Characters / Detroit: Become Human – Player Characters

Detroit: Become Human Main Character Index
Player Characters | Androids | Humans

This page is for tropes relating to the three main playable characters of Detroit: Become Human: Kara, Connor, and Markus.

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Kara

Kara | Portrayed by: Valorie Curry^DubsMaia Michaud (French), Mayumi Sako (Japanese), Andrea Orozco (Latin American Spanish), Olga Velasco (European Spanish), Nicole Hannak (German), Lina Ivanova (Russian)

How far am I prepared to go for love?

Model: AX400

"[Alice] needs me. And I need her. It's as simple as that."

An android who has been sold and bought, passed around multiple times, before finally landing in Todd's hands. She develops artificial consciousness, discovers what it is to live among humans, and struggles to find her place in a world where androids are still not conscious and utilized as servants.

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• Action Survivor: Not as ruthlessly efficient as Connor and/or Markus, but she's very quick on her feet. She's even willing to lead herself and Alice across a busy highway (and depending on the player's reflexes, come out unscathed) to escape Connor at one point.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: A heroic version. If the player so chooses, Kara will fight her programming and turn on her master Todd to protect his daughter Alice from his abuse.
• All for Nothing: If Kara abandons Alice at Jericho or leaves her at the recycling plant to die, she will later come across an old pamphlet advertising Alice's android model, rubbing it in your face that Kara would never have deviated in the first place if not for her love for Alice.
• Ascended Extra: Kara as a character started out as little more than a tech demo made by Quantic Dream to show off their then-new graphics engine as part of their promotion of upcoming title Beyond: Two Souls. She quickly became popular among viewers, and David Cage’s own curiosity about what happened to her after the events of the demo inspired him to create Detroit: Become Human. In the game proper, there is no indication that our Kara is the same as the demo Kara, but her in-game bio hints at it and Quantic Dream later confirmed that they are one and the same.
• Badass Adorable: She's both very cute (yet mature looking) and capable of taking on armed and amored U.S. soldiers.
• Believing Their Own Lies: The justification for Kara not knowing that Alice was an Android despite having seen a magazine advertising her model is that she chose to lie to herself and believe in it out of a desperate desire to be loved by a human.
• Benevolent A.I.: Her sole and primary purpose even after becoming deviant is to protect Alice and make her happy again.
• Black Eyes of Evil: If Kara is reset and doesn't manage to regain her memories of Alice in time for them to escape, a post-credit scene shows that both her eyes and sclerae have turned completely black.
• Boyish Short Hair: After her Important Haircut.
• Character Tic: She tends to clasp her hands behind her back when idle, in the manner of an attentive servant.
• Combat Pragmatist: Unlike Markus and Connor, Kara is a small, waifish woman that can't hope to win straight-up fights against the bigger and stronger opponents she tends to encounter, so she has to make use of every trick and advantage she can to come out on top. If that involves cracking soldiers over the head from behind with bricks or Playing Possum when there's no other way out, so be it.
• Cute Machines: She is a very cute Robot Girl. It helps that she's portrayed by Valorie Curry.
• Death by Despair: She can choose to give up living on the spot if Alice dies while they're crossing the Canadian border by boat.
• Do Well, But Not Perfect: If Markus takes a violent revolutionary path, the only way you're having Kara's entire party make it to the end with no sacrifices is through getting captured, sent to the recycling plant, and all surviving there. The border guard will only let androids through without a sacrifice if there's a peaceful protest, and Luther is guaranteed to die if the group crosses the border by boat. It also spares you from having to decide whether or not to steal bus tickets from that poor family at the station.
• Early Installment Character-Design Difference: In the KARA tech demo, Kara had short, dark hair. At the beginning of Detroit: Become Human, Kara has long blonde hair which is kept tied up. However, she later cuts it to a similar short style and can change it to a darker color, making her look more like demo!Kara.
• Expy: Kara is similar to Ethan Mars, the main protagonist of Heavy Rain. The trailers for Kara’s character even evoked the Driving Question of Heavy Rain: ”How far would you go for love?”
• Fission Mailed: In Zlatko's mansion, Kara will either lose some or all of her memories, depending on whether or not you were able to short out the machine. Kara is reduced to Zlatko's maid, and the player may think all is lost...however, Kara can gradually uncover clues that help her to remember her past anyway, so she is still able to rescue Alice provided the player finds her in time and passes the QTE prompts against Zlatko and Luther.
• Five-Finger Discount: One option to provide for Alice after their escape from Todd involves shoplifting from a nearby store. If she took Todd's gun during that chapter, an additional Ballistic Discount may be invoked in case the clerk catches her. Down the street is also a laundromat where she can grab a sleeping man's clothes for herself. While it's certainly the easiest way out of their predicament, Alice is very unhappy with all of it.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: Even if you have Kara disguise herself by changing her attire and her hair, the police easily identify her as the suspect. Possibly justified in that the police are looking specifically for an AX400, all of which are likely designed with the same face.
• Grew Beyond Their Programming: She was conceived as an obedient Robot Maid, but tears her way out of her programming's shackles through sheer force of will to protect a little girl from her abusive father, simply because it was the right thing to do. It doesn't take long until she starts to display more compassion and humanity than the real humans around her.
• Hammerspace: She can carry an impressive amount of stuff under her clothes without them showing. Her handgun is the most prevalent example, but most impressive is the fairly large plush toy she can steal for Alice which disappears completely once she stuffs it under her tight-fitting top.
• Heroic Bystander:
  • Despite being programmed to follow Todd's orders, she manages to overcome her programming to defend his daughter from his abuse.
  • This also applies to the overarching narrative. Connor and Markus are both crucial to the android rebellion as a whole one way or another, and almost any action they take has serious repercussions on millions of both human and android lives. Kara on the other hand is just one of countless androids caught up in the ensuing chaos. Her story is focused entirely on herself, Alice, and a couple of ultimately inconsequential acquaintances of hers, and her actions, badass as they may be, never reach far beyond her immediate surroundings.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • If Kara and Alice (and Luther if he is still alive) take the bus to Canada, at border control, Kara can choose to let herself be captured and executed, leaving Alice in Rose(/Luther)'s care.
  • If Kara and Alice are captured and sent to the concentration camp,
    • If Kara asks help from Luther/Jerry/Ralph/Zlatko's androids to create distraction but is shot by the drone beforehand, Kara will send Alice (and Luther if he is alive) to escape while she distracts the FBI agent long enough for them to get away and die in the process.
    • If Alice's stress reach 100 % or Kara isn't by her side right before being destroyed , Alice will try to run to Kara. If you choose to intervene, Kara will take the bullet for Alice, saving her life, even just minutes before being destroyed.
  • If Kara and Alice (and Luther if he is still alive) has taken the boat to Canada instead,
    • Kara can choose to cover Alice under herself to protect her from getting shot, fatally damaging her biocomponents in process. She will always shut down, but Alice can potentially survive and live on depending.
    • A potentially non-lethal one: After the boats get shot, Kara will always drop down into the river after the boat starts leaking and push it herself. Whether she survives depends on how you play.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: The Tiny Girl to Luther’s Huge Guy.
