A Brief Guide to those who hindered
the Gizmos Team in Season Two.
Clicking on any of the underlined links will take you to more information.
What Goes
Up.../...Must come Down: Zito
Working with Chuku and his rebel factions, but ultimately under the control of Jean-Daniel from prison, Zito tries and almost succeeds on several occasions to thwart the launch of the STA shuttle "Excalibur" and the deployment of the RX44 satellite. A clever, determined and ruthless man (but not clever enough…) his position as Head of the Astronaut Training Programme at STA presents him with various opportunities to destroy the mission. However, on each occasion the Bugs team are one step ahead of him (something Jean-Daniel counts on for the success of his master plan) and Zito is forced to fake his own death to continue his plans of disruption unhindered. Despite this obvious edge he is still unable to stop Haikudo’s mission, and is finally killed by a number of Jean-Daniel’s own henchmen who he believes are on his side…
What Goes
Up.../...Must come Down: McNair
Responsible for the revolutionary fuel cell that powers the RX44 but also an accomplice of Zito. When he fails to kill both Beckett in the fuel cell’s vacuum test room, and Ros with some deliberately placed falling tools, he decides to cut his losses and escape. However, the flight is anticipated and his car is wired with a car bomb…
What Goes
Up.../...Must come Down: Chuku
President Haikudu’s aide and sympathiser to the forces on Kituma hoping for a return to the country’s anarchic past, Chuku tries and fails to kill Haikudu with a bomb in the presidential palace’s lift. The bomb instead kills Amanda Courtney’s sound recordist and cameraman.
What
Goes Up.../...Must come Down: Jean-Daniel (Recurring character Season
One, Season Two Episodes 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9 & 10)
Swearing revenge for the death of his brother and against the three people that put him in prison, Jean-Daniel’s psychotic nature and brilliant mind are finely honed by his time in prison. Using contacts on the outside (including Zito and Bixon) to manipulate a number of carefully-plnned situations, then investing heavily in those areas which he knows the Gizmos team will help succeed by their intervention (Kituma, wheat futures and Strate Air amongst others). The Frenchman quickly builds a massive business empire, which he totally controls from his cell. The Governor is blissfully unaware of his plans (thinking Jean-Daniel is simply investing for the prison’s future) and only realises what has happened when his employers are bought from under him by Jean-Daniel himself, allowing the Frenchman to walk free unhindered.
Jean-Daniel’s ultimate goal is control of Cyberax, a machine intelligence designed specifically to expand and consume knowledge within any computer system. Allowing Cyberax the opportunity to escape and to travel into the Real World, Jean-Daniel gives the program an opportunity to expand and develop, and at the same time begins to build a custom-made "facility" (the Technopolis Tower) where Cyberax can be lured and kept under his ultimate control. It is not the Gizmos team who causes the eventual downfall of both Cyberax and the Frenchman: it is Jean-Daniel who condemns not only himself but also his assistant Cassandra and the machine intelligence to death by an uncharacteristically stupid act…
Bugged Wheat:
Dr Croll
Head of Pesticorp, Croll conspires with both Nathan Pym and James Hawk to hold a number of Eastern European countries to ransom, by releasing Monarch Beetles infected with a deadly viroid onto their crops. Pesticorp holds the formula for the only known pesticide able to destroy the viroid, and would make a fortune offering the substance as a cure for the deliberately instigated viroid plague. A determined and decidedly unpleasant individual, Croll meets his end by falling from the roof of the Pesticorp building, mere moments before his deadly bugs are due to be released.
Bugged Wheat:
Nathan Pym
Head of Forecasting at the Institute of Climatology, Pym has a nervous stutter, which rather belies his unsavoury nature. Instead of using a gun to dispose of Hawk he prefers a genetically modified hornet, which carries a now-lethal sting. With a peculiar fondness for collecting insects, he meets his end as the volatile pesticide ZH-282 explodes after a guard inadvertently tazers the container Ros is using to try and remove it from Pesticorp.
