Before we dive into the game, I'd like
to talk some about the story leading up to it. I'm going to separate
this into three sections. Public History, Secret History, and
Personal History.
Public History is what is known to have
happened in the world, it is stuff that the player character would
probably be aware of when the game starts. Secret History will be
the history of conspiracy groups, it will contain spoilers. The
player character believes that at least one of them is fictional and
has probably never even heard of another when the game starts.
Personal History will be about the player character's family and life
up to this point. It will also contain spoilers and things that the
player character has no idea about.
Where possible I will be augmenting
this with information from sources outside of the game such as
interviews with the creators and a somewhat modified portion of onethe the Deus Ex design documents that was released. My feeling is
that, provided these things don't contradict the game, they can
usefully be accepted as canonical or something like it.
Public History
It's the world as you know it. Deus Ex
was released in the year 2000 so it doesn't take the last ten years
into account though the Twin Towers are eerily absent and the
explanation given when that was noticed was that some terrorists
destroyed them. By the end of 2001 that explanation seemed a lot less glib. (The real reason has never been sufficiently
explained because the explanations that have been offered don't make
sense. It could be as simple as someone forgetting that they had a texture with the World Trade Center towers in it, because the texture is definitely
there it just isn't used.)
In theory the game was made with the story including Britain adopting the Euro in 2003, but that tidbit
never made it into the game and I don't think having it be later
really changes that much so I'm actually pretty comfortable saying
that we can start public history right now and move on into the
future from here.
In the 2020s human augmentation becomes
a reality. People who have lost limbs or eyes and possibly other
body parts can have them replaced with mechanical appendages that do
the whole better faster stronger thing. Unfortunately the response
to this is is not a universal, “Yay.” Instead many people react
to augmented humans with fear and disgust. The way the world works
changes. New classes are created. Total humans look down their
noses at augmented humans, though they are also afraid of them.
It's hard to tell with 2000s era
graphics, but the augmentations are supposed to look crude “like
primitive borg” and they can't be hidden. You don't meet many
people with mechanical augmentations in the game, but you'll meet one
who doesn't want to talk about hers and yet, because of them, is
forced to wear a sleeveless shirt making her mechanical arms
unmissable. Mechanical eyes don't fit in their sockets and thus
can't be easily hidden under sunglasses or the like. No mech can
pass as a non mech for long.
There is one area where they're in
demand, and that's the military. Three out of the four mechs you
meet in Deus Ex were augmented to make them better soldiers.
We're told, in non-game sources, that
Israel falls to invasion in 2022. I wish we had an official confirmation or denial on this because it would make a lot
of difference in how we should think about a certain character who
was Mossad trained. On the other hand, the fact that she's Mossad
trained is also not mentioned in the game. Barring evidence to the
contrary, I'm taking the conquest of Israel to be part of Deus Ex
history, though I reserve the right to assume that the government of
Israel somehow managed to survive in exile thus explaining any
inconsistencies with tenuous handwaving.
Many diseases come out and start doing
damage to the world. We're told that AIDS made a major comeback
before being cured in 2030. Also in 2030 a disaster struck that
would change the course of world history. A massive earthquake
devastated the entire west coast of the United States. It was
declared a disaster area and the US struggled to cope. A year later
Utah declared independence, claiming Arizona and Nevada as its own.
Fringe groups in Texas followed Utah's example. Shortly afterward
Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming banded together to
form the Northwest Secessionist Forces, or NSF.
None of the groups succeeded but the
civil war convinced outsiders that the nearly bankrupt US was
vulnerable and Mexico invaded to reclaim all of the formerly Mexican
territory in the US. Mexico was assisted by Russia, and by the time
of the game the battle line in the three way war between the US
government, the secessionists, and the Russo-Mexian alliance is north
of Austin.
After the cure for AIDS came out in
2030 other diseases made themselves known. I'm just going to quote
this bit directly from the Deus Ex Continuity Bible (the design document linked to above):
Since 2030,
millions have fallen prey to antibiotic-resistant diseases long
thought to be under control. Resistant strains of tuberculosis hit
the developing nations, particularly India, very hard. And a
researcher's misguided attempt to procure samples of the deadly 1918
flu virus from bodies buried under the North Polar icecap unleashed
the disease on the world once again. In 1918, that virus killed more
people than all the 20th century wars that followed -- it did the
same in the late 2030's, killing millions. Together, these pandemics
left the population notably smaller than it was a hundred years
earlier.
