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| “ | Oh, you people... you are so dumb. This whole f***ing planet... all sheep. No wonder Mental is winning. You believe anything you're told. I didn't even need to invent General Brand, you already believed in him. He's that tough old bastard who doesn't play by the rules. But if we trust him, he'll do what needs to be done. | „ |
| ~ General Brand revealing his true self. |
General Howard Brand is the secondary antagonist of Serious Sam 4 and the main antagonist of its standalone expansion Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem.
Brand is a renowned general in the Earth Defense Force and the founder of the Alien Artifact Acquisition team, leading Sam Stone and his friends in their mission to find the Holy Grail and use it to fight off the invading forces of alien overlord Mental. Unbeknownst to them, Brand intends to betray what remains of humanity and join the winning side.
He was voiced by Wally Wingert.
Appearance[]
Howard Brand is a middle aged man wearing a plain military uniform and boots with a pistol holster strapped to his leg. His head is clean shaven and his eyes are hidden by aviator sunglasses.
The false Grail grants Brand powerful abilities, but also continuously takes away his humanity as he grows more muscular and malformed. His skin appears to rip apart in certain places and bone spikes protrude all over his body. He can also fuse himself with the staff completely, which not only gives him even more power but also covers his entire body with glowing veins and fiery energy cracking from his skin.
Personality[]
| “ | The first rule of warfare is People Are Stupid. The best plans take that into consideration. | „ |
| ~ Loading screen quote from General Brand. |
General Brand presents himself as a reasonable if ruthless leader to his team. When Sam punches Brand for triggering the eruption of Mount Vesuvius while he and his comrades where still in the blast zone, Brand lets Sam off the hook for assaulting a superior officer, arguing that he understands his anger but that pragmatism and the ability to make tough choices are a necessity in a fight for survival. During their team discussion on the way to France, Father Mikhail warns about the potential danger of using the Holy Grail, but Brand expresses the opinion that losing their soul is a worthy price for winning the war.
This is an act. In truth, Brand has absolutely no remorse for the consequences of his actions and is fully aware that humanity is fighting a hopeless battle against an immeasurably powerful opponent. His only concern is his own survival, manipulating his subordinates into finding the Holy Grail for him and then uses it to betray them, trying to present Sam as an offering in the hopes of becoming the sole surviving human.
Biography[]
Background[]
Howard Brand was born in Washington D.C. to a family with a military history dating back to the American Civil War. Sure enough, when Brand became an adult he joined the United States Aerospace Academy in Titusville, Florida and quickly rose to the rank of general in the Earth Defense Force. After the first Sirian artifacts were found on Earth, Brand founded the Alien Artifact Acquisition team and hand-picked its members. Brand was a strong defender of Sam Stone and the crew of the Surveyor when they were accused of misconduct due to their accidental awakening of Mental during an exploration mission to the planet Sirius, recruiting Sam for the AAA team.
Serious Sam 4[]
Hunt for the Grail[]
With humanity brought to the brink of annihilation, its colonies destroyed and pushed back to Earth, the Earth Defense Force was looking for any potential artifacts weapons to be used as weapons against Mental's Horde. During a mission in Rome, Italy a convoy of AAA troopers en route to rescue a priest who knows how to find the Holy Grail came under attack from Octanian Raiders, forcing Sam and rookie soldier Kenny to regroup with the rest of their unit and Father Mikhail on foot. They made it out of the city via bus, arriving at their rendezvous point with Brand with a group of Kleer skeletons in pursuit, who proceeded to casually take them out with a sniper rifle.
Brand in the briefing room with the rest of the AAA team.
To find the precise location of the Grail, a book hidden within the Vatican Library was required, but unfortunately the city was under complete lockdown by Mental's forces. As long as the Octanian Harvester Leviathan dominates the airspace entering Rome would be a death sentence, so they came up with a plan to erupt Mount Vesuvius to kick the Octanians out of the sky using a HAARP satellite, which Brand revealed is actually a device to create earthquakes. Sam and his team members Kenny, Rodriguez and Jones each planted two beacons near the volcano so that the satellite could be aligned properly. Jones lost his life in the process, but the beacons were successfully set. Radio interference caused communications with HQ to become unclear, so Brand ordered the HAARP to be activated despite his team still being in the hazard zone. Sam and the others barely escaped with their lives as Pompeii was once again buried under molten rock and ash.