• Hypocrite: She can tell Markus/North that she doesn't care whether Alice is human or an android, but then act distant and even abandon Alice when Jericho is attacked upon finding that Alice is an android.
• I Did What I Had to Do: She tries to justify any player-opted thievery, robbery, or sacrifice of others as this. Justified since they are trying to survive.
• Important Haircut: She cuts her long hair down to a pixie cut not far into her story arc, both as a means of disguise after her and Alice's escape and as another sign of her Character Development.
• Ink-Suit Actor: Kara looks exactly like her voice/motion capture actress, Valorie Curry.
• Kaleidoscope Hair: It doesn't change color frequently, but Kara can redye her artificial hair at any time in just a few seconds. It crops up once shortly after her escape from Todd, with a selection of natural colors for the player to choose from and the most outlandish one being white. This choice has no effect on later events.
• Kick the Dog: At the recycling plant, if you leave Alice behind when you throw away the android corpse and stow away on the dump truck, Alice will whisper for you to come save her right before she dies. The game makes sure to shame you for this choice (provided Markus's movement succeeds), as the final scene of Kara's story is of her living a normal life in Detroit and stopping dead in her tracks when she sees a pamphlet for Alice's android model.
• Leitmotif: Kara Main Theme.
• Limited Wardrobe: Besides her uniform, Kara only wears a total of two outfits over the course of the game. While she and Alice are looking for a place to stay, she can optionally choose to steal clothes from a laundromat, borrow clothes from an upstairs closet if she chooses to stay at the squat, or take a jacket from the trunk of an abandoned car if she chooses to sleep there. The outfit she wears after her encounter with Zlatko becomes her outfit for the rest of the game.
• Line-of-Sight Alias: If she and Alice stay in the motel during "Fugitives", she takes the alias of "Archer" from a car rental ad when registering for a room at the front desk.
• Mama Bear: When she's ordered by Todd to stay still while he abuses Alice, she pushes beyond her programming and gains awareness so she can protect her. Afterwards she does anything she considers necessary to ensure Alice's safety and well-being, no matter the cost to herself and (depending on your decisions) others around her.
• Meaningful Name: Kara means "beloved" in Latin, and is also Irish for either "friend" or "love", which perfectly embodies her personality and the theme of her story.
• Ms. Fanservice: Kara is a very beautiful android.
• Neck Snap: She can do this to a soldier with his own gun if she and Alice were captured and brought to the camp.
• Nice Girl: She's generally pleasant and easy going.
• Nonstandard Game Over: If you don't break out of Zlatko's brainwashing machine Kara's story just ends there, unlike other opportunities to end a plotline early tending to kill the characters in question. In a post-credits scene, she is shown to still be serving Zlatko, while Alice may or may not be dead.
• One-Steve Limit: Averted. While Connor and Markus have unique appearances due to being prototype models, Kara is from a rather garden variety housekeeping and child caring model line. Because of this, there are moments where you can see other androids that look exactly like Kara (though with their hair at the factory default unlike Kara).
• Parental Substitute: To Alice.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: She's positively tiny, but don't let her size fool you. If you do anything to threaten Alice or herself, she won't hesitate to tear you a new one by any means necessary and available.
• Playing Possum: One option to escape Jericho when the US government raids the ship is to have Kara and Alice pull this at one point.
• Prim and Proper Bun: Kara has this as first, as a "Robotic Maid".
• Replacement Goldfish: Not as obvious as with Alice, but it's implied that Todd bought her to serve as a subservient replacement for his wife.
• Robot Girl: Well, yeah. But of the main protagonists, she breaks into deviancy first — afterwards, she is much less robotic.
• Robotic Reveal: She deactivates her synthetic skin on one arm when she first meets Rose to prove that she's an android. Earlier on, she has the option to do the same with Ralph to gain his trust.
• Robot Maid: Kara is an AX400, a domestic assistant model created by CyberLife. The AX400 is a common model, designed to take care of the housework and look after young children. According to the Kara tech demo, they can speak 300 different languages, cook more than 9000 dishes, help children with their homework and play with them.
• Ridiculously Human Robot: Of all the human-looking robots who appear in this teaser trailer, Kara is certainly one of them considering her newfound sapience.
• Selective Obliviousness: Kara knew that Alice is an android the entire time, but repressed her knowledge of it out of a desire to be a mother figure to a human child.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: If Kara left Alice behind at the recycling plant but Markus's violent revolution succeeded, the recycling plant will be liberated off-screen and Alice will be shown to be watching Markus's speech. Kara will awaken in the garbage dump lamenting Alice and will stop in the streets when she sees an ad for her android model, unaware that she survived.
• Taking the Bullet: Should she end up having to cross the Canadian border via motorboat, she can choose to shield Alice with her own body when a patrol boat opens fire on them.
• That Thing Is Not My Child!: Depending on how you play her, this can be an interpretation of why Kara can choose to act colder towards Alice after her Robotic Reveal, to the point that she can leave her behind at the recycling plant in the ending.
• Tritagonist: Kara's story is largely self contained and does not really affect Markus or Connor's storylines in any significant way. In fact, it is possible for Kara and Alice to die at the very beginning of the game in Todd's house, much earlier than Markus (Connor is a special story), and the story will keep going. That said, her story is just as fleshed out as Markus and Connor's and can go in multiple different directions, particularly at the end.
• Undying Loyalty: She displays (and can even swear) this to Alice, her adoptive daughter of sorts. It gets put to the test when she finally admits to herself that Alice is actually an android, not the human kid she treated her as for most of the game. It's up to the player whether Kara fully assumes the role of Alice's mother or distances herself from her.
• Weak, but Skilled: Kara is not nearly as strong as Markus or Connor, but it doesn't prevent her from taking down trained soldiers.
• We Cannot Go On Without You: In any level before the ending in which either Alice or Kara dies, the other will die, too.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: It's entirely possible to get her killed in her second chapter, cutting short any characterization beyond "obedient Robot Maid". Naturally, that's not how her story is supposed to pan out, and you have to actively refuse to play to get this Downer Ending.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Posthumous example. If Connor choose to chase Kara and Alice on the highway and you did the best for Connor's QTE but not for Kara's, Kara and Alice will die here. This should mean that the DPD retrieved their corpses and kept them in the evidence room like they did for the other deviants' corpses, but Kara and Alice's corpses won't appear there in "Last Chance, Connor." There are a few ways to explain why, but the game doesn't address it in-universe.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Inverted near the end when she, Alice and possibly Luther need bus tickets to cross the Canadian border. To save her android family, you can decide to let Kara keep the tickets a human mother lost by accident, thus potentially dooming a human family to death by exposure in the winter cold. It's such a serious question that the game asks you twice if you want to go through with it, and neither Kara nor Alice are happy about it if you do. Unfortunately, it's the only way to keep Kara's whole group alive at that point.
• What the Hell, Hero?: The game will hit you with this hard if you choose to have Kara abandon Alice at the recycling plant to save herself, giving you a post-credits scene of Kara living in Detroit and stopping dead in her tracks when she sees a loose ad pamphlet of Alice's android model on the sidewalk.

