Weston-Percival Power Struggle, Part 3: Don's Doomsday Desperation

TL;DR: Weston leads the professionals (including you) to erode the power of the state, competing corrupt corporations, and existing criminal networks; a power vaccuum at the IAA and Don Percival's desperation lead to the rise of Avon Hertz and the Doomsday Crisis. [This concludes a three part series analyzing the larger narrative we play inside the game universe; Part 1, Part 2. The following will cover Gun Running, Smugglers Run, Doomsday, and After Hours.]

Recap and Review, Spoilers Ahead...

As online players before 2017, we worked for Lester (heists) or DarkNet sites.

The heists connect you to Lester/Paige, then 14, then Trevor. This kind of, loosely, serves to connect online to career, but also has us working with 14 to free spies and steal a WMD from Humane/Merryweather with their own shit (which 14 literally tells us has the desired impact of keeping Percival from bidding on lucrative contracts); watching Trevor dismantle drug networks only to get popped by DOA; and, lest we forget, finally score some much awaited cash.

As to these websites, I am no expert, but who else other than Lester runs these sites? But does Lester's house look like he owns them? Not really. So let's review Pre-Career and follow the money and IP addresses as best we can. [TL;DR: Weston=CEO, ULP=MC]

1. We buy an office after countless races won and missions done for underworld mini-bosses. The assistant (or Linda, as I have named her) introduces us to our Executive Terminal and, upon logging on, the SecuroServ Special Cargo Network. She sets us up with a login and password that we never see (sounds like she knows more than we do). The special cargo network sources illicit products for cash but who is the true beneficiary? I propose in part 1 that the products being stolen and the enemies we steal from respectively line up with commercial competitors to Weston's investment holdings and the criminal organizations running drugs/guns for the IAA/ULP (the "LS Deep State," if we may) to fund their organization in the wake of the government defunding overseas operations. Lester runs SecuroServ and us, via Linda, to do this work for the Angel Investor, Devon Weston.

2. Enter the MC. Note: we buy this property from Maze Bank Foreclosure, not Dynasty like the office and previous properties. Malc is there when we buy it. His only in person cameo, in from LC to show us how to run this club (Good choice, Rockstar, since Johnny K is thwacked out in Sandy Shores getting cucked by Trevor). He tells us we can "hook up with Internet cats to run a list of businesses." The Open Road is how we buy and run our businesses. Forgery, counterfeiting, drug manufacture and distribution are all things the real deep state is accused of and clearly benefits the LS Deep State, aka ULP who was selling drugs in LC. Club contracts lend support with activities ranging from breaking out prisoners, cracking safes, high risk drug distribution, or breaking up arms sales. We have become the paramilitary wing of ULP and 14. But who runs you? LJT. Lester's alter ego. Why does he need to protect his identity from you? You have already done contact missions for him, let alone the biggest heist yet, Pac Std! Answer: Because he is playing both sides! He isn't hiding it from you.

3. Import-Export screams Weston. Who else is sourcing high end super cars for the Chinese in career mode? Special Vehicle Missions detailed in Part One use liquidated special vehicles that look like something Trevor left behind in his bunker to mostly consolidate control of the drug markets for 14. There is also a series of missions that point to another attack on Percival's empire by 14.

CAREER MODE RECAP

Michael pisses off a gangster, reaches out to Lester (whom vaguely mentions but shoots down getting help from an "Eastern European guy that was making moves in LC..." but went quiet and "someone" he has been "working with" but is "too unpredictable"; namely, our online character). Robs Vangelico, puts his ass back on the radar, Norton comes and puts the screws to him. Once the hooks are in he (and the rest of the MFT trio) end up basically working for Norton, Haines, Weston, and even an agent in training, Sanchez.

