Brotherhood of Nod

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The Brotherhood of Nod, often simply referred to as Nod or The Brotherhood, is one of three prominent fictional factions in the Tiberian series of Westwood Studios' and Electronic Arts' Command & Conquer real-time strategy video games. An ancient and secret society that allegedly predates all but the earliest of civilization's history, the Brotherhood of Nod began to represent a globalized as well as a highly militant Abrahamic cult in modern times, showing the combined characteristics of a vast religious movement, a multi-national corporation and a decentralized nation-state, while being none of the three in itself. The society is led by a mysterious and charismatic man who is known only as Kane. Their emblem is a chamfered triangle enclosing a curved scorpion tail, with black and red as the main color elements.

Contents 1 Storyline overview 1.1 Founding 1.2 Command & Conquer 1.3 Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun 1.3.1 Firestorm 1.4 Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars 1.4.1 Kane's Wrath 2 Abrahamic references 3 Nod philosophy and ideology 4 Organization and hierarchy 5 Military doctrines 6 Technological level 7 References 8 See also 9 External links

[edit] Storyline overview

[edit] Founding

Exact date unknown; the Win95 manual of the original Command & Conquer game mentions "exaggerated" reports that place the Brotherhood's founding prior to 1800 BC.^[1] Throughout the C&C series, however, various snippets of evidence are uncovered which seem to suggest this given date to be accurate, among them:

• The ending credits to the original game show a large archaeological artifact made of rock being excavated from a former Nod site, which crudely depicts the scene of the first Abrahamic murder.

• In the prequel Command & Conquer: Red Alert, the Brotherhood of Nod is revealed as the instigator of the Soviet invasion of Europe during the 1950s,^[2][3] with a Brotherhood member of the period stating that the secret society had waited to emerge from the shadows "for centuries".^[4]

• In Command & Conquer: Renegade, an arsenal of medieval swords, armour and shields is discovered inside a Black Hand mansion, which all bear the emblem of Nod.

• Also in Renegade, the Cairo temple of the Brotherhood, which the Kane character claims was built on "holy ground", is shown to house what allegedly is the tomb of Cain's brother Abel; its ancient epitaph displaying the Hebrew word "Abel" (הבל), together with the 4th verse of the 4th chapter of the Book of Genesis.

• Kane's apparent agelessness or immortality; the character's basic appearance has remained unchanged over the series' span of nearly 100 years, and he has survived several seemingly fatal incidents.

[edit] Command & Conquer

Further information: Command & Conquer (video game)

Prior to the outbreak of the First Tiberium War, the most accepted idea was that the Brotherhood was simply another minor terrorist faction. However, when a scandal broke out involving major American defense contractors, it was discovered that Nod had substantial military air, sea, and land power. Before the Sarajevo central headquarters was identified, Nod was believed to have no central command base, instead operating from multiple individual locations, with posts previously identified in Kuantan, Malaysia; the Ar-Rub' al-Khali desert, Saudi Arabia; Tokyo, Japan and Caen, France.^[1] Also prior to the events of Tiberian Dawn, Nod is believed to back a number of officially recognized political parties; among the ones mentioned are the Fist of Allah party in Jordan, the United We Stand America party in the United States, and the Albion First! party in the United Kingdom, among others.^[1] Additionally, they are affiliated with the Irish Republican Party, Islamic Jihad, Khmer Rouge and others.^[1]

According to the canonical storyline, Nod took over much of Africa but later was pushed back by the GDI when they began to exploit the weak points of Nod's strategy. To gain more support, Kane then devised a plan to blame GDI for the slaughtering of the population of Białystok, Poland. Afterwards, Nod broadcast a fake news report claiming that GDI soldiers razed the whole town on suspicions of the citizens being involved in Tiberium smuggling. The broadcast created a scandal that forced the United Nations Security Council to cut GDI funding pending an investigation, causing the GDI to apparently almost shut down. Kane however was unaware that this 'scandal' had in fact been planned by GDI and the UN, and as Nod forces arrived they encountered heavy resistance from "abandoned" bases. Since the incursions into GDI territory caused Nod forces to be spread very thin, GDI not only repelled the attacks, but took large areas of Nod territory during their counterstrikes, giving them the decisive advantange in the first conflict.

Kane himself was believed to have been killed at the final stand of the Brotherhood near Sarajevo, seemingly vaporised in the light of GDI's final ion cannon discharge while holding his arms out wide.

