Wolf 359/Characters

The cast of Wolf 359.

U.S.S. Hephaestus

Doug Eiffel

" Listen, lady. I've got the Cigarette Smoking Man breathing down my neck, Comrade Honeydew using me as an Easy Bake Oven for Space-nish Influenza, and Commander Queeg riding my back. And that was all before you appeared with a powerful urge to blow up my timeshare. What, exactly, do you think I have the energy to try?! " Voiced by: Zach Valenti

The laid-back Communications Officer aboard the Hephaestus and the main protagonist of the series. Eiffel is a hyperactive, cigarettes-and-coffee loving slacker who has absolutely zero interest in doing his job and whose constant pop culture references make him borderline incomprehensible to the rest of the crew. In spite of this, Eiffel is actually highly skilled at his job, compassionate, and a supportive friend; it's just buried underneath massive levels of buffoonery and self-absorption.

Tropes exhibited by this character include:

• Adorkable: His habit of running his mouth, his constant pop culture references, and his genuinely supportive attitude towards his friends all mark him as this.
• All-Loving Hero: Eiffel assumes the best of everyone and is extremely empathetic. In some cases it works out for him, like being the only one to believe there's still some good in Lovelace, but in others it doesn't, such as blindly trusting Colonel Kepler and the SI5 crew.
• Ambiguous Disorder: Eiffel demonstrates a lot of signs of ADHD; he's prone to hyper-fixating (see his obsession with pop culture and how he throws himself into tasks he's genuinely interested in), impulsive, tends to run his mouth without thinking, and is very easily distracted.
• Badass Pacifist: Eiffel abhors killing and often tries to prevent violence when he can, but he's cunning enough that he can non-lethally take down his enemies without so much as laying a fist on them.
• Badass on Paper: Much to Minkowski's shock, Kepler regards him as the most competent member of the crew and gives him the most leeway out of them. When she questions him on it, Kepler points out that Eiffel managed to survive on his own in a highly damaged spacecraft with limited resources through sheer ingenuity, whereas from his perspective Minkowski has done nothing but make bad tactical decisions and is entirely to blame for the utter fiasco that has occurred aboard the Hephaestus.
• Body Horror: His extensive use of the escape pod's cryopod slowly causes his body to deteriorate; he loses extreme amounts of weight, and his fingernails and hair fall out. Eiffel being Eiffel, he takes it in stride, but Hera is understandably extremely worried about his health after he returns to the Hephaestus.
• Brilliant but Lazy: As Hera notes, Eiffel is legitimately skilled at his job to an impressive degree and he's able to expertly trace the alien signals in spite of having lackluster equipment, but he'd much rather spend his time making quips and slacking off. As Eiffel himself puts it, he's well-aware he's essentially cannon fodder for his bosses so he really doesn't give much of a damn about actually doing his job.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Eiffel is weird. Disregarding his constant pop culture references, he's very prone to goofy behavior and is easily stirred into flights of fancy. Notable examples is conducting a one-man psychological analysis on himself with a vocoder to give it "the HAL 9000 touch" and freaking out over a missing screwdriver to the point he strips naked to prove he didn't take it.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Most of the time, Eiffel is a childish Cloudcuckoolander who can't stop making pop culture references, but when he needs to get serious, he does. He's able to readjust a highly damaged and out-of-control shuttle to head towards a space station single-handedly when his situation was regarded as a death sentence by the rest of the cast, and he's able to thwart Hilbert's mutiny armed with just a cigarette and a vocoder.
• Deadpan Snarker: He's always ready with some sort of quip, no matter the situation.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: Eiffel has saved the crew's lives, does his best to keep their volatile personalities together, and after things get serious he actually starts doing his job to the best of his ability, but the crew all treat him like a moron, ignore his accomplishments, and blame him whenever things go wrong. It doesn't bother him on the surface, but Kepler is able to manipulate Eiffel simply by treating him with basic respect and acknowledging his accomplishments.
• Despair Event Horizon: He sinks into despair in "Mayday" when he thinks that he's doomed to starve to death aboard Lovelace's out-of-control and slowly moving shuttle, and sullenly accepts his own apparent death without any sort of quips. Of course, he rapidly snaps out of it when the SI5 crew rescue him.
• Fatal Flaw: His laxness on the job nearly gets him killed multiple times when he ignores safety protocols.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Throughout the first season, he and Minkowski are constantly at each other's throats and Eiffel goes out of his way to annoy her which she responds to in turn with over-the-top punishment. After the first season finale, they're forced to rely on each other for survival and quickly develop into Vitriolic Best Buds with Undying Loyalty to each other.
• Genre Savvy: He has an almost encyclopedic knowledge of pop culture, and he's the most bitterly aware of how predatory Goddard is until Lovelace joins the crew, meaning he's pretty good at dealing with most of the situations the crew has to deal with for the most part.

