Simon Fairchild

Simon Fairchild
Aliases	Many
Affiliation	The Vast The Fairchild Family
Biographical information
Status	unknown (possibly deceased)
Gender	Male
Pronouns	He/him
Meta information
Voice Actor	Karim Kronfli
First Mention	Freefall
First Appearance	Big Picture

Simon Fairchild is an avatar of The Vast and the head of the Fairchilds.

Description

Simon Fairchild is an old man, described as pushing 100 years and as "a tiny, pink skeleton of a man". He walks with a cane, although he does not actually need one. Personality-wise, Simon consistently puts up the facade of a friendly and charming old man even when being threatening or malicious, something even his enemies have noted.

History

In a statement he gives to Martin, Simon reveals that he is hundreds of years old. He was apprenticed to the Venetian painter Tintoretto before he became an avatar of The Vast, which puts his birth somewhere in the mid-1500s.

In the 1930s, a con artist and fence used the name Simon Fairchild on several business listings. This was not his real name but one of many aliases. He was at one point thrown out a 4th story window by an irate customer into a crowded street in midday, however none of the people on the other side reported seeing him fall. In 2012, a jewellery shop in Hackney that he had owned reported cases being cracked in the night as if a heavy weight had been dropped upon them.

The following appearances all precede the person in contact with the Fairchild(s) having an experience with The Vast.

In the early 2000s, Robert Kelly took a job as a skydiving instructor for a company named "Open Skydiving", though no official records indicate its existence except a few news articles in late 2000. One of his fellow flight instructor colleagues was Harriet Fairchild. In June 2002, an 85-year old man named Simon, presumably Simon Fairchild, was doing a tandem jump with Harriet supposedly for charity in memory of his wife. Right before Harriet and Simon jumped out of the plane, Simon turned to Robert and shouted something that may have been "enjoy sky blue", causing him to feel a rush of dizziness. Harriet greeted Robert when he landed.

In August 2006, Simon Fairchild paid a large amount of money to a diving company to dive down in a dangerous place to a sunken boat called the Maria Fairchild, which he claimed to be his great-grandfather's. He shouted something indistinct at the divers just before they went into the water.

Pinnacle Aerospace, majority-owned by the Fairchild family, was a member of the Stratosphere Group that launched the space station Daedalus in 2007. A Mr. Fairchild, presumably Simon, interviewed one of the astronauts, Jan Kilbride, mentioning his psychiatric profile a few times in the interview.

In 2012, an old man presumed to be Simon Fairchild got into a cable car in Austria with two other passengers, and jumped out of it partway through the ride, dramatically winking at one of them.

In 2018, Simon is sent to the Archives to answer any questions that Martin has about The Extinction, due to a bet lost with Peter Lukas and because Peter does not like answering questions.

After The Change, Simon Fairchild rules over his domain, The Great Beast. He encounters John and Martin on their trek to London and escapes before The Archivist can kill him.

When the world changes back, however, Simon does not fare so well: avatars are now powerless and he is found and attacked by people who are understandably angry at him. It is unclear if he survives this event.

Known Powers

• The Vast - Simon Fairchild is able to send people into The Vast at will.
• Flight - After The Change, Simon is implied to have some sort of ability to fly, which he presumably uses to watch over his enormous domain. Based on sound effects, Simon uses this ability when he encounters John and Martin, as well as when he escapes before The Archivist can kill him. Whether he had this ability before The Change or if he can actually fly or instead "teleports" by travelling through The Vast is unclear.
• Extreme Durability - Simon noted that his ritual failing in 1860 entailed him being sent plummeting to the bottom of the ocean, an event which he presumably survived unimpeded. In the present day, Simon is capable of surviving titanic falls and producing craters completely unharmed.

Episode Appearances

Note: episodes where the Fairchild family is mentioned as a whole are not listed

Bold marks episodes where Simon has given a statement.

Trivia

• In the post season 5 Q&A, part 3, Jonny Sims states that Simon was killed by people throwing him off something high.