(created by Az)

Ariana, Ph.D in religious studies, Berkeley, 1992, firmly believes in every religious belief mankind has ever devised. She didn't much believe in religion at all except in an academic sense before the robots came. Now she maintains that religious ceremony is the basis of human civilization, and observes every religious holiday she can remember. This takes most of her time. The rest of her time she devotes to aiding the rest of Josie Beller's cell with ritual sorcery of varying origin that never breeds results. The others keep her around because she's also a very efficient worker. She learned inhuman time management skills when trying to keep up with Christmas, Hanukah, Ramadan and Kwanzaa all at once.

She's convinced that given the proper time and enough faith, she could wipe out the Autobots by tracing them in a pentacle and enveloping them in a plausibility paradox. It hasn't worked yet.

In her quieter moments she takes an Etch-a-Sketch, meticulously draws an Autobot picture, then shakes it up to erase it. She claims this strips the Autobots of their aura. When she's done to every one of them, she reasons, their collective spirit will be erased, leaving them open to etheric assault from thought-dimensional monsters mankind has long since forgotten. She calls this technique post-consumerist mandalic aura destabilization. None of the others has the faintest idea what she's talking about.

Formerly a champion race car driver, he used to spend a good amount of his time joining charity races benefitting starving children and refugees. . . . That changed with the arrival of the Transformers. He abandoned his career and returned to France when word came of Autobots attacking his home country. Now a disgruntled and hardened renegade, he leads an underground network of French rebels in Paris in an attempt to take back their country (and hopefully the world) from the "monstreux robots". He is aware of the Decepticons' attempt to aid his efforts but his own stubbornness and arrogance often overcome any chances of obtaining help from their allies. He believes that his rebels are perfectly capable of handling the Autobots alone . . . whether he is correct about this or not is yet to be seen. . . .

This young human meets up with Chip and Sparkplug's cell after the attack which paralyzed Chip. She soon falls for Chip, but he is completely oblivious to any sign of romance being rather preoccupied with designing new weapons in the fight against the Autobots. Carly does have a knack for getting into trouble and going where she doesn't belong. She also is more friendly toward the Decepticons than most humans, who merely tolerate their allies, and has formed a particular bond with Frenzy.

A young genius whose family was killed in a robot attack, and who lost the use of his legs in the same attack. He became fixated on the robots, and the line between justice and revenge blurs quite a bit. However, he is incredibly intelligent, capable, driven, and compassionate to the human struggle. A soft spoken, quiet young man, it's easy to ignore the burning hatred he feels for the invaders for taking everything he had from him. So far, he's managed to keep this hate in check so it doesn't affect his work, but every day that goes by, it gets harder and harder...

"Anti-social" is among the nicer epitaphs for Dirk. He's young, foul-mouthed, and despises most authority figures. He basically grew up on the streets of Central City, Oregon, hopping between foster families and showing up for school whenever he felt like it. In other words, the good life. This ended quickly when the Autobots moved into Central City. Since then, he has been aligned with a resistence group headed by Dr. Archeville. He keeps telling himself that he's going to ditch them any time now, that only his obligation to Shawn Berger keeps him in place. But there is more to it then that, though Dirk will never admit it. After all, being anti-social and actually liking the people that you are around don't go hand in hand.

Dr. Grayson Archeville is co-founder and former head scientist of Golden/Arch Technologies, based in Los Angeles. He is a brilliant engineer and physicist and has designed and created feats of engineering deemed years ahead of his time. In truth, what is he most adept at is taking current technology and putting a new spin on it, creating a new device or weapon from existing technology. He looks the part of a mad scientist, with gray hair veritably exploding off his head and his penchant to wring his hands together while working on a new project. After the Autobot invasion of California and assault on Los Angeles, Dr. Archeville fled. Over time, he found himself the head of a resistance group. He is modest about his leadership skills, often deferring to Cassandra Vasquez or Shawn Berger, but he is a natural leader.

Josie Beller used to be a very good computer scientist and physicist. A robotic attack on an oil rig crushed her legs. She now directs a five-person resistance cell hiding out in the mountains and deserts of the American Northwest. Sitting in a wheelchair has done nothing to douse her fire, although her growing disconnection from sanity just might.

Josie doesn't know it, but she Knows The Truth. Her innate mathematical ability expresses this knowledge to her through paradoxical equations and solutions to problems that should not be soluble. Once she proved that 1 = 2 and it held up to every check she tried. She'll never figure it out, but her subconscious will keep pestering her about it and quite possibly drive her mad one day. She dreams of flying about in circuitry-encrusted skin and won't ever Know Why.

In a particular fit of Schrodingerian hypertime paradox she remarked, "Sometimes I get the feeling that something went terribly wrong. Like we're in hell. It's an experiment to test our reactions and nobody's ever going to care. Except maybe the quantum mechanic, who's out there somewhere greedily slurping up our pain . . . in a little while everything we know is going to be gone and it'll be like we never existed."

She is, of course, correct.

(created by Az)

Mifune is a member of Josie's cell. Mifune is not like other people.

Mifune is neither Japanese nor really named Mifune. When he was 16, he rejected Western philosophy and religion and embraced the teachings of Miyamoto Musashi in the "Book of Five Rings." His friend Sarah dubbed him Mifune, after Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune, and he stuck with the name after the world ended.

