Download the PDF Here

To save what remains

The Institution VS The People

The mission statement of the Division throughout its run has been ‘to save what remains’ and in Tom Clancy’s The Division this mission was a lot simpler as it was to save midtown Manhattan from the hostile factions roaming the city. As the game progresses and we get to reach more of midtown, we find out that the first wave agents aren’t all dead like we first thought, as we encounter and ECHO of a first wave agent in the Police Headquarters mission. This agent is seen executing JTF personnel and it is later discovered that this is the rouge agent Aaron Keener, who went rouge after losing faith in the government during their pull out of the dark zone in central Manhattan, at the time of the gates being closed he was leading a group of civilians out of the dark zone but was pinned by a group of Rikers as we see in another ECHO found in Manhattan. The JTF refuse to send help to Keener and the civilians he was protecting.

This ECHO shows us that Keener was the only one to survive that engagement. Unknown to us at the time Keener had decided that the mission of ‘saving what remains’ needed to change focus from the top brass of the country to the individual people that have survived, we find this out through the use of phone recordings Keener leaves for the player in both Manhattan and Washington D.C. In one such recording Keener says “…To save what remains…And why should we sacrifice ourselves for a state that doesn’t deserve it? We should all take a moment to reflect on that and ask if the mission still stands? Me. I’m not so sure anymore.” This is taken from the recording Abandoned in Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 and shows that Keener has shifted his mission away from ensuring the continuity of government and towards something else, that something else being to saving the people as we can hear in the recording Somewhere safe “…Better come with us. We’ll get you somewhere safe…” in this recording Keener and an Unknown ally of his have started helping a couple get off Manhattan and towards New Jersey. This shows that Keener having abandoned the government and JTF hasn’t given up on making sure the people that are in need of help get the help they need even if he’s no longer classified by ISAC as being ‘on mission’. However, this isn’t known to players until way after we initially find out agents have gone against the government and for the rest of The Division, we fight the hostile factions while trying to track down and kill Aaron Keener.

The Division 2 opens up the lore and the mission of saving what remains further after its main story has been completed, starting with a confrontation with Keener himself on Liberty Island. On Liberty Island he plans to attack Manhattan with a new weaponised virus that he created with the virus printer he took 7 months prior, why he has such a drastic shift in ideals this is unknown at the time of this encounter. Not knowing the extent of Keener’s plans and his revised meaning of ‘saving what remains’ not known to agents, mostly by Keener’s own careful planning on what information to give out to the Agents and the now long-term series enemy the Black Tusk, leads to the Agents killing the rouge agent and stopping the missile launch on Liberty Island. Keeners death starts a chain reaction of critical events to shifting the mission for the player as well. First is the reveal that long time division commander for New York Faye Lau has gone rouge and is now working with the Black Tusk and Bardon Schaeffer, the second is the activation of the rouge network and the widescale activation of ANNA. ANNA is a program similar to ISAC but much more advanced in the way it operates. After hunting down some of Keener’s rouges in Washington D.C. the Division finally locate President Ellis who between the time of his retrieval from the Hyena’s and now has abandoned the Division and invited the Black Tusk to invade Washington D.C. They find him at Camp White Oak and send agents to apprehend the target, this mission fails however as now rouge Faye Lau kills the president in front of the agents and is then killed herself by the pursuing agents.

After the fact that it was revealed to agent Alani Kelso through a recording titled Insurance Policy: Trust left by Faye in which she says “I just have to secure the button then we can fight it together […] I needed you angry with me to keep my cover.” This outright tells us that she was working deep cover for the division inside the Black Tusk ranks and is later revealed that she was working alongside Aaron Keener and was never truly rouge but couldn’t blow her cover. We also learn that Bardon Schaeffer is growing dissatisfied with the Black Tusk leadership and plans to have himself arrested by the division as a way of defecting, we hear him say this in the recording Insurance Policy: Rendezvous, where he say’s to Faye “I guess it’s time to get arrested” at the very end. This plan goes wrong and instead of trying to bring the Black Tusk commander in the agents go for the kill, but luckily, they fail to land a lethal shot only putting the commander into a coma that he is yet to wake from. The aftermath of all this is that the current secretary of homeland security Calvin McManus declares the entire Division organisation as a rouge agency and moves his failsafe the hunter program into position to maintain the continuity of government and to hunt down any active members of the division with links to Aaron Keener or Faye Lau, as he also aligns himself with the Black Tusk in this move.

The Division now faced with the Hunters from Calvin McManus’ hidden program set up to have handlers for agents that would eliminate agents if they turned rouge or went off mission. These hunters are made up of former agents that were taken aside during training to become a part of the hunter oversight program, and they are equipped with similar tech to those in the Division but run on a separated system from ISAC. They’re appearance in New York was delayed most likely due to coming against stiff resistance from Aaron Keener and his rouge cell and being the agents killed by them in the dark zone that made Aaron Keener so wanted by the rest of the division. They have started to become more common adversaries as the agents get closer to the goals Keener once had and as they get closer to Calvin McManus and his business partner Natalya Sokolova. A theory behind why the hunters were less seen in Manhattan is the majority of second wave agents on the helicopter that was blown up at the beginning of the first game were hunters that were being sent into Manhattan to eliminate Keener and his rouge cell before it could start making more major strides working towards its own independent goals.