Bugged Wheat:
James Hawk
A young forcaster who initially releases the viroid at the European Agronomy Council Lab. His greed gets the better of him and Pym is forced to dispose of his services…
Whirling
Dervish: Jerome
Head of a cartel that wants to see Strate Air
removed from the airline business. A brilliant tactician and pilot, Jerome plans to use
Ormand’s DCE machine to program himself and a co-pilot to fly a Dervish stealth
fighter, which will then intercept and shoot down the aircraft State is travelling on as
he returns from a trade meeting. A cool and calculating individual, his fist choice of a
co-pilot meets an unpleasant end and so he finds himself "encouraged" to employ
Ed’s services, who ultimately prevents him from carrying out his plan whilst also
managing to blow up the Dervish with Jerome still inside…
Whirling
Dervish: Fisk
Jerome’s largely silent partner, who is sent to reprogram a remote air beacon and thus send the Strate Air plane carrying Tyrone Strate off course. Ros is able to prevent this occurring, and by accident ensures that Fisk is no longer able to interfere with the beacon…
Whirling
Dervish: Bixon
Claiming to be a representative of the Committee for Global Economic Equilibrium, Bixon initially hires the team to investigate Jerome’s activities. However, it becomes clear after the Dervish incident that Bixon was nothing to do with the CGEE, and is in fact Jean-Daniel’s cousin…
Whirling
Dervish: Erhardt
Jerome’s first choice of co-pilot, who falls to his death through a fragile roof whilst chasing Ed. His loss leads to Ed’s eventual recruitment, claiming that Erhardt was in fact his co-pilot and that Ed is the vastly better flyer…
Blackout:
Pascal
Attractive and brilliant, Pascal is the supposed head of the Pro-Earth People’s Front…but is in actuality simply interested in using the NRGen Power Station she takes over as a means of manipulating the Currency Exchange House to remove (with her partner’s help) millions in international currency. On the look-out for more financial opportunity, the young woman is happy to sell the station’s Isotope triggers to Martin Kolvek to make a few million more, despite the total devastation their removal will create. Her greed is eventually her undoing, and she dies with Kolvek as both try to escape from the Power Station via its underground escape tunnel.
Blackout:
Travis
Pascal’s man "on the inside" at NRGen, Travis is a plant engineer who is able, with some practice, to precisely control the flow of power from the station to the entire Metropolitan area. However, he overestimates his worth to Pascal, who is quick to dispose of him when he has outlived his usefulness.
Blackout:
Lacombe
Pascal’s partner and lover, who is employed at the Currency Exchange House. With the help of security guard Max the pair set up the Currency House systems so that when hit by a massive surge of energy the vaults will come under their control, allowing unlimited access to the money within. However, Lacombe is not as clever as Beckett, who is able to use Ed at the Power Station to raise a bridge in his path, stopping him and millions from getting away in a stolen security van.
Blackout:
Martin Kolvek
International arms dealer, who offers Pascal ten million for the isotope triggers. He gets his goods, but doesn’t live long enough to leave the Plant with them, and Ros gets the opportunity to save the station from meltdown.
Blackout:
Ekberg
One of the terrorists whom Ed impersonates after he is lured to his untimely death by Ros and Ed inside the Power Station.
Blackout: Max
Corrupt security guard that has no compunction in killing his colleagues to assist Lacombe in his scheme, and whom Beckett is able to lock inside the vault at the Currency Exchange House
Gold Rush:
Maximillian Kristo
Currency speculator and owner of Bio-Gro, whose discovery of the gold-eating virus Thiobacillus Auric Oxidans leads initially to the unsuccessful attack the Eastern European Monetary Commission’s Computer system. Kristo buys large amounts of the Baltic Mark (the only currency not regulated by the EEMC) and makes a quick killing as the initial attack destabilises the Commissions’ trading computers. However, his ultimate aim is to obliterate the EEMC’s entire gold reserve with the virus. Kristo dies as he unsuccessfully tries to prevent the release of Ros’ specially created antigens onto the already infected Gold reserves.
