
The thirteenth Prime, Gabriel Santiago, had a moral awakening and defected against his fellow Primes. According to Clarke, it has interfered with it they used to wipe her mind, thanks to Clarke's experiences with A.L.I.E. However, it is revealed that Clarke survived the implantation of the Mind Drives because she still had A.L.I.E.'s neural mesh inside of her. According to Josephine, it's been hundreds of years since a mind wipe has failed. However, as seen with Clarke Griffin, the mind wipe sometimes fails after the transfer goes wrong as one of their hosts continue to survive, trapped within their own minds despite claims that the host's mind is wiped. In so doing, the Prime gets to live on through the host. When the Prime's Mind Drive implant is inserted into a person with royal blood, the Prime's consciousness takes over the host, replacing their memories and personalities. Only people with Royal Blood ( Nightblood) can serve as hosts for the Primes.Ī Prime's consciousness is stored in a cybernetic implant, known as the Mind Drive -a jailbroken early version of A.L.I.E. The Primes have lived on for generations by transferring their consciousness into new black blood hosts during a holy, Naming Day ceremony. Inside Sanctum, the Primes are revered as divine, royal and therefore leaders among the Sanctumites. They built a sanctuary and a microstate, known as Sanctum, and protected it with a radiation shield dome to keep their people safe.

The Primes were the four original families that colonized Sanctum after settling there as part of the Eligius III's Mission Team Alpha.

Sanctum was colonized by a team from Earth made up of 4 families.
