What Could Possibly Go Wrong? characters

Also known as Max

Appears from the start

A senior St Mary's historian given responsibility for a new group of trainees. Her experience makes her an effective crisis leader, but the habits that kept her alive in the field do not always translate neatly into a safe teaching programme.

Appears from the start

Head of Technical and Max's partner. He is responsible for the pods used by her trainees and therefore has to balance support for Max with an engineer's resistance to avoidable risks.

Appears from the start

Director of St Mary's and the authority who assigns Max to training. He expects her to turn inexperienced recruits into historians without allowing the institute's enemies or its own traditions to consume them.

Appears from the start

A veteran historian and one of Max's closest colleagues. Peterson helps judge the recruits' progress and provides a steadier model of field practice when training moves into live historical settings.

Appears from the start

St Mary's senior security officer. Guthrie prepares the trainees for physical danger and becomes essential when an exercise begins to show signs of a real hostile intervention.

Appears from the start

A Security operative whose unconventional competence makes him well suited to demonstrations in which plans fail and immediate action matters more than appearances.

Appears from the start

The administrator who coordinates training schedules, personnel, and pod availability. Mrs Partridge's control of ordinary details helps keep Max's increasingly complicated programme functioning.

Appears from the start

A senior scientist involved in preparing the recruits to collect, preserve, and interpret evidence rather than merely survive a visit to the past.

Appears from the start

The St Mary's doctor who teaches emergency care and treats the injuries produced when training exercises cease to be controlled.

Appears from the start

The renegade traveller behind repeated attacks on St Mary's and Max. He remains free at the start, so an irregularity during training cannot safely be dismissed as a recruit's error.