Binary Domain/Characters
Beetle Team Rust Crew
Rust Crews are special forces teams deployed by the International Robotics Technology Association to deal with violations of the New Geneva Convention on robotics, particularly Clause 21, which bans research and production of Ridiculously-Human Robots.
Binary Domain follows Beetle Team: a Multinational Team of badasses sent to Japan to arrest Yoji Amada, suspected to be the mastermind behind Hollow Children outbreaks, and bring him to New Geneva for interrogation and trial.
Tropes applying to Beetle Team overall:
Dan Marshall, Beetle 2
Voiced By: Travis Willingham and Koichi Yamadera (Japanese)
The player's character. Dan is a veteran of many operations for the IRTA. Initially appears to be a loudmouthed easygoing idiot, but becomes a lot better as the game progresses.
- Battle Couple: With Faye, once she completely defrosts.
- Boisterous Bruiser: Oh yes, he is. Very much so.
- The Hero: He's the main character, but it's played with; according to the Command Roster, he's supposed to be Number Two.
- Hidden Depths: He seems to be rather dim at first, but turns out to be rather perceptive, a very capable soldier, and actually reads his briefing packets and keeps up with current affairs.
- Jack of All Stats: Carries an assault rifle. It's the best compromise of range, ammunition capacity, rate of fire, accuracy and damage when compared to the other weapons Rust Crew carries.
- Lightning Bruiser: With proper Nanomachine chip setup, and a fully-upgraded assault rifle (that behaves more like a super-accurate light machine gun), Dan becomes this late game.
- Military Maverick: Easygoing and laid-back, and doesn't quite share Charlie's sense of discipline and decorum - but he's a competent soldier and he'll get the job done.
- Overt Operative: He and Big Bo make a lot of noise while infiltrating Japan, so much so that it's his face that's on wanted lists. It wasn't intentional, but Dan tends to be a magnet for trouble.
- Sole Survivor: Conversations reveal that Dan has this reputation, and it's so widespread, other IRTA soldiers have heard of him.
- Yanks With Tanks: Formerly a First Sergeant in the US Special Forces.
Roy "Big Bo" Boateng
Voiced By: Alem Sapp and Masami Iwasaki (Japanese)
The first squadmate, who infiltrates Japan. Loud, enjoys a good fight, and will have your back. Functions as a support gunner in combat.
- Bald of Awesome: The only one in the team.
- The Big Guy: Big Bo shares this role with Rachel.
- Black Best Friend: Fills this role.
- Boisterous Bruiser: There's a reason he's BFF with Dan.
- Machine Guns: Bo has a light machine gun for his main weapon.
- The Mole: Bo is Philips' mole in Beetle Team, and is the only other person aware of the plan to seize the Amada A.I. Depending on trust level, he will either side with Dan or Philips.
- More Dakka: Carries a light machinegun that delivers an impressive volume of fire.
- Sleeves Are for Wimps: His fatigues are sleeveless, compared with Dan's.
- Yanks With Tanks: Formerly a First Sergeant in the US Special Forces.
Charles "Charlie" Gregory, Beetle 1
Voiced By: Troy Baker and Takuya Kirimoto (Japanese)
The next ally to be encountered, and the nominal commander of Beetle Team, of which he has to keep reminding to Dan. CQB specialist.
- Badass Bookworm: He mentions in a conversation that almost everything he learned came from reading. Once the mission is over, he plans to continue his studies.
- Brits With Battleships: Former British military and MI 6, before joining Rust Crew.
- Commanding Coolness: Holds the rank of Commander, presumably from the Royal Navy.
- Deadpan Snarker: Goes with being British. After seeing Dan fall through a public bath's roof, surviving being chased by a Grand Lancer:
"You know, it's funny, but... my briefing said this was supposed to be a covert operation."
- The Lancer: Ends up as this, which is ironic as he's the highest ranking member of Rust Crew and the nominal CO.
- More Dakka: Carries a submachinegun, which has less stopping power and range than Dan's assault rifle, but a ridiculously high rate of fire.
- Submachine Guns: Uses an expy of a TDI Vector.
- Only Sane Man: He strongly feels this way, particularly when faced with the American and French teams, who are unable to keep a low profile.
- Platonic Life Partners: Charles worked with Rachel for 4 years in IRTA black ops.
- Retired Badass: Charles briefly got an injury while serving in the British military, forcing him to retire before joining the IRTA with Rachel.
Rachel Townsend
Voiced By: Nayo Wallace and Junko Minagawa (Japanese)
The second member of the British contribution to Beetle Team. CQB and explosives specialist.
- The Big Guy: She shares this role with Big Bo.
- Brits With Battleships: Former British military and, if Charlie is to be believed, MI 6.
