"BLAME!" Character List and plot synopsis

To anyone who thinks they can follow the story without reading it, you do not know what you are missing.  This  is what  you are missing.   Blame can be confusing at times.  I am not sure I understand it all myself.  Part of that may be  that like most comics, it is written as it goes along, so it starts off pretty unfocussed and weak, and gradually solidifies it's story.   Part of that is that it   is complicated. 

This is a pretty thorough explaination of what everyone and everything is, and their relationships to one another.  Well, everything important.  Some things, particularly things without names, and things which don't affect anything else before or after them, are left out.  Some things which don't really matter are in, because they have names.

If you cannot read it (and WELL) you will not know the difference between the Controller and the Safeguard, or even that the Cyborgs are a separate group.  You may not know that the boomerang-wielding guard of the Director of the Cyber-life Society isn't with any of those groups.  Basically, going by the pictures, you'll lump large groups together, because they look similar, even though they aren't. 

To anyone who has "read" Blame without being able to really read it, tell me I'm wrong.  Tell me you knew all of this stuff.
 
 
 

WARNING: This list contains MASSIVE spoilers!!!  READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.
 
 
 
 

I'm not kidding...this is pretty close to the whole story.
 
 
 
 

Last chance....
 

All names are drawn from my translation, or from Roman alphabet text in Blame! itself.  A few of them (Particularly "Controller"  "Father"  "New Model"  "Dry People"  "Cyber-Life Society"  "Cyborgs"  and  "Ship Collective AI") are debateable.  Suck it.

No particular order, but there are links to each relevant entry.

People:

Killy
A mysterious traveler, searching for the Net Terminal Gene.   At times it is suggested that this may be to cure some plague, but perhaps not.    Anyhow, he begins his search on behalf of some group residing at least 5000 levels below the City.
Killy possesses a Graviton Radiation Projector, which is capable of disintegrating or incinerating absolutely ANYTHING.   It is a weapon of incredible destructive power, and happens to take the form of a not-terribly large pistol.   It is similar to weapons used by the Safeguard, making Cibo suspect that Killy may be one of them.   The Controller assures her that he is not, however, he is an agent of another, older, system. 
Killy doesn't talk much.   He lets his gun do the talking.  Killy is superhuman.   He can withstand devastating attacks without  injury, and heals fast when he is injured.   He can continue to fight with broken or severed limbs, and can climb thousands and thousands of flights of stairs without significant fatigue. 
Killy has a conscience, which gets him in trouble on occasion.
Killy has clearly traveled a lot, and remembers much of it, but he apparantly has some mysteries in his past.

Cibo
Cibo is Killy's constant companion and comrade from the middle of book 2 onward.  She was the chief scientist of the Cyber-Life  Society .  She tried to access the Net Sphere without the Net Terminal Gene, resulting in the explosion of her power source.   (Which she intended to later explode anyhow)  As punishment, she was resurrected and left in an immobile, rotting body, which Killy finds.  This is how they meet.   Cibo cracks security systems and gathers information to help her and Killy's   journey. 
Cibo is killed by the Safeguard in book 4.   But her personality escapes to a part of the Net Sphere, thanks to the help of the Controller .  She then takes over the body of Sanakan   .
When Cibo and Killy are transported mysteriously away right before they would have battled Ivy and Maeve, they are separated, and Killy is transported 10 years into the future, and Cibo spends 10 years waiting for him. 
There is another Cibo in future Cave  4 of Toha Heavy Industries. Why is not revealed.  This is the first Cibo Killy meets in the future.  This "Alternate Cibo" dies after she, Future Cibo and Killy return to the present..  Her body is then     taken over by the other Cibo after Sanakan reawakens inside Toha Heavy Industries.
Through the end of book 6, we see Cibo in 5 bodies.  Her rotting corpse, her new leggy blue-haired body, her chief scientist body, Sanakan's body, and Alternate Cibo (Same as the second body, but better armed).