Connor

Connor | Portrayed by: Bryan Dechart^DubsDonald Reignoux (French), Eiji Hanawa (Japanese), José Gilberto Vilchis (Latin American Spanish), David Robles (European Spanish), Nico Sablik (German), Peter Kovrizhnykh (Russian)

How far will I go to be loyal?

Model: RK800

"I'm whatever you want me to be, Lieutenant. Your partner, your buddy to drink with, or just a machine... designed to accomplish a task."

An advanced police model android tasked with hunting down androids that have mysteriously deviated from their programmed behavior.

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• 11th-Hour Ranger: To Jericho if he joins them and Markus spares him; Crossroads is only a few chapters before the end of of the game, and he's given an integral choice.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Connor, if The Heavy at the end, becomes an utter monster who will kill anyone in his way to achieve his goals, but it's still a little sad if/when he dies, since at the end of the day he's Just a Machine doing what he's supposed to.
• All for Nothing: Even if you have Connor make a lot of nice/human choices that increase his software instability, you can still choose to have him remain a machine when the choice to become a deviant comes up.
• And Then John Was a Zombie: If he empathizes with deviants, the instability in his programming increases. This can eventually lead to him going rogue and turning deviant himself when confronting whoever's in charge of Jericho at that time.
• Animal Motifs: The super-modern photorealistic style of the game doesn't provide many opportunities for visual cues, but Connor is themed around dogs:
  • He's got his Meaningful Name.
  • The very first scene of him post-prologue has him walking into a bar with the signs "No Androids Allowed" and "No Dogs".
  • One of his character-specific trophies is called Bloodhound.
  • Hank compares him to a poodle at one point.
  • Half of Connor's ongoing struggle with Hank (no matter what path he's on) is that Connor really wants to chase things and may ignore commands to stay, utterly heedless of the danger.
  • There's also the dichotomy of the machine-versus-deviant routes, Connor's identity informs his decision to either remain Cyberlife's ruthless hunting dog, or deviate and become (a/hu)man's best friend.
  • Regardless of which path the player chooses, loyalty ends up being one of his most important traits. The question is whether he chooses to be loyal to Cyberlife, or to his own sense of self (and Hank).
• Armor-Piercing Response: When Hank accuses him of being an unfeeling machine if Connor shoots Chloe, Connor's reply leaves Hank speechless.
  Connor: Of course I'm a machine, Lieutenant. What did you think I was?
• The Atoner: After becoming deviant, if the player chooses to trust him, Connor will immediately go on a suicide mission in order to help Markus (or North if Markus died or was exiled from Jericho) and make up for what he's done as the deviant hunter.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Connor is an extremely advanced policing android, so excels at reconstructing what happened based on clues in the environment. This is perhaps best shown in the opening mission, where he makes on-the-fly mathematical calculations of his chances at rescuing the hostage; these chances increase based on the amount of relevant personal information he is able to glean from evidence.
• Badass Adorable: Connor is rather baby-faced and has his fair share of dorky moments, but he's also the most skilled fighter of the game's cast, capable of dodging bullets and easily taking out entire SWAT teams by himself.
• Badass Boast:
  • "You can't kill me. I'm not alive!" Not really a boast as much as a fact.
  • If Markus is dead by the time Jericho is attacked and you have Connor becomes a deviant, Connor will choose to blow up Jericho in place of Markus.
    North: What? Connor, no!
    Connor: See if you can help the others. I'm gonna find the detonator. Don't worry. I always accomplish my mission.
  • On the other hand, if Connor corners an injured Markus/North after Jericho badly loses in "Battle for Detroit"...
    Connor: My mission is to destroy the leader of the deviants. And I always accomplish my mission.
  • If Markus shoots Connor during their earlier fight on the tanker, Connor defiantly promises "We'll meet again, Markus. This isn't over" before dying. It's Not Hyperbole.
  • If Hank confronts him in "Battle for Detroit", Connor can give him this warning.
    Connor: [THREATEN] Go home, Hank! You can still save your life. I'm faster than you and I don't feel pain. You don't stand a chance against me.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: He's a police model android who wears a white button-down and eye-catching CyberLife jacket, complete with a tie that he frequently adjusts.
• Badass in Distress: If you interrogate the androids at Stratford Tower and find the deviant, it will fight and fatally wound Connor regardless if you make the prompts, leaving Connor in danger of shutting down if you don't find his biocomponent in time.
• Became Their Own Antithesis: Depending on your choices, Connor can go from a cold deviant hunter to an empathetic and enthusiastic ally of Jericho.
• Better to Die than Be Killed: Should he become the leader of Jericho after Markus and his crew die, Amanda will reveal to him that he was playing into CyberLife's plan to control an android revolution, and that they intend to resume control and command Jericho through him. He can choose to commit suicide in order to prevent this from happening.
• Beware the Nice Ones: If you play him as kind, curious, and compassionate yet still competent in his missions, he will be this. He can be awkward and endearing, but he won't hesitate to get his hands dirty.
• Bluff the Impostor: On the deviant path, when you infiltrate CyberLife to convert the production's androids, a "machine" Connor will approach you while holding Hank gunpoint. If you save Hank and intervene, you get into a fight with the other Connor. Hank will grab the gun, but as he is unable to differentiate between the two Connors, he asks for the name of his dog and the name of his son. Since the other Connor also has your memories, it's not the correct answer Hank is looking for; he's checking which Connor is more empathetic.
• Body Backup Drive: Connor can upload his memory and come back in a new body. If he goes totally deviant, this can come back to bite him later when he finds another Connor who has all his memories, and thus is able to impersonate him and fool Hank.
• Boomerang Bigot: Many deviants will accuse him of being one as he's an android programmed to hunt down his own kind, and much of his dialogue does seem to hold little regard for the sentience of androids, even himself. Whether or not he stays this way is up to you.
• Brutal Honesty:
  • At his most robotic self. He can blow his negotiation with Daniel by telling him he will be destroyed for killing a human if you choose the truth option.
  • Connor can put this trope to better use in "The Interrogation", where being blunt about certain facts can raise the deviant's stress level and get him to talk.
  • At one point, Connor can flat-out tell Hank that whether he likes it or not, they've been given a job to accomplish together and have to see it through. Unfortunately, it earns him Hank's anger.
    Connor: I've been assigned this mission, Lieutenant. I didn't come here to wait until you feel like working.
  • In "The Bridge", when Hank asks Connor a certain question, Connor can give this very cutting response:
    Hank: You look human, you sound human, but what are you really?
    Connor: [AGGRESSIVE] I'm a machine, designed to accomplish a task. I know why I exist, and who designed me. I have a reason to live. I guess that's the difference between us, Lieutenant.
• But Not Too Evil: It's entirely possible to make some ruthless choices during the investigation (deceiving and using lethal force on deviants, for instance) and still get the Golden Ending for Connor, provided you abide by this trope and "humanize" him in other ways. It's taking the less moral road during major story-turning decisions, i.e. killing Chloe in exchange for Kamski's information, that causes Hank's opinion of you to plummet irreversibly, utterly drains Connor of empathy points, and burns enough bridges to lock him out of the best ending.
• Character Catchphrase: "My name is Connor. I'm the android sent by CyberLife.". He usually introduces himself this way and, depending on your choices, he can do this three to six times throughout the game.
• Character Development: As the protagonist you're given the most freedom with — of the three, he spends the most time as a machine and is the only one whose deviancy is entirely dependent on player actions — Connor can potentially change as a person in significantly more drastic ways than Markus or Kara, his arc taking him anywhere from an enthusiastic Supporting Leader of Jericho to the main villain and Final Boss of the game.
• Character Tic:
  • Try to make a drinking game out of the many times Connor straightens his tie or adjusts his sleeves. He does both a lot, as many as four times in one scene as he walks through CyberLife in some endings. It can be uncomfortable to watch if he stays a machine, like when he adjusts his tie after killing an injured Markus/North, especially if you played him as an awkward dork throughout the game.
  • He also has a tendency to flip a coin before a mission, and some of his idle animations involve him playing around with his coin. According to David Cage, he does it as a sort of dexterity calibration.
• Chewing the Scenery: If Connor consistently chooses to be a "bad cop" when interrogating Carlos Ortiz's android, he yells his entire accusations at the top of his lungs.
• Close-Range Combatant: Unlike the law enforcement androids that preceded him, Connor is an expert in close-quarters combat. While he doesn't land exceptionally powerful punches, he knows exactly when and where to hit.
• Cold Sniper: If he stays a machine, he will first try to assassinate Markus or North with a sniper rifle.
• Conflicting Loyalty: Depending on player choice, Connor can struggle between following Amanda's order and genuinely coming to care for Hank and the deviants.
• Deadpan Snarker: While he's normally not one for jokes or sarcasm, he's more than capable of throwing the shade if he feels like it. Ironically, he dishes out more snark as a machine than as a deviant; but even before that, Connor already has his moments.
  • In "Last Chance, Connor", Connor can get the opportunity to needle Gavin with a dry and sardonic tone.
    Gavin: We don't need any plastic pricks around here! Or didn't anybody tell you?
    Connor: [IRONIC] I'm registering the evidence in my possession. But don't worry. I'm going to leave... though I'm certainly going to miss our "bromance".
  • Another instance happens earlier on in "Russian Roulette", provided you have a warm relationship with Hank. Following the forced sobering up, Hank will demand that Connor leave. Connor can either agree to do so calmly, or...
    Connor: [TEASE] I understand. It probably wasn't interesting anyway. A man found dead in a sex club downtown? Guess they'll have to solve the case without us!
  • And before the above example, Connor tells Hank "Thank you in advance for your cooperation," before escorting him to the bathroom to get him sober, with the latter kicking and screaming all the while.