Back at HQ, a furious Sam punched Brand square in the face for leaving them to fry in the flames. The other soldiers drew their weapons in their leader's defense, but Brand ordered them to stand down. He told Sam that he won't apologize for his decision, as being a leader means having to make tough choices. He recognizes that sometimes that means people will hate him for it, but while he's accepted that burden he also demands respect for it. Sam was still angry, to which Brand replied that perhaps one day he will realize that pragmatism is superior to idealism, but cuts their discussion short as there are bigger problems to worry about. While the volcanic eruption succeeded in driving the Harvester Leviathan and the Raiders away, they lost contact with the team that was supposed to escort Father Mikhail to the Vatican, so he ordered Sam and Rodriguez to go after them.
Despite facing heavy opposition by the enemy, Sam and Rodriguez reunited with Father Mikhail and their teammate Carter and collected the book they needed, which informed them that the Holy Grail was locked away in the Ark of the Covenant and hidden in Carcassonne, France. Brand and the AAA team travelled to France via plane, but got shot down and scattered once again by Octanian Raiders. Thankfully they were relatively close to their destination, slowly but surely making their way to Carcassone individually. Rookie Kenny's life was lost on the way, but Sam and his friends got to the castle holding the Holy Grail with the help of the French resistance and an informant from within Mental's Horde. They even encountered and killed Lord Achriman, Mental's general and lead strategist in charge of the invasion of Earth.
Brand's Betrayal[]
A now mutated Brand kills Father Mikhail.
Things were looking up, but Father Mikhail became increasingly convinced that what they were seeking was not the Holy Grail of legend but rather something evil that was locked away to shield the world from it. Sure enough, when they opened the Ark of the Covenant instead of the Grail a strange scepter with a golden snake coiling around it was contained within. It was at this point that Brand arrived with an entourage of soldiers pointing their guns at Sam and his team. When demanded an explanation, Brand called them out on their stupidity and revealed that he had merely pretended to be on their side, having played "General Brand" so that he could claim the false Grail, still a powerful artifact in its own right, and present it as an offering to Mental to buy himself a spot of honor within his ranks. He grabbed the scepter, whose snake suddenly moved and bit Brand in the arm, a surge of energy in his body mutating him. Father Mikhail began a prayer, but Brand shut him up by impaling him with the false Grail, then used an energy wave to knock Sam and the others out.
Brand ordered his men to throw the others to the Harvester Drones while they would take Sam with them to Mental's superportal in Tunguska as an additional offering. When Sam freed himself and prepared to jump out of the plane on the way there, Brand tried to persuade him that the war is over and that becoming Mental's pet would be his best option for survival, though to no success. Sam managed to get to Tunguska and participate in the Earth Defense Force's assault on the portal while looking for Brand, who had further mutated and once again knocked Sam out immediately once he noticed him on the battlefield.
Brand offers Sam and the false Grail to Ugh-Zan VI.
With Sam and the false Grail in his hands, Brand summoned one of Mental's mightiest servants at the portal and presented them to him as a gift for the One Infinite, only to get rejected by the great warlock and flicked off of his hand. This knocked the false Grail and Sam away and knocked Brand out cold. After Sam and the EDF defeated Ugh-Zan VI they still sent a present to Mental through the portal, namely a nuclear missile with Brand strapped to it. Brand screamed at them that they had no idea how powerful Mental truly is, but was shut up with duct tape and launched to his doom, the explosion on the other side blowing him to pieces and destroying the portal.
Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem[]
Turning back time a little bit, the expansion Siberian Mayhem takes place just after Sam escaped Brand's plane and found a new boat to begin his pursuit. The boat was just good enough to bring Sam to solid ground once more, reaching the shore of Siberia. A little bit of exploring led Sam to an abandoned oil refinery swarming with Octanian soldiers and other creatures. He figured it would be a good idea to look for a communications tower so he could try to make contact with the EDF or someone else who could give him directions. A few swarms of bad guys later Sam did indeed get to connect with another survivor called Ledov, who instructed him to come to a small town called Kalinovka a few kilometers south of his position so they can meet up and get Sam to Tunguska.
On his way to the town Sam spotted Brand's plane flying past him, which had to take a short stop to refuel. By now the EDF was aware of Brand's treachery and shot down the plane, giving Sam the perfect opportunity to catch up to him. Sam encountered heavy resistance by Mental's forces, which had set up many outposts and sentry turrets in the area, eventually needing to slaughter his way through an entire army by himself before finally reaching Kalinovka.
