Lincoln's Faction

Lore & Background

Lincoln arrives on the surface as a Grounders, a member of a scattered, survival-driven people who have made the irradiated Earth their home. Unlike the rigid hierarchies of the Skaikru or the political maneuvering of the Ark, the Grounders operate on smaller, more personal units. Lincoln quickly distinguishes himself not as a chief or a speaker but as the one who steps in front of the blade. His faction, in the loosest sense, is the group of people who trust him to do exactly that, season after season.

As the series progresses and the political landscape fractures—Jaha's rise, the Skaikru schism, the Reapers' threat—Lincoln's allegiances shift. He fights alongside the Night Skaikru, returns to the Ark, and repeatedly re-forms his small band of trusted fighters. What remains constant is the code: protect the people beside you, fight dirty if necessary, and never surrender a friend to the enemy. This code becomes the de facto ideology of his faction, binding together characters from wildly different backgrounds—Grounders, Skaikru, Ark-born—into a single unit of mutual trust.

The faction's greatest strength is also its vulnerability. Because it is built on personal loyalty rather than institutional power, it is always at the mercy of larger forces. Lincoln's circle is repeatedly scattered, captured, or forced into impossible choices. Yet each time, the bond reasserts itself, proving that in the shattered world of The 100, the smallest unit of power is not a nation or a station but a handful of people who refuse to let each other fall.

In Their Own Story

The rain hadn't stopped for three days, and the trench they'd dug behind the collapsed overpass was more of a suggestion than a shelter. Lincoln sat with his back against the wet concrete, sharpening a blade that had no business being sharp, watching the tree line where the Reapers' scouts had last been spotted. Bellamy was two meters to his left, jaw tight, counting the seconds between heartbeats like a man trying to solve a math problem that had no answer. Jasper slept—or pretended to—with his arms wrapped around a rifle that wasn't loaded. Octavia stood watch at the far end, her face half-hidden by the hood of a scavenged coat, and she hadn't blinked in eleven minutes.

"They'll come back," Octavia said. Not a question.

"Let them," Lincoln replied, and the ease in his voice was the kind that made Bellamy want to strangle him. "I'm not the one they're looking for."

"You're the one they remember."

Lincoln smiled. It wasn't a happy smile. It was the smile of a man who had already decided what he'd do, and the decision had made the rest of the world very small. He set the blade aside, stood, and cracked his neck. "Then we'd better make sure they remember us the right way."

Jasper's eyes opened. Bellamy stopped counting. And in the grey, dripping dark, the four of them moved as one.

Reader's Guide

Lincoln's Faction has no single founding moment, charter, or named leader in the way the Grounders or the Skaikru do. It is an organic, recurring coalition that forms whenever Lincoln and his closest allies are separated from larger political structures. In Season 1, it is simply the 100 plus a handful of Grounders who choose to fight alongside them. By Season 3, it hardens into a small war-band operating between the Grounders' territory and the Skaikru's reach, with Bellamy and Lincoln functioning as co-leaders in all but name.

Leadership is informal and situational. Lincoln takes point in combat; Bellamy handles strategy and logistics; Octavia, in later seasons, provides political and emotional cohesion. There is no council, no elected chief. Decisions are made by consensus in the field, often in seconds, and the hierarchy dissolves the moment the threat passes.

The faction's ideology is anti-institutional: trust is earned in blood, not assigned by birth or station. This puts it in constant tension with the Skaikru's rigid caste system and the Ark's bureaucratic command structure. It also makes it fragile—when its members are pulled apart by larger loyalties, the faction simply ceases to exist until the next crisis reassembles it.

Across Seasons 4 through 7, the group is repeatedly broken up by the Skaikru schism, the Reapers' invasion, and the Ark's return. Each time it reforms, it is smaller, scarred, and more desperate. Its final iteration in Season 7 is a handful of survivors with nothing left to lose, operating outside every government on the surface and in orbit. It never gains territory, never raises a flag. It simply endures, and that endurance is its legacy.

Did You Know?

• Lincoln's faction is never given an official name, banner, or territory in the series—it exists purely as a relational bond between characters, making it unique among The 100's many groups.
• The group's composition shifts every season, pulling in members from the Grounders, the Night Skaikru, and the Ark, effectively making it the show's most cross-ideological unit.
• Lincoln's leadership style is consistently depicted as reactive and protective rather than strategic or political, contrasting sharply with Bellamy's more calculated approach and Jaha's long-game maneuvering.
• The faction's recurring pattern of forming, shattering under external pressure, and re-forming mirrors the show's broader theme that community in The 100's world is a choice made repeatedly, not a permanent state.