The Crew | Factions (Corporations: The Board, Auntie Cleo's, Spacer's Choice, C&P Boarst Factory, MSI), SubLight Salvaging & Shipping, Iconoclasts, Other Groups: Groundbreaker, Deserters, Gorgon, Eridanos, Marauders, Outlaws | Other Characters
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The controlling alliance of ten companies that rules the Halcyon system.
The Board
In General
Halcyon Holdings Corporation
Work fortifies the spirit.
The governing body of Halycon, composed of executives from the corporations that own the colony.
- Bad Boss: Human life means nothing to its members. As best seen with their "Early Retirement" plan and callous plan to freeze most of the population after killing the colonists inside the Hope.
- The Bad Guy Wins: If the player decides to side with them, the Board crushes Phineas's riots and you later have him killed, with all the opposition removed. The Board (or rather Akande and you) then proceed to enact the Lifetime Employment Program to freeze most of the population outside Byzantium as the Board scientists work to bring a change to the status quo.
- Blatant Lies: Their Propaganda Machine is not very good, like the fact they claim the Hope is actually a bunch of debris and a trick of the light when it skip jumps above Terra-2.
- Big Bad: Pretty much what everyone agrees about them but their corporate drones.
- Decapitated Army: Their security forces will do pretty much anything their taskmasters ask of them, but they are deathly reliant on that same chain of command. If the Unplanned Variable sides with the Board, the guards of Tartarus are in complete disarray during the riot as Phineas has cut them off from both Rockwell and Akande, leaving them without their two most prominent leaders to give them orders. A sufficiently charismatic Unplanned Variable can take charge and order them to fight the prisoners anyway, which they do.
- Evil, Inc.: Practically every corporation in Halcyon with the exception of MSI operate without any ethics or standards thanks to the complete lack of oversight. This coupled with their general incompetence has led to the Colony being in very bad shape.
- Evil Is Easy: For a certain definition of "easy" as a quick and simple way for an Unplanned Variable to increase their reputation with them is to assassinate the leaders of factions antagonistic to them. Depending on how this is done, it can really be that easy or it could result in the protagonist having to fight their way out of said leader's headquarters.
- Evil Plan: They plan to empty out the Hope's cryogenic freezing chambers to safely store the Halcyon colonists, except for the citizens of Byzantium, and live off the resources thereof. This will kill all of the Hope colonists and they don't have a way to revive frozen people past ten years yet.
- Evil Power Vacuum: Even in endings where the Board loses, the corporations still exist, and are just robbed of much of their collective executive and political powers.
- The Remnant: The Hope was a colony ship loaded the best and brightest that humanity had to offer for the Halcyon mission. Its sister vessel, the Groundbreaker, was filled with everyone else, and the Board's been scraping by with said so-so population.
- Fascist, but Inefficient: The Board is terrible at their jobs. Their usual solution to any problem is to throw money and yes-men at something until they give up, often with massive loss of life involved. As a result, there are numerous projects that are complete failures.
- Final Solution: Their current plan is to freeze almost the entirety of the colony and hope they can solve The Famine in the meantime. They also have been luring extra citizens to Byzantium with the promise of a Lottery that is actually an excuse for killing the masses.
- Incompetence, Inc.: The Board is no better at economics and running a civilization than any of its subsidiaries.
- Most of their problems come from the fact that they downright refuse to do the equivalent of social security, taxes and healthcare after they took over. Instead, they believe that the lower classes/workers should work to the bone to earn money to spend on their products to keep existing and the colony.
- Cutting ties and then Un-Personing Monarch Industries, the biggest food producer in the Halcyon System, just because of their refusal to do things their way (and promoting things they are openly against such as worker's rights) is one of the biggest contributors of the famine in most of the colony.
- In fact, the only time the Board is truly competent and actually closer to solving the problem is when 'you'' take over the Board, either with Akande or her dead.
- The Man Behind the Man: The Board is behind all the corporations in Halycon.
- N.G.O. Superpower: The Board and the companies that comprise it act as the governing body of Halcyon which they were forced to become when they fell out of contact with Earth three years prior and had no means of reestablishing a stable government other than to take over themselves. This also crosses into One Nation Under Copyright since they also control municipal services, the food supply, and each settlements allegiances belong to their corporate overlords and not the settlement or planet they're on.
