| “ | He who controls the past commands the future. He who commands the future, conquers the past. | „ |
| ~ Kane |
| “ | God? No, I'm not God. But I'm a close second... | „ |
| ~ Kane to McNeil. |
| “ | Rejoice Children of Nod! The blood of your oppressors will flow and fifty years of tyranny will finally end! Transformation is coming. A new day will dawn! The future is ours! The future, is ours. Kane, lives! | „ |
| ~ Kane announcing his return to his followers. |
Kane is the seemingly immortal leader and mastermind of the terrorist organization the Brotherhood of Nod and the main antagonist in the Command & Conquer series of Real Time Strategy video games, serving as the main antagonist of the "Tiberium Wars" series and the background antagonist of the first Command & Conquer: Red Alert game. Kane appears under an alliance to the main protagonist of Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight, where he works with the GDI to combat the deadly spread of Tiberium.
He was portrayed by Joe Kucan.
Biography
Origins
Despite the verified passage of more than one hundred years, Kane's physical appearance has remained generally constant through all known reports and sightings.
Kane's origins are blurred at best but his followers believe he is related to the biblical Cain and many of them see him as a holy figure, which only adds to his threat. Alas, Kane has noble goals, which is to achieve Ascension. Ascension is a portal to what Kane believes is a utopia-like place; during the events of Command & Conquer 4, Kane and the Brotherhood managed to achieve Ascension.
Command & Conquer: Tiberium Dawn
Using his immense charisma and oratory ability, Kane formed the Brotherhood of Nod by exploiting the disenfranchised peoples of many third world nations and rallying them to his cause, depicting himself as a "savior" and developing a fanatical cult of personality around himself. Kane and the Brotherhood remained relatively underground until a meteorite carrying Tiberium crashed on Earth in Italy. Kane immediately set about obtaining the resource and having his scientists in the brotherhood research and experiment with the resource. Through harnessing the unnatural power of Tiberium, Kane and his followers were able to greatly uplift Nod's military to be on equal footing with the rest of the world.
Once their military had been sufficiently advanced, Kane and the brotherhood began a campaign to dominate the world, triggering the First Tiberium War between the Brotherhood of Nod and the Global Defense Initiative. The GDI, a task force formed by the United Nations to contain Tiberium's spread, fought against Nod to prevent them from dominating the planet.
After a three-day siege on the Temple of Nod, the GDI converged on Kane's location. Recognizing he was about to lose, Kane calmly emerged from his command center and stood in the main hall of his temple as the GDI fired an ion cannon at it, leveling it and seemingly killing Kane in the process. Kane's fate was never confirmed however and rumors that he had survived continued to circulate.
Command & Conquer 2: Tiberium Sun
Kane would re-emerge several decades later in the year 2030 to re-assume leadership of the fractured Brotherhood and wage war against the GDI once more. After supporting the Western Hemisphere Brotherhood in toppling the GDI-backed leader of the Eastern Hemisphere Brotherhood, Hassan, Kane united the brotherhood under him and revealed himself to be alive to his followers, beginning a second campaign for dominance of the planet, beginning the Second Tiberium War.
Though appearing perfectly fine in broadcasts, in fact half of Kane's face had been scarred and he wore a metallic mask to cover it up. Kane's research into Tiberium was aided by the emergence of the Forgotten, a third faction comprised of people who had been mutated by Tiberium. Kane manipulated the faction into aiding the Brotherhood's research into Tiberium, though the Forgotten realized when it was all too late that the Brotherhood was only using them and did not truly intend to preserve the world. With the research gained from the Forgotten, the Brotherhood of Nod was able to design the World Altering Missile, which was intended to increase the spread of Tiberium so Nod could harvest it. However, the launch of the missile was foiled by the GDI and Kane himself was personally slain by Michael McNeil.
Command & Conquer 3: Tiberian Wars
With the Brotherhood having built itself back up into a global superpower once more, Kane re-emerged in 2047 to put forth his plans. He began by having the Brotherhood launch an attack against the GDI's A-SAT space defense systems, commencing the Third Tiberian War and triggering an immediate response from the GDI. After pushing back the Nod forces, the GDI fired an Ion Cannon at Nod's Temple Prime, obliterating it and unintentionally detonating the liquid Tiberium the Brotherhood had been developing into a bomb. The explosion of liquid Tiberium drew a third faction into the Tiberium War, the alien race known as the Scrin, who harvested Tiberium. The liquid Tiberium being blown up and attracting the Scrin to the planet was in fact all part of Kane's plan, as he sought to get his hands on the Scrin's technology.
