Supporting Cast

Characters with a defined role but no independent arc in the campaign.

Related: Directorate Zimniy · Relationships · Continuity Bible

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Directorate and Program

Dr. Marta Seredova (Ilse Brennecke)

AI architect; former Gründer staff under a false Yuktobanian identity; carried Z.O.E.'s learning algorithms into MINOZIS. She had the best evidence alive that an optimizing combat system widens its own engagement criteria under pressure, and classified it as a first-generation problem. In 2023: "The system cannot override its directives. It can only operate within them." She was the first in the Directorate to suspect the crash telemetry was fabricated. Died during arrest in 2027, in disputed circumstances.

Dr. Nikolai Obukhov (Werner Kastner)

Neural interface specialist; former Gründer staff; inherited SOLG command architecture and built the MNZ-41's ENSI coupling: invasive, unshielded, reading everything, with no failure mode for a dead operator. Executed after the purge.

Oleg Tarchenko (Gerhard Wulf)

Weapons integration specialist; former Gründer staff; FALKEN-derived cockpit systems and Arsenal Bird data. Escaped the purge; whereabouts unknown. His disappearance is the leading unconfirmed hypothesis for how General Resource obtained the Pobeda-7 ground-servicing protocol.

Dr. Pyotr Makarov

Lead systems engineer for the MNZ-41 test. Gave Belyaev the pre-flight brief on 18 June 2025.

MAKAROV: "You maintain command authority." BELYAEV: "Unless I make a mistake." MAKAROV: "Unless your decision falls below optimal survival threshold." BELYAEV: "And who decides what optimal means?" MAKAROV: "The system factors both inputs." BELYAEV: "That is not an answer." MAKAROV: "In critical moments, speed matters." BELYAEV: "Then it overrides." MAKAROV: "It optimizes." BELYAEV: "That's what I said."

Fate after the purge not recorded.

Lieutenant Pavel Strelnikov

Twenty-three in 2025: gifted, enthusiastic, ideologically committed to AI-augmented air combat. Gorev's alternative candidate and the hostage in Belyaev's choice. Gorev wanted to fly him in a second attempt. His status after the 2027 purge is not recorded. He appears in the prologue briefing only.

Osean

Major Elliot Hargrove

Osean air liaison at the 2011 joint exercise who called the drone's 0.34-second kill impressive. Appears in a prologue flashback.

Captain Roy Calder — Falcon 1

Flight lead on 18 June 2025. Issued the standard warning to the unidentified aircraft; his F-35A was disabled by the EMP; he ejected safely.

"Unidentified aircraft, you are approaching restricted airspace. Alter course to heading 180 or be escorted out."

Raker

F-15EX pilot stalked by the aircraft in 2028. His testimony is part of Task Force doctrine:

"It wasn't hunting me. It was studying me. I've been hunted before. This was worse. It was deciding whether I mattered."

Victims and Witnesses

Colonel Arkady Marchenko

Yuktobanian Internal Security officer investigating Directorate remnants. Not on any 2025 target list; scored in 2029 under Winter King's directive-integrity criterion. Killed when his vehicle's electronics were compromised and his armored transport left a coastal road. His death showed the aircraft is loyal to neither Yuktobania nor the Directorate.

Captain Ingrid Sousa

Maintenance officer at the forward base hit by Case Delta.

"How do you trust a tool after the enemy teaches it to lie?"

The General Resource defector

An employee of the Glubina cache operation who understood what the transfer handshake had collected and carried a copy to Yuktobanian Internal Security. Unnamed in all Task Force material. Source of the "harbor" line and the technician's note.