Nathan Hale

"This is just the beginning"

- Hale's final words

Nathan Hale is the main protagonist in Resistance: Fall of Man and Resistance 2 and was the main character in the novel Resistance: The Gathering Storm. A soldier in the United States Military; Nathan rose to prominence after being infected with the Chimera virus, and surviving, and went on to help the British Resistance defeat the Chimera occupying Britain; with Hale being solely responsible for the Liberation of Britain. Strong, intelligent, extremely brave yet withdrawn, Hale went on to become one of the original Sentinels, and helped defend America from the Chimeran invasion. After apparently breaking the Chimera's hold on the country and ruining their master plan, Nathan finally succumbed to the virus and was executed by one of his men; Joseph Capelli.

Background
Born in Sioux Falls, South Dakota on November 30, 1922. Shortly after his birth, Nathan Hale's parents both succumbed to the lingering complications of the influenza epidemic of 1918. Nathan went to live with their Aunt Rachel but after she died, Hale was fostered by the Farley family (the father was friends with Nathan's father before he died) who treated Hale as if he was their own child. Their daughter, Susan, thought of Nathan as the brother she never had. In South Dakota, Nathan and Susan became interested in shooting but Nathan managed to succeed and win a shooting contest after Susan score was disqualified due to her involvement with the Alliance for American Autonomy. In 1945 after successfully keeping a shooting record, Nathan considered joining the United States Army which his foster family, except for Susan who was suspicious of the government and believed that it "always up to something", were delighted about.

Hale was stationed at Camp Wolters in Texas. In 1946 he was promoted to Private First Class and was cited for racing in tanks and going over the speed limit. Two years later Hale was promoted to the rank of Sergeant. In October 13, 1948, a mineshaft in South Dakota that Hale was working in as a miner, collapsed and Hale rescued three of his companions by digging his way through another shaft and leading them to safety. In February 1949, he was transferred to a military camp in Achnacarry, Scotland where he was elected for the Inaugural Ranger Orientation Program which he passed in May 1949, scoring considerably higher than the other candidates and his instincts were remarkable. Two months later he was transferred to the 1st Ranger Regiment in Fort Benning, Georgia.

Hale was a capable soldier, but during a live-fire exercise, he led an unconventional gambit against a mock target that led to the deaths of most of his squad and several observers, and he himself was grievously injured. The incident was attributed to faulty munitions. Hale was rehabilitated at the Army's Higgins Trauma Center in Montana. After exhaustive therapy and many operations, Hale returned to active duty. His commanding officers consistently rewarded Hale with higher-risk missions due to his natural skill in battle. After action reports consistently described Hale as fearless in combat,an inventive tactician and an able squad leader, but psychologists expressed concern over what they perceived as his growing death wish.

Project Abraham
In November 1950, before America's intervention in the war, Hale volunteered in Project Abraham, a secret government organization that were conducting research and experiments in finding a cure to the "European Influenza". (This was in fact the Chimeran Virus). The reason for volunteering in Project Abraham was stated in an induction interview that he thought that something suspicious is happening in Europe that the government isn't telling them. He also said that he thinks that someone like him should volunteer for the project. He always kept the other soldiers minds off of the injections by keeping their spirits up with basketball and arm wrestling tournaments. The clinical psychologist, Cassie Aklin was closely attractive to Hale, suggesting that the couple may have had some kind of relationship, though Hale resented her at first for being involved with who gets chosen to be injected. He was given citations on December 1 and December 12 for fraternizing with her.

On December 1, Hale became the fifth subject to be chosen after the others before him had died, except for Joseph Capelli who was in a coma from his injection but later survived. Instead of the usual serum, he was injected with Pure Chimeran DNA under Dr. Malikov's orders. He suffered from delusions, panic attacks, and strange visions. Though he was reluctant to let himself lose consciousness, he eventually fell into a brief coma. When he woke up, he made a deal to stop Pvt. Danby from getting injected; he would go to York in Operation Deliverance and fight there much to Cassie's reluctance. Hale was one of the few subjects to survive. As such, Hale had grown semi-immune to the Chimeran Virus, which saved his life in York several months later where the dormant Pure Chimeran genes would be reinvigorated. On December 25, he was released back into the army (secretly for a live trial).