Mifune doesn't talk much; when he does, he carefully chooses his words. His Five Rings-inspired tactical thinking is useful. He explains to anyone who will listen how embracing the five elements -- air, earth, fire, water and void -- makes one unstoppable.

He is highly intelligent but unambitious. If the Autobots hadn't come, his twin ambitions would have been to be the best swordfighter ever to manage a McDonald's and to own a complete collection of Highlander videotapes.

(created by Az)

Mitch is a member of Josie's cell. He possesses an amazing memory and has dedicated himself to reassembling the human race's musical past, starting with Handel and Beethoven. Sarah pesters him to work out some new Rage Against the Machine, but he steadily rebuffs her. He also doesn't get the pun.

(created by Starchaser)

Nayla M'benga was a student at the University of Arizona, on an excursion to Phoenix, when the Autobots came. Heeding a silent voice that urged her ever southward, she fled the city and made her way south, into the very heart of the Mexican highlands. She joined the resistance cells that lingered in the valley that had been Mexico City, despite feeling always on the outside. She desparately misses her family in Dakar, Senegal, frustrated by her inability to get any word to them or to even know if any of them still live.

While the Mexican resistance wants nothing to do with the Decepticons, Nayla secretly wonders if they are making the right choice. Little does she know the Decepticon resistance has already touched her life...

(created by Az)

Sarah, 21, is a borderline sociopath; she doesn't care about anyone except her close circle of friends. She likes to destroy things. She is subtle and has mastered misdirection. When she was 11, nobody ever connected her to the bad things that happened to the squirrels. Her father, an ex-military man, died during the first assault, when Warpath wiped out Detroit. She still takes that quite personally. She learned a lot from her father. Mostly how to shoot and blow things up. When she was 17, she would have killed many, many people to satisfy her rage at the world, but the Autobots came and did it for her. That annoyed her. She is in desperate need of Prozac and professional attention. She has received neither for four years.

Cynicism drenches her every activity. She doesn't trust the robot resistance any more than the robot oppressors. She makes it a point of pride that she doesn't know any Decepticon names. She respects Josie's knowledge and abilities, though she wishes Josie would understand them herself. She has known Mifune for many years, and thinks he's kind of charming, in a too-straightlaced-not-to-have-structure-even-though-he's-given-up-religion kind of way. She Understands what Ariana and Mitch are trying to do, even when it doesn't make any sense to her.

During a particularly angst-ridden episode in her youth she dubbed herself Duchess Xanax Dystopia. Mifune will never let her live that one down. Lately she's taken to styling herself by that name once more. That may be a sign of her acceptance of the new world, or a sign she's completely lost her grip.

She likes to wear a t-shirt that reads "We Support Our Troops" on the front. The back is imprinted with a well-known photograph of two teenage boys, armed with guns, in a cafeteria. None of the robots understand it. Most of the humans who know her know better than to bring it up. She tells people she doesn't dream, but she's lying. Her dreams of late envision a mile-high scrap heap made up of twisted robots, oppressor and resistance alike, with her on top and a thousand humans bowing in supplication below. She likes that dream.

Shawn Berger is a former Army intelligence officer and founder of Berger, Inc., a renowned security company that was based in Central City, Oregon. While his company's reach was far and wide, he tended to focus on the troubles of his local community, even running for mayor when it became obvious that the current mayor was unable to fulfill his duties at the post. He took it upon himself to try to reach Dirk Mannis before the kid found himself in deeper trouble than loitering and underaged drinking. Shortly after the Autobots moved into Central City, Shawn led a small group of people who did not want to live under the thumb of the Autobots, yet did not want to formally resist. In time, the group dispersed, with the more active resistence members merging with Dr. Archeville's cell. Shawn is an outstanding tactician and a good leader, though he tends to be few of words and leads more by example than by rousing speeches.

A saboteur with the Human Resistance, he became involved with the movement after his son, Spike, became the 'pet' human of Bumblebee, the young Autobot punk. He hates the robots, wants them off his planet, and isn't ready to give up on his only son just yet. His military experience from the Korean War, combined with his mechanical know-how and the training he's received from the Resistance, makes him an excellent saboteur in the war against the robots. He's also proven an invaluable resource in the continuing efforts to dissect and understand Cybertronian technology. He's become something of a surrogate father to the orphan Chip Chase, and in turn looks on the young man as an adopted son. They tend to work well together.

Spike was one of the first humans encountered by Autobots. Bumblebee found the young human "cute" and was allowed to keep Spike as a "living" experiment. After a few weeks of being caged with food and water failed to win Spike's affection - or obedience - Ratchet and Perceptor designed the drug rho-fentanyl. Rho-fentanyl has a very euphoric high during which the subject easily succumbs to suggestion, and a severe, eventually fatal withdrawal. Bumblebee immediately tested it on Spike. After a period of valiant but futile resistance, Spike now spends most of his day in a euphoric blur carried about by Bumblebee as a sort of living doll. He addresses Bumblebee as "Lord Bumblebee", is obediant, and does tricks on command, such as somersaults, hula-hooping, and pantomiming. He learned early on that to do otherwise is to spend a horrible night in withdrawal. Spike is tolerated by the other Autobots because he's useful in helping Bumblebee discover plots from the human resistance.