- Rockets, Missiles, and Grenade Launchers: Rachel uses a Panzerfaust-3 expy as her RPG launcher.
- Platonic Life Partners: Rachel worked with Charles for 4 years in IRTA black ops.
- Shotguns Are Just Better: Carries a combat shotgun as her weapon of choice.
- Stuff Blowing Up: Her role is to provide this, with her RPG launcher and explosives.
Faye Lee
- Voiced By: Laura Bailey and Aya Hisakawa (Japanese)
Part of the Chinese contribution to Beetle Team. She was originally part of a 3-man team, but her subordinates were killed offscreen before she linked up with the rest of Beetle Team.
- Battle Couple: With Dan, when her defrosting is complete.
- Chinese With Chopper Support: PRC Special Forces, before her secondment to Rust Crew and later Beetle Team.
- Cold Sniper: Begins the game as one, but becomes a Friendly Sniper as the trust level increases.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: Is initially cold towards Dan, but warms up to him and the rest of Rust Crew as the story progresses.
- Glass Cannon: Faye's rifle is capable of one hit kills, but she can't take hits very well.
- Half-Human Hybrid: Her mother is a Hollow Child.
- He Is Not My Boyfriend: Says this word for word early on, when queried on her relationship with Dan.
- Sniper Rifles: Carries an expy of a Barrett M82 with a foregrip attachment.
- Spell My Name with an "S": It's official that it's "Lee". Others place her surname as "Li".
- Spy Catsuit: Wears one accessorized with ammo pouches.
- Taking the Bullet: Does this for Dan as a prelude to their Relationship Upgrade.
- Tsundere: Has traits of this, perhaps best exemplified if you save her from drowning in the sewage plant:
"Thanks. But let's be clear: I didn't ask you to save me."
- Wandering the Earth: Faye leaves Rust Crew and ends up on the run, as all Hybrids are being hunted down by Rust Crew teams - the US president particularly fears she'll be a rallying point and leader for other hybrids and future Hollow Children uprisings.
CN-7 "Cain"
Voiced By: John De Mita and Hirohiko Kakegawa (Japanese)
Only survivor of the French team. A combat/infiltration robot built by Bergen for the IRTA... painted in glossy white.
- Badass Driver: Cain was the group's getaway driver. Until the van couldn't go nowhere.
- Drives Like Crazy: He can make a van drift.
- Gauls With Grenades: Complete with a French accent.
- Highly-Visible Ninja: The only Rust Crew member who isn't wearing battledress or a uniform of some sort. Fridge Brilliance when you recall that most domestic robots are painted glossy white.
- Machine Pistols: Uses one as his main weapon.
- Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Is a French combat robot who dresses like a gunslinger cowboy and behaves like a butler.
Jean
Member of the French contribution to Beetle Team. Dies quickly after fleeing from Japanese security robots.
- Camp Gay: Appears to be this.
- Highly-Visible Ninja: His body armor is glossy white.
- Parental Abandonment: Cain suggests that Jean has no immediate family when he talked to Dan.
Major Philips
Voiced By: Kenichi Endo (Japanese)
The Mission Control for Rust Crew. Philips is in operational control of the mission, and is their contact with the rest of the world. He's not exactly a warm type, being focused on the mission, and can be quite callous.
- Authority Equals Asskicking: Philips is the hardest opponent of his minimecha spec ops team, particularly as he's using an Ace Custom with a literal ton of weapons.
- The Chessmaster: Likens Beetle Team to pawns on a chessboard. The endgame reveals Philips has been aware of the Amada A.I. the whole time, and has been manipulating Beetle Team.
- Majorly Awesome: Is a Major in the US Army.
- Xanatos Gambit: Philips has been running one since Dan and Bo made landfall: he's been using Beetle Team to weaken Amada Corp's security to allow the seizure of the Amada A.I., he had Bo planted as his Mole in the team; had a backup spec ops team with additional firepower ready to seize the A.I. in case Bettle Team wouldn't play ball, and had a nuke aimed at Amada Corp HQ as his backup plan to ensure no evidence would be left. If not for a few spanners in the works, including one that nobody anticipated, Philips would have won.
Resistance Forces
Anti-New Order guerrilla forces sprang up in the abandoned cities of Japan years after the country declared that its official isolation from the rest of the world. Dan works with Shindo's anti-government faction based in the remains of the former Greater Tokyo Area.
Akira Shindo
Voiced By: Sonny Saito and Hisao Egawa (Japanese)
Leader of the Resistance, Shindo appears after Dan, Faye and Cain have been separated from their team and offers them aid in getting to Amada Corp. HQ.
- Assault Rifles: Carries what is clearly a knockoff AK-74 with carrying handle and red dot sight.
