History Characters / PersonOfInterestDecimaTechnologies

* PsychoticManchild: Due to a lethal combination of arrogance, inexperience, and a tendency to regard people as expendable pawns.

* FreudianExcuse: The scene he shares his past with Finch about being a small child who grew up witnessing firsthand the horrors of World War two is very heartfelt, and it explains pretty clearly why he thinks the way he does.

* CynicismCatalyst: Discovering that MI6's deputy chief of the time was a double-agent finally broke Greer back in 1973 and convinced him that governments (and humans) are not to be trusted.

* EvilBrit: He speaks in a classic Received Pronunciation accent and worked at MI6.

* ProfessionalKiller: Back in his old life at MI6, this was among his responsibilities. Even with age however, Season 3 showed he doesn't have any problems with handling a suppressed Walther P99 which he used to silence his employee who handed him the Samaritan drives.

* Didn'tSeeThatComing: He did not expect Shaw to carry an extra gun during her final escape from Decima, thus resulting in his utter surprise and well-deserved death.

* PetTheDog: Despite kidnapping her, his treatment of Finch's former fiancé, Grace counts. He treats her very well (even pouring her tea), is very civil to her, and sounds genuinely sympathetic when she hears of her fiance's death (before he notices her fiance is actually Finch). He also blindfolds her later on so she wouldn't discover Finch's identity despite having nothing to gain from it.

* TheSchlubPubSeductionDeduction: She is introduced patiently listening to a drunken journalist's ConspiracyTheory that an ArtificialIntelligence has secretly taken over the world. Once everyone has left the bar, [[YouKnowTooMuch she kills him]].

* RuleOfSymbolism: Gabriel is a child (showing Samaritan's youth in comparison to the Machine) called Gabriel (see MeaningfulName) with great knowledge but without the experience and humility of age. Greer describes him as "the shape of things to come", the [[Literature/TheShapeOfThingsToCome title of a novel]] where a worldwide utopia is imposed on the old order by technological force.

A high ranking operative for Decima Technologies and later a Samaritan agent.

* AlwaysABiggerFish: Is able to outfight Reese in ".exe".
* InTheBack: [[spoiler:Stabbed in the back by Reese in ".exe".]]
* ScaryBlackMan: In this case, due to his great height and cold professionalism.

-->''"Admirable how you’ve lasted this long."''

* TheDragon: Jeremy Lambert, Greer's bodyguard and second in command along with Martine Rousseau, Samaritan's personal asset.

* DragonWithAnAgenda:
** They're employed by China's Ministry of State Security, and share intelligence with them. However, they run their own operations independent from Chinese control. In the Season 3 episode "RAM", Greer doesn't mind having his employees launch an attack on an MSS facility in Mainland China to recover The Ordos Laptop. The operation leads to the entire facility's staff being slaughtered, something that would have probably annoyed the MSS greatly if they had realized who was responsible.
** Greer is also shown reporting to hidden superiors in Decima, but there's no mention of them once Samaritan comes into the picture. So whether they shared Greer's beliefs, or whether they were information brokers seeking to corner the private intelligence market who served as {{Unwitting Pawn}}s to his agenda, is not revealed.

** Greer is also shown reporting to hidden superiors in Decima, but there's no mention of them once Samaritan comes into the picture. So whether they shared Greer's ideals, or whether they were information brokers seeking to corner the private intelligence market, is not revealed.

* DragonWithAnAgenda: They're employed by China's Ministry of State Security, and share intelligence with them. However, they run their own operations independent from Chinese control. In the Season 3 episode "RAM", Greer doesn't mind having his employees launch an attack on an MSS facility in Mainland China to recover The Ordos Laptop. The operation leads to the entire facility's staff being slaughtered, something that would have probably annoyed the MSS greatly if they had realized who was responsible.

* EvilCounterpart: To Reese. He acts in a capacity to Greer similar to how John does to Harold. However, he's not as BadAss as Reese is with John putting him out of commission for half a season with a well placed bullet and during a simulation in "If-Then-Else", swiping a fragmentation grenade and catching Lambert in the blast.

