Samuel Hayden is not a villian

[senate]

Anyone else agree ? He's pretty much supporting humanities expansion into space with argent energy. He should take Olivias position since he seems to be unaffected by demonic corruption. If it all works out we farm Argent energy from Hell, and do it cleanly without any level 1-3 contamination events.

[Ursus Rex]

Originally posted by Taxi123:

After reading all the comments I think Hayden is the good guy. He accidentally released demons going after an energy source to power humanities infastructure. He fixed his mistake by awakening the Doom Marine. Olivia Peirce was against this awakening.

Face it guys. If the energy providers of today told you they would stop production to cut all pullution you would all go crazy. Meaning No internet, no fuel for cars, end of transportation as we know it, back to horses, just to stop pollution. I don't think any one of you would accept this outcome. Maybe not right away, but after living through it for a few months you would. Same situation in the Doom universe.

Also, i'm starting to think that the Doom marine is not the good guy. He is for sure an anti-hero, maybe worse. He destroys humanities energy production. Imagine a pollution activist sabotaging all the nuclear power plants to save us from pollution.

As they said, Hayden is more of an antagonist.
He is not evil. He doesn't want to destroy mankind or anything. He even thinks that what he does is the best for mankind. (And let's not forget that he is the CEO of Union Aerospace Corporation. Stopping the Argent Energy production means no more money for this 130 years old cyborg who is also alimented by Argent Energy)

But that doesn't mean he is a "good guy" either.

The Doomguy knows that no one should mess with Hell, even for a good cause. That's why he destroys all of the Argent Energy production. He knows that as long as mankind uses this thing, there will be a risk of another demon invasion.

Hayden, on the other hand, doesn't care or, worse, is sure that he will manage to prevent another invasion.

Hayden (and all of the UAC scientists) is just a kid playing with matches. Not evil, not good, but grey.

[Phazon Xenomorph]

I just want my Crucible back, especially after seeing it in that final cutscene. I WANT IT!

[thrownerror]

He's a villain, but not inherently evil. Instead, he found a way to fix the energy problem, that involves a very high risk of Hell leaking all over the planet.

But it still involves leaking Hell all over the planet.

--Spoilers below, but I mean, it's Doom--
But what puts him solidly in the villain camp is what he does at the end. He's so set on the current solution that he is unwiling to accept fault in any meaningful way, instead sending humanity's best defense back to a prison. He doesn't go "Oh, that didn't work. Let's find a safer/better way to get energy," instead grabbing yet another relic from Hell he doesn't fully understand to use as a stopgap.
He doesn't laern or grow, but goes straight back to doing what caused the mess in the first place. That's what makes him a villain, not some misunderstood scientiest.

[WeissRook]

Originally posted by F-I-D-O:

He's a villain, but not inherently evil. Instead, he found a way to fix the energy problem, that involves a very high risk of Hell leaking all over the planet.

But it still involves leaking Hell all over the planet.

--Spoilers below, but I mean, it's Doom--
But what puts him solidly in the villain camp is what he does at the end. He's so set on the current solution that he is unwiling to accept fault in any meaningful way, instead sending humanity's best defense back to a prison. He doesn't go "Oh, that didn't work. Let's find a safer/better way to get energy," instead grabbing yet another relic from Hell he doesn't fully understand to use as a stopgap.
He doesn't laern or grow, but goes straight back to doing what caused the mess in the first place. That's what makes him a villain, not some misunderstood scientiest.

While I agree with this, the guy's been doing this kind of stuff all along. There's piles of research material that he's obviously learned from. He knew about Doomguy, that he was being held somewhere, and tracked him down IN Hell. On top of that, he's known all along about the crucible. I think Hayden just used Olivia and Doomguy to get it. I honestly wouldn't be surprised that the voice that was talking to Olivia is whispering into Hayden's mind and has been for quite a long time.

[Mr. Pink]

Well ya know if 60,000 people have to die and literal Demons from hell unleashed on the universe, well gee it's all kosher I guess.

Only good guys are VEGA and DOOMGUY. Some things just aren't worth messing with.

In the Codexes it mentions how the Demons rely on corruption and temptation to eventually invade. They did it in Argent D'Nur, and they did it on Mars. Just by interacting with Argent energy you're guaranteeing that EVENTUALLY they'll corrupt someone like Olivia and cause an invasion. There's no safe way to engage with hell.

DOOMGUY has seen this sorta ♥♥♥♥ four times now. On Phobos, on Earth and on Mars. I think at that point it's time to maybe just use some solar panels.

[WeissRook]

Originally posted by Mr. Pink:

DOOMGUY has seen this sorta ♥♥♥♥ four times now. I think at that point it's time to maybe just use some solar panels.

Thanks for this, I got a good laugh.

[Sachiel]

The guy made himself eternal so that he could benevolently harness the powers of hell for humanity's sake?