Their work centers around sabotaging/countering the IAA/ULP (LS Deep State again) and is basically counter-espionage. Because Weston is so involved, based on Third Way canon, he gets killed--but habeas corpus? How do we know he did? Either way, he's below radar long enough for Percival to reach out and brag he picked up Weston's 11% in Merryweather. If he is alive, his money is being made via illicit means, like your online character. But Trevor gets the Vanilla Unicorn off Weston. Signifying the career 3 are really free of him. But has he stopped running Securoserv?

Michael and his controllers, Haines and Norton, are all betrayed by Sanchez (who may or may not have been recruited from Elizabeta by Karen in LC) and almost busted by Agent ULP posing as NOOSE. Michael retires to make movies. Franklin retires to sell drugs (racist)? And so it is that TPI comes back from the dead with new funding for our hangars, 14 has to move guns via someone else, and ULP can focus on "UnAmerican activies" (like Avon's) without worrying about his drugs. And Securoserv keeps on running with Weston in hiding.

[Please excuse the egregiously long recap. More detail is in the original posts, but if you are short on time, hopefully thia catches you up for the most part.]

AFTER CAREER MODE

We (as online characters) literally woke up one day and hear about some primo business real estate underground bunker shit and buy it for a ton of money (from Maze Bank Foreclosure, interestingly enough). We get there and meet 14, who acts like he doesn't know us and tells us it is 2017. At that point, our character's world jumped ahead 4 years. This could be a lapse in judgement or it could be time for so many crazy capers to happen. Either way, it's 4 years Weston is either plotting (or moving) against Percival. By 2017, this plan is an all out assault on Percival's enterprise, with consequences.

Career mode and prior was just step one. Gunrunning is step two: steal shit from Humane/Merryweather and move guns inside LS/Blaine for the LS Deep State (ya know... 14). Smugglers run, step three: take over for Trevor running the drugs since he got popped by the DOA and then needs TPI up and running. Securoserv goes International... kind of.

But Percival ends up desperate and starts working with Avon Hertz. The unintended consequence of his cooperation is the Doomsday Crisis. This cements our relationship with the IAA/ULP. I guess After Hours is the "19th hole" in this model but it also consolidates all goods under Gay Tony's visage, like a sort of tax on our shit... kind of. But in my typical style, let's overthink the shit outta this.

GUNRUNNING

14 was clearing the bunker and just looked to be selling real estate, but changes his mind after a mysterious phone call. He tells us that the real money is in selling "weaponry to state sanctioned actors on the global stage." While he plays up your patriotism with the same BS that Haines was always on about, he also lets you know the bunker can produce "enough arms to effect regime change in two thirds of the worlds democracies" (emphasis added).

A new darknet site called Disruption Logistics is described by 14 as "a state-funded Web commission," where we can source and sell our wares. To get the place set up, we steal a duneloader from an ammunation. From there, most of us know the grind. Steal weapons from Merryweather, the military, criminal organizations, and whomever else needs stole from to research and manufacture bigger and better guns and equipment. We are like the perfect partner for the LS Deep State: productive, effective, and plausibly deniable. But once we get the MOC, a series of 8 missions accessed there provide some arc to this storyline.

1. Use that Dune FAV to intercept and disrupt Merryweather supply lines for a large scale operation in Blaine County (which would mean those domestic operations have finally been ramped up and have become a threat to the IAA...

2. Pick up some Dinghys guarded by professionals to steal a halftrack from Khangpae that have "set up shop with diplomatic visas" and are massing hardware at docks. Seemingly just opportunism--but weren't these the same dudes with the transmitter from the IE special vehicle missions?

3. Use the anti-air trailer to protect dignitaries (our customers) from FIB/NOOSE interdiction. It is clear that the rivalry from career mode didn't die with Haines. As a side note: Why can't ULP just meet these guys in the Seychelles or a central asian country?

4. Use an APC to collect Merryweather cargo after a crash. Merryweather target count is up to 2. Clearly the deep state now competes with Merryweather and specifically Percival. He is on the outs with IAA/ULP, no longer aiding internationally and trying to steal the domestic fiefdom the IAA just built on Haines's grave.

