Emmanuel Desjardins

Emmanuel Desjardins is a higher-ranking member of the Alterra Corporation, overseeing the operations of Sector Zero workers from his office on Delta Island and reporting directly to Alterra headquarters.

Emmanuel has full faith in Alterra, and is exactly the sort of person who they'd want in charge of their projects: A man with a singleminded focus on his career, to the point that he projects it onto everyone else. Even his partner isn't exempt, and he explicitly states that he finds Davide most attractive when he is successful in his career. Love is just another transaction to Emmanuel.

He is implicitly presented as the most important person present on 4546B. It's also made inescapably clear that he is strongly disliked by most members of the crew. He thinks he shows empathy and positive thinking, but since he actively avoids interacting directly with his subordinates, he always comes across as smug and wildly disconnected from his crew's reality. That being one in which they have to work for a living while he watches, promises bonuses in 'the future,' but usually just doles out consequences for poor behavior, or — likely far worse in his opinion — lack of overt success.

He seems to believe that his 'management style' is uniquely suited to remote environments, suggesting that he has deluded himself into believing that he's has more acclaim than he really does, as Alterra clearly wanted him as far away from home as possible so that regardless of how effectively he manages a team, HQ wouldn't have to deal with his insufferable personality.

It should be noted that at no point is it revealed to the player what Emmanuel actually does beyond the abstract concept of 'management,' and there is no actual evidence of Emmanuel actually doing anything of value for his team. As such, he is basically the caricature of the useless manager siting in his comfy office while his employees do all the work and he gets all the credit.

Sam's death was an indirect consequence of his ineptitude, lack of foresight, and most of all, his complete and utter failure to recognize the cataclysmic threat posed by the Kharaa bacterium, though the only way he would ever manage to determine this as a potential theory is if he got the paperwork saying so from a superior in the Alterra chain of command.

His letter to Sam's next of kin exhibits no human emotion, no understanding for how an unnecessary death will affect a relative, and he found it more important to say that Sam's death was due to her own negligence than to say he was sorry for Robin's loss. He no doubt believed every word of what he wrote.