Government officials and intelligence agencies.
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Unites States of America
US Government
President David Bowers
President David Bowers
Voiced by: Arthur Holden
Appears in: Splinter Cell | Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow | Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory | Splinter Cell: Double Agent
The President of the United States of America from at least 2001 to 2009. He is highly supportive of Third Echelon.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: An expy George W. Bush in the first game.
- Our Presidents Are Different: President Personable.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: A bit of Truth in Television as while Bush wasn't well-loved by many, he did support covert agencies. Perhaps too much.
President Patricia Caldwell
President Patricia Caldwell
Voiced by: Lynne Adams
Appears in: Splinter Cell: Conviction | Splinter Cell: Blacklist
The U.S. President in office from at least 2011 to 2013. She is suspicious of the power and latitude given to Third Echelon and other spy organizations and seeks to restrict them.
- Big Good: Of both Conviction and Blacklist.
- Comic-Book Fantasy Casting: She has Meryl Streep's face while reminding of Hillary Clinton overall.
- Expy: Pretty clearly one of Hillary Clinton. Although, if you pay really close attention to background NPC dialogue during the Lincoln Memorial level, it's said in a conversation between two construction workers that she's a moderate Republican who reached across the aisle in picking Samson (a Blue Dog Democrat) as her vice-presidential running mate.
- Our Presidents Are Different: President Iron.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: A smart, savvy, and honorable President who has attracted the ire of Megiddo.
- You Didn't See That: Deals this to the Army Rangers who storm the Oval Office before they can take Sam into custody, intending to leave him and Grim to deal with Reed as they see fit to do.
Vice President Calvin Samson
Vice President Calvin Samson
Voiced by: Larry Day
Appears in: Splinter Cell: Conviction
The Vice President during the events of Conviction. He is a member of Megiddo and is part of their attempts to take over the U.S. government.
- Bald of Evil: As a member of Megiddo planning the death of President Caldwell.
- Corrupt Politician: See above.
- Knee-capping: Considering Sam can't kill the Vice President, he does this instead.
- Exact Words/Tempting Fate: Insists seconds before hand that he's "bulletproof".
Sam: You really need to work on that "bulletproof" thing. - No Party Given: Averted. He's a Blue Dog Democrat.
- Our Vice Presidents Are Different: Vice President Corrupt.
- President Evil: What Megiddo intended for him to be after disposing of Caldwell.
CIA
Mitch Dougherty
Mitchell "Mitch" Dougherty
Appears in: Splinter Cell
A suspected mole in the CIA who is providing information to Nikoladze.
- Beleaguered Bureaucrat: Seems harmless enough. Turns out he is indeed harmless.
- Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: Dougherty can be kidnapped when he's on a smoke break.
- Hanlon's Razor: He's not a traitor, just incompetent.
- The Mole: Subverted.
- Must Have Nicotine: He is a chain smoker, and it is during one of his smoke breaks that Fisher is able to nab him.
- Not What It Looks Like: Claims this. He's right. His insecure PC is being bugged by the Georgians.
- Shout-Out: Information Retrieval is to Brazil.
- Southern-Fried Genius: Has a thick Southern accent but is very good at his job.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: His OCD compelled him to hoard classified information on an unsecured computer that the Georgians were able to hack.
Ingrid Karlthson
Ingrid Ruth Karlthson
Appears in: Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow
A field operations officer who acts as Sam's Fisher contact during the crisis in Indonesia.
- Cunning Linguist: She's a specialist in Indonesian languages, which comes in handy when Third Echelon needs to translate Suhadi Sadono's messages, which are written in mambae
, a language from East Timor. - Damsel in Distress: Taken by Sadono to serve as a translator in his dealings some time into the game, as well as a bargaining chip.
- Deep Cover Agent: Went to the US Embassy in Dili (East Timor) to track down Norman Soth, another deep-cover agent and a member of the Big Bad Duumvirate of the game.
- Femme Fatale: Played with. Ingrid is perfectly capable and doesn't use her sexuality but Sadono is taken with her anyway.
