Ellen

Ellen
Purpose:	To help evolved humans escape being captured
First appearance	The Agent
Known leader:	Leona Mills
Known members:	Victor and Valerie

Ellen is the name given for the underground railway used to smuggle evolved humans away from danger.

Heroes Evolutions

The Agent

In chapter 5 of The Agent, the government picks up messages that tell them about "ELLEN", the underground movement that is helping evolved humans escape their grasp.

In chapter 6 of The Agent, Anna Korolenko tells Rachel that she helps Ellen whenever she can and that LAWR is sort of a sub-group for Ellen. She also tells her that Howie Kaplan should never have sent the message because now, the government knows about Ellen and is seeking to destroy it.

In chapter 8 of The Agent, after Rachel saves Abe and his followers, she watches as they are loaded into a truck that has a strange symbol on it. She remembers the symbol from her dreams and Anna tells her that it is Ellen's mark. The truck drives away and Anna shows Rachel a message she has received, telling her that Ellen is in trouble. Rachel sees that Ellen's danger involves hundreds of cries for help and Anna tells her that she has to go and help them.

In chapter 10 of The Agent, Anna speaks with Linda Niles, who assumes that Anna is the "A" in LAWR. She introduces herself as "L" and says that Victor and Valerie make up the "W" and that Rachel is the "R", although she does not know it. Linda explains that LAWR helps Ellen and Anna asks exactly what Ellen is. Linda smiles and says that they are Ellen. She tells her that Ellen started with her, LN, and was created by Rebel. She says that as more and more people stood out as heroes who helped the fugitives, Howie nicknamed five members LAWR. Later, when government agents swarm the circus, Anna tries to communicate with Rebel. Linda tells her not to bother as now that Ellen has been exposed, it is useless to Rebel.

In chapter 11 and chapter 12 of The Agent, Rachel is given the task to cripple Ellen by killing its leader, Linda Niles. When Linda takes her own life, Ellen is destroyed.

Symbol

The symbol for Ellen is described as a hammer surrounded by four stars. In an interview, digital writer Tom Inkel explained that the symbol consists of a vertical hammer with stars at diagonals. "It looks a bit like the Shoo Fly or Bear's Claw patterns that people used to put on quilts to signal slaves using the Underground Railroad during the Civil War." In an email, he further clarified that the layout should be a "blocky hammer with a square of stars...The symbol was never actually made into a quilt, it just bears similarities to the Civil War quilts. Most of the time, the fugitives just drew it like scratches on the wall, like the symbols drifters would use to mark the houses of people according to their generosity."

Additionally, there was originally a scrapped idea for fans to upload an artist's rendering of the symbol. This was to be part of a larger project which assigned tasks to fans to submit art based on a detail mentioned in the story, and the best art would have appeared in future chapters.

Trivia

• The name "Ellen" is derived from Linda Niles's initials, L. N.

See Also

• For other uses of Ellen, see Ellen (disambig).