  Cyborgs (Silicon Life)
The first enemies Killy fights.  They are also looking for the Net Terminal Gene .  To destroy it.  They require chaos in the Net Sphere for some reason, so want to prevent a human from accessing  it and setting things right. 
Killy kills the first cyborgs he meets.  He later encounters other more powerful Cyborgs, Ivy and Maeve, in Toha Heavy industries.  He fights them a bit, but Seu does most of the work. 
In the future Cave 4, Cibo has been fighting more evolved cyborgs.  When Killy returns to the present, he has her weapon, to use in place of his Graviton Projector  (which, being a  weapon of the Safeguard, is suppressed.)
It is pretty clear that most characters in Blame are technically cyborgs, but these ones, you really know it.
Ivy 
Leader of the contingent of Cyborgs attacking Toha Heavy Industries.  He/she/it carries a  massive weapon, which is essentially four swords, with two of them spring-loaded to swing out from the middle to bludgeon enemies.  Ivy is killed by Seu. (head split by a broken sword).
Maeve 
Ivy's sidekick.  More obviously female.  Maeve is cut in half by Seu, and later attached to the body of a New Model cyborg from the future, which came back with Killy and Cibo.  Maeve is killed by Seu (sword handle to the eye), and Killy  (deathblow with his Graviton Projector).
New Model
Descended from the Cyborgs  who invaded Toha Heavy Industries, it is the latest model Cyborg when Killy meets alternate-Cibo.   Cibo's weapons cannot kill them.  It can heal itself by transmuting elements from the surrounding environment into what it needs.  One of them is brought back with Killy and Future-Cibo when they return to the present.   Maeve , who lost her legs, gets attached to it to attack Killy, Mensab , Seu, and the Central AI.

Dry People 
A bunch of people attacking Tettan and Yoshio's freighter because it is  hauling their stolen bodies for transplant.  They either live or like to attack freighters in the Pipe Forest Zone .  Killy first meets them after saving one of them from some giant worm thing (one of which is later used to attack Tettan and Yoshio's freighter).  The eye emblem on some of their foreheads suggests a possible connection to the Cyborgs, given the similarity to the eye emblem on the Cyborg production facility that Killy destroys  in book 1.

Controller 
The ruling level of the Net Sphere .  It tries at times to assist Killy  and Cibo, against the Cyborgs, and against the Safeguard.  It has powers identical to the Safeguard, but  cannot  itself control the Safeguard.  There are some human groups on the lower tier with whom the Controller fights directly.  It wants the Net Terminal Gene to be found to stop the runaway growth of the City.

Safeguard
The completely independent defense system of the Net Sphere .   It kills any human who attempts to access it, or to cross the Barrier without  the Net Terminal Gene .  It can transmute any part of the city for its purposes.  It can also transform humans into its soldiers.  And it has more powerful agents, like Sanakan, and the monster which attacks the Fishermen. They're like "The Agents" in "the Matrix."
 

Cyber-life Society 
The rulers of The City.  This is the group for whom Cibo worked, and which is controlled by the Director. Killy goes to them looking for information on the City's laborers, to see if any of them have the Net Terminal Gene.

Laborers
The underclass of the City.  An extensive database of information on them is held by the Director.  A contingent of Laborers accosts Killy trying to get him to help them overthrow the Cyber-life Society, but they'll just settle for taking his Graviton Radiation Projector.

Director
Ruler of the Cyber-life Society , and the City.   He is a gigantic monstrosity of a human, with an enormous brain.   One of his (normal) clones was sent to assist Cibo before her ill-fated attempt to access the Net Sphere.

Sanakan
A high level agent of the Safeguard , who tricks Cibo and Killy and the Fishermen into letting her into Toha Heavy Industries.  To do this, first she poses as a human to gain the trust of Killy and Cibo. Then she feigns an attack by the Safeguard, to further gain trust.  She leads Cibo and Killy to the Fishermen, and the outside of Toha Heavy Industries.   Cibo gets inside.  The Safeguard attack ensues.   Cibo dies while trying to control first the giant Builder, and then the Safeguard's machine, but she takes over Sanakan's body.   Sanakan later reemerges, but vanishes again when thrown by Killy into Toha Heavy Industries (where the Safeguard is forbidden).  She regains control again when the treaty between the Central AI and the Net Sphere is cancelled.  Her goal is the destruction of the Central  AI.  Sanakan is killed by Killy with a blast from his Graviton Radiation Projector.

Yone and Asako
Two warriors of a group in the middle of the lower tier , who fight Sentinels (some sort of flying cyborg-monster, possibly connected to the Controller ) for their survival.  Killy helps them by destroying the source of the Sentinels .   They are not dissimilar to the Fishermen , and are probably the original incarnation of that idea.   They possess armor similar to that of the Fishermen .  It is unclear if it is this which gives them their superior speed and strength, but it is clear that it is not sufficient to protect them from the Sentinels .

Sentinels
May or may not be agents of the Controller .  They attack the settlement of Yone and Asako.  They are big cabbage-patch-kids-from-hell human-like flying things that shoot beams from their faces.  They are born from a great big monster thing which Killy destroys after Yone leads him to it.