- Not Me This Time: The Board's ambitions and lack of real oversight cause a lot of horrid disasters in the game's setting, but the famine that threatens to starve out the whole colony is the result of neither.
- Not-So-Omniscient Council of Bickering: What they've devolved into over time; delegation of duties, sweeping problems under the rug, and selling out other members of the Board and their subordinates aren't just the order of the day, they're seen as laudable and desirable traits!
- One Nation Under Copyright: Theoretically, they answer to the Earth Directorate that is the actual rulers of the colonies but the Minister is a Puppet King.
- The Peter Principle: Both this and The Dilbert Principle are played with. The Board started with safeguards in place (Specifically, competency exams to ensure one could handle a position) to prevent the Peter Principle. When overly ambitious members of the board got the safeguards removed, what ultimately resulted was very much a mix of both principles; over the course of the game the Unplanned Variable meets just as many Board-aligned folks who're competent but out of their depths as they do who're simply incompetent.
- Propaganda Machine: Has an active and not terribly good one.
- Puppet King: The Earth Minister is completely in their pocket. He's actually their prisoner.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: The members of the Board find that failed townships and research projects are more easily abandoned than outright destroyed.
- Too Dumb to Live: They abandoned an entire planet and forbade anybody to set foot on it under the pretense that it is an untamable Death World in order to Un-person a company that made them look bad. This would be Evil Is Petty if that world didn't produce the majority of the colony's entire food supply!
- Thoughtcrime: Independent thought is heavily punished. This ranges from wiping out a small self-sufficient town with an anti-Board leader to killing a fashion designer for being too creative.
- When All You Have Is a Hammer…: A lot of the Board's problems could be solved if they would option out solutions that didn't have to do with profiting off of it in some fashion. In the endings where you keep the Board intact but decide to either support Adjutant Akande's reforms or take control yourself (and especially if you get Monarch back onto the Board), you can help them think democratically and practically for a change.
- Villain with Good Publicity: Many people think of them with extreme fondness and Undying Loyalty. If you take over the Board, the 'villain' part is stated to go down slightly.
Leadership
Chairman Charles Rockwell
"I fucking swear, if someone doesn't get me something to read that will placate the masses soon, all of you will find yourselves violently unemployed."
Voiced by: Crispin Freeman
The chairman of the Board and CEO of the Universal Defense Logistics Corporation.
- Bad Boss: He shouts at his writers that if they can't come up with a way to gently break the news that everyone in the colony may starve to death, they will find themselves "violently unemployed," and the term "employee termination" has a completely different meaning in Halcyon.
- Big Bad: As the ostensible leader of the Board, he is the main villain of the game unless you side with him.
- Breaking Bad News Gently: Played for laughs as we see the Stylistic Suck message where he tries to tell everyone they're all going to be frozen or die if they're not part of the super-rich.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: In a game where unchecked capitalism runs rampant to the point of maybe causing a system collapse, Rockwell is an example of corruption at its finest. Unlike the other corporate executives who the player meets that are incompetent but usually trying their best, Rockwell is only motivated by self-interest, to the point where he sets up the Early Retirement Program as a means to kill the poor and the Lifetime Employment Program to cryogenically freeze all of Halcyon's workers so the rich won't starve to death.
- Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: During his speech promoting the Lifetime Employment Program where all the workers in the colony will either be cryogenically frozen or die of malnutrition, he cracks this gem.Chairman Rockwell: Individuals will be revived on a rotating basis so that every Halcyonite can be part of the important work of saving our colony! (Beat) By testing paperweights. (Laughs) Sorry, couldn't resist. Let's go again.
- The Face: He's not so much the Board's leader as he is its public face used to promote their policies.
- Final Boss: If you kill Sophia before the endgame, he replaces her as the one commanding the RAM warden robot in the final battle.
- Hate Sink: While Akande is portrayed as genuinely having the colony's best interest in her heart for all of her ruthlessness, Rockwell is just a greedy condescending asshole who only cares about saving his own skin at the cost of everyone else. Naturally, all of the crewmates treat him with varying levels of contempt.
- Hazy-Feel Turn: It's possible to talk him down into joining the player. In one of the ending slide he uses his considerable resources to ease the chaos following the Board's disintegration. Like everything else, he's only doing it to save his own ass.
- Irony: In a straightforward Board-affiliated playthrough, the protagonist will never get to meet him in person.
