- "You can kill the prophet, but you can't kill the god."
- —The Brethren Moons speaking through the Cult Leader
The Cult Leader was a member of the Circle and the leader and self-proclaimed Prophet of the newly formed Unitologist Cult. He is the main human antagonist of Dead Space 3: Awakened.
Biography
Dead Space 3: Awakened
After the death of Jacob Danik and the destruction of the Tau Volantis Brethren Moon, the Unitologists are seemingly contacted by the Brethren Moons and ordered a massive recall of the survivors on Tau Volantis to the CMS Terra Nova. There, a group of Unitologists splintered off to form a new Church, made not of "brick and mortar, but of flesh and blood" and the moons were coming and are "hungry". One anonymous individual became the leader and prophet of this new Unitologist cult. He and the other survivors began to ritualistically mutilate themselves, sawing off body parts as offerings to the approaching Moons.
When Isaac and Carver arrived on the Terra Nova, they experienced several hallucinations in which they saw the prophet carving off a man's hands, presumably Randall Carr and several more times throughout the ship. The prophet seemed to act as the voice of the Moons, taunting Isaac in several severe hallucinations, causing the engineer to begin doubting whether he and Carver should return home or not which resulted in them arguing.
During several of these hallucinations, the prophet displayed several supernatural abilities ranging from immunity to physical harm and teleportation. After Isaac and Carver retrieved the ShockPoint Drive, Isaac made for the reactor of the Terra Nova to destroy it, convinced that it is the only way to protect Earth from the Moons. The prophet appeared once more in a final hallucination where Isaac and Carver discovered that the man can be harmed if they destroy one of the Markers within the hallucination.
After destroying three Markers and shooting the Cult Leader, their connection to the Moons is broken, though he warned Isaac and Carver that their chance to warn the Earth has come and gone. When the hallucination ended, Isaac and Carver stood victorious over the defeated and mortally wounded prophet who continued to rant and rave. With his dying breaths, he declared that the Moons will still find Earth. Isaac can either execute the Cult Leader or let him live, but his words still come to pass. If the player spared the prophet, his fate is unknown as the ship made it's way back to Earth.
Fate
Once the fight is over, the Cult Leader will kneel dying in front of Isaac and Carver. The player(s) can kill him with a single shot or leave him be and proceed with the mission.
Choosing either to kill or spare him rewarded the players with two mutually exclusive achievements/trophies, "Heretic" if the Cult Leader was to be killed and "True Believer" for the opposite.
Trivia
- The Cult Leader is able to seemingly use Isaac's (and Carver's) dementia to his advantage by dodging their attacks and stunning them with Stasis.
- It seems the first step of joining the Cult is to saw off one's hand, yet the Cult Leader seems to be the only member who still had both of his hands intact. This is most likely in order to perform the physical task of sawing every newcomer's hands off.
- In the IGN.com developer commentary interview, when Isaac approaches the scene of the cult leader standing over a kneeling man, IGN commentator Casey Lynch asks "is that indeed Randall Carr right there?" to which Producer Shereif Fattouh says yes. This has caused many to mistakenly believe that Randall Carr was the cult leader. However, text logs throughout the ship suggest that Carr was not the cult leader but the man kneeling before him[1].
- Although his behavior during battles is similar to Nicole's at the end of Dead Space 2, making physical contact with the Cult Leader will not result in the player's death as it did with her.
- As the prophet, he acts in a very similar manner to Pyramid Head from the Konami game series Silent Hill. First, he is a fairly slow and lumbering enemy that uses a large knife. Second, he cannot be killed (though will react to the player's attempts to harm him) and cannot be slowed down further until his final boss fight, making his encounters more about avoiding him outright and running than attempting to fight back. Lastly, he seems to be the product of the player's inner demons and dementia, especially when hallucinations become part of his fighting style.
- In Dead Space Martyr, it was hypothesised that the Markers only show visions of dead people, yet the prophet is clearly alive, in person, in a vision. A plausible explanation is that the Brethren Moons, in tandem with the prophet's assault, have somehow "boosted" the magnitude of Isaac and Carver's dementia, thus giving them a devastating mental disadvantage over the sole attacker.
- Like Nicole, The Cult leader taunts Isaac and Carver by making sinister laughs.
Death Scene
- If Isaac or Carver is finished off by the prophet's attack (Usually with his blade), the Cult Leader will saw through Isaac (Or Carver's) neck violently. While Isaac's or Carver's neck is sawed through, almost to the point of falling off, the prophet then threw Isaac's or Carver's body aside, tearing their heads off in the process.
Gallery
