Trent Easton
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| Trent Easton | |
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| Real Name | Trent Easton |
| Age | 46 (as of Perfect Dark) |
| Nationality | American |
| Affiliations | National Security Agency |
| Gender | Male |
| Hair | Black |
| Eyes | Black |
| Status | Deceased |
Trent Easton is a fictional character from Perfect Dark, the best-selling First Person Shooter developed by Rare Ltd. for the N64. He was also mentioned in the recent novel based around the franchise, Perfect Dark: Initial Vector.
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[edit] General Overview
In the video game, Trent Easton is one of the conspirators who plot against the US Government to allow the Skedar to steal a devastating weapon from a Cetan spaceship crashed on Earth since thousands of years. His repeated failures at satisfying the requests of the Skedar will ultimately lead him to his death, at the hands of one of the ill-intentioned aliens.
[edit] Biography
[edit] Background
Little is known from Trent Easton before the actual events from the game, and no element prior to his joining the National Security Agency has been revealed so far. We know he was once a contact of Anita Velez, when she was working as a bodyguard for then-dataFlow CEO, Cassandra de Vries. At the time, Easton was just another employee from the NSA, but he gave sensible information to Velez in order to help de Vries ascend to the position of dataDyne Corporation CEO.
Maybe Anita Velez later actually introduced Easton to de Vries, or de Vries made contact with him herself, resulting in the beginning of a professional but nevertheless quite friendly relationship between the two. Apart from his personal interest, that relationship may have been one of the reasons that brought Easton to accept to take part in the conspiracy fomented by dataDyne and the Skedar.
[edit] A useful asset
At some point between the years 2020 and 2023, Trent became the head of the National Security Agency. It is unknown if dataDyne's useful network of contacts had anything to do with his promotion, but he nevertheless became one of the most influential men in the United States of America government, and even one of the President's trusted advisors. This may explain why, shortly before the events described in the video game, Easton was contacted by de Vries for a special secret project involving dataDyne and a mysterious individual, only known as Mr. Blonde.
[edit] The Conspiracy
The plan was pretty simple: Easton had to convince the President of the United States to lend dataDyne a governmental deep-sea research vessel, the Pelagic II, so that Mr. Blonde, actually a disguised Skedar, could reach an alien crashed spaceship at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, which contained a weapon that would allow the Skedar to destroy their long-time enemies, the Maians. As a reward, dataDyne would receive unlimited access to the Skedar technology, which would ensure the company's economic and financial growth, from which Easton would certainly benefit as well. In what would be the greatest mistake of his life, Easton accepted to join the conspiracy, and he immediately asked the President to loan the Pelagic II to de Vries' corporation. While the request was being processed, the Skedar provided Easton with technologically advanced anti-aircraft weapons that he would have to install within the America's most secret military facility, the Area 51, in case the Maians tried to make contact and find help from their human ally: Daniel Carrington.
[edit] Complications
When the President refused Trent's request to lend a governmental ship to a private corporation, the latter was surprised and angry that the influence he had over his President's decisions was not as developed as he liked to think it was. The conspirators would soon have to gather in Chicago's G5 Building, a facade for dataDyne, and Easton knew that the report of his failure would not make a good impression over his new allies. He immediately started to think about another way to have the President accept his request. Easton decided that if the President refused a second time to allow dataDyne to use the Pellagic II, he would have to be terminated and replaced with a tampered clone that would be no more than a puppet granting Easton everything he would ask for.
When Trent arrived at the G5 building, de Vries and Mr. Blonde were already there. The latter immediately confronted Easton about his failure, and Easton had to admit he may have underestimated the President's reserve, but a contingency plan was ready, provided that Easton could get a tissue sample from the President. Easton then informed Blonde that the anti-aircraft equipment was installed and fully operational, which apparently managed to appease him. But his statement that he believed that "everything which does not work correctly should be destroyed" left little place for doubt: Easton could not fail again.