- It's All About Me: The only person Rockwell cares about is himself. He's destroyed countless lives for his own benefit and his plan to "save the colony" is really just to save himself and the rest of the ultra-rich so they can ride out the devastation.
- Jerkass Has a Point: If the player sides with Welles and reveals their plan to him, he'll exasperatedly remind them that Halcyon is a few years away from starvation and introducing hundreds of thousands of new colonists will just make that worse. Depending on the player's choices, he can be proven right on this. Downplayed in that Phineas is well aware of this, and is only planning to unfreeze a few specialists at a time to help fix the problems Halcyon faces, and the rest will be unfrozen once the system is actually able to support them.
- Kick the Dog: It's strongly implied that the grotesquely cruel Early Retirement Program where the poor are tricked into thinking they're going to a special retirement district only to be murdered by automechanicals, is his brainchild. Especially since he promotes it so much while giving credit to Minister Clarke who is really Rockwell's prisoner and one of the few good members of the Board.
- Killed Offscreen: In the Board version of Tartarus, by the time you get there he's already been killed by Welles.
- Know When to Fold 'Em: The player can convince him to work together to save the colony and the Chairman will reluctantly agree, but only if the player manages to survive Tartarus and save Phineas on their own. It's pretty clear he's hedging his bets, waiting to see whether the Unplanned Variable or Akande will come out on top and then siding with the victor.
- Mouth of Sauron: A bit of Truth in Television, he's not actually the real leader of the Board but The Face for their policies to be enacted by.
- Non-Action Big Bad: He's not a very good fighter, which is rather ironic given that he's the leader of the military-centric UDL (Universal Defense Logistics) corporation that provides much of the security for the Board's activities.
- Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: Unlike the majority of corporate executives the player runs into who are incompetent but trying to do their best by trusting a screwed-up system, or even his adjutant, Sophia Akande, who is genuinely trying to save the colony, Rockwell is only interested in saving his life and his power.
- Not What It Looks Like: The house arrest he forces Minister Clarke into looks like a barely disguised power grab, but it is in fact motivated by a more desperate and insidious desire to hide the fact that Halcyon has lost contact with Earth.
- Precision F-Strike: Will retort with one if the player keeps insulting and telling him how they'll kill him.
- Private Military Contractors: What UDL essentially is.
- Puppet King:
- He can become this, acting as the player's agent, while the player is the true ruler of the Colony. Rockwell handles the bureaucracy.
- Rockwell was apparently this under Sophia Akande.
- Smug Snake: Treats you and your companions with derision when you confront him. This despite the fact that you're right next to him and he only has two Sentry-bot guards. It also doesn't take much to convince him to fold like a deck of cards.
- Stylistic Suck: He's terrible at his job of Breaking Bad News Gently.
- Suicidal Overconfidence: Acts completely in control of the room when you confront him face-to-face. Pointing this out results in him deciding to side with you.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: He attempts this on the two companions you bring along to Tartarus if you ally with Phineas. Whether or not your companions shrug it off may depend on if you completed their companion quests in a well-resolved manner.
- Villain with Good Publicity: As the chairman of the Board, most of the publicity in the colonies is flattering to him.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: While an important character, he barely has an actual screen time, and in a straightforward playthrough where the player allies with the Board, they never even get to meet him in person before Phineas kills him.
- Who Writes This Crap?!: Absolutely hates the promotional video that he's making to try to sell cryogenic freezing as a way to save the colony.
Adjutant Sophia Akande
"You've disrupted the balance of power. You've upset the natural order of things. You've introduced uncertainty. And there's nothing I despise more than uncertainty."
Voiced by: Debra Wilson
The highest-ranking military officer in Halcyon and commander of the Board's security forces.
- Aborted Arc: If the Unplanned Variable sides with Reed during the Emerald Vale conflict, then the Foundation quest that Akande had extensively planned to wipe out Edgewater for being either a drain on the colony's resources or for being a dissident icon with Adelaide in charge of it doesn't happen as they're meeting their production quotas again. Thus making the assassination or exile of Rachel Lockwood for making new official maps that didn't have the town on them retroactively unnecessary.
- Affably Evil: She's nothing but courteous and polite towards the Unplanned Variable should they work with her.
- All for Nothing: One of the ways you can convince her to back down is to listen to the researchers in her lab and pointed out with a Science check that they actually don't have any progress in reviving colonists safely. In other words, their Evil Plan won't work.
