Says this word for word after getting impaled by a huge flying fish-thing. It's a direct reference to Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Sym having watched it on the holo-archive Sol provides him with.
Tall, Dark, and Handsome: Can be called this word-for-word in one dialogue option.
Time Abyss: He is around 20,000 years old, although he has spent only a fraction of that time in a humanoid body.
Unkempt Beauty: His hair is noted to be perfectly kept for someone who lives in the wilderness.
Voluntary Shapeshifting: He can reshape his form into any living organism, even modify their parts, to better understand their biological functions. He usually turns into a tree to hide away from other Gardeners.
What Is This Thing You Call "Love"?: Sym wrestles with developing romantic feelings in his humanoid body. He gets the concept pretty well but makes it clear that Gardeners do not experience them as part of their default, incorporeal state.
You Said You Couldn't Dance: If Sol dances with him on their 17th birthday party, they expect him to be terrible at it, but he surprises them with his fluid dance skills.

Nocticulent

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/879px_noctilucent.png

The avatar of a Gardener who despises humanity, and is tasked with leading their destruction.

Clothing Appendage: Their torso looks like an upwards-pointing, partially-open mouth and has flaps of the same color going down their lower body. The end result looks like they are wearing a tailcoat-shaped garment.
Gaia's Vengeance: They are the Gardener whose function is to eliminate dangerous invasive species that would harm the ecosystem as a whole. You know, like humans.
Kill All Humans: They consider humanity to be a dangerous invasive species that must be exterminated.
Our Centaurs Are Different: They resemble a Vertumnan version of a centaur, having a vaguely humanoid upper body with rows of teeth lining it, and equine hooves and mantis arms as part of their lower body.
Well-Intentioned Extremist: They're not exactly wrong that humanity is a dangerous invasive species on Vertumna, and as a couple of endings show, humanity can wipe out either the Gardeners or the entire ecosystem. Their solution is to destroy the threat - that is, humanity.

The Ancient Race (Spoilers)

The Gardeners

A race of disembodied A.I.s distributed throughout the alien ruins and ecology of Vertumna IV, created by the Convergent Domain which inhabited the planet 20,000 years before the arrival of humanity. The Convergers had destroyed their biosphere much like the Humans did on Earth, and left the Gardener Array behind when they fled to the stars with the task of restoring and maintaining the planet's ecosystem. Now, an invasive species from the stars has taken root in their garden, and the Gardeners are taking careful note of the colony's impact on their new home.

Absurdly Dedicated Worker: Regardless of the time for which the last of the Convergent Domain expected them to be occupied with carrying out their last order, 20,000 years is a long time to keep at it.
Defector from Decadence: Sym, to some extent, but most explicitly Constellation- a Gardener that inhabited a Faceless in order to attack the human colony, but became enraptured with the wormhole and became "something else", according to Sym. She has at least one child as a "free" Faceless.
Fungus Humongous: All of Vertumna's native life has at least some fungal traits, but the physical form of the Array mostly takes the form of a network of mycelia covering the majority of the planet, connected to Converger technology in their underground facilities. The Shimmer in Pollen season is probably a form of maintenance for the network, reseeding the fungus in places where it has been damaged.
Gaia's Vengeance: They can manipulate the native ecosystem of Vertumna to trigger massive swarms of animals to attack the colony, choke the colony's crops with fast-growing vines, and cover the land in toxic, mind-altering fungal pollen. Noctilucent seems to be the Gardener consciousness behind most of this, as their function is to eradicate invasive and problematic species before they can do lasting harm.
Painting the Frost on Windows: They control Vertumna's weather and wildlife behavior, revealing that the yearly Glow attacks are staged by them to get their revenge on humans for destroying their homeland.
Time Abyss: One of the reasons they have of being wary of humans is that they remember Vertumna's native sentient species wrecking the planet, then its last survivors leaving on a ship with orders to restore and maintain the planet's ecosystem as parting words. On the flip side of this, it's possible to walk in on a conversation in which Dys is trying to convince Sym that humans are a danger to the planet and Sym shrugs it off by saying that even if humans do wreck the planet all over again, the Gardeners can restore it again, even if the time it will take is long form a human perspective.
Wetware Body: Those among them who have bodies, such as Sym and Nocticulent, are technically remotely controlling a purpose-built organic construct.

The Convergent Domain

The original sapient race on Vertumna IV, creators of the Gardener Array, and long-gone by the time the Stratospheric lands on the planet.

Abusive Precursors: They wrecked the ecology of their homeworld maybe even worse than the humans did. When they fled Vertumna IV, the planet was largely covered in a glassy energy-absorbent fungal shell, warrened with Underground Cities, and undergoing severe seismic disruptions from overloading energy reserves in its deep crust.
Biotech Is Better: The fact that they used Organic Technology that is still functional 20,000 years later shows how much more advanced they were compared to humans, who expect what they brought with them to break down within the next few decades.
Earth-Shattering Kaboom: Their attempt to turn the entire planet into a solar-powered rechargeable battery went... predictably wrong. The overloading energy reservoirs triggered earthquakes and eruptions across the planet's surface, fracturing the crust in ways that perplex the Human geologists trying to understand Vertumna IV's history.

Characters / I Was a Teenage Exocolonist

The Stratospheric/Heliopause Colony

Sol's Strato age group

Family members and guardians of Sol's age group

Other Strato residents

Heliopause arrivals

Vertumnians

Sym (Symbiosis)

Nocticulent

The Gardeners

The Convergent Domain

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Index

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Characters / I Was a Teenage Exocolonist

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The Stratospheric/Heliopause Colony

Sol's Strato age group

Family members and guardians of Sol's age group

Other Strato residents

Heliopause arrivals

Vertumnians

Sym (Symbiosis)

Nocticulent

The Gardeners

The Convergent Domain

Previous

Index

Next