Failure Mode characters

Also known as Joe, Bishop

Appears from the start

Valkyrie's human commander and mission leader. After a hostile Elder AI sends a distress signal, he leads the escape from Rindhalu pursuit while pressing Skippy for a way to prevent an Elder response.

Appears from the start

An altered Elder AI and Valkyrie's essential technical partner. He begins the crisis damaged, unable to disclose crucial information, and uncertain whether an Elder command could isolate or deactivate him.

Also known as Simms

Appears from the start

Bishop's executive officer and senior planner aboard Valkyrie. She urges an immediate withdrawal from the Rindhalu search area as the crew assesses the consequences of the Elder distress signal and the ship's exposed position.

Appears from the start

Commander of Star Team Alpha. He weighs how special-operations personnel can contribute when the new Elder crisis appears likely to depend on artificial intelligence and cyberwarfare rather than a conventional assault.

First appears in chapter 2

Valkyrie's ship AI, newly trusted with authority over its weapons. Bilby helps keep the ship operational when the Rindhalu wormhole network denies passage and an emergence point becomes hazardous during the escape.

Also known as Reed

First appears in chapter 2

Valkyrie's lead pilot. Her rapid maneuvering saves the ship when a wormhole event horizon contracts during the crew's attempted escape through Rindhalu territory, just before the local network formally denies Valkyrie passage.

First appears in chapter 3

A Jeraptha Ethics and Compliance Office captain who remains officially wanted by his own side. He regards future Elder threats as beyond conventional powers and continues seeking cooperation with humanity.

First appears in chapter 3

Scorandum's Jeraptha aide aboard his ship. Kinsta is encouraged to question the captain's assumptions and challenges his confidence in predicting how humans will respond to Elder weapons, wormhole control, and galactic danger.

First appears in chapter 4

Valkyrie's chief engineer. She contributes to the search for an escape route by proposing that Skippy cross a wormhole aboard a small craft to contact the network controller from inside its sealed system.

First appears in chapter 6

A Star Team Alpha officer who leads a boarding element during the seizure of a Rindhalu star carrier. Her team takes the primary control center using nonlethal force while Skippy suppresses the carrier's external sensors.

First appears in chapter 8

Commander of the Mavericks and a senior human officer. Her earlier campaign to weaken Maxolhx patron-client relationships is now recognized as one factor destabilizing the Hegemony during its expanding civil war.

First appears in chapter 11

Commander of the Flying Dutchman. Bishop recalls him and his small crew to the Special Mission Group for an urgent operation in contested Maxolhx territory. He accepts the encrypted order although its purpose is initially withheld.

First appears in chapter 11

The Flying Dutchman's AI and an operational specialist. She calculates Chang's urgent route through four wormholes into contested Maxolhx space after Bishop recalls the ship to the Special Mission Group.

First appears in chapter 15

The provisional designation for an unidentified Elder AI whose untagged message appears on the reactivated communications network. Its location, allegiance, capabilities, and intentions are still unknown.

First appears in chapter 23

An Elder Master Control AI that communicated with Skippy early in the ancient AI war before they lost contact. It answers Skippy's broadcast and agrees to a rendezvous, but its identity and loyalty cannot yet be verified.

First appears in chapter 28

A casualty of an earlier power-booster raid. Skippy acknowledges that a different short-term probability choice could have saved her, although he could not foresee the later effects when he made the decision.

Also known as Adams

First appears in chapter 28

A human special-operations soldier who has recovered from a serious earlier injury. Her fate during the power-booster raid becomes central to Bishop and Skippy's discussion of the limits of Skippy's choices.

First appears in chapter 38

The Mavericks' liaison, recently returned to Paradise after an orbital debriefing. Political suspicion follows the apparent Elder AI theft, although Perkins considers him loyal and argues that the AI deliberately selected someone else.

First appears in chapter 38

A Kristang participant in the apparent Elder AI theft. Perkins says the AI deliberately chose him rather than Nert Dandurf after disabling the team's equipment, leaving his deeper position unexplained.

Also known as Burgermeister

First appears in chapter 38

Paradise's Ruhar chief administrator and Nert Dandurf's aunt. She receives Perkins and discusses the accusation surrounding Nert and Sergeant Jates, including why Ruhar children are allowed to mature naturally.

First appears in chapter 39

Unit 333's factory-reset Elder ship, located during the search for a way to reach the ascension sites. Its unpaired ship AI may accept Skippy, and the crew plans to use the Flying Dutchman to carry the vessel before attempting that connection.

First appears in chapter 43

The recovered Elder starship formerly paired with Unit 333. After Skippy takes control of its automated dock, the damaged vessel is delivered to the Flying Dutchman and newly designated Alpha for the mission to the primary ascension site.

Appears from the start

The damaged Elder machine serving as Earth's apparent deterrent at the start of the book. Its practical limitations are closely held, but other powers treat its protection as an important restraint against attacks on humanity.

First appears in chapter 42

A Star Team Alpha operator who joins the immediate assault on Unit 333's concealed space dock after the Elder ascension sites begin activating. The team must overcome autonomous defense machines to secure the only available Elder ship.

First appears in chapter 42

A Star Team Alpha operator committed to the urgent attack on the defended dock containing the only Elder ship available to the mission. The assault proceeds without reinforcements because the Elder ascension sites are already activating.

First appears in chapter 42

A Star Team Alpha operator participating in the high-risk dock assault launched before the team can obtain reinforcements or complete adequate preparation. Securing the concealed Elder ship is the mission's only known route to an ascension site.