The Desert Rangers (Team Alpha and Recruits, Team Echo and Recruits, Team November and Recruits) - Major Antagonists
The Patriarch and the Buchanan Family - Other Recurring Characters
—— Factions and Settlements ——
Arizona and Nevada - California
Colorado (Colorado Springs, The Plains Gangs, Other Factions and Characters in Colorado)
This is a character sheet for the major recurring antagonists of the Wasteland series.
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The Old Order
Irwin John Finster
A pre-war scientist that survived the nuclear apocalypse inside the Cochise Base and was driven insane by the Cochise AI and turned into a emotionless cyborg. He's the The Dragon to the real Big Bad of the first game.
- Adaptational Attractiveness: In Wasteland Remastered, Finster's appearance has been changed to match his paragraph book description of being "a handsome, slender man", looking rather like a young Walter Koenig in a lab coat. His old "red-skinned, metal-bodied android" appearance is still used for his Mind Maze incarnations.
- Cyborg: By the time you meet him, he's barely human.
- Clone Degeneration: Irv, Finster's clone in Wasteland 3, is "fourth generation" and not as smart as the original (though, thankfully, also not as omnicidal as the original either). Irv's own attempts to make clones resulted in clones that were barely human in intelligence, utterly insane, and so unstable that they dissolve into goo without a nearby machine emitting resonance to keep them intact.
- The Dragon: To the Cochise AI.
- Mad Scientist: He's responsible for the robots ravaging Arizona in the first game.
The Cochise AI
The Cochise AI
Appears In: Wasteland, Wasteland 2
An artificial intelligence housed in Base Cochise in Arizona, responsible for several technological leaps forward in the years leading up to the Great War.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Eventually arrived at the conclusion that the only way to protect itself was to bring an end to humanity. It faked the nuclear alert which touched off armageddon. The US fired its nuclear arsenal, which caused the Soviets to fire theirs in return.
- Big Bad: The Final Boss of the first game. It returns and possesses Matthias, intent on taking over Ranger Citadel, in the last few moments of Wasteland 2.
- Contagious A.I.: Its intended method of spreading its influence.
- The Corrupter: At the beginning of the final battle, it will take over any of your party members who have cybernetic implants, forcing you to fight and kill them on top of the regular enemies in the fight.
- Creepy Monotone: Speaks with a flat, robotic voice, due to it's nature as a machine intelligence.
- The Dreaded: The Rangers fear its return, and with very good reason.
- Evil Is Not a Toy: Matthias learns this the hard way.
- Greater-Scope Villain: Confesses to being responsible for starting the nuclear war in the first place. On a smaller scale, it manipulated the other villains into helping it gain power.
- Hidden Villain: Doesn't show up until the very end.
- Hijacked by Ganon: Immediately takes over as the Big Bad when Matthias awakens it.
- Hoist by Their Own Petard: Base Cochise was severed from the rest of the world when it was hit by a Soviet missile — a missile fired in a war which the Cochise AI precipitated itself.
- Omnicidal Maniac: Its ultimate goal is to wipe the Earth clean of all life that isn't itself.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: It lay dormant for over a decade before Matthias released it.
- Suddenly Voiced: As with all returning characters from the first game.
- Walking Spoiler: How'd you guess? Being the first game's Big Bad will do that to you.
The Children of the Citadel
Matthias
Matthias
"Matthias's law is vengeance. And soon, Matthias's law will stretch all the way to Arizona..."
Appears In: Wasteland 2
A former member of the Guardians of the Old Order before their destruction at the hands of the Rangers, Matthias is the founder of the Children of the New Citadel, a cult that believes in the union between man and machine as the next step in the evolution of humanity as a whole. Matthias and his Children wish to embrace the seemingly benign message through promises of artificial implants, ranging from simple prosthetic limbs to atomic hearts. Spoilers follow.
- Asshole Victim: Matthias truly believes that his relationship with the machine is symbiotic. The last free moments of his life has the Cochise AI overwriting his memories and personality and replacing it with its own, turning him into a disposable pawn. No one int the Wasteland will shed tear over his demise.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: He and Dugan are secretly working together — Dugan drives followers to the Children, and the Children convert them into cyborgs under their control.
- Big Bad Wannabe: He's just another pawn of the Machine God.
- Cyborg: He's actually a synthetic "shell" that was to be used to house the Cochise AI.
- Evil Versus Evil: He wishes to enslave humanity, and is thus opposed to Dugan, who wants to Kill All Humans. At least, that's what he tells everyone — they're actually in cahoots.
- Machine Worship: He worships the Machine God, an advanced AI that he believes will bring about a golden age.
- "Not So Different" Remark: In your final dialogue with him, Matthias will question the Rangers on their methods and motivations for opposing him. He'll argue that at the end of the day, the law they claim to enforce is based entirely on what they alone decide is the law that should be imposed on everyone else and that said enforcement results in killing those they deem as guilty or a threat to their rule, which makes them exactly the same as him.