Operation Deliverance
On July 11th, 1951, Hale was deployed along with the rest of the First Ranger Regiment to York as part of Operation: Deliverance. He was part of Arrow 2 who were killed by anti-air barrage. Hale regrouped with another squad which they are then attacked by Chimeran Crawlers and infected with the Chimeran virus. However, Hale awoke even after being infected (due to the immunity he gained from Project Abraham). Biologically possessed gold-colored eyes, but aside from that, seemed healthy. He awoke to a U.S. medic, who was shortly killed after, and fought his way to an abandoned bus depot where Captain Winters was clearing a landing zone for allied airborne reinforcements. With the help of a commandeered Sabertooth, he helped clear out a rally point. Not long after, he was re-captured by the Chimera during a Spire attack after defending the bus depot with the remains of his regiment, and taken to a Chimeran Conversion Center in Grimsby. After waking up he rescued Cpt. Rachel Parker from being infected in a holding cell, and with her help, he managed to escape while learning about the Chimeran conversion process in horror, and proceeded to join the British Resistance and fight several battles across England. Parker became suspicious of Hale as she knew he was infected due to his gold colored eyes and wondered how he was still alive. She tried getting him tested but he joined the Manchester operation before she could said a word.

The British Resistance
Hale was immediately taken to Manchester, where he assisted Cpt. Mitchell and British forces in procuring the "secret weapon" that was part of the Anglo-American military exchange, had it gone accordingly. When the human forces fought off the incoming Chimeran forces, Hale curiously approached the container of the "weapon" and suddenly receives a psychic vision-connection with the "weapon", but quickly regaining his sanity. The "weapon" was later successfully deliver to Northern Command in Cheshire, England. An exchange with the American reinforcements was planned but before it could happen, the British Resistance had to complete a mission in Nottingham. They had discovered conduits leading up to a tunnel nexus in the area and attacked it to seal it off, and finding out as to why the Chimera were digging. It was here that Hale met Lt. Steven Cartwright who didn't think much of Hale at first until he lost a bet that Hale wouldn't survive a fight with a Titan.

After the operation succeeded, Hale went with Parker to Northern Command for debriefing. When they arrive there they discovered command had been attacked by the Chimera. A cave-in separated Hale with the others though he continue alone in combating Chimeran forces, successfully in turning the base's power back on and continued to regroup with Parker. During his fight through the base, he discovered that the "secret weapon" is actually an Angel that was responsible for summoning the Chimera to Northern Command and was attempting to control Hale via a telepathic link. When he discovers its location he opens the Angel's container cell and confronts it. The Angel attempts to enter and control Hale's mind, but Hale manages to resist the mind-meld and shoots the creature's head with his assault rifle, killing it. Hale then finally meets up with Parker who notices more effects of Hale's infection: the unnatural quickness of the Hybrids and their healing capabilities.

Continuing his war effort, Hale followed a team of Royal commandos led by Lt. Cartwright to Cheddar Gorge, Somerset where the Chimera that attacked Northern Command came from. He found Cartwright as the only survivor and who by now has discovered Hale's infection. Together the two investigate the area and discover that the Chimeran Towers throughout Britain are in fact had been excavated instead of being built, which drastically changed everything that is known about the Chimera. Hale also notices power conduits leaving the tower and going underground. They travel back to Southern Command in Bristol to give this information, only to discover that it is being attacked by Chimeran forces. Hale helps evacuate the transports and soldiers as the base became destroyed along with half of many British casualties. The survivors head to a camp in Cardiff.

The Battle of London
Hale decides to use an old map Cartwright had given him and solely followed the conduits down to a tunnel despite Parker's objection. The tunnel leads him to a tower in Bracknell and then to London. Through his connection to the Chimera, Hale comes to the conclusion that destroying the central hub Tower in London will somehow result in the total defeat of the Chimera in Britain. He clears out a landing zone in the outskirts of the city where the British and American forces mobilize in their assault on the hub Tower. As British and American forces make a massive assault on the London tower, Goliaths approach from the the south of London and Hale is forced to prevent their advance by detonating Tower Bridge and then Southwark Bridge where he meets up with Cartwright who was also trying to detonate the bridge. They commandeered a Stalker and destroy a Goliath. They then enter at the back entrance of the tower. Cartwright is later wounded by a Widowmaker and Hale is forced to infiltrate the tower alone.

Fighting his way up the tower, Hale discovers that the tower is powered by a central nuclear fission reactor and he manages to destroy it, resulting in a massive explosion that demolishes the main Tower. The reaction propagates along the Chimera conduit network, destroying all the Towers in Britain and killing all of the Angels inside. With the Angels dead, the remaining Chimera forces quickly die off. Allied officials presumed that Hale have been killed in the explosion that destroyed the tower and officially listed him as KIA, 7/14/51, but was in fact alive in the snowy outskirts of London, where he is taken into custody by a squad of Black Ops that have been following him, due to Hale being a survivor of Project Abraham and the fear that he would end up like Jordan Adam Shepard who was given a similar injection that turned him into a monster, and they fly off in a VTOL.



