Leonard L. Church

"When it goes off, I'll be fine, it only affects computers remember? And I am a motherfuckin' ghost."

- Church's final words in Reconstruction

Private Leonard L. Church, also known as Artificial Intelligence Program Alpha, is a main character in Red vs. Blue. He is voiced by Burnie Burns, co-creator and main writer of the series. He is the de facto leader of the Blood Gulch Blue Team and the Freelancer AI Alpha (revealed in Reconstruction Chapter 16 by Agent Washington). Rooster Teeth often uses Church, who has an irate disposition, to advance the plot by managing the situation at hand, this in a way makes Church the main protagonist of The Blood Gulch Chronicles & Co lead character in Reconstruction, along with Agent Washington. To provide a twist in character development, Burns decided to kill Church early in the series and to return as a ghost. However, this posed filming and post-production challenges for the creators. Church has also been filmed in four different games representing the three different eras of the story. At the end of Reconstruction Chapter 19, Church is finally revealed to be based upon the personality of the former Director of Project Freelancer, Dr. Leonard Church.

Project Freelancer
As the Alpha, he was heard in the episode Planning the Heist, telling the Director of calculations he made. When the Director says the calculations sound correct, Alpha replies by saying it is because the Director and him share the same mind. He then adds, however, that the Director would have made the calculations in a much longer period of time. The two continue to talk, both questioning who is the more arrogant, until Carolina walks in. The Director then orders Alpha to log off. Eventually, more and more A.I. appear, some even ahead of schedule, and they are given to an agent whose personality matches to balance the A.I.'s. The agents eventually begin to question what is being done to create these fragments, and how theirs are beginning to obsess over their "creator."

In Season 10, Alpha is seen being, indirectly, tortured by the Director, the Counselor, and A.I. units Sigma, Omega, and Gamma. During the torturing, Alpha becomes concerned by the fact that he hurt one of his friends and asks his superiors if the information regarding it is true. In response, the Director lies to Alpha by stating that Tex was killed because of him, which greatly saddens the Alpha. During this time, the Director, with the help of Sigma, Gamma, and Omega, extracts Alpha's emotions into a storage unit.

Stationed at Sidewinder
In Out of Mind: Part II, Church was seen at the Freelancer Special Training Facility as a Blue recruit. While there, he talks with Tex about A.I. implantation. Wyoming comes up to them and has him leave. Church nearly tells Tex something but instead merely says to stay safe before going with Pvt. Jimmy. Church was later stationed at Sidewinder with Jimmy and other Blue soldiers. One day, he and Jimmy were sitting around when Tex attacked. She killed all of the other Blues there but left Church alive.

Misadventures in Blood Gulch
Church first appears in Episode 1, spying on the Red Team with his teammate, Tucker. The series establishes Church's disposition quickly; annoyed with Tucker's questions about the Red Team, he responds, "You know what? I fucking hate you." As Donut, the Red Team's new recruit arrives, they meet their own rookie, Caboose, and their new tank. When they first meet, Church becomes annoyed with Caboose for his nonstop talking but this is only the start of this when Caboose calls his girlfriend a cow and sends him to guard the flag. When Donut arrives on a fool's errand, Church thinks he is Caboose and tells him to go inside, thus leading to Dount taking the Blue Team's flag in Episode 4. Church proceeds to chase him. As he and Tucker catch up with Donut, they are ambushed by Simmons and Grif in the Warthog and are forced to take shelter behind a boulder. When Caboose arrives with Sheila, they are scared off. However, Caboose, the Blue Team rookie, loses control of Sheila, the Blue Team's tank, and accidentally kills Church.

Church reappears as a "ghost" in Episode 10 to warn his teammates about Tex, the Freelancer hired by Blue Command, who killed all of his fellow Blues in Sidewinder (including Private Jimmy and Private Mickey) before fading away. Tex retrieves the Blue flag in Episode 12 but is captured by the Reds. Church reappears and explains that Tex is his former girlfriend, now under the control of an evil, psychotic artificial intelligence program. He rescues Tex in Episode 14 by possessing Sarge, though he is shot in the head by Caboose who was trying to 'help.' He then has a brief conversation with Sarge in the 'afterlife.' In an attempt to slow Tex's progress so that he can remove the AI from her head, he attempts to warn the Reds of Tex's second attack by possessing the Reds' Spanish-speaking robot, Lopez, in the season finale of Episode 19. However, he is unable to warn them because he can only speak Spanish. He fails, and Tex dies at Donut's hands. Church runs over to her and is thanked for removing the AI.