After his seeming death in the obliteration of the temple, his second-in-command Kilian Qatar took charge of the Brotherhood and allied with the GDI to fight the Scrin. However, Kane later resurfaced and, angered at the pact Qatar had made with the GDI against the Scrin, had her executed for treason before having Nod resume its war against both the GDI and the Scrin.
Command & Conquer 3: Kane’s Wrath
Kane in Kane's Wrath.
Following his second apparent death, Kane was placed in a tube to regenerate by CABAL. Upon his emergence from his healing process, Kane found that the Brotherhood had been usurped by Brother Marcion of the Black Hand, who had killed Kane's second-in-command, the acting leader of the Brotherhood, Anton Slavik and taken over, framing himself as the new messiah of the Brotherhood. Seeking to retake his Brotherood, Kane slowly built up power from the shadows, creating a new AI from the shards of CABAL called LEGION, before making his move. After capturing Marcion, Kane was able to bring him back into his fold and, deciding to remain in the shadows until fully ready to put his plans into motion, had Marcion remain nominally in power as a figurehead and puppet in order to draw attention away from himself.
Soon after, Kane discovered that one of his other top subordinates, Alexa Kovacs, was plotting to destroy LEGION out of fear it would go rampant like CABAL once had. Alexa succeeded in uploading a virus to LEGION before committing suicidem but LEGION was eventually able to recover from the damage it inflicted by 2052.
Deeming the majority of humans unworthy of the "Ascension" he had promised, Kane had LEGION awaken the Marked of Cain to serve as the new fighting force of the Brotherhood. The Marked of Kane were sent to take back the Tacitus supercomputer from the GDI, which had grown unstable due to their experiments on it and were successful in their mission Kane subsequently had Tacitus merge with LEGION and LEGION activate Kane's Tower, bringing Kane's prophecy of Ascension to fulfillment.
Command & Conquer 4: Tiberium Twilight
By 2062, spread of Tiberium across the Earth left the planet on the verge of being uninhabitable to humans. Thus, Kane agreed to an alliance with the GDI to work together to halt the spread of Tiberium. Meeting with the GDI, Kane was able to convince them to work with him on a Tiberium Control Network, which would contain the spread of Tiberium while still allowing humanity to harvest it. Secretly, the Tiberium Control Network was part of Kane's final plan to achieve Ascension.
However, Kane's decision ally with the GDI proved controversial within parts of the Brotherhood. Dismayed with Kane's decision, numerous members of the Brotherhood broke off and formed the Nod Separatists under the leadership of Gideon to continue opposing GDI. Gideon and the Separatists waged a guerrilla war to disrupt the creation of the Tiberium Control Network, leading Kane to call for his head. Gideon's forces were eventually defeated by the Brotherhood and Gideon was captured and set up to be executed.
On the other side, Colonel Louise James of the GDI remained hostile towards the Brotherhood and sought to continue her aggression against Nod. She attempted to stop Kane from activating the TCN but failed and was killed by Kane. With the TCN fully activated, Kane used it to open a portal to finally "ascend", bidding the Commander a final farewell as he stepped through the portal before it closed, never being seen again.
Following Kane's disappearance, the Tiberium Control Network was used to contain Tiberium's spread. Despite Kane having vanished, many still believed he would return. A civilian on the street was interviewed about it and said "Kane's gone? Yeah, right."
Command & Conquer: Red Alert
Kane is alluded to be the true mastermind behind the events of the game, which takes place in an alternate timeline, posing as an advisor to Joseph Stalin while influencing him to cause disorder in Europe in order to advance his own secretive agenda. After the end of the conflict, Kane disappeared without a trace, with no indicators to his whereabouts besides some minor clues uncovered by the CIA.
Fate
Despite his ascension, Kane's ultimate fate and whereabouts after the end of Command and Conquer 4 remain unknown. Due to the poor performance of the Command and Conquer series since then, any further appearances of Kane have been thrown into doubt.
Powers and Abilities
| “ | Rule of thumb, Hassan. You can't kill the Messiah. | „ |
| ~ Kane before ordering the killing of Hassan. |
Kane’s remarkable intelligence could be the result of an event happening after the Firestorm Crisis, which saw the defeat of CABAL after the results of the Second Tiberium War. CABAL had placed Kane in a medical tube to recover, where it tried to merge with Kane, but was defeated, creating a new kind of intelligence. Kane also used parts of CABAL to create a new AI, named LEGION.
Personality
Kane himself believes he is a prophet, and debatable he has qualities of a prophet, including that he wants to liberate the third world from the Imperialist oppressors of the GDI. He strictly believes Capitalism causes Imperialism and Fascism, which is followed by oppressing the third world for the betterment of a few people... Something he shows great disgust for. Though he is not a Communist even if he shares some of their beliefs.