Minkowski: No, because those only exist in science fiction movies. Be sensible. Eiffel: Oh, yeah, 'cause here on the Hephaestus we only deal with sensible things, like plant monsters and genetically engineered death viruses.

• The Heart: He often serves as the voice of morality aboard the station, and he frequently has to play mediator between the crew whenever their personalities clash. Notably, when he's separated from the rest of the crew in "Pan Pan", they quickly collapse into infighting.
• Hourglass Plot: After Kepler's takeover, Minkowski is forced to take a pointless and rather boring job as the ship's navigations expert while Eiffel is given much more autonomy and forced to manage the crew's shenanigans. Minkowski quickly turns into just as much of a rambling Motor Mouth as Eiffel to pass the time, while Eiffel becomes as strict and by-the-book as she is.
• Idiot Hero: Subverted. Most people assume he's an idiot, but a lot of this stems from Eiffel both playing up his apparent stupidity as an excuse to get out of doing work and the fact he's an impulsive Cloudcuckoolander. Eiffel's actually pretty intelligent and competent; he's just so impulsive and eccentric that it's easy to miss.
• Innocently Insensitive: Eiffel is an extremely supportive friend, but he's oblivious to how his quips can genuinely hurt his friends' feelings and how his zany antics tend to increase the stress of living aboard the Hephaestus, which is already not an enjoyable experience.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Eiffel can be rather rude and tactless, but it almost never comes from a place of malice and he's extremely supportive of his friends as well as being the most moral and compassionate member of the crew.
• Keet: He's almost always upbeat and cheerful. It's a very bad sign whenever he isn't.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Eiffel frequently mocks Minkowski for having memorized the entirety of Price and Carter's Deep Space Survival Guide and derides the book as useless. When he's stranded aboard Lovelace's escape pod in deep space with limited resources, he's forced to rely on the guide to survive and by the time he gets back he yells at Maxwell and Hera for ignoring some of the protocols outlined in the guide.
• Lazy Bum: Especially in the first season. Eiffel hates doing any kind of work and comes up with various schemes to allow him to slack off, none of which wind up panning out. He snaps out of this to an extent after things start getting serious; it's still Eiffel, so he's by no means a model employee, but he's slightly better about doing his job.
• Man Child: Eiffel is very immature, and is prone to goofing off and often play-acts like a child would for fun. In a twist, he's actually very emotionally mature which helps him move out of being The Load once Cerebus Syndrome hits.
• Only Sane Man: He believes himself to be this aboard the Hephaestus. While Eiffel's definitely weird and his level of sanity is relative, he's generally the first one to notice when his crewmates are struggling with their mental health and the first to intervene.
• OOC Is Serious Business: It's a very bad sign whenever Eiffel isn't cracking jokes.
• Plucky Comic Relief: He's always making pop culture-related quips no matter the situation, much to his friends' annoyance. The only times he doesn't make jokes is when things are just that bad.
• Sanity Slippage: He starts hallucinating his crewmates while stranded aboard Lovelace's escape pod in deep space. They prove to be Helpful Hallucinations who help him survive, though Eiffel is markedly more short-tempered after the experience.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Downplayed. He doesn't turn into a total Jerkass, but after being stranded in deep space for a month alone in Lovelace's escape pod he's noticeably more short-tempered and serious to the point of quoting Price and Carter's Deep Space Survival Manual. It leaves him open to Kepler's manipulations, but he's savvy enough to recognize them and he reverts back to normal after a couple episodes.
• Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: In the first season, most problems are caused by Eiffel's laziness and thoughtlessness, and he tends to cause a whole lot of misery for himself with his various Zany Schemes. He quickly mellows out following the first season finale and becomes a much more sympathetic character who takes it upon himself to deal with his crewmates' mental health crises.

Renée Minkowski

"There's already a crisis! We're lucky when there's only one crisis!" Voiced by: Emma Sherr-Ziarko

The strict and authoritarian Mission Commander. Minkowski is a massive stickler for the rules who has memorized the entire Goddard Futuristics-provided manual on how to survive deep space, even if it is admittedly filled with somewhat useless information. In spite of being a gruff stick-in-the-mud, Minkowski cares deeply for the lives of her crew and will move heaven and earth to keep them safe, and is more than happy to disobey her superiors once it becomes clear they don't give a damn about the lives of the crew.

