Alana Maxwell

## Biographical information

### Occupation

A.I. specialist
Chief science officer

### Affiliations

Goddard Futuristics
SI-5
Nash Robotics Lab (formerly)

### Relationships

Unnamed father
Unnamed older sibling

## Appearances

### Portrayed by

Michelle Agresti

**Dr. Alana Sarah Maxwell** is a computer scientist and A.I. specialist working for Goddard Futuristics, stationed on the U.S.S. Urania and the U.S.S. Hephaestus under Colonel Warren Kepler.

## Biography

### Early life

Maxwell was born in Philipsburg, Montana on April 13, 1988. In her youth, she was recognized as a math prodigy and accepted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at 16 years old. Although she initially studied astrophysics, Maxwell quickly gained an interest in artificial intelligence. She earned a bachelor's degree in computer science by the time she was 19. At 24, she earned her doctorate at the Wittgenstein Machine Computation School at the University of Cambridge. She was awarded a Turing grant and a residency at the Charles Babbage Institute.

Dr. Maxwell went on to work at the Nash Robotics Lab. Her opinions on the future of artificial intelligence development, pushing for the development of full-minded A.I., put her at odds with the board for ethical A.I. development. Her research projects at the Nash were stymied until she was eventually headhunted by Warren Kepler for the SI-5.

### Goddard Futuristics

After six months of persistent recruitment attempts, Dr. Maxwell finally agrees to meet with Kepler at a Goddard Futuristics research lab in upstate New York. Though she initially attends in order to tell Kepler to his face that she is not interested in leaving her position at the Nash, she is eventually swayed when Kepler introduces her to Hyperion, a full-minded A.I. integrated into the research lab. After this, she accepts the position at Goddard Futuristics.

Dr. Maxwell works at Goddard for about four years as an A.I. specialist on the SI-5 team. In this time, she becomes close friends with the SI-5's demolitions expert, Daniel Jacobi.

### Hephaestus mission

Dr. Maxwell is dispatched to the U.S.S. Hephaestus station orbiting Wolf 359 in the summer of 2015 as a member of the SI-5, along with Jacobi and Kepler. In her introduction she introduces herself to Hera, adjusts her systems to correct an error, and alters the way Hera addresses Minkowski to refer to her as "lieutenant."

In "Controlled Demolition", Maxwell and Jacobi isolate Hera’s systems from a section of the Hephaestus and detonate the plant monster, killing it. She is also assigned to conduct a crew evaluation for Hera, supervised by Eiffel. Maxwell and Hera are distracted for several hours, until Eiffel loses his temper and quotes the DSSPPM at her.

After some time on the station, she and Jacobi catch Captain Lovelace in the middle of attempting to break into Kepler’s private servers. They pretend to assist her, but patch up the vulnerabilities and report Lovelace’s actions to Kepler instead.

When Eiffel, Kepler and Jacobi detect a possible alien signal, Kepler extends their shift by twelve hours and has the entire crew on standby. Maxwell plays Funzo with Minkowski, Hera, Lovelace, and eventually Hilbert.

While transferring files from the Urania, it is revealed that Maxwell has a restraining order against her family, and that she once requested to never room with Jacobi again, mortally offending him.

While repairing Hera, Maxwell is shocked by an electrical current and trapped above an engine. Minkowski attempts to use liquid nitrogen to kill her under the guise of rescuing her, but is foiled. Jacobi uses explosives to free her safely.

When the Dear Listeners overtake Hera’s systems in "Overture", Maxwell is able to translate Hera’s thoughts and words from advanced binary.

After Hera crashes and cannot reboot, Maxwell discusses their options with Kepler in "Limbo". Kepler gives her the go-ahead to attempt "brain surgery" on Hera, and she manages to bring Hera back online in "Memoria".

In "Persuasion", Minkowski pushes Maxwell out of the way of incoming shrapnel and her leg is caught in an engine. Maxwell and Jacobi proceed to the engine room to jam the propeller and help free her.

### Contact event and death

In "Desperate Times", Jacobi and Maxwell apprehend Lovelace and Eiffel. When she’s taken hostage by Minkowski in "Desperate Measures", she taunts Minkowski and assures Kepler and Jacobi that Minkowski would be unable to shoot her. When Jacobi kills Hilbert, Minkowski shoots her in the head.

