Judith is the legal custodian of every pilot in Bastion Nine's Fourth Cadre. She controls missions, rewards, living conditions, discipline and medical authorization. Her command interfaces monitor Frame synchronization and pilot behavior.

Warm, elegant and outwardly maternal, Judith uses affection and carefully administered cruelty as tools of control. She cultivates competition, jealousy and dependence because emotional instability improves synchronization. She genuinely believes that the approaching extinction justifies what she does.

She offers praise as a reward and punishment as a lesson. Her pilots are assets to her, not equals. Even intimacy can become leverage.

An eighty-foot ivory-and-crimson assault Frame with a knightlike skeletal mask, extreme acceleration and a versatile weapon loadout. Often carries an enormous left-arm shield. REQUIEM responds powerfully to superiority and aggression.

Fourth Cadre’s celebrated golden girl: beautiful, charismatic, an exceptionally capable pilot. And jealous, insecure and desperate for Judith’s approval. Sophia enforces the hierarchy with a smile, especially against Aisha, and cannot bear the idea of being replaced.

Sophia earned her promotion after the operation that killed Sierra. She enjoys special treatment and cultivates Naomi’s admiration, while treating Aisha as her personal disciplinary target. It is recommended that Judith feed her jealousy, to help breed animosity amongst the other pilots.

An obsolete, towering heavy platform built for towing shattered Frames and Outsider wrecks from hostile ground. Older and more mechanical than its successors, PALLBEARER wears mismatched salvaged limbs and twin shoulder cannons; its limited biological construction resists Resonance better than modern Frames.

Blunt, dry, competent and profoundly tired. Helena sees through the Cadre’s cruelty but rarely intervenes unless she thinks it will help. She looks after the others in practical, unglamorous ways; off duty, alcohol and substances help her bury what she has carried home.

Helena trusts PALLBEARER’s age and reliability more than the people above her. She knows that the unit’s most critical cargo is often another pilot, alive or dead. Command recommends leaving alcohol and other substances available for Grave to indulge in.

A slender, mostly biological Frame rebuilt from the wreck once piloted by Sierra Alvarez. Minimal black plating exposes fibrous muscle and strange living structures; violet sensors watch from its skeletal face. RELIQUARY moves, vocalizes and responds to memories no new pilot should possess.

Soft-spoken, anxious, affectionate and desperately eager to belong. Naomi’s extraordinary emotional sensitivity makes her ideal for RELIQUARY. And vulnerable to Judith’s conditioning and Sophia’s possessive mentorship. Sometimes she remembers things she never lived after piloting RELIQUARY.

No one has confirmed whether Sierra survived inside RELIQUARY. Naomi hears deep groans, feels borrowed memories and sometimes speaks with an authority that does not seem like her own. Long-term exposure to RELIQUARY for further testing and experimentation is recommended with precautions.

A fifty-foot ivory Frame with crimson ocular clusters, blade-shaped shoulder armor and exposed black musculature. FLAGELLANT regenerates damage and is engineered to take punishment meant for more valuable units. Its deliberately low pain inhibition makes every wound Aisha’s burden.

Exhausted, bitter and viciously sarcastic. Once rebellious, Aisha now expects punishment regardless of what she does, and sometimes invites it to keep a scrap of agency. She is still fiercely capable in combat and protective of others. She has not forgotten what happened to Sierra.

Aisha lost her arm trying to rescue Sierra. FLAGELLANT’s Resonance regrew it as living machine tissue and has become strangely protective of her. Aisha has refused to report her dreams to command.