Headscratchers / The Division

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The Division as a Whole

Who actually thought the Division was a good idea? As presented, they're a cross between an even more covert Seal Team 6... and the National Guard. They live civilian lives (aside from occasional bits of training), and when they get activated they get sent to the absolute worst situations that have are beyond professional soldiers. Is it any surprise the survivors of First Wave went AWOL, given that they went from a cushy 9-5 job to a hellish warzone?

Not to mention the political angle. Imagine what the reaction would be if it got out that the government was covertly embedding Special Forces operatives throughout the US, with the authority to take control of local authorities if the federal government considers the situation bad enough. Picture if they got activated during, say, the Ferguson protests...

• The point of D51 was that SHD would be fully activated if federal resources can't help stem the tide to maintain government continuity. I don't think they'd consider the protests as a good reason to use them. If anything, the ones who participated in it made the advice to the president and the president himself made the decision.
  • The Division Agents are still sleeper agents embedded throughout American society with total secrecy and basically zero electoral oversight. If this was set up anywhere else, it'd be portrayed as a fascist government's betrayal and distrust of their own people.
  • And these are points that are expressed through Rhodes and Valassi.
• The First Wave didn't go rogue because of having to abandon their old lives, they went rogue because they felt they were betrayed by the government when the JTF pulled out of the Dark Zone and left them to fend for themselves. Plus, if there's ever an event serious enough that the Agents must be activated, then any and all semblance of a normal life have gone out the window by that point anyways.
  • The leader of the Rogue Agents went rogue because he was unable to cope with a strategic decision that led to the death of civilians. Those deaths are tragic, but the lengths he went to indicates that he just completely lost it. Benitez and Rhodes are hardly chipper about what's going on either, but somehow the ex-Mercenary and career police officer were able to cope. The Wall Street Futures Trader that suddenly became a commando soldier with the weight of the world on his shoulders? Snap.
  • As far as we know, Benitez and Rhodes never went into the Dark Zone. Guess who else did? The First Wave and Bliss from the LMB, and he went absolutely nuts as well. It all goes to show that the Dark Zone is not a nice place for ANYBODY.

Who thought OSP was a good idea for supposedly the last line of defense for ensuring the continuity of government? And under exactly what situation would under-equipped government sleeper agents be more useful than, say, a few squads of Ghosts or Splinter Cells? Sure they have some bits of good tech, like ISAC, turrets, and seeker mines (no idea how those are reusable, or how the agent replenishes their supply), but forcing your best guys to go in and loot like everyone else is doing can only destabilize the situation further. And why exactly do they assemble their sleeper agents all in one place? If the government has the luxury to assemble its waves of agents all in one place and fly them over, it rather defeats the purpose of sleeper agents. Ideally, the sleeper agents activated would be the ones already living in Manhattan, who are already in place to do the job. Though perhaps that was the First Wave (why two waves again? Again, if they're the last line of defense, why throw them at the problem piecemeal?)

• Because in a situation where support from the federal government cannot be counted on, sometimes OSP is the only option. Plus, Ghost and Splinter Cell teams are very good, but they are also very few in number, and can't possibly be stationed in every major city across America. In addition, the First Wave Agents were the ones who were originally stationed in Manhattan, while the mainland areas were relatively under control. It was only after the First Wave went missing that the Division felt the need to activate the Second Wave, stationed outside Manhattan, as a backup.
  • Still. Roller mines. Turrets. Shields, both handheld and deployable. Explosive sticky-bomb launchers. You'd think that the equipment you would hand to an agency that is supposed to be the last line of defense wouldn't require specialized tech or facilities to keep maintained. Shade tech is specifically noted by JTF to be amazing kit, and only LMB have anything close to it. (And, as Russian Consulate shows, they might have turrets and support stations, but ISAC still has insane decryption and hacking abilities) A top-of-the-line rifle and body armor is the least difficult to maintain stuff, probably cheapest to acquire and issue, and what you'd expect all Division agents to have as a matter of course. Also on another Shade tech note: If Shade tech can detect when an agent has gone rogue and mark them out for other agents... why does it still work for them? Instead of those orange lights turning red I'd almost expect a bomb in the watch to blow off my hand.
    • OSP is one part of the Division's training, not its entirety. They're self-sufficient, self-reliant and even at their most poorly equipped are more than a match for entire squads of conventional soldiers. Note how you explicitly unlock the more exotic technology when your Bo O has the facilities to maintain it. As for your second point, strapping explosive collars to the people you've empowered on the basis on their (alleged) loyalty and patriotism is a quick way to undo all that. Keener broke after the Dark Zone went to hell, imagine how many more would have ditched the Division on learning they were carrying about bombs for the sole purpose of eliminating themselves.