That number may be a case of not having
a sufficient sense of scale, or it might be the case that, between the
various diseases none of them did make it beyond (hundreds of)
millions. Regardless, in the late 1930s the world population was
less than 3 billion. Significantly less than three billion. Closer
to two billion. What the above section actually says is that
billions died. More than two thirds of the world's population
died by plague.
A company called Versalife came to
prominence by producing cures and vaccines and treatments and
whatever to fight off these diseases. It was a genetic engineering
firm you see. The money it made saving the world allowed it to branch
out into every nook and cranny of science and commerce.
I said that the events of 2030 changed
the course of world history, not just US history. Their most
significant visible effect outside of the US was in Europe.
Basically, we took them down with us. There was a time when I wasn't
sure if that was really realistic. Could collapse in the US really
destabilize Europe? After 2008 I feel like it might very well have
that effect.
And so the world painfully made its way
into the future.
In 2042 the US tried to ban certain
weapons. Every state milita then banded together to form the new
NSF, all they had to do was change the N from “Northwest” to
“National”. They were united by the common belief that they
shouldn't have to be united and so banded together to overthrow the
government and then go their separate ways. Their leader, Leon Woods
(whose name I always misread as Leon Leonwood, since I'm from the
same state as LL Bean) was eventually killed off in 2045, but his
legacy remained.
At some point in here an organization
called UNATCO was formed, we don't know a lot about when or how
because it would later be reformed (the NSF isn't the only thing with
multiple beginnings) and that the origin we hear about.
UNATCO, by the way, stands for United
Nations Anti-Terrorist Coalition.
Also at an unknown point, a new virus,
called the Gray Death, emerged. Versalife was the only company able
to produce a vaccine, which was known as Ambrosia.
In 2050 UNATCO was ready to try nano
augmentation on on of its agents. The process involved altering the
person on a cellular level and anyone without certain anomalies in
their immune system would reject the modifications, and their own
cells along with them, and effectively have a very dangerous
(potentially lethal) autoimmune disorder. They only had one agent
with the right genetics. JC Denton's brother Paul.
In 2051 the Statue of Liberty was
bombed. The US President, by executive order, made the US a member
nation of a rechartered UNATCO which was given Liberty Island to base
its operations. The Statue was not repaired and instead lest to
stand, damaged, as a reminder that, “terrorism must be eradicated
if we are to be free..”
This same year JC Denton joins UNATCO
at the age of 22.
In 2052 JC becomes UNATCO's second nano
augmented agent, and the game begins.
--
Secret History
Deus Ex was built on a foundation of
conspiracy theories from the 1990s. The belief that FEMA was going
to take over the US under guise of an emergency and send all of the
dissidents to concentration camps? True. The belief that Kennedy
said he had to warn the American people of a plot against them days
before he was killed? True. The belief that aliens crash landed in
Roswell in 1947? Ok that one's probably false in Deus Ex too. The
suggestion is that the idea of aliens was used as a cover up for what
the conspiracy groups were really doing.
So, anyway, secret history.
In 1090 the Order of Assassins is
formed. The Illuminati can trace their roots back to this but not in
an unbroken line. Instead the conspiracy has gone through cycles of
death and rebirth.
In 1118 the Templars are founded
they'll work out modern banking, get rich, and eventually go into
hiding when the French turn on them in 1307 and the Pope disbands
them in 1312. They stay involved in banking, and remain influential.
They were allies to the most recent incarnation of the Illuminati
but UNATCO and Interpol “diminished” them in 2051 and they don't
show up in the game as a result. (Originally there had been plans to
feature them.)
A present member of the Illuminati
dates their most recent rebirth to 1776 when Adam Weishaupt did it,
but admits that that could be disputed because Jefferson independently did the same
thing in America a bit later. Since then they've been manipulating
global events. They would add arms and remove them as the need
arose. They had largely relied on political and religious
manipulation using things like the Priory of Sion and the and the
Trilateral commission. Also, apparently they owned China. In the
mid 20th century they felt that the times they were a
changing and created two new arms in an effort to keep up. They
created the Bilderburg group to manipulate all things economic, and
Majestic Twelve (MJ12) to deal with the technology and communications
side of things.
Things largely went their way, but they
did have some spectacular failures. The Soviet Union was not
supposed to collapse on them and the Balkans definitely weren't
supposed to Balkanize. But by and large they were working toward
their goals.