5. Defend the MOC. Cover is blown and a full on miltary response has been mobilized. Are we going rogue? I mean, we are shooting down freaking lazers, right?

6. In Mole Hunt we are literally taking out electronic cover for (signal jammers) a mole so we can stop him (or her) supplying information about our operation. Once again, our targets are Merryweather vehicles, implying the PMCs have been deployed as counter-intelligence against 14's domestic operation.

7. 14 says we are stealing oppressors full of "data" from a leaker, but unless that leaker is working with Merryweather, it is hard to understand why the operation we are stealing them from walks, talks, and drives vehicles like Merryweather('s). Could this leaker be Hertz, who had previously worked for the IAA? 14 says this could have to him and his organization...

8. We use the Oppressors (checked out, ostensibly from the IAA, in his name) to destroy a "rogue company MOC at our own HQ," at the docks. Ground support this time is IPCs driven by Merryweather. But that turns out to be a distraction and we go destroy another MOC at the same location. When we are done, 14 lets us know, "Big things are cooking at the office. Might be able to cut you in." Later Hertz will force his and Rackman's hand to do so. Is it possible that this defeat of Merryweather is linked to Hertz, possibly as a failed mole for them? More evidence will yield support in the Doomsday breakdown. No matter what, if Weston is alive and involved, he is happy to see Percival sidelined from government contracts yet again. By now, Percival must be noticing the value of his stock dropping, too.

But could this also be an allusion to the succeeding DLC, Smugglers Run? The IAA needs to smuggle supplies and product to continue operations. And what else might have spurred this but running the guns? So it is we take to the sky to run product next.

SMUGGLERS RUN

Maze Bank emails us about a hangar and Ron calls us to tell us TPI can keep us busy (Oh yay). We meet Ron in the hangar (with two dead agents, likely FIB/NOOSE, in suits he let in lying on the ground with bullets to the head). He says Trevor went "all vinewood" on him and is a guru/lifestyle coach (Side note, I'd hire Trev for that; also, this may be implying Michael and Trevor became friends again). He introduces us to Charlie, an Air Force mechanic accused of causing a plane crash, the "fall guy" for the "deep state," no less. Scouring the name on the Wiki pulls no old characters matching the description.

We get a new darknet site, Free Trade Shipping Co. The air cargo mostly contain the same materials as CEO crates, but have swapped out guns for chemicals, generally resembling those we must source for our drug businesses. Narcotics remain grouped in the hangar as one unit but are just pharmaceuticals. We set up the hangar with a raid on what is left of the Lost MC (whose staying power is impressive).

While we get no contact missions, sourcing air cargo may have some narrative built in. For instance, we take out jammers again to find a Brickade with our cargo like in the previous mobile operations. We take out military aircraft and cargo planes. We escort cargo planes past Merryweather. Pointedly, we do stunts for a Russian oligarch's children and attack naval operations. Mostly this DLC has a dull story arc and rad content. But what if this is the final prelude to Doomsday? The nail in Merryweather's coffin? The final slap in the face by the common thug class to Dom Percival? Enough to have him working with Hertz, giving him the hardware, connections, and signals intelligence to foment the Doomsday crisis?

DOOMSDAY HEISTS CRISIS

Need I remind anyone of the Spoiler Alert factor of this post any more, if you haven't played through these yet, definitely do before moving on. Don't let me ruin the awesome story telling, easily some of the best in the game. Also, it should be noted that most folks admit this DLC was originally intended for career/story/offline play, but we end up with it online. Maybe someday a dev will spill beans on that. But I don't think it changes the implications for the theory which protagonist is used.

The IAA sells a facility to you, once again via Maze Bank Foreclosure (which at this point, I am sure makes regular contributions to conservative politicians seeking to privatize the state, as they sell a lot of previously public assets). Or are we becoming the IAA's landlord? Wiki points to these being "huge multilevel underground facilities operated by the IAA," so maybe we just are really getting the unused space? Either way, I expect the IAA to start paying rent from now on.

