A young Laconian naval officer appointed to a position of authority. An earnest and disciplined military man who believes in the ideals of the Laconian Empire and the order it promises to bring.

Laconian admiral and military commander. Takes effective control of the Laconian empire after High Consul Duarte becomes incapacitated, struggling to hold the empire together.

A scientist who travels to Ilus as part of a Royal Charter Energy survey team and becomes caught in the colony conflict. In the later books she becomes the Laconian Empire's leading expert on the alien gates and the entity that destroyed their builders - a role that places her at the centre of the series' most fundamental questions.

Daughter of High Consul Winston Duarte, raised in the Laconian palace as the heir to an interstellar empire. Her friendship with a local boy and a strange alien-modified dog begin to pull her away from everything she has been taught to believe.