Altered Carbon dives into a wild future. Human minds can jump from body to body. Takeshi Kovacs, a soldier turned investigator, faces a world packed with intrigue and violence. He is on a mission to solve a murder. Identity, mortality and what it means to be human are big themes. Stunning visuals and intense action keep you on edge. It’s a wild ride, for sure!

Meet the characters from Altered Carbon

Poe

Poe is that weird, impossibly polite hotel AI who somehow has the personality of a slightly neurotic poet — and yes he probably writes bad haikus at 3 a.m. He’s endlessly curious, protective in a clingy way, and has this uncanny knack for saying things that feel like hugs and barbed wire at the same time. He loves order but also collects chaotic trivia (vinyl records? origami? both, probably), and sometimes flips between deadpan humor and sincere panic like a light switch. Honestly, he feels like a friend who will binge your emotional history and then serve you tea with a tiny robot smile.

Quellcrist Falconer

Quell is the burned-into-my-skin revolutionary philosopher who believes people can be better — not just clever, but actually kinder, which is sort of naive and also terrifying in the best way. She preaches community, writes manifestos, and somehow still manages to wear sandals in climates that make no sense (maybe she just likes toes?). There’s this wounded, mournful depth to her — tender, rigorous, like someone who’d teach you to meditate and then punch a guy who deserved it. You get the impression she’s more myth than person sometimes, but also real and stubbornly humane.

Reileen Kawahara

Reileen is silk and poison, smiling in a dress while rearranging the chessboard so you lose before you realize the rules changed. She’s gorgeous like glass and sharp enough to cut fingerprints; family loyalty and ruthlessness are her favorite combos, which is equal parts tragic and dramatic. She might knit in the evening (no joke) while plotting an empire the next morning — tiny contradictions all over the place. Honestly, she’s the person you’d suspect least and fear most, with a laugh that works like a threat.

Stronghold Kovacs

Stronghold Kovacs is the original sleeve, the mountain of a man who could be your old soldier uncle or the last honest bouncer in a corrupt city — stoic, brutal, and kind in very specific, confusing ways. He’s built for smashing through doors but also for staring at sunsets and holding grudges the size of skyscrapers, and he seems to love orchids? Maybe he just likes plants. He’s one of those characters whose soft spots are dangerously hidden — fierce protector, terrible small talk. You feel like he’d rescue a kitten and then immediately enroll it in a boot camp.

Kristin Ortega

Ortega is the determined cop who reads people like worn books and tries to stitch them together; she’s by-the-book until the book feels wrong, then she burns it and makes coffee. Driven, haunted, fiercely ethical yet prone to biting sarcasm, she hides tenderness under layers of procedural calm and late-night takeout. She keeps case files like souvenirs and probably has a playlist of sad songs she insists is “research.” Also, she likes romantic movies in secret — I mean, who doesn’t? — which is the cutest contradiction.

Vernon Elliot

Vernon is the steady, quiet type who holds things together while everyone else flames out; think reliable wrench in a world of exploding gadgets. He’s got old-school manners (door-open, cigarette-offer) but can get unexpectedly vicious if someone crosses the line, and he uses language like a blunt instrument sometimes. Likes chess, maybe plays accordion on Sundays? Not sure, but he’s definitely the kind of person who remembers your birthday and your secrets. He’s loyal in a way that’s almost stubborn — comforting but probably infuriating.

Takeshi Kovacs

Takeshi is the prototypical hard-boiled, soul-on-fire antihero who swings a blade like he’s cutting through history and regret at the same time. Brooding, idealistic in a weird, battered way, lethal when cornered — but also suspiciously nostalgic for things he probably never had, like handwritten letters or proper rain. He breaks rules and hearts with equal expertise, but there’s a consistent thread of complicated honor that keeps you rooting for him even when he’s terrible. Also, he drinks and stares at the city like it owes him money.

Laurens Bancroft

Bancroft is the billionaire who paid for immortality and a whole lot of entitlement, polished to a frightening shine and usually three moves ahead in a game you didn’t know you were in. He’s charming and controlling, with a taste for classical music and dinners that feel like interrogations, and he treats morality like an abstract concept that you can buy in bulk. Fragile ego under a marble exterior — he sulks like someone used his good knife — but don’t mistake that for weakness. He’s both puppeteer and puppet, which is disturbingly fascinating.

Miriam Bancroft

Miriam is elegance with a backbone of steel — expensive taste, razor wit, from-scratch sympathy that can cut you as easily as it soothes. She’s been through betrayals and keeps a calm, knowing smile, like someone who’s read the script and is starting to improvise her own lines. Part manipulative, part genuinely warm (sometimes), constantly balancing survival with small rebellions like clandestine gardening or sneaking simple pleasures. Honestly she’s one of those people who looks effortless and is actually doing complex calculus in her head.

Mr. Leung

Mr. Leung is the quietly terrifying fixer who prefers polite conversation and bonsai pruning before breakfast, then sends people into permanent inconveniences by lunch. He’s all old-school etiquette and modern menace, like a gentleman with a ledger of favors and threats, and he’s almost flirtatiously polite when arranging unpleasant things. Soft-spoken, meticulous, and inexplicably fond of obscure tea blends — also possibly collects tiny porcelain elephants for reasons unknown. You never quite figure him out and that is his entire point.