Conflict With O'Malley
In Season 2, set three months later, Church is still attempting to adjust to his stolen robot body. Eventually, however, he loses control when the body is damaged so he leaves it, to see if Lopez will repair himself. At the end of Episode 29, Tex (as a ghost) takes control of Lopez's body. She uses it as a bargaining chip to convince Church to help her destroy her evil AI, O'Malley.

O'Malley had possessed Caboose just before her death. When the team learns of this, Church and Tex remove him from Caboose's Mind. In the process, O'Malley escapes into a medic named Doc. Using a captured Donut as leverage, Church forces Sarge, the Red Team leader to build permanent robot bodies for Tex and himself. However, Sarge installs a bomb inside Church's body. It explodes in Episode 43 and sends all the characters into the future except Church, who is sent into the distant past.

In Episode 50 and Episode 51, Church travels to his recent past and attempts to prevent the events of the first two seasons. The situation is revealed as a predestination paradox, in which he causes not only the events of the first and second seasons, but also the death of his former captain, Captain Butch Flowers. Eventually, Church manages to break the time loop and to travel forward in time to join the other characters.

Return to Blood Gulch
Later in Season 3, Church and the Blues meet Andy, a talking, sentient bomb built by Tex. Church attempts to learn more about a prophecy from a computer, Gary, that he first encountered in the distant past. Episode 57, the last of Season 3, ends as Church, unaware that a creature is approaching him, responds to Gary's knock-knock joke with "Who's there?" Episode 58 reveals that Church has been scared out of his body. After recovering his body, Church meets the alien and learns about his quest, which involves Tucker's sword. After his teammates leave to help the alien in his quest, Church returns to Blood Gulch in Episode 68. He saves Simmons from execution by Sarge, assuming leadership over him. Church takes the Red Team's jeep before Simmons returns to the Reds.

In Episode 71, Church accidentally contacts Vic Jr. via radio. This new character scoffs at the mention of Blue Command; as the episode ends, he says that he has much to tell, but the information is not revealed to the viewer. After Tucker, Caboose, and Andy return to Blood Gulch in Episode 73, Tucker becomes ill for an unknown reason, and Church calls Doc for help. In Episode 76, Doc reveals that Tucker is pregnant, but Church refuses to believe him until he learns from Andy that the Alien impregnated Tucker with a parasitic embryo. Church then returns to the Blue Base to help Tucker. When the ship that Blue Command sends to Blood Gulch crashes, he claims it as his own, threatening the Reds with Sheila. However, Sheila abruptly leaves, forcing Church to abandon the ship. In Episode 80 Church meets Junior for the first time, and quickly says that he should be killed. Believing the Reds may have reinforcements or weapons on the ship, he unsuccessfully attempts to contact Vic Jr.

Some time after, however, Grif brings over Sister who was the new recruit on the Red Team, explaining that she is actually a Blue, and Church accepts her as part of the Blue Team. Following this, Church, with Caboose and a newly-returned Tex in tow, attempts to fix Sheila by rebooting her; when turning her back on proves to be impossible, he makes the decision to move her into the ship.

While moving Sheila into the ship, Vic contacts Church and orders them to kill the Reds. Church sends Doc, Sister, and Junior through the caves as per the orders, and he infiltrates Red Base with Tex and Tucker. After a brief search of the base, they find it empty. Tex is contacted by Caboose and, after an unheard conversation, points her gun at Church demanding that O'Malley not move. Church quickly learns that Caboose and Sheila identified O'Malley as inside the Blue leader, which cannot be him as he was never officially promoted. He then accurately guesses that the real host of O'Malley is a revived Captain Butch Flowers.

Church, Tex, and Tucker are soon ambushed by Wyoming and Gamma, who has now taken control of the tank. They manage to escape with the help of Tucker figuring out Wyoming's time distortion routine.



Unfortunately, they are once again attacked by Wyoming's clones, due to the effect of the time distortion unit, and Church is nearly shot by Gamma. The Reds arrive and eliminate the Wyoming clones in their Warthog, leaving one left. The last Wyoming tells Church, Tucker, and Tex about Omega's plan to infect Junior; a plan Tex is a part of. As a result, Tex kills the last Wyoming, knocks down Church to prevent him from stopping her, and activates her radio in order to be infected. When Omega infects Caboose, Tex and Church follow him into Caboose's Mind. There, Church knocks Omega and Tex out of Caboose's mind with mental Tucker's sword. When Church escapes, Caboose tells him that Tex took Tucker's sword, Junior, and Wyoming's helmet and put them on the ship, shocking Church. With Omega infecting every person, he eventually infects Church, who states that he doesn't feel different. Tex knocks him down and Omega infects her. She leaves Blood Gulch in the Pelican with her necessities onboard.