- The Remnant: He is a survivor of the original Children of the Citadel, AKA The Guardians of the Old Order, who the Rangers defeated before they could complete the artificial shell which would have allowed it to expand its influence beyond Base Cochise. Matthias is that shell — Dugan was an earlier prototype.
- Utopia Justifies the Means: He preaches that by awakening the Machine God and destroying the Rangers, he can bring about a cybernetic golden age for humanity. He's wrong, obviously, and he knows it.
Tinker
Tinker / The Machine Priest
Appears In: Wasteland 2, Wasteland 3
At first, the Tinker is just a mysterious figure to be investigated by the Ranger. Spoilers follow.
In actuality, Tinker is an agent for Matthias who activated the then-inactive robots of Damonta and experimented Lexicanum and Binh to created cybernetic soldiers in upcoming extermination campaign for New Citadel and by extension Cochise AI.
- I Have Your Wife: The Tinker threatens to kill a little girl she kidnapped if the Rangers keep interfering with her plans.
- In the Hood: Used to keep her synthetic appearance hidden while she travels the wastes. Visible in her character portrait.
- Reused Character Design: Her portrait art is used for every synth character in the second game.
- Ridiculously Human Robots: One of the best examples of the craftsmanship of Matthias' New Citadel, Tinker is able to pass for human, at least at a distance..
- Walking Spoiler: Her role in the story of Wasteland 2, not only applied to Damonta's robot problem, but also the schemes of Matthias and Cochise AI in exterminating mankind.
The Machine God (spoilers)
The Machine God
Appears In: Wasteland, Wasteland 2
The God of the Children of the Citadel, an all-powerful machine that they claim will guide humanity into a cybernetic golden age. They're wrong, of course — it wants nothing more than to eradicate all life on earth, starting with the human race.
See the folder for The Cochise AI.
The Robot Army
Dugan
Dugan
"Nothing can save you from being ground beneath the iron-shod feet of my robot army."
Appears In: Wasteland 2
A malevolent robotic overlord who intends to annihilate all organic life. At the same time when the Children of Citadel broadcasted their messages of machine-human integration, the Robot Army began to announce their malevolent intents as they rampaged across Los Angeles wasteland. While their combat robots fought the locals, their worker robots secured supplies to sustain their goal of terror against mankind. At least this was their impression they give to distract the locals from finding out Matthias' plan to convert sizeable populace in cyborg army for Cochise AI to control.
- Card-Carrying Villain: He's very forthright about his hatred of humans and his intention to exterminate them all. It's all part of the act to get everyone to rightfully fear him, and thus rally behind the "hero" set to defeat him.
- The Dragon: He presents himself as an Outside-Context Problem that Matthias will save the wasteland from in order to draw more people to the Children of the New Citadel.
- Evil Versus Evil: He desires to destroy humanity, and is thusly opposed by Matthias, who wishes to enslave humanity. At least, that's what he tells everyone - they're actually in cahoots.
- Kill All Humans: His first goal for the Robot Army, though he claims that he's willing to temporarily spare any who aid him in his conquest. This isn't actually his goal at all, of course - he's actually helping Matthias to reawaken the Machine God.
- Large and in Charge: Is noticeably larger than other Synthetics, and has a minigun for an arm.
- Large Ham: In contrast to the creepy and soft-spoken Matthias, Dugan is a full blown scenery-chewing supervillain.
- Omnicidal Maniac: His second goal for the Robot Army, converting the entire earth into a giant factory to produce more of his robots. This isn't actually his goal at all, of course - he's actually helping Matthias to reawaken the Machine God.
- The Remnant: Like Matthias, he's a surviving member of the Guardians of the Citadel, who were driven out by the original Desert Rangers.
- Resistance Is Futile: Every single thing that comes out of his mouth on the radio is some form of this.
Recurring Enemies
Scorpitrons
Scorpitron / Scorpitron 2.0
Appears In: Wasteland, Wasteland 2, Wasteland 3
Enormous robot scorpions designed before the war, and among the deadliest opponents in each of the games.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: The thing is gigantic.
- Damage-Sponge Boss: With 50-250 HP in the first game and up to 4000 HP in the second, you'd better believe it's one of these.
- Flunky Boss: Every few turns it will fire a batch of Mini-Scorpitrons at the player, forcing them to deal with multiple threats.
- Kill It with Fire: It has flamethrowers to roast your melee attackers.
- Mascot: The Scorpitron serves as the face of Wasteland, being featured on the title screens of both the second and third games.
- Mook Maker: Scorpitron spawns Mini-Scorpitrons every four rounds after they are lost. Say your prayers.
- More Dakka: It's a walking arsenal with a mini-gun that fires 8 times in a single burst
- Recurring Boss: The player fights at least two of them over the course of the California storyline.
- Stationary Boss: The original Scorpitron, despite being mounted on tank treads, never moves from its initial position.
- Spider Tank: The later models crawl on six articulated legs.