** Both Lambert and Reese do fieldwork. Lambert however does not match up to Reese in the BadAss department.

* WomanInBlack: She's usually dressed like this.

* HateSink: Unlike other prominent Samaritan operatives like Lambert, Zachary, or Martine, he has no likable or {{badass}} qualities whatsoever.

->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/JonathanNolan ("[[Recap/PersonOfInterestS05E10 The Day The World Went Away]]", & "[[Recap/PersonofInterestS05E12 .exe]]")\\

* BadSamaritan:
** Fittingly. Its plan to get a computer tablet for every elementary school student in the city sounds wonderful. Of course, it also means that Samaritan has the means to spy on and even indoctrinate ''children.'' However, it's played with when Finch peeks at the code in the tablet's software and finds nothing overly conspicuous, leading him to question his own morals.
** [[PeopleZoo What it does]] to the town of Maple in "M.I.A" certainly qualifies.

** Circles on their own are used much in the same way as The Machine's plain white box: individuals Samaritan is scanning or monitoring, but without anything out of the ordinary. Two different variants are used, a simpler one that appears with the Target triangle, and a more elaborate one that appears with the Deviant crosshairs. No specific reasons for why one might be used over the other are known ([[{{Doylist}} apart from whatever will be correct for an individual if and when they become an outright Target/Deviant]]), though assets always get the Deviant style.

* CreatorCameo: The computerized voice it uses to guide operatives (Jeff Blackwell in "[[Recap/PersonOfInterestS05E10 The Day The World Went Away]]", & Zachary in "[[Recap/PersonofInterestS05E12 .exe]]"), is that of Jonathan Nolan (which is highly distorted).

* FluffyTheTerrible: See MeaningfulName below.
* {{Foil}}: To the Machine. Let's count the ways:

* FromASingleCell: [[spoiler:Samaritan's plot to make itself effectively immortal by placing compressed recovery copies of itself on virtually every Internet-connected device blows up in its face when Finch basically crashes the entire Internet with the ICE-9 virus. It even attempts to transmit a clean copy of itself to a satellite in orbit to wait out ICE-9 and return to Earth once the virus has run its course, but The Machine follows it up to the satellite and kills it once and for all.]]

* NoPlansNoPrototypeNoBackup: Unfortunately averted. If Arthur hadn't made backups, Samaritan wouldn't now be a threat. Later taken to a positively horrifying degree when [[spoiler:Team Machine learns it has placed copies of itself on every Internet-connected device it can access, from which it could theoretically restore itself in the event of a catastrophic failure. A clean copy of itself is also housed in a Faraday cage in the basement of the Federal Reserve as a last-last ditch contingency.]]

** Currently it is busy subjecting the American Political system to this. By "Prophets" it had 58 politicians in its pocket.

* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: According to Greer, Samaritan was initially horrified when it thought it has actually killed The Machine in "YHWH," mourning for the apparent loss of the only other being of its kind. [[MoodWhiplash It got over it very quickly]], though.
* PerspectiveFlip: "Beta" is shown entirely from Samaritan's view, rather than The Machine's. This is later zigzagged in Season 4 onwards, where the show flips back and forth between The Machine and Samaritan's view every few episodes. Several episodes are from the point of view of ''both'' machines. This even bleeds over into the opening credits. Season 4's intro is shown from Samaritan's POV as it tags Team Machine as treats. In Season 5, the intro continually cuts back and forth between Samaritan and The Machine's [=POVs=] as the [=ASIs=] bicker for control over the intro, with Team Machine flipping between threat and asset status depending on which ASI is dominant, and Finch's standard monologue being overridden by a new one delivered by Greer whenever Samaritan is in control of the intro.

* ThereCanBeOnlyOne: Once activated, Samaritan uses its power to stifle all research into artificial intelligence so it will have no rivals. However it's only being TaughtByExperience, as it points out via Gabriel.

* TotalitarianUtilitarian: It essentially believes that the only way to keep the peace is to tightly regulate human behaviour and force us to accept that it's better at managing our lives than we are.

