Charles Ambrose Komatsu III
The chief director of the
Project Prometheus who created the anthropomorphics (aka Aybees/ABs), their languague and also The Net. Komatsu is a very old man whose family is behind the whole project since three generations (or even more) for the United Humanspace Colonial Service (UHCS) and the whole thing has being his greatest dream project of his life.
- Anti-Villain: The only reason why everyone seems to be against him later on is because he broke the law by both staying on Arras Chanka and using stolen cloning devices on himself. Also, it's heavily implied he sabotaged Bettings and his crew's spaceship, so they can't return home to ruin his plans. Still, his intentions are good.
- Ape Shall Never Kill Ape: Komatsu invokes this trope after finding out all the atrocities the ILR does in Toma-Aki, implying his entire plan of creating a peaceful race of alien beings failed in a very spectacular fashion.
- Asshole Victim: After destroying the human base in Arras Chanka by the members of the UHSC as a part of the protocol for seeding the planet with the Aybees (aka the Species), everyone thinks he's already dead after he decided to stay in the base. It turns out it was part of his plan.
- The Bad Guy Wins: More accurately described as "The Anti-Villain Wins": Even if the Bettings and his crew could survive the ILR's onslaught, there's no way for them to be rescued, and Komatsu will possibly continue executing his nebulous plans. Meanwhile, the rest of the human cast will die unintentionally at the hands of the ILR, of old age, or when the food and water runs out for them.
- But Not Too Foreign: Judging by his name and description, he has Japanese ancestry.
- The Chessmaster: Taking into account he is the main culprit of every single thing that happens so far in the Albedo universe, Komatsu has no problems on manipulating anyone for his plans, starting with the sole premise of the story, and the fact he is willing to kill or at least sacrifice his own co-workers only to make his plans work and preventing them to interfere with his plans.
- Expy: Taking into account how he's described in-story, he's possibly inspired by Dr. Moreau, or also accounting many of the developments of both the comic and this story, of Dr. Victor Frankenstein.
- Faking the Dead: He fakes his own death just to be able to stay in Arras Chanka. By the time the rest of the cast finds out his plan, it's too late to stop him, as it's implied he rigged their ships just to kill them on their way home.
- Greater-Scope Villain: For someone whose biggest dream is creating new life-forms and a new civilization, Komatsu doesn't mind at all having to wait centuries to fulfill his plans, and thankfully for him, he has cloning technology at hand for that.
- Immortality Seeker: Very downplayed, but still applicable here. It turns out his whole plan was staying in Arras Chanka to supervise the whole project in a secret underground base, by cloning himself to be able to live forever until he could reveal the truth to his creations.
- Jerkass: Bettings describes him as such.
- Kimono Is Traditional: The story describes him as always dressed in a hakama, possibly to emphatize his Japanese background.
- Mad Scientist: Implied to be one, albeit he's too down to earth and avoids many of the tropes of the genre, as he looks pretty sane at first.
- Madden Into Misanthropy: It's heavily implied he hates humanity, but unlike other versions of this trope, he plans to create a new race of living beings, so they cannot make the same mistakes of their creators, rather than using his creations against humanity. At the large scale of the things, he failed, BIG TIME.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Sort of. Komatsu is not exactly a hero, but he's not a villain either. His true intentions with the Project Prometheus are creating a new race of living beings able to success when the humans failed for centuries, especially with regard to war, violence, and social and racial prejudices. Although he was successful in creating new living beings, on the other hand, if we take into account what happened in both Albedo and Birthright, not only his creations turned out being not very different from humanity, they also becoming even more warlike than humans, if you take into account animals having more wild natural instincts than humans or even primates. Even both The Net and Wendy later on heavily implies violence and war are natural attributes of sentient beings and those cannot be suppressed even with genetics.
- More warlike is debatable. The ILR has killed in orders of magnitude more people than any human regime yet, but Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin never had the opportunity to kill a planet or even play around with nukes. And the timeline in the RPG suggests that unless you count fights between bandits and militia groups on the frontier the Aybees didn't have any wars for the first 200 years of their existence, hence the ILR's early lead when they made the first organized military.
- No Sympathy: With the sole exception of Wendy, who works as his secretary, no one of the human cast holds any sympathy for him, due of the unethical experiments he, his family and the UHSC are holding.
- Scale of Scientific Sins: Komatsu commits the first, the third for very obvious reasons, since it's the whole premise of the comic in first place, the fifth (for the same reasons) and the sixth. Oddly enough, he avoids the seventh, as far we know about him, since he doesn't seem interested in attaining godhood, albeit it's later explained he plans to reveal himself to his creations at the right time. What could happen next is still unknown.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Even if his intentions weren't evil, at the large scale of the things he's responsible for every single event, good or bad, that happens in both Albedo and Birthright by the simple fact that violence is a natural part of all living beings.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Not exactly an extremist or evil per se, but he fits in this, as it's heavily implied he was the one the rigged both the spaceship Zeus and the aerodyne Athena as a way to kill everyone except him just to prevent Bettings or the UHSC from ruin his plans.
- Yellow Peril: Downplayed a lot: The fact he is of Japanese ancestry is completely incidental to his actions. Still, some aspects of the trope apply. He even has a Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter equivalent in the form of Wendy Merrit, his personal secretary. Despite this, he's willing to sacrifice her if she threatens his plans.
Douglas C. Bettings
The senior administrator of the
Prometheus base in Arras Chanka for the UHSC and the closest thing in the story to a main protagonist. He utterly
loathes both the Project Prometheus and Komatsu, and he's technically the voice of reason for the entire crew, especially after tragedy strikes.
Wendy Merrit
Komatsu's personal secretary and his personal confident.
- Secret-Keeper: Komatsu forces her to keep the secret about him staying in Arras Chanka. It doesn't last when The Net finds out the fact Komatsu stoled the cloning devices and Wendy is forced to reveal the truth.
- You Are in Command Now: She becomes technically Komatsu's succesor against her will by The Net on the grounds she was Komatsu's personal secretary, despite Project Prometheus is already finished and the role of project director is now obsolete after Komatsu's "demise".
Aladdin and Sinbad
A very powerful duo of computer and robot with an human-like AI whose role in the story is controlling all the systems used in the ships and during Project Prometheus. It's heavily implied Aladdin is the prototype of The Net or even The Net's real name, while Sinbad stays with Komatsu in Arras Chanka to help him with the project.