But before meeting up with Ledov and his team, Sam had the option of going into a former EDF mining operation overrun with Mental's minions to prevent them from blowing up an alien artifact. Inside the mine, documents and audio logs revealed that Brand had been aware of the operation and kept its findings secret from the EDF. The mining operation had found some ancient manuscript by the Arc-Al-Magi, the actual keepers of the Holy Grail that had a close connection to the Sirians. He had them send the manuscript to him alone and told the EDF personell there not to bother EDF command about it. He promised that he would sent Sam and his girlfriend Hellfire to protect them due to increased attacks by Mental's forces, but Sam and Hellfire never got the order, meaning Brand left the refinery personell to die to keep them from telling anyone about it. This disgusted Sam and made him wonder how long Brand has been planning his betrayal.
Brand with Ivan in his hand, demanding Sam surrender himself.
Regardless, Sam and Ledov's team used a local train to move forwards to the town Ustinov, where a Octanian Harvester Leviathan sent out Raiders to destroy the city shortly after their arrival. The group rushed through the town towards a dam so they can board a boat to Tunguska, but on their way there they found another group that was slaughtered. Before they could figure out who killed them, an attack by Raiders disoriented the group. When they came back to their senses, they discovered that Brand had been waiting for them and used this opportunity to take their teammate Ivan hostage. Brand once again offered Sam the chance to make it easy and surrender, otherwise he would kill his friend and capture him by force anyways. No matter what Sam does do, no matter how many battles he wins, one by one his friends will die and the war will still be lost, so it's better to get it over with now. Ivan screamed at Sam not to listen to him and insulted Brand, to which Brand responded by ripping him in half, telling him that was the wrong answer. The debris from the Raider attack separated Sam and the rest of the team, agreeing to meet back up on the nearby dam where they were headed anyways.
When Sam got there Ledov's team was under heavy attack, only Ledov himself being still alive. Sam rushed to his aid, but Ledov yelled that this had been a trap. Brand ambushed Sam and knocked him off the dam into the water below, while Ledov got overwhelmed and blew himself and his attackers up with a bag of explosives as a last act of defiance. Sam and Brand finally came face to face, one on one, both determined to see the other dead. The false Grail not only enhanced Brand's physical abilities, but also granted him nearly complete control over fire, attacking Sam relentlessly from all angles and even using the staff to lift debris from around the arena to throw at Sam. Once Brand's health was depleted once he absorbed the remaining energy from the false Grail, completely healing his wounds and temporarily making him even more powerful, engulfing every single one of his attacks in deadly flames and even conjuring two massive fiery cobras to shoot laser beams at Sam.
Howard Brand staring death in the face.
But despite putting up a difficult fight even for Sam, he was eventually defeated and fell exhausted on his knees. In complete disbelief that he lost despite having "made all the right choices", Sam calmly walked in front of the mad general and wondered aloud why Brand may have become a traitor. Maybe it was greed, maybe delusion or maybe he was simply afraid. Sam raised his shotgun in Brand's face and then told him what reason he thought is the most likely: he was simply an idiot. Before Brand could react Sam shot him in the face, killing him instantly. A portal then opened next to Sam, from which a bearded future version of himself emerged. Future Sam informed him that while killing Brand may have been satisfying, it ultimately caused a chain of events that messes things up horribly down the line. He, Present Sam and another EDF hero entered the time portal with a mission to change the fate of the world some other way.
Gallery[]
Serious Sam 4[]
Siberian Mayhem[]
Trivia[]
- Howard Brand and Lord Achriman are the only Serious Sam villains to be treated completely seriously and have no comedic or redeeming traits whatsoever.
- Brand is the first and so far only human villain in the Serious Sam series.
- A level cut from the final game called "The Refinery" was intended to precede the final level "From Earth With Love". It involves Sam trying to find fuel for his snowmobile at a refinery so he could continue in his journey to the Tunguska Offensive, finding out about a mining operation that Brand had kept secret and let die in the process. This level and the added information on Brand was eventually remade and included in the Siberian Mayhem expansion.
- General Brand's boss theme in Siberian Mayhem, titled "Freedom Too", is a remix of the wind god Kukulkán's boss theme in Serious Sam: The Second Encounter, which was the instumental version of the song "Freedom" from the band Undercode. Ironic, as Kukulkán was a good deity not affiliated with Mental in the slightest, only opposing Sam to uphold his duty as guardian of a time portal, while Brand is an evil mortal who wishes to join him.
External links[]
- Howard Brand on the Pure Evil Wiki.
- Howard Brand on the Serious Sam Wiki.
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 Villains
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Mental's Horde | ||