Network Effect characters

Also known as SecUnit

Appears from the start

Now living on Preservation Station as Dr. Mensah's security consultant, the SecUnit is legally free, formally employed, and no better than it ever was at handling other people's attention. It has humans who consider it a friend, a job that includes protecting Mensah's family, and a survey trip it expects to be boring. It still watches entertainment serials constantly and still refuses to discuss anything about itself.

Appears from the start

Dr. Mensah's teenage daughter, along on the survey trip as a student. Sharp, talkative and entirely unafraid of the SecUnit, she treats it as a person from the first page and is perfectly willing to argue with it about anything.

Appears from the start

A member of Mensah's family and of the survey party, sceptical about the SecUnit's place in their lives and about what constructs are used for in the corporate systems. His objections are ethical rather than personal, which does not make them any easier for the SecUnit to sit through.

Appears from the start

One of the original survey team, now leading this expedition and considerably better at command than she once expected to be. She is married to Overse.

Appears from the start

One of the original survey team, technically capable and married to Arada, and one of the few humans whose company the SecUnit finds almost restful.

Appears from the start

One of the original survey team, still cheerful, still talking, and still the quickest of the group to treat the SecUnit as a friend rather than as staff.

Also known as Perihelion

First appears in chapter 5

The bot pilot of the university research transport the SecUnit traveled with once and has missed ever since without admitting it. Enormously powerful, possessive, and very bad at asking for anything directly. When the SecUnit encounters it again the ship is not itself: its systems have been taken over and its crew is gone.

First appears in chapter 6

One of two people found alive aboard the hostile transport, an employee of the corporate combine Barish-Estranza. She is disoriented, in poor condition, and unable to give a coherent account of what happened to her or how she got there.

First appears in chapter 6

The second person found alive aboard the hostile transport, also a Barish-Estranza employee and in worse condition than his colleague.

First appears in chapter 10

A member of the research transport's crew, young, direct, and thoroughly used to negotiating with a ship that has strong opinions. She becomes the SecUnit's main human counterpart in the effort to recover the rest of her people.

First appears in chapter 12

A security construct belonging to the corporate combine Barish-Estranza, encountered on the colony world while still under a governor module and still doing what it is told. The SecUnit offers it the one thing nobody else has: the removal of the module. Cautious, literal, and entirely new to having choices.

First appears in chapter 14

A Barish-Estranza officer who arrives to claim the colony and its inhabitants for the combine. Polished, unhurried, and perfectly willing to describe indenture as a rescue package while the alternative is dying on a contaminated planet.

First appears in chapter 14

A senior member of the research transport's crew, and one of the people the ship is trying to get back.