F-44[1], commonly known as the Emperor's Assistant,[2] and later the Warden,[3] is a minor antagonist in Rift Apart. She is the long-time personal assistant and confidant of Emperor Nefarious in Rivet's dimension, as well as the warden of Zordoom Prison.
She appears frequently throughout Rift Apart, working for Dr. Nefarious after he came to Rivet's dimension and impersonated the Emperor, and later returned working for the Emperor himself again after the Doctor had been exposed.
History[]
Before Rift Apart[]
For years, F-44 dutifully served Emperor Nefarious and yearned for a promotion, so she too may have a taste of the power he wields, and use it to likewise lord over others.[2]
At some point years before the events of Rift Apart, in a stroke of luck, Quantum managed to place a spy bug on F-44 without her knowing, enabling him to see and hear what she does through a helmet of his. This intimate knowledge of the Emperor's plans through F-44 enabled Quantum to quickly rise through the ranks of the space pirates and become captain,[4] allowing them to flourish for years and remain one step ahead of the Emperor's plans to destroy them.[5]
Rift Apart[]
The Assistant first appears along with several Nefarious Troopers escorting an Infobot containing the Emperor's targets for his hitlist through Nefarious City. The Resistance were not aware of what was on the Infobot, but knew it was sensitive information to the Emperor. Rivet succeeds in stealing it from them without them noticing and escapes, while soon after the Assistant frantically orders Troopers to find the missing Infobot. By this point Emperor Nefarious had already vacated his throne, and is personally tracking down his key opposers in the Resistance and space pirates to finally remove all threats to his rule.
The Assistant is surprised by the early return of who she thinks is the Emperor.
When Dr. Nefarious steals the Dimensionator from Ratchet and Clank, he uses it to bring them with him to this dimension where his counterpart rules the universe and has never been defeated. The Dimensionator after being critically damaged, explodes and in the confusion the Doctor is mistaken to be the Emperor and taken to his tower by his followers. The Assistant is also fooled and believes the Doctor is the Emperor, having returned early from his conquest. She nervously laughs evilly along with Dr. Nefarious, who is ecstatic at his new situation and settles into the Emperor's throne.
She can be heard frequently over the Public Announcement system, cheerily spreading the Emperor's propaganda to the citizens of Nefarious city and subtly threatening them to spend as much money as they have at the bazaar as the Emperor keeps purchasing data of all customers and is watching them. She is also heard over the loudspeaker in the Nefarious Business Factory, where she justifies the workers' morbid working routines as being to help spread the glory of the Emperor across the galaxy. At the Nefarious Day Spa, she is heard over it's loudspeaker announcing the spa's services and benefits. An automated recording of her voice welcoming the Emperor back is played when Ratchet hacks the Emperor's entrance to Nefarious Tower. When Ratchet infiltrates the tower to find a royal starship to leave the planet and pursue Clank, he is caught by and attacks Dr. Nefarious. The Assistant hurriedly sounds the alarms and calls in several Troopers, although he is able to quickly find an imperial ship. However, when Ratchet tries to use one of the Emperor's personal ships, it does not work and an automated recording of the Assistant's voice asks for the password, which is luckily left on a reminder sticky note next to the controls. The password being "Why do I need a password I'm the Emperor how about I obliterate you instead hahahahaha".
The Assistant eavesdropping on Rivet and Clank's plans at Zurkie's.
Official news broadcasts to the universe from the Emperor are introduced by the Assistant's voice-over. When Rivet travels to Zurkie's to acquire a part needed to fix Clank's broken communicator from Space Pirate, Pierre Le Fer, the Assistant can be seen listening in on Ratchet, Clank and Rivet's plans to rebuild the Dimensionator and learns where they will be headed to and informs Dr. Nefarious, so they can ambush them upon their arrivals with their attack forces. The Doctor attributes this information reaching him by way of his elaborate spy network. The Lombaxes manage to escape alive however.
The Assistant presents the new Dimensionator and Phase Quartz to Dr. Nefarious.