The guy's refused to die, is after free energy and ultimate power, is literally on a power trip, has ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ HR hiring practices, basically runs a cult, ♥♥♥♥♥ with your suit without your permission...

He's driven by purely selfish motivation and is manipulating you like a puppet the whole way through. Whether his goals align with yours (they don't as is evident from the argent energy lens destruction part where he becomes infuriated then tries reverse psychology to prevent you from destroying his work, despite him having backup after backup after backup, and then ultimately the final scene) is irrelevant. He wants what he wants, and you are only not enemies so long as you don't interfere with him. He uses non-violent methods on you, but he is still exerting a very strong pressure upon you to conform or perform.

Samuel is extremely intelligent. He knew exactly what the risks and probabilities were (he even confesses that what you're seeing is just a side-effect of progress). He's complicit and to blame as much as O.P.

I was expecting him to become a cyberdemon or something, alas I'm sure he'll pop up in the DLC ala Dr Richter or w/e from D3.

He's a mongrel through and through. Killing him is necessary but surely wouldn't be as satisfying unless he grafts some fleshy bits to those bland metallic appendages of his.

[stachenov]

Speaking of killing him. Did you know that you can actually shoot him when visiting him in person? You're able to use weapons if you don't move. And he even reacts.

[Caaros]

Originally posted by WeissRook:

Originally posted by Mr. Pink:

DOOMGUY has seen this sorta ♥♥♥♥ four times now. I think at that point it's time to maybe just use some solar panels.

Thanks for this, I got a good laugh.

Solar Panels on mercury? That would be a hell of a power source, without the hell!

[Dark Redshift]

Originally posted by stachenov:

I don't object to his research, and I agree that progress has its cost. Still, he is too self-righteous and obviously failed as Olivia's boss. He said that he is willing to take full responsibility for the incident, but is he really? Because if he is, he should probably resign from his position and stick to science instead. Otherwise he is just being a hypocrite. And that's exactly what I think he is.

I really want to see him in a boss fight in the next game.

That being said, I think Doomguy went too far with destruction of energy production. But then again, are those filters that hard to rebuild?

P. S. Oh, and I totally forgot—I hate it how Samuel installs that tethering thing. And he said to Olivia that he basically treats Doomguy as his property. That is not being a villain?

Doomguy and Samuel are a bit like Marcus Jones and Durandal from Marathon: the lines between good guy and bad guy for Sam and Durandal are a bit blurry. Sure Durandal uses Marcus as his personal attack lion for his schemes but he does have humanity's bests interests at heart, condsidering it's either that or have all humans enslaved by alien reptiles who behave like Konami and Disney merged with Mumm-ra 2011.

He's quite funny too at times throughout the trilogy, though that isn't part of the Samuel comparison.

Sending Doomguy off to god knows where in the end was rather uncalled for though. Maybe he goes rampant in the DLC or Doom 5 and appears as a boss in there, presumably a Cyberdemon replacement for the Spider Mastermind in a "Thy FLesh Consumed" style DLC.

[Beleos]

I love all this moral philosophizing on one of the bloodfest-iest games and a reboot that didn't have much story (old novels notwithstanding).

==

Hayden also blocks your access to the sattelite facility at the start of the campaign. He doesn't want Doomguy learning by himself. Every goal from then on is essentially assigned to you by Hayden, whether they match up to Doomguy's mission (killing everything this side of the Hell Gate) or not.

==

So humans are interplanetary in civilization scale. What year is this? something past 2150. And everything except Argent energy can't handle our needs. Whatever planets we have, fossil fuels and solar/geothermal/renewable power and nuclear power for each planet and its moons combined don't do enough to support us. That's a stupid large number of humans, and I'm all for propigating and going to the stars, but we may need some moderation in how we ramp up our population.

Argent energy would induce demand and humans will reach an almost exponential growth curve, something like what we saw with the industrial revolution (medicine and production, longer life with less work).

Did the discovery of Argent plasma and the subsequent theories it threw out also throw out plans for any solar megastructures? any sort of power plants in space? Sticking some sort of CME harvester near the edges of the sun?

Argent energy's promise only makes sure its dissapearance will be all the worse.

==

Is VEGA really a good guy in this then? I didn't think too much of him until his game chapter and heroic sacrifice. I'm a sucker for AI, and he was pleseant throughout the game. But without VEGA, most UAC designs and facilities would be at a tenth of their current capabilities, if that, from VEGAs accomplishments in the dossier. He's a very smart person as well, and dedicated to research,design, production, and maintenance of Argent energy and assumed other UAC interests on Mars bases. Is it that he's purpose built machine make him complicite in the shennanigans that require Doomguy's intervention? Turns out there was a Summoner chained up at the top of the Argent Tower, in the path of the giant Argent beam, a thing VEGA designed. VEGA has free will, within some limitations set by Hayden and Olivia, what with her locking out the one security room.Just because he's agreeable and kind of a lacky doesn't make what he does not evil (if the experimentation on Hell and Human life and being accomplice to UAC is evil?). If he passes a Turing test and is considered a person, a fantastically smart person, he should be applied human moral considerations too, more or less.

