Jenny Har­g­reaves was a senior tech­ni­cian with the Explorer Fed­er­a­tion at Jupiter Orbit Dock dur­ing the con­struc­tion of the Celes­tial Fleet, the first extra­so­lar colony ships. Due to a still undi­ag­nosed psy­cho­log­i­cal con­di­tion or Angel mal­func­tion prior to the launch, she was deemed too great a lia­bil­ity and was removed from her post. When she returned to work, the Explorer Fed­er­a­tion assigned her a menial job in a Free City cafe­te­ria, since when all her requests to return to skilled work have been denied. Since the event, she has despised her Angel and rarely uses it.

Lance Petersen was Jenny’s supe­rior on the Celes­tial Fleet project. The two had a roman­tic rela­tion­ship up until her dis­missal, but while Jenny was in hos­pi­tal, he chose to leave the solar sys­tem on board the EFS Moon Ser­aph. Though she has still not quite for­given him for the cir­cum­stances lead­ing up to her dis­missal, she still believes that Lance had her best inter­ests at heart. What is still not clear is what con­nec­tion Lance had to “Bug #23691″, and what that in turn had to do with the voices in Jenny’s head.

José Emmanuel and Junko Iwatari are the kind of couri­ers that don’t ask ques­tions (although they often do a bit of research of their own). José is the face of the oper­a­tion — a reck­less ex-Special Forces pilot with a good rep­u­ta­tion amongst cor­po­ra­tions and crim­i­nals alike. If you want some­thing moved from A to B with­out any­one notic­ing, he’s the guy you want. If José is the face, Junko is the brains behind it. A for­mer net­work secu­rity oper­a­tive, she knows the ins and outs of cor­po­rate sys­tems across the solar sys­tem. Often their cargo is data, and to get it to B, it some­times has to be… forcibly removed from A.

Shin­sei Hikari­gawa is a young man just begin­ning his career as a neu­ro­sci­en­tist with the Illu­mi­nated Research Cor­po­ra­tion on board the EFS Star Child. Born five years after the Celes­tial Fleet left dock, he has never seen the solar sys­tem or set foot on a planet. Unlike most of his peers he likes to talk out loud to his Angel, and thus became unex­pect­edly trendy when that was briefly in fash­ion. He is polite and quiet but enthu­si­as­tic about sub­jects he enjoys; the quin­tes­sen­tial geek.

Johann van der Kier­choff is a friend of Shin­sei, and son of Cap­tain van der Kier­choff of the Star Child. Leav­ing school at the same time as Shin­sei, he joined the Explorer Fed­er­a­tion in the hopes of fol­low­ing in his father’s footsteps.

Tom Fairchild is Shinsei’s men­tor at Illu­mi­nated. A short, stout man with an incred­i­ble and often-used grin, Tom is the def­i­n­i­tion of ‘casual’. From his clothes (per­pet­u­ally untucked and unironed) and his hair (long and greasy) to his man­ner­isms and infor­mal speech, noth­ing about him would impress a man­ager. How­ever, he’s well-liked by his fel­low sci­en­tists, and his knowl­edge and enthu­si­asm for the field of neu­ro­science and for the Angel sys­tems is unmatched.

Xiao Wing and Alexan­dra Har­ris­son are Shinsei’s neighbours.