Once Ratchet and his new friend Kit use another dimension's Rubion Forge to successfully rebuild the Dimensionator and Rivet and Clank recover the Phase Quartz to power it, the four meet up at Zurkie's to finally complete the device and repair the damage to the dimensions. Dr. Nefarious however had anticipated their return and had his Nefarious Troopers apprehend Zurkie; the establishment's owner and prepared an ambush inside the Gastropub for them. A squadron of troopers train their weapons on the four and force them to surrender. The Assistant takes the Dimensionator from Ratchet and the Phase Quartz to power it from Rivet and presents them to Dr. Nefarious. After the Doctor fights Rivet in combination with the Dimensionator, he is eventually beaten, until the real Emperor Nefarious appears, claiming the Dimensionator for himself and accepting Dr. Nefarious' plea for an alliance after his exposure.
The Emperor tracks down Quantum using the Dimensionator with the Assistant accompanying him.
With the return of the real Emperor Nefarious to his throne, the Assistant went immediately back to his side, waiting on him on hand on foot. When Ratchet and Clank go to Ardolis to warn Captain Quantum before the Emperor finds him, he states that he already knows everything the Emperor is planning. He reveals that the Assistant has a bug planted on her that has enabled the Space Pirates to see and hear what she does, which has allowed them to always stay one step ahead of the Emperor's plans. Quantum does this using a holoscreen projected through the bucket-like device he wears on his head for disguising himself as a robot, allowing him to be accepted by the pirates and earning their adoration as their captain. Soon after this though, the Emperor tracks down Quantum's location and emerges through a rift along with the Assistant and he opens a rift with the Dimensionator to Zordoom Prison. Quantum sacrifices himself and saves Ratchet and Clank, allowing them to escape with the spy bug device, while he is sucked into the rift and imprisoned. The Emperor then leaves through another rift, laughing triumphantly, with the Assistant by his side.
The Assistant cheers on Emperor Nefarious' renewed vigor to conquer new dimensions.
The Emperor later broadcasts to the galaxy, believing that he has neutralized all his enemies after trapping Rivet and Kit in a pocket dimension, unaware that she had managed to escape. He however feels depressed that he now has seemingly nothing else in his life to achieve, the Assistant then offers him a drink to console him but he waves her away. The realization that there are other dimensions he has not conquered yet excites the Emperor again and reinvigorates his drive to continue achieving success. The Assistant can be seen mimicking the Emperor's body language in this scene, making joyful gestures when he feels excited at the idea of subjugating other dimensions and looking sternly at Dr. Nefarious when the Emperor gets angry at him. This subtly shows her living vicariously through the Emperor and her great desire to experience the power he wields over others for herself. Using the spy bug device Captain Quantum gave them, Ratchet and Clank are able to listen in on this conversation and discover the Emperor's next move is to steal the Dimensional Map from the dimensional archives on Savali so he can find the other dimensions to invade.
The Assistant in her new role as warden of Zordoom Prison.
After the plan to get the Dimensional Map before the Emperor fails, Ratchet, Clank and Kit are imprisoned at Zordoom Prison, forcing Rivet to make a desperate prison break attempt to save them, alone. The Emperor had recently offered the Assistant an opportunity to branch out as the Warden of Zordoom Prison and she is seen many times on monitors, furiously attempting to destroy Rivet and sending Nefarious Troopers after her, while manically getting drunk on her new position of power. The prison has recently had issues with overcrowding with the Emperor imprisoning anyone here who is a resistance member, a suspected resistance member or has committed extremely minor offences that displease him. The solution by the Assistant for this overcrowding is to "reform" the prisoners with a gauntlet of crushing pistons. When Rivet breaks into the Warden's office to unlock the cell block, so she can follow Ratchet and Kit's VIP cell, the Assistant fearfully enters a force shield, timidly pleading with Rivet to not hurt her and claims she was only following the Emperor's orders. She then escapes the office and continues trying to have Rivet destroyed throughout the rest of the prison. Rivet succeeds in pulling a massive prison break, unlocking all the cells and eventually saving her friends. The Assistant continues her threats to Rivet and sending Troopers after her, but after the billions of bolts in damages caused under her watch and numerous prisoner escapes, she is fired from her job by an unheard voice, to which she angrily replies that they can't fire her and that she instead quits.