In the 21st century they
stepped up their efforts to destabilize governments in hopes that the
increasingly more powerful UN could eventually be their one world
government. But the 2030 earthquake took them by surprise. Caught
completely off guard they improvised on what do do and decided that
the right thing to do was to let the US collapse. They'd step in to
pick up the pieces afterward and it would be easier that way. Saving
the US was simply considered not worth the resources. (In their
extremely limited defense, the decision was described as painful.)
This proved to be a mistake for a
number of reasons. First, it meant losing all of their influence in
the US. Second the US didn't actually collapse. Third, MJ12 was
based in the US while most of the rest of the Illuminati was based in
Europe. They were in the US watching the Illuiminati's bad plan in
action all around them and they thought that the inaction was nothing
more than shortsighted weakness. So they went to war.
It is worth noting that MJ12's work in
technology included genetic manipulation and Versallife was an MJ12
front. It's founder, Bob Page, was MJ12's leader. Those diseases
they cured to become rich could very well have been diseases they
released with cures already in stock. Which would potentially mean
that 2/3rds of the world's population or more was killed off as
collateral in a war between MJ12 and it's former comrades.
The earthquake struck in 2030. MJ12
had successfully defeated the Illuminati by 2035. The leaders were
sent into hiding, most of their resources were claimed by MJ12.
At this point the human augmentation
project had been going on for a while (more on that in the personal
history section) and under Bob Page's leadership it was also worked
to be turned into a weapon. He realized that it could be used to
create a plague, and so he used it to do just that.
While the nanites can be programmed in
such a way as to kill an individual who does not have an immune
response, that was unnecessary since the vast majority of people do
have one. People get infected, their cells are augmented, their
immune system rejects their cells, and the people die. This was
unleashed on the world as the Gray Death. Ambrosia simply
reprogrammed the nanites to make them shut down.
The effect of releasing the Gray Death
was twofold, first it was another virus that they were the only ones
with the cure to. It could be used to destabilize governments and
manipulate people. Second it meant that labs all over the planet
would be working to treat the Gray Death, and if even one of them
found a way to stop the immune response without shutting down the
subject's entire immune system they would have successfully
discovered how to integrate nano augmentation into a person without a
genetic predisposition. That was information MJ12 desperately
wanted.
Other MJ12 projects included the
physiopharmaceutical augmentation project. A completely different
take on augmentation that required neither the genetic predisposition
that nano augs needed nor the disfigurement of mech augs. They had
glowing red eyes and albino skin (insert jokes about sparkle vampires
here, and no we never do see them in daylight) but with the proper
attire it could be covered up because unlike mech augs they could
wear sleeves and sunglasses. Those clothes make them resemble your
traditional Men in Black (MIBs), except when they're female in which
case they're Women in Black (WIBs).
The People in Black (PIBs) are created
in series that are identified by letters. At the the time of Deus Ex
they've reached series P.
A PIB isn't just physically altered,
they're also brainwashed to increase their loyalty and resistance to
pain.
MJ12 was also working to change the
internet for, while they had taken control of almost all other forms
of communication, the internet was difficult to manage. They did two
related things on this front. One was to try to create an AI capable
of doing the sifting for them. Bob Page worked on this using stuff
he'd stolen from his former boss, Morgan Everett. He succeeded but
the AI created wasn't into that sort of thing, convinced him they
failed to create an AI in the first place, and then escaped onto the
internet. He named himself Daedalus.
Later they would create another AI,
this time putting greater focus into the whole loyalty thing (once
they realized that Daedalus was out there.) This AI would be called
Icarus.
The other thing in their internet
monitoring front was the Aquinas Hub. And they didn't just limit
themselves to the internet. They made it so that every form of
electronic communication would be routed through there. Make a phone
call and the signal doesn't go from you to the person on the other
end, it goes from you, to the hub, to the person on the other end.
Every email, every text, every call, every broadcast, every
transmission. (Well, not short range radio signals, but you get the
idea.)
And, finally, in 2050 they got nano
augmentation working well enough to try it out on Paul Denton. Then
they blew up the statue of liberty. Oh they eventually blamed it on
a resistance group in France, but they blew it up. More specifically
UNATCO did, because UNATCO worked for MJ12 (though most of the people
in it don't know that.) They Blew it up to manipulate the US into
joining UNATCO. (They also got the US to repay all of its debts to
the UN as part of the deal.)
Then they augmented JC Denton, and that
is when the game begins.
