Bob Page

"Aquinas spoke of the mythical City on the Hill. Soon that city will be a reality, and we will be crowned its kings. Or better than kings. Gods..."

- Bob Page, Deus Ex

Robert "Bob" Page is a wealthy industrialist, philanthropist and the founder and owner of Page Industries. He was a prominent member of the Illuminati and one of the leaders of the Illuminati's Majestic 12 division until sometime during the 2030s. At this point, he uses Majestic 12 to overthrow the Illuminati, becoming the wealthiest and most powerful man in the world. Bob Page serves as the main antagonist of Deus Ex, and the overall main antagonist of the Deus Ex series.

Early life
Born in 1989, Page's official biography paints him as a true self-made man, with a touching rags-to-riches story: An only child, his family fortune was lost by his father, an investment banker, during the 2007 financial crisis. Page and his mother were left at square one, teaching the ferociously competitive teenager how to claw his way back to fortune, and catalyzing hishis aggressive attitude in business and visionary atitude. As an autodidact, Page would only learn from mentors and betters in order to outperform, beat, and shame them. Described as a "jock in nerd's clothing" in his biography, Page's intensity and drive won him the admiration of his peers - at least until they had to face his viciousness. Nowhere was it more clear than in competitive squash, which he played as a contact sport, once brutally injuring his estranged father.

Page was accepted into Stanford on a low-income family grant, where he created, patented, and sold two data-scraping technologies for social networking sites before graduating with a doctorate in machine learning. His growing profile attracted the attention of tech magnate Morgan Everett, who took him under his wing. Officially the two were professional friends. In reality, Everett inducted Page into the Illuminati.

Illuminati
After graduation and joining the Illuminati, Page married his long-term partner, a behavioral therapist, and founded a venture capital/tech incubation firm in Palo Alto: Page Industries. Initially, Silicon Valley tech blogs sniped that his industry was spinning on his swivel chair, alone in an empty warehouse. Page actively pursued dual-use technologies, due to their increased chances of success, and made a string of investments in biotechnology, AI, and nanotechnology companies. Under Everett's advice, he purchased a controlling stake in the recently NYSE-delisted pharmaceutical giant VersaLife, freefalling since its pre-millennial golden age.

A number of even more risky acquisitions followed: defunct genetic therapy research laboratories, failing biotechnology concerns, emergent tech start-ups that never emerged. Just as it seemed that bankruptcy would consume Page, Neuropozyne arrived on the stage. In 2020, Darrow Industries sold VersaLife its exclusive patent on production of the anti-augmentation rejection drug every Augmented person needed to survive, and company fortunes took off. Page Industries made billions. Bob Page was thirty-one years old.

More importantly, the newly minted billionaire was the protégé of an incredibly powerful man: Everett was a member of the Illuminati Council of Five, and groomed Page to eventually succeed him. A close relationship formed between the two, with it being likened to the relationship between a father and son. Everett mentored the younger man. Although Page was a good student, he was impatient and short-tempered. He, along with Everett, led the Majestic 12 division of the Illuminati, which concerned itself with matters of a technological nature.

The Aug Incident
In 2025 and 2027, Bob Page is working with other Illuminati members on a "biochip initiative." Their plan is to distribute a biochip that would allow the Illuminati to control mechanically augmented people. Page participates in multiple Illuminati conferences with fellow members Hugh Darrow, Zhao Yun Ru, William Taggart, and Elizabeth DuClare to discuss the details of the biochip initiative, as well as other schemes. In one conference, Zhao and others report to Page that almost everything is in place for the biochip initiative to move forward, but Hugh Darrow reports that he is still working on finding the correct nerve interface for the biochip. However, Darrow says that he now knows where to look thanks to David Sarif. A text message then appears on the conference screen indicating that Sarif Industries researcher Megan Reed has found a gene sequence that the Illuminati "need." Of concern is that Reed is about to present her discovery to the public. Reed's discovery is a genetic framework that would allow people to get augmented without the need for Neuropozyne, the drug that the mechanically augmented currently need to take to counteract Darrow Deficiency Syndrome. VersaLife, which is owned by Page, is the only company that produces this drug. The Illuminati have been utilizing VersaLife's monopoly to maintain steadfast control over augmented people through this dependency. As such, Reed's discovery would take this control away if allowed to go public.

Thus, Page orders the Tyrants to attack Sarif Industries Headquarters and abduct Reed and her team before they could head to Washington, D.C. with their findings. Reed and her team are taken to the Omega Ranch, where they are put to work on the biochip control scheme at the Illuminati's behest.

The biochip initiative moves forward when the Illuminati conduct a global recall of biochips, resulting in augmented people receiving new biochips constructed for the Illuminati's scheme. The biochips were intended to grant Illuminati control over augmented people. However, Hugh Darrow has other plans, and broadcasts a signal that causes augmented people who received the new biochips to go into a killing frenzy, an event known as the Aug Incident.