We don't get a cool cut-scene tour like 14 and Ron gave, but once we enter the planning room and get started, it is time for Lester to introduce us to Avon Hertz. As much as they have in common, these nerds couldnt be less alike. Hertz is vain and arrogant. Crest is untidy, but tactical. But they legit are the smartest people in the HD Universe. And for Act 1, it is just them running the show. No IAA yet.

No IAA meddling is likely good for Avon since he gets access to hardware without issue. Deluxos--which it appears we steal off of professionals guarding Avon's friend's house. Could this be the fated mystery tech Trevor steals from Merryweather only to be forced to give it back? We steal an Akula from the Military, making no sense, since that bird is as Russian as a Savage or Bombushka. Some of the guards around it have suits and others wear military gear, suggesting we interrupt an illicit sale.

Then, a series of events about information theft. We steal data from an agency (IAA) courier's ass NOOSE/FIB guard it. Literally reusing a plot point from career, but maybe on purpose. We use that data to intercept more data from professionals on boats. Then we use that data break into a NOOSE (irl: Homeland Security) facility to stop an attack. By now it should be clear that when Hertz tells us this is to 'stop an attack,' it actually mean 'to get more data from within.' And Hertz then calls 14. But by the time Hertz gets 14 on the phone, we have already helped him hack NOOSE, FIB, and IAA. The Deep State has its pants on the floor.

Soon the beautiful Phoenicia Rackman joins 14 at our facility. Clifford has initiated step one of the plan to destroy the state because he thinks the private sector can do it better! And he convinces the Rackman and 14 that it is the Russians--something we can't know, only Clifford can. Buy guess who is used to sniffing out rats and works domestically to sniff out threats like Weston, Haines, or Hertz? Rackman asks for him when she requests, "get me that buffoon that caused the assault at the museum," referring to ULP, who theoretically should know about any domestic plot in the works.

But who is the first person we need to rescue. He has been pulled off the map, blinding the shadow government of human intelligence and signals intelligence to let him set up step 2, while forcing the deep state to rely on PMCs like Merryweather just when they should be more cautious of outside actors. While Rackman tells us ULP is the priority, the board is arranged differently. Assuming it implies chronogic order, we break down Act 2.

We steal a riot to get access to a hangar with an Avenger we also steal. We take this bird from Merryweather, though. Yet Avon remarks on a critical plot point as we do the setup; He had hired them. Merryweather "really helped with our 3rd-tiered territory [read, Third World] rollout," implying Avon's global reach required some skullduggery to achieve and paid Merryweather when, alienated by repeated failure, the company struggled to acquire public sector works. "Do you know Don? Don Percival?"

Lester adamantly lies and says No. But of course he knows who Percival is. But Dom has been cut out by Weston's continued use of SecuroServ to torment him, the heists, and myriad other events. He is isolated and needs funding. God only knows what he did for Avon, what resources from Humane or Merryweather, he supplied. But Lester gives a telling reply to Hertz's description of Percival as a "great guy. Kite-surfer. Deeply moral," even adding that he had become "a personal friend." Lester tells us the truth--regardless of what kind of fucked up non-state sanctioned actors we have become, Percival is something else; "He's a war criminal."

Now to rescue ULP. For whatever reason, our old pals, the Ballas, have the Russian marked bag with intel on ULP's position. This is really hard to believe for 2017. When we shoot through a convincingly Russian sounding hostage rescue, Hertz exclaims "It's my turn to debrief that son of a gun... er, bitch!" But then we find out that ULP, not the easiest to capture, allowed himself to become their prisoner to work the Russian forces for intel. Until we blew his cover, he was close to getting reliable intel on Bogdan. And wouldn't that have saved some time.

