Set 400 years in the future, after a nuclear blast pretty much destroyed everything. Now, humans have survived but babies are always born as boy\/girl twin. \u00a0One twin is “perfect”, the other has some kind of mutation. \u00a0The abnormal twin is branded and labeled an Omega, and sent off to live in \u00a0Omega-only villages. \u00a0Omegas are second-class citizens at best, but the Alphas need them–when one twin dies or is seriously hurt, the other one is too. \u00a0Omegas are forced to live in shabby villages, on poor land, and are required to pay unreasonable tithes. In desperation, some of them \u00a0move to “refuges” where they are given shelter in return for labor, but they will never really be able to leave. \u00a0Alphas and Omegas both fear any kind of technology from the Before, to the point that even touching ruins is taboo.<\/p>\n
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Cass: \u00a0our progagonist. \u00a0Cass is a seer (which makes her an Omega), and has visions of the future, past and present. \u00a0She can also “feel” places, and navigate places she’s never been. \u00a0In the first book, she is put in a “Keeping Room” for years at the order of her powerful twin, Zach. \u00a0Keeping her locked up will keep him safe. Cass escapes and resuces Kip, then the two of them find their way to the Omega resistance.<\/p>\n
Zach: Cass’s Alpha twin. \u00a0He has become a powerful leader in the Council and is known as the Reformer. \u00a0In spite of the taboo, Zach has created machines called tanks, which will hold people in suspended animation indefinitely. \u00a0He, and the General (another Council leader) see this as the way to solve the Omega problem.<\/p>\n
Kip: \u00a0During her escape, Cass first comes across the tanks, and rescues a man from them. \u00a0He has no memory of his previous life; Cass names him Kip. \u00a0They travel together and fall in love. \u00a0At the end of book 1, we learn that Kip’s twin is the Confessor, an evil Omaga seer who has aligned herself with Zach and the Council. Kip kills himself by jumping off a high platform, killing the Confessor at the same time. \u00a0In book 2, Cass learns that Zack took Kip’s and the \u00a0Confessor’s bodies, somehow brought them back to life (but barely) and tanked them in the Ark. \u00a0Knowing Kip would never want this, Cass pulls Kip from the tank, letting him rest in peace at last.<\/p>\n
Piper: \u00a0leader of the resistance. \u00a0On the island, he refuses to have Cass killed, even though it would kill Zach at the same time. \u00a0When the Alphas attack the island, many Omegas blame him and Cass for all the death and destruction.<\/p>\n
Zoe: \u00a0Piper’s Alpha twin. \u00a0She has chosen to remain with her brother, and fight for the resistance, in spite of being an Alpha. \u00a0In book 2, she disappears while she, Piper and Cass are searching for the Ark. \u00a0She reappears at the end of the book, having located the presumed lost ship, the Rosalind, which has managed to make contact with some people from “Elsewhere.”<\/p>\n
The Ringmaster: another Council leader. \u00a0He joins the resistance to free the town of New Hobart, because he believes in the taboo and thinks Zach and the General are leading the people towards disaster by using Before technology. \u00a0It is not exactly an \u00a0easy alliance between him and the resistance.<\/p>\n
Elsa: \u00a0a woman of New Hobart. \u00a0She took in Cass and Kip when they were on the run and then helped them escape the town when the Council showed up to wall it in. \u00a0Cass finds her again in book 2, after New Hobart has been freed, but not before the children of the town have been tanked, and later killed, by the Council army. \u00a0Elsa’s husband Joe had found papers that described the Ark.<\/p>\n
The Ark: \u00a0an underground bunker built to survive the blast. \u00a0Papers found indicate that the scientists of the Ark had discovered a way to stop the twinning, but the method is not described. \u00a0It is implied that eliminating the twin phenomenon will not eliminate mutations. There are also indications that they had contact with Elsewhere. \u00a0In book 2, Cass and Piper find the Ark (as does Zach), and discover that its residents had tanked themselves, in hopes of being awakened. \u00a0This is where Zach found out about the tanking technology; he and the Council have also taken the technology that caused the original blast, and have plans to use it on Elsewhere. \u00a0The Council does not want the resistance to find the people of Elsewhere and learn how they stopped the twinning.<\/p>\n
Paloma: \u00a0a woman from Elsewhere. \u00a0The crew of the Rosalind found her and she came back with them, as something of an ambassador.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Set 400 years in the future, after a nuclear blast pretty much destroyed everything. Now, humans have survived but babies are always born as boy\/girl twin. \u00a0One twin is “perfect”, the other has some kind of mutation. \u00a0The abnormal twin is branded and labeled an Omega, and sent off to live in \u00a0Omega-only villages. \u00a0Omegas … Continue reading Fire Sermon\/Map of Bones by Francesca Haig<\/span>