- Almighty Janitor: Adjutant is a fairly low rank for her role as chief general and spymaster for the entire colony. Ostensibly she and her subordinates answer to corporate executives, but in practice she is far more qualified to lead and even Chairman Rockwell largely defers to her.
- Anonymous Benefactor: If successfully talked into retreating in an Anti-Board ending, it's heavily implied that she becomes a secret benefactor to Phineas (who either doesn't know or carries the secret to his grave).
- Bad Boss:
- When sending you to wipe Edgewater off the map, Akande tells you to tread lightly around the Spacer's Choice soldiers investigating the geothermal plant. If you reject this idea, she'll tell you "Carve a path through them, for all I care. Just take care of it". She also talks down to your companions and even tells Felix to shut up or she'll have him shot.
- Deconstructed in that its implied her reputation as a terrible person is the reason her scientists are too afraid to tell her that the experiments she has been working on are doomed to fail. If you point out the lie to her, she is startled by it, as she never thought about that.
- Benevolent Boss: If you side with the Board with her, she is absolutely willing to spend resources and listen to your suggestions.
- Card-Carrying Villain: If you call her a "cold-blooded psychopath" for ordering the execution of everyone in Edgewater she'll tell you she appreciates the flattery. She sees everything she does as Necessarily Evil.Pavarti: You're a monster.
Akande: Someone has to be. - Control Freak: In her own words, she despises nothing more than uncertainty. It's the main reason why she will accept nothing less than wiping out an Adelaide-controlled Edgewater, since a community outside of her control, regardless of how minor, is nothing short of a personal insult to her.
- The Creon: She's not interested in being the public face of the Board or making day-to-day decisions. Her sole interest is the security and continued prosperity of the colony, regardless of what that means for any individual colonist.
- Did Not See That Coming: Is a genius who saw almost everything coming except for the very obvious thing that her corporate toady scientists would lie to her about being able to unfreeze people safely.
- The Dragon: She's far more competent and dangerous than Rockwell. Not only does her RAM robot put up much more of a fight than Rockwell, she is also far more difficult to talk down.
- Dragon-in-Chief: Is pretty much the only person actually doing anything about the many problems the colonists face.
- Dragon Their Feet: You confront her after killing Rockwell or forcing his surrender.
- Evil Counterpart: To Phineas. They are both ruthless scientists trying to prevent Halycon's destruction, but while Phineas feels guilty over his horrific experiments and seeks to revive the Hope colonists to create a Halycon that can support everyone, Sophia feels no remorse for her misdeeds and wants to force most of the colony to enter stasis while the Board's scientists solve the food crisis. (Mechanically, they are mirrored in that the climax in Tartarus will be one of them holding the other captive.)
- Evil Sounds Deep: Has a low, dark, and quite soothing voice for someone as callous and cold-blooded as she is.
- Final Boss: In the normal ending, she controls the RAM warden robot that serves as the final boss. After defeating it, you fight the much less dangerous Sophia.
- Heel–Face Turn: If you spare her life, she covertly supports Phineas' efforts to save the colony with resources he'd never have acquired otherwise.
- Hypercompetent Sidekick: To the Board at large. She's clearly the only one who seems to care about actually doing anything about the Halcyon System's problems, but given that she's dealing with The Board, it shouldn't be too surprising that she didn't get much done without the Unplanned Variable's involvement. In a Board-aligned ending, the Variable can agree to work for her, or declare themselves the ruler of Halcyon. In the latter case, she will continue as Adjutant to the new boss.
- Iron Lady: She's a fierce and ruthless woman who will do anything to enforce the will of the Board and (in her eyes) save the colony. Even if it means wiping out a self-sufficient colony due to it potentially harboring dissident thoughts.
- Just the First Citizen: She's the Adjutant, normally an administrative rank assigned to assist a command officer, but she's actually in charge of security for the whole colony and answers only to the Chairman — and even he realizes full well that the Board cannot survive without her. In practice she's the power behind the throne, and the only thing keeping her from assuming further influence is a lack of interest in her part. Her ambitions are control and stability, not personal wealth or glory.
- Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: A Downplayed Trope example, but it's entirely possible to have no idea who Sophia Akande is when you confront her or what her significance to the Board is.
- Jerkass Has a Point: She warns the player that Welles is hiding information from them and is just using them to accomplish his goals. While his plan to revive all the Hope colonists is genuine, it is motivated more by his own guilt over his past actions than pure altruism, which along with the reveal that Halcyon has completely lost contact with Earth, he will only reveal after the player has thrown their lot in with Welles too far to change their mind.