Literally, planned interruption: 'my data is on fire. It is the Russians. Good thing I had you prep for this totally planned event by staging a riot and getting an RCV.' But Avon does let us know that it is for the perfect world he is building to subsume the state... Seriously, this is glaring. Steal some more prototype weaponized cars. (Unh huh; on Wastelanders like 14 has you use. So... from the IAA's people?) Steal some Torpedo ECU's from an Arms Dealer--sounds and looks like Merryweather.

Then we recon the sub, assault the sub, and immediately begin eating crow after a 2 minute conversation with Bogdan, who has pulled a reverse Sean Connery and gone rogue to stop a nuclear war. He is ready to die to save the world. He exposes Hertz and "Cliffy." 14 catches heat but he and Rackman get it--they are fucked. They provided the deep state's information network to a maniac that is using everyone to destroy the planet in a vain, utopian gesture. The defense and intelligence apparatus has a nervous system, even the private sector; But like that fungus that makes zombies out of spiders, it is all under Avon's control.

He has built a newer, better Merryweather. With supersoldiers, stealth weapons, rail guns, and supersonic bombers. He has ULP--debrief successful, blinded IAA again. Merryweather still wants to be his bitch. (Since they aren't getting government contracts, why not effect regime change?) They actually have 14 in holding to sell to Hertz. We have to "use" FIB cash to buy back 14, which we get by stealing it, and the we end up assaulting Merryweather anyway. Rackman even tells us that this would have used to cost a mere two goats and a kilo of black tar (because the IAA uses drugs to make shit work). Avon has some sort of cyborg stealth juggernauts, but we use the Akula to escape.

We have to steal a (clearly Russian) Chernobog from Meryweather to cover his escape because of all the Merryweather Valkyries. Lester adjusts his theory to say the guards are clones. We get ULP off the grid and Rackman lets slip his name is Bernard.

Then we finally start to work to cripple his supply lines, then assault his facility with the stolen goods. We get data on the Barrage truck from a suited guy in Vinewood at a club. We intercept the Barrage at the observatory. Bogdan fears it will be turned into a robot smartcar of death. We use it to take out Avon's airfield on the way back to the facility. The arms dealers transporting it appear to be Merryweather while the ground troops are Avons. We get info on the tank from more suited men. These all appear to be professionals, but we are told they are working for Avon. We steal the Khanjali from Avon's men directly. The big assault comes next.

We crash his jet to acquire his friend or foe frequencies for the (stealth) Volatol. Using the bomber we take out his SAM sites on Chiliad, first. Rackman loves our work. 14 takes credit for hiring us. Lester tells us we have to destroy Clifford to stop Avon for good. Despite seemingly prepping for an air-assauly, we use a tunnel to access the launch facility in Chiliad. Lester crystallizes our experience on the way:

"Seems like a lifetime ago, we were simple bank robbers, minding our own business and other peoples' money. And then we got paid by a tech idiot to get a load of data, which pointed to a rogue Russian attack on the IAA. Which led to us working for the IAA and that tech idiot, stopping some kind of Russian invasion. Only... it turned out the Russians were the good guys! And the tech idiot, and his idiot AI, were going to destroy humanity. So, we're working for the government again, stopping the AI apocalypse, cleaning up the mess we made, really."

We were useful idiots doing our mindless work that were easily recruited to do Avon's bidding, who was hard at work marrying his AI to Merryweather and Humane technology to get rid of 'unwanted populations' and an unwieldy state. We destroy the supplies at the launch site. The wildly unstable and vain AI allows us to destroy its own code, stop the launch, and catch up to Avon while it and Hertz spiral into self-aware mental breakdown.

Hertz, in his hubris, declares, "you can't stop progress, you fools," before we kill him and the Clifford source code. We land at he observatory for an obligatory cutscene. 14 tries to take credit, Lester says we should have let him fry. Rackman says he is to blame for bringing Hertz into the government and she wants to fire him, but he replies he is "protected class," and she confirms this as "moronic" (he does move guns for the IAA). She advises us to "all act like this never happened." Lester is ready for retirement to simpler criminal activity. But soom we complicate things with another cameo from Liberty City--one that may or may not lend credibility to our theory.