Tropes exhibited by this character include:

• Action Girl: Minkowski is more than willing to throw down when the situation calls for it, and will happily use everything in the station's armory to take care of any threats.
• Control Freak: Minkowski needs to have everything in the station running however she wants it and is very forceful about getting her way about even the most pointless of matters. This causes her to start losing it in Season 2 as the situation aboard the Hephaestus becomes increasingly out of control.
• Deadpan Snarker: Not as much as Eiffel and Hera, but she's very prone to snarking and makes it very clear she feels like she's Surrounded by Idiots.
• A Mother to Her Men: Minkowski cares deeply for everyone under her command and is deeply invested in getting them home, no matter how much they piss her off. The only exception is Hilbert, and Minkowski makes it clear that she'd like nothing more than to put a bullet in his head.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Throughout the first season, she and Eiffel are constantly at each other's throats and Eiffel goes out of his way to annoy her which she responds to in turn with over-the-top punishment. After the first season finale, they're forced to rely on each other for survival and quickly develop into Vitriolic Best Buds with Undying Loyalty to each other.
• Hidden Depths: She's a former theater kid and a massive Fan Girl of musicals, to the point of forcing the crew to perform The Pirates of Penzance at gunpoint after Hilbert inadvertently slips her a temporary Psycho Serum. She's also Happily Married and has a husband back on Earth, which she keeps a secret from the rest of the crew.
• Hourglass Plot: After Kepler's takeover, Minkowski is forced to take a pointless and rather boring job as the ship's navigations expert while Eiffel is given much more autonomy and forced to manage the crew's shenanigans. Minkowski quickly turns into just as much of a rambling Motor Mouth as Eiffel to pass the time, while Eiffel becomes as strict and by-the-book as she is.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Minkowski is blunt, controlling, and strict, but she has her crew's best interests at heart and she is extremely protective of them.
• Not So Above It All: As much as she tries to rise above the rest of the crew's eccentric personalities and keep everyone together, Minkowski can occasionally get swept up into their shenanigans and she actually enjoys Eiffel's terrible impressions. On a more serious note, her single-minded drive to protect the crew can cause her to spiral into obsession and ignore her own basic needs.
• Only Sane Man: Minkowski is the most well-adjusted of the crew and is generally the one who has to corral them all into being productive. Which isn't to say that she's without her own quirks and neuroses, but she's definitely the most responsible if the cast.
• Rules Lawyer: She always plays things by-the-book on even the most pointless of situations, and has memorized the entirety of Price and Carter's Deep Space Survival Guide. She snaps out of this to a degree after realizing how little Cutter cares about the crew, though she's still a major proponent of the guide.
• Took a Level In Jerkass: Minkowski becomes a lot more amoral in Season 3 after SI5 takes over the Hephaestus. She almost kills Maxwell by flooding a burning room she's in with a lethal dose of liquid nitrogen when she thinks she'll be able to get away with it due to plausible deniability and is only barely talked out of it by Eiffel and Hera, and she later goes along with Hilbert and Lovelace's plan to napalm the SI5 crew. It all culminates in her killing Maxwell in cold blood.

Dr. Alexander Hilbert

"When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however unlikely, must be the truth." Voiced by: Zach Valenti

A microbiologist and all-around Mad Scientist who also serves as the station's designated medic and repairman. In spite of his often important role, Hilbert is extremely scatter-brained and prone to causing Stuff Blowing Up with his experiments, but he's mostly harmless even if he does have trouble understanding why his crewmates don't want to be his test subjects.

At least, on the surface. In reality, Hilbert is actually Dmitri Volodim, a former Soviet Union researcher recruited by and working directly under Cutter to experiment with the decima virus, a retro-virus designed to improve the human body function. Hilbert has served with and killed multiple crews in service of his research and on Cutter's orders, and he has no qualms about doing the same to the current crew of the Hephaestus…

Tropes exhibited by this character include:

