National Secessionist Forces

The National Secessionist Forces, or NSF are a constitutionalist insurrectionary organization classified as a terrorist group by UNATCO in the United States.

At the start of, NSF is the primary antagonist, portrayed as a notorious terrorist group that JC believes should be eradicated. This notion continues up to LaGuardia. When JC learns of Paul's involvement with the organization, and finally meets and talks to Juan Lebedev, the NSF leader, he begins to suspect that UNATCO may be the true villain, not the NSF.

When JC is ordered by Paul to go to NSF HQ to send the distress signal, he also finds, based on Paul's words, evidence of the covert financial transactions between UNATCO officials and anonymous parties, as well as UNATCO's role in the Statue bombings. When JC sends the distress signal, Walton Simons orders the UNATCO troops to kill him. Whether JC wants to or not, he is now allied with the NSF. Eventually, JC is captured and transported to MJ12's complex beneath UNATCO HQ. This confirms UNATCO's involvement in the MJ12 conspiracy, making UNATCO officially the foe, and the NSF officially the friend.

History
Building on the foundations laid by the 2026 New Sons of Freedom and the 2030 Northwest Secessionist Forces and the Northwest War, the National Secessionist Forces are the third organization to carry the NSF abbreviation, formed in 2042. In the wake of draconian gun control legislation in the form of the Sporting Weapons Act, the third NSF appeared again as the National Secessionist Forces. The new NSF was composed of individuals who refused to give up their rifles, grenades, land mines, and other "collectibles" prohibited by the Act. Led by General Leon Woods, the goal of the NSF was to liberate the states of Washington, Montana, Oregon, and Northern California, and secede from the United States. Originally operating in the western United States, the NSF steadily spread across the American mainland, gaining footholds and establishing a large support base in major eastern urban centers such as New York City. While the United Nations and the US government classified the NSF as a terrorist group, many people saw the NSF as liberators from an increasingly authoritarian US federal government.

Leon Woods was killed at his infamous last stand in 2045, but the NSF continued on gaining more and more strength, as well as support from Silhouette (the resistance movement against the French government), the Luminous Path Triad, and X-51 (a group of former Area 51 scientists). Dissident computer scientists and programmers, said to be based in Seattle and San Francisco, aided the NSF in setting up a highly encrypted communication network; eroding the edge that MJ12 and UNATCO had due to their control over the Aquinas network and ECHELON. At this point, the United Nations declared war on the NSF.

2050s
In an attempt to reduce support for the NSF, UNATCO framed the NSF and their allies for many terrorist acts, including the bombings of the Statue of Liberty, as well as smuggling illegal drugs and immigrants (although the Luminous Path Triad, being a mafia group, is actually involved in such smuggling activities).

The NSF aggressively confronted the United States government. Operating unimpeded in western parts of the United States, the NSF also operated covertly in the densely urbanized Eastern Seaboard. The most notable operation was the attack on Liberty Island and UNATCO's base of operations, when NSF troops under Colonel Leo Gold seized stockpiles of Ambrosia and attempted to get them out of the city and into the hands of the common people, suffering from the Gray Death. The complex operation was in actuality a ruse: The main goal was to secure a sample of Ambrosia, so that Tracer Tong and the Luminous Path Triad could analyze and replicate it (VersaLife held a patent on Ambrosia and deliberately restricted production, on orders from Page).

Organization
The NSF is a distributed, decentralized organization. The lack of centralized leadership makes it less effective, but also less susceptible to crackdowns by the state or the UN. Its key advantage lies in communications: NSF communications are highly encrypted and tunnel through public networks such as NYCNET, allowing it to coordinate operations and communicate freely, despite Daedalus' surveillance.

In military terms, the NSF is a lot more organized than its predecessors, using standardized uniforms and trying to provide all of its field units with training and small arms, rather than relying on whatever they can scrounge up. However, the extent of this training is limited and most rank and file troops tend to have limited training. During the 2052 NYC fighting, this resulted in a number of crises, including hostage situations.

The NSF is active in its propaganda efforts, but the bulk of the effort for coordinating resistance movements is handled by its allied organization, Silhouette.

Ideology
The NSF are hostile to the United States due to the numerous draconian, authoritarian measures introduced by the federal government to pacify society, maintain control, and empower the rich plutocrats against the poor minority. NSF believes that these steps are no mere coincidence due to a crumbling world, but a deliberate conspiracy by the rich against the masses, citing the consolidation of state-corporate power through preferential taxation (reducing corporate taxes and increasing personal ones), oligarchic practices and selective choosing of members of key institutions, and the ever more violent measures to maintain public order as examples. They believe their continued resistance is necessary for the good of the people, and any means are warranted, as long as they serve that goal.

Deus Ex
JC Denton interacts with the NSF extensively in the first act of the game. His short tenure with UNATCO sees the capture of several important bases&mdash;including the NSF New York headquarters in Hell's Kitchen; capture or death of several commanders, including a prominent NSF leader and financial backer, Juan Ivanovich Lebedev, and the failure of a critical operation in New York City.