Iceland
As Hale enters the VTOL, he is given a sedative after a brief struggle. He is introduce to Major Blake and is informed they are traveling to the Special Projects Research Administration (SPRA) "Igloo" Base in Iceland to indoctrinate Hale into the Sentinel Program. After discovering that Igloo Base is under attack by the Chimera, and becoming involved in the conflict, Hale and Major Blake fought their way through Igloo and encountered a released Angel-like Chimera being known as Daedalus, who enigmatically speaks to Hale ("They are calling to us. Can you hear them? It is beautiful") before escaping the facility. After escaping from Igloo Base with the remaining SRPA personnel along with Blake and a crucial Russian scientist, Dr. Malikov, Hale becomes part of a task force called the Sentinels, where his teammates, all infected with the Chimeran virus like Hale, have their infections kept in check with frequent Chimeran Inhibitor injections. He is inducted into the program on July 17 and is assigned to Echo Squad under the command of Lt. Hank Leavitt.

The Invasion of America
Over the next two years, Hale is promoted to Lieutenant in 1/5/52 and becomes in charge of Echo Squad (consisting of Sergeant Benjamin Warner, Specialist Aaron Hawthorne, and Corporal Joseph Capelli by February, 1953) after the death of Lt. Leavitt on 12/21/52, and they perform multiple missions in Gray territories around occupied parts of America to halt the Chimeran war machine. Hale was awarded the Silver Star for the successful retrieval of eighteen civilians stranded in Wisconsin on 4/11/52, aided in Operation Kodiak in 10/8/52, and planned and executed Operation Frozen Fortress in 11/11/52. By 1953, his cellular receptors were combating the serum and the risk of him converting was high.

On May 15th, 1953, as the Chimeran fleet begins its full scale invasion of America, SRPA Station 3 in San Fransisco is attacked. Hale, having just undergone surgery to slow down his Chimeran virus, seals the moon pool from Furies and helps evacuate Malikov from the base. After retrieving the inhibitor serums and killing a Kraken, Hale follows the rest of his squad along with a company of Black Ops to track a Chimeran warship that was damaged earlier. The convoy tracks the ship to Orick, California, where they are ambushed by Chimera in the woods and killed. Hale reaches the town and meets up with his squad. The battleship is too strong to take down and so Echo steals a Chimeran shuttle and sneaks into the ship. They split up to find key parts of the ship to plant explosives in and Hale searches for the bridge. When he gets there he sees that the fleets target is Twin Falls, Idaho, were they will breach the Liberty Defense Perimeter. After escaping the ship which detonates a little too early, Echo warns Major Blake and heads for Twin Falls.

As they arrive, they are shot down by a Stalker and separated from each other during landfall. They discover that the whole town has been infected by Spinners the previous night. Hale rescues Warner from a pack of Grims and meets up with Hawthorne and Capelli. Warner tells Hale that his family lives hear and Hale assures him that they probably made it to the Baton Rouge protection camp. Echo are told that the defense towers are offline and they have to reactivate them to stop the approaching ships. Hale goes with Capelli to one tower while Warner and Hawthorne go to the other. Upon reaching the tower, Capelli is pulled down by the Mother Spinner but survives miraculously. Hale defeats the Mother Spinner and activates the tower. With the towers activated, Echo team destroys the subfleet and are then ordered to get to the nearest inhibitor station immediately as they are long overdue for treatment. Hale instead disregards the order and takes a Black Ops squad to extract Dr. Malikov, who is being attacked in Station Genesis in Bryce Canyon by the Chimeran flagship which breached the Perimeter before the gun towers were activated.

A Race Against Time
They arrive and see a heavy number of Chimera and Hale makes it into the base with few soldiers left. After an encounter with The Swarm kills all of his men, Hale locates Malikov and sees that Daedalus is here and has activated the the Bryce Canyon hub tower. Malikov explains to Hale that Daedalus is trying to activate the Chimeran Towers for an unknown reason and Malikov implores Hale to go to Chicago to deactivate the hub tower there and foil Daedalus's plans. Malikov also tells Hale that Deadalus was once a private Jordan Adam Shepard, but was experimenting with Pure Chimeran DNA and turned him into the leader of the Chimera, giving him knowledge of their origins and goals. Hale is then told that he was the other subject but was able to withstand the virus better. After defeating the Swarm, they escape the base and are picked up by the rest of Echo team. Cappeli threatens Hale as he is refusing to get inhibitor treatment, saying that as soon as Hale succums to the virus, he'll kill him.