F-44 in the Emperor's office after his defeat.
After the defeat of Emperor Nefarious in Megalopolis whilst attempting to subjugate Ratchet and Clank's home dimension, the Assistant is seen in the ending credits sequence of Rift Apart in his office in Nefarious Tower, attempting to slip into the Emperor's now vacant throne and usurp some of his power. She soon however shows her cowardice again and is easily chased out by Phantom and Ms. Zurkon.
Characteristics[]
Appearance[]
Like very many of the robotic citizens of Nefarious City, F-44 has no legs and moves using a hover propulsion jet on her base. She sports a white, hot pink and dark metallic grey color scheme with pink eyes and three digits on each hand. Also like the other Nefarious City robots, she has no mouth and in place of one, uses an audio output speaker to talk.
Personality[]
As the Emperor's Assistant, F-44 appears dutiful, loyal and subservient to Emperor Nefarious, preforming the tasks she is given faithfully but like her employer, she also possesses a desire for power and prestige, to lord over those beneath her. While she appears to be mild mannered and pleasant in her assistant role, she has a rather dark, ruthless side to her that reveals itself later as the Emperor offers her the opportunity to take on the job as the warden of Zordoom Prison. It can therefore be said that the Assistant is not loyal to Emperor Nefarious personally, but to the power and position he has, as the Assistant truly desires power for herself as she attempted to usurp his throne after his defeat in Ratchet's dimension. However, much like Emperor Nefarious, the Assistant possesses her own superiority complex, expecting her orders to be carried out and obeyed, yet losses composure and panics when she is facing resistance and failure.
She essentially performs the same role for Emperor Nefarious as Lawrence does for Dr. Nefarious. They are, however, nothing alike as characters and not dimensional counterparts. F-44 is extremely subservient and diligent with her duties and can be seen as a "yes-man", always telling the Emperor exactly what he wants to hear and never questioning his decisions. Lawrence, in contrast, finds the Doctor to be foolish and does not have a strong opinion of him, subtly insulting him whenever he can without him noticing yet still providing wise advice to his employer. They both however still perform their respective jobs as assistants attentively.
Behind the scenes[]
F-44's character art.
F-44's name is shown in character art but never actually stated in-game where she is only referred to as "The Assistant" in one instance, "The Emperor's Assistant" in the character gallery and ending credits, and "The Warden" on Viceron.
Malori's unfinished character model.
In an early draft of Rift Apart's script (working title Ratchet & Clank: Eternal), the narrative role of both F-44 and Kit was that of a singular character named Malori, who was both Emperor Nefarious' assistant and Clank's counterpart. At the Emperor's behest, Malori built a device named the Universal Remote, allowing him to tear down the walls between dimensions and invade Ratchet and Clank's universe to continue his goal of replacing all organic life with robots. Malori hates the Emperor and teams up with Ratchet to help him recover the pieces of the Remote after it is broken and its parts scattered across the dimensions; however, once the Emperor is defeated, she betrays the team and assumes control in the Emperor's place to take on his plan for herself, for what she believed was the good cause of bringing everyone together as robots. Wanting to shut down the Emperor's organization from the inside, Malori became corrupted by his code instead and turned evil. The team fought her armies to reach her on Corson V, and Clank cleaned out the corruption that made Malori evil by rebooting her. Malori and Rivet formed a bond and went on their own adventures. In the end, Malori made it so the walls between Ratchet and Rivet's dimensions remained open, allowing organics and robots to now live together in harmony.
Citations[]
- ↑ "Nefarious City Robot Civilians" artwork
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Rift Apart menu § "The Emperor's Assistant"
- ↑ Rift Apart script § "The unpleasant history of Zordoom Prison"
- ↑ Rift Apart menu § "Captain Quantum"
- ↑ Rift Apart script § "The enterprising history of Ardolis"