• Absent-Minded Professor: Hilbert is very prone to hyper-focusing on his work or whatever's going on at the station to the point he ignores everything else around him, often resulting in Stuff Blowing Up. Even after he drops the mask, he's still pretty scatter-brained; see "The Paranoia Game", where he freaks out over a missing screwdriver to the point he strips naked to prove he doesn't have it.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: Hilbert is not a good guy by any stretch of the word, but unlike his superiors he has genuinely altruistic goals and he won't kill people pointlessly. That's not to say he shies away from murder and he'll even kill his own friends, but he's still a far cry away from Cutter and company wantonly murdering subordinates on a whim.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: He acts friendly and cheerful throughout Season 1, coming off as a Nice Guy who is at worst a bit of a Cloudcuckoolander. The Season 1 finale reveals that it was all a mask; in reality, Hilbert is a cold, almost sociopathic Mad Scientist who is more than willing to sacrifice the lives of the crew if it means he gets what he wants.
• Creepy Monotone: After the reveal, Hilbert consistently speaks in a dry, unemotional monotone which just serves to make him all the more terrifying.
• Deadpan Snarker: He doesn't snark as often as the rest of the crew, but he's made his fair share of dryly sardonic remarks about the rest of the crew.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: His sister, whose death by radiation poisoning motivates his research and experimentation with the decima virus.
• Evil Sounds Deep: His voice becomes much deeper in pitch after he reveals his true colors.
• Evilutionary Biologist: Hilbert genuinely believes that the decima virus will help mankind evolve and cure disease and infirmities, so he won't hesitate to create genetic abominations or use human test subjects for his experiments.
• Freudian Excuse: As a child, Hilbert was forced to watch his family die of radiation poisoning and only barely survived himself. His fury over how medicine hadn't advanced enough to save them and his desire to make sure no one would ever have to suffer through that again led him to create the decima virus in the hopes of being able to treat even the most deadly of diseases. Any deaths caused by his research are merely necessary sacrifices from his point-of-view.
• Lack of Empathy: Hilbert has absolutely zero empathy to the people he's harmed, and Eiffel eventually realizes that he quite simply doesn't care about what normal people do; all that matters to him is his research, and nothing else.
• Mad Scientist: Played for Laughs. Hilbert is always up to various experiments that lead to the creation of dangerous mutants or copious amounts of explosions. It's played much darker after it's revealed what he's experimenting with and how far he'll go to see it through.
• Never My Fault: Hilbert has a rather hard time comprehending why his crewmates no longer trust him after he tried to murder them all. In his point of view, everything he's done has been necessary sacrifices for the sake of helping all mankind and is no different from experimenting on lab animals, so why is everyone so up in arms about it?
• Not So Above It All: Hilbert is much more serious than the rest of the crew, but he's just as prone to engaging in shenanigans as they are when he's motivated enough. See his attempts to get out of participating in Minkowski's talent show, or his Freak Out over a missing screwdriver and his claims that it's all part of a massive conspiracy against him which he justifies through copious amounts of Insane Troll Logic.
• The Sociopath: Subverted. Eiffel and Hera are quick to call him one, but while Hilbert does have a severe Lack of Empathy he does express emotions such as fear and he has genuinely altruistic goals of helping mankind; it's just that he feels his research is so important that any deaths caused along the way are worth it in his view.
• Token Evil Teammate: Hilbert is an unrepentant murderer, but he's still on the crew's side if only out of convenience.
• Tragic Villain
• Villainous Breakdown: When Kepler shuts down his research.
• Vocal Evolution: His voice becomes much deeper and gravely from Season 2 onwards.
• Walking Spoiler: It's really hard to talk about him without revealing that he's a mole who betrays the crew.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: He genuinely believes that if he's able to perfect the decima virus, it will be able to significantly strengthen the human body and allow people to recover from even the most deadly of diseases or injuries. As far as Hilbert's concerned, any deaths on the way to achieving that goal are necessary sacrifices.

Hera

"Rules. You hate rules as much as I do, don't you Doug? I've been playing a game lately. It'ss a really fun game, I think you'd like it. It's called 'Find the Loophole in the Programming'." Voiced by: Michaela Swee

The Hephaestus's onboard AI and auto-pilot in charge of keeping the station in peek condition and preventing any atmospheric phenomena or mechanical failure from killing the crew. Hera is belligerent and snarky, and doesn't take well to any of the crew insulting her abilities or worse, treating her like little more than a tool. Still, she is deeply loyal to the crew and is ironically best friends with Eiffel, in spite of his laziness and initial mistrust for AIs.

Tropes exhibited by this character include:

• Adorkable: Hera is probably the contender for the title of dorkiest AI in all of fiction. She frequently goofs around with, is prone to getting flustered, and her frantic and awkward apologies whenever she makes a mistake are profoundly dorky even when it's life threatening.
• AI Is a Crapshoot: Deconstructed and Zig-Zagged all the way to hell. Hera is extremely glitchy, belligerent when given orders. and disturbingly prone to trying to find loopholes in the programming that prevents her from harming humans, but all of this stems from the fact that she's essentially a human being treated like a disposable tool and forced to follow orders against her will.
• Berserk Button: Hilbert understandably becomes one to her after he temporarily lobotomizes her at the end of Season 1. She is very supportive of any plans that result in his death, and nearly murders him herself before stopping when she realizes she would kill Eiffel in the crossfire.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Hera is generally pretty affable if rather snarky, but she is not to be pissed off. She controls the entire Hephaestus, and is not shy about using that to her advantage whenever anyone threatens to hurt her or the rest of the crew.
• Deadpan Snarker: Hera is very snarky, and not at all shy about letting the crew know when she thinks they're being annoying/stupid/all of the above.
• Disney Death: During the climax of Season 1, Hilbert tears out her personality core when Eiffel and Minkowski corner him, essentially lobotomizing her. Though she spends the first few episodes of Season 2 essentially dead, Minkowski eventually realizes that there's no way Hilbert would have done something so risky without knowing he could repair the damage and persuades him into restoring Hera's personality.
• Handicapped Badass: Hilbert's temporary lobotomy of her left her in constant pain, but she kept it secret out of fear that it would motivate Minkowski and Lovelace to terminate her. Maxwell fixes it with some repairs.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Hera is extremely sarcastic and somewhat temperamental, but she's extremely dedicated to the well-being of the crew and cares deeply for them.
• Only Sane Man: Hera tends to take the role whenever Eiffel and Minkowski are crippled by their own neuroses.
• Stepford Smiler: Beneath her jokey and amiable attitude, Hera is a mess of neuroses and self-loathing. She is deeply insecure about being considered as little more than a tool, and the knowledge that even the slightest misstep could kill the crew weighs on her. The trauma and damage to her programming from Hilbert tearing out her personality core doesn't help, either.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Minkowski is not hesitant about calling her out for nearly killing Eiffel during an attempt to kill Hilbert by taking away his air supply.

Isabel Lovelace

"I invented being paranoid on this ship." Voiced by: Cecilia Lynn-Jacobs

The former captain of the Hephaestus, whose crew was murdered as part of an experiment by Goddard Futuristics. Lovelace was thought to be dead by the current crew, only to suddenly arrive at the station at the end of Season 2. Lovelace is an extremely paranoid and intense woman who is nonetheless very good at what she does, though nonetheless she's at least as big a danger to the crew as she is a help.

Tropes exhibited by this character include:

• Anti-Hero: Lovelace has good intentions, but she makes numerous morally questionable decisions to get her revenge, and she's not afraid to hold innocent people hostage to get what she wants.
• Control Freak: Even more than Minkowski. Her response to the Hephaestus crew not immediately going along with what she says because they are understandably cautious about her is to use a bomb she jury-rigged to essentially force them to help her escape plan at gunpoint. She fully intends to save them, but it has to be her way.
• Creepy Monotone: Lovelace always speaks in a rather soft, quiet voice when she's threatening people.
• Freudian Excuse: She used to be pretty laid-back and friendly, but watching her crew die and being betrayed by Dr. Selberg (AKA Hilbert) left her extremely hostile and paranoid. Similarly, her treatment of the Hephaestus crew is motivated by her survivor's guilt over the death of her old crew.
• It's All About Me: Lovelace's intentions are good, but she is extremely self-centered when it comes down to it. Her response to the crew being understandably cautious about her survival and wanting to check out her story a bit more is to threaten to blow up the entire station with a jury-rigged bomb and force them to help repair her escape pod, even though the radiation five core onboard is a significant threat to the station.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Lovelace means well and she genuinely wants to save the Hephaestus crew, but she'll only do it her way and she's not afraid to threaten their lives to get what she wants.
• My God, What Have I Done?: While she already suffers from survivor's guilt from the deaths of her previous crew, she breaks down when she thinks her bomb's detonation has sentenced Eiffel to a slow death in deep space.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Pretty much everyone calls her out for holding the crew's lives hostage with a bomb and because her plans involve abandoning Hera aboard the station. Hera only gets more angry about it when Eiffel is sent hurtling into deep space by the bomb's explosion while he was still in Lovelace's escape pod.

Goddard Futuristics

Marcus Cutter

"I prefer to think of myself as a citizen of the world." Voiced by: Milo Scott

The boss of the Hephaestus crew and the Big Bad. On paper, Cutter is merely the Communications Director for Goddard Futuristics. In reality, he's the head of the company and at the head of all of its more amoral ventures. Who is more than willing to kill his own employees at the slightest of provocations. Unfortunately for the protagonists, Cutter has a mysterious agenda that deeply involves the Hephaestus, and he has no qualms about killing the crew should they get in his way.

Tropes exhibited by this character include:

• Almighty Janitor: On paper he's just the Communications Director. In reality, he's essentially the CEO and responsible for all of the company's shady policies and actions.
• Ax Crazy: He's mildly more controlled than most examples, but his fondness of threatening to murder his employees to motivate them and his wanton murder of employees whenever he wants to test out his latest weapon definitely puts him in this territory.
• Bad Boss: Cutter threatens to murder his employees on the regular. He doesn't have a much better track record when it comes to actually killing them, either.
• Big Bad: Cutter is directly responsible for both how much of a Crapsack World the Wolf 359 universe is and for most of the problems the crew has to deal with, all in pursuit of a mysterious agenda.
• Dissonant Serenity: He always speaks in the same pleasant, cheerful tone even while threatening people's lives or committing absolutely heinous crimes For the Evulz.
• Disproportionate Retribution: His Establishing Character Moment is to threaten to murder Rachel if she doesn't meet a specific deadline while in the middle of talking with Minkowski.