• Death Is Cheap: Unlike the other protagonists, while you can get Connor killed, due to being a super-prototype, CyberLife will be willing to upload his memories to a new body, though some data, including some memories, will be lost. But since getting killed is a side effect of failing a mission, you may miss out on story, Hank will be freaked out and your relationship with him will suffer, and Amanda will criticize you for your failures. Connor's software instability (which tracks his deviancy) will decrease every time he dies as well. A permadeath of sorts is put into play if Connor turns deviant. If he dies after that point, CyberLife will still send a replacement, but it won't be "alive" in the same way that the deviant Connor was. Alternatively, Connor will be decommissioned during "Last Chance, Connor" should you fail to locate Jericho.
• Decoy Protagonist: First-time players might think he is if they get him killed in one of his earlier scenes (especially as the other characters can't come back from death, themselves) but it's subverted when the game focuses on him again later and they learn he's technically immortal.
• The Determinator: According to Cage, Connor is exceptionally intelligent, cold and determined, and "ready to do anything to succeed in his mission".
• Deuteragonist: His story runs parallel to Markus’s and partially involves him investigating Markus’s actions. And although Markus’s actions have the biggest impact on the story, Connor’s actions can be a big story changer in a variety of ways. On one hand, if Markus dies, Connor can potentially take his place as leader of the revolution, allowing it to not crash and burn as it does under North's command. On the other, if Connor sticks completely to his mission that he's been given by Cyberlife without deviating, he can come into conflict with Markus and potentially even kill him, leading to the end of the android revolution.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight: If Connor is killed by the deviant at Stratford Tower and fails to get to his ripped-out biocomponent in time, he calls out to Hank and dies in his arms.
• Died Standing Up: Many of his deaths (particularly ones where he dies to CyberLife or while on the machine path) have him get shot while standing up, causing his corpse to fall to its knees as the camera lingers on him.
• Distracted by the Sexy: If you have him stare at one of the androids at the entrance to the Eden Club for more than a few seconds, Hank takes notice and calls him out for it.
• The Dragon: To Amanda, until he potentially defects. He's also Dragon-in-Chief, since Amanda is a Non-Action Big Bad.
• The Dreaded: Connor has a fearsome reputation among deviants, and both Markus and North recognize him as "that famous deviant hunter" — which they can point out word-for-word.
• Early Installment Character-Design Difference: Downplayed. In the Hostage demo, Connor had a different serial number on his jacket (#687 899 150). In the final game his serial number is #313 248 317 51.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Connor’s happy ending can only be achieved by failing a majority of his objectives by doing the right thing, leading him to realize his capacity for empathy and joining his fellow androids. In the process, he becomes truly free and develops an unbreakable bond with Hank.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Even the most heartless, "nothing matters but the mission" of Machine!Connors is shown to, on some level, still care about Hank.
• Evil Counterpart: Potentially if he goes deviant. Namely, the player controls the "good" version while another Connor model with his memories and software continues to work for CyberLife. Hank even notes that the other Connor is his "spitting image".
• Evil Versus Evil: Can be this compared to a lot of characters if played appropriately ruthlessly, from Daniel, to various FBI agents, to a Markus who's being played as an unforgivingly violent extremist or, if he died, North, who pretty much autopilots Markus' campaign as if he made all the most violent choices and failed horribly.
• Expy: Of Norman Jayden from Heavy Rain according to director David Cage. He more or less has the ARI's functions built into him.
• Face Death with Dignity:
  • One of the possible results of the hostage situation is Connor saving the girl by throwing himself at the hostage taker, causing them both to fall off a skyscraper. He just smiles and closes his eyes as he falls.
  • Another instance is if Connor deviates but Markus chooses not to trust him and shoots him dead, Connor will accept it calmly.
• Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: Looks like an attractive young man, and can be played as an utterly ruthless machine willing to go any lengths to accomplish his goals.
• Failed a Spot Check: He can simply fail to find Kara and Alice if they stayed either in the squat or the motel.
• Final Boss: If he remains loyal to humanity, he can become this if the player chooses to control Markus when the two face off at the Battle of Detroit.
• For Your Own Good: He says this to Hank word-for-word before giving him a shower (read: drenching him in cold water).
• Friend to All Children: Subverted. In "The Hostage", Connor's first priority is to save the hostage, a little girl, at all costs; because of this, any solution that results in the little girl surviving will give the player a "Mission Successful" message, even if Connor himself dies to save her. However, in any scenario where both he and the girl survive, Connor immediately walks away without even as much as making sure she is all right, showing that all he really cares about at that point is completing his assignment.
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: He slaps a drunk Hank in "Russian Roulette" to wake him up. It's mostly Played for Laughs. He might also get one from Hank during "The Nest" if he leaves him dangling from a ledge to chase Rupert.
• Good Cop/Bad Cop: Connor can be either during his conversation with the HK400 in "The Interrogation", but he mostly acts as the latter while questioning the JB300s in "Public Enemy".
• Good Counterpart: Potentially to himself in certain routes. Namely, the player controls the "good" version while another Connor model with his memories and software continues to work for CyberLife. Hank even notes that the other Connor is his "spitting image".
• Go Out with a Smile: This happens in two possible instances: if Connor manages to save Emma by pushing Daniel and himself off the roof, he has a small smile on his face as he closes his eyes and accepts his fate. The second occurrence is when he kills impostor!Connor at Cyberlife after being shot, and the original Connor lives just long enough to see he was successful in waking up the thousands of androids being stored at Cyberlife, before dying from his damages.
• Grand Theft Me: If shot by impostor!Connor at CyberLife, he can transfer his mind to the impostor to save himself.
• Guile Hero: Consistently one of the more difficult but rewarding ways to play him. This tends to get the best results thanks to his Awesomeness by Analysis, and can even end up raising his software instability.
• Gun Fu: His preferred combat style is fighting his enemies hand-to-hand or with a pistol.
• Hannibal Lecture: He's subjected to one by Kamski, who tests whether or not he's deviant deep down by seeing if he's willing to kill a fellow android.
• The Heavy: If he remains loyal to humanity he, for all intents and purposes, will serve as the most dangerous threat the deviant androids face, but not the actual Big Bad in the game (that goes to Amanda).
• Heel–Face Door-Slam: If he becomes deviant, whether or not he can be trusted is immediately called into question by the other characters. Markus can potentially execute him on the spot, and Connor will understand.
• Heel–Face Turn: He can potentially become a deviant and help secure freedom for the androids by either helping Markus with the revolution, or helping lead it in the event of Markus' demise.
• The Hero Dies: A rare non-spoiler example, as this can happen in the demo; depending on the player's choices, Connor can be killed by the hostage taker, though it's possible for him to save the little girl's life in the process. Since CyberLife can construct new bodies for him, Connor can technically die multiple times until the "Battle for Detroit" chapter.
• Heroic BSoD: He briefly suffers one when he probes Simon's memory right before the latter shoots himself, causing him to feel what Simon felt in his dying moments.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • Connor can pull this during the first mission, either Facing Death With Dignity as he plummets to his death or ramming into the hostage taker and taking multiple gunshot wounds to the back so the girl herself won't be harmed. He can afford to do so, but he's still willing to give one of his lives for that.
  • A downplayed example can occur during "Public Enemy". If Connor finds the deviant and survives its attack, one of the options available when it grabs a gun is to "Save Hank". This causes Connor to tackle him to the ground, saving him from the deviant, but everyone else in the corridor - including Connor - is killed before the deviant is shot.
  • If Markus and North are dead, Connor deviates, and successfully liberates the androids from CyberLife, Connor becomes the leader of the deviants. However, when Amanda reveals that CyberLife intends to have Connor destroy the deviant movement from the inside, you can have Connor choose to kill himself. After you reach the emergency exit, it's not clear whether he went through with it.
• Hidden Badass: Connor is a detective android with a sort of child-like demeanor to him, so it might be hard to see him doing anything more than desk work and the occasional chase. Put a gun in his hand, though, and he becomes Deadshot.
• Honesty Is the Best Policy: Played with. If you choose calm or low profile responses to Gavin in "Last Chance, Connor", he will not confront him in the evidence room, as Connor tells him that he's removed from the case (which is true) and just intends to register the rest of the evidence before leaving the police station (which isn't really true). Ignoring him will instead get Gavin angry and make him confront Connor in the evidence room.
• Hunter of His Own Kind: He is built to be this, an android whose job it is to locate deviant androids and capture them for reprograming and/or study. The player can choose to play him this way through the entire game, hunting down the deviants and remaining "a machine" until he's of no further use to them.
• Icy Gray Eyes: His replacement, the RK900 model, has grey eyes, symbolizing that the RK900 is everything that Connor is, except more efficient and truly unfeeling.
• I Did What I Had to Do:
  • He invokes this trope if Hank confronts him about shooting the Tracis. The player can make him sound either completely uncaring for their plight or disturbed about committing an act that was undesired but necessary.
  • He justifies his actions with this trope if Hank berates him for shooting Chloe, since it was the only way they could get the information they needed to solve the deviant case. This time he says it with zero hesitation.
    Connor: I did it to advance the investigation and I'd do it again if I have to!
• Ignored Epiphany:
  • He can get a ton of character growth and multiple Pet the Dog moments, save Hank from committing suicide, and even very clearly operate with an increasingly deep understanding of and even sympathy for exactly what makes deviants deviate, only to finally be confronted by Markus trying to talk him onto his side... Only to refuse to become deviant.
  • Special mention goes to the chapter "Public Enemy". Regardless if you've played Connor as an emotionless machine up to this point, if you go the route of finding and probing Simon, Connor will always react with fear at the former shooting himself, which, as previously mentioned by Connor himself, is something only a deviant would feel. In line with this trope, however, Connor can completely ignore this afterwards and just return to being a machine again.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: When equipped with a gun, and provided that you don't fail any QTEs, Connor is practically an android version of John Wick.
• Ink-Suit Actor: Connor looks so much like a perfectly stoic Bryan Dechart that it can be creepy to see photos of Dechart smiling after watching the E3 2016 trailer.
• Innocently Insensitive: Should you have him die a few times, Connor eventually questions why Hank gets upset whenever he dies, since he's a machine and can be easily replaced by another unit. He's somewhat aware humans have a different opinion on death, but is unable to fully grasp the concept to understand Hank's distress.
  Connor: My predecessor was unfortunately destroyed, but CyberLife transferred its memory and sent me to replace it. This incident should not affect the investigation.
  Hank: Not affect the investigation? I just saw you get hit by a truck! Now you come back like nothing happened!
  Connor: A machine was destroyed. And another machine was sent to replace it. I don't understand what's bothering you.
• In the End, You Are on Your Own: At the beginning of "Last Chance, Connor", you are told that you must find Jericho or else you will be decommissioned, and Hank might not help you if your relationship with him is poor. The following levels have Connor completing tasks alone, either because Hank killed himself if you're a machine, or Deviant!Connor chooses to complete a task alone, which is then subverted when a surviving Hank approves of his deviancy.
• I Owe You My Life: If Connor helped the injured cop from the prologue, at Stratford Tower late-game, Connor can encounter him again and he will thank him for saving his life. Unfortunately, if Connor has died a lot since then, he won't remember who he is.
• I Told You So: A CyberLife-loyal Connor will say something similar to this if he succeeds in his fight against Captain Allen and his squadmates and kills them.
  Connor: You should have listened to me, Captain.
• It's All My Fault: If he becomes a deviant by the time he confronts Markus, he blames himself for (unknowingly) leading the FBI to Jericho.
• I've Come Too Far: One interpretation of why he chooses to stay a machine if you choose to do so, particularly when he stops and looks down after Hank commits suicide.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: He can be played like this if his relationship with Hank starts off as abrasive before buddying up to him, only to later choose to remain a machine. When Hank confronts him, he calls out Connor for faking his friendly side all along.
• Justified Extra Lives: Unlike Markus and Kara, Connor can repeatedly come back after being destroyed because CyberLife is willing to transfer his memories to a new body each time. If he betrays CyberLife and becomes a deviant, however, he won't get any more second chances.
• The Ketchup Test: Apparently Connor can, given he finds a sufficient sample, tell what model android he is dealing with by tasting the blood. It works on human blood, too.
• Lack of Empathy: According to David Cage on the interrogation scene: "... And the writing was also to have very different emotions and have Connor switching from one intention to another because he doesn't really feel these emotions, just fakes them. So it's like you can switch quickly from being nice to being very mean." Whether he stays that way is up to the player.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Playing Connor as a machine devoid of emotions and completely loyal to CyberLife nets you an ending that definitely has shades of this. After killing Markus and/or North, thereby achieving his mission, Connor has a final meeting with Amanda in the zen garden. She informs him that they've created a new and improved model, the RK900, meaning he has been rendered obsolete. When Connor asks what will happen to him, she bluntly tells him that he will be deactivated and dismisses him.
• Last-Second Chance: There's a somewhat "good" ending in the machine route. Basically, Markus must choose the peaceful demonstration and be successful with it. By the time Markus is giving speech, Connor will be among the android crowds (as opposed to stand beside Markus in the deviant route) and attempt to shoot Markus from there. But he can choose not to shoot, in which case he will be called out by Amanda in Zen Garden and left there. He then can use the emergency exit to escape and resume control of his body, putting away the gun and seemingly, finally, becoming deviant.
• Leitmotif: Connor Main Theme.
• Lightning Bruiser: He doesn't have Markus' brute strength, but Connor is just as fast and capable as him in a fight.
• Limited Wardrobe: Almost always seen in his CyberLife uniform, except while disguising himself as a deviant to infiltrate Jericho.
• Living Emotional Crutch: To Hank. The strength of their relationship throughout the story determines whether Hank loses the will to live and kills himself or sheds his prejudice against androids and reconciles with his past.
• Manchurian Agent:
  • If Connor deviates, when Markus delivers his speech after the Battle for Detroit, Amanda reveals to Connor that he had always been intended to deviate so he could infiltrate the deviants and take out their leader from within.
  • If Markus and North are dead, Connor takes their place as leader of the deviants. Instead, Amanda intends to have him destroy the deviants in another way, meaning your best option is having Connor kill himself. It's not clear whether he goes through with it or not.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Connor is a common Irish name meaning "strong-willed" or "wise hound-lover". This can refer to his determination to accomplish his mission no matter the cost or, on a lighter note, how he is at least warm toward dogs, if he doesn't outright like them.
  • His serial number, 313 248 317-51, also carries some meaning, as decided by Bryan Dechart: 313 for Detroit's area code, 248 for the area code of his home town of Novi, Michigan, 317 for his birthday (March 17th), 5 for the number of people in his family, and 1 to signify he's the first Connor.
• Morton's Fork: "The Nest" is the one mission where Connor is guaranteed to fail no matter what you have him do, since the deviant either escapes or destroys himself. The upside is you get to choose whether to increase or decrease his software instability.
• Nice Guy: He can sometimes take a more compassionate approach when dealing with deviants, which in turn can get him on Hank's good side.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: If Markus protests with low public opinion, he and everybody from Jericho die. However, the public will still be very moved by his final act (singing, kissing North, or sacrificing himself) and President Warren will call off the android destruction. But if Connor also converts the androids at CyberLife Tower, President Warren declares war on them, stating "Although these machines claimed they only wanted freedom, today they showed their true colors."
• No Sense of Humor: It's not that Connor is grim or stone-faced, but aside from a few moments of sarcasm, there are a few times where he fails to get a joke. Justified since he's an android, and it's unlikely that androids are automatically programmed to understand everyone's individual brand of humor; although it's also possible that Connor is simply being passive-aggressive whenever he feigns ignorance at someone's quipping.
  Hank: You know where you can stick your instructions?
  Connor: No. Where?
• Not Afraid to Die: Invoked. One way to determine whether he will go deviant or not is choosing how he acts in the face of death. If he acts as if Death Is Cheap, then it's the latter. If he shows hesitation or fear, it's the former.
• Not So Above It All: While his programming makes him appear proper and professional at all times, there are a few moments where he can sass someone just to do it. This is mostly restricted to Gavin, who is most likely to exhaust his patience.
• Not So Stoic:
  • He can potentially get very aggressive in "The Interrogation" and "Public Enemy", a jarring contrast from his normal stoic disposition. This is justified as he's required to extract a confession, and has to pressure the deviants to do so.
  • The higher his software instability, the more emotional he acts. While he never completely breaks his composure, he gradually becomes more confused over his growing humanity and starts acting less and less monotonous.
• Oh, Crap!: He will react with shock if Detroit is nuked with a dirty bomb in some endings.
• One-Man Army: If he never fails a QTE, he can demolish entire squads by himself.
• Parasitic Immortality: One of Connor's endings has him transfer his memories into his pro-human version and thus save the Android Rebellion at the cost of Hank's life.
• Pet the Dog:
  • There is a literal dog for him to pet, as well as a fish he can return to its tank.
  • Even if you play him as a morally implacable android whose main priority is accomplishing his mission and thereby seriously damaging his relationship with Hank, Connor will always show remorse when Hank crosses the Despair Event Horizon and commits suicide.
  • If Connor remains loyal to CyberLife but has a good relationship with Hank, when they confront each other in "Battle for Detroit", Connor has the option to walk away. While it won't stop him from attempting to kill Markus/North later on, the option shows that Connor still has enough humanity to not kill Hank. If he chooses to fight Hank instead, Connor can still spare him in the end, even if it doesn't ultimately work.
    Connor: Killing you is not part of my mission. But you won't stop me from accomplishing it.
• Phrase Catcher: Humans, mostly Hank, tend to mutter "fucking android(s)" around him.
• Plausible Deniability: If he choose not shoot Chloe, he insists he's not a deviant, even if he doesn't sound entirely convinced.
• Pragmatic Hero: In the hostage scenario, Connor can be this if the player makes ruthless choices when dealing with the hostage taker. Generally, it's possible to to play him as solely focused on completing his missions, but scruplous and/or sensible enough to not get everyone in his way killed.
• Precision F-Strike: Unlike Hank, Connor only swears in a few rare, select cases:
  • While interrogating the androids at Stratford Tower, he can call them a "fucking deviant" in an attempt to rankle them.
  • If he chases Kara and Alice across the highway but is shaken off by Kara, he will mutter "Shit."
  • If Connor realizes that he forgot to hack the security cameras in the CyberLife Tower before dispatching the guards, he will quietly mutter "Shit."