[edit] Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun

Further information: Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun

Following the First Tiberium War, the death of Kane caused the Brotherhood to factionalize into small armies, ruled by random generals. For several decades, they fought more against themselves than against GDI. When Kane resurfaced 30 years later they reunited and once again faced off against GDI forces.

According to the official C&C storyline, Nod is again defeated by the Global Defense Initiative. It is discovered that Kane did not survive unharmed. Large portions of his face were hidden under metal, covering what appeared to be massive burns. This was particularly surprising, as all transmissions from Kane to both Nod and GDI showed a flawless face; a possible explanation is that the images were digitally-altered, which is partially confirmed by a GDI technician. In Firestorm, it is revealed in the end of the Nod campaign shows that here is a hidden lab with stasis tubes; one of them had Kane inside. By Command & Conquer 3, Kane once again appears unscarred; however, in the Tiberium Wars novelization, he suffers from occasional chest pains, due to being stabbed by McNeil.^[5]

[edit] Firestorm

Further information: Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun#Firestorm

The Firestorm crisis starts with Slavik arguing with the Inner Circle of the Brotherhood over leadership issues following Kane's disappearance. Slavik orders his men to recapture CABAL, a Nod AI which he believes will help reunite Nod. Slavik's men recover the device, but shortly after CABAL's reactivation the entity seizes control of all Nod cyborg forces, and assassinates all the Inner Circle members with the sole exception of Slavik, who immediately orders all Nod forces to evacuate the regions that fell under CABAL's control.

Unable to defeat CABAL with the Brotherhood in disarray, Slavik is forced to approach GDI with a temporary cease-fire offer so that they coordinate their efforts against the threat. An agreement is reached, and both sides begin attacking CABAL's auxiliary bases. Ultimately, the combined assault is able to destroy the CABAL core, eliminating the AI entity as a credible threat to both GDI and the Brotherhood. However, the ending shows a room with CABAL's face on a screen overseeing humans held in suspended animation tubes, with the one directly underneath the screen holding Kane.

[edit] Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars

Further information: Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars

The Third Tiberium War begins with the Brotherhood of Nod emerging from the shadows without warning, launching a successful attack on GDI's Goddard space center and shutting down all of GDI's anti-missile capabilities. Due to the loss of its anti-missile defenses, the space station GDSS Philadelphia becomes vulnerable to attack and is quickly destroyed by a Nod nuclear missile. Nod uses the confusion to attack all major GDI installations. Yet GDI rallied its forces, and would manage to drive Nod out of the regions they had captured.

It quickly became apparent that Kane and his leading scientists were working on a liquid Tiberium bomb of unprecedented destructive power. Nod secretly transported the final components of this new weapon from facilities in South America to their reconstructed temple in Sarajevo. Soon after, GDI turned their attention to Nod's stronghold, hoping that this would be the final encounter with the Brotherhood of Nod. When GDI was successful in neutralizing Nod's ion disruption towers, the ion cannon was fired upon the temple under the orders of Acting Director Redmond Boyle. When the ion cannon was fired, the ion particles broke through the layers of the temple until it reached the lowest lying part where the liquid Tiberium bomb was located. When the device detonated, the GDI forces sent to Sarajevo were decimated in the blast and fallout. Also, millions of people in Eastern Europe were feared dead. Kane and his Inner Circle were rumoured to have also been casualties.

Unbeknownst to anyone, the liquid Tiberium explosion caused an alien species known as the Scrin to invade Earth. The Scrin landed in Red Zones and began annihilating any resistance they encountered. In Australia, Nod general Killian Qatar made a desperate alliance with GDI to fight off the new threat, however Kane resurfaced and was furious at Killian for allying herself with GDI, and ordered her execution. Later, when Kane brings the player into his Inner Circle, it is revealed that using GDI's ion cannon to produce a colossal Tiberium chain reaction was in fact part of Kane's plan. The Scrin began to construct giant towers in the Red Zones. After GDI fought off the initial Scrin invasion, they launched co-ordinated attacks on every of these towers across the globe. One tower had to remain standing for Kane's plans to be successful however, and he ordered Nod to focus on defending the tower that was nearest to completion. GDI assaulted the tower, but was held back by Nod, and was eventually pushed from the area. Kane's plan was an apparent success.