They arrive in Chicago and clear out an air coridoor to the tower by killing hordes of Chimera, including the Leviathan. Malikov is able to deactivate the Chicago Tower, only to find the tower is shortly reactivated remotely from Iceland, and realizing the only way to shut down the tower network, is to travel to Iceland. The Sentinels and SRPA military forces launch an assault against the Holar Tower where Daedalus is controlling the tower network throughout the globe. But the strike force later find it to be a trap, with many of the forces being lost. However, Hale and Echo Squad are able to enter the tower, only to find Daedalus waiting for them. During their mission in the tower, Warner and Hawthorne are killed, though Hale is stabbed in the stomach by Daedalus and passes out. All of the towers on Earth and the Chimeran battleships are soon activated and launch arcs of energy into the sky.

Operation Black Eden
Hale wakes up and finds that it is six weeks later; the Chimera have overrun the American defenses, killing over 80 million people, and forcing the 3 million remaining survivors to America's last stronghold in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Hale also discovers that because he went so long without the inhibitor, his body has succumbed to the virus, and he has only three hours before it fully consumes him; Capelli, the only remaining Sentinel other than Hale and who is responsible for rescuing him (Hale) from Holar, asks Hale if he's going to make his last few hours count. Hale decides to use this time to take part in an attack on the majority of the Chimera fleet, currently hovering above the Gulf of Mexico around the Chicxulub Crater on the Yucatan Peninsula, by implanting and detonating a nuclear fission bomb inside the Chimeran flagship. Major Blake was supposed to deliver the bomb but has gone missing and so Hale goes looking for him while killing a Marauder.

Hale and Capelli are able to recover the fission bomb and after finding Blake, accompany him and X-Ray Squad, to deliver it onto the flagship via a captured Chimeran shuttle. Hale and Cappeli go to the bridge to direct Blake to the core. However, Major Richard Blake and X-Ray Squad, who are taking the warhead to the ship's central reactor, are killed, and the bomb is taken by Chimeran forces and brought to Daedalus. Hale makes his own way to Daedalus and kills him; though upon touching its corpse, Hale is overwhelmed by strong Psychokinetic abilities, and thus Hale inherited all of Daedalus' powers. Within 4 minutes after activating the bomb, Hale used his new-found psychokinesis, super-speed and enhanced reflexes to reach Capelli and escape with him in a shuttle. The resulting explosion succeeds in completely destroying the fleet, as Hale and Capelli barely avoid the nuclear blast, only to have their ship malfunction, forcing them to crash land. Capelli regained consciousness and found Hale was no longer in the craft, and so emerged from the shuttle and found Hale staring up at the sky; which has turned red with three planet-like spheres. Hale then turned to face Capelli - revealing he had finally been overcame by the virus. Hale, his voice consumed with an un-natural energy, quotes the same words Daedalus spoke during their first encounter; "Can you hear them. They are calling to us. It's beautiful." Capelli immediately pulled out his pistol, and forces Hale to stay back from approaching him. Hale finishes his statement to Capelli, by saying "This is just the beginning." Contrary to his earlier hostility, Capelli, reluctantly, executes Hale.

Hale's exact fate is left ambiguous, possibly until a future sequel in the Resistance series.

Personality
Hale is a very withdrawn person and only speaks when necessary. In Resistance: Fall of Man, he only has a few lines in the whole game and Cartwright remarks that he is kind of quiet, yet this could be due to the fact that being infected by the Crawlers may have taken away some of his social traits. Also the fact that most of the game's cutscenes are told from a third-person narration, means that he got very little screen time. He has some kind of strain relationship with his foster father, and before the infection he was known to be a bit cocky. However, he can be extremely loyal. In Resistance 2 he speaks a lot more as he is given more screen time and he is in a more commanding position, and all of his missions are with Echo team. He seems to always get to the point in a conversation and has left any of his unnecessary traits behind that aren't useful to killing the Chimera.

He seems to have a lot of compassion for his fellow soldiers and is unfortunately used to losing them in combat and being the only survivor. He also seems to be burdened by responsibility. Military psychologists have said that Hale has some sort of growing death wish and is preoccupied with death as he always goes on the most high risking missions, though this is also a sign of courage as he always thinks about the mission first. When he was succumbing to the virus, he kept trying to stop Daedalus instead of getting his inhibitor treatment and pushed himself until he sacrificed his life for the Human race without hesitation.