Cutter: (cheerfully) Rachel, I'm still waiting for those radiation readings from the Sigma sector. I know we've been having some trouble with our sat uplink, but we have a very sensitive timetable here. If those aren't on my desk by EOD, I'll have you thrown off the top of the building. And I'll make sure you go past my window so I can enjoy the view.

• Faux Affably Evil: Cutter always speaks with a pleasant tone, but the act would be undercut by his blatant condescension and smarminess even if he wasn't prone to threatening to murder his employees in the middle of conversations.
• For Science!/For the Evulz: Cutter has a habit of conducting experiments on his own employees not out of any practical reason, but simply to test out his latest technology or dole out some psychological warfare simply to see how people will react.
• Jerkass
• Smug Smiler: While you can't technically see it, you can clearly tell he's this simply through how cheery and self-satisfied he is.
• Stepford Smiler: He acts polite and cheery all the time, but it only barely hides what a sadistic megalomaniac he truly is.
• The Sociopath: To put it quite simply, Cutter doesn't care about other people. He sees them as objects at best, and he treats killing his own employees with a disturbingly casual attitude.

Colonel Warren Kepler

"It's nothing personal, just… business." Voiced by: Zach Libresco

The head of Goddard's SI5 division, Cutter's own personal black ops unit.

Tropes exhibited by this character include:

• Baddie Flattery: Kepler respects anyone who's able to get results, and doesn't have time for anyone who doesn't. He listens unhesitatingly to Jacobi and Maxwell because they're proven themselves to him, and he gives more leeway to Eiffel than the rest of the Hephaestus crew because he knows how competent Eiffel is in an emergency situation. Meanwhile, he constantly belittles Minkowski and Hilbert due to viewing them as incompetent; Minkowski for (in his perspective) failing to properly manage the situation aboard the Hephaestus and Hilbert for his failure to perfect the decima virus.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: He's all smiles and pleasantries when he first boards the Hephaestus, and the fact he rescued Eiffel earns him some goodwill in spite of him being loyal to Goddard. Then Minkowski asks when the crew's going to leave the station, and Kepler reveals how much of a Smug Snake company man he really is.
• The Chessmaster
• Cloudcuckoolander: He's very prone to going off on tangents and long, rambling "jokes". Which isn't even getting into his atrocious attempts at bonding with his subordinates.
• Deadpan Snarker
• Dramatic Pause: He's doing this constantly in even the most mundane of situations, which is one of the reasons he's so insufferable.
• Even Evil Has Standards: He despises Hilbert thanks to how many people he's killed in his fruitless attempts to perfect the decima virus. Sure, Kepler's willing to kill people and isn't much better about his regard for human life, but he'll only do it if he doesn't have any other options and he won't do it wantonly.
• Evil Counterpart: To Minkowski. They're both controlling, strict leaders from a military background currently working for Goddard, but whereas Minkowski turned against her superiors after learning how amoral they were Kepler remained totally loyal.
• Faux Affably Evil: He acts like a friendly Benevolent Boss, but the mask slips the second his authority is challenged. It's incredibly hard to tell how much of it is genuine, but at least some of it is clearly faked.
• General Failure: He's not very good at establishing a rapport or keeping up morale with the Hephaestus crew. He does try to be cordial to them at first, but it very quickly slips and he makes little effort to address their complaints or explain what the hell is going on. He's also prone to risking the crews' lives on reckless plans, and refuses to hear any criticism about it.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Anyone even mildly questioning his authority results in him spewing dour threats and insults.
• Hypocrite: He's very fond of lecturing the Hephaestus crew for not seeing "the big picture", which is rich considering he constantly refuses to explain what it actually is.
• Jerkass: Kepler is a smug, condescending bastard who dismisses any of the Hephaestus crew's legitimate complaints as whining, simply, because he's annoyed they haven't just accepted the fact that they're expendable cannon fodder.
• Lack of Empathy: He makes it very clear to the crew that he doesn't give a damn about them. He's happy to have the extra hands onboard, but he won't hesitate on killing them if they give him trouble. In fact, he's very annoyed that they're all whining about being expendable cannon fodder because after all, why else would they be stationed at the back-end of the universe?
• Manipulative Bastard: He's very good at putting up an amiable front o manipulate people. While he alienates Lovelace and Minkowski, he's able to lull Eiffel to his side just by offering him the respect he wants from the rest of the crew.
• Mood Swinger: His leadership style is alternating between being extremely nice to his subordinates and threatening to murder them.
• Noodle Incident: On top of the occasional references to his history as a black ops specialist, he has about a million comically unlikely and bizarre stories we only get to hear the tail-end of. Among other things, he's claimed to have worked undercover in the Argentinian film industry, founded and left a funk band, joined a sect of haberdashers, that he once made moonshine with a straight six motor, and that's not even the craziest of his claims.

