Recap / Deus Ex Mission 12 Cathedral

Mission 12:

Cathedral

JC exits the sewers a few blocks away from the cathedral. He avoids MJ12 troops on his way and heads towards the building, and finds it swarming with enemy activity.

Noting that the front door is locked, JC opts to use a trellis to climb up to the roof. Gunther suddenly radios JC and says that he can see JC running on the roof, and is going to get him soon. Inside the building, JC finds the sole former staff member - a chef complaining about the troops' bizarre and restrictive behaviour. The agent finds out the location of the computer room and continues onward.

JC finds the gold cache in the basement. Everett thanks him, and says that he has given Chad control of a platoon of NSF troops to recover the gold after the agent leaves. JC continues clearing out the cathedral and eventually comes to the computer room.

Suddenly, Gunther runs out from behind a pillar and confronts JC. He tells the agent that he is going to make him pay for Anna's death, and attacks him with a flamethrower. JC beats him and gives Everett access to the MJ12 network. The Illuminati leader thanks him and says that he will now consent to meeting in person. He tells JC to meet his associate, Toby Atanwe, at the nearby subway.

Before he leaves the room, Walton Simons appears on the holocomm. JC accuses him of sending Gunther on a literal suicide mission because Anna's death had affected him so deeply, and Simons counters that Gunther was old and expendable. He threatens that next time he won't send an "old bucket of bolts" to fight JC and disappears.

As he heads to the subway, the mysterious AI that spoke to him in the city, Icarus, suddenly announces that he has accessed his systems and thanks him for being cooperative. JC meets Toby in the subway, who uses a knockout gas to prevent him from learning the way to Morgan's hideout. Once there, he finds Alex working in a nearby lab and asks why he's in Paris. Alex tells him that Tong sent him over to keep an eye on Everett. He also says that Tong was complaining about the machines in his office not working before their connection was severed.

JC also finds a man in a cryogenic freezing unit in a secret room accessed through a washroom. The man tells the agent that he is Lucius Debeers, the former leader of the Illuminati, and that he is kept on ice by Everett because of his age and a serious illness. Debeers asks JC to tell Everett that he's cold.

The agent eventually finds Everett in his office, and they talk about recent events. Everett points out that Nicolette was wise to bring them together, and suggests that the conspiracy is about to start again. He asks JC to head to the Vandenberg Air Force Base and find the X-51 group of scientists, who are the only ones capable of producing a vaccine for the Grey Death in large quantities because they have their own Universal Constructor.

JC also asks about Debeers, and Everett tells him that he has no intention of ever healing the former leader, and simply wants him as a thinktank. JC goes back to Debeers and tells him this, and Debeers asks JC to shut down his system so that he won't have to live with the pain anymore. JC does so and gets chewed out by Everett.

At the helipad on the roof, JC finds Jock refueling. He also finds a questionable mechanic who acts suspicious. When JC calls him out on it, the mechanic attacks him and is shot down. JC tells Jock to check his systems for any sabotage, and the pilot discovers a bomb and pulls it out.

He thanks JC, and they set out towards Vandenberg...

Tropes:

• Anti-Frustration Features: The route to the computer room is added to your notes after the chef gives it to JC, so you don't have to memorize it.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: The Echelon IV AI breaks down JC's history and gives an estimation of the endgoal of the game, just by speaking to him for a couple minutes.
• Bad Boss: JC learns from Simons in a holocomm chat that the latter sent Gunther to his death just so he would shut up about Anna's death.
• Benevolent Conspiracy: Morgan Everett does his best to portray the Illuminati as this, going so far as to claim "there's such a thing as a compassionate conspiracy". To be fair, they actually come across as such, too, particularly when compared to the more immediate and malevolent threat of their defected spin-off organization Majestic-12, who they actively help Denton fight against. You can even choose to put them back in power, under this reasoning, in the "Kill Bob Page" ending. However, Majestic-12's AI, Icarus, is quick to warn Denton that this is all just an act, and that for all their friendly relations with him, they're really no better. And if their portrayal of them in the prequel is any hint, you may just be buying the world more time before the next Dark Age, rather than outright saving it.
• But Thou Must!: There is no option to avoid Toby and find Everett's base yourself - you have to let him knock JC out and take him there.
• Cutting the Knot: You could have a face-to-face conversation with Gunther before the Boss Battle begins... or you could just fire a rocket at him as soon as you enter the computer room, thus blowing him to pieces and skipping it entirely.
• Developer's Foresight:
  • Gunther's ambient dialogue while you're exploring the Cathedral changes very slightly in the event that Anna wasn't killed at all (usually by glitching through the locked door during the escape from UNATCO).
  • Gunther's dialogue in his pre-fight conversation will have an alternate line based on whether the player rescued him on Liberty Island, gave him a weapon / didn't give him a weapon, or simply left him locked up until the mission was complete.
  • If you wait to talk with the cathedral's chef (in the basement) until after you've dispatched Gunther and connected the uplink, the latter's dialogue (which normally consists of JC asking how to get to the server room and the chef giving a complicated set of directions) to JC asking how to get out and the chef replying "Up the stairs and out the door." He then orders you to get out of his sight.
  • Everett's dialogue changes if you Mercy Kill Debeers before speaking with him in the lab, and his infolink message is even more angry and irate than if you'd spoken with Everett beforehand. However, the tone of the following in-person conversation with Everett doesn't change.
  • Likewise, Everett has unique dialogue for the event where JC meets and/or takes out the fake mechanic and goes all the way back to the lab to talk with Everett; JC points out the shady mechanic, Everett mentions he's glad to know "Pierre" is okay as he's been unable to reach him, to which JC responds that "Pierre" sounded American, and is told that Pierre's never been in America and Morgan starts wondering about the situation himself. If he's been taken out, JC will also immediately inform Everett that the shady mechanic has been taken care of, which Everett thanks him for, before wondering how the guy managed to get as far as he did.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Lucius' dialogue at Everett's apartment suggests that the Illuminati had JFK (and RFK) killed because the former made reference to a "conspiracy" during one of his Presidential speeches.
• Dull Surprise:
  • The chef in the Cathedral has no reaction beyond annoyance that an interloper has infiltrated the complex, instead complaining that the site has had so many people who have jockeyed for power and claimed it during his tenure there that nothing shocks him anymore.
  • Jock is strangely unconcerned with the death of Everett's mechanic, until...
    Jock: Oh my God, JC! A BOMB!
    JC: A bomb.
    Jock: Hold on... just let me pull this wire...
    JC: Get out of there.
• Field Promotion: Everett tells JC that he promoted Chad to lead a platoon of NSF troops and retrieve the gold from the cathedral.
• Forgotten Fallen Friend: Played with. Gunther has been telling everyone within earshot how he is going to make JC pay for Anna's death before the latter arrives. After he dies, Simons reveals that he sent Gunther to his likely death because he was sick of hearing him whine about Anna all the time.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: Anna is always treated as dead, even in the (highly unlikely) event that the player skipped the Boss Battle with her in UNATCO.
• Human Popsicle: Lucius DeBeers. He thinks he's still the head of the Illuminati, and if JC tells him he's only a figurehead now, Lucius requests JC euthanize him.
• I Cannot Self-Terminate: Lucius asks JC to euthanize him after the latter reveals that Everett only thinks of him as a figurehead.
• Killed Mid-Sentence: Gunther, when JC uses his killphrase.
• Lampshade Hanging: Used to hilarious effect. If you sneak up on a pair of MJ12 troopers in the basement/kitchen of the Cathedral, you'll hear them asking why they don't just trash the computer system to prevent anyone like Denton from accessing it. In turn, the other trooper expresses doubt that the Illuminati could take forty tons of gold out of the building.
• Let's Fight Like Gentlemen: Subverted. JC tries to use this as a dialogue option against Gunther, the latter curtly refutes it.
  JC: I know you hate being a tool for a bunch of bureaucrats as much as I did. How 'bout we make a gentlemen's agreement?
  Gunther: I am the top agent at UNATCO. It is different now. Mr. Simons said if I defeat you I can have any upgrades I want. That is a gentlemen's agreement.
• Manly Tears: The player can find a datalog from one of the MJ12 troopers talking about how he thought he saw Gunther crying at one point (presumably over Anna's death).
• Mathematician's Answer: If you confront Everett about Lucius DeBeers' potential restoration from cryostasis, he will give a not-so-straight answer:
  Everett: The technology has been around for decades, but he does not need to know that.
• Mercy Kill: If you tell DeBeers that Everett has no intentions of healing him, he will command you to do this to him.
• Not So Stoic: Questioning Lucius enough will have him go from calm remarks to downright pleading (and shouting) at JC to kill him.
• Older Than They Look: If Lucius' claims about ordering the death of Kennedy are true, that would mean, at the minimum, he would be over 120 years old. The game never makes a definite remark about his age either way, though in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Lucius' health is shown to be failing him in 2029, necessitating that he go into cryogenic storage for the indefinite future.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner:
  JC: I know your killphrase. Laputan machine.
  Gunther: I am not a mach-
  JC: Sticks and stones.
  (Gunther blows up)
• A Pupil of Mine Until He Turned to Evil: Page is this to Everett.
• Sinister Surveillance:
  • Used to great effect when JC arrives at the cathedral. If the player uses the trellis to get on top of the building, Gunther radios and says that he can see you "prowling around like a mouse" because of a spy drone in the sky.
  • After Gunther is defeated and the uplink is established, Icarus radios you to reveal that he has been following your progress all along - and has accessed your systems.
• Skippable Boss: The fight with Gunther can be avoided if the player uses his killphrase to destroy him during the conversation beforehand. Likewise, it is possible to lure him away from the computer room so it can be accessed, although it is impossible to knock him out and the game assumes he's dead (via Simons' conversation afterwards).
• Talking the Monster to Death: The player can choose to do this to Gunther.
• Uriah Gambit: Simons admitted that he sent Gunther to Paris so that JC may dispose of him because he was tiring of listening to Gunther's cries for vengeance and requests for a tune-up.
• Villain Ball: Everett reveals that MJ12 sowed the seeds of its own destruction by creating Daedalus to stop terrorist groups - which had the net effect of Daedalus classifying MJ12 itself as a threat and working against it.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Toby Atanwe disappears completely from the apartment once the player gets up to the helipad in Everett's apartment. Given that the mechanic is The Mole, however....
• What the Hell, Hero?: Everett chews out JC if he decides to shut down Lucius' cooling unit.
• Who Shot JFK?: The conversation with Lucius implies that he instructed the Illuminati to kill JFK, as well as RFK.
• You Have Failed Me: A datapad in the Cathedral shows a list of soldiers MJ12 considers to be compromised, including Erin and Decker (whose datapads could be found in the Airfield stage). This is supposedly a remnant from a deleted subplot, where JC would have found them dead later in the game.
• Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: Subverted. Everett explains that MJ12 developed Daedalus to clamp down on any potential terrorist groups that could oppose their rule. This backfired when Daedalus came to the conclusion that MJ12 itself was a terrorist group and turned against them.

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