With nothing else to do, Church and the Blues return to base. At Blue base, Caboose asks Church if he ever wonders why they're here. Church replies "It's not about hating the guy on the other side because someone told you to. I mean, you should hate someone because they're an asshole or a pervert or snob or they're lazy or an idiot or a know-it-all. Those are reasons to dislike somebody. You don't hate a person because someone told you to. You have to learn to despise people on a personal level. Not because they're red or because they're blue but because ya know them and you see them every single day. And you can't stand them because they're a complete and total fucking douchebag." Caboose then corrects him, stating that he simply wanted to know why they were in the sun when they could be in the shade. Church, realizing what he meant, agrees to go stand in the shade with Caboose.

New Mission
In Reconstruction, Church first appears in Chapter 4, having been relocated to Outpost 48-A. Despite the fact that Church had tried desperatly to keep Caboose away from him, Caboose, along with Agent Washington, manages to track him down. Although Church was not interested in joining Washington at first, when he learns that O'Malley is involved and Tex's ship has been located, he reluctantly joins Washington and Caboose on their mission. Church is quickly able to work alongside Wash; however, he is still extremely displeased about having to be on the same team with Caboose again. Together they are engaged in several missions against the Meta. They eventually encounter the Meta at Zanzibar but are soon ambushed by the Reds and Caboose is attacked by the Meta. The Reds and the Blues cease their fighting when the Meta soon starts attacking the Reds (specifically Grif) but is forced to flee when Washington intervened. Church is later forced to enter the mind of a comatose Caboose in order to find out what's wrong with him. Within Caboose's mind, Church encounters a memory fragment of Delta, who gives him a message, "Memory is the key."

Discovering the Truth


In Chapter 11, he finally reveals to Washington that he is a ghost. Church tells Wash the message and the team soon find themselves scavenging for a vehicle at Valhalla. While there, Church investigates the Valhalla Blue base for Tex, but Wash informs him that she is long gone. After obtaining a vehicle, Church and the rest of the group make it to Command. Washington and Church pair up and enter the Freelancer AI Containment Facility, where they find a storage unit for Wash's AI Epsilon. In Chapter 16, Washington reveals to Church that he is the Alpha AI, a secret even he didn't know about. He refuses to believe this, pointing out to Wash he still believes himself to be 'a motherfuckin' ghost.' At the end of Chapter 19, it is revealed that he was modeled and named after the Director of Project Freelancer (which would explain why he is such a poor fighter, as Doctor Leonard Church never fought in the war) and was caught in an EMP blast meant to wipe out all of the A.I. present.

Alpha


Agent Washington has stated that Alpha is/was a "smart" AI, which would make it similar to Cortana. Now, however, it's current state is that of Church, in which many of the personality traits (including but not limited to rage, deception, logic, empathy, and creativity) have been separated into alternate AIs for field use. Personality traits of individual AIs may or may not have been copied from Alpha, as they could either be side-effects of being copied or of rampancy. After several Freelancers attempted to steal Alpha, it was sealed away in an undisclosed location. After Church entered in Caboose's mind and received Delta's message of "Memory is the key," Washington quickly formulated a plan to stop the Meta. He informed the Reds and Blues that they were going to Command to steal the Alpha, as its memories were the only thing that could stop the Meta. However, he later revealed to Church that it was the memories of Epsilon that they were seeking. Washington revealed that as the war between humans & aliens continued, things were not looking good for the humans. As a result, dozens of projects were beginning to commence in order to find the 'magic bullet to win' and turn the tide; one of these projects being Project Freelancer. Project Freelancer researched soldiers with agressive AI. However, they could only get one and they needed more to conduct their experiments. Because the AIs were based on human minds, the Director of Project Freelancer (Dr. Leonard Church) came up with a theory: spiltting up one A.I. instead of copying it, in order to make more.

The Director tortured the Alpha to the point where it isolated certain aspects of its personality to preserve its sanity. These fractured traits were then harvested and refined into "purified, compartmentalized emotion," creating additional AI. Washington also explained that no AI was a complete personality; that each was an aspect of Alpha that it attempted to preserve or a negative emotion from the result of its treatment. Delta represented Alpha's logic, Omega represented its rage, Gamma represented its deceit, and Sigma represented its creativity. Eventually, the Alpha had to abandon its memories to remain sane and thus created Epsilon. In order to keep the fragmented AIs and their assigned Freelancers from finding the Alpha, it was hidden in a place where no one would ever think to look: a backwater canyon in the middle of nowhere.