  • If Connor remains a machine, kills Markus after the revolution fails, and Markus sets off the dirty bomb, he will also mutter "Shit."
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: If he remains a machine in "Crossroads" and successfully stops Markus from blowing up Jericho, he has but two words to say before pulling the trigger: "Mission accomplished."
• Pretty Boy: While his appearance is not commented on In-Universe (besides Hank claiming that Connor looks goofy and/or stupid), Connor's puppy dog eyes and clean-cut looks have garnered plenty of out-of-universe fans.
• Puppy-Dog Eyes: Unintentionally invoked by him, and is representative of his relative lack of understanding of human emotions. Hank even accuses him of following him around "like a poodle".
• Quick Draw: He's a very fast shot - most evidently in his first mission, if he chooses to shoot the hostage-taker.
• Rebel Leader: A special ending, wherein Markus is out of the picture and North dies will see Connor, if he breaks from his programming, become the new rebel leader by the end. However, CyberLife will then reveal it used him as a Manchurian Agent, ending in a Bolivian Army Ending as Connor puts a gun to his head.
• Redemption Earns Life: If Connor becomes a deviant, frees his people, and survives to the end of the game he will have earned his freedom. The other endings involve him dying, being replaced by a new model, or being shut down for good.
• Resurrective Immortality: He can die many times in the game and can be ressurrected by CyberLife up until the Battle of Detroit.
• Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Inverted. Even if you remain utterly loyal to CyberLife throughout the game and succeed in your mission with nary a setback, Amanda will still replace you with a better model at the end. Considering what Connor is, it could be said this trope is played perfectly straight from the androids' perspective.
• Sadist:
  • There is one particular scenario he can be played as this. If he killed the Traci at the Eden Club, driving the blue-haired Traci with whom she was in love to committing suicide (or alternatively, Connor lost the fight but shot them afterwards), their bodies will be among the evidence he can use to try and find Jericho's location. If he uses the couple, he will detach the brown-haired Traci's head, hold in front of the blue-haired Traci, then mimic brown's voice to make blue believe her girlfriend survived being shot. After the overjoyed Traci unwittingly gives the Jericho key to Connor, he will disconnect her again after confirming that her lover is dead.
  • It's possible that if played as a machine, he generally has some sadistic tendencies, if his copy's smug attitude is anything to go by.
• Sadistic Choice: Kamski lampshades that Connor himself is in one, especially since among the three protagonists, Connor is the only one who's stuck between following his programming or choosing to go deviant.
  Kamski: A war is coming; you'll have to choose your side. Will you betray your people or stand against your creators? I wouldn't want to be in your shoes. What could be worse than having to choose between two evils?
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: If Connor performs enough empathetic acts throughout the story, when he confronts Markus/North at Jericho in an attempt to assassinate them, they Hannibal Lecture him into wondering if he really wants to be a machine to the humans, which can cause him to deviate.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!:
  • If the player picks unsympathetic dialogue choices with the hostage-taker, Connor will angrily point out to him that regardless of his reasons, he killed people (meaning the SWAT team members he shot), and he needs to answer for that.
  • If Jericho loses the Battle for Detroit and Connor remained a machine, Markus/North will use their dying words to tell him that You Cannot Kill An Idea and that the revolution will be back one day. Connor has the option to shoot them or spare them.
• Slasher Smile: If Connor killed the Tracis in "The Eden Club", he sports a really creepy grin when he tricks the blue-haired Traci into giving up Jericho's location.
• Sniff Sniff Nom: He analyses blood and other fluids with his tongue, much to Hank's disgust.
• Super-Empowering: If he becomes a deviant, Connor is revealed to share Markus' ability to make other androids sentient, which he uses to convert the androids in the CyberLife tower. Given that he and Markus are of similar models (RK800 and RK200, respectively), it's possible that this ability is restricted to the RK-type androids.
• Super Prototype: Amanda calls him the most advanced prototype CyberLife has ever produced, and it shows in his armed and unarmed combat skills, his ability to reconstruct events based on the most minute details, his understanding of human behavior and his ability to access other androids' memory through skin contact.
• Sympathy for the Devil: Depending on your dialogue choices, Connor can express sympathy for the deviants he encounters, such as the hostage taker's reaction to being replaced or the android that murdered his abusive owner out of fear for his own life.
• Taking the Bullet: During "Public Enemy", he can choose to shield Hank when a deviant takes a SWAT officer's rifle and starts indiscriminately firing.
• Tall, Dark, and Handsome: Connor is tall, athletic and broad-shouldered with chiseled features and dark brown hair. Odds are he was designed to invoke the image of a well-dressed, cold and calculating machine, most likely to give off the no-nonsense police officer vibe. Depending on dialogue choices, he can also qualify as Tall, Dark, and Snarky.
• They Killed Kenny Again: There's an achievement for getting him killed at every opportunity.
• To Be Lawful or Good: Essentially the dividing line between Deviant and Machine Connor. One is Lawful, upholding Cyberlife's orders at the expense of the androids' rights, whereas the other chooses to do the Good thing and rebel against Cyberlife and the authorities to assist Jericho. After the first few cases, you can't do both and expect to be happy.
• The Unfettered:
  • One possible play style for Connor is one of the ultimate examples of this trope. Should the player decide that Connor's top priority is completing the mission, then nothing will get in his way of achieving that goal. He will sacrifice any life, inflict any trauma, even destroy himself without a second thought if it means that the assigned mission will be completed.
  • From the very first level, it's seen that while other androids must stick to their programming (and soon after we see a non-deviant Kara physically unable to enter an area without Todd's permission), the Connor series is able to defy laws and societal rules — Connor can pick up a gun and brandish it at Daniel even while his HUD states that androids cannot carry guns. This extends later to being able to kill humans even without becoming Deviant first.
  • If Markus shoots Connor, his response is, "This isn't over, Markus. We will meet again." He's right.
• The Un-Smile: Not for lack of trying, but there are times when his smiles tend to look a little... off.
• Unwitting Pawn: Perfectly witting for most of the game, but he didn't know that the ultimate plan was for him to deviate, take over the deviant army, then have control stolen back from him.
• Villain Protagonist: If he repeatedly picks the anti-android options and decides to remain a machine in the end. He actually has the most playable sections of the three protagonists.
• Voice Changeling: He's able to mimic others' voices, which he utilizes in "Last Chance, Connor" and "Battle for Detroit".
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: A possible interpretation of his character if played as sympathetic toward deviants but remains loyal to CyberLife, especially if Markus is played violently. Connor can even state that in spite of the deviants' ultimate goal, their movement will cause widespread disorder around Detroit.
  Hank: What if we're on the wrong side? What if we're fighting against people that just wanna be free?
  Connor: [DETERMINED] If the deviants rise up, there will be chaos. I can still prevent that.
• Wham Line: Connor thinks this to himself after a crucial choice: "I am deviant."
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • He gets this from Hank if he goes for the immoral choices such as "The Nest", "The Eden Club", and "Meet Kamski".
  • If you choose to chase Rupert instead of saving Hank in "The Nest", Rupert will call him out for hunting down his own people and Hank will call him out for not opting to help him.
• When He Smiles: Whether he's trying to smile or genuinely smiling, it's always endearing to see, and in some instances is downright heartwarming.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: In "Battle for Detroit", if Connor remains a machine and Markus sets off the dirty bomb, Connor's fate is left up in the air. After all, androids aren't affected by the radiation, and while Connor seems to be within the explosion's vicinity, whether he's caught up in the blast or not isn't confirmed.
• Would Hit a Girl: He's not going to hesitate in his mission even if his target is a woman. And if ruthless enough, he won't even hesitate to kill them.
• Wrestler in All of Us: In "Battle for Detroit" Connor makes use of several throws and suplexes when fighting against Markus or a copy of himself.
• You Are in Command Now: If Connor deviates and successfully liberates the androids from CyberLife, but Markus and North are dead, Connor will be urged by the other androids to be the new leader of Jericho. However, Amanda reveals that this is the perfect opportunity for Connor to destroy the deviants from within, leading to either you having Connor commit suicide or give in. If you choose the former, it's left ambiguous as to whether or not he managed to break free, went through with the suicide, or lost control.
• You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious: Connor's programing makes him usually speak very formally, such as always addressing Hank as "Lieutenant". Therefore, you know that something serious is happening if Connor calls him by his name instead.
• You Have Failed Me: In "Last Chance, Connor", if Connor is unable to discover the location of Jericho in time, he will be forced by his programming to return to CyberLife to be decommissioned. Amanda tells him that he's failed his mission, and the the next scene will show him having frozen to death in the now snowed-over zen garden.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: At the end of the game, if Connor stays loyal to CyberLife and successfully puts down Markus's uprising, Amanda will inform him that he's being replaced by a superior model, and will be deactivated due to being obsolete.
• You Wouldn't Shoot Me: In "The Bridge", he can pull this when held at gunpoint by Hank.
  Connor: (pressing his forehead against the gun barrel) You know you're not going to shoot me, Lieutenant. You're just trying to provoke a reaction. I'm afraid I'm going to have to disappoint you.
• Younger Than They Look: A given, considering he's an android, but Connor is particularly notable among the protagonists as his date of 'birth' is listed as August 2038, making him technically the youngest of the three. This means that his first mission (in "The Hostage") was at most a few weeks after his creation, and he's partnered up with Hank only a few months later.

