For Isaac Clarke, there was one driving force keeping him going in the early 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dead Space games and that was Nicole Brennan. She was a helping hand in the first game, and an antagonist from the sidelines in the second. It's an impressive arc, especially considering her "condition", and she's a memorable character
Nicole's tale is quite a unique one in that just like Isaac, she has more layers than it first seems. Her role is also unique as it doesn't really become ominous until the end of the first game. But to expand on who this odd blonde woman of mystery and misery is, here's what happened to Nicole in the Dead Space series.
Who Is Nicole?
To wind things back a bit, it's worth taking a dive into who Nicole Brennan is. Because it carries a lot of context to Isaac's background and plays quite a bit into the storyline as a whole, adding more depth to her other than "Isaacs's Girlfriend". She was a Doctor in a facility that specialized in deprogramming people that left the Church of Unitology.
She would later meet one of her patient's sons, an engineer named Isaac Clarke that worked for the Concordance Extraction Corporation (C.E.C), and the two would spark up a relationship over time. Later, a position for a Senior Medical Officer opened up onboard the USG Ishimura, an old Planet-Cracker class starship that was doing its last run before ꦉbeing decommissioned. So Nicole, with some support and pressure from Isaac, would apply forꦐ and then successfully start a new part of her career.
Before The USG Ishimura
A lot happened onboard the USG Ishimura before Isaac Clarke gets there, and none of it is good. But before all that, the relationship between Nicole and her beau, who was now several star systems away, had begun to deteriorate quite rapidly. Before she had left, Nicole, in her infinite wisdom, thought it would be a good idea to release her patient (Isaacs's mother) back to her family. The purpose being that it would be therapeutic for Isaacs's mother Octavia to be around her husband and son once more after being stuck in a medical facility for so long.
Unfortunately, things would take a turn as Isaacs mothers mental state would degenerate rapidly after Nicole left on the Ishimura for six months to travel to the Aegis VII Colony. Eventually, Octavia's state declined further, and in an act of psychosis, she would murder her husband and then take her own life. An event that Isaac blamed Nicole for, going so far as to regularly berate her for it. Their last interaction was a furious phone call.
Warning: Spoilers for Dead Space and Dea𝔉d Space 2.
What Happened To Nicole?
Nicole appears throughout Dead Space in calls to Isaac and eventually in person towards the end of the game. At first, it seems like Nicole was somehow not only able to survive, but she didn't have a single mark on her — odd that.
Turns out things aren't as cut and dry as they appear; Nicole didn't make it after all and it's something that's revealed just before the climactic boss fight with a giant colony-sized monster made of thousands of rotting corpses. Here's Nicole's timeline.
The USG Ishimura Outbreak
So it turns out Nicole died, quite a while ago in fact. During the outbreak, she was working in the Medical Deck. From there, she would encounter the Security Officer and protagonist of Dead Space: Downfall Alissa Vincent, and also Gabe Weller from Dead Space: Extraction and Dead Space 2’s Severed DLC. She would work towards analyzing the Necromorphic virus. The plan, create a neutralizing compound that would either stop or reverse the mutation process.
Although Nicole herself would doubt the viability, let alone the success of this plan, she would quickly realize this mostly was just a way for her to stay focused in an otherwise doomed situation. After the Necromorphs attacked the Sick Bay and eliminated the last safe hiding space on the ship, Nicole would leave one last message to Isaac before taking her own life using a syringe filled with air. By doing this, she induced an embolism in her system in an effort to avoid being painfully torn apart by the Necro𓂃m💟orphs or turned into one.
Dead Space
Nicole's first physical appearance in Dead Space would be from a distance on the Mining Deck. Until then, all Isaac had to go on was her last video call with her suicide. Although Isa💜ac for some reason had refused to watch that tape 💛until the end, so he assumed she was alive.
She would reappear a few more times until the Marker was placed upon the pedestal on Ageis VII. At this point, an eery light would emanate from the obelisk as Isaac realizes, with the help of Kendra Daniels, that Nicole was just a hallucination the entire time. The Marker had been manipulating Isaac, along with other crew members, into restoring it to full power. After subduing the Marker and the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Hive Mind protecting it, Isaac began escaping the planet. He would see Nicole one more time onboard his escape ship. Though this time the demဣonic-looking apparition would just attack him outright, as the psychosis effects of the Marker finally k🍌icked in.
Dead Space 2
Nicole's appearance in Dead Space 2 would be a much more antagonistic one. At first, she was merely a vision brought on by the dementia effects of the Marker. But over time, her influence grew as Isaac progressed through the Sprawl Space Station. When the Necromorph outbreak was at its peak, the phantom Nicole would get rid of her dem෴onic appearance as Isaac finally came to terms with the loss of her. But the visions didn’t stop.
Ghost Nicole would continue to appear to help Isaac out. Directing him throughout the station to the Marker, in what she claimed was a way to be “made whole." But in reality, this was once again just the Marker using its Nicole-faced puppet to get poor Isaac to do what it wanted. After the death of the Titan Stations director, Hans Tiedemann, Isaac would finally confront the demon Nicole within his mind. Eventually destroying this creature and apparently severing his connection to the Marker for good.