Deus Ex characters
This is a guide to the characters in the video game Deus Ex.
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1.1 JC Denton |
UNATCO Employees
JC Denton
JC is a clone of his brother (thus he is referred to as the "Secondary Unit" by Bob Page and Walton Simons) Paul Denton and a prototype created by shadowy organization Majestic 12 to test their nano-augmentation program. As a result of testing, Paul was found to have the right combination of biologic and genetic factors to make him a good candidate for the nano-augmentation. To create more compatible test subjects, Majestic 12 produced clones of Paul, but most failed to accept the augmentations. His parents however, were infertile after Paul's birth. They approached MJ12 looking for a method to have a new baby. MJ12 offered one, in the form of the implantation of an embryo. A clone of Paul, which would later become JC Denton.
Later, as Paul reached adolescence, he became more independent and MJ12 decided to have him and his parents killed, while JC was sent to a Swiss school to be under more supervision. Paul escaped the attack, and JC grew up unaware of his early childhood with Majestic 12. After graduation, JC joined UNATCO, a UN peacekeeping organization.
Paul Denton
Paul Denton is the older brother of JC Denton. He was the first agent (thus he is referred to as the "Primary Unit" by Bob Page and Walton Simons) to successfully have nano-augmentations implanted into his body. He was a UNATCO agent, and as Deus Ex begins, he is returning from Hong Kong. Since both brothers are clones, Paul Denton looks very much like JC, yet he is of a wholly different stock of character. Where JC is stolid and perfunctory, Paul is passionate and dedicated. Where JC is cold, Paul is empathetic and favours knocking out and incapacitating enemies rather than killing them. It is possible for him to die, depending on your actions in the game.
Gunther Hermann
Gunther Hermann is a top agent of the United Nations Anti-Terrorism Coalition, or UNATCO. Standing an ample six feet eight inches tall, Gunther's already imposing appearance is made all the more terrifying by his heavy mechanical augmentation. He is well versed in the use of deadly weapons, being the Commandant of the UNATCO weapons course, and is never without his assault gun, plasma cannon, flame-thrower, and combat knife. With close to 1000 confirmed kills to his name, Gunther is by far UNATCO's deadliest agent.
Gunther has a heavy German accent, as well as a love of murder and mayhem that endears him to fellow mechanically augmented UNATCO agent Anna Navarre.
While his augmentations grant him strength and speed far beyond that of normal men, they are also prone to the degradation of any constantly operating piece of machinery. He receives significant wear in his line of work, and is often returning to Dr. Jaime Reyes for a tune-up. It would also seem that Gunther's immense size brings with it a rather unique problem: Should the player decide to hack into Gunther's personal computer, he will discover a wealth of badly-typed correspondence. Presumably, Gunther's fingers are too large to allow him to use a keyboard accurately or effectively.
Beneath his hard metal surface, Gunther is also a very sad and lonely agent. His severely scarring augmentation makes him a freak to the public eye, a monster with a guttural accent who loves to kill. But in truth, Gunther is just a confused and frustrated robotic killing machine, a pitiful pawn of the bureaucratic high command. His long-time partner and fellow mech-aug Anna Navarre is the only real friend Gunther has in the entire world, and as a result, he is fiercely loyal to her.
Gunther resents the almost infinite power of nano-augmentation, as well as the agents who utilize them (due to their relatively normal appearance), and often finds himself fantasizing about ever more impractical augmentations he believes his superiors might offer him.
Like most of the game's androids and cyborgs, Gunther was wired to a killphrase, a failsafe intended to prevent Hermann from turning against his employers. Uttering the phrase "Laputan machine" in Gunther's presence detonates the explosive device in his chest. This self-destruct mechanism apparently takes a few seconds to arm, just long enough for poor Gunther to protest "I am not a machine!".
Alex Jacobson
UNATCO's IT man, secretly sympathetic to JC's cause. He is able to constantly see everything JC sees and hear everything JC hears, and as such is able to pass along relevant information to JC. His office also houses the thief within UNATCO's hidden stash.
Jock
A UNATCO helicopter pilot who turns rogue, Jock is entrusted to fly one of the so-called "black helicopters," low-noise, low-visibility stealth helicopters to assist MJ12 and UNATCO with their covert operations. Jock transports the player from place to place as a dutiful pilot, but when the player is given the opportunity to speak to him in the Underworld Bar at Hell's Kitchen, New York (the only time he can be found apart from his chopper), he/she learns more about Jock's ambitions.
As a longtime pilot for covert operations, Jock is aware of many top-secret forces at work involving Echelon, Area 51, and other covert government operations. JC is initially skeptical of Jock's claims of massive centralized surveillance and artificial intelligence, but as the game progresses, the proof presents itself.