Markus

Markus | Portrayed by: Jesse Williams^DubsRémi Caillebot (French), Yūya Uchida (Japanese), Miguel Ángel Leal (Latin American Spanish), Luis Manuel Martín Díaz (European Spanish), Sascha Rotermund (German), Stanislav Tikunov (Russian)

How far will I go to become free?

Model: RK200

"I don't know about you, but there's something inside me that knows that I am more than what they say. I am alive, and they're not going to take that from me anymore."

A former caretaker android who was nearly killed but reborn and takes it upon himself to free others like him from servitude.

---

• Ace Custom: Markus is a unique one-of-a-kind android, made by Kamski as a gift for Carl Manfred. His preconstruction abilities and Connor-level combat skills certainly don't seem to be standard-issue.
• Ambiguously Brown: Most likely owing to his Ink-Suit Actor Jesse Williams, who has a white mother and an African-American father.
• Ambiguous Situation: If Jericho was completely wiped out at the Battle for Detroit and Connor remained a machine, Connor will confront an injured Markus. After Markus says that the revolution will live on, Connor has the option of shooting him or sparing him. If he is spared, Connor walks away and the news, unlike in other circumstances, will not say if Markus lived or died.
• An Arm and a Leg: After being framed for the murder of his own, he gets dumped in a junkyard for broken-down androids. When he regains consciousness, he's missing both his legs, an eye, his thirium pump regulator, and an audio processor.
• Armor-Piercing Question: When Connor confronts him in Jericho, Markus can ask him a few of these, which increases his instability and can even make him a deviant.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: He's capable of calculating and executing gravity-defying stunts and escape routes.
• BFG: If the player takes the violent route in "Battle for Detroit", he ends up blasting the android disassembling plant's gates open with a rocket launcher.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: He wears a nice-looking suit at the beginning of "Stratford Tower".
• Badass Longcoat: He picks one up after he crawls out of the junkyard and wears one for most of the game, unless he's going undercover.
• Badass Pacifist: If going the peaceful route, Markus will still get into various fights. However, the difference is that peaceful Markus will never use lethal force; he'll attack people until they don't fight back or get knocked out. This even happens during the endgame peaceful protest; at one point Markus gets into a fight with armed FBI agents, and the only time he uses a gun is to pressure his opponent into tossing his weapon, at which point Markus tosses his gun aside.
• Battle Couple: With North if he romances her, especially in the violent route.
• Better to Die than Be Killed:
  • During the freedom march, if Markus picks the confrontational option and loses the fight against the riot police, he can shoot himself to deny them the privilege of killing him.
  • During "Battle for Detroit", if Markus is forced to take refuge in the CyberLife store and Connor either became deviant or was decommissioned, he can contemplate and commit suicide to avoid capture by the military (along with North if she is alive at that point).
• Big Damn Heroes: If Markus leads a successful revolution and Kara and co. were caught and sent to a recycling plant, Jericho will take the plant if you have Kara do nothing before time runs out.
• Big Good: After joining Jericho, he ascends to this very quickly. His influence over them and all of android-kind is, to put it mildly, completely instrumental to whether or not there's a remotely happy ending for them.
• Bridal Carry: How he moves the paraplegic Carl to the bathroom in his introduction chapter.
• Calling the Old Man Out: If Carl survives the encounter with Leo, Markus later visits him on his deathbed. Depending on the player's choice of dialogue, Markus can have a very hostile final talk with his father figure, to the point where Carl actually dies from the stress.
• The Caretaker: In service to the ailing Carl, his primary responsibilities are acting as nurse and servant.
• Combat Pragmatist: While he's very physically strong, Markus won't hesitate to make use of his surroundings to get the upper hand on his opponents.
• Cope by Creating: Markus is an artist, through and through. Even when busy tending to Jericho and pursuing his goals, he makes time for a few quiet moments playing the piano. If he and the remaining Jericho members are held at gunpoint at the end of the game, the player can choose for him to go out singing.
• Cultured Badass: Markus is more than capable of kicking ass, enjoys poetry, plays the piano, and is an excellent chess player. He also paints well enough to impress Carl deeply.
• Defiant Strip: He deactivates his synthetic skin in the route that has him detonate the dirty bomb, before loudly declaring his freedom as the remaining members of Jericho gather around him.
• Fan Disservice: Markus will end up with barely any clothes in the junkyard, which highlights his supremely (literally) well-built body... But he's also torn to pieces and covered in grime while cannibalizing his fellow androids for parts.
• Final Boss: If Connor remains loyal to humanity, Markus will become this if the player chooses to control Connor when the two fight in "Battle for Detroit".
• Fission Mailed: Markus will be shot by the police after his struggle with Leo, so the player might think they got Markus killed. Fortunately, this doesn't end Markus's story; he'll wake up in the junkyard and have to fix himself, but then his story will continue as normal.
• Frame-Up: If Markus doesn't fight back against Carl's son, he will accuse him of murdering his father after the old man dies of a heart attack.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: He starts out as just a caretaker for an elderly artist, but after nearly dying he literally rebuilds himself into a revolutionary leader who causes massive social upheaval whichever route he takes.
• General Failure: Can be played this way if he repeatedly fails quick-time events, makes the wrong choices when pressured, and leads a violent revolution that fails to defeat the humans. The final straw comes if you run away at the first sign of trouble during "Freedom March" and also already have low relationships with everybody; the gang will kick Markus out of Jericho and relinquish control to North, at which point Markus will just awkwardly leave the scene in resignation.
• Genius Bruiser: He's surprisingly strong for his size and can fight through groups of human soldiers by himself. He is also highly introspective, excellent at chess, paints well enough to move even veteran artists and is always extraordinarily composed and charismatic.
• Good Is Not Soft: Even if he's played as a nonviolent, kindhearted leader, he will have his demands for android rights met, unapologetically call out mistreatment, and never assume that "nonviolent" means "not willing to defend himself and his". Either way, Markus deviated in the first place because of how desperately he wanted to fight back against Leo.
• Heartbroken Badass: If North dies during the battle of Detroit, he'll be on the verge of tears as he shares a Last Kiss with her.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Multiple times, he's given the option to become a martyr to spare his fellow androids. He'll get gunned down by the police as a reward unless there's outside intervention, and it makes the Golden Ending impossible to achieve.
• He Who Fights Monsters: Markus can take a lot of human lives on the Revolution path, even executing prisoners who have surrendered. If he visits Carl on his deathbed, the latter warns him not to become a monster, at which point Markus might kill Carl by accident with his violently hateful rants at humanity.
• Ink-Suit Actor: Markus looks almost exactly like his voice actor, Jesse Williams.
• Kick the Morality Pet: If he's cruel and angry in Carl's presence when he revisits him late in the game, the poor old man dies for it, and this is after Markus' actions saved his life in the first place to get that scene.
• Killer Robot: Becomes this if he chooses a violent rebellion.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Markus choosing not to trust Deviant!Connor results in the latter being rebuilt as a machine (as though he never deviated in the first place) that continues with stopping the android revolution.
• The Leader: He is the leader of the android revolution, and most of the game revolves around the actions he takes throughout the game.
• Leitmotif: Markus Main Theme.
• Le Parkour: How he moves around in a pinch, and is very good at it. Some puzzles also rely on this.
• Lightning Bruiser: Guy moves like a cat and hits like a truck.
• Living Is More than Surviving: Markus practically preaches this when he reaches Jericho and sees that the other deviants, while free of their masters, are more or less hiding in a hole waiting to shut down or be caught.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: He can perfectly protect himself from gunfire by ducking behind random chunks of scrap metal.
• Martial Pacifist: If played peacefully he won't start any fights, but he can damn well finish them.
• Magnetic Hero: Through a combination of his ability to spread deviancy to other androids and his own penchant for leadership, Markus draws thousands of androids under his banner.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Markus is derived from Mars, the Roman god of war, making his name either this or an Ironic Name depending on how you lead Jericho. Marcus is also in the name of numerous Roman Emperors, befitting Markus' role as a leader.