Gold Rush:
Pyke
Kristo’s assistant, who is able by ingratiating herself into the EEMC to instigate the initial attack on the Trading computers, by releasing the gold-eating virus into the ventilation system (via a specially-constructed device) As cold and ruthless as her employer, she is killed in an explosion at Bio-Gro.
Schrodinger's
Bomb: Cassandra Neumann (Recurring character, Season 2 Episodes 7, 9 & 10)
Brilliant and stunningly attractive daughter of Dr Neumann, Cassandra makes an effective partner for Jean-Daniel both inside and outside prison. Fiercely loyal and devoted to the Frenchman, she and her father initially ensure Jean-Daniel has sufficient niobium alloy to begin construction of the super-fast processors required to tempt Cyberax away from it’s birthplace, by making a deal with General Maliq for a quantity of Red Mercury. Cassandra is saved from death at her father’s own hands (after Beckett temporarily blinds her) and told to wait for further orders: when they come she carries them out with complete efficiency and without question.
After Jean-Daniel’s capture (when he is trapped at the Particle Accelerator following an anti-matter explosion) it is Cassandra who continues work on the Technopolis Tower for Cyberax, and who demands the machine intelligence release him from the Ultimax prison before being allowed access to the processors contained within. Devoted until the end, Cassandra dies at the Frenchman’s side.
Schrodinger's
Bomb: Dr. Neumann
Cassandra’s father, an expert in antiquities (which he uses as a cover for his true profession as an arms dealer) and the key (literally) to a giant safe full of lethal Red Mercury, Neumann’s usefulness is short lived. His greed is his ultimate undoing, and his willingness to dispose of his own daughter when she becomes a liability compels Jean-Daniel to shoot him first.
Schrodinger's
Bomb: General Maliq
Ruler of an inconsequential faction in a Middle-eastern country, Maliq is a brilliant military genius who intends to dispose of his rivals at Peace Talks using a bomb created from Red Mercury. However, he is foolish enough to cross Jean-Daniel, who swiftly dispenses his own form of justice.
Newton's Run:
Alkmarr
Leader of the Eco-terrorist group known as the Nordic Front, Alkmarr concerns have nothing to do with saving the planet, and everything to do with violence and extortion. Cold-bloodedly disposing of Siegel his only concern at the Austin Institute is the abduction of Newton (the dog carrying the first artificial nervous system) which he plans to use to gain entry and plant a bomb in Facility 47. However, Ros is able to thwart his plans and his death comes from the explosion of the device initially intended to destroy Facility 47 itself…
Newton's
Run: Tangsen & Korvig
Alkmarr’s accomplices, both who are expert motorcyclists (as is Alkmarr himself) Tangsten is disabled by Ros with a spare tyre from Alkmarr’s Tanker headquarters, whilst Ed electrocutes Korvig after a struggle in Facility 47’s Control Room.
The Bureau of
Weapons: Computer Geek
The teenage genius who gives Cyberax an opportunity to escape from its Military birthplace, and who is rewarded for his troubles with a car he’s unable to drive…
The
Bureau of Weapons: Cyberax (Recurring entity, Season Two episodes 9 & 10, Season
Three)
Artificial intelligence
"grown" by Military Command to learn and self-develop, Cyberax first appears to
Jean-Daniel as a child, eager to learn all it can about the world. The program is able to
rest unnoticed in a human subject, only being activated when that person becomes aware of
Cyberax’s presence or of the program’s true nature. Once activated Cyberax
destroys all evidence of it’s existence, and shuts down the brain of its host (as
demonstrated with Roland Blatty). It does not take long
for the child to grow into a monstrously powerful and intelligent "adult":
however, it is the Frenchman who ultimately wields control, and it is his stupidity that
eventually condemns Cyberax to death. However, part of its intelligence remains within the
brains of the humans it has infected, and may well still be capable of wreaking
havoc…