Earlier in 2027, one of the Tyrants, Gunther Hermann, suffered severe injuries on a mission in Geneva, Switzerland, when Anna Kelso caused Gunther to crash his vehicle into the Rhône River. After Gunther was recovered by Majestic 12 operatives, Page opted to extensively reconstruct Gunther using cybernetic augmentations so that he could be redeployed at a later time. By the time of the Aug Incident, the Tyrants have become defunct due to the death or defection of its other members.

Sometime in 2027, Zaaphire Biotech is in the business of manufacturing the drug Riezene, which is to serve as a cheaper alternative to Neuropozyne. Although Zaaphire publicly positions itself as a competitor to Neuropozyne manufacturer VersaLife, Zaaphire is in fact a proxy firm under the control of Page and the actual manufacturer of Riezene is VersaLife. Page's true agenda behind Zaaphire and Riezene is never revealed, however.

After the Aug Incident
"Publically, emergent-tech billionaire Bob Page is the philanthropist who founded the multinational holding company, Page Industries. Through it, he controls multiple subsidiary corporations, including the pharmaceutical giant, VersaLife. Privately though, the man is something else: cold-blooded, reactionary, and prone to crimes of passion. Page is an iterative-minded individual who firmly believes in technological advancement. He'll do anything to ensure he stays in control of it."

- Bob Page's profile, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Megan, not knowing Bob Page's ties to the Illuminati and her abduction, later takes a job with one of his companies, likely VersaLife, after she was rescued from Omega Ranch. It is implied that she aids him with research relating to nanotechnology, and potentially nanotechnological augmentations. By 2029, Page has Megan working at VersaLife's San Francisco Roccasecca Beach facility on a chemical agent meant to eliminate the need for Neuropozyne in augmented people by deleting the gene that causes glial tissue buildup. However, as it is unfinished, it causes the opposite effect and ends up killing the person instead. This chemical agent becomes known as the Orchid, and would later be deployed as a poison.

Sometime in 2027, Belltower Associates goes bankrupt. Page acquires G.A.R.M., a black site facility in the Swiss alps that was owned by Belltower prior to its bankruptcy. Belltower also sells its special forces division to an undisclosed buyer; the circumstances suggest that this undisclosed buyer was Page.

Page and the Illuminati use G.A.R.M. to covertly house and train Shadow Operatives, a group that has inherited the role of the now-defunct Tyrants. The Shadow Operatives at G.A.R.M. operate under the direct orders of Page and refer to him as "Mister Majestic," a name referencing Page's leadership role in Majestic 12.

2029
In 2029, the Illuminati are working on a new initiative to control augmented people, the Human Restoration Act. If passed by the United Nations, the Act would force Augs to carry a control chip implanted in them and keep proper documents or be forced to live in segregated Aug communities. However, several voices oppose the act, including Talos Rucker, the leader of the Augmented Rights Coalition (ARC) and Nathaniel Brown, CEO of the Santeau Group, which is in the business of building safe havens for the augmented.

The Illuminati's Council of Five, along with Page, hold a secret meeting to discuss plans to ensure passage of the Human Restoration Act. The group agrees to send Volkard Rand and Stanton Dowd to New York, where the United Nations will soon vote on the Act. Afterwards, Lucius DeBeers, the Illuminati leader, speaks in private with Everett and Page. DeBeers and Everett agree that Rand and Dowd might not succeed in getting the Act to pass. DeBeers therefore tells Everett that he has opted to proceed with an alternate strategy. Page tells DeBeers that everything is in place. In response, DeBeers tells Page that it is Page's chance to deliver. DeBeers then instructs Page to activate the "sleeper cell," referring to a group of sleeper agents embedded in the ARC. Part of their plan is for this group, led by high-ranking ARC member Viktor Marchenko, to carry out incidents that would turn public opinion against ARC and augmented people in general, which would increase support for the passage of the Human Restoration Act.



Page's sleeper cell first orchestrates the bombing of the Růžička Station in Prague. Page also orders Joseph Manderley, director of Interpol's Task Force 29, to instruct his TF29 subordinate Jim Miller to implicate ARC for the train station bombing. Page is also concerned that Talos Rucker is getting close to uncovering their "inside man" within ARC (unnamed, but suggested to be Marchenko). Thus, Page orders Manderley to proceed with the assassination of Talos Rucker using the Orchid, even though Manderley expresses concerns that some members of the Council might not approve of such an action. The assassination is carried out by the sleeper cell under Manderley's instructions. Besides alleviating the pressure on their inside man, the assassination also allows Marchenko to become the leader of ARC.