Kumoi and Yaki
Kumoi is a nut who lives outside the city, and Yaki is his traveling companion, who happens to be a practical vegetable.  He thinks Killy is a doctor come to help Yaki.  Killy helps him stop a builder from destroying his home.  Kumoi is killed by a Cyborg  after the Builder is stopped.

Builders
Robots which construct the City.  They are not connected directly to the The Net Sphere  or Safeguard.  They come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes.  Killy has a device which allows him to stop them,  and Cibo uses his knowledge about them to learn to control them completely.   She uses this information to use a giant builder to clear a path to the entrance to Toha Heavy Industries for the Fishermen, and to fight off the attack of the Safeguard.

Namie
A storekeeper below the City.  Introduces Killy to Tettan .

Tettan and Yoshio
Tettan and Yoshio run a freighter (carrying bodies to be used for transplant) to the City.   They are attacked by the Dry People.  Tettan gets killed.  Killy kills Yoshio (who is a head attached to life support) in disgust after finding out what the cargo was. (And then proceeds to destroy the rest of the Cyber-life Society warehouse.)

Fishermen
People descended from people who used to live inside   Toha Heavy Industries.  They have been locked out for many generations, and have forgotten everything about why they are there and what Toha is.  They fight the Safeguard using powerful needle-shooting guns.  Cibo helps them enter Toha Heavy Industries, which had long been something their people had wanted to do.  But they pretty much had to to escape the attack of the Safeguard.  This was apparently all a plot to allow Sanakan to enter.  They are rejected by the Central AI, and spared from the Cyborgs' attack by Mensab, who transports them from Cave 8 to Cave 13 .  They escape the destruction of Toha Heavy Industries  with the help of Mensab and Cibo .  They wear armor similar to that of Seu, and the armor that Cibo and Killy find shortly after they follow the Fishermen into Toha Heavy Industries.
They aren't really fishermen.
Father
The apparent leader of the Fishermen, at first.  Probably not really the father of everyone who calls him that.  He dies during the Safeguard attack inside Toha Heavy Industries after (miraculously) surviving the Safeguard attack outside it.
Sutezo
A younger Fisherman.  He and Father "rescue"; Killy, Cibo, and Sanakan from the Safeguard .   He is beheaded (inadvertently, but maliciously) by Sanakan's wings.
Zuru
Sutezo's girlfriend, and the leader of the Fishermen after Father and Sutezo die.   She is the "healer" of the Fishermen, but really it's just a sort of Cargo-Cult medicine.  She leads the small surviving group in Cave 13. 

Mensab
Ruling AI of Cave 8.   Defied the Central AI and the Ship Collective AI by allowing the Fishermen to stay, and by evactuating them to Cave 13 .   She has some sort of a body, and it is repeatedly attacked by Maeve, but seemingly to no effect.   Regardless, she dies when Toha Heavy Industries is destroyed. 

Seu
A human, who wears armor similar to that of the Fishermen.   He is a powerful swordsman, and is the protector of Mensab.   He fights for her.   Whenever he is injured severely, Mensab takes him to be restored by equipment maintained by those fairy -things.  But he loses memory each time.  Seu kills Ivy and Maeve.   He dies with Mensab in the destruction of Toha Heavy Industries .   A capsule containing his genetic information is given to Cibo before she escapes, probably by Mensab , although it resembles the capsule passed from Future Cibo to Alternate Cibo when Sanakan reemerges. 

Central AI
The main AI of Toha Heavy Industries .   Dead set on teleporting Toha somewhere else, in violation of the treaty with the Net Sphere.   It refused to naturalize the fishermen .  It has a treaty with the Net Sphere which forbids it to move Toha Heavy Industries .  It violates this treaty, precipitating the Safeguard attack.  It is killed by Sanakan, with a blast from her Graviton Radiation Projector.

Ship Collective AI
A gathering of Toha's AI's.  Mensab got kicked out.

Those little fairy things (no name)
They maintain the equipment used to restore Seu .  They also help Killy and Cibo on numerous occasions.  They die if they go too far from their power source in Cave 8.  Cibo indicates that she knows this while talking to them, after returning from the future with Killy to a point in time before the first time she had met them.   Naturally they were confused by this.

Places (only those with names, or which are especially significant):

The Pipe Forest Zone
While riding in the transport with Tettan and Yoshio , Killy fights off an attack by the " Dry People" in this area.