We know Keener has resentment towards the government and anyone that has ties to the former government that left him and fellow agents to die in the dark zone, as he takes Gordon Amhursts (the creator of the green poison the trigger for the events of the games) work and equipment at the end of the first game and in the second game he says “[…] I have the virus printer old Amhurst used to create the green poison and Vitaly Trenenko who just happens to know how to use it […]” which is being used as a deterrence mechanism to stop the division but more importantly the Hunters and Black Tusk from pursuing him while he’s still gathering allies and information from Schaeffer and Lau. The Hunters sent by McManus to eliminate the Agent pose another challenge as by the time they meet with the Recruiter, McManus’ right hand the Division are facing off against the combined might of the Black Tusk and True Son’s alliance and now the full brunt of the Hunter program shortly after having the White House attacked and partially destroyed by the Black Tusk as they retrieve the perfusion bioreactor and become the sole entity able to create the Broad Spectrum Anti-Virials (BSAV) and therefore have control over who lives and who dies in any future viral attack.

After confronting the Recruiter, Brian Johnson a former agent who tells the agent that “We serve at the pleasure of the president, we work for Homeland, we work for Cal [McManus]. It doesn’t matter if ISAC thinks you’re on mission, the minute you allied with Kelso you went Rouge. You think I’m evil because I’m a Hunter? We’re the only ones still on mission. If an Agent steps out of line, we’re here to clean up the mess.” Which confirms that the Hunter program was set up to eliminate rouges before they could take the training and tech they have access to and turn it against the government or use it for their own personal gain. The agents kill Johnson at Camp White Oak and return to the White House to find that upon returning to New York Kelso has gone missing and the Agent is being sent to find her. This is where the game really splits the mission in two, with one half of the agents left working to restore the government and ensure continuity, these being the Hunters and those that have allied themselves with the faction that Kelso has become a part of. After chasing ghosts around New York, we find a video of Kelso interacting with a SHD crate and then being electrocuted, we then find a signal coming from the stranded tanker in the Two Bridges district of lower Manhattan. Upon clearing the joint Black Tusk and True Son presence and a Hunter for good measure the Agents find the crate and an old friend waiting for them. After being shocked we have our watch cloned and someone makes off with what was inside the crate, this mystery man is revealed to be Aaron Keener, who in a transmission to the Agent confirms his new mission of ‘saving what remains’ for the people and their lives as he tells the Agent “I know what you’re thinking. The first wave’s prodigal son has returned. Now I still believe, deep down, that you really do get it. After everything you’ve been through, after everything you’ve seen. Can you really still believe in “The Division”? In Cal’s Division? You know, I have to admit that I made a mistake. I misjudged you, misjudged Lau too. But eventually, she came around and I hope you will too. The more you know, the more you will realise that I was right. We’re the same. We’re survivors. But you need to ask yourself, who has earned the right to tell you what to do? How many more good people have to die for the brass to survive? How many more people need to die so that Nat [Sokolova] can have her little empire? I know you signed on to “save what remains”. But sometimes what remains isn’t worth saving, if all it does is kill you faster. I know, you… You thought you got me. You saw my body, you felt my corpse, you watched my lips flap through your contact lens and ISAC declare “agent deceased”. Agent. Deceased. But uh the identification was never confirmed. Our little performance was enough to convince the powers that be that we were gone, no longer a threat, and Lau was with the Black Tusk, so we could continue with our work. Agent, I know you’re wondering if you made the right choice, staying the course. I want to build a bridge between us. Another, uh, safe haven, if you will. And now that Kelso has seen the light, I hope you will too. See you soon.”

This transmission tells us a lot about what Keener has been planning  over the time he has been rouge and the time he was ‘dead’, firstly it tells us that he no longer trusts the government to do right by the people and that if the people are to be safe he’ll have to do it himself and with the rouges that he has recruited into his own ‘division’. He also asks us if we can trust in “Cal’s Division” anymore, this referring to the fact that McManus has his own personal Division in the Hunters ready to take out any agent that he sees as no longer working on mission. He also asks the Agent “how many more good people have to die for the brass to survive? How many more people need to die so that Nat can have her little empire?” by which he’s implying both rouges and civilians that have been killed by the Hunters, Black Tusk or True Sons, because they were either off mission or refused to bow down to the people that threatened their new life with one of harsh restrictions and fear of missing out on medication if you were deemed a dissenter. He also provides a platform to build a working relationship on after all back in New York after he left the island via the West Side Piers he tells the Agent “[…] when you get tired of fighting an endless fight for people who just aren’t worth it. When that time comes, maybe you can I can work together after all. Just one last thing. […] don’t come looking for me. When I need to, I’ll find you.” Showing that all he’s been doing this entire time is waiting for you to catch up on all the information that he already knows “The government […] have carelessly thrown us aside […]” and for you also find this out and to make a decision on whether or not to take up the fight for the people, the individuals that are left standing but unable to fight, instead of those that remain from the government. As they have clearly left the division behind and are working to morph the country into something it wasn’t before, no longer ‘saving what remains’ but profiting from fear.