Jock is a longtime friend of Paul Denton, and is eager to assist the resistance by bringing JC to Hong Kong after his escape from UNATCO. Jock continues to assist JC as pilot and occasional informant until the end of the game, where the player's actions determine if he survives to the finale.
Jaime Reyes
Dr. Reyes attends to the medical needs of all UNATCO's soldiers, and provides JC with nano-augmentation canisters and upgrades from time to time. His office is also stocked with med-kits. Reyes is endeared to JC because of an understanding of his past, and eagerly assists JC upon his arrival at UNATCO. Reyes becomes dissatisfied with the organization as JC uncovers its secrets, but he is far less passionate about it than Paul. The player is given the choice to either keep Reyes in UNATCO as a covert informant, or to advise him to escape and assist the resistance.
General Carter
General Sam Carter is the quartermaster and arms supplier for UNATCO. He is a small legend among the military for his actions in the Merced Operation (which is otherwise unexplained in the game), and JC recognizes him immediately upon meeting him. (Though never explicitly mentioned in the game, Carter was retired from army service after losing one of his legs. He currently uses a mechanical prosthesis) His family was murdered by the NSF, but his response to JC's attempts at sympathy are curt. Although surely a strong fighter and skilled soldier (he claims to have taken out an entire platoon with a combat knife, and he doesn't joke around...), Carter has an intimate understanding of tactics and deliberacy. He applauds JC when stealth and skill are used in favor of brute force. Carter also has a respect and admiration for military order and discipline; the ability for an organization to harness the power of obedience and teamwork.
Sam Carter has a belief that a benign military can exist to truly serve peace and the people. When UNATCO's secrets are revealed, Sam is loathe to give up his loyalty, because of the belief that UNATCO can still do good if most of its employees are there to serve good. As the game progresses, however, Sam realizes that he cannot remain in UNATCO, and escapes the organization, pondering the true meaning of good in a military.
Carter and Doctor Gary Savage of X-51 apparently go back a while. It his him who he contacts when he needs to get out of UNATCO. Sam is staying with him in X-51 Vandenberg headquarters when the player last sees him.
Joseph Manderley
Joseph Manderley is the director of the United Nations Anti-Terrorism Coalition, or UNATCO.
Manderley is a bureaucrat at heart, a proxy from the Treasury department installed by Majestic 12 to put an urbane face on their operation. After the defection of Paul Denton from UNATCO and the capture of JC Denton by Majestic 12, Manderley was relieved of duty (unless killed by you, the player) and replaced by Walton Simons.
Janice Reed
Janice Reed is Joseph Manderley's secretary. Her office is outside Manderley's office. She can give the player some information, but scolds JC after he is captured as he escapes from UNATCO.
Anna Navarre
Anna Navarre is a top agent of the United Nations Anti-Terrorism Coalition, or UNATCO.
Agent Navarre has a heavy Israeli accent. She stands roughly five feet ten inches tall, and sports fairly extensive mechanical augmentation (though not as instantly horrifying as fellow mech-aug Gunther Hermann). She also has a thing for black leather.
Anna is not a stranger to blood and gore. In fact, she revels in it (much to the chagrin of fellow agent Paul Denton). Like Gunther, Anna feels that the only good terrorist is a dead terrorist. But unlike Gunther, she prefers a silent, stealthy kill to an all-out frontal assault (as evidenced by her focus on stealth in her section of the UNATCO training course). She has even gone so far to have a cloaking augmentation installed.
Anna was JC's first partner after his arrival at UNATCO, but she was content to sit out their first mission outside Castle Clinton while Denton handled the guards inside. She is suspicious and somewhat hostile toward her nano-augmented colleagues, but has a more open mind than her cohort, Agent Hermann. Anna will put up with them, as long as they get the job done (in as bloody a manner as possible, of course).
Anna has something of a unique fighting style in that she always fires her assault rifle one-handed, while everyone else in the Deus Ex world has to use both hands to fire that weapon. She's also unusually adept at scoring headshots and bodyshots instead of simply spraying the arms and legs.
Like Gunther Hermann, agent Navarre can be terminated by simply speaking aloud a killphrase, specifically "flatlander woman". As in Gunther's case, death only occurs after several seconds, long enough for Navarre to express her fury and Denton to deliver an apt one-liner.
Allies
Harley Filben
Harley Filben sells information to anyone that has the money. He lives life up to the grimy, dirty hilt. He is the man that looks like he's crawled out of the sewer but just as likely to have been in some general's office. He chats with former soldiers who have the gray death, as well as hookers and does odd jobs. He is a lot more than he seems, as you will find out later in the game.
Sandra Renton
Daughter of Gilbert Renton. She is rebellious, preferring to live on the street rather than in her father's run down hotel. She is constantly menaced by JoJo Fine and his enforcer Jonny. She also knows the password to get into Smuggler's place and helps JC with general advice.