The Division Post-Crisis

What actually happens with Division Agents after a crisis has passed? A phone recording from Roy Benitez explains that they all get deactivated and then they go back to their civilian lives, but what then? The point of their being sleeper agents is to be, you know, sleeper agents until they are activated. As soon as that happens they are effectively "outed" as federal agents, so when they are finally deactivated they can't go back to being sleeper agents, can they? So do they just go back to being regular civilians and that's it?

• Pretty much, or at least continue to assist with recovery experts. Division Agents were only to be activated under the most dire of emergencies that couldn't be fixed in just a few days or even months. Things like enemy occupation of the United States or the complete collapse of local and federal governments. Those sorts of disasters can take years or even decades to recover from.

Rest of the world

• What happend in countires that don't use dollars (like Peru) or are far away (let's say India or Germany)?
  • Most countries still use paper money, and it's implied in the opening cinematic that cities in other countries have also been hit.
  • But, according to the wiki, the disease was only on infected dollar bills given during Black Friday. So other countries (particulary those far or that don't use dollars) shouldn't be affected, right?
    • I don't think it matters once someone is infected with Green Poison.
    • But that would only means a very small number of people.
    • You shouldn't take the game wiki at face value. Dollar bills was how they were spread in America, but nothing was ever said of whether or not Amherst made arrangements to spread Green Poison to other countries, which he most likely did if he actually wanted to carry out his plan to cull the human race.
    • Don't forget that the virus was specifically engineered to breed and spread while remaining dormant in the host. Flights, travel and so on would have most definitely spread the Dollar Flu far further than its original "insertion".
    • Remember that NYC has an international airport. There are people from every part of the world coming and going on an hourly basis. The Green Poison is supposed to spread as easily as the flu and we know how fast that goes from real life even with vaccines. One person infected gets on a flight, everyone on the flight is infected since it's airborne. They land in London which has international airport with one person from that flight going to a country in Europe, infecting everyone on that flight. All of Europe has an infection on the first day and just spreads faster from there without anyone knowing about it yet.
  • The Collapse minigame might provide some insight into how Green Poison was spread internationally. The simulation can be started in Midtown Manhattan, in addition to various other places across the globe.

The Last Man Battalion's APC

• So the boss in Falcon Lost is an APC armed with some crazy mortar or something, and Faye is quite insistent that we destroy it where it is or something bad will happen. That's fine, and securing the plant it's found in is quite difficult as long as it and the LMB are still there, but there are identical APCs with JTF markings all over Manhattan, even outside of the Dark Zone, and at least one of those is still running. What's the big deal if the LMB has one when we've got several identical vehicles that require little more than us going and retrieving one to level the playing field right back, or even gain an advantage because we've got more than one that's operational?
  • Most likely the issue was that there simply wasn't time to get a friendly APC to the water treatment plant. The JTF was also operating under a time limit because if they could not clear the LMB out, then the government would bomb the plant, which would cripple Manhattan's already strained infrastructure.

The Underground

• Why does it cost intel to activate Fog of War? Isn't Fog of War the LACK of intel?
  • It's purely a game mechanic - the intel you're getting is "really" being used to track enemy movements and the state of NYC's under guts. Although the thought of Division agents slipping the Cleaners some money so they'll use incendiary ammunition cracks me up.

Dark Zone: See something say something

• How come none of the agents ever report rogue agents in the Dark Zone, even if ISAC can't?
  • This is most likely a case of gameplay and story segregation.

Perhaps Manhattan's a bit *too* ruined

• Why are there so many abandoned vehicles in Manhattan's streets? I can understand things like looted buildings and evacuations, but I feel like there's just too many abandoned vehicles laying around to keep the immersion.