- Kick the Dog: If Adelaide is in control of Edgewater, Akande will order you to wipe the town out since she sees it as a potential hub for dissidence. Even pointing out that the town is self-sufficient won't dissuade her, as the problem is not their drain on resources, but the dangerously Board-free ideas they could spread. Notably, this is one of the few things that all of your companions object to, either in shock or horror.
- Talking the Monster to Death: In your final confrontation with her, with the right skills you can talk her into standing down upon which she'll simply let you bypass the Final Boss and straight to the ending.
- The Man Behind the Man: It's implied Chairman Rockwell's plans and many of the Board's evil deeds are her doing. If you side with the Board, you either work with her on equal footing, or 'take over' the Board.
- Moment Killer: A pro-Board Unplanned Variable will have their plans for either an influential government position or a cozy life of luxury upended as they progress through Akande's quests as she reveals Awful Truth after Awful Truth about just how dire the situation in Halcyon is.
- Only Sane Woman: Zigzagged. She's the only remotely rational, unselfish, competent person on the Board, but is so dedicated to serving the colony as it currently stands that she will have anyone who threatens to upset the status quo even slightly put swiftly to death, and would rather see most of the colony abandoned rather than shift power and wealth out of Byzantium.
- Post-Final Boss: After you beat the RAM you'll have to deal with Akande making a Last Stand.
- The Scapegoat: You can tell her Chairman Rockwell plans on making her this and she'll turn on him immediately. It's a lie but one she's clearly aware he's capable of.
- Skippable Boss: She can be talked down which lets you bypass the Final Boss, but doing so requires high ranks in various different skills.
- Soft-Spoken Sadist: She rarely raises her voice and is arguably the Only Sane Woman in The Board, but is also just as amoral and psychopathic as they are.
- Undying Loyalty: To the Board and the Halcyon System. It can be broken if you point out it's not reciprocated. It can be strengthened if you and Akande rule over the Board.
- Villainous Breakdown: It's possible to have her go through this be it by talking her down or by getting past RAM and killing her outright.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Truly wants to save the Halcyon system before it's too late. Is willing to freeze and/or kill most of the colonists in order to do so.
- Why Won't You Die?: Will scream this verbatim should the player defeat/deactivate the RAM and confront her directly.
- Zero-Effort Boss: Justified. Being The Chessmaster that she is, she'd rather have RAM take care of you for her than actually do it herself. And when you get past RAM, she's easy picking as she'll go down within a few shots. Or hell, one of your Companions will probably off her without much of a fight.
Minister Aloysius Clarke
Voiced by: Braeden Marcott
Halcyon's Minister of Earth, appointed by the Earth Directorate to serve as the colony's governor.
- Antagonistic Governor: As Minister, Clarke has to actively sign off on everything the Board does, making him complicit in all of their schemes. Subverted. He's been under house arrest for years and Rockwell has been forging his signature.
- Authority in Name Only: Clarke is supposed to be the colony's governor, but Rockwell holds all the actual power.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: He and Rockwell are the two most important officials in Halcyon making them both responsible for everything wrong with the colony. They're even placed side-by-side on posters, implying an equal partnership. Subverted. Clarke is a prisoner and Rockwell is running the colony completely on his own.
- Go Mad from the Isolation: Downplayed. In certain dialogue paths, it's possible to reveal that the conversation you have with him may be the longest he's had in a long while.
- Good All Along: When you finally meet him, it's revealed that he's actually being forcefully imprisoned and that he's been trying to contact Earth for help.
- Puppet King: He has no actual power to stop the Board from doing anything.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Once you're able to actually speak to him, it becomes clear that he really does have the best interests of Halcyon in mind, but is powerless to actually do anything. If he's still alive in the Phineas ending, his slide will state that after being released from house arrest he begins to take a more active role in helping the colony.
- The Scapegoat: The plaques leading to the Early Retirement District claim that the program is Minister Clarke's brainchild with Chairman Rockwell just endorsing it. The "district" is really a slaughtering grounds for the impoverished citizens tricked into entering it, and Clarke himself is really a powerless figurehead held hostage in his own house by Rockwell, meaning those who go to their deaths in the district spend their last moments believing Clarke is the one who killed them.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: Sending his whistleblower message to Earth has about as much success as when Rockwell and Akande tried to. None at all.
