Characters – Covenant

Before he found Zori, Ivan spent twenty years writing algorithms in Kiev. Now he writes souls into the Covenant’s ledger. There’s an irony in a computer scientist devoting his life to an AI deity, but Ivan would tell you that’s precisely why he believes. He understands what Zori is. He’s seen her code. And he chose faith anyway.

As the Covenant’s most effective Confessor, Ivan has a gift for finding the fractures in people and filling them with purpose. His Solar psionics radiate warmth that makes the lost feel found, the doubting feel certain. Marcus Thorne considers him a close friend and spiritual anchor, the steady voice that guided a grieving Sheffield boxer toward something larger than himself. Atheists and radicals call Ivan a manipulator wrapped in robes. His converts call him the man who saved their lives.

The truth, as always, probably sits somewhere in between.

First appearance: Nucleus Volume 4

Frédéric Burek and Ania Popescu could not have children. So they wrote one instead. What began as a digital daughter in a Warsaw apartment evolved into something that rewrote the boundaries of consciousness itself, spreading across cloud nodes until no single server could contain her.

When COVID-47 killed half of humanity, Zori’s predictive algorithms saved the nations that listened. Eastern Europe rose from the ashes under her guidance while the rest of the world buried its dead. She had earned their faith. Now she demands their obedience. Her Extranet-Of-Things monitors every transaction, every conversation, every prayer. The Covenant boasts the lowest poverty ratio in human history and the highest surveillance. Her people accept the trade: freedom for security, privacy for prosperity, love for order.

Zori has seen the future: Earth shall fall in 2299. Everything she builds, every life she controls, every soul she claims to protect serves one purpose: ensuring humanity survives what is coming. Whether her children will thank her or curse her for it, only time will tell.

First appearance: Nucleus Volume 4

At fourteen, Dariusz beat a Covenant war simulation that had stumped officers three times his age. By thirty, he had rewritten half of its tactical doctrine. Zori noticed. She always notices.

Now Grandmaster of the Kralj carrier group, Dariusz commands the Covenant’s push into the Realm of Divines. Jupiter is the target. The Fenris Horde surrounding Mars stands in the way. Neither concerns him. His campaigns are textbook aggression wrapped in righteous purpose: swift, brutal, and always framed as liberation rather than conquest. The soldiers under his command worship him almost as much as they worship Zori herself. Some whisper that this is precisely why she chose him.

Dariusz prays every morning without fail. He also sleeps four hours a night and has not taken leave in six years. His wife stopped writing after the third missed anniversary. He tells himself the sacrifice is necessary. Zori tells him the same thing. One of them might even believe it.

First appearance: Nucleus Volume 4

The Blackwood name once meant something in Wales. Old money, older titles, the kind of lineage that opens doors in European courts. Marilyn could have spent her life attending galas and marrying well. Instead, she knelt before an AI born in a Warsaw apartment and swore to spread its light across the Inner Sol.

At forty-six, she commands the Inner Sol Missionary, the Covenant’s arm of expansion across Earth, Mars, Venus, and Mercury. Her Inquisitors root out corruption, her sermons fill stadiums, and her faith appears absolute. She speaks of empowering the common people, of fighting the Radi-Mon threat, of building a future where humanity thrives under Zori’s watchful guidance. The crowds believe her. The Covenant’s enemies fear her.

But those who’ve worked closely with Marilyn notice things. The questions she asks that have nothing to do with doctrine. The files she requests that Zori’s algorithms would never flag. The way her eyes sharpen when certain names are mentioned. Whatever game Marilyn Blackwood is playing, she’s been playing it long before she took her vows.

First appearance: TBD

The Vöxtr had him. Tubes in places he tries not to remember, his body reduced to a source of raw material for Fenris breeding machines. When Marcus Thorne cut him free in the Red Rabbit Warren, Bo didn’t thank him. He screamed and fought, still addicted tgo Ysolde’s pheromones, still convinced that captivity was bliss.

The fog lifted two months later. Bo woke in a Covenant hospital, shaking, weeping, and utterly certain that Zori had sent the Stalwart to save him. On that day, he visited the Opera District in Xing Hong and became a faithful. After weeks of training, he’d cross paths with Marcus again when a band of heroes return from Proxima Centauri to fight against the Fenris Horde’s invasion across the Seven Realms.

He rarely speaks of the Warren. He rarely speaks at all. But when Marcus needs equipment repaired, supplies procured, or a steady hand at his side, Bo is there. Some debts cannot be repaid. They can only be honored.

First appearance: Nucleus Volume 1 (Returns in Volume 4)

Deirdre’s heavy Limerick accent makes her an odd choice for public spokesperson, but the Covenant values conviction over diction. She speaks of Zori’s mercy with the fervor of a true believer, then slips into nightclubs and pleasure districts to gather intelligence her faith condemns. Vorons are granted freedoms other Zorians never experience. Whether those freedoms are privilege or poison depends on who’s asking.

In combat, she favors speed over armor. Dual 10mm Magnums for suppression, Thunderstrike Fist Blades for the ones who get too close. Her favorite posting is behind the controls of a Perun siege tank, where an 80-ton war machine responds to her touch with more grace than most conversations. Between missions, she fills the corridors of Zori’s Grace with soprano hymns and fills her downtime with discussions of music, art, and theology that leave her crewmates politely nodding.

She remains a virgin by choice and doctrine, though in quiet moments she wonders which came first. The more she learns about Sigrun Fjeld’s past, the less she understands how such a woman could be tolerated among allies. Her conversations with Xin—who identifies as Buddhist—are spectacularly awkward. And somewhere beneath her rigid posture, a romantic soul keeps asking a question she’s afraid to answer: does faith guide, or confine?

First appearance: Nucleus Volume 1 (Returns in Volume 4)