Burnie Burns confirmed in an interview that Alpha Church died in the EMP, though this is offset by the fact that a figure of Alpha Church comments on his legacy with Tex, though he does say he is dead. However, the scenes in the trailer featuring Tex and Church were non-canon and were used to promote the revival of Church in Recreation. Church was resurrected in The Installation by Caboose using Epsilon and a monitor. More information about Epsilon is here.

Kills
Most of Church's kills are the result of the time loop. He also tried to kill Donut and Caboose with his sniper rifle many times but he would often miss. He accidentally killed his captain, Butch Flowers, while trying to save him from a "heart attack" and he nearly killed Tucker with a rocket launcher. He indirectly killed himself by messing with Sheila's programming.

Angry Personality
From the outset, Rooster Teeth establishes that Church is often angry. Burns has said that, in this way, Church was modeled after Gustavo Sorola, who voices the character Simmons. At the time, Sorola was frustrated with his job. To emphasize this trait, Caboose, for whom Rooster Teeth did not have a plan originally, was basically "a catalyst for getting Church pissed off." When Church and Tex explore Caboose's Mind as ghosts, Caboose's mental image of Church, Leonard, is portrayed as over-the-top, vulgar, and Caboose's best friend. During season 1, Rooster Teeth made a conscious decision to reduce vulgarity in Red vs. Blue, partly inspired by Homestar Runner and partly in response to requests to make the videos safe for work. However, response to this change was worse, and Leonard's excessive vulgarity was Rooster Teeth's response to criticism that they had eliminated too much foul language. In the audio commentary for the Season 4 DVD, Rooster Teeth has noted, however, that they had portrayed Church as less angry in later episodes.

Leadership
One of Church's most telling characteristics is how he can take command of whatever group he's in. Although not a captain as he would like everyone to think, when Church gives out orders to the rest of his team they will usually follow him without complaint. At the end of Season 3, Church managed to get every one in Blood Gulch to agree to work together. In Reconstruction, instead of being the sole leader, Church acted as a co-leader with Agent Washington, as both give out orders during combat. Considering that his template was the leader of a military program with many soldiers, it can be assumed that Church got this trait from the Director.

Firing Accuracy
Church often wields a sniper rifle, but mainly for observation purposes, since he is a very poor shot, a fact which has been demonstrated on numerous occasions. He has had only 2 successful shots during the span of the series with the rifle: The first was shooting Wyoming in the crotch in Episode 98, much to his surprise and delight; however, technically this shot didn't happen due to a time-loop caused by Wyoming; the other time, the bullet ricocheted off several structures, miraculously wounding the Meta. He was also able to shoot off Caboose's pinky toe from a distance with a magnum.

Frequently, Church is a terrible shot, with no real excuse for his lack of skill, save for lack of practice. He has missed Caboose on numerous occasions, Donut during his return to Blood Gulch in season 3, and Doc/O"Malley near the end of Season 4, even when they were standing perfectly still, and only a relatively short distance away.

Church's accuracy with weapons tends to fluctuate from having exceptional skill to having none at all. He failed to hit a Freelancer Project guard with multiple pistol shots at close range during his and Washington's infiltration of the Freelancer command in Reconstruction Chapter 15. In contrast, Church has been able to make a few incredible shots, the most noteworthy being his missile assault on the Meta. Despite targeting an incredibly agile foe and taking only a moment to aim, Church's shot not only was dead on, but it was clearly a perfectly centered head shot. In the Old Annoyance Be Forgot special he proves capable of hitting three tiny Christmas baubles hanging on the Reds' tree from a considerable distance away. Also, in the Fight, Fight! alternate ending to the Blood Gulch chronicles, although non-canon, he not only kills Sarge with a sniper shot after the latter taunts him about Tex's death, but kills Simmons with a perfect headshot after he unwittingly does the same, perhaps indicating that Church can make these kinds of shot if he is angry enough.

"Death"


Being dead has sparked a number of developments in Church's character. At first, it only added to Church's irate personality. Though his abilities as a ghost have proven useful, as Church has no intention of remaining a ghost and merely focuses on maintaining his possession of his new robot body. Due to his long possession of his body, Church seems to forget that he's dead sometimes, often expressing acts of fear or self-preservation in dangerous situations as though he still had a life to lose. In Season 3, Church finally forgave Sheila for killing him, as he accidentally caused it by turning Sheila’s Friendly Fire Protocol off, but becomes annoyed again when she apologizes for enjoying it so much.