AFTER HOURS

Gay Tony and Luis made for an icredible, if mostly deep state-free, chapter in GTA4. No one can deny that his drug addled antics were some of the wackiest and fun missions we had. But he escapes LC for a "a spa town in the desert," warning Luis not to become a blogger in Vinewood, and reunites for a walkout-fade scene with Yusuf Amir in tow. Clearly Amir's luxury gun finishes made it to LS, as well as Tony. English Dave makes his first appearance, though I like to think he learned his transcendental, one-love bullshit in GTA (the original) shouting "GOURANGA" on the streets of Leeds or whatever. Lazlo is an uneventful turd. We don't get much narrative arc from the four shameless cross-pollination marketing attempts that make up our main missions unlocking DJs. But, the addition of the Terrorbyte, both as a modifier to the theoretical lens and as a conduit for the return of Paige, actually makes for an interesting series of events worth our analysis here.

Paige Davis actually makes her first appearance in the first heist. She wears toe shoes and has a tattoo matching Cletus's. She is a world-class hacker and without her, our heist can't happen. But when she comes back after Doomsday, she has wired up a truck that combines every darknet operation we have by hacking into them. This signifies Paige has some in with Lester to allow access to that source code. Might she have wrote it for him, perhaps? Also, the Client Jobs she sends us out on are very similar to the missions, heists, and other activities we pursue with Lester, both in Online and Career Mode.

Robbing gold from bank robbers on their own heist for a client--very similar to the job that gets MFT their biggest score. A copycat job of Michael's Vangelico jon sans gas and so much getaway for a (female) client. Hacking data drives to acquire intel, reminiscient of a contact mission, for a client. Infiltrating Life Invader (like Michael does in Career) to track down and kill someone for a client. Arts and antiques make another rare appearance as we track down some rare junk in security trucks for a client. And finally busting a deal to steal a briefcase for a client. Whom these clients are is up for grabs, but the jobs all feel like Lester gigs. Is Paige making a move because Lester has gone soft?

Further, we allow Tony to become a money-laundering leech on our businesses--drugs, forgery, cargo, guns. The club and Tony are a front. This is all to launder our money. How? The goods stack up, the goods get sold, Tony takes a cut, we get paid. But where does the IAA, ULP, or Weston come in? What if the whole point of the operation is to cut into the IAA, ULP, and/or Weston's profits? This is wholly unclear. But what is clear is that our MC and (especially) CEO work has been made much easier by Paige's Terrorbyte and the Mark II Oppressor uses the same anti-gravity drives as the Deluxos. Does this mean that Weston or Percival could have funded this operation?

CONCLUSION

If Weston is alive, he is winning. If Percival can still even own Humane or Merryweather, let alone even his pharmaceutical companies, is hard to believe. There is no way the IAA or any other public sector faction will touch him.

In the course of writing this (tome), I have learned the developers intend to continue updating GTA Online as they implement RDR2 Online and provide support to that massive endeavor. Mad respect, but also, this may not be the last update. We are all hoping for a Quality of Life update. Many of you fellow Bogdan-ites, like myself, continue to look Spring-ward, over the horizon, to the FoxySnaps-promised Blue April. And fellow canon junkies surely expect some followup to Franklin's story as much as all players expect a fix for the Orbital Cannon. Honestly, Rockstar, you gave Lamar a DLC but Hao doesn't make it into Online for even a Triads vs. Khangpae struggle with that one cool truck we thought we would get?!

But I digress. I peraonally just desire the updates to come are more than adding cars to SA Super Auto or just bug fixes in the tuneables; Ihat the content has the same HD Universe narrative depth as these later DLCs have and also shed light on my favorite mystery. As always, thanks for reading! Drop a comment!

Submitted October 16, 2018 at 03:19AM by Str0ngTr33 https://ift.tt/2EoC6M8