- A Match Made in Stockholm: Subverted. She knew full well what a danger Sadono posed through Pandora Tomorrow, though he did treat her humanely, and she does admit that she sees why so many people would follow him.
- Overt Agent: A Downplayed Trope example as she's suspected by many but Sadono.
Hisham Hamza
Hisham Hamza
Appears in: Splinter Cell: Double Agent
A CIA contact who's undercover in John Brown's Army.
- Composite Character: In Version 2 of Double Agent, he is partnered with Sam for the Action Prologue, taking the role John Hodge did in Version 1, although unlike Hodge, he doesn't die in that mission.
- Deep Cover Agent: Much like Sam himself.
- In the Back: Although this ending is non-canon according to the writer of Conviction, Essentials has Sam shooting him in the back as he tries to escape to cover Sam himself.
- The Mole: A CIA agent in John Brown's Army.
Georgian Government
President Kombayn Nikoladze
President Kombayn Nikoladze
Voiced by: Vlasta Vrana
Appears in: Splinter Cell
"We must begin actions before coming under the attention of our neighbors. Our potential oil relationship with the Americans will keep them from interfering, but only if the scale is already too far tilted in our favor."
The President of Georgia during most of the Georgian Information Crisis in the first Splinter Cell game. He has a deep hatred of America, and seeks to attack it subversively while conquering the neighbor Azerbaijan.
- Big Bad: Of the first game.
- Boom, Headshot!: How he meets his end, courtesy of Sam Fisher on Lambert's orders.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: He came to power in Georgia by using his ample funds from the oil business.
- Cult of Personality: Giant helmsman-style portrtaits of him can be seen at some points in Georgia.
- He Knows Too Much: His knowledge of "The Ark" (a nuclear suitcase bomb) necessitated his assassination by Fisher before either he or his successor Cristavi could make any use of it.
- Meaningful Name: "Kombayn" means "grain harvester" or "combine", likely a reference to grain working given by his likely Soviet parents.
- The work a combine does is "reaping" a harvest, a modern variation of the age-old scythe; the Georgian President whose name is synonymous with "Reaper" orchestrates a genocidal reaping against the Azerbaijani people and anybody who gets in his way with modern technology.
- My Death Is Only The Beginning: Although it's not elaborated on, in later games it's mentioned that assassinating him created several unforseen negative implications, enough that Third Echelon makes a significant effort to capture the major villains of the next two games alive.
- Non-Action Big Bad: Fisher catches him unarmed, and he doesn't carry weapons nor tries to defend himself otherwise.
- President Evil: Eventually ousted, though, before his assassination.
- Smug Snake: Believed he could take on the United States and NATO. Even with his electronics-warfare weapons, this takes balls.
- To be fair, Nikoladze never wanted to fight either but Sam exposed his war crimes.
President Varlam Cristavi
President Varlam Cristavi
Appears in: Splinter Cell
The CIA-backed Georgian President who replaces Nikoladze after he goes renegade and into hiding.
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Cristavi was one of Nikoladze's ministers and betrayed him by plotting a CIA-backed coup, becoming president of Georgia to put an end to the crisis. Later on Cristavi offers protection to Nikoladze in exchange for the Ark's location, with the actual intent to keep the Ark for himself, and has Nikoladze's guards shot by his own Elite Mooks.
- Corrupt Politician: A CIA-appointed president. He also wants to keep the Ark for himself instead of handing it over to the Americans, for some reason.
- A Lighter Shade of Black: He's corrupt and wants to keep the Ark for himself, but overthrows the much worse Nikoladze and offers to bring "aid and reconciliation" to Azerbaijan, which Nikoladze had just brutally invaded.
- Karma Houdini: Pandora Tomorrow confirms he is still the President of Georgia despite his attempt to steal the Ark for himself.
- Torture Always Works: Cristavi learned the true purpose of the Ark by capturing and having one of Nikoladze's men tortured. Sam Fisher recovers the recording of this interrogation in the last mission.