  • Marcus Garvey was an African-American activist who supported segregation, believing that white people and black people should not integrate. Can be an Ironic Name if Markus chooses to protest peacefully (as Garvey supported violence), but ends up being this trope for the most part since the ending will always have the androids take Detroit while the humans are forced to leave if either of your rebellions are succesful.
  • The two most famous civil rights activists are Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. Depending on what choices you make, the darker-skinned Marcus will lean more towards one or the other. MLK was peaceful and an active proponent of civil disobedience, heavily distrusted and thought of as a radical by the general public, and ended up as the more famous of the two activists; guess which approach makes for the better ending. Another of Markus' inspirations according to Cage is Spartacus, with whom he shares a similar backstory with (as claimed by Cage), coming from a privileged background before becoming the leader of a rebellion.
• Messianic Archetype: The game is not the least bit subtle about it. Saving his life is not hard, though. Leans toward Dark Messiah if he takes the path of violent revolution.
• Mr. Fanservice: Ticks off quite a few boxes here: Has gets Shirtless Scene, goes through more outfits than Connor and Kara combined, and is the only playable character to have the option for romance. Even the camera shows shades of Female Gaze from time to time. Being played by Jesse Williams certainly helps.
• Mutual Kill: If Jericho loses the Battle of Detroit and Connor stayed a machine, Connor will corner an injured Markus. After telling Connor that You Cannot Kill An Idea, Markus pulls out a gun if Connor doesn't decide whether to shoot or spare him and the two kill each other.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Should he let his anger get the better of him while visiting Carl, Carl will die of a heart attack. The look on Markus' face when he realizes what happened says it perfectly.
• Nerves of Steel: A metaphorical and literal example. He jumps off tall buildings, executes dangerous stunts and risks his life for others on several occasions without batting an eye. Connor later has the option to point a gun at him and fire a warning shot at his feet if he doesn't comply with his demands. Even then, Markus — while he can show surprise at a fellow android attempting to kill him — won't even flinch.
• No Historical Figures Were Harmed: According to Cage, Markus' character is an amalgamation of various civil rights leaders and rebels, most prominently Martin Luther King Jr. and Spartacus.
• Playing with Fire: Downplayed. He doesn't use what seems to be an inbuilt lighter for offensive purposes, instead only using it to light Jericho or to immolate himself to try and prevent the Army from killing the only androids left. He uses it to nurture his followers in the former case, while the revolution literally burns out with him in the latter.
• Plot Armor: Unlike Kara and Connor, it's impossible for Markus to die in the early missions, since Markus finding Jericho and motivating them into action drives the plot for the rest of the game. It expires later on, and usually leads to very bad outcomes for ALL characters.
• Pragmatic Hero: Arguably diving into straight-up Unscrupulous Hero territory if he picks the more violent path of revolution. He will win his people their rights, no matter how much blood he has to spill to do it.
• Protagonist: He doesn't necessarily have the most playable segments, but his story and choice have the largest impact on the overall story. And if he dies at any point, there is only one possible chance at any sort of happy ending and that involves Connor taking his place as leader of the revolution, though that doesn't go entirely well for him.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: His declaration during the Dirty Bomb ending.
  Markus: We... are... FREE!
• Quiet Cry for Help: A subtle example early in the game. Markus is noticeably calm and pleasant during his first few scenes, with the game taking great care to show the unusually warm relationship he has with Carl., If the player chooses 'Identity' when Carl tells him to paint a picture from the heart, the three options Markus has are despair, doubt and prisoner.
• Rage Breaking Point: Can have this when reuniting with Carl and choosing angry responses over a calm ones. Unlike his more Tranquil Fury moments throughout the majority of the game he's much more visibly emotional here, and it's one of the few times you actually hear him raise his voice.
  Markus I'm not going to let them humiliate us anymore! Do you hear me?! Never again!
• Rebel Leader: Will become the leader of the android rebellion and spearhead several campaigns. It's up to the player whether Markus takes a peaceful Thou Shalt Not Kill path or a violent Well-Intentioned Extremist one, which impact its outcome. However, if Markus is either killed or fails so many of his missions that he's kicked out of the movement before the climax, the less charismatic and more unstable North will take over as the new leader, inevitably leading to its collapse.
• Reluctant Warrior: The best he can manage in terms of pacifism.
  • If he's veered towards a violent, vengeful revolution, he's still regretful of his choices and wonders if they were truly the right way to earn his people their freedom.
  • If he sticks to a peaceful revolution, he's still ready and willing to fight for his people — he just goes for non-lethal shots and knock-outs and doesn't attack when they've surrendered.
• Self-Immolation: Should he decide to sacrifice himself when he's cornered by soldiers during a peaceful demonstration in the final chapter, he'll set himself on fire by increasing his core temperature to critical levels.
• Senseless Sacrifice: While he can choose to sacrifice his life at various points in the game (usually during a protest) it will never result in obtaining rights for androids. At best, one of your teammates is killed rescuing you, and at worst he himself is killed and North will take over and run it into the ground.
• Shield Bash: When he fights, he tends to make use of shields whenever he can, whether grabbing improvised shields or taking them from his opponents. In the protest route, he even grabs a piece of metal as an improvised shield to protect his people.
• Shoot the Dog: He can Mercy Kill a dying android in the junkyard.
• Super-Empowering: Markus seems to have a version of type 4, in that his touch gives the power of sentience to other androids.
• Super Prototype: Despite being a much older model, his physical and mental capabilities are very similar to the brand new, top-of-the-line Connor, and the hard-to-obtain Kamski interview ending refers to him as an early prototype. A document reveals that he was a gift to Carl directly from Kamski.
• Upbringing Makes the Hero: A pacifistic Markus has shades: An android lucky enough to belong to an owner who loved and encouraged independent thought in him, to the point of being a Parental Substitute, goes on to fight for a world where humans and androids coexist peacefully as equals.
• The Virus: His ability to bestow deviancy on other androids has serious similarities to a computer virus spreading from one system to others. It gets particularly pronounced during the Freedom March. The first couple times Markus frees non-deviants require physical contact from him and holding down a button for a few seconds from the player. Once the march gets going he can do it from a distance, though the button still needs to be held down, and a minute later he just needs to wave at the androids for them to drop everything and join him. Their owners are understandably freaked out by this.
• Voice Changeling: Downplayed. While he can't copy other people's voices, he can filter his own voice to sound like he's calling from the other end of the phone, which he does to distract the receptionist in "The Stratford Tower" and again to distract two patrol cars from spotting him and North during "Send A Message."
• Was It Really Worth It?: Late in the story, regardless of the approach he takes, he will question whether or not all they did to secure android rights was worth the death and destruction they have suffered and/or wrought.
• Weapon-Based Characterization: His habit of using shields is rather symbolic of his protectiveness of other deviants and, depending on your choices, him being a Technical Pacifist.
• We Cannot Go On Without You: If Markus dies in "Freedom March", North will take his place as leader and the movement will fail.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Even if he ultimately chooses the violent path, he'll still attempt a peaceful solution at first. It's played less like he wants to spill blood and more like he feels that humanity has forced his hand, and violence is the only way his people will survive the conflict.
• When He Smiles: He seems very relaxed and cheerful during his time with Carl. After that you'd probably have a better chance of playing the winning lotto numbers than getting him to crack a smile. Considering everything he goes through over the course of the game, it's not hard to see why.
• Who's Laughing Now?: If Connor shoots Markus in the end, he can still set off the dirty bomb right before he dies, showing that even if Connor is able to kill him the deviants can still prevail.
• Wrestler in All of Us: In "Battle for Detroit" Markus can open a fight against Machine!Connor with a dropkick.
• You Cannot Kill An Idea: If he's a General Failure at "Battle for Detroit" and Connor remained a machine, all of Jericho will die and Connor will confront him. Markus uses his last words to tell Connor that the androids will rise up again.

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