Gilbert Renton
Gilber Renton runs the 'Ton (Short for Hilton) Hotel, which is also the permanent residence of Paul and JC Denton.
The Smuggler
An arms smuggler that supplies JC with some of his weapons. He lowers the price of these weapons in exchange for rescuing his friend, Ford Schick during the early parts of the game. JC's actions later in the game determines whether he lives or dies.
Tracer Tong
Tracer Tong is an ally and informant to Paul Denton. He resides in Hong Kong and heads a small laboratory that aids the resistance. His laboratory is located underneath the compound of the Luminous Path, one of two triads that vie for control of Hong Kong. Paul first becomes an ally of Tracer via e-mail exchanges leading him down a path towards UNATCO's secrets. Both Paul and JC were assigned to assassinate Tracer Tong, as MJ12 views him as a very powerful threat, but both defect before completing their respective missions.
Tracer Tong is a curious man, and curiosity is what leads him to follow JC's actions upon first meeting him; however, his loyalty is not blind. JC must earn the trust of Tracer, even though his brother is Tong's ally and friend. Upon gaining a sliver of Tong's trust, JC is able to use his laboratory to deactivate his killswitch, thus saving his life.
Tong continues to aid JC (as much as JC continues to aid Tong), and with his help JC is led to Area 51 where the game's climax occurs. During the game the MJ12 continue to fight Tong, and successfully manage to infect him with the Gray Death, but Tong's life is spared with the help of resistance members. At the end of the game, Tong advises the player to destroy the facility, thus removing the technology and starting a new Dark Age; this one of three paths the player can choose to take.
Gordon Quick
The Luminous Path's Dragon Head. He can be found personally guarding the entrance to the Luminous Path's compound. Not much is known about him except that he and his triad provide safe harbor and an operating base for Tracer Tong. He tells JC Denton about Maggie Chow's maipulation of the Triads and how to stop her (by proving to Max Chen that it was her that murdered the Red Arrow's former leader and tricked them both into a triad war). A sub-plot removed from the final release of Deus Ex was Gordon's love for the daughter of Max Chen. While cut, it it still referenced to in his diary, in the Luminous Path compound.
Max Chen
The Dragon Head of the Red Arrow triad came to power shortly after his predecessor was murdered by Maggie Chow (who then framed the Luminous Path for his murder to weaken the triads). Both Max Chen and Gorgon Quick quickly declare a truce once JC proves that Maggie Chow set them both up.
Nicolette Duclare
Nicolette Duclare is the daughter of Elizabeth Duclare, a former member of the Illuminati. Nicolette is a relatively minor character, appearing centrally only in a single mission. She is 17, and while brave, is also foolhardy. After her mother's assassination she began working with the terrorist group Silhouette. She allows JC to locate Beth Duclare's chateau, and in so doing contact her old associate Morgan Everett.
Chad Dumier
Chad Dumier is the leader of the terrorist group Silhouette and a close friend of Nicolette Duclare. He has taken up residence in the Silhouette Bunker located in the Paris Catacombs, and is likely to remain there until the bunker is no longer under threat of siege by Majestic 12.
Morgan Everett
Morgan Everett is the acting leader of the Illuminati. His residence is somewhere in France, though the exact location cannot be confirmed.
Everett is highly paranoid, and receives visitors only after they have proven themselves to be loyal to the Illuminati. Even then he does not allow them to know the location of his compound, instead opting to render visitors unconscious with neuroparalytic gas and transport them in secret through his associate Toby Atanwe.
Everett's compound is quite vast, encompassing computer and nanotech laboratories, hydroponic growing vats, a repair depot, and a helipad.
Everett was the creator of the prototype AI codenamed Morpheus, which later became Echelon III, and was the architect of its successor, the Echelon IV AI known as Daedalus.
He was the mentor of Bob Page before Page left the Illuminati to form Majestic 12, and a close friend of Stanton Dowd.
His mansion has a secret room with his predecessor, who was leader of the Illuminati during the 20th century, preserved within it.
Gary Savage
Gary Savage is the leader of the team that defected from Majestic 12 once they found out MJ12's sinister intentions. He is the head of X-51. A well-armed and heavily fortified team of scientists and United States Army soldiers, they were once based at Area 51. They are now based Vandenberg Air Force Base. His team finds itself in constant skirmishes with the forces of Majestic 12. Being the only other institution with a Universal Constructor, his team holds the only hope for a possible cure to the Gray Death.