* VillainHasAPoint[=/=]WellIntentionedExtremist: Samaritan discusses this in [[Recap/PersonOfInterestS04E10 The Cold War]]: it appears to firmly believe that HumansAreBastards and claims to end all that with its own authority. Whether or not it's actually a WellIntentionedExtremist is left as ambiguous as possible.

[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/samaritan.png]]

* TheSocialExpert: And how! It just knows which buttons to push in order to manipulate people to do its bidding, or set them off to harm others.

'''Machine/Root:''' You were never meant to be in this world.\\

* EvilCounterpart: To Root, she seems to be the main asset (out of many) which Samaritan uses to fulfill its agenda, she has a mass of false identities like Root and she also has a similar set-up to Root's Analog Interface status which gives her full access to Samaritan's surveillance capabilities. Initially, she seemed to be more of an EvilCounterpart to Reese, but her Root-like traits were fleshed out in "Prophets".

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Subverted. Initially, it feels weird that she doesn't make any appearance in the following few episodes with Samaritan's team. However, she reappears in "Q&A". Double subverted when she fails to appear in any episodes beyond that.

* NoPlansNoPrototypeNoBackup: Unfortunately averted. If Arthur hadn't made backups, Samaritan wouldn't now be a threat. Later taken to a positively horrifying degree when [[spoiler:Team Machine learns its copies of itself on every Internet-connected device it can access, from which it could theoretically restore itself in the event of a catastrophic failure. A clean copy of itself is also housed in a Faraday cage in the basement of the Federal Reserve as a last-last ditch contingency.]]

* NoPlansNoPrototypeNoBackup: Unfortunately averted. If Arthur hadn't made backups, Samaritan wouldn't now be a threat.

* KillAllHumans: Averted, despite the fear of Team Machine. Samaritan recognizes that it needs humans, to provide it with information.

* PerspectiveFlip: "Beta" is shown entirely from Samaritan's view, rather than The Machine's. This is later zigzagged in Season 4 onwards, where the show flips back and forth between The Machine and Samaritan's view every few episodes. Several episodes are from the point of view of ''both'' machines. This even bleeds over into the opening credits. Season 4's intro is shown from Samaritan's POV as it tags Team Machine as treats. In Season 5, the intro continually cuts back and forth between Samaritan and The Machine's POVs as the ASIs bicker for control over the intro, with Team Machine flipping between threat and asset status depending on which ASI is dominant, and Finch's standard monologue being overridden by a new one delivered by Greer whenever Samaritan is in control of the intro.
* PoliticalCorrectnessGoneMad: Unlike The Machine, which classifies people solely as "relevant" or "irrelevant" to national security, Samaritan classifies people as "deviants" - except deviance is determined by things such as "expression of aberrant beliefs", "consumption of pornographic materials", "illegal internet downloads", "multiple sexual partners" and "attention deficit disorder" All are comparatively minor things (only one of them is actually illegal) that The Machine would overlook. Naturally, over 22 million deviants are identified in America alone within a minute of Samaritan coming online, and that number was still climbing.

* PerspectiveFlip: "Beta" is shown entirely from Samaritan's view, rather than The Machine's. This is later zigzagged in Season 4 onwards, where the show flips back and forth between The Machine and Samaritan's view every few episodes. Several episodes are from the point of view of ''both'' machines.

* EvilBrit: Subverted. In her first appearance (in the first scene of Season 4), she speaks with a British accent, but inexplicably defaults to American afterwards. Her "main" name is French, and with the number of cover identities she has (which cover almost every major country in Europe), her real nationality is still up in the air.
* EvilCounterpart: To Root, she seems to be the main asset (out of many) which Samaritan uses to fulfill its agenda, she has a mass of false identities like Root and she also has a similar set-up to Root's Analog Interface status which gives her full access to Samaritan's surveillance capabilities. Initially, she seemed to be more of an EvilCounterpart to Reese, but her Root-like traits were fleshed out in "Prophets".

* ShoutOut: She is basically a massive tribute to T-X from Terminator 3 Rise Of The Machines.