The next phase is to deal with Nathaniel Brown. Page had predicted that the death of Rucker would force Brown to rally support against the Human Restoration Act. This prediction turns true when Brown organizes a "Safe Harbour Convention," to be held at the Apex Centre in London, to persuade UN delegates vote against the Act. Page aims to have Brown and the UN delegates hosted by Brown to be killed using the Orchid, and to make it look like the work of augmented terrorists. To achieve this goal, Page deploys Marchenko to lead the Shadow Operatives stationed at G.A.R.M. to attack the Apex Centre, an operation code-named "Stormsurge." Although Marchenko is useful for his connections to ARC, Page instructs the Shadow Operatives that Marchenko is fully expendable, and should be terminated by his killswitch if he deviates from the plans.

Stormsurge succeeds in framing ARC as a terrorist group, but the Human Restoration Act may or may not pass, depending on whether Adam Jensen is able to prevent the assassination of Brown and the UN delegates attending the convention.

After the events in London, Page and the Council of Five hold another meeting. Volkard Rand is angry that he was not informed of the actions that others put in to play, presumably referring to the actions carried out by Page as a result of DeBeer's instructions. In the meeting, Page mentions the name "Adam Jensen" when Everett reports that Interpol has an augmented agent working for them.

Creating the Daedalus AI
Sometime after Adam Jensen’s destruction of the Hyron Project in 2027, Page consults with Morgan Everett about the possibility of salvaging some of the wreckage for a project they are working on; namely the Morpheus initiative. Together, they create a prototype for the next generation global surveillance system, ECHELON IV. Based on their work in creating Morpheus, the prototype of ECHELON IV, Page and Everett develop Daedalus, an AI program that would help the Illuminati keep track of and control all global communications. Majestic 12 also conducts research in nanotechnology, leading to the development of nanites. Nanites are used in nano-augmentations and in other more sinister technologies such as biological weapons.

Page’s coup
With the help of Everett, Bob Page eventually became a member of the Council of Five, the innermost circle of the Illuminati. However, as time goes on, Page grows impatient with Everett's unwillingness to use these new technologies to establish absolute control over mankind and the Illuminati's slow, gentle ways. He rebels against them by leading Majestic 12 in a coup that sees the whole of the Illuminati infrastructure being taken over by Page and his allies. Page assassinates Beth DuClare, destroys Stanton Dowd financially, forces Everett into hiding. After the coup d’état that catapults Majestic 12 to the forefront of world domination, Page, being the undisputed leader of the organization, becomes the most powerful person on Earth.

Before breaking away from the Illuminati, Page began research into nano-augmentations and searched for a person whose body would be compatible with the technology. He found a match in a boy named Paul Denton and secretly made multiple clones of the child. One of these clones grows up to be JC Denton. Paul and JC are raised as brothers by their parents, while Majestic 12 secretly oversee their lives. At some stage after the Majestic 12 coup, Page decides that the Denton parents are dispensable and orders his lieutenant Walton Simons to terminate them. He is unhappy with the free-thinking nature of Paul Denton and is concerned that he will not remain loyal to MJ12. For this reason, he wants his brother JC to be put under stricter supervision and thus sends him to a MJ12-run school in Switzerland. Here he intends to have JC indoctrinated with a sense of unswerving loyalty to his superiors. Page intends to use prototype nanotechnological augmentations on others such as Paul, JC, and Walton Simons before using the perfected version on himself. As the head of the conglomerate, Page Industries - which includes the lucrative VersaLife - Bob Page becomes a trillionaire and hence, the richest man on earth. This enables him to fund expensive projects such as the development of the internet protocol Aquinas and the Denton brothers’ augmentations. According to a press release about Aquinas, the project cost almost one billion credits in total. The Aquinas protocol is used by Page to secretly monitor internet communications from the Majestic 12 base in Area 51. Everett is unable to come out of hiding because Page controls internet communications.

The Gray Death
As part of Majestic 12’s plan to establish absolute dominion over mankind, Bob Page uses VersaLife to develop a nano-virus known as the Gray Death and the cure, called Ambrosia. By keeping the production and distribution of Ambrosia under strict control, Page can use the disease - and by extension, the cure – as a means to manipulate people into carrying out his will. One instance of this is when he coerces a US senator into making his chief lieutenant, Simons, the new director of FEMA. Page achieves this by offering to put the senator on the priority list for the Ambrosia vaccine.

Even though Page is responsible for a large portion of the suffering and violence that has swept across the United States and other parts of the world, he manages to maintain a positive image in the public eye. This is due partially to his philanthropic efforts to help those in need. Despite being both the creator of the disease and the sole controller of its cure, Page makes the following public comment:

Page also announces that he intends to donate 10 million credits to the Clinics and Hospices Association of New York, to help treat those that have caught the Gray Death. Despite Page's promises, the 10 million credit donation is nowhere to be seen.