[edit] Kane's Wrath

Further information: Command & Conquer 3: Kane's Wrath

Five years after this third world war, an artificial intelligence named "LEGION" arises, with Kane promptly placing a secret army of cyborg soldiers known as the "Marked of Kane" under the entity's command, in order to reclaim the mysterious Tacitus device from GDI's Cheyenne Mountain facility. Soon after, the Marked launch an unrelenting assault on the heavily fortified military research complex, overrunning GDI's finest defenses and obtaining the Tacitus for Nod once again. The final cutscene, titled "Ascendance", shows Kane inserting the object into LEGION while proclaiming: "LEGION, my child, you are my greatest creation. It is time for you to take center stage; time for you to achieve the purpose for which you were created! One Vision, One Purpose!". With this, the story of Command & Conquer 3 concludes on a major cliffhanger.

[edit] Abrahamic references

Throughout the titles of the Command & Conquer series, Brotherhood of Nod characters of different generations alike have alluded that Kane is none other than the Abrahamic figure of Cain^[2] -- allegedly the first man in Earth's history to have committed murder according to the scriptures of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Cain and Abel were the two eldest sons of Adam and Eve, born after the Fall of Man when Adam and Eve had been tempted into eating the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

The parable is told in the Bible at Genesis 4:1-16, the Qur'an at 5:26-32 and in Moses at 5:16-41. In all versions, Cain, a farmer, commits the first murder by killing his brother, a shepherd named Abel, after God rejects Cain's sacrifice yet accepts that of Abel. God sought out Cain to ask him where his brother might be, to which Cain replied: "I know not; Am I my brother's keeper?" Upon this answer, God cursed Cain to wander the Earth forever, unable to die of old age. In his fear, Cain pleaded with God, who then placed a mark upon him. Cain then began his wandering of the lands. Early translations of ancient Hebrew text describe these alleged events,^[6] stating that:

"Cain departed to the Land of Nod. And Adam had another son, whose name was Seth."

In a direct correlation, the manual of the original Command & Conquer game lists a quote by the Kane character, with the source being cited a fictional Interpol file designated as "#GEN4:16".^[1] This again is a direct reference to Genesis 4:16, which reads;

"And Cain went out from the presence of The Lord, and dwelt in the Land of Nod, on the east of Eden."

Additionally, in the title of Command & Conquer: Renegade, the player discovers an ancient underground tomb located in Cairo, its epitaph depicting and describing the slaying of Abel, and with Kane stating that the coffin contained Abel's remains. The character also appears either immortal or ageless, as its actions span over 100 years (as of the latest installment in the C&C franchise), yet he seems to have not aged a day since his first canonical appearance as Joseph Stalin's mysterious advisor in the 1950s settings of Command & Conquer: Red Alert.

[edit] Nod philosophy and ideology

The parable of Cain and Abel has been explored in many scriptures and literary works over the course of history, which according to Kane actor Joseph D. Kucan served as partial inspiration for original C&C designer Eydie Laramore when she created the world views of the "Brotherhood of Nod".^[7][1] In line with the fate of the Cain figure within this parable of the Abrahamic religions, Nod political rhetoric has tended to closely identify the fictional quasi-cult, quasi-state organization with the downtrodden and impoverished peoples of the world.^[8][9]

The Brotherhood was discovered to maintain strong ties with most global radicalist, extremist and terrorist organizations,^[10] gradually rallying the disillusioned and disenfranchised from across racial, social, cultural and ideological spectrums into one religious to quasi-religious Abrahamic order, which stands in highly militant opposition to the democratic and industrialized world.^[11]

Throughout the games of the Tiberium story arc, the Brotherhood of Nod has been shown as viewing the aggressive exploration as well as application of the alien Tiberium substance as the key to achieving its ideals and goals in this endeavour.^[12]

This backstory is furthered by Electronic Arts Los Angeles in Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars, where it is mentioned that the Brotherhood views itself "as the agent of change for a world in the throes of transition to a new order, the representative of the poor and the oppressed, and a foil to the previously unchecked power of GDI".^[13]

The precise nature of the Brotherhood of Nod's long-term goals, however, never has been truly unveiled throughout the games,^[14] and has consistently remained shrouded by a mysterious and religious referencing to "ascension" and "transformation".^[15][16]

