| Phobos | |
|---|---|
| File:Phobos.png | |
| Phobos with the binary sword as seen in Madness: Project Nexus (Classic) | |
| Debut: | Madness: Project Nexus (Classic) |
| Appearances: | 2 (games only) |
| Role(s): | Antagonist, Leader of Nexus Core |
| Kills: | None confirmed |
| Deaths: | 1, possibly 2 (his fate in The Other Place is unknown) |
| Allies: | Project Nexus, Mag Agent: Gestalt |
| Enemies: | Dr. Christoff, Dr. Hofnarr, Hank J. Wimbleton, Sanford, Deimos |
Template:PN2 CharacterDirector Phobos is the main antagonist of the Project Nexus subseries and the final boss of Episode 1.5 in the first game's Story Mode and one of the final bosses of The Rush in MADNESS: Project Nexus. He is the Director of the titular Project Nexus, leader of the Nexus Core, and "God-Emperor" of Nexus City. He is also a highly skilled fighter whose size is larger than that of a regular character, being around 1.6 times the size of a normal Nevadean, slightly bigger than that of a G03LM.
In Madness: Project Nexus (Classic), he controlled Project Nexus. He is fought twice in the episode, first in level [1.5-D], and secondly in the last level. The first time he was fought, when he was defeated he ran out the room saying that "we will meet again soon". In the last level, he uses a submachine gun and a binary sword along with many Nexus agents and soldiers by his side. However, in the end he is unsuccessful at defeating Dr. Christoff and perishes.
In MADNESS: Project Nexus, Phobos returns in a ghostly form as part of the final boss battle. Using Project Gestalt as a vessel to ascend to godhood, he intended to merge with The Other Place with Project Gestalt. Using power hijacked from S-3LFs and channeled through Gestalt's body, once Gestalt had been defeated Phobos fought the protagonists himself in one final bid for world domination, but ultimately failed when Hank, Sanford, Deimos, and Christoff intervened and defeated Phobos once and for all.
Personality
Phobos is characterized by his immense god-complex and egotism. Chosen as the Director of Project Nexus by the Employers, he was given vasts amounts of power from the project as well as from ruling Nexus City. This power (either causing it or fuelling it) gave him an extremely large ego, with Phobos making statues of himself and plastering them all over the city, even going as far as to put a particularly gigantic one in the sewers, as seen in Flood Control. He also regularly makes propaganda of himself, encouraging the residents of Nexus City to worship him in an almost fanatical zeal, with those defacing posters praising Phobos either thrown in jail or executed, showing his desire to be a symbol of power. This is supported by his title of "God-Emperor", making it clear that Phobos views himself as a god, and that those below him are mortals. Despite this, he speaks in a relatively polite tone, as shown when he comes back in his S-3LF-form. However, he speaks with a noticeably verbose vocabulary, similar to Jebediah Christoff, hinting at his immense pride.
However, his biggest trait his is clear god-complex. While most of his traits listed are stereotypical narcissim, Phobos takes it further by wanting to become a god. In order to do this, he uses Project Nexus for his own ends, using the resources and knowledge gained from it to create Mag Agent: Gestalt as vessel for him to merge with the Other Place. By doing this, he puts Nevada itself at risk, as the merging of the Other Place and Nevada could potentially destroy reality. However, Phobos notably doesn't remotely care, and only desires to obtain power, which is why Christoff eventually decided to kill him. Even still, his charisma from being Director of Project Nexus led to the continued survival of the Nexus Core, whose work is dedicated to bringing Phobos back and increasing their own numbers.
Abilities
Phobos shows extreme skill with weapons, wielding a binary sword that he can block bullets at point blank ranges with. He also shows to be a great acrobat, being capable of jumping several meters into the air. However, he cannot block Nexus bolts from Jesus.
He shows extreme power, even calling himself a god. He is capable of summoning large portals and can use souls from the Other place to attack the player, either using them as projectiles or summoning them as is disengaged from the fight directly. Phobos also is capable of creating a forcefield around himself and using telekinesis to throw debris at the player. He is also capable of summoning a shadowy sword that he claims is a weapon of the Employers. He is shown to channel what appears and sounds to be electricity into his melee attacks. He can create a blast of purple dissonant energy around him to push back and damage the player as well. Occasionally, he also will teleport around the stage.
During his bossfight, the text above his head sometimes says "My abilities are infinite", though whether or not this is exaggeration is unclear, because he does show immense power during his part of the game, and is very confident in his abilities, however still lost to Hank and his allies.
Madness: Project Nexus (Classic)
In level [1.5-D], Phobos appears with only his binary sword, realizing that Dr. Christoff had indeed defected from the Nexus. Using the binary sword, he can deflect almost every bullet fired at him and knock out any melee weapons used against him. However, if he is successfully hit by any attack, he will flee the room, telling Dr. Christoff "See you soon, doctor."
In the final level, Phobos appears in the last room armed with the binary sword and a TMP. If he is holding the binary sword, he would protect himself by using it to block attacks. If he is holding the TMP, he would dodge attacks by performing very high back flips or utilize his hefty TAC-Bar. Despite his superior evasive power, he is still vulnerable to Nexus bolts and cannot block them with his sword. Once he is killed, Jesus will say to him, "Goodnight, Phobos."
