Leonard L. Church

Leonard L. Church is the main protagonist from the Red vs Blue web animation.

Church is the angry, de facto leader of the Blood Gulch Blue Team and was later revealed to be Alpha, the original artificial intelligence program created by Project Freelancer. Church, who has an irate disposition, was often used to advance the plot by managing the situation at hand; this in a way makes Church the main protagonist of The Blood Gulch Chroniclesand the deuteragonist in Reconstruction. He is a minor character for the rest of the series with Epsilon taking his place and role, although he's referred to several times later and even returns during Season 14 as a supporting character.

At the end of Reconstruction: Chapter 19, Church is revealed to be based on the personality of the former Director of Project Freelancer, Dr. Leonard Church. The remaining part of Church was Epsilon who, like Church, was voiced by Burns and had similar traits, despite being a fragment.

Personality
Church is, arguably, the most sane out of the Blood Gulch soldiers. He was shown to be somewhat serious about his job and was completely bewildered by the crazy happenings around the canyon. He was completely shocked by the Omega AI's ability to jump from person to person, being sent back and forth in time, Tucker being pregnant and having a baby and Vic calling out of nowhere to give them orders and then instantly hang up. In response to all of these, Church answered in the same manner: yelling in anger and frustration.

Church also has a very angry personality as he hates several characters' traits and is easily annoyed by them, often trying to avoid connecting with them personally. He has been shown to hate generally everyone he meets, or at least dislike them in some manner, mostly due to their completely erratic personalities. After "dying", Church's traits became more noticeable, expressing selfishness as he began to wish that one of the others died and stated "Misery loves company," when knowing the bomb would destroy his body no matter what in Make Your Time.

Additionally, Church seems to absolutely despise ever admitting fault. For example, after being sent backwards and forwards in time, he denied ever attempting to alter the timeline to Caboose, although this might be out of frustration that Caboose of all people was questioning his logic in front of the rest of the Blues, and flatly lied to him in front of his entire team about not even attempting to change anything. He also actively denies any romantic feelings towards Tex, showing he dislikes people being able to read him.

Despite this, Church shows a level of compassion and care for his teammates, most notably towards Tex. He is friendly with Tucker, and shows concern for his well-being, as shown when he called Tucker aside before he left on his "Quest". Because of his logical reasoning, Church holds great leadership and proved to be a selfless individual when he stayed and helped Washington face the Meta at Command, not knowing if he would live or die when the EMP would go off. While Church was a very volatile character, he was at heart, a very caring person.

Abilities
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. It has been stated that the reason he is a terrible is because, when he was fragmented he lost that part of him that he needed to be a good shot. 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 FreelancerProject 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.

Leadership
Despite being a private, a major characteristic of Church is that he's been shown to be a great leader. For example: despite Tucker being higher in rank, Church commonly leads the Blues and has also led the Reds and Blues against O'Malley's final assault. This is also shown in Reconstruction, where he seemingly takes second-in-command under Washington when the teams were pitted against the Meta. It can be assumed that he obtained this trait from the Director, as he leads an advanced military program. According to Tucker in Reconciliation, Church's leadership was him "taking the blame when shit went wrong."

Logic
Church isn't only one of smartest Blood Gulch troopers, but he also has great deal of logical reasoning. Because of this, he has defeated several enemies and even saved the teams from the bomb detonating in Episode 52. His logic is most likely due to the fact that he is the Alpha A.I.

Possession
Due to being an A.I., Church has the ability to possess and take control of anyone. After "dying", Church first demonstrated this ability by possessing Sarge in order to rescue Tex. He has since used this ability to learn vital info, sneak into bases, and even go against Omega in Caboose's mind. Being the Alpha, Church has shown to be much more skilled in possession than other A.I.s, as he completely takes over the host in a few seconds, while O'Malley caused some characters to develop a split-personality, showing they still had some control, and it took Sigma many days, or even months, to take control of Maine.

Trivia

 * Unlike his counterpart Epsilon, Church himself has not been alternatively computer animated, although he is seen in an animated render on the "Churchisms" poster. However, the poster also shows the monitor, suggesting it could be Epsilon instead of Church.
 * However, Church has been shown in 2D animation in Red vs. Blue: Animated.
 * 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).
 * To date, it is unknown what the L. used to represent Church's middle name stands for.
 * 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 an A.I. in a robot's body, or at least a ghost as far as he knew at the time.
 * Despite living in a robot body, Caboose and Tucker claim Church is getting fatter in Season 5.
 * Church is one of the series’ few "smart" characters of the Blood Gulch soldiers (Although, he is the Alpha A.I., as revealed in Reconstruction, so it isn't surprising if he is), the others being Simmons, Lopez, and Tex.
 * 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 Vive la Resolution!, for resolution recommendations for Tex, one reads; "She meant nothing to me," and "How many times do we have to have this argument?" As these memories were ultimately fake due to Church being the Alpha, it is unknown if this history was in any way rooted in the people he and Tex were based on.
 * 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 is Jewish, due to the fact that one of the graves in Everything Old is New Again had a Star of David (a symbol commonly used on Jewish items, including tomb stones). Also in Red vs. Blue: The Musical, all of Church's graves are marked with Stars of David.
 * In Red vs. Blue: The Ultimate Fan Guide, when the Director meets Allison for the first time, he states that his surname is Jewish. This heavily implies that he, and Church by extension, are likely Jewish. (It should be noted, however, that the Alpha idea had likely not been conceived at this point and the gravestones were likely included for comedic effect, as Tucker even notes that the team doesn't even have the tools to bury someone, much less construct them a gravestone.)
 * In the RvB Holiday Special (non-canon), Sarge mentions that next year "Church is going to sing us something about a dreidel," a Jewish item.
 * Alpha is one of four A.I.s, the others being Sigma, Omega, and Epsilon, that can influence his host to the point where he can fully control their actions, such as when he took control of Sarge.
 * When Church was revealed to be an A.I., it was originally stated that 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. This was further established in the Red vs. Blue: The Ultimate Fan Guide, stating that Red Team was also given a robot making kit to mask that Alpha was on blue team. However, in Why They're Here, this was retconned so that Church was unknowingly possessing Pvt. Jimmy, explaining why he stunk.[15]
 * Both Church and Simmons briefly appear in RED vs BLUE, a video by Corridor Digital, with Burnie Burns and Gustavo Sorola reprising their roles.
 * Oddly, In Episode 21, despite hardly ever being able to hit ANYTHING, Church manages to shoot Caboose in the pinkie toe.
 * Church's name comes from a sign in Buda, Texas that simply reads "CHURCH", which Burnie Burns drove by on the day he was deciding on character names.