If Kane speaks the truth about his arrival on earth (unknown years BC, but far before the rise of Egyptians) then it would seem Kane teaches people how to write, speak and read. Educating them and granting humanity knowledge. This can be quite possible as Kane never seems to age. It is confirmed that he has lived over 100 years without changing at all. Ironically during World War 2(revised timeline), he was a secret advisor to Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. Kane has also been "killed" a couple of times during the Tiberium wars but comes back as healthy as ever.
Despite this father like act towards humanity, he has an extremely dark side... Kane is willing to experiment, mutate and go as far as outright commit terrorist attacks to achieve his goals. He himself seems to believe he is doing the right thing, and his followers seem to believe this too. Between some of the Tiberium wars, the world is more like a "cold war" stage between GDI and Nod. Most of the time they are equally powerful holding at least 40% each of the planet. Other times Nod has been shown to own almost the entire planet, this confirms that many people (especially in the third world) follow and glorify Kane.
Kane is extremely dedicated to his cause and his followers. Often putting himself in the center as the prophet. He does not seem to do this for attention, because Kane himself believes he is the prophet and thus it would make sense for him to be in the centre. Kane is the body, thought, and mind of the brotherhood. And that is why he needs to be in the center.
Non-Resolution
Despite his ascension, Kane's ultimate fate and whereabouts after the end of Command and Conquer 4 remain unknown. Due to the poor performance of the Command and Conquer series since then, any further appearances of Kane have been thrown into doubt.
Quotes
| “ | Yes, power shifts more quickly than some people think... I am Kane. While I get your troops back from the States I want you to take what men you have left and secure this abandoned GDI base. Once in, build up an arsenal of weapons and use them to wipe out the remaining GDI presence. Oh, and, congratulations on your promotion. | „ |
| ~ Kane introducing himself to the Commander in the Nod Campaign after executing Seth for treason. |
| “ | And he cried with a loud voice "Lazarus arise!" And Lazarus did come forth from the grave. | „ |
| ~ Kane |
| “ | I have returned. I salute all of you that have risked your lives countless times to topple GDI, to perpetuate our cause, to honor my name. For your faith I am eternally grateful, an now I call upon you again to bring glory to the brotherhood. | „ |
| ~ Kane |
| “ | I have seen the GDI is vulnerable, bloated by arrogance and complacency. Now is the time to strike. While they congratulate themselves on Tiberium advancements Nod made decades ago, we will expose their weakness for all the world to see. We will bring them to their knees, cut off their head, and pierce their heart. And while GDI goes the way of all flesh, Nod will live on, transforming ourselves, and the planet. | „ |
| ~ Kane |
Theories
Among fans of Command and Conquer, several popular theories have risen attempting to explain who or what Kane really is, and several of the most common has become somewhat accepted by the fan community.
- Biblical Cain: Cursed by God to dwell in the land of Nod, Kane is the original murderer in mankind's history. Though backed up by various nods (pardon the pun) and references in the first Command and Conquer, this classification later fell through in later games.
- A Scrin: Due to his extensive knowledge of Tiberium and ability to guide Nod to feats of near-technological wizardry, Kane is suspected by many to be a strange member of the Scrin race that attacked Earth in Command and Conquer 3, though this theory has been thrown into doubt.
- An Alien Race (other than the Scrin): When Kane is finally brought to the attention of the Scrin, it is noted that his DNA matrix is "unknown". This may explain Kane's willingness to speed man's evolution forward, since he may have seen firsthand the Scrin's methods of harvesting Tiberium on other worlds, even possibly his own.
- An Angelic being: Constantly, Kane speaks of "ascension", which in many faiths implies a moving forward into a higher cosmic plane. And in some pieces of Christian apocrypha, there were some angels who were not willing to fight on either side during Lucifer's rebellion. While these angels were not sent to hell, they were banned from heaven, and so wandered. Kane, possibly sickened by his time on Earth, sought to return to his former place.
- Multiple Clones: While cloning has only been confirmed in the Red Alert Universe, some fan theories suggest that one possible "non-supernatural" explanation for Kane's immortality is that he has multiple clones of himself, with a "replacement" taking over when one "Kane" is killed. This theory, however, may be cast into doubt by the events of Command and Conquer 3 and 4.
Gallery
Images
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External links
- Kane on Heroes Wiki
 Villains
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Brotherhood of Nod Scrin Global Defense Initiative | ||
 Villains
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Soviets Empire of the Rising Sun Allied Forces | ||
