Antagonists

Every story needs some antagonists and perils that the characters fight. They can be internal and external, focused more on their environment, needs, values.

Glider Ink strives for realism and showing real problems, and these are often much less showy than Hollywood arch-villains. Some of the most important are:

• Communication problems - and group dynamics. When trying to work with any group of people, some traction will appear sooner or later. They can be addressed with some clear communication and proper handling of everyone's emotion, but rarely disappear.
• Value differences - every hacker is different, and damn, they are individualists. Suzanne may be too obsessed about her project, Adam way too proud, Cynic plainly misanthropic. Making decisions together is hard without finding some common ground first.
• Meaning of life - all of the characters are shown at specific snapshots of their lives. They may not know where to go, or how to judge their decisions so far. They may be confused, look for an answer - or trying to escape the reality.

There are groups and values that hackers need to fight for different reasons. Some of them are:

• Ignorance - and the overall lack of caring about how the world around works. This may drive some, like Cynic mad, how ignorant and gullible people are. For some this may be sad, others accept that as a fact of life.
• Power structures - hackers tend to hate those on principle. Be it a corporation, an university, or a government. Anyone trying to stuff people and technology into some stiff categories, ban people from pursuing their curiosity - is a potential enemy.
• Economy - Suzanne knows that she wants to do in life, she just needs money to be able to do it. No one is funding her research, and her parents would much rather see her studying. Robert has given up on a lot of his dreams to support a family. Amanda dreams about a world where people don't need to do pointless jobs to be able to live together in anarchist communes.

• University may be the main antagonist for Suzanne. She feels extremely constrained by the artificial limitations, sexism and distress towards open collaboration. While she isn't one to burn down the Academia, she certainly doesn't feel at home there.