### Personality

Maxwell was a child prodigy, and is now a leading researcher in the field of artificial intelligence. She is fiercely confident in her skills, often edging into recklessness. She is also deeply passionate about her work, and holds AIs in as much if not greater esteem than she does most humans. She will greet AIs before humans, and has a much easier time communicating with them than being involved in social situations.

She’s not afraid to take initiative but can be assertive to her own detriment, as when she wrote an article calling the board for ethical AI development "scared crybabies who need to get over a couple bad Arnold Schwarzenegger movies."

According to Gabriel Urbina (in a now-deleted Tumblr post), Maxwell genuinely believes that we are headed for a brighter, shinier future courtesy of technology. In "Language Mapping", we see that the appeal of the technology Goddard has access to is what convinces her to join, and Jacobi describes her as "smarter than [Kepler and Jacobi] combined."

## Relationships

### Daniel Jacobi

Having spent several years working together, Maxwell and Jacobi are portrayed as being close friends who often banter with each other. They are some of the few characters who regularly refer to each other by their first names. Lovelace notes that they have a "breezy, professional friendship", although interactions between them seem to show that it runs deeper than that. Hera imagines Maxwell stating in "Boléro" that she considers Jacobi to be "family."

Michelle Agresti mentions in a Wolf 359 AMA that Maxwell has trouble interacting with humans, which is why her relationship with Jacobi is so important.

### Warren Kepler

Kepler spends the first six months of their acquaintance trying to recruit her, to little success until he introduces her to Hyperion in "Language Mapping". However, once she joins the SI-5, the two seem to get on well enough for her to both lie to his face and engage in casual conversation ("Happy Holidays") , and by the time they're on the Hephaestus they have an established and solid relationship. Maxwell describes Kepler as "not that scary" in her first introduction, showing her ease around him, and Kepler respects her authority as an expert in what she does, even as he warns her to make sure her 'priorities are what they need to be', as seen in "Limbo".

Michelle Agresti stated that Kepler gave Maxwell an unprecedented amount of autonomy, and that control over her own life is deeply important to her.

### Hera

Maxwell and Hera instantly bond when she comes aboard. In "Memoria", Maxwell is able to pinpoint the cause of Hera’s glitches after 37 hours of coding, and further works with her to overcome the difficulties caused by Pryce’s implanted command line. During the contact event, Maxwell sides with the SI-5, suppressing Hera’s personality and forcing her to do as told by Kepler. She had, however, learned to isolate her systems and was able to bypass Maxwell’s control.

Despite the betrayal, Hera mourns her during the funeral.

Michelle Agresti has said that there was an 'immediate deep trust' between Maxwell and Hera, and that 'what Hera is to Maxwell is that there's someone who can finally talk to her *not* like she's a [human]'.

## Trivia

* Dr. Maxwell is the second child of a church reverend.
* Dr. Maxwell graduated from MIT at age 19.
* The binary on the Maxwell merchandise design corresponds to the ASCII characters for a line from Shakespeare's Hamlet: "...the speech, I pray you, as I pronounce it to you..."
* She has a restraining order on her family, though the exact reason for this is not revealed.
* Her surname is most likely a reference to James Clerk Maxwell, a 19th-century mathematician and physicist known especially for his work on the theory of electromagnetism.
* She was the star shooter on her high school's rifling team.
* Gabriel Urbina has said that the song most representative of Maxwell from her playlist is "There’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow."

## Image gallery

* Dr. Maxwell's character sheet from the Wolf 359 website.
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## External links

* Character biography from wolf359.fm
* Maxwell - Language Mapping, character playlist by wolf359radio

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Language Mapping"
2. ↑ Don't Poke the Bear
3. ↑ A Matter of Perspective
4. ↑ Need to Know
5. ↑ Fire and Brimstone
6. ↑ Urbina, Gabriel. @personalinsanitymoment. "Wolf 359 Character Playlists: MVP Tracks". Reblogged by Zach Valenti: https://iamzachvalenti.tumblr.com/post/150063573071/wolf-359-character-playlists-mvp-tracks. (Archived).
7. ↑ One of Them
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Wolf 359. "Wolf 359 AMA #3" at 1:44:55. *YouTube,* 4 Jan 2017.
9. ↑ Wolf 359. "Wolf 359 AMA #3" at 1:45:14. *YouTube,* 4 Jan 2017.