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| “ | The Skedar are a warlife alien race who have fought the Maians for centuries and have only recently agreed to a ceasefire. | „ |
| ~ A file on Skedar warriors found in the Carrington Institute. |
The Skedar are the overarching antagonists of the 2000 first-person shooter Perfect Dark. They are extremely hostile aliens that have made war itself their religion in which they are extremely devout.
Their war between the Maians (which are peaceful aliens that take on the appearance of standard "greys", seen in many types of media) have been going on for hundreds of years. The true origin of the war is never revealed, but it is strongly hinted that the polar opposite nature of the Maians and Skedar in itself is what began the war.
In the year 2023, this battle extends to involving the human race, seeing as the game's main protagonist, Joanna Dark works for the Carrington Institute, which sides with the Maians. The Institute's archnemesis corporation, dataDyne, is aligned with the Skedar (led by Mr. Blonde on Earth), adding even more intensity to the situation.
History[]
The Maians discovered the existence of the Skedar in 1650 AD, near the star Delta Eridanus. Any further interactions between the two alien races are unclear, but the two began their war that would last for centuries. Although the cause of the war is also unclear, it is highly possible that the invasive and imperial nature of the Skedar led to the war, attacking the home of the Maians, leaving them to attack in self-defense.
Perfect Dark[]
In 2006, a message pod was discovered, revealed to be sent by a massive ship belonging to yet another alien race known as the "Cetans". This ship contained a massive superweapon that was sure to win any war, but was deep in the Pacific Ocean. This ship was so deep underwater, that not even the Skedar themselves could retrieve it without any help, so they decide to interact with humans to achieve their goals. More specifically, they join forces with the dataDyne, seeing as both the Skedar and dataDyne have evil motives.
As a reward for helping the Skedar reach this Cetan ship, dataDyne was given advanced alien technology in exchange for resources that would help the evil race plunge into the ocean and reach this ship, and therefore, the superweapon. Trent Easton, a human ally of Mr. Blonde, tries to manipulate the U.S. President into giving control of "Pelagic II", a large deep-sea research vessel. The President angrily refuses, infuriating Trent Easton to act against him.
The President is kidnapped by Trent Easton's men after his plane, the Air Force One is sabotaged by the Skedar and crashes in the frozen wasteland in Victoria Island. Joanna searches the wasteland for both the President and an evil clone made of him, saving the President and killing the clone, although Trent Easton escapes before Joanna and kill him. Joanna's closest ally, "Elvis", a member of the Maian race, assists in protecting the President (as his spacecraft also crashed when Air Force One went down). Due to Joanna's success in saving the President, Mr. Blonde kills Trent Easton.
Joanna and Elvis manage to make it to Pelagic II, but dataDyne and the Skedar forced the staff inside the vessel to work for them. Joanna still succeeded in thwarting her enemies' plans and both her and Elvis reach the Cetan ship. There, Joanna found out that the Skedar was about to use the superweapon to completely destroy Earth just to test the weapon, but thankfully, a friendly self-aware AI named Dr. Caroll sacrificed himself to blow up the ship, destroying the weapon. Joanna and Elvis escaped, but this was not the end.
The Skedar led a full attack on the Carrington Institute as revenge for interfering with their plans, but Joanna managed to rescue everyone and killed nearly all the attackers. Unfortunately, Joanna was kidnapped by the Skedar and was held prisoner alongside Cassandra DeVries on a Skedar attack ship. Cassandra sacrificed herself and acted as a distraction so that Joanna could get the upper hand, escape and defeat the Skedar. Elvis and some Maian soldiers also boarded the ship, and assisted Joanna in disabling the ship and escaping once again.
To finally end the war, Elvis takes Joanna to the Skedar's home world, which is seen to be covered in barren ruins, arid landscapes and random towers of stone and metal with no discernible patterns. The planet also orbits three sun-like stars. The Skedar consider this place to be very holy. Fighting through Skedar warriors, Joanna makes it to the inner sanctum and fights the Skedar King. She defeats it by destroying a religion shrine behind him, with the final piece falling and impaling the King through the head, finally killing it. This causes the inner sanctum to collapse, but Joanna escaped.
By completing all the standard missions on the "Perfect Agent", the "WAR!" mission is unlocked. Here, it's discovered that clones of the Skedar King were created, but they are successfully killed off by the invading Maians, bringing peace to the Maians once and for all. Although the Skedar were destroyed, the true fate of Mr. Blonde remains a mystery.