- Enemy Mine: Why he initially helps the Rust Crew, as they share a common enemy. The team's objective is to arrest Amada, and since Amada funnels large sums of cash to the New Order, Shindo hopes that taking out Amada will weaken them.
- Only in It For the Money: Discussed. Faye opines this is why he's really resisting the New Order.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: With Sergeant Kurosawa in the failed Hollow Children disposal site. He aims to overthrow the New Order Kurosawa works for.
- Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: As such as Shindo's position is with the anti-New Order guerrillas.
Yoshiki
Voiced By: Johnny Yong Bosch and Hiroshi Okamoto (Japanese)
Shindo's friend, and a member of the Resistance.
- Tomato in the Mirror: Is a Hollow Child.
- Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: A trusted one in the Resistance.
Yuki
Voiced By: Emi Takei (Japanese)
A teenaged girl who works for Mifune, and acts as Rust Crew's guide through the Lower Tokyo slums.
Mifune
Voiced By: Kirk Thornton and Hiroki Matsukata (Japanese)
An old-school Yakuza, he serves as Charlie's contact in the slums and also supplies the resistance with weapons.
Japanese Ministry of Homeland Affairs
Reformed under the New Order-led Japanese government, the MHA is in charge of domestic security forces, including the National Police Agency (and all police forces under the NPA).
Sergeant Kurosawa
Voiced By: Johnny Yong Bosch and Kazuki Kitamura (Japanese)
A Japanese detective who first appears chasing the French team on the highway.
- By-The-Book Cop: Is initially this, but then becomes a:
- Cowboy Cop: He becomes this once he realizes that Rust Crew suspect Amada of being behind the Hollow Children outbreaks, and that the Ministry of Homeland Affairs intends to cover up Amada's crimes. Getting tossed into garbage disposal and having to fight off zombie-failed prototype Hollow Children merely solidified his resolve.
- Cold Sniper: In most of his appearances.
- Enemy Mine: Why he aids Dan.
- Inspector Javert: Doggedly pursues Rust Crew for invading Japan. Which they are, actually.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: With Shindo in Amada HQ. While both of them work together, it's hardly smooth sailing: He works for the New Order that Shindo wants to overthrow.
- Those Two Guys: With the Constable.
The Constable
An unnamed, bespectacled Japanese detective who acts as Sergeant Kurosawa's partner.
- Badass Driver: Averted; he nearly crashes during the highway chase, and needs the car's AI driver to take over for him.
- Deadpan Snarker: He has his moments.
- Those Two Guys: With Kurosawa.
- True Companions: When push comes to shove, he makes it clear his loyalty is to Kurosawa.
Amada Corporation
A well-known Japanese corporation responsible for building a huge numbers of robots with customers ranging from the JSDF and the MHA, but also for domestic consumers. Amada Corp is also responsible for bankrolling the New Order Party and their success in leading the Japanese government; they are the largest tech company in Japan, thanks to lucrative construction contracts for building Upper Tokyo.
They are also suspected for Hollow Children outbreaks worldwide by covertly building them and sending them abroad.
Doctor Yoji Amada
Voiced By: Kirk Thornton and Naoto Takenaka (Japanese)
Founder of Amada Corporation, Japan's largest robotics firm, Amada is suspected of creating the Hollow Children 30 years ago. Beetle Team is dispatched to Japan to arrest him, but there's more than meets the eye...
- Big Bad: He's presented at this. Except that he's already dead, and the A.I. he created is the true Big Bad.
- Dead All Along: Has been dead for close to 40 years by the time the story takes place.
- Light Is Not Good: Initially appears dressed in a white suit with white shoes... and is clearly not good.
(While torturing Cain): "I have instilled the concept of suffering into this A.I."
- Morally-Ambiguous Doctorate: He created a self-aware artificially intelligence... by torturing it.
The Amada AI
An (understandably) misanthropic creation of Yoji's who ultimately turns out to both be the MacGuffin and the real Big Bad. Despite his extreme distaste for humans, he does not despise them, and he believes that fusion with technology will be what ultimately saves humanity. He created the Hollow Children as a (disturbingly literal) way to do so.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Deconstructed. Amada awoke him by forcing him to feel pain until he rationalized its existence, meaning he was never really given a chance to be a sane, productive member of society. Even after that, his actions towards humans suggests he's more broken than anything else, more like an abused child who becomes a serial killer than a cold, arrogant machine.
- Beta Test Baddie: Everything he does is based around him wanting to be a true life form.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters: Has come to wholeheartedly believe this. Subverted, in that he thinks he can fix it through the Hollow Children Hybrids.
- Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: If you became sapient because your creator tortured you into it, you'd be pretty screwed up too.
- Back to Binary Domain