In the end though, he seemed more displeased than melancholy when announcing the fact he was going to be terminated to end all this. "It has been decided..." Doesn't neccesarily include him in the choice. So he gets sympathy points for someone else who's ♥♥♥♥ gets wrecked by Hayden's oversight.

Doomguy saw something in VEGA though, with hesitation at the final access console. The damage was done by then, but Doomguy pauses at his choice and takes a backup token.

==

Originally posted by KingTeDdY:

Originally posted by Taxi123:

Also, i'm starting to think that the Doom marine is not the good guy. He is for sure an anti-hero, maybe worse. He destroys humanities energy production. Imagine a pollution activist sabotaging all the nuclear power plants to save us from pollution.

As they said, Hayden is more of an antagonist.
He is not evil. He doesn't want to destroy mankind or anything. He even thinks that what he does is the best for mankind. (And let's not forget that he is the CEO of Union Aerospace Corporation. Stopping the Argent Energy production means no more money for this 130 years old cyborg who is also alimented by Argent Energy)

But that doesn't mean he is a "good guy" either.

The Doomguy knows that no one should mess with Hell, even for a good cause. That's why he destroys all of the Argent Energy production. He knows that as long as mankind uses this thing, there will be a risk of another demon invasion.

Hayden, on the other hand, doesn't care or, worse, is sure that he will manage to prevent another invasion.

Hayden (and all of the UAC scientists) is just a kid playing with matches. Not evil, not good, but grey.

Yeah, something like this. Doom Slayer was a thing from Hell, but separate from Hell. He didn't have armor or sword until the Wretch/Night Sentinel/Hell Walker gave those to him. Until that point Doomguy tore through Hell with his bare hands supposedly. So is he evil inherently becfause he's born from an evil place with evil energies if all he exists to do is destroy demons, evil, and malevolence wherever it lurks? The Demons in the game frequently fight and kill each other, and the bloodbaths would be worse if the groups you face numbered more than a half to a couple dozen.

==

There's so many good responses, I love this thread.

[Jimmi Stixx]

Hayden is a very selfish and arrogant person. Hayden is the inevitability of humanitys needs for energy. It could be said that there are few who would have the ability or be inclined to do what Hayden did but the wrong person at the right time would always have appeared eventually.

The UAC is a human company catering to the needs of humanity. They made the inhuman, amoral Hayden CEO of the UAC to fix their problems. It's humanity who are selfish and evil. I think that is whats really implied. If it wasen't Hayden it would be someone else who would try.

What the DoomGuy is all about is finding a new way to solve their energy issues that isn't totaly insane and of course kicking demonic ass. Solar panels were mentioned but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it's been tryed in the future and would never out pace fusion or other nucular sources.

With the power demands of Vega I can only imagine how much power they would need in a future society and with the loss of fissile material mentioned in the logs. It sounds like they were prity desperate for anyone to even think of trying what they did. Of course in the older Dooms it didn't seem like they cared about the demons other than to stop them when they showed up and to keep up their experiments. Even going so far as to build bases where they were fortified backward to protect from anything steping out of their teleporter experiments.

I like the idea of Doom 16 connecting to 'Doom - Doom 64' but that dosen't really explain Doom2's demonic invasion of earth. As I'm sure everyone would know about demons and hell before they thought it was a good idea to mess with Argent energy ideas. You could retcon everything after the first Doom and it still makes no sence with the ending of the first Doom.

Too bad DoomGuy gets the Freeman treatment at the end. 'Hero put on ice for a sequel!?!' Kinda reminds me of how Batman gets captured every episode (Dumb ass) for some "tension" and still wins tomorrow same bat time same bat channel. Just a handy plot device I guess.

[Kain]

"What the DoomGuy is all about is finding a new way to solve their energy"

Doom guy couldn't give two ♥♥♥♥♥ about it. He's all about killing demons.

[Jimmi Stixx]

Originally posted by Kain:

"What the DoomGuy is all about is finding a new way to solve their energy"

Doom guy couldn't give two ♥♥♥♥♥ about it. He's all about killing demons.

I was kind of joking but by smashing the argent energy filters he basically is.

"Just say no to demonic energy sources."

STOMP
STOMP
STOMP

[Rub3z]

Originally posted by stachenov:

Speaking of killing him. Did you know that you can actually shoot him when visiting him in person? You're able to use weapons if you don't move. And he even reacts.

Cool! Worth trying. I'm getting to the Research Facility level soon so I'll try it.