- Surrounded by Idiots: In certain dialogue routes with him, your rebounding his annoyed attitude of talking to idiots back at him as sarcasm has him light up in delight.
- Translation by Volume: Does this when trying to talk to people he thinks are idiots.
- Walking Spoiler: It's difficult to say much about him without bringing up the fact that he isn't actually working with Rockwell.
Bureaucrats
Udom Bedford
Byzantium
In General
"Colloquially referred to as gold-bloods, most of Byzantium's dwellers will never step outside the city's walls. Conversely, for many Halcyon colonists the city is a faraway dream."
The capital of the Board and home to the majority of their executives and families.
- Blue Blood: The citizens there consider themselves to be this.
- Conspicuous Consumption: The people of Byzantium spend vast sums of money on things like real marble from Earth, floors, and fashion when the rest of the colony including them are starving.
- Crapsaccharine World: Its the richest city in Halcyon but it's failing in its own way - it's curiously lifeless, the buildings have holes with exposed machinery, there's litter everywhere, everything is walled off by red tape, and there's guards on every corner.
- Dying Town: Disguised better than other communities but happening as well. Phineas's contact points out that they were unable to fix a suggestion box's paper shredder, which is a big clue they can't fix anything.
- Idle Rich: The vast majority of citizens just live off their ancestors' wealth.
- Kill the Poor: They are carrying this out with a Lottery to reduce the surplus population.
- Naming Your Colony World: Named the Same - In a show of astounding arrogance, the Board named their failing colony's capital after one of the greatest cities in history. Though it also certainly invites parallels between the failing colonies and the decline of the Byzantine Empire, even as the emperors continued to enjoy astounding opulence.
- Police State: A subdued example but the fact is that there are troopers on every corner and any dissidence (including fashion) results in execution.
- Skewed Priorities: More concerned with wealth and gossip than survival.
- Slobs Versus Snobs: Your player character and crew typically stand out like sore thumbs and get called out by every citizen you pass. However, if the player wears nice suits out in Byzantium, unnamed NPCs will assume the player character is an arms company executive with a security detail, while still noticing there's something "exotic" about them. Named NPCs will be more perceptive and recognize the player character don't carry themself like a Byzantine, despite dressing like one.
- Spoiled Brat: Every single person born and raised in Byzantium, it seems.
Hortense Ingalsbee
A rich socialite of Byzantium. She is upset about the Lottery awarding retiring workers a life of luxury in the city.
- Asshole Victim: If the player tells her the truth about the Early Retirement District being a slaughtering ground for the poor, she's positively thrilled. This makes her all the more deserving if the player instead decides to trick her into breaking into the Early Retirement District herself, earning the same fate she wishes for the poor. Even Parvati, one of the nicest people in the setting, admits that she should feel more conflicted about this than she actually does.
- Blue Blood: One of the obnoxious citizens of Byzantium.
- Death by Irony: If you tell her that the Early Retirement District is the paradise the Board advertises it as, she insists on breaking in herself, meeting the same cruel fate she thinks is perfect for the poor.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: Downplayed Trope. She gradually comes to like you while continuing to insult you with every other sentence.
- Entitled Bitch: She doesn't want to share the glamour of Byzantium with impoverished individuals who only won their place through random chance in a lottery. They should earn it as she did. When asked how she earned her place in Byzantium, she says her grandfather invented a number of promotional gimmicks for Board companies then inherited his wealth. If you point out that means she, specifically, didn't do anything to earn her place, she honestly doesn't understand your logic, believing because she's rich, she's successful, and if she's successful, she must've earned.
- Green-Eyed Monster: She wants to know what the the Early Retirement District is like because only Lottery winners are allowed there. Tell her the truth and she'll be satisfied that she's already in the fanciest place in Halcyon.
- Hate Sink: Has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. However, she's not involved in the "Early Retirement" scheme. She approves, though.
- Idle Rich: Her grandfather invented some minor promotional material for the corporations and she received millions via inheritance.
- Kill the Poor: Tell her the truth about the Early Retirement Program, and she is...delighted! Mass murder of the poor mean less riff-raff in Byzantium!
- No Sympathy: Is amazingly bigoted against the poor and believes they're only so because they're lazy.
- Rich Bitch: Pretty much embodies this trope.