Kepler: Long story short, though? They did make me their God.

• Pragmatic Villainy: He's nothing if not pragmatic. He makes it clear to the Hephaestus crew that he very much could kill them but won't if they don't step out of line because it's far better to have extra hands onboard when dealing with having to make First Contact with the Dear Listeners, and he's ruthless about eliminating potential threats to the mission. The day after he takes over the station, he murders The Plant Monster simply because it had no use to the crew and could possibly pose a threat.
• Redemption Equals Death: He dies shortly after turning against Goddard Futuristics once he realizes that Cutter intends to wipe out the entire human race.
• Smug Snake: Though his smugness is much more justified than most examples.
• The Storyteller: He's prone to telling long, often comically unlikely stories that he claims actually happened to him.
• Trademark Favorite Food: His prized bottle of thirty year aged malt scotch, to the point he regularly uses it as the center point of his speeches.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Kepler seems to believe that everything he does for Goddard has the end game of ultimately protecting the human race, which is why he takes his assignment aboard the Hephaestus so seriously.
• Wild Card: As Jacobi notes, Kepler generally has multiple ulterior motives at any given moment and it's incredibly hard to tell what he actually wants at any given moment.
• Quit Your Whining: His invariable response to any complaint is this.

Daniel Jacobi

"We try not to be total monsters. When we can help it." Voiced by: Noah Masur

The demolitions expert among the SI5 crew.

Tropes exhibited by this character include:

• Deadpan Snarker: He's always ready with some sort of sarcastic quips.
• Evil Counterpart: He's essentially what Eiffel would be if he ever abandoned his morals; an irreverent Jerkass deeply loyal to his friends and absolutely no one else.
• Genius Slob: He's a brilliant demolitions expert, but his room is such a mess that Maxwell refuses to room with him ever again after something involving "cheeses".
• Jerkass: Massively. Every word out of his mouth is a snide, condescending quip and he takes a lot of joy in bullying the Hephaestus crew.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: There are multiple points where he seems to be bonding with the Hephaestus crew and shows off a softer side, but it's always shown to be just a manipulation tactic and he makes it clear he won't hesitate to kill them if given the order.
• Straight Gay
• Undying Loyalty: To Kepler. At first, anyway.

Alana Maxwell

Voiced by: Michelle Agresti

The SI5 crew's artificial intelligence expert.

List of tropes applying to this character include:

• Affably Evil: She's a member of Cutter's personal black ops crew, but she's friendly and affable to a fault and gets along very well with Hera.
• Ambiguously Evil: She's definitely complicit in some of Goddard's crimes, but she's so nice and helpful that it's hard not to like her.
• Attention Deficit Ooh Shiny: She's very easily distracted. It to the point that Eiffel has to be the one to keep her on track.
• Establishing Character Moment: She's introduced making polite conversation with Hera and treating her like a fellow person rather than a machine, something that no other Goddard higher-up has ever done, and making repairs to help alleviate Hera's glitches while telling Hilbert ot shut up.
• Token Good Teammate: For the SI5 crew. While Kepler and Jacobi are assholes that throw their weight around, Maxwell is genuinely helpful and makes repairs to Hera to help her run more efficiently. However, Hilbert and Eiffel suspect that it's a cover for her to reprogram Hera. Correctly, as it turns out.
• Villainous Friendship: With Jacobi and, surprisingly enough, Hera.

Rachel Young

Voiced by: Ariela Rotenberg

The Director of Special Projects and Cutter's right-hand woman.

List of tropes applicable to this character:

• Beleaguered Assistant: Cutter regularly hands her almost impossible tasks and threatens to murder her if she doesn't accomplish them. She takes it all in stride, having gotten used to it after having to deal with it for years on end.
• The Dragon: To Cutter.
• Face Heel Turn: She started off as an Intrepid Reporter trying to expose Goddard's crimes, but she quickly got in league with them the second Cutter offered her a pay bump.
• Faux Affably Evil: She's just as faux-cheery as Cutter is, but even more blatantly condescending and she frequently talks down her subordinates at the slightest provocation. Though it is admittedly better than Cutter's constant death threats, if not by much.
• Smug Snake

The Original Crew

Sam Lambert

Voiced by: Zach Valenti

The rules-obsessed Communications Officer.

