I imagine Dread looking like this IRL

DreadBot – Dread to her Pod companions – was born and grew to a teenager in SCAZ. I can’t say “raised” because there was very little thought given to her beyond keeping her clean and fed. She was loved, but after watching enough TV, realized that there might be a better world available to her. She learned to game at a place that had once been a school but became a sort of informal day care because it had mostly reliable internet, and there were no taxes to pay teachers.

Dread has an innate distrust of the government and artificial intelligence. She routinely tells the POD about the dangers of AI based on her repeated watching of the Terminator series of movies and Battlestar Galactica. 

Cylon Centurion from BSG

BSG (the reboot, not the original, even though the original is pretty good) is a phenomenal series with an impressive cast. Adama, Starbuck, Apollo, Gaius, President Roslin, and, of course, Six. Peacock is apparently planning a re-reboot. We’ll see.

Even with her love and fear of bots, Dread based her avatar on a “toaster” – BSG slang for a Cylon Centurion. Her avatar name was easy: she wears dreadlocks and loves/fears robots.

Myranda pays homage to Mass Effect 2’s female lead, Miranda, wonderfully voiced by Australian actress, Yvonne Strahovski.

Mass Effect 2 is the best of the Mass Effect series

SPARK’s Myranda calls herself an American mutt and says that in the future, everyone will look like her. A multiracial daughter of the heartland, she left home after her parents “got mixed up in some bad stuff,” and were incarcerated. Like Will, she fled foster care. There were no knives involved. 

The human behind the Myranda avatar at spark would look more like this.

She doesn’t share Dread’s dread of robots and Ais. In fact, she can’t wait for the chance to get implants to augment her senses, strength, and reflexes. She’ll be an early convert to bionics.

Gratuitous picture of the BSG cast.