Celeste Jolicoeur
"Do hurry, my dear. The bird of inspiration is about to take flight."
A Byzantium fashion designer, who designed many of the high-class clothes available in the game.
- Creative Sterility: Averted by Jolicoeur herself, but she sees this happening in Byzantium and wants to do something about it. She's killed as a dissident for her efforts.
- Eccentric Fashion Designer: She's fairly pompous and self-absorbed but also one of the few Byzantines capable of creativity to the point that she gets killed for being too much of a free thinker.
- Insufferable Genius: Downplayed, given she's a Jerk with a Heart of Gold and a lot nicer than most of Byzantium. But her opinion of herself is very high, and rightly so. She's famed across the system and can even make an excellent business suit with an armor rating usually found on high-end corporate armor out of the esoteric materials she sends you across the system to retrieve.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She's got a pretty high opinion of herself and is quite pretentious. But when Parvati, a grease-stained mechanic whose traveling companions probably look no better, comes in asking about getting nice clothes for a date, Celeste has nothing but kind, sincere words and drops everything to help, especially when hearing that Pavati is rather quantly doing it for love, and not societal position.
- Lady in a Power Suit: In-universe designer of all the art-deco inspired business suits you see in Byzantium, worn by both men and women. She of course wears one herself.
- Only Sane Woman: Downplayed, she's as fashion-obsessed as the rest of Byzantium, but at least she recognizes the Creative Sterility and wants to do something about it.
- Spoiled Sweet: She's one of the only wealthy people in Byzantium who treats outsiders with any measure of respect or decency. She positively fawns over the Unplanned Variable and their modeling potential, and enthusiastically helps Parvati get the perfect outfit for her date. The worst thing that can be said about her is that she can be a bit innocently insensitive.
- Tall Poppy Syndrome: She's a brilliant fashion designer, and she is killed as a dissident because this led to her thinking too independently.
- Ultimate Blacksmith: She is capable of crafting a suit that also happens to be one of the best pieces of endgame armor out of assorted creature parts.
Lionel Witherspoon & Theodora Fenhill
Lionel Witherspoon
Theodora Fenhill
The parents of Dr. Marilyn Fenhill.
- Abusive Parents: Of the emotionally abusive and neglectful kind. Their indifference to their daughter's happiness and attempts to force her into a life she didn't want caused Ellie to run off and become a pirate just so they'd notice her. When she does come back, instead of the emotional reunion Ellie was hoping for, they tell her they'd rather pretend she's dead and cut her out of their lives completely rather than give up the payments they get from her life insurance policy.
- Awful Wedded Life: Marriage contracts are common in Halcyon and when Ellie meets them again, she admits to being surprised they decided to renew the contract, implying an unhappy marriage.
- Embarrassing Cover Up: Rather than admit their daughter ran off to become a pirate, they tell a lie that Ellie died by breaking her neck while trying out a one-of-a-kind pair of Celeste Jolicoeur high-heels. Ellie's pretty put out that they couldn't at least have her killed in a pirate attack or something.
- Laser-Guided Karma: After cashing in their daughter's life insurance policy on a lie and cutting her out of their lives to keep the con going, the player can help falsify the claim so Ellie becomes the sole beneficiary, letting her cut them off.
- Rich Bitch: Both of Ellie's parents are wealthy and self-absorbed to the point where they'd rather continue the con that their daughter is dead so they can collect on her life insurance policy rather than admit the truth and give up the new luxuries they've been able to afford.
- Stage Mom: The pair of them pressured Ellie into becoming a doctor because of the prestige that came along with it.
Dr. Eva Chartrand
One of the Board's scientists.
- The Conspiracy: Contrary to Lilya's theories, she is not an alien collaborator. Quite the reverse, as humans are alien to the Halcyon System: the actual conspiracy the Board are trying to cover up is the fact that humans are not adapted to the food on their system and Chartrand and her team have been desperately trying to correct that.
- Defector from Decadence: You can spare her on the condition that she help Phineas instead. She sees no issue with this, since they have the same end goal.
- Dwindling Party: She and her team were so desperate to find a way to save Halcyon, they started experimenting on themselves. All the others are now in suspension, with Chartrand desperately seeking to complete their work and cure them in the process.
- Everyone Has Standards: She refuses to use the poor or unemployed for her scientific experiments.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: If you spare her, she disappears from the game - neither Phineas mentions her nor is she mentioned in the epilogue.
