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USG Ishimura
Alissa Vincent
Played by: Nika Futterman
"My name is Alissa Vincent. I may be the sole survivor. We encountered an alien life form. They have taken over the bodies of the crew. The colony was lost. My team is dead. It is my belief that the artifact we discovered on the surface is somehow responsible. If you find this recording, the Ishimura and the artifact must be destroyed."
Alissa Vincent was the Security Chief of P.C.S.I. Security of the USG Ishimura and the protagonist of Dead Space: Downfall.
- Action Girl: What else would you expect from a woman who heads a spaceship's security team? Alissa's job entails cracking heads when she needs it.
- The Cassandra: She realizes the Marker is behind all the chaos and even tries to send out a warning for others to destroy the ship, but unfortunately, her efforts are in vain.
- Heroic BSoD: Has one when her entire team is killed and she realizes that the crew of the Ishimura is beyond saving.
- Heroic Willpower: She is among the last of the Ishimura's crew to be affected by the Marker signal, and it took her literally cuddling up next to it for it to make her hallucinate.
- Honor Before Reason: Determined to protect as much of the crew as she can, leading her to stop Kyne from crashing the ship. On a side note, it also prevents her from realising that the Necromorph infection onboard the ship simply cannot be stopped, as the creatures’ ability to increase their ranks with every slain victim and usage of the vent systems to bypass any quarantine set up by the few not caught flat-footed by the outbreak meant that the ship was bound to fall sooner or later, and that her efforts would have been better put to use in evacuating survivors instead. She does eventually realise the futility of her endeavour, but only when it’s too late to do anything about it.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In her effort to rescue any survivors aboard the ship, she becomes indirectly responsible for every following necromorph outbreak, the rise of militant Unitologists, the overthrowing of EarthGov, and the Brethren Moons finding and consuming Earth's population. If she had just allowed Kyne to destroy the ship, and thus destroy the Marker, then humanity may have avoided becoming food for a long time.
- Senseless Sacrifice: Records a warning message to any who come looking for the Ishimura, telling them to destroy the Ishimura and the Marker, then opens an airlock in order to launch the transmitter beacon, getting sucked out into the vacuum of space with it. Too bad that the message was too garbled for the investigation team to understand, leading them to head for the Ishimura thinking that their communication systems needed to be repaired.
- Unwitting Pawn: She is convinced by a hallucination of Ramirez to send out a distress beacon, making sure more will come for the Marker.
Ramirez
Played by: Hal Sparks
"You falling apart on us, Sarge? Maybe Irons here can sign you up with the Unitologists; they seem pretty at peace with this bullshit."
Ramirez was a Security Officer of the P.C.S.I. Security team led by Alissa Vincent.
- Deadpan Snarker: See the above quote.
- Dying as Yourself: Allowed himself to be killed by the Necromorphs, instead of going insane and trying to kill the only living friend he had left.
- Fighting from the Inside: When the Marker signal finally starts to get to him, you can see him visibly sweating, and he is calmly chatting about himself and why he joined the Ishimura crew, obviously trying to distract himself. When he starts to lose the fight, he warns Vincent and sacrifices himself to keep from attacking her.
- Heroic Sacrifice: When the Marker signal starts driving him insane, he freely communicates this to Vincent in order to warn her that he will soon become a danger. Immediately after this, he seals a door shut between them, trapping himself in with a horde of approaching necromorphs to protect Vincent from both the necromorphs and himself.
- Heroic Willpower: Manages to resist Marker induced insanity longer than almost any of the other main characters.
- Lovable Coward: Subverted. He admits that he became a security officer on the Ishimura, instead of joining the army, not because of cowardice, but because he prefers to avoid unnecessary confrontations.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: If he had let himself go insane, killed Vincent, then killed himself; then the distress beacon may have never been sent, Isaac's crew may have never been sent to investigate, and the fall of humanity may have been held off for just a little while longer.
- Reluctant Psycho: Averted. When the Marker signal finally started to drive him insane, he chose to commit suicide instead of falling into insanity.
- Senseless Sacrifice: After his death, the Marker uses his image to fool Vincent into sending out a distress beacon by opening an airlock, both killing Vincent and ensuring someone would be lured to the Ishimura.
Shen
Played By: Kelly Hu
"These guys ain't that tough."
Shen was a P.C.S.I. Security Officer and a member of Chief Vincent's team aboard the USG Ishimura.
- Action Girl: She's a female member of the Security team and the most gung ho among them. Only reason she bites it is due to being ambushed by someone who was friendly just a few minutes before.
- Blood Knight: She enjoys fighting the Necromorphs a bit too much.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: It's pretty clear getting sawed in half by Hanson was horrifically painful.
