User blog:G-Monster/Pure Evil Proposal: Vyktor Kratek

Hey guys so I just finished watching all the playthroughs and cutscenes I believe that I’m ready to EP this guy, from Killzone: Mercenary.

What is the work?
Killzone Mercenary is an game from the Killzone series made for the Playstation Vita. The premise of the story is that you're in a Gaiden Story where you're a Merc doing ops for during the events of the other games. You're aligned with Vekta and the ISA... at first. Then you align with the Helghast and this guys before he betrays you Vyktor Kratek.

Who is he? What has he done?
Colonel Vyktor Kratek is a Helghast officer with genocidal designs on the Vektan people. Your first mission is to rescue one Admiral Grey from him whom is being interrogated by Kratek and since she was working on some bioweapon research? That's not good. When you finally find them you witness him torturing her and, with that not working out, he takes some POW's and gases them. It still doesn't work, and Vyktor knows the player character, Danner, is at his door, so he shoots her in the head and makes his escape. She survives, against all odds, and this little nasty act sets up the events of the rest of the game.

While you foil Kratek a bit, he still gets enough of the biological agent to fashion a truly terrible virus. To do this he forces the very unfortunate Dr Savic to work for him by threatening his family and has numerous Helghans experimented on - which he at one point calls volunteers... and the very same room he claims this you can find intel which says these "volunteers" were people arrested nearby, which you can witness in the missions, and these people aren't hardened criminals, they're just trying to get by.

Savic tried to warn Kratek that the virus he was making was becoming uncontrollable and could wipe out a planet, thus being unfit for reasonable warfare. Kratek didn't care. Savic believed Kratek just wanted it as a deterrent. But then he came to an awful realisation: Kratek wanted to unleash the virus on Vekta. Unable to take part in this, Savic fled, taking with him a genetic trigger for the virus. Without it, the virus is harmless. He intended to defect to Vekta with the trigger and thus create a stalemate where neither side can have the virus. He sought refuge in the Vektan embassy on Helghast Embassy - and it just so happens that the Vektan Ambassador there was in truth a spy for Vekta. The Helghast knew this and kept him around to monitor, but with Savic taking refuge there Kratek ordered an attack on the Embassy under the pretense of killing the spy along with his Helghan wife and his Helghan bodyguard whom may have grown attached to the family when in truth Savic was his main target.

But he does specify that the son of the couple, Justus, should be spared since it's not his fault "Vektan blood pollutes his veins". In case you think this is mitigating like I did at first, please be patient.

So you rescue Justus and fail to save his family or bodyguard - sorry kid - and get him to the ISA along with Savic. Unfortunately, getting tortured, forced to hear her people die and being shot in the head gave Admiral Grey a bit of a hate boner for Kratek. Even more unfortunately, your partner Benoit lied to Grey that Danner attempted to cut a deal with the Helghast. Thus, Danner is left for dead in an exploding Petrusite Facility. Oh dear.

Fortunately (?) Kratek doesn't want Danner dead. Yet. In exchange for saving his life - and money, since Kratek thinks that's all Mercs care about - Kratek more or less forces Danner to work with him since Grey wants the virus and trigger for herself. So much for stalemate. She has her ISA goons interrogate Savic and you save him. He tells Danner that he injected the trigger into Justus to smuggle the trigger into Vekta and to turn off his comms so Kratek can't hear the code to the vault housing the virus while pleading with Danner to let no one have it. Kratek wryly commends Danner for this since it means he can't kill Danner until he retrieves the virus. So you go through the game, retrieve the virus, finally kill Admiral Grey, everything's looking awful until your Arms Dealer buddy Blackjack (Check the Magnificent Bastard thread for my EP and run down on this delightful fellow) hijacks your comms and steals the position of Mission Control, leading Danner and Justus to safety.

Oh, and you can pick up some intel clarifying that not only does Kratek want to kill Danner after getting the virus but he also gives permission to "dispose" of Justus once they have the trigger. Seems the whole thing about him being an innocent was just something he fed to lower goons. Oh, and the real kick in the teeth? Kratek justifies himself by writing "We don't honour deals with thieves and traitors."

So you reach the end of the level. Unfortunately, Danner is confronted by Kratek and Benoit, whom after Grey's death have apparently come to a deal since Benoit is unemployed.

Kratek gloats that Danner won't get paid but that "There's a price for betrayal too."and is promptly shot in the back by Benoit.

Benoit decided he could make more money by selling the boy and virus on the black market and let "market forces" decide who wins the war. Cue final boss, Benoit's death and the destruction of the virus.

Mitigating Factors?
Almost anything that can be seen as such I think ends up as being incredibly hollow.

Hey, Justus should be spared cause he's an innocent kid. But he ultimately authorises his death. Whether or not he knew or suspected he had the trigger from the start is ultimately irrelevant - I see this as a very clear subversion of a redeeming quality.

Hey, these test subjects are volunteers. As I've said already, bullshit.

Hey, I've got a set of standards. As I hope I've demonstrated, all his apparent honour is just posturing. He never really backs up his claims and is happy to betray Danner and make himself look like the more noble man. That time he killed the ambassador and his wife? The bodyguard Boris morally objects, not just because he had grown attached to them, but because he considered the killing of unarmed non-combatants to be cowardly and not "proper soldiering."

And like just about all Helghast he is descended by humans forced off of Vekta by Earth because they wanted independence and thus were forced to Helghan, a shitty planet. But we already have two Helghans listed as Pure Evil so not a problem.

Heinousness?
What is a problem is how shitty the Killzone universe is. Shadow Fall featured ANOTHER super evil virus that could commit genocide that three key people were complicit in and responsible for - the three CM's we got listed for Killzone in fact.

And then there's Killzone Mercenary itself. Kratek has to compete with Admiral Grey, who wants to use the virus to take revenge against Helghan after her trauma. She orders the destruction of a Petrucite facility which had tens of thousands of civilian casualties. She has the poor Savic interrogated to find the Trigger and virus. It was her research that led to all of this. Than Benoit tries to use the virus to get rich, not caring which side wins.

There's a great emphasis placed on how both sides are capable of great good, and terrible evil. Blackjack himself states Grey and Kratek are just as crazy as each other.

But for all this, Kratek has a more deliberate and personal cruelty to him. His torture, his cruel gassing of POW's, his research to make the virus as bad as possible - at one point during the final level Justus sees some test subjects and says they're still alive in their tubes, questioning how Helghast could do that to their own kind, and even some ISA soldiers are disgusted despite the Helghast being their enemies. You can actually intervene when they try and kill a scientist who worked on the virus by burning him in an incinerator - or not, you don't get penalised if he dies horribly. Yeah, Grey also seeks genocide, but I think Kratek edges her out with his flourishes, his creation of the virus itself which Grey just wanted to exploit after the fact and is able to stand out among some rather nasty customers.

Conclusion
I think he counts.