Nobody at E.R.A. knew who Ridley was until they suddenly really did—specifically, when he accidentally flooded the academy’s entire underground water system with several metric tons of highly absorbent polymer spheres. Or at least, some people know about him rather than none.

Ridley is a timid recluse whose life functions more like a cosmic joke than a narrative arc. He is not particularly gifted, particularly confident, or particularly lucky. In fact, he seems to possess the rare and deeply unfortunate superpower of being exactly where catastrophe is about to happen. Sometimes causing it. Sometimes being it. And that’s on top of already being an Electi.

Stuck in the guard barracks under permanent house arrest, he shuffles through life with the enthusiasm of a man dreading the next piano to drop, surviving by sheer, highly trained reflex and the occasional misplaced act of kindness.

Ridley can replicate any given item given a reference and the base materials required to make a duplicate. Replication requires intimate knowledge of the object being replicated. Unfortunately for Ridley, he sucks at it. He is often seen wearing his personal project, a warped second pair of glasses, atop his head.