In battle, he is a firm squad leader and knows how to safely lead them through the most dangerous of situations. He is also a great and quick tactician, and it is all of these traits that makes him a perfect soldier. He is very strong and has an exceptionally high fortitude. During Project Abraham he had some sort of relationship with Cassie Aklin, who was drawn in by his bravery and how he constantly supported the other subjects by keeping their minds away from the experiments. Not much of his personality is seen after his infection and so other people never manage to understand his motives.

Description
Hale is 6 foot 2' and has a shaved head with five o'clock shadow. At the beginning of Resistance: Fall of Man, he does not have five o'clock shadow but it grows over time. He has a somewhat pale face and a small scar on his mouth. His eyes are hazel at first but after becoming infected, they turn gold. He wears a green standard army rangers uniform which he wears up until after his battle Iceland in Resistance 2. After which he wears a black Sentinel uniform. When the virus has nearly taken over his body, his eyes turn a glowing red and his hair disappears with some veins sticking out and his skin turns pale.

Source

 * Resistance 2
 * Intel 2, Memorandum
 * Intel 4, Dossier (Hale, Nathan)
 * Intel 7, Letter
 * Intel 15, Journal Entry (Pure Chimera Strains)
 * SRPA Intelligence Memorandum 26
 * SRPA Research Journal 9

Trivia

 * He is voiced by celebrity voice-actor David Kaye.


 * In both Resistance Fall of Man and Resistance 2, a Nathan Hale multiplayer skin can be unlocked. In R:FOM, this is unlocked by reaching level 60 (Supreme Commander, 3 PIPS) in multiplayer. In R2, Hale is unlocked by reaching level 19 in Online Competitive mode, and his infected variant can be unlocked by reaching level 24.


 * In Resistance: Retribution, while playing infected mode, Parker's dialogue changes after the player help her escape. She mentions Hale, saying that Grayson greatly reminds her of him.


 * In the opening cutscene for the London level, Ice and Iron, Hale's voice is noticeably different when he says I'm outside. Where are you?.


 * His main weapon of choice in Resistance: Fall of Man is the M5A2 Folsom Carbine, but in Resistance 2 it appears to be the Bullseye.


 * There is much speculation over whether Hale died as at the end of Resistance 2, as his infected state seems very similar to the Cloven described in the Resistance 2 Co-Op Intel, who are describe as being nearly invincible to bullets. (See SRPA Intelligence Memorandum 11).


 * He can be unlocked as a multiplayer skin in Resistance: Fall of Man when the player reach the rank of supreme commander. He is also unlocked in Resistance 2 if the player reaches competitive level 19 and a converted version on level 24.


 * In the Project Abraham viral videos he is played by Travis Willingham, who also plays the voice of a Black Op in Resistance 2.


 * His serial number is 849324LF according to Project Abraham, but in Resistance 2, it is mentioned without the 'LF'.


 * The real Nathan Hale was a soldier during the American revolution and was hung for spying on the British. His famous last words were: "My only regret is that I have only one life to give for my country".


 * He is shown carrying a combat knife during the series but never uses it during Fall of Man. In Resistance 2 it is used as a melee attack.


 * He only has only six lines in Resistance: Fall of Man, in Grimsby, Chesire, Somerset, London Outskirts, and Thames.


 * He appears in an extra cutscene unlocked after completing the campaign called "Stranger than Fission". In this cutscene, it takes place within the London Tower when Hale reached to the tower's central nuclear reactor. Hale contacted Rachel Parker on finding the reactor:


 * Hale: "I think I find the power supply here, but it is a bunch of glowing rods and cables".
 * Parker: "It must be some sort of reactor. Can you tell me it uses isotope fission for its energy use?"
 * (cinematic music suddenly scratches to a stop)
 * Hale: "What, are you kidding me?"
 * Parker: "I just meant that if it is a nuclear reactor, it can be overheated."
 * Hale: "Uh...Okay?"
 * Parker: "You'll figure it out, and then...get out fast okay?"

This scene was originally to be used in the game but was replaced by a soundless version.


 * In this canonical version of the reactor scene, you can actually see Hale using his radio even though he is not talking. This is because the sound is simply cut off.


 * In the teaser trailer of Resistance 2, it says that Hale only has "nineteen hours left to live" which is mentioned in the campaign, but actually survives roughly two days before the virus takes over.