(Note: Open for editing)
Jacob Arthur Danik was a Human from the Fuyti Universe and the leader of the militant Unitologist group known as the Circle during the Second Necromorph War, and his followers pursued Isaac Clarke and his allies to Tau Volantis with the intent of discovering the origins of the Markers and initiating the Convergence Event, ultimately killed after he deactivated the machine to free the Brethren Moon.
Biography[]
Early Life[]
Danik was an active proponent in the Unitologist movement to overthrow the Earth Government, working alongside his brethren to compromise and attack their strongholds. Using the expendable funds accumulated by the Church, his "Circle" sect believed that they were liberating humanity by "freeing" the Markers stationed on various colonized planets from the test labs set up by EarthGov. In the face of his followers' uncertainty and hesitation when experiencing the horrors of the Necromorphs, Danik remained steadfast in the belief that their mission was in the right way.
By the time he received news of existence of aliens and humans part of a group known as the Alliance of Nations and their involvement of the Destruction of Aegis VII and Titan Station, he was convinced they were hindering humanity's destiny and focus his attempt to prevent them from interfering.
Outbreak on Uxor[]
Danik staged an attack on the planet Uxor in a move to destroy the Marker Shroud 4 test site. His operatives went unseen by the likes of John Carver or the Earth Government units on the planet. Using Danik's user ID, they used the USG Perseus to set up a long-sight laser marker to guide a cruiser's missiles to the exact location of the Marker site.
The missile destroyed the Marker's shroud and released an EMP that knocked out the power in the area. After Residential was demolished by a falling ship, Danik and his men entered the Science Block in Sector 6 in search of the Sovereign Colonies Marker research discovered by Damara Carver. They captured John Carver who stumbled onto them accidentally. Danik's men interrogated him for information. Danik, set on killing Carver, learned that he was married to the woman that he was searching for.
Though John Carver escaped, Danik was about to kill Damara and her son Dylan when he was intercepted by the Alliance forces and fled. Afterward, he listened in on Carver's RIG communication with Ellie Langford. Danik set up a trap for them near the cargo dock. Carver used Ellie as bait and sprung Danik's trap, allowing them to escape on the USM Eudora. Despite the group's efforts to hide their trail, Danik followed them to Keyhole Station and ordered an attack on the Eudora. Danik's efforts to gain the information and coordinates for Tau Volantis were foiled when Robert Norton destroyed the ShockRing that Ellie had used to reach the planet. His ship was heavily damaged by the combined bombardment from Keyhole Station and the Eudora and seemingly drifted through space.
War against the Alliance[]
Danik spread an automated speech via zeppelin over the top of Luna's New Horizons Lunar Colony, preaching about how the end of mankind had come and the time of humanity's glorious rebirth was imminent, During this speech, he was preparing to launch an assault on the colony in the hopes of finding Clarke and killing him, The primary purpose of the attack was to unite the Unitologists against EarthGov as he believed that their tampering with the Markers was heresy and also the Alliance of Nations, blaming them for their 'lies and deception' of helping them but convinced they were jealous of his people being blessed while they were immune to the Markers' influence, believing they were unworthy of its unity.
During the genocidal attack on the sector, Danik first met Clarke as he was attempting to reach Norton's ship, the Eudora. He forced Clarke to watch as his men destroyed the shroud of a Marker test facility in the heart of the city. He ignored Clarke's warnings about the deaths that would follow the shroud's removal. Danik reassured him that death was just the beginning and the destruction of the human race was necessary but his actions drew the attention of the Allied forces to step in. Clarke could not be allowed to interfere with Convergence. Before Danik could kill him, Clarke deflected his weapon and fell into a garbage dump full of EarthGov corpses. During the Necromorph outbreak spreading on the planet, Danik's attempts to cut Clarke off from the Eudora were foiled by the Eudora crew's combined efforts, unable to risk being captured by the Alliance he went into hiding.
Tau Volantis[]
Later on, Danik and his followers reached the frozen planet Tau Volantis to the bafflement of the Allies and Clarke's group. During Isaac and the crew's experimentation with the Nexus, Isaac caught Norton secretly communicating with Danik, but when he was questioned, Norton said that it was nothing important. After Jennifer Santos gained the information necessary for the group to locate the Alien Machine that worked in conjunction with the Codex, Danik apprehended Clarke, Norton and Carver. He reneged on his deal with Norton and revealed his intention to kill them all. They fought back and were able to chase Danik off during a firefight with his men.