Tiffany Savage
Daughter of Gary Savage. Tiffany Savage turned out to be an unlikely spy when she was sent to recover the remaining schematics to the Universal Constructor. She succeeded in infiltrating the Majestic 12 Ocean Lab in Pasedena, CA. but was eventually captured and held hostage, later to be rescued by JC Denton. The Ocean Lab fell under X-51's control after JC got the remaining Universal Constructor schematics and cleaned the place out.
Antagonists
Jonny
He is one of JoJo Fine's many personal enforcers. He beats up, intimidates and even kills without a second thought. If not for JC, Sandra Renton would have been among his victims.
JoJo Fine
JoJo Fine is a pimp, drug dealer and all around gangster. While he is a member of the NSF, he is despised even among their ranks. He is only willing to talk things over with a woman when he does not want her battered when sent onto the street. Again, if not for JC, he would have killed Sandra and Gilbert Renton.
Bob Page
Bob Page was the main villain in the game and was a special protégé to Illuminati leader Morgan Everett. Although Page was a good student, he was impatient and short-tempered. Page and Everett developed Daedalus, an artificial intelligence (A.I.) program that would help the Illuminati keep track of and control the new communication technologies. The duo also started the project that Majestic 12 would eventually turn into the Gray Death virus. Page was a major power behind the push for nanotechnology, and was a part of the enhancement project that JC Denton and Paul Denton went though.
Page grew impatient with Everett's unwillingness to use the technology and the Illuminati's slow, gentle ways and rebelled by forming Majestic 12, which eventually took over much of the Illuminati's power structures and resources. The final blow to the Illuminati was when Page gained almost total control of the information infrastructure through the Aquinas Protocol/Hub at Area 51 and the Daedalus A.I., making it nigh impossible for the Illuminati to safely communicate using electronic means.
Secretly, Page is the head of Majestic 12. His ultimate plan is to merge with the artificial intelligence Helios to control the world's electronic systems, becoming an omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent entity.
Publicly, Bob Page is the richest man on Earth; a trillionaire and head of the unbelievably large Page Industries. Page also likes to groom his image in the public eye as a great philanthropist, donating millions of credits to the needy, while secretly plunging the world into chaos to create the conditions that will allow him to achieve world domination.
Walton Simons
Walton Simons is the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and a member of Majestic 12.
Simons is a close associate of Bob Page, and a very powerful man in Washington. He was appointed to FEMA through Page's manipulation of an unnamed senator infected with the Gray Death, and went to work immediately.
A strictly cloak-and-dagger man, Simons was the first higher-up on the scene after JC Denton's capture of NSF operatives in Battery Park, though his interrogations consisted mostly of numerous shotgun blasts to the chest.
The third successful nano-augmented human (After Paul and JC Denton), Simons is widely considered one of the most dangerous men in Majestic 12. Although he claims his augmentations are strictly for increased ability for work in FEMA disaster relief, he often travels with an escort of two or more Men in Black, and he is rarely seen without his plasma rifle close at hand.
In one outcome Simons hints to JC (outside Area 51) that he is another clone of Paul Denton.
Simons also has a tendency to continually charge his bioelectric reserves, keeping them at 100% efficiency. This causes an intermittent sharp pain behind his eyes, but this is an unimportant side story, used only as a reason to throw in another UNATCO Bunker mission/objective.
Maggie Chow
J.C. Denton encounters Maggie Chow in Hong Kong. A former kung-fu actress turned politician, she claims that the Luminous Path Triads work for Majestic 12 and have stolen the Dragon Tooth Sword to upstage their rivals, the Red Arrow. In reality, she is a Majestic 12 agent and holds the Sword in a hidden barracks in her apartment. There are several ways to deal with Maggie: Denton could either waste her in her apartment and fight his way to the Sword, or he could get the sword without killing her, in which case he would have to fight her later at the Universal Constructor. She is an expert swordsperson, armed with a Dragon Tooth Sword of her own.
Howard Strong
JC's encouter with Howard Strong is minor but significant. He is a "fixer" that arranges and carries out various odd jobs for Majestic 12 as a whole, including the murder of JC's and Paul's "parents," who were killed because they knew too much and objected to Paul and JC's kill switches and impending training.
Artificial intelligences
Helios
Helios is an A.I. that was created when the artificial intelligences Icarus and Daedalus merged. Bob Page knew the merge would happen, and planned to himself merge with the AI, becoming a biological component of it. However, he was unable to control Helios, who himself wanted to control the world as a benevolent dictator. Helios enlisted JC Denton to help with the task, and to eventually merge with. The player of Deus Ex could choose to help Helios, or choose one of the other two endings of the game.
Morpheus
Morpheus is possibly Deus Ex's most poignant element. A semi-hidden AI, Morpheus sees man's obsession with the machine with utter clarity. It observes man's madness, narcissism and desire for judgement with an eerie, almost childlike accuracy.
- Daedalus
- Icarus