From the point of view of the "international community", which typically is represented by the Global Defense Initiative faction in the games of the Tiberium story arc, the Brotherhood of Nod constitutes "a quasi-state, quasi-terrorist organization", seeking to "unite the third-world nations under a pseudo-religious political platform with imperialist tendencies".^[1] This profile further states that GDI holds the Brotherhood to be "a popular neo-fascist, anti-West movement vying for total domination of the world's peoples and resources".^[1] In Tiberium Wars, it additionally is mentioned that GDI views Nod as "a dangerous, virulent and inexplicably self-sustaining terrorist group obsessed with accelerating the worst ecological catastrophe in history".^[13]

[edit] Organization and hierarchy

The Brotherhood of Nod initially constituted a religious to quasi-religious secret society,^[10] the core organization of which is very sophisticated and high-tech in nature.^[13] After its emergence from the shadows however, as portrayed in the original Command & Conquer game, the society began to grow exponentially in membership and available infrastructure, and started exhibiting the combined characteristics of a vast religious movement, a multi-national corporation, and a nation-state which is decentralized and spread across all the continents, in ways reminiscent of Christian Christendom or an Islamic Caliphate.^[11] By the era portrayed in Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars, the continued spread of Tiberium, and the industrialized world's subsequent retreat to the so-called "Blue Zone" territories, caused Nod to operate virtually unchallenged in those regions of the world designated as "Yellow Zones",^[17] which still contained most of the world's population.

The highest authority within the Brotherhood appears to always have been Kane himself, with those closest to him his chosen from amongst his followers' current generations, who form the Inner Circle of Nod.

The Black Hand

The Black Hand is a feared and prestigious echelon of Nod warrior priests who serve as both a form of religious police as well as the ritual executioners to Kane's choice enemies.^[18][19] First introduced in Tiberian Sun's expansion pack Firestorm, the Black Hand is shown as being comprised out of Kane's "wardens" in all matters concerning the internal stability and religious nature of the Brotherhood; being a congregation of those who possess unwavering loyalty and unquestioning obedience to the prophecy of Nod.^[18] As such, the Black Hand are tasked with distributing and proselytizing of the word of Kane, as well as maintaining spiritual discipline among the ranks of the Brotherhood.^[18]

Rumored to date back to shortly after Nod's own emergence as a globalized quasi-state in the modern world, the Black Hand maintain a parallel organisation within the Brotherhood with political, religious and military wings.^[18] Despite this, the order kept a surprisingly low profile prior to the era portrayed in Tiberium Wars; shrouding their rituals, beliefs, and, to the world beyond Nod, their very existence in a veil of mystery and secrecy.^[18] The Black Hand became a playable faction in the expansion pack to Tiberium Wars, titled Kane's Wrath.^[19]

A connection between real-life historical events and the fictional Black Hand of the C&C video games exists as well -- on June 28, 1914, at Sarajevo in Bosnia and Herzegovina, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a Serb nationalist belonging to a group called the "Black Hand" assassinated Archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, an event often attributed with having triggered World War I. Coincidentally, the main temple of the Brotherhood of Nod is found to reside in Sarajevo throughout all games in the Tiberium story arc, and the second prelate of the Black Hand in the C&C universe, Anton Slavik, was revealed to be a character of Serbian origin who also was known as "The Serbian Wolf".^[20]

[edit] Military doctrines

It is more important for us to employ intelligent combined-arms tactics than it is for GDI because it is the Pen that is mightier than the Sword. And we are both the Pen and the Sword when skilled modern armies are commanded by intelligent strategies brought upon by a true military strategist... —Black Hand leader Anton Slavik

The Brotherhood's rites of warfare typically are centered around the concepts of mobility and stealth, preferring outmaneuvering their enemies, guerrilla warfare, highly advanced hit-and-run tactics and subterfuge over direct confrontations.^[11][21] Nod's armory tends to consist of lightly armored and fast vehicles with average firepower, which are adept at either outmaneuvering or flanking the opposition. Brotherhood forces utilize a deceptively dangerous combination of low-tech, poorly trained yet numerous militia troops with relatively fewer but elite and highly trained forces, who in turn are equipped with state of the art communications gear and the most advanced weapon systems available.^[11] Nod vehicles often mirror this doctrine; expendable and maneuverable vehicles tend to draw attention and enemy fire away from powerful and lethal higher tier equipment.^[21]