Opposition
At some point, the Daedalus AI classifies its creators, Majestic 12, as a terrorist organization. Daedalus then escapes from MJ12 control and begins plotting against Page. Page later creates a new modified AI based on Daedalus called Icarus, which would remain under MJ12 control. The production of the deadly nano-virus and its cure are possible only through the use of a Universal Constructor. Page had directed Majestic 12 scientists, working at Area 51, to construct this machine, with Gary Savage, a former Illuminati researcher, as the chief scientist. However, when the sinister intentions of Page became apparent to Savage and his co-workers, they abandoned Majestic 12 and relocated to Vandenberg Air Force Base. This group of defected scientists would call themselves X-51, and would ally with other factions opposing Majestic 12, including the National Secessionist Forces and the remnants of the Illuminati led by Morgan Everett. The resistance against Majestic 12 is aided by JC Denton, who helps Morgan Everett obtain the information needed to develop a cure for the Gray Death.

Page orders Majestic 12 to attack Vandenberg Air Force Base. The attack nearly forces X-51 to surrender, if not for the arrival of JC Denton. JC Denton also assists X-51 by obtaining schematics from MJ12's Pasadena Ocean Lab needed to construct a fully functioning Universal Constructor. X-51 intends to use the Universal Constructor to manufacture Morgan Everett's cure for the Gray Death. In response to this, Page orders the release of a nuclear missile to blow up Vandenberg, or to reduce it to a “thin, gray smudge.” The missile launch is foiled by JC Denton, who redirects the missile at Area 51. The missile causes great damage to Area 51's surface level buildings, but it is not enough to penetrate Area 51's deep underground bunkers where Page is operating.

Apotheosis
Page plans to merge with an Artificial Intelligence in order to become something comparable to a god. To achieve this goal, he first needed a powerful enough AI to merge with. The desired entity is unwittingly created by JC Denton when JC gives Daedalus access to MILNET at Vandenberg. JC's actions unwittingly grants Icarus the means to merge with Daedalus, leading to the creation of the combined AI, Helios. JC then realizes that the creation of Helios was a trap laid by Page.

Even with the creation of Helios, Page still needed to be physically capable of merging with the AI. It becomes apparent that the ultimate goal of his research into nano-augmentations, as well his efforts to perfect them, was to develop a framework that would allow this merge to take place.

When JC Denton finally arrives at Area 51, Bob Page is already in the process of uniting himself with the Helios AI. This merger would grant him complete access to every piece of information on the Internet and total control over the array of UCs in Area 51. If he is successful, he would be all-seeing, all-knowing, and all-powerful; essentially making himself a god. Ultimately, however, his plans are foiled by JC Denton, who is ironically one of Page’s own creations.

Trivia

 * Stanton Dowd reveals that Page did not rise up the ranks of the Illuminati in the conventional way, saying that he "resisted the degrees of Illuminism, as they were implemented". He never made it past "Master of Tyre" because he slept through Hatha Yoga lessons in the mornings. It is likely that he made his way onto the Council of Five due to Everett's influence.
 * In 2027, Page informs Picus TV that he cured AIDS in lab mice using nanotechnology.
 * Bob Page has a "cyber-assimilated" form, encountered in Area 51 during Deus Ex, when he prepares to merge with the Helios AI and the universal constructor. In this form, he has control over an army of nano-creatures and fairly amazing power over the elements themselves.
 * During Deus Ex, Helios gives JC Denton the login details to a security terminal in Area 51. The login is Page and the password is UberAlles. Über Alles is the German for "above all else" or "more than anything else". Essentially the login details state "Page above all else", epitomising his egocentrism.
 * According to Dowd, Page would lose his temper if one of his "plates was contaminated" (presumably during biological experiments). In his anger, he would smash everything in his cubicle with a ball-peen hammer.
 * Lucius DeBeers mentions that Page forged laboratory data in the past, lamenting that he regretted not poisoning Page the first time he was caught doing so.
 * It was Bob Page's idea to resurrect the gray lifeforms engineered by the Illuminati at Area 51, to protect Majestic 12 facilities.
 * One of Page's greatest personal heroes is Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas was an Italian Dominican priest of the Catholic Church and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian in the tradition of scholasticism. Once Page would merge himself with the Aquinas Router, he would become similar to what the Catholic Church believes God to be, with the exception of whereas God's world consists of flesh, emotions, and belief, Page's world would consist of machine, logic, and information.
 * Warren Spector said he originally wanted there to be a fourth, "bad" ending to the game where the player sides with Bob Page (who, realizing JC Denton may actually foil his plans to merge with Helios, offers the player control of a major continent in exchange for allowing Page the time to complete his merger with Helios), but this ending was scrapped due to time constraints in the game's development.