Filming
In the commentary for Season 1 DVD, Burns recalls that he decided to have Church killed in episode 8 because he thought that having a dead character return as a ghost would give that character more personality. However, this plot twist made filming more difficult. To achieve the transparency effect, Rooster Teeth filmed the scene once with Church and once without him. The video from the two takes was then dissolved together. However, this process caused other characters in the scene to appear transparent as well. To correct this, they had to be edited back in as fully opaque at the end. Sometimes, Rooster Teeth forgot to shoot the second take before moving to the next scene. As it was nearly impossible to return to the exact camera position, this required the entire scene to be filmed twice more. Another complication was that dissolution worked poorly against certain backgrounds. A fan soon pointed out that Poor Camo could be used. For the robot that Caboose implants Epsilon into, the players simply entered the Forge aspect of Halo 3 Multiplayer and used the Forge Monitor as the Epsilon-Church.

Voice Acting
When Burns decided to have Church possess other characters as a ghost, he debated whether he should attempt to sound like the character, or have the other character's voice actor attempt to sound like Church. When the possession occurs in Episode 14, he found that having Hullum tweak his Southern accent normally used for Sarge was too complicated and thus attempted to sound like Sarge during the possession. On the other hand, he found that attempting to mimic Donut's voice result in a voice too similar to the one used for Vic; as such, when he had Church possess Donut in Episode 37, he merely used Church's voice.

Other Rooster Teeth personnel have commented that some sound effects that Burns made while voicing Church were noticeably exaggerated. In commenting on Episode 6, Geoff Ramsey, who voices the character Grif, noted the heavy breathing that Church makes while running. Another sound that Rooster Teeth noted was a grunt made while jumping off a ledge in Episode 33.

Trivia

 * Despite holding a sniper rifle all the time, Church seems to miss nearly every shot with it, unless he's lucky or by accident.
 * Whenever Church actually manages to line up a shot, something always renders it irrelevant (either he shoots something unimportant or a temporal loop/distortion gets in the way).
 * For some unknown reason Church is afraid of sickness. This is revealed in season 4 when Tucker was "sick" and Church was too afraid to go into Blue Base and find out what was wrong with Tucker instead being content with sending in Andy instead, despite the fact that he was still ghost in a robot's body, or at least a ghost as far as he knew at the time.
 * In a similar manner to being afraid of getting sick, Church is afraid of dying ( An example of this is Church being afraid to be killed when the bomb is inside him, which he could have been easily saved from if he had left his body), though this might be a fear of having to get a new body.
 * Despite living in a robot body, Caboose and Tucker claim Church is getting fatter in Season 4.
 * In Human Peer Bonding, Caboose calls Church a gay robot. Ironically, unbeknowest to him, Church was inhabiting a robot's body at the time, though he is not gay.
 * Out of all the characters in The Blood Gulch Chronicles, apart from Tex, Church seems to know the most about the Freelancer program. He knew that command was putting A.I.s into agents' heads and heard of Washington going insane. No one else in the series seems to be even aware that the freelancers have A.I.s or armor enhancements. It is most likely that Church had heard rumors about it before Tex told him about the armor enhancements. Church seems to have known and even met some of the other freelancers such as Wyoming and New York. This may be because he is the Alpha, a copy of the former Director of Project Freelancer.
 * While Church was revealed to be an A.I, the body he possessed before Caboose killed him wasn't biological, even though Tucker claims it stunk; Burnie Burns confirmed in the Jenga Jam interview that Church's first body was in fact robotic and Tucker's comment was just a joke.
 * Church is one of the series’ few "smart" characters and is probably even above average intelligence (Although he is the Alpha AI, as revealed in Reconstruction, so it isn't surprising if he is). This may explain why he is annoyed so often at the stupidity with the idiots he must deal with, although he will find just about any good reason to dislike someone.
 * One possible reason that Church and Tex broke up may be because of unfaithfulness. Church once mentioned to Tucker that Tex would often steal his money and sleep with other men. Also, in a P.S.A. for new year's resolutions, for resolution recommendations for Tex, one reads; "She meant nothing to me," and "How many times do we have to have this argument?"
 * If deleted scenes are counted, Church has died 13 times.
 * Considering Church is the Alpha AI, and the Alpha AI has not been seen since the EMP blast at the end of Reconstruction (unless one counts his appearance in the Recreation trailer), it can be assumed that he was destroyed in the blast. Regardless of any "memory connection" between the Alpha and Epsilon, Epsilon is only one part of Church, thus meaning the original Alpha/Church is actually dead.
 * Despite generally hating him, Church became genuinely sad, and angry when Caboose is killed in an attempt to save him and Tucker from Wyoming during Same Old, Same Old.
 * It could be possible that Church (or Tex) is either Jewish or Christian, due to the fact that one of their graves had a cross and the other had a Star of David (a symbol commonly used on Jewish items, including tomb stones) in Everything Old is New Again.