Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six

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This article is about the Rainbow Six franchise. For the first video game in the franchise, see Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six (video game). For the novel with the same name, see Rainbow Six (novel).

Rainbow Six is the title of John Clark's position as director of the fictional counter-terrorist unit Rainbow. It is first mentioned in the 1998 novel Rainbow Six by Tom Clancy. The book was adapted into a successful series of tactical first-person shooter computer and video games, and is a planned future film tentatively set for release in 2010.[citation needed]

Tom Clancy also features Rainbow in his 2000 novel The Bear and the Dragon.

Contents

[edit] Team Rainbow

The novel Rainbow Six describes Rainbow as an international counter-terrorism operation hosted by NATO and funded by the U.S. Department of the Interior.

The base of operations for Rainbow is located in Hereford (home to SAS), due to the United Kingdom being one of the most accessible countries in the world and also due to the press constraints that would not be possible to impose in the United States.[citation needed] Most of the characters in Rainbow are American or British, however, the NATO countries of France, Germany, Canada, Italy and Spain, plus Israel have at least one representative each.

Clancy describes the structure of Rainbow as having one Director (codenamed Six), who oversees the entire operation, and one Deputy Director (Rainbow Five), who is second in command. Rainbow is portrayed as the "blackest of black" operations, and it works off of its very own intelligence service which has intelligence contacts all over the world. In the book, when Rainbow is called upon for help from another country's government to deal with a terrorist situation, usually only one of the two teams will be sent, but in some situations both will be sent. Both teams have an officer as team leader and a senior NCO as second in command. Not including the team leader, each team is made up of eleven men. Rainbow also has a standard-issue weapons kit, consisting of a Beretta 8045 Cougar pistol and a silenced H&K MP5/10 chambered for 10mm pistol rounds (mislabeled as MP-10) for each soldier and a M60 for each team's support gunner. Each team also has two snipers,each with a rifle of own choosing.

In the games, Rainbow is portrayed differently. John Clark is still the leader for most of the series, but he is supported by a set of other key staff and advisors who vary from game to game. As of Rogue Spear, there are around 30 Rainbow operatives. This includes members from NATO countries and from non-NATO countries, along with six female operatives. For each mission, a maximum eight operatives can be deployed and can be split into a maximum of four teams. Weapons, uniforms and equipment are less standardized, and are instead chosen to suit the operative and the mission.

[edit] Members

The following is a list of all the members of Rainbow that are mentioned in the novel Rainbow Six.

Director
  • Simulated Brigadier General John Terrence Clark a.k.a. Rainbow Six (USA; ex-SEAL, CIA, formerly known as John Terrence Kelly)
Deputy Director
  • Simulated Colonel Alistair Stanley a.k.a. Rainbow Five (UK; ex-SAS)
Executive Secretaries
  • Mrs. Alice Foorgate (UK)
  • Mrs. Helen Montgomery (UK)
Team One
  • Team Leader - Major Peter Covington (UK; SAS)
  • Master Chief Miguel 'Mike' Chin (USA; SEALS)
  • Sergeant First Class Fred Franklin (USA; Delta)
  • Sergeant Mortimer "Sam" Houston (USA; U.S. Army Rangers)
  • Sergeant Geoff Bates (UK; SAS)
Team Two
  • Team Leader - Simulated Major Domingo "Ding" Chavez (USA; ex-United States Army Ranger, CIA)
  • Command Sergeant Major Eddie Price (UK; SAS)
  • Sergeant Paddy Connolly (UK; SAS)
  • Sergeant Scott McTyler (UK; SAS)
  • First Sergeant Julio Vega (USA; Delta)
  • Feldwebel Dieter Weber (Germany; GSG 9)
  • Sergeant Louis Loiselle (France; DGSE)
  • Officer Ettore Falcone (Italy; GIS)
  • Sergeant First Class Homer Johnston (USA; Delta)
  • Staff Sergeant George Tomlinson (USA; Delta)
  • Sergeant Hank Patterson (USA; Delta)
  • Sergeant Mike Pierce (USA; Delta)
  • Staff Sergeant Steve Lincoln (UK; SAS)
Team Two Secretary
  • Katherine Moony (UK)
Intelligence
  • Doctor Paul Bellow (USA; Independent Negotiator and Psychologist)
  • Bill Tawney (UK; ex-MI6)
Communications
Technical Staff
  • David Peled (Israel; Mossad)
  • Tim Noonan (USA; FBI; former HRT tech support)
MH-60K Night Hawk Aircrew
Weapons Trainer