Danik and his men appeared some time later, combing the research labs to find Clarke, Ellie and Carver. Instead of actively searching for them, Danik found a communications station where he broadcasted Unitologist propaganda in an attempt to wear down Clarke's morale. Danik managed to corner them after the assembly of the remains of the alien species in the Rosetta Facility. Clarke unknowingly revealed the true intention of the Alien Machine to him. The Moon above the planet was a massive Necromorph and the Machine was keeping the creature from completing its original task that had started with the previous civilization of the planet two million years prior.
Danik, convinced that the Moon was the divine embodiment of the Markers' will, decided that the Machine must be deactivated in order to free it and allow it to become whole with it. Before Danik's men could kill Clarke and the others, they were ambushed by an ambush. Among the confusion, Danik escaped with the Codex and a few of his men. He sealed the chamber and assumed that Clarke and the others would die in the explosion.
As Danik made his way to the Machine, his men informed him that Clarke and Carver had survived and were hot on his trail, along with a fleet of Alliance forces intercepting the planet. Realised he was running out of time, Danik gathered his remaining troops to slow them down while he descended into the underground city where the Machine resided. By the time he reached the bottom of the ventilation system, he found most of his ground forces dead. Aggravated, Danik demanded that more drop ships should be called in at once. As Clarke and Carver pursued Danik through the caverns of the underground city, Clarke tried to convince Danik about the true nature of the Moon. He disregarded Clarke's warning as fear of the unknown. Clarke and Carver eventually caught up to him and struggled for the Codex. Danik lost the Codex to Clarke and Carver who fell down to the lower levels of the city. Enraged, Danik sent his remaining men on a manhunt for the two. As Clarke and Carver prepared to use the Machine, Danik revealed his ace in the hole. Ellie was captured and held at gunpoint. If they wanted her back alive, they must let him turn off the Machine. Carver, believing that there were other ways to do the right thing, gave Danik the Codex in order to save Ellie's life. Danik used the Codex to shut the Machine down. His actions triggered Convergence and freed the Moon from its frozen prison. As Danik looked upon the monstrosity in awe, a massive shard of debris impaled his body, killing him instantly.
Legacy[]
Ironically, judging by the extremely violent way Danik died and had his corpse buried, he probably couldn't be reanimated as a Necromorph. Although his biomass could have been assimilated as part of The Corruption, he died relatively far from sources of the tissue. In the aftermath of his death, the Unitologist Cult born from the survivors of the Circle continued to heed the message of Danik on the CMS Terra Nova and used him as the saint for their cult. The propaganda video of Danik recruiting new members to the Church of Unitology was played in a loop in one of the worship altars inside the Terra Nova.
Personality and Traits[]
Danik saw himself as a fairly reasonable individual taking extreme measures to save humanity against a perceived enemy: the Earth Government and such horrors from the multiverse he became aware of. He was polite, albeit in a passive-aggressive manner, when talking to his foes.
Although clearly a religious zealot, Danik defended his beliefs by claiming to be a "man of science" and believed that Unitology's reverence of the Markers was grounded in fact, reason and logic. His faith in Unitology blinded him from the obvious truth of the Marker's capabilities and true purpose. Even after his view was proven false when the Markers are revealed to be mere conduits for the Brethren Moons, Danik was confident in his belief that Convergence was the best path for humanity. He somehow became aware of the existence of alternate realities and studied some of his foes such as the Multiverse War which made him more convinced humanity needs to be united and blamed the Alliance of bringing such horrors to his universe to meddle with his peoples' evolution, even compared himself as a lesser zealot to the Imperium who he proclaimed as barbaric and savage for destroying entire worlds with life. His conclusion that humans in other realities were a lost cause due to learning that many not from his universe were immune to the Markers.
According to him, the Markers' ability to manipulate organic life, coupled with the fact that the Black Marker on Fuyti Earth was present long before the existence of humanity, was evidence that humanity's evolution and development occurred due to the guidance of the Black Marker and its powers. The implication was that the entire existence of the human species was a result of the intervention of the Markers and humanity's sole destiny was to achieve Convergence. Danik used this argument to dissuade the Alliance and Isaac Clark from resisting him, claiming that Isaac was impeding the natural evolution of the Fuyti universe.
Usually calm and boastful, a turning tide sent him into angry rants as well as short-tempered demands for Clarke and the Alliance to accept their fates. In this respect, his attitude was not unlike Challus Mercer. As such, Danik's amusement with Clarke's uncanny ability to survive and push on after all of that he endured wore thin and he resorted to more direct acts of violence to stop him. Despite the claim that his actions were driven by reason and logic rather than religious zealotry, he still used religious accusations when angered, referring to the Allied forces as a "filthy heretics".
Quotes[]
- "Those damned Alliance fools, they don't know what they are doing! Those heretics!"
- — Danik after escaping Uxor