Shin Bet
Dahlia Tal
Dahlia Suleiman Tal
Appears in: Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow
An undercover agent of Shin Bet (Israeli internal security service) who has infiltrated a Syrian terrorist group known as "Grasp of the Corpse" by pretending to be a corrupt member of Mossad. She helps Sam Fisher infiltrate the terrorist's underground research facility in Jerusalem, where the ND-133 is being held.
- Badass Israeli: Lambert says her marksmanship would make Lee Harvey Oswald jealous. And it takes something to infiltrate a terrorist cell.
- CIA Evil, FBI Good: Israeli secret services version. For Sam Fisher and Lambert, the Mossad are nicer guys than the Shin Bet. Unfortunately, Sam has to cooperate with Dahlia, who's a Shin Bet agent. And said agent wants to take the opportunity of Sam's non-official existence to kill him and take the ND-133 once he has it in his possession.
- Double Agent: She cooperates with Third Echelon to help them get the ND-133 but actually plans to get rid of Sam and retrieve it for the Shin Bet, since killing a non-official secret agent won't cause diplomatic issues with the USA.
- No Sense of Humor: She's dead serious and never quips with Sam during the mission.
- Story Branching: If Sam obeys Lambert's orders and kills Dahlia before infiltrating the underground base, the Jerusalem level's end zone is filled with cops. If he spares her life, she will try to ambush him with other snipers in said zone.
Information Self-Defense Force (ISDF)
Admiral Toshiro Otomo
Admiral Toshiro Otomo
Voiced by: Terrence Scammell
Appears in: Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory
An old-fashioned Japanese admiral, he is the head of Japan's new electronic warfare branch. He turns out to be the game's second big-bad, alongside Douglas Shetland, using the Dvorak algorithms to launch false-flag operations to start a war in the Koreas and re-militarize Japan.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: He's working with Shetland to cause a war between North and South Korea, though ultimately for different reasons than Shetland.
- Chekhov's Gunman: He does not seem to be a very important character at first, providing only some color to a few of the briefings. Then he turns out to be party to the sinking of the USS Walsh and the war in Korea.
- The Dog Was the Mastermind: A seemingly not too important from the briefings section is eventually revealed to be responsible for the sinking of the USS "Walsh" and the new war in Korea.
- Even Evil Has Standards: He's completely mad with power and was willing to betray his own nation to see his imperialist agenda fulfilled, but when captured he refuses to lie in the face of the evidence and makes the honorable decision to take full responsibility for his actions.
- Evil Counterpart: If Shetland is this to Fisher, then Otomo is one to Lambert, being Lambert's Japanese counterpart as the head of their information warfare division.
- Expy: Some of his mindset is quite similar to that of Yukio Mishima: nostalgia for Imperial Japan's order, planning a military coup to restore it and ultimately committing Seppuku. He's also similar to Yamata from Debt of Honor, especially in how he tries to kill himself but is stopped so he can face public trial.
- Face–Heel Turn: Formerly Japanese intelligence, now villain.
- False Flag Operation: Along with Shetland, hacks into a North Korean missile battery and disables the Walsh's defenses, which results in the sinking of the Walsh and North Korea getting the blame. Then he prepares to launch a North Korean cruise missile at Japan, in order to steer public opinion towards re-militarizing Japan.
- Graceful Loser: Once his attempt at Seppuku fails, Otomo's sense of honor sees him confess to his crimes in public and taking all the blame.
- Insane Admiral: In spades.
- Knight Templar: He wants to make Japan a great military power again. To that end, he's willing to kill thousands of Koreans, Americans and Japanese to see it done.
- Seppuku: Attempts it once Sam breaches his inner sanctum. Sam saves his life because there has to be someone to take the fall for everything that's happened.
- The Stoic: He does not have much in the way of a sense of humor, though Grimm notes he is much nicer than he appears to be in person. Given the fact that he tries re-arming Japan to go to war with North Korea, this may not be an accurate assessment of the man.
- Not So Stoic: Starts screaming at the Japanese government officials, first when they try to deny his demands, second after they try to invade his Underwater Base.
- Walking Spoiler: Hard to talk about this guy without mentioning his true role in the story. Just look at all the white text here.