The City
The biggest settlement Killy encounters up through volume 6.   It is ruled by the Cyber-Life Society.  This is where Killy meets Cibo, and where the story begins to acquire a plot.

The City
The term is also used to refer to  the entirety of the world in which all these characters reside.   It is built and maintained by independent robots which I translate as "builders."  The hardware on which the Net Sphere runs is embedded in it's structure.

The Net Sphere
This is kinda like the Matrix or something.   (Only it predates it)  Except it's backwards:  humans are kept OUT, not IN.  It is a virtual world, generated on hardware which is ubiquitously distributed throughout the City (both of them).  It is ruled by the Controller, and protected by the Safeguard .

Toha Heavy Industries
A massive structure which functions  independently of the City and the Net Sphere.    It is made a of a different material from the rest of the City structures,  and is even tougher than the Megastructure (no holes are blown into it by Killy and Sanakan's Graviton Projector battle).  It is a vehicle  of some sort.   Possibly a spacecraft.    It is the ancestral home of the Fisherman, who have lived near it for generations.  It is ruled by the Central AI, and the Ship Collective AI.  It is divided into 13 "caves"; each governed by an AI.
It is destroyed by the explosion that occurs when the Central AI teleports it into non-empty space.
Cave 8
Governed by Mensab , this is where the Fishermen and Cibo and Killy entered.
It's residents were the only ones not killed by the Cyborgs ' poison attack.  Of these people, we only ever see Seu and the Fishermen .
Cave 13
This is where Mensab sent all the residents of Cave 8 to save them from the poisons brought by the Cyborgs .  It had no people and so was not subject to the same contamination.
Cave 4
This is where Cibo waits 10 years for Killy after being separated by being teleported.  By who is not revealed.  Also, another Cibo, who's origins are not revealed, meets Killy here.
Central AI
The Central AI has it's own place.  This is where the final battle between Ivy and Seu takes place, and it is the target of Sanakan.

The Barrier/The Megastructure
This is the nigh-impenetrable thing which Cibo wants Killy's gun to blast a hole in.   There are similar Megastructures elsewhere, like the one Cibo and Killy take a less violent trip through at the end of book 6.  (Although, since Toha Heavy Industries teleported, this could technically be point far away on the same Megastructure as before, and in fact, given that Toha Heavy Industries was not far from the previous Megastructure, vertically speaking, it seems likely)
The Safeguard is activated if it notices a human without the Net Terminal Gene attempting to cross between the Tiers.
The City is divided into at least three, probably more, tiers.   They are at least 5000 levels high.   AT LEAST.  (It is not revealed about how high one level is.   It may or may not be equivalent to one story of a building, but I assume it to be.)   The City (the other The City) is at the top of the tier that Killy starts in.

Elevator
After reuiniting after the destruction  of Toha Heavy Industries , Killy and Cibo continue on, eventually reaching another (?) Megastructure .  There is an elevator  through it which is operated by a rotting cyborg thing which talks  like Max Headroom, and which has some connection to the Safeguard, but not much.  He says they can pass through because the runaway Builder activity has distracted the Safeguard .

Things:

Net Terminal Gene
The Net Terminal Gene is what Cibo and Killy are looking for, what the Controller wants them to find, what the lack of will  activate the Safeguard, and what the Cyborgs want to destroy.  It allows a human to directly access the Net Sphere.  How exactly is unclear.  Trying to cross the Megastructure or access the Net Sphere without it will activate the Safeguard.  The Cyborgs want  to destroy any humans who may have it because they somehow benefit from the Net Sphere  being in a state of chaos, and they are afraid a human might be able to right it.   Those who possess it will have letters or graphics appearing on their retinas, and that is one of the cues Killy (who sees such things himself, but apparantly either isn't exactly human, or doesn't possess the Net Terminal Gene) looks for in people to see if they have the gene.

Graviton Radiation Projector
Killy's gun is one of these.  It completely destroys just about anything.  It creates a big hole in anything in it's line of fire, eventually resulting in an enormous explosion some distance away.  The Safeguard 's more powerful  agents, like Sanakan also possess this weapon.  Consequently, it does not   work inside Toha Heavy Industries while the treaty is in force, without Future Cibo's device to cancel the interference.   The City's Laborers want it to destroy the Director, and Cibo wants it to blow a hole in the Megastructure.   The Cyber-life Society was unable to reproduce the technology.

More as I read it.  And since everything died at the end of volume 6, and they moved to a new tier, there will be a lot new.

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