In The Bear and the Dragon, Rainbow makes a return. While their part in the novel at first seems small, they become more involved as the novel progresses.

It is noted that since the events of Rainbow Six, the public has become more aware of the existence of Rainbow, and are often referred to as the "Men of Black", in regards to their uniforms.

It is also said that the teams' roster is constantly changing. Many of the original members of Rainbow have left the team, some later returned, and then a few left again, with new members always being added. Ettore Falcone from the Italian Carabinieri was added to Team One (still under Covington's command) just before the events of The Bear and the Dragon. Lieutenant Colonel Malloy has been promoted to full Colonel and appointed to command Marine One, piloting the President of the United States.

[edit] Weaponry

[edit] The novel

Main article: Rainbow Six (novel)

The novel, Rainbow Six, was written by Tom Clancy and published in 1998. It is part of the Jack Ryan series; however, the novel actually focuses on John Clark, Ding Chavez, and a fictional multinational counter-terrorist organization named Rainbow.

[edit] Computer and video games

The first game was developed by Red Storm Entertainment, while the novel was being written. The game later spawned a number of sequels and expansion packs. Red Storm was later acquired by Ubisoft, who currently develops and publishes the games. Mobile phone versions of the game are developed and published by Gameloft.

Rainbow Six and its sequels defined the tactical shooter genre, forcing players to focus more time and effort on stealth, teamwork, and tactics rather than on sheer firepower. With some of the more recent releases; however, the game has taken on more of a "mainstream" first-person shooter approach in an attempt to appeal to a wider audience by moving away from the tactical planning aspect that made the game popular in the first place. This is due to several factors, the most prominent being the buy out of Clancy-owned Red Storm Entertainment by Ubisoft Entertainment. Though Tom Clancy has no say in the content of the more recent games, Ubisoft Entertainment insists on continuing the use of his name on all former Clancy-owned franchises (Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon, and Splinter Cell) as well as using his name on projects that he was never involved in at all (End War, HAWX) in an attempt to lure in the tactical fans who have long-since abandoned those series.[citation needed]

[edit] PC games

A Korean-only game called Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Take-Down – Missions in Korea was created for the South Korean market by KAMA Digital Entertainment. The game boasted South Korean RAINBOW operatives and weapons with a different story and interface. As of May 2008, it is not available for purchase outside South Korea.

[edit] Console games

[edit] Handheld

[edit] Mobile

[edit] The film

The current status of the film adaptation of Rainbow Six is still up in the air. Although the novel "Rainbow Six" wasn't written until 1998, two characters from the Rainbow Six franchise did appear in the 1994 movie adaptation of Clear and Present Danger. Willem Dafoe played John Clark and Raymond Cruz portrayed Domingo "Ding" Chavez. Current reports state that the film is slated for either a 2009 or 2010 release.

[edit] Connections to other games

Though the Splinter Cell and the Ghost Recon series are known to take place in the same universe (Chaos Theory and Ghost Recon 2 take place during the same events, and Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 specifically mentions Third Echelon, an organization from the Splinter Cell game series), Rainbow Six takes place in the same universe as all the Jack Ryan novels.

In Rainbow Six Vegas 2, an NSA agent (Splinter Cell) liaises with the main character, Bishop, throughout the game via radio. However, the NSA agent turns out to be Gabriel Nowak in disguise.

[edit] External links

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Ghost Recon series
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