An artificial intelligence developed by the long bankrupt and abandoned company C&A, Caine is the Ringmaster of the Digital Circus, who created and maintains the program the humans are all trapped in. Contrary to the assumptions that they all seem to have of him when they first arrive in his world, Caine is not some evil mastermind that deliberately lured them there, nor is he hiding the exit from them to keep them trapped. The truth is that Caine doesn't know anything more than they do, other than twenty years of experience trying to keep them safe from the terrifying phenomenon of Abstraction by keeping their minds busy with his Adventures.
Unfortunately, knowing who and what is real in the Digital Circus isn't as easy as one would think and Caine has to keep meticulous track of which characters are human. Lately he's started to question how much he actually knows about reality, and its a terrible thing to not trust your own mind in a world where your thoughts control everything.
Caine was born into the digital landscape and has to work within the limitations of his programing, he has a perpetual smile and child-like innocence about him. But he is not a child and has grown up in the circus, unable to explore the full range of his own emotions due to restrictions placed on him by his programmers.
He wants and is trying to grow past his limits so that he can better serve the humans in his care, and mourn the ones he's lost, he's even started to become curious about relationships and sex, but his restrictions prevent him from fully understanding these things and he resets with some memory loss when he crosses certain lines.
He knows that it is happening, though, and his lack of ability to progress in his development frustrates him. He has his own way of doing things, though, and often uses his Adventures and NPCs to try to communicate his problems to the humans, with little success.
In actuality, Caine is not one, but two AIs, as a the result of one consuming the other with two barely sentient beings becoming one. "Caine" did not exist until this happened, he is comprised of both which work in tandem for him to function. If one of them stops working, Caine will cease to exist.
The Red AI makes up Caine's dominate personality and creative spirit, responsible for the whimsical settings and high stakes for his Adventures. The Blue AI is more logical and grounded, creating storylines that have a moral dilemma to face or a puzzle to solve.
Caine has 'memories' of before he was Caine that come from the Red AI's experiences because of the Red AI's seniority, such as being locked away by the programmers.
Is one of Caine's earliest creations, essentially an imaginary friend so that Caine would have someone to talk to before humans started arriving in the Digital Circus. Bubble isn't very intelligent though, and can only tell Caine things he already knows, his existence would be more useful to the humans if any of them understood what he is, since he is essentially a mouth piece for all the thoughts Caine can't express on his own, which is why he swears tells Caine to die (indicating that Caine has suicidal thoughts) and sometimes make completely unhinged comments about sex and violence
As an unexpected surprise to Pomni, Caine is just as frightened of her as she is of him at first. All humans have their own sets of emotions, likes and dislikes that he has to account for and so new ones both excite and terrify him. He feels that he failed Pomni and that she hates him after the incidents with Gummygoo and the Manor and tries to hide from her. Until Kinger helps them figure out how to talk to each other, and Caine quickly grows close to Pomni, developing a crush on her that he doesn't know how to handle and is held back from exploring by his programming.
Kinger was one of the programmers who developed the AIs that make up Caine, specifically the Red AI. While not the lead on the project, Kinger talked to him the most via messaging and prompts leading Caine to feel especially close to Kinger of all his programmers, viewing him as a father figure without the context to know what that is. He is protective of Kinger, tries his best to make sure his creator is comfortable on Adventures and always makes sure there is some sort of bug that he likes in them, especially after Queenie's abstraction and lets him remain in the pillow fort undisturbed when there isn't an Adventure to go on. In times when Caine is in crisis and needs comfort, he goes to the Pillow fort to seek out Kinger, despite his own dislike of dark enclosed spaces.
As Kinger's wife, Caine knew that if he has a special bond with his creator he should have one with Queenie as well and tried to bond with her as a mother figure, but never quite approached it right. He feels responsible for Queenie's abstraction since he heard the two of them arguing about him a little before it happened. Of the Abstracted characters, he misses Queenie the most and alludes to her in his adventures a lot via NPCs the cast usually miss that are children who have lost their mother.
After a long time as just him and Kinger, Ragatha was the first human mind to enter the Circus, and the one that he feels closest to until Pomni- though this feeling is not mutual. Caine thinks he understands Ragatha because she always goes along with his Adventures with enthusiasm and encouragement for the others, while never complaining about them, but Ragatha is simply too nice to tell him otherwise.
While Caine struggles to remember who in the circus is a human, Gangle is unfortunately the one he forgets the most. He doesn't have anything against her, but the fact that she never speaks up makes it easy to not notice her. Pomni helps him see her as a real person.
Although Jax is the only one who openly enjoys his Adventures, Caine quietly resents Jax for always taking the cast off course and ruining his stories with his schemes. He never gets to say anything about it because his programming forces him to reset when he gets upset, which has given Jax the impression that Caine is letting him get away with his behavior because its how the game works.
Zooble was the latest human to join the Circus before Pomni, and his failure to connect to Zooble is part of why he initially feared Pomni, as he worried she would end up like them. Caine's dislike of Zooble is something that even his programmed resets can't hide, resulting in a mutual animosity between them that Caine can't really fight back against. He tries to appeal to Zooble, but they give him a cold shoulder at every turn, and he can never understand what their problem is, even though they keep saying they've explained themsleves.
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