Deus Ex - Literary and Popular Culture Allusions

Literary and Popular Culture Allusions

Deus Ex features a text-reading system that allows the player to read terminals and notes, as well as excerpts from newspapers and books found in various locations within the game level. These various bits of media serve a variety of purposes, from providing the player with useful gameplay information (such as a needed keycode), to the advancement of the plot, to the creation of atmosphere and metafictional irony. It is this last aspect that is most prevalent in the novels found in Deus Ex, with excerpts usually providing reflective commentary on the player's current situation. Such real-life works as The Man Who Was Thursday by G. K. Chesterton, Sun Tzu's The Art of War, Common Sense by Thomas Paine, and Shakespeare's Richard III are used for this purpose throughout the game.

Along with these is Jacob's Shadow, a work of fiction created by Chris Todd, one of the writers for the game. It is attributed to the fictitious author Andrew Hammond (in homage to crime writer Andrew Vachss). The first chapter displayed is Chapter Twelve with a subsequent six other chapters (fifteen, twenty, twenty-three, twenty-seven, thirty-two, and thirty-four) that portray the cyberpunk themes of the game in the style of William Gibson. The book appears to be a violent, spiritual journey of a man named Jacob as he searches for a woman, who is never named, through a city described as 'Hell'. A chapter from a "sequel" to Jacob's Shadow, titled Jacob's War, can be found in the game's sequel Deus Ex: Invisible War.

A number of other more subtle fiction references also permeate the game. For instance, The Man Who Was Thursday protagonist Gabriel Syme's name appears in a hotel register, along with the names of fellow literary characters Gully Foyle, Oberst Enzian, Smilla Jasperson, and Hippolyta Hall (from the The Stars My Destination, Gravity's Rainbow, Smilla's Sense of Snow, and various DC Comics series respectively). Another comic reference is "Harleen Quinzel", being an MJ12 employee who sends an e-mail out about a "company picnic". Other literary sources alluded to include Olaf Stapledon's Last and First Men, Neal Stephenson's cyberpunk novel The Diamond Age, Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, and the Ancient Greek myth of Icarus and Daedalus. The name of the AI Helios and the merging of JC with it may also be a reference to Euripedes' Medea, Medea appearing at the end of the play in the sun god Helios' chariot (a machine from the gods). Continuing the seam of literature references "O" and "René" from Histoire d'O can be found in conversation in Flat 12 in Paris.

Allusions are also incorporated into computer security passwords and e-mails encountered during the course of the game. An instance of this is the code "reindeerflotilla", a password originally used in the 1982 science fiction film Tron. Another is an e-mail found on Paul Denton's computer containing a notice from a movie rental company. It mentions the fictional movies See You Next Wednesday and Blue Harvest. "See You Next Wednesday" is a reference to the famous signature appearing in most of John Landis' films, while Blue Harvest was the code name used during the filming of Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi.

Gunther's killphrase "Laputan Machine" is a reference to the fictional island of Laputa from Gulliver's Travels.

This practice also extends to the ubiquitous key codes found in most levels of the game, with examples including the first door-code in the game being "0451", "an allusion to System Shock's allusion to Fahrenheit 451 (the first code in System Shock was also 451)" according to Harvey Smith, as well as the sequence "8675309" opening the only 7-digit key code lock in the game. There also exists a "Lord Brinne" tombstone found in the Lower East Side Cemetery level, which is actually a memorial for the real life Bill Iburg, an RPG fan and regular of multiple forums who died in 1999.

The name "Marcy Plaigrond" is also tucked into a message cube in Paul Denton's secret computer room, referring to the band Marcy Playground.