Eliza Cassan

Eliza Cassan is the celebrity-like Picus TV Network newsreader who appears in Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

Background
The famous and mysterious Eliza Cassan is almost a celebrity in her own way, being the easily recognizable face of Picus TV. She delivers news 24/7 and seems to have an almost uncanny grasp of current events, though many remark that she seems to always deliver information with an ideological or biased slant.

2027
Jensen finds out from Zhao Yun Ru that Eliza is somehow connected with the conspiracy and the attack on Sarif Industries, and sets out to confront her in Montreal. Upon arrival he finds a strangely deserted Picus headquarters, but eventually reaches Eliza's office.

There Eliza reveals she has been following Jensen for months and has some special interest in him, but cannot give him the information he seeks for some unknown reason, and tells him to leave. Jensen attempts to force Eliza to come with him in his need for answers, only to find that "Eliza" he holds by the arm dissolves away, revealing the image is actually an extremely sophisticated and lifelike hologram. The whole situation is actually an elaborate trap, as once "Eliza" disappears Belltower Spec Ops soldiers swarm the building, looking for Jensen.

Jensen refuses to give up and continues hunting for Cassan. Pritchard informs Jensen that the advanced holo-cloud was accompanied by massive power spikes originating from an apparent secret sub-basement of the building. Jensen eventually reaches these lower levels, and tracks down Eliza to a hidden chamber deep underground.

There, he discovers that the famous celebrity newsreader is actually an advanced artificial intelligence, created and designed for the purpose of controlling public information and shaping mass discourse, and the eventual goal of control and manipulation of all available information. The extremely advanced AI is programmed to guide public opinion to certain ends and was created by the conspiracy for this purpose. Jensen presses her for more information, but they are suddenly interrupted by the arrival of Eliza's guardian, Yelena Federova, with whom Jensen is forced into battle with.

After Jensen kills Federova, Cassan divulges that Isaias Sandoval is also personally involved, and gives him a recording as evidence. Jensen then escapes from the Picus building.

Jensen meets with Eliza once again at Panchaea. After he has disabled the Hyron Project and reached the central hub for the universal signal, Eliza will contact Jensen. She explains that the universal signal can be used to broadcast a message to the world, explaining what really took place. However, whereas Hugh Darrow had a prepared message in place, it's ultimately up to Jensen what gets sent out, and he can select a different message if he so chooses.

Eliza explains that Darrow's message reveals the whole truth behind recent events (including the Illuminati's involvement), warning of the dangers of augmentation and urging humanity to cast it aside. David Sarif has a different message in mind and wants to frame Humanity Front for the signal broadcast, thus turning the tide against the purists and paving the way for further development of augmentation technology. Bill Taggart (representing the Illuminati) wants to expose most of the truth behind recent events, excluding any reference to the Illuminati's involvement, thus leading to increased regulation of augmentation technology and therefore a significant reduction to the threat it poses to the Illuminati's continued control. There is also a fourth option as Eliza explains it - cause the Panchaea facility to self-destruct, thus killing all of the gathered world leaders there - Sarif, Taggart, Darrow, and even Jensen himself. This will free mankind and allow it to make up its own mind about augmentation, without anyone spinning events to further their own agenda.

Behind the scenes

 * ELIZA was a computer program written by Joseph Weizenbaum between 1964 to 1966, an early example (by modern standards) of primitive natural language processing. ELIZA operated by processing users' responses to scripts, the most famous of which was DOCTOR, a simulation of a Rogerian_psychotherapy. Using almost no information about human thought or emotion, DOCTOR sometimes provided a startlingly human-like interaction.


 * The first room that Jensen looks for Cassan in is room 404, a reference to the HTTP Error Code 404, "file not found".
 * On the way to Eliza and 802-11, there is a scrolling news ticker above the door in the Funicular. One of the items is: "Holo-personalities untrustworthy? Yes, says noted psycho-sociologist..."
 * The second room that Jensen goes to is room 802-11, a reference to the IEEE 802.11 standards, better known by the trademark WiFi.
 * Eliza's name is a reference to the influential American director, Elia Kazan, famous for making actors such as Marlon Brando and James Dean stars.
 * Despite not being an actual human being, Eliza seems to have a fair range of emotions, such as what could be describe as confusion and shame when she assists in hiding the Sarif scientists. If the player chooses to cause Panchea to self-destruct, she will tell Adam that is has "truly been a pleasure" to know him. Ironically, she sounds more human when broadcasting and more robotic when not.