MADNESS: Project Nexus
In a leaked screenshot of MADNESS: Project Nexus, a statue of Phobos in a powerful stance is seen, raising his binary sword into the air, these statues are seen throughout the game. Overall, Phobos serves as the posthumous main antagonist of the game, since Phobos has been dead for up to 15-30 years.
Phobos himself first appears in person during Jebediah's flashback after the commercial district. He doesn't appear that much different from his 2D counterpart, with the only addition being a high-collared cape he now wears, and he is equipped with the Binary Sword. He requests a meeting with Christoff, where he states he has become aware of Christoff's betrayal to Project Nexus, and that Christoff plans to steal his "seat" as Director of it. Christoff states otherwise, saying that he is betraying Phobos, not the Project, and that he doesn't desire power over the Project, only the duties that come with the position. He then states he knows about Project Gestalt, claiming that Phobos has let his egomaniacal tendencies to fully cloud his judgement, and that he does not wish to associate himself with a godhood-seeker. Phobos retorts that Christoff's "lack of faith in [his] divine vision" has been acknowledged, and that Christoff is fired as Lead Scientist of Project Nexus, with the position being given to his rival, Dr. Crackpot. After this, he bids Christoff to begone, or he would send him personally to the Other Place.
During the last level (The Rush), you encounter his corpse at his desk, with the activation for Project Gestalt on his computer screen. He is seen again later as the second last boss fight in the game, appearing from Project Gestalt after Gestalt had been defeated using the Divergence Engine and revealing Gestalts purpose to be a way for him to escape The Other Place and ascend to godhood. Before the boss fight begins, he says "Step aside gentleman, a god stands before you now" and a portal appears behind him. When fight begins, his godly title becomes clear as he summons various souls and dissonant energy throughout the boss fight for his attacks. After he loses 4 of his corpus blocks, he steals Christoff's Halo and takes it back for himself, turning him from purple to red and empowering him. After they destroy the last two corpus blocks and the boss fight ends, he is shown to be sucked back onto the large portal he created behind him which leads back to the Other Place. Then he exclaims "while I have my perfect vessel it doesn't matter Christoff. I will merge the Other place with project Gestalt and have my godhood!" before being forced back into the Other place via Gestalt. Project Gestalt is then defeated by Deimos, Sanford, Hank, and Jesus using C-4s to the head, then shot into oblivion by Hank, Sanford, Deimos, and Jebus, preventing Phobos from escaping for good.
Gallery
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The unfinished design of Phobos in MADNESS: Project Nexus
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Director Phobos in MADNESS: Project Nexus
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An earlier design of Phobos in MADNESS. Project Nexus
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Phobos in Madness: Project Nexus Classic
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Phobos during Christoff's fourth flashback
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Ditto
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Phobos' back, showing his binary sword and cape
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Ditto
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A painting of Phobos
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Old version of Phobos' corpse as it appears in The Rush.
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Phobos' current corpse, with his cloak
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Phobos' S3LF essence leaving Gestalt
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Phobos' S3LF revealing himself to the protagonists.
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Phobos' S3LF glitching, revealing his normal form
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Phobos' S3LF Form, after descending
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Phobos' forcefield
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Phobos summoning a weapon of the Employers
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Phobos, being empowered by the Keystone Fragment
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Phobos being sucked back into the Other Place
Trivia
- After Phobos is defeated, the final cutscene shows an image of Dr. Christoff holstering what appeared to be the binary sword, implying that Dr. Christoff obtained the binary sword from Phobos.
- In level [1.5-D], if the player has defeated Phobos, leaves the room, and then returns, Phobos will be there again and the player would have to hit him with another attack.
- In Greek mythology, Phobos is the god of fear and has a brother named Deimos, who is the god of dread. In the Madness universe, Phobos and Deimos are completely unrelated, and Krinkels has stated that he chose their names because they sounded cool.[1]
- Although probably a joke, Krinkels has stated that the reason Phobos is slightly big is because he did Deadlifts and was on a GOMAD diet.
- When asked in a stream if Phobos possesses Project Gestalt directly, Krinkels states that Gestalt is more of his own entity made up of millions of bits of combined S3LF energy.
- This can be reaffirmed by a log you can find during Climb! Which states that when a ton of S3LF energy is loaded into a body, it can become something of a vessel or gateway to the other place. Regarding this, it can be assumed that Gestalt is more of a literal gateway for Phobos in achieving his godhood and escape The Other Place.
- Phobos stated that he "would be bonding with Gestalt and joining the ranks of the employers soon" shortly before he fights them, this implies that he has seen the Employers personally or at least is heavily aware of their existence and seemingly knows a lot about them.
- Later on, it is revealed that The Employers have hired Director Phobos to initiate Project Nexus, however after his egomaniac tendencies took over his sense of judgement, they had to resort to hiring both Hank J. Wimbleton & Jebediah Christoff to stop him from further damaging Nevada.
- Phobos is the largest non-magnified/non-G03LM character in the game, being 1.6 times larger than a normal madness character, only slightly bigger than a G03LM .
- It is unclear how much control Phobos had over Gestalt, as judging by his dialogue, which names him as a "vessel", it's possible he simply hid inside Gestalt's body until the final battle, where he fully took control of it.
- Phobos is a G-01, which is the same type of grunts as the Arena Player Character and the grunt in The Artifact, making Phobos one of the oldest Nevadeans in the Madness Universe.
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