Plot
The game takes place in East Asia during the summer of 2007. Tensions are running high between China, North Korea, South Korea and Japan, due to Japan's formation of an Information Self Defense Force (I-SDF). Considering this to be a violation of Article 9 of the post-World War II Constitution, Chinese and North Korean forces establish a blockade in the Yellow Sea against Japanese shipping. Because Japan is an ally of the United States and Third Echelon, the U.S. Navy dispatches its most advanced warship, the USS Clarence E. Walsh, to the Yellow Sea with the hope that China and North Korea will back down.
Meanwhile, Sam Fisher is dispatched to locate Bruce Morgenholt, a computer programmer captured by a Peruvian separatist group called "The People's Voice", led by Hugo Lacerda. Morgenholt was working on deciphering the Phillip Masse's weaponized algorithms, who had been assassinated by Fisher (in Splinter Cell). The resulting Masse Kernels are being touted as the superweapon of the 21st century. Fisher is tasked with making sure they do not fall into the wrong hands. He arrives too late to prevent Morgenholt's death and is unsuccessful in stopping the release of the Masse Kernels. Fisher boards the Maria Narcissa and assassinates Lacerda. Unknown parties use the algorithms to black out Japan and the Eastern Seaboard. Japan has previously suffered similar attacks that crashed its economy, and Admiral Otomo of the I-SDF contacts Third Echelon and warns them that North Korea and China are likely responsible. Meanwhile, following a lead discovered in Panama, Fisher travels to New York to investigate Abrahim Zherkhezi, a man who worked with Morgenholt. He finds that Displace International, a private military corporation owned by his old friend Douglas Shetland, is protecting Zherkhezi. He breaks into the Displace offices and learns of Milan Nedić, a Bosnian arms supplier and war criminal. Fisher finds that Nedić secretly relocated Zherkhezi to Hokkaido. Sam travels to Hokkaido and meets with Shetland, who claims that Nedić is clean; Fisher infiltrates the hideout that Zherkezi is being held in, kills Nedić, and witnesses Shetland murdering Zherkezi. Shetland escapes and goes underground.
Meanwhile, the American show of force backfires when the USS Walsh is sunk by a North Korean anti-ship missile on July 4, initiating a war between North Korea and South Korea/United States. Since North Korea claims the missile was launched unintentionally, Fisher is sent to the Korean Peninsula to determine if North Korea is truly responsible for sinking the USS Walsh, or if the Masse Kernels are involved. Sam eventually learns that the war has been orchestrated by Displace International. Displace used the Masse Kernels gained from Zherkhezi to hijack North Korea's missile systems and sink the Walsh, in order to draw America into a war from which Shetland could profit through their status as a leading American PMC. Third Echelon sends Fisher to spy on a meeting between Shetland and Shetland's unknown accomplices, who turn out to be the I-SDF. At the meeting, the I-SDF betray Shetland, and a firefight subsequently breaks out between Shetland's soldiers and I-SDF assault troops. Amidst the chaos, Sam pursues Shetland to the roof, where, after a tense Mexican standoff in which Shetland tests their friendship over America's security, Sam kills Shetland.
Even after Shetland's death, one loose end remains. Admiral Otomo of the I-SDF has acquired a copy of the Masse Kernels from Shetland, and attempts to return Japan to Imperial rule by blackmailing Japanese government officials and senior JSDF officers. He threatens to use the algorithms to launch a North Korean missile against a Japanese city. Because North Korea would be supported by China, and Japan would be backed by America, the incident would spark World War III. Although Otomo's loyalist I-SDF soldiers manage to fight off the JGSDF commandos sent to stop him, Sam infiltrates the I-SDF's lowest levels and manages to end Otomo's plans. Otomo attempts to commit suicide, but Sam saves his life and captures him. Otomo stands trial at the United Nations and takes full responsibility for the entire Korean crisis, and he is sentenced to death row, returning stability to the Far East.
Read more about this topic: Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
““The plot thickens,” he said, as I entered.”
—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930)
“The plot was most interesting. It belonged to no particular age, people, or country, and was perhaps the more delightful on that account, as nobody’s previous information could afford the remotest glimmering of what would ever come of it.”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)
“James’s great gift, of course, was his ability to tell a plot in shimmering detail with such delicacy of treatment and such fine aloofness—that is, reluctance to engage in any direct grappling with what, in the play or story, had actually “taken place”Mthat his listeners often did not, in the end, know what had, to put it in another way, “gone on.””
—James Thurber (1894–1961)