At an unknown point in time during the main story - which is presented in the mission "Mr. Blonde's Revenge" - dataDyne and the Skedar's partnership has completely dissolved. Mr. Blonde himself infiltrates the dataDyne headquarters, plants a "skedar bomb" that is designed to blast downwards, destroying both the labs below and having the upper floors fall into the hole. He also kidnaps Cassandra DeVries, explaining how she got on the Skedar's attack ship in the first place.
Appearance[]
The Skedar's fierce appearance perfectly match their hostile nature. They are reptile-like creatures with an almost humanoid stance, with many bent and sharp areas along their bodies. The Skedar warriors are seen as larger than humans, but this is not their true appearance, as they are much smaller, but wear bio-mechanized suits that match their true appearance.
They have tail-like appendages coming out of the back of their heads, which is their weak spot. They have technology that can hide their true identities, making them appear exactly like humans. However, the only known human form they take are tall men with blonde hair, wearing a white trench coat - the same appearance as Mr. Blonde. The species does not seem to have genders, or at the very least, do not have any sexual dimorphism in their forms.
In the N64 version, their eyes are blue, while in the XBLA version, their eyes are a dim beige, closely matching their skin color.
Arsenal[]
Weapons created by the Skedar take on the appearance of looking crudely made, and having sharp edges. An appearance matching the Skedar themselves, as well as their unsavory and disorganized ways. There are three weapons available in the game that are created by the Skedar:
- Mauler - A handheld pistol that seems to fire green energy in the same nature as a bullet. It has a somewhat slow rate of fire. Its primary feature is a standard single shot, while its secondary function allows rounds to be charged before firing (turning the weapon red when this happens), doing significantly more damage.
- Reaper - A weapon that must be held with two hands. The firing mechanism looks similar to the blade of a blender that is facing the target. The reaper is very inaccurate, but fires insanely fast with an extremely large magazine as a tradeoff. The weapon's secondary function will make the weapon act as a grinder, with the blades spinning, but not firing any bullets, making it a very fierce melee weapon.
- Slayer - A rocket launcher with the secondary function of having a "fly-by-wire" rocket. In other words, it will allow the player to view and control the rocket in first person. The rocket can be detonated prematurely, as well as accelerate and decelerate. However, if the rocket flies out of a level's bounds, the player will lose control of it. Compared to the game's standard rocket launcher, the rockets move much slower.
Despite these being alien-made weapons, human-made ammunition can be used to reload and fire them.
Personality[]
The Skedar are absolutely barbaric, hostile, angry, animalistic, apathetic and warmongering extraterrestrials. As mentioned before, they are so accustomed to war that they have made a devout religion out of it. This obviously means they care extremely little for peace, and have absolutely no remorse or hesitation in killing other races. However, this does stop them from creating bonds with other races for help, as they did with the humans of dataDyne. Although this was more about furthering their own goals than creating a meaningful partnership.
As seen in both their nature and home planet, they are not interested in creating well-balanced, organized civilizations, since their planet is nothing more than stone ruins with no visible vegetation or carefully designed buildings. The buildings seen on the planet are crudely designed, and somewhat resemble a human civilization in the prehistoric times.
In their true forms, they cannot speak, only making growls, but are able to communicate perfectly when shapeshifting into humanoids. In an absolutely massive contrast to humans and Maians, their home planet shows that they are not an organized civilization, with no carefully constructed buildings or unique languages of their own, although there are unique symbols seen around their planet. Being more focused on religion and war than civilization and culture, they do construct sacred shrines.
Despite being assisted by humans, they were more than willing to destroy Earth for the sole purpose of simply testing a weapon, showing how little they care for other races. When encountering Skedar in the game, they are completely uncommunicative and hostile, acting like vicious, growling animals. Despite this animalistic nature, they are advanced enough to design weapons and spaceships. Skedar warriors that are not wielding weapons will instead attack with their claws, which do a massive amount of damage. Smaller Skedar will leap toward their victims.
Mr. Blonde's personality perfectly reflected the Skedar's nature. He was emotionless, adamant, demanding and only kept people around who were able to help him. If someone was no longer useful, he killed them, as he did with Trent Easton. Being a barbaric and warmogering race, they are still capable of communication, as they once agreed to a ceasefire with a Maians.
Trivia[]
- When playing in the original game's Counter-Operative mode, enemy players will not appear as the standard Skedar, but instead play as the Mr. Blonde form.
- They have different colored blood than other races in the game. While humans have red blood and Maians have green blood, the Skedar are shown to have orange blood.
- Mr. Blonde's name is a reference to Victor Vega in the 1992 independent film Reservoir Dogs.
Gallery[]
External Links[]
- Skedar on the Perfect Dark Wiki
- Mr. Blonde on the Perfect Dark Wiki