Long-range weaponry is also prevalent, executing surprise attacks and hit-and-run strategies on unprotected parts of enemy infrastructure, or long range bombardment with ballistic missiles.^[21] Civilian casualties are not a concern. Nod's disregard for international ethics guidelines has also led to the extensive usage of napalm varieties, a rogue nuclear arsenal, eugenic and cybernetic enhancements to troops and radically advanced Tiberium-based equipment and weaponry.^[11]

Another notable way in which Nod engages the enemy is through misinformation warfare and hate-mongering.^[14] For example, the Brotherhood was able to obstruct and fight GDI indirectly by triggering a massive scandal concerning the massacre of civilians in Białystok, Poland during the first war; supposedly committed by GDI soldiers. This incident forced the United Nations Security Council to suspend all funding for the Global Defense Initiative pending the outcome of an official investigation into the organization's activities.^[22] Another example of mass media manipulation by the Brotherhood was when operatives of the Black Hand attacked the central base of The Forgotten during the second war while posing as GDI forces; rallying thousands of mutants to Nod's cause through the subsequent media reports.^[23][24]

[edit] Technological level

In certain fields, the Brotherhood of Nod faction is portrayed as being technologically superior to its Global Defense Initiative adversary;^[21] an organization backed by and effectively operated on behalf of the United Nations, and more specifically, the G8+5 economically and technologically developed countries of the world.^[25] It is not fully revealed how Nod achieved this unique level in human technological prowess, though it is implied throughout the various game titles to be in part because of their initial monopoly and monopsony on Tiberium, which provided them with vast amounts of wealth, both financially and scientifically, and an alleged access to and study of extraterrestrial high technology.^[26][27][28] During the course of the series, the Brotherhood is revealed to have constructed, to own, and to operate many state-of-the-art research institutes, and to hire out research teams globally. Often, these institutes and related facilities are kept highly secret, and are hidden from academia and especially from national and international bioethics committees. It is revealed that routinely speculative and occasionally unsafe human experimentation, generally performed upon Nod volunteers, prisoners of war, and occupied civilian populations, is commonplace at Nod research facilities.^[29] Some technologies Nod has devoted particular attention to include lasers, directed-energy weapons, bioweapons, chemical weapons, nuclear weapons, advanced robotics, artificial intelligence, theoretical anti-gravity, active camouflage, advanced sustainable electricity generation, reprogenetics, eugenics, cybernetics, and its offshoot, brain-computer interfaces.^[21]

This is in addition to a great deal of aggressive research into Tiberium and alleged extraterrestrial artifacts, which was often crossed-over with the aforementioned fields for various purposes.

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• Land of Nod
• Cain and Abel
• Kane (Command & Conquer)
• Nod characters of Command & Conquer
• Tiberium

[edit] External links

• http://www.kanelives.org/ - Official fansite of the Kane character, sponsored by Electronic Arts
• PlanetCnC Encyclopedia - Extensive C&C storyline compilation at Gamespy, detailing the Brotherhood of Nod's initial rise
• Wikia has a wiki on this subject: Command & Conquer

v • d • e Command & Conquer franchise Video games Main universe: Command & Conquer (The Covert Operations) · Red Alert (Counterstrike & Aftermath) · Tiberian Sun (Firestorm) · Renegade · Tiberium Wars (Kane's Wrath) · Tiberium Spin-offs: Sole Survivor · Red Alert 2 (Yuri's Revenge) · Generals (Zero Hour) · Red Alert 3 Playable factions Tiberium games: Brotherhood of Nod · Global Defense Initiative · Scrin Red Alert games: Alliance of Democratic Nations · Soviet Union · Empire of the Rising Sun Generals games: United States of America · People's Republic of China · Global Liberation Army Characters Tiberium games: Nod characters · GDI characters · Kane Red Alert games: Allied characters · Soviet characters · Yuri Modifications   Modding in C&C · A Path Beyond · All Stars · Blitzkrieg II · Cold War Crisis · Mental Omega · ShockWave Miscellaneous   Tiberium · Misc factions · Misc characters · Tiberium Wars (novel) · The First Decade · List of media Companies Developers Westwood Studios (1992–2002) · EA Pacific (2002–2003) · EA Los Angeles (2003—) Publishers Virgin Interactive (1992–1998) · EA Games (1998–2005) · Electronic Arts (2005—)