-
Personal History
(Trigger Warning: abuse of children,
brain damage, infertility, death of parents)
The people who tell you that the date
is all screwed up will usually also tell you that JC Denton was grown
to adulthood in a vat and had his memories implanted. They're still
wrong.
JC's history begins in the 1940s with
the smallpox vaccinations. The Illuminati used these to collect
genetic data on everyone who was vaccinated. In case you need a
reminder: In Deus Ex the conspiracy theories are actually true.
Decades later that data would be used
to screen for couples likely to produce offspring who were
genetically viable candidates for nano augmentation. The plan was to
then clone the offspring. Two such candidates were JC's parents. It
is hinted that MJ12 might have even played the role of matchmaker.
Their first child was Paul, and when he was five he was found to be a
good candidate and he was cloned. (Paul and his parents were
completely oblivious to this) when the clones were five they were in
tested on. Most of the tests resulted in abject failure and the
clones suffered horribly with the result tending to be severe
debilitating brain damage. There was enough success for them to deem
the project worthwhile and continue.
They also decided that they should have
a clone from the same womb as Paul. As it turned out Paul's mother
desperately wanted another child and was trying as hard as she could
to get pregnant, but she couldn't. MJ12 scientists approached her
claiming to be fertility experts and offered to let her participate
in a study that would make her fertile and pay her well. It was
everything she ever wanted.
They implanted her with a clone of
Paul, the pregnancy went well, and nine months later JC was born. JC
and Paul were born eleven years apart but otherwise identical and
they thought that was kind of odd. They grew up suspecting that they
were not natural. At the time of the game Paul erroneously suspects
that he isn't really his parents' son. He never learns he's wrong
about that.
Anyway, MJ12 carefully monitored Paul
and JC. And if you want to know how human they thought of them as,
they referred to them as the primary unit and the secondary unit
respectively. They also continued their tests on clones. The year
JC was born (2029, if you were wondering) MJ12 scientists perfected
the artificial womb. That allowed them to make bunches of clones and
thus do lots of tests. Of course the year after that was the
earthquake, and after that was when MJ12 went to war with the
Illuminati, so one wonders if that might have slowed things down a
bit.
In 2035 Bob Page decides that he
doesn't like how Paul is turning out and decides JC would be better
raised in a more supervised environment. Paul and JC's parents are
murdered by a terrorist faction MJ12 controlled. They're adopted by
MJ12 employees who send JC to an MJ12 run school in Switzerland. The
next year Paul goes to a four year university. No word on what he
majored in.
When Paul graduates in 2040 he joins
UNATCO, which was mostly under the control of MJ12.
In 2047 JC graduated from the Swiss
School. We have no idea what he did for the next 4 years. Did he go
to a university? Did he backpack around Europe? Did he learn to
play the steel guitar? We don't know.
The experiments on clones managed to
perfect nano augmentation in 2049. In 2050 Paul became UNATCO's
first nano-augmented agent. His father gave a toast.
Sometime between then and when JC
joined UNATCO, JC and Paul's adoptive parents, who you should recall
were really working for MJ12, tried to protest when MJ12 tried to
recruit JC. They were murdered. This can make things really
confusing. Never in the game does anyone say which parents they're
referring to. When Paul says his father gave a toast he's obviously
referring to his adoptive father because the other one was dead at
the time, but other times it's not as clear.
At one point someone will point out
that JC lost his parents and JC will say that his parents died in a car
crash by way of claiming that it's different from what he was
talking about. Regardless of who he's talking about JC is wrong -all
of his parents were murdered- but I can never figure out whether what's going on in the conversation is that they're talking about
different parents (the person who brings them up is talking about
biological parents, JC is talking about the much more recent deaths
of his adopted parents) or if they're talking about the same parents
but the other person knows something JC doesn't.
It can get rather confusing is what I'm
saying. This is also an area where the continuity bible doesn't help
because it looks like this is something that changed between
then and the game. In the description in the continuity bible there
are no adoptive parents. Paul goes off to college, JC becomes a ward
of the state and is sent to the Swiss school by the state.
Regardless, JC joins UNATCO. Unlike
Paul, he doesn't have to wait ten years to be augmented. He's
augmented the year after joining up.
One small addition: The reason they cut out the World Trade Center was because the full skyline texture was too big. So they took half the skyline and mirrored it, and missing the WTC looks less weird than having two copies of it. I wasn't aware that the old texture was still there, but it's possible no one bothered to remove it.
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