Claude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon, often referred to as Henri de Saint-Simon (17 October 1760, Paris – 19 May 1825, Paris) was a French early socialist theorist whose thought influenced the foundations of various 19th century philosophies; perhaps most notably Marxism, positivism and the discipline of sociology. He was born an aristocrat.

In opposition to the feudal and military system he advocated a form of state-technocratic socialism, an arrangement where industrialists would lead society and found a national community based upon cooperation and technological progress, which would be capable of eliminating poverty of the lower classes. In place of the church, he felt the direction of society should fall to the men of science. Men who are fitted to organize society for productive labour are entitled to rule it.

Saint-Simon was born in Paris as a French aristocrat. Although he was born an aristocrat, the political ideologies he adopted in his later life do not fall into the category that people today consider aristocratic. He belonged to a younger branch of the family of the duc de Saint-Simon. "When he was a young man, being of a restless disposition...he went to America where he entered into American service and took part in the siege of Yorktown under General Washington."

Antony Cyril Sutton (February 14, 1925 – June 17, 2002) was a British-born economist, historian, and writer.

Sutton studied at the universities of London, Göttingen, and California, and received his D.Sc. from the University of Southampton. He was an economics professor at California State University Los Angeles and a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution from 1968 to 1973. During his time at the Hoover Institution he wrote the major study Western Technology and Soviet Economic Development (in three volumes), arguing that the West played a major role in developing the Soviet Union from its very beginnings up until the present time (1970). Sutton argued that the Soviet Union's technological and manufacturing base—which was then engaged in supplying the Viet Cong – was built by United States corporations and largely funded by US taxpayers. Steel and iron plants, the GAZ automobile factory – a Ford subsidiary, located in eastern Russia – and many other Soviet industrial enterprises were, according to Sutton, built with the help or technical assistance of the United States or U.S. corporations. He argued further that the Soviet Union's acquisition of MIRV technology was made possible by receiving (from U.S. sources) machining equipment for the manufacture of precision ball bearings, necessary to mass-produce MIRV-enabled missiles.

Henri-Marie de Lubac, SJ (February 20, 1896 – September 4, 1991) was a French Jesuit priest who became a Cardinal of the Catholic Church, and is considered to be one of the most influential theologians of the 20th century. His writings and doctrinal research played a key role in the shaping of the Second Vatican Council.

Henri de Lubac was born in Cambrai to an ancient, noble family of the Ardèche. He was one of six children; his father was a banker and his mother a homemaker. A born aristocrat in manner and appearance, de Lubac joined the Society of Jesus in Lyon on October 9, 1913. Owing to the political climate in France at the time, the school relocated to St. Leonard’s on Sea, East Sussex, where de Lubac studied before being drafted to the French army in 1914. Following a head wound received at Verdun during the Great War, de Lubac returned to the Jesuits and continued his philosophical studies, first in Canterbury and then in St. Helier, Jersey in 1920. In 1924, following a year’s teaching at the Jesuit College at Mongré, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, de Lubac returned to England and undertook his theological studies at Ore Place in Hastings, East Sussex. In 1926, the theologate was relocated back to Fourvière in Lyons, where de Lubac completed the remaining two years of his theological studies before, in 1929, giving his first lecture at the Theology Faculty of Lyons. He was ordained to the priesthood on August 22, 1927.

Alasdair John Milbank (born 1952, London) is a Christian theologian and the Professor of Religion, Politics and Ethics at the University of Nottingham where he also directs the Centre of Theology and Philosophy. Milbank previously taught at the University of Virginia and before that at the University of Cambridge and the University of Lancaster. He is also Chairman of the trustees of the ResPublica Trust.

Milbank was educated in Britain, studying at both Oxford University and Cambridge University (where he studied under Rowan Williams) before receiving his PhD degree from the University of Birmingham. His dissertation was on the work of Giambattista Vico under the supervision of Leon Pompa. He is married to Alison Milbank, also a lecturer at the University of Nottingham. They have two children.

A key part of the controversy surrounding Milbank concerns his view of the relationship between theology and the social sciences. He argues that the social sciences are a product of the modern ethos of secularism, which stems from an ontology of violence. Theology, therefore, should not seek to make constructive use of secular social theory, for theology itself offers a peaceable, comprehensive vision of all reality, extending to the social and political without the need for a social theory based on some level of violence. (As Contemporary Authors summarises his thought, "the Christian mythos alone 'is able to rescue virtue from deconstruction into violent, agonistic difference.'") Milbank is sometimes described as a metaphysical theologian in that he is concerned with establishing a Christian trinitarian ontology. He relies heavily on aspects of the thought of Plato and Augustine, in particular the former's modification by the Neoplatonist philosophers.

Simon Oliver is the writer of the Wildstorm comic book series Gen¹³ and the Vertigo comic book series The Exterminators and Hellblazer Presents: Chas - The Knowledge.

Growing up in UK Oliver mostly read European comics moving towards some American comics such as Watchmen in the late 80s. Then in the early 90s he lived the Third World for five years, cut off from comics and popular culture in general. Around 2003, while living in Los Angeles and working mostly as an camera assistant, he decided to give writing a try. One of the things he wrote was The Exterminators. Initial planned to be a TV series Oliver quickly realized it wasn't network material and so he took it to the comic book publisher he respected the most. The Exterminators was first published by DC Vertigo in 2006 as an ongoing monthly series.

Oliver became the writer on Wildstorm's Gen¹³ in November 2007.As part of the Hellblazer 20th anniversary publications he wrote a mini-series based on John Constantine's longest surviving friend called, Hellblazer Presents: Chas - The Knowledge.