Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Putin is the ruthless dictatorial President/Prime Minister of Russia. His background as a former agent for the Soviet-era KGB espionage of agency makes him especially suited for engaging in such shady backdoor dealings as those which the covers. He is presented almost as a portrait of a real-life James Bond supervillain wielding so much power and influence as to freely extend the reach of his ambition across the planet.
Rex Tillerson
Rex Tillerson’s background as CEO of ExxonMobil would be enough to allow him to play a starring role in this story, but that is only half his resume. His ascension to the wretched hive of corruption that was the Trump administration in one of the most powerful positions in government—Secretary of State—fuses the potential of having friends in high places with the power afforded by the entire U.S. Government. An ideological perspective fundamentally opposed to business regulation and environmental concerns makes him a dangerous person to be dealing with someone of Putin’s disregard.
Aubrey McClendon
McClendon is the central representative of the line of thinking which runs counter to public figures like Tillerson and Putin. Before driving his luxury SUV into a concrete wall on the day before his scheduled indictment, he was one of the most powerful men in America whose name nobody recognized. Chesapeake Energy made him rich enough to move far beyond caring about any evidence presenting the unsustainability of fracking as a wise business decision.
Austin Holland
Austin Holland is one of those scientists who keeps presenting evidence to the rest of the world of the fundamental nonsensical quality of fracking. He is a seismologist working for the Oklahoma Geological Survey whose initial resistance to connecting “earthquake swarm” with fracking is demolished when the evidence could no longer be denied. Holland is presented as rarity in the debate over fracking: a pure scientist whose conclusions are neither motivated by nor susceptible to the influence of profit.