Voron
Kestrel
Mikhail Andreyevitch Loskov / "Kestrel"
Voiced by: Alex Ivanovici
Appears in: Splinter Cell: Conviction | Splinter Cell: Blacklist
A Voron agent active before the involvement of Sam Fisher in the Third Echelon Conspiracy, Kestrel worked alongside Splinter Cell agent Archer to take down Russian criminal activities within his own country. He apparently died in the end of the prologue campaign in Conviction, but was later recovered by Voron and kept in a coma until Sam and Briggs rescue him in Blacklist.
- Alternate Company Equivalent: In-universe, he is this for a Splinter Cell, with Voron being essentially Russia's Third Echelon.
- Anti-Hero
- Apologetic Attacker: He hates having to fight his own countrymen, but he does it anyway.
- The Combat Pragmatist
- Code Name/Nom de Guerre: Kestrel
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Justified, considering Archer and Kestrel are covert operatives, and probably shouldn't be able to give away their true identities.
- Conscription: The reason Kestrel was in the military at all.
- Dark and Troubled Past: His parents were killed in a terrorist attack when he was six years old. He had a very bad relationship with his foster father, and ended up running away at the age of 14 to live on the streets of St. Petersburg for more than four years alone, where he had many run ins with the police, ultimately arrested at the age of 18. He was conscripted into the military, as was mandatory. When shifted to a counterinsurgency unit for his ability to thrive in the field, he was systematically forced to watch the execution of his friends after they were eventually captured, then subjected to three days of Cold-Blooded Torture until the Spetsnaz rescued him and he was invited to Voron. With a history like that, it's not hard to see how his personality differs from that of Archer.
- Defector from Decadence: Became one after the events of Conviction.
- Disney Death: His fight with Archer did not result in his death, but rather in him being rendered comatose.
- Foil: To Archer.
- Impossibly Cool Clothes
- Made of Iron:
Word of God has stated that Andriy Kobin canonically shot Kestrel in the head, which is reflected during the events of Blacklist. - Mother Russia Makes You Strong: Subverted. He's plenty badass and Russian, but he's not any of the other things involved in the trope.
- Not Quite Dead: As revealed in Blacklist through the Briggs missions.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Blue to Archer's Red.
- The Runaway: In his history, from the age of 14 to 18.
- Stealth Expert: Seeing as he is the Voron equivalent to a Splinter Cell. However, unlike Splinter Cells, Voron agents are more trained in assault tactics than infiltration, as shown in Blacklist and supported by his history.
- Token Good Teammate: As shown in Blacklist, he's one of the only heroic Voron agents. Probably why they put him in a drug induced coma.
Paladin Nine Security
Victor Coste
Victor Coste
Voiced by: Howard Siegel
Appears in: Splinter Cell: Conviction | Splinter Cell: Blacklist
Sam's friend from his Navy SEAL days, "Vic" Coste is a valuable ally to him in the fifth game. Following his days in the Navy, he took up forming "Paladin Nine Security", a security consulting company specializing in high-tech defense solutions and kidnapping recovery work. That said, due to the small staff, he ends up doing most of the field work himself, keeping up enough to still stay useful for Sam when he is called on once more.
- Badass in Distress: The entire game of Conviction is narrated from captivity in a Black Arrow cell. The final cutscene implies that Sam broke him out.
- Bash Brothers: With Sam. Much more evident in Blacklist than Conviction, since they actually fight alongside eachother, and a lot of attention is paid to how much concern Sam has over his condition.
- The Big Guy: In Conviction.
- Cool Old Guy
- Demoted to Extra: He serves as a partner in the tutorial for Blacklist, but is put into critical condition by a grenade by the end of it, and remains in the hospital for the game's duration until the ending.
- Gunship Rescue: Pulls this off in the latter part of Conviction.
- In-Series Nickname: "Vic".
- Narrator: For Conviction.
- Remember the New Guy?: He's first mentioned in Conviction as Sam's old war buddy, but had no prior mentions. A Justified Trope in that there was no reason for Sam to contact him prior to Conviction.
- Retired Badass: He is a former Navy SEAL.