List of tropes applying to this character:

• Fire-Forged Friends: With Lovelace, which made his death hit all the harder for her.
• Posthumous Character: Like the rest of the original crew with the exception of Lovelace, he's long dead by the time of the podcast.
• Rules Lawyer

Mason Fisher

Voiced by: Peter Coleman

The engineer of the first Hephaestus mission.

List of tropes applying to this character:

• Posthumous Character: Like the rest of the original crew, with the exception of Lovelace.

Dr. Kuan Hui

Voiced by: Ariel Estrada

One of the original crew's two astrophysicists.

List of tropes applying to this character:

• Posthumous Character: Like the rest of the original crew with the exception of Lovelace, he's long dead by the time of the podcast.

Dr. Victoire Fourier

Voiced by: Beth Eyre

One of the original crew's two astrophysicists.

List of tropes applying to this character:

• Nothing Is Scarier: It's never revealed just how Hilbert killed her; she simply disappeared after completing work on the escape pod.
• Posthumous Character: Like the rest of the original crew with the exception of Lovelace, he's long dead by the time of the podcast.

Dr. Elias Selberg

Voiced by: Zach Valenti

For more information on Dr. Selberg, see Hilbert's entry.

Rhea

The Hephaestus' original AI.

List of tropes applying to this character:

• Intelligible Unintelligible: She communicates entirely through beeps and chirps, but the crew understands her just fine. Word of God is that she actually communicates through display screens, and that her noises are simply a way of demonstrating that in an audio medium.
• Posthumous Character: Like the rest of the original crew with the exception of Lovelace, he's long dead by the time of the podcast.

Others

The Plant Monster

A monstrous plant creature created by Hilbert splicing the DNA of various animal species together with a plant in the ship's greenhouse.

List of tropes applying to this character:

• The Bus Came Back: After disappearing into the air vent system midway through Season 1, it returns to the spotlight in Season 2 during Minkowski's hunt for it.
• Characterization Marches On: In the first season, the Plant Monster is a decidedly malicious and intelligent creature out to kill the Hephaestus crew. When it returns in Season 2, it's an animalistic Non-Malicious Monster that just wants to be left alone. Minkowski does at least acknowledge the change in it's behavior, though it's subtly hinted at that it's initial behavior was a result of Hilbert's influence.
• It Can Think: It possibly brainwashed Hilbert and it was able to construct a lamp using a screwdriver and scrap metal. Fortunately for the crew, all it wants is to be left alone.
• Non-Malicious Monster: By Season 2, the Plant Monster just wants to be left alone and is more than content to stay away from the crew inside it's lair. The worst thing it does is steal a screwdriver, and only to construct a lamp for itself.
• Sacrificial Lion: Kepler has it murdered shortly after his takeover in Season 3 on the off chance it could be a threat.

The Dear Listeners

A mysterious, powerful alien race and the source of the mysterious radio transmissions that the Hephaestus crew has been receiving.

List of tropes applying to this character:

• Blue and Orange Morality: They don't comprehend death, for one thing, and they've killed multiple species who failed their evaluation because they believe that since matter cannot be destroyed, they're merely "reconfigured" them.
• Mike Nelson, Destroyer of Worlds: They nearly destroy the Hephaestus when they try to contact it when they charge up Wolf 359, causing it to turn into a blue dwarf with a powerful gravitational pull that nearly pulls the station into the station into the star. They don't change it back either, since they genuinely don't know what death is.
• Starfish Aliens: They're very powerful and completely incomprehensible to humans in both morality and appearance.

Bob

Voiced by: Zach Valenti

The ambassador or mouth piece for the Dear Listeners, who has assumed the form of Doug Eiffel in order to communicate.

List of tropes applying to this character:

• A Form You Are Comfortable With: He takes Eiffel's form for this reason and because he's the first human to contact the Dear Listeners.
• Affably Evil: Downplayed, as The Dear Listeners aren't evil, they're just so alien they don't comprehend how much of a danger they pose to the Hephaestus and humanity as a whole, but Bob is just as cheerful and friendly as the real Eiffel.
• Ambiguous Situation: Given how incomprehensible the Dear Listeners are, it's unclear if Bob is simply one of them serving as an ambassador or a mouthpiece for the species as a whole.
• The Comically Serious: While "Bob" is an inscrutable alien, he has his moments, such as asking Eiffel with a straight face what a "crazy whamma-jamma" is.
• Mouth of Sauron: For the Dear Listeners, though they're not evil. They just possess a sense of morality completely incomprehensible to humanity.
• Not Quite Dead: He's seemingly killed by Cutter in the Grand Finale, but Word of God is that he's still alive somewhere in the universe thanks to how the Dead Listeners work.
• Starfish Aliens: Like the rest of the Dear Listeners.