[edit] Attack on the President
Although how he did it remains a mystery, Easton managed to get a tissue sample from the President, and the cloning process was started. Once the double created, Trent set on the final step of his plan, which would consist in replacing the real President with the clone while he would be on his private jet, Air Force One, which he was to board in a military air base located in Alaska. Little did Easton know that a Carrington Institute operative, known as Joanna "Perfect" Dark was also on her way to the air-base, in order to prevent the assassination attempt on the President. Air Force One took off with Easton and a few of his men on board, as well as Carrington's agent, disguised as a flight attendant. In the President's office, inside the plane, Easton tried again to convince the President that his popularity would greatly benefit from the lending of the Pelagic II to dataDyne, but the President kept his position and defended it vehemently. Apparently greatly annoyed by Easton's insistance, the President warned Trent that it was his last chance to keep his job, and do as he was told. Trent left the office, knowing that the President had to be removed from the equation immediately. He sent the coordinates of Air Force One to a Skedar shuttle, which carried a NSA strike team, several Skedar in their human forms, and the clone of the President. The shuttle attacked the plane by attaching itself to the hull via a shaft, and Trent's men boarded Air Force One to kill the President. Unfortunately for Trent, Carrington's agent managed to grab a weapon from a fallen bodyguard and protected the President. Trent crossed her way in the plane, while she was escorting the President to safety in his escape pod, and he chose to leave the plane, leaving two Skedar and his NSA agents to finish her off. Knowing the enemies would keep coming, agent Dark went back to their entry point. In a daring, yet reckless move, she destroyed the shaft and detached the shuttle by detonating a mine in the plane, which crashed in the snowy landscape of Alaska.
[edit] Last mistake
Easton, his men, and a handful of Skedar immediately landed with the clone and tried to find the real President to get rid of him. The desert of snow was so vast they had to go their separate ways, and Easton left the clone, protected by Skedar, in one of the numerous caves inside the mountains. Easton finally caught up with his target and was about to shoot him pointblank when Joanna Dark interrupted once more and disarmed him. Trent escaped in the mountains, probably in the hopes of returning to the landing area where the shuttle was waiting for him, only to foolishly lead agent Dark to the hideout of the clone. Joanna Dark made short work of the Skedar who were protecting him, and assassinated the clone, putting an end to Easton's plan for good. Easton remained hidden in the caves for some time, until the battle was over and the President escaped. Mr. Blonde later arrived and found Trent, calling him a "flawed device" which was needed no longer. Easton held out his gun to shoot Blonde, only to see him reveal his true Skedar form and slashing him in the face, killing him on the spot.
[edit] The Character
The ambitious Trent Easton appealed to fans mostly because of his particular aesthetical tastes. He is always seen wearing a tailored, flashy, crimson suit, over more traditional black tie and shirt. He is also the owner of the most powerful weapon in the game, the DY-357-LX Magnum, a custom-made variation of the dataDyne DY-357, which is gold-plated and has a grip made from a tiger's fur. The DY-357-LX Magnum kills its targets in a single shot, or two if they're protected by an energy shield.
It is unknown if Easton knew of Mr. Blonde's real nature before his death. At several times in the game, he is seen interacting with more than one blonde man at the same time, particularly in the levels Air Force One and Crash Site. The fact that all these individuals look exactly the same should have been enough for a man like Trent to notice they were not what they seemed to be, yet, when their leader Mr. Blonde reverts to its true Skedar form, Trent, who was almost holding him at pointblank, seemed genuinely surprised, enough indeed to lower his gun and hesitate long enough for the Skedar to kill him. Whether Trent knew or not that he was dealing with the Skedar, he sure was not aware that their ultimate plan was to destroy him and Cassandra, as well as the whole planet, once they would need them no longer.
In the end, Trent's ambition and greed are what brought him to his eventual demise. Yet the classy, original appearance of the character, his weapon, and his lines undoubtedly contributed to his large popularity among the fans of the game.
[edit] Trivia
- It is believed by a lot of fans that the physical inspiration for the character is the character played by Nicolas Cage in the beginning of the movie Face/Off where he is similarly dressed and also carries gold-plated guns, although they're not the same model.
- The character's face is supposedly a variation of the one to be used as Pierce Brosnan's in the cancelled cheat "All Bonds" in the videogame GoldenEye 007, also developed by Rare Ltd.
- In the level The Duel, and in Perfect Agent setting only, Easton is the third and last enemy you have to kill, right after Jonathan Dark. He is of course armed with his custom DY-357-LX Magnum, and proves to be a deadly efficient marksman.
| Video Games | Perfect Dark • Perfect Dark (GBC) • Perfect Dark Zero | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Characters | Joanna Dark • Cassandra de Vries • Daniel Carrington | ||
| Books | Initial Vector • Second Front | ||
| Other | Martin Hollis • Greg Rucka | ||
