Who Are The 100?
Essentially, The 100 are a group of juvenile delinquents – to varying degrees – selected to travel from The Ark back to Earth in order to test the theory that the planet might once again be inhabitable.
97 years earlier, humans were forced off the planet when a nuclear disaster turned it toxic – or so the population on The Ark believed. A group of humans took refuge on a series of space stations that eventually joined together to become one giant one. As you can imagine, conditions in space deteriorated slowly over time, forcing the leaders (in this case aptly called ‘the council’) to take desperate measures.
Since every crime on The Ark was a capital crime, punishable by death through the means of ‘floating,’ even the smallest acts of defiance could wind up costing the average citizen their life. Those under 18 were humanely given a grace period before meeting their fate, but once they turned the age of majority, that was that. And, teenagers being teenagers, there were a fair amount of them hanging around the prison sector.
The council chose 100 of these individuals being held in confinement to use as guinea pigs on Earth. They strapped them into a cargo shuttle, accessorized them with bracelets designed to monitor their vitals, and sent them hurtling through space.
On the ground, when everything started to shake out, the group fell under the unofficial leadership of Clarke and Bellamy (Bob Morley). At first, Bellamy (a stowaway, not one of the original 100) tried to bully everyone into following his lead, but after a while, he realized that Clarke offered the 100 a much needed balance.
Don’t get bogged down in the semantics – there aren’t 100 teenagers left when the season wrapped up, or when the transport ship landed on Earth for that matter. And, more importantly, the number isn’t what matters since the writers only highlight a select few in the overall storyline. You may see some familiar faces in peripheral characters, but more or less the key players should be obvious very early on next season.
The remaining members of the 100, unbeknownst to them, will also be joined in season two by the survivors of the Ark who are being led by Clarke’s mother, Abby (Page Turco), and Councilman Kane (Henry Ian Cusick).