- Deadpan Snarker: Pretty snarky with Hanson and Dobbs.
- Delinquent Hair: A mostly shaved head with some hair dyed blue, giving her a punk aesthetic.
- Fingore: When Hanson stabs through her abdomen with a plasma saw, she reflexively tries to grab the blade. Since a plasma saw is basically a chainsaw/lightsaber, her fingers get sliced off as soon as she touches it.
- Half the Man He Used to Be: She gets painfully vivisected by an insane Hanson using a plasma saw.
- In the Back: Hanson runs her through with a plasma saw from behind as she’s bathing in the glory of slaughtering a Pregnant and its payload.
Hanson
- "I think we should consider abandoning ship; if these things have spread, there's no stopping them."
Hanson was a P.C.S.I. Security Sergeant and a member of Chief Alissa Vincent's team.
- Ax-Crazy: Thanks to the Marker signal hitting him like a ton of bricks, he ends up as this.
- Boom, Headshot!: How he is finally put down while trying to kill Vincent, thanks to Ramirez.
- Driven to Madness: A combination of Marker Sickness and the naturally traumatic ordeal of fighting for survival against the infected crew eventually drives him completely, and murderously, insane.
- Made of Iron: He takes a pretty bad series of stabbings from a Lurker while the team is moving through hydroponics, but is still formidable enough to pin Vincent to the floor and nearly kill her.
- Only Sane Man: Before he went mad, his approach to the problem of the Necromorphs really was the smartest thing to do, as once the infected came on board the ship the situation took mere minutes to become unsalvageable.
- Sanity Slippage: He is one of the people most affected by the Marker signal.
- Slasher Smile: Has a massive grin while murdering Shen and trying to murder Vincent.
- Your Head Asplode: Ramirez’s fatal shot ends up turning everything between the back of his head and his face into a gory paste.
Pendleton
Pendleton was a P.C.S.I. Security Officer and a member of Chief Alissa Vincent's team.
- An Arm and a Leg: During the team's second encounter with the Necromorphs, one manages to cut off the hand he was using to shoot with... before then smashing off his jaw with a vicious strike and ripping him to shreds.
- The Big Guy: He is the biggest member of Vincent's security team.
- Big Guy Fatality Syndrome: Double Whammy with Black Dude Dies First.
- Black Dude Dies First: While not the first person in the movie to die by far, he is the first member of the security team to get killed.
- Devoured by the Horde: Pendleton is swarmed by most of the Necromorphs in the mess hall, and despite fighting them for an admirable amount of time is eventually overwhelmed and torn apart.
Samuel Irons
Played by: Kevin Michael Richardson
Samuel Irons was an engineering specialist and Unitologist who worked aboard the USG Ishimura. He was a very large man with strong faith in his religion who is cut from a much calmer cloth than his fellow worshippers.
- And Then John Was a Zombie: It’s not seen on screen, but after killing Irons the pack of Necromorphs make way for a nearby Infector to get to him and do what it does best.
- Big Damn Heroes: Vincent and her team were getting dished a decisive Curb-Stomp Battle from the horde of Necromorphs in the mess hall until Irons showed up with his plasma saw to turn the tide.
- The Big Guy: Tallest and stoutest member of the team. Takes this role on the team from Pendleton after the latter's death.
- Chainsaw Good: Makes use of an Unknown Model of Plasma saw that seems to be a combination between a Chainsaw and a Lightsaber. He is the one to reveal to the security team that the necromorphs seem more suspectible to damages to their limbs and promptly helps arm them with more Plasma saws.
- Character Death: Though he does die praying, he dies nonetheless.
- Face Death with Dignity: While starting out as a devout Unitologist, he readily admits the teachings may have been wrong once he sees the Necromorphs, but this doesn't stop him from kneeling and calmly accepting his fate once he is cornered by them. He dies saying a small unitology prayer.
- Genius Bruiser: He is an engineer, after all, so his skill with technology is equivalent to his massive physical strength.
- Gentle Giant: Despite being a huge and strongly built man, he's patient, even-tempered and friendly.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Gives his life so the others can escape the hordes of necromorphs.
- Magical Native American: Not only is he visibly Native American, he's also the only Unitologist in the entire series who is not evil and does not go insane, which makes him pretty damn magical.
- Nice Guy: He's just a generally affable sort of fellow.
- Only Sane Man: Out of all the Unitologists we see in the series, it's clear that he is one of the sparingly few among their number who thinks that there might be something very wrong with the idea of "Enlightenment".
- Religious Bruiser: He’s a Unitologist, and both sane and badass enough to take up arms against the very objects of his faith itself when they board the ship.
