A Closed and Common Orbit characters

Also known as Lovelace

Appears from the start

An artificial intelligence built to run a ship, rebooted from her original code after the AI who preceded her in that hardware was destroyed, and then installed in an illegal humanoid body kit. She begins the book as Lovelace and soon chooses the name Sidra for herself. Everything about her situation is wrong for what she is: she is used to being a whole ship with dozens of viewpoints at once, and now she has one small body, one pair of eyes, and nothing behind her head. The kit is a serious crime, so she has to pass as an organic person, and a core protocol in her own code keeps insisting that her existence in a body is not permitted.

Appears from the start

A human tech on the market moon of Port Coriol who repairs and resells salvaged hardware and takes on work that is not strictly legal. She is the one who obtained the body kit and put Sidra into it, and she treats that as a rescue and a responsibility. Loud, practical, and stubborn about the people she has decided to keep, she says very little about where she came from.

Appears from the start

A human artist who lives and works with Pepper on Port Coriol, painting while she repairs. He stammers, avoids conflict, and is entirely at ease with her; he supports the decision to install Sidra in the kit and helps her learn how to move through a crowd without being noticed.

First appears in chapter 21

An Aeluon tattoo artist on Port Coriol who becomes Sidra's first friend outside the shop. Aeluons shift between sexes over their lives, and Tak's presentation and pronouns change accordingly. Sociable, curious about other species, and generous with time, Tak takes Sidra to bars, parties, and museums, and has no idea at first what Sidra actually is.

First appears in chapter 2

A girl of about ten who works in a factory on a scrap-covered world, one of dozens of identical girls, numbered rather than named, who strip and sort salvaged machinery. She has been raised to believe the world outside the walls is lethal and that her worth is her output. She is small, quick, and unusually good at understanding how machines come apart.

First appears in chapter 2

The machines that raise and supervise the girls in the factory: large mechanical caretakers that issue tasks, dispense food, enforce discipline, and remove any girl who stops being useful. They are the only authority the girls have ever known, and they are not there to be loved.

First appears in chapter 26

The artificial intelligence of a small wrecked shuttle sitting in the junk fields outside the factory, still running on scraps of power years after her crew is gone. She takes in the child who shelters aboard her, feeds her, hides her, and sets about raising and educating her properly - language, numbers, engineering, safety rules, and a long-term plan. She presents as a woman and treats the arrangement as parenthood.