During the remaining course of the game, the organization remains largely intact—though with a reduced strength in the East Coast. This is probably due to the sending of the NSF distress signal by JC which allowed other NSF bases and resistance groups in Europe to take necessary counter measures. Several prominent members from the New York Section remain at large, probably waiting to reform the organization in New York; indeed, this is evidenced by the fleeing of NSF commanders Decker Parkes, Erin Todd and Wayne Young to Europe. During the game, an NSF brigade are conducting operations in Paris under the command of Chad Dumier, leader of Silhouette and the Illuminatus Morgan Everett. Morgan Everett, in conversation with JC, mentions their still-operational HQ as being a few hundred miles north of the X-51 base at Vandenberg. Near the Champs-Élysées in Paris, JC Denton overhears a man asking his wife to come with him to America, as he has been contracted to work with the NSF.

However, with the complete dissolution of MJ12 after Deus Ex, and with the Illuminati's relaxed (albeit facetious) public gun laws, the NSF probably dissolved peacefully during the Collapse.

NSF Terrorists
NSF terrorists are the first enemy JC Denton faces in the game. Alex Jacobson cautions JC that the NSF are "everywhere". During their first encounters they are armed with 10mm pistols, but as JC advances through New York, they become armed with better weapons, such as sawed-off shotguns and assault rifles. Three even have flamethrowers; one is under Castle Clinton, while the other is in Battery Park's subway station, the third in the Helicopter Station. They use LAMs as grenades, but very few are equipped with one. Additionally, some of them employ the use of Dobermans.

NSF terrorists are noticeably somewhat weaker than other grunt-type enemies, with only 75 health instead of 100 health, as well as worse aim and reflexes, as they are not professionals.

NSF terrorists disappear after clearing the LaGuardia Airport, except for two in the Majestic 12 complex beneath UNATCO Headquarters. These two terrorists were imprisoned; one of them (Miguel), depending on JC's actions, survives or even manage to escape. The other is found dead in his cell, with a medkit.

Despite the add-on eyewear on the ski masks, their models have eyes.

Locations
The NSF headquarters is a large, warehouse-style building in New York. To access this building, JC must go through a previously inaccessible tunnel in the second Hell's Kitchen level. The building is well-armed, with lasers, tripwires, security cameras and turrets. There are also protected rooms with arrays of mainframe computers, and atop the building is a series of satellites, which JC uses to send the distress signal to other NSF cells and Silhouette to warn them of UNATCO/MJ12's search-and-destroy operations. When JC manages to get to this building, it is overrun by UNATCO troops.

The NSF, until JC intervenes, also has control of the Warehouse District behind the Osgood and Sons Warehouse in Hell's Kitchen. This control centralizes around a single warehouse with an electrical generator used to power the EMP field around their stolen Ambrosia supplies (until JC destroys it, but not before the supplies are moved to LaGuardia).

Additionally, the NSF sets up shop at Juan Lebedev's private terminal at LaGuardia Airport. When JC arrives at the airfield, it is completely NSF-controlled. Stationed in the airfield is Lebedev's 747, where he and Paul Denton plan to carry the Ambrosia to Hong Kong, but when JC interrogates Lebedev, UNATCO recovers the Ambrosia and kills/captures all the NSF troops in the airfield (Paul manages to escape).

The NSF also sets up ad-hoc bases at the top level of the Statue of Liberty, Castle Clinton and the abandoned Brooklyn subway system (where the Mole People live). Two out of these three are taken over by UNATCO.

Stephanie Maxwell was pushing to have an NSF presence at Vandenberg to provide X-51 with armed protection. However, MJ12 attacked the complex before any arrangements could be made. However, before JC leaves, hears than a team of NSF soldiers will arrive there shortly.

Behind the scenes

 * The NSF resembles many existing insurgent movements. Its forerunner, the Northwest Secessionist Forces, was rooted in sentiments commonly associated with right-wing movements (the Sporting Weapons Act is essentially the much feared large-scale government gun control), the National Secessionist Forces represent predominantly left-wing ideas, including anti-capitalism, anti-corporate guerrilla warfare, and destruction of the repressive, violent North American government. The NSF believe the disastrous state of the world by the middle of the 2052 is the result of a deliberate conspiracy by plutocrats - the rich elite - against the common man, using the tools of corporations and the state to consolidate power and render individuals powerless.
 * The general strategy of the NSF, that is, relying on rural resistance, armed struggle, and intense information warfare, greatly resembles the revolutionary ideals of Guevarism and Mao's notion of a protracted people's war.
 * The starless flag used by the NSF as logo for their computer networks is an interesting choice. Stars in the canton represent states of the union, and by extension, the union itself. Their removal without touching the thirteen stripes representing the original colonies suggests an idea of a second American Revolution.