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William

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William
William
Information
Full name William
Affiliation
Voice actor -TBA-
Artist Unknown
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"I can't sleep yet, I still have work to do..."

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"This is classified information!"

This article contains unmarked spoilers. You have been warned.

William is the name of the antagonist of several games in the Girls' Frontline's series. He is presented as an elusive and deeply unethical scientist with an obsession for unlocking the power of Relic Technology.

Girls' Frontline

The man presenting himself as Professor[1] William von Oberstein (威廉·冯·奥伯斯坦) is the primary antagonist of Girls' Frontline. He is the leader of Paradeus, where he is called Father. He is a ruthless, self-centered and unethical researcher who likes creating interesting events to witness, regardless of people's sufferings.[1] His goals are to find a “key” to harness the power of Relic Technology, and to resurrect Lunasia. He has also claimed interest in the Rossartrist notion of a post-war “Brave New World”.[2]

William is the son of Rudolf von Oberstein and his wife Hanna, and the younger brother of Lunasia von Oberstein.[3][4] His family nicknamed him “Bill”.[4] He was born in 2047, ten years after his sister. During the latter half of World War Three, Hanna suffered from mental issues and a faith crisis, and the family fragmented after its transfer to Heidelberg by the US Army in 2049,[5] with Hanna taking her children away to join a cult.[6] William was neglected by his mother and even the servants of the house. Whether a cause or a consequence of this treatment, William treated other human beings with utter disdain from a young age, clashing with his mother and sister's ideals to save humanity from its suffering. William complained that he had scared away everyone around him except for his own sister, who became the most important person for him. They still sometimes physically fought. Despite of his personal beliefs, William took part in the dinner prayer performed by his mother and sister.[4]

Lunasia officially died from illness after her family went in hiding for political reasons,[3] some time before the end of World War Three.[7] After taking care of her in her final years,[8] William claimed his sister's death was really a murder[2] and sought to take revenge on the “madmen” who had caused the death of his mother and sister.[9] But according to a Stasi report, Hanna was killed when the West German government violently disbanded her cult, and William was placed under government custody while Lunasia continued to lead her community of believers.[6]

I will have victory for sure... Mother. Only I and I alone can save you. You, and you... My dear sister. Just a little longer... Sister. Soon... I will make those madmen pay.[9]

It has been noted in two instances in 2064 that William's voice sounds quite young, like a teenager going through voice change.[9][10] A younger William has been described as “baleful-looking”.[4] In 2064, William continued to perform his mother's dinnertime prayer, with Nemhran posing as his mother and a hologram of Lunasia.[9]

90WISH

William was considered the most brilliant, but most insufferable[3] and most strange member of 90wish, with no known face or voice.[11] He was however known for his obsession with Relics and hatred for Lycoris.[12] A man named William was a member of the Max Planck Institute for Informatics in Saarbrücken, where Lycoris and Persicaria worked until his record was wiped. However, he was found to be dead before Lunasia died herself.[3]

To resurrect Lunasia in a form that would also enable him to use Relic technology, William contacted fellow 90wish members Lycoris and Persicaria, the top AI scientist of the time. William provided them an imprint from Lunasia's brain to make a Neural Cloud from it, but didn't tell them who the imprint donor was. Lyco and Persica found memories belonging to Lunasia in the imprint, and refused as they were opposed to human experimentation and knew Lunasia's father was too. William then used a more devious plan to reach his goals.[3]

William first had a Pike node delivered to Lyco after he joined Sangvis Ferri.[13][14] The OGAS code base in the node enabled Lyco to create Elisa in 2054.[15] As he continued to enhance her, he realized she was capable of interacting with Relic technology, and that he was being manipulated by William, and so he sabotaged parts of her code.[16] In retaliation,[3] and to accelerate the growth of Elisa's OGAS,[12] William partnered with the KCCO[17] to stage Operation Butterfly in 2061, where William mortally shot Lyco.[6]

William also created biological clones of Lunasia and had them attack several Griffin & Kryuger bases during the course of 2057. Through G&K's connections with IOP and 16LAB, Persica realized the nature of the attackers and made scans of their brains herself to use as a base for her research.[3][18][19] Wanting to match Lyco's research progress, Persica decided to ignore that she was being manipulated by William,[3] and even shared the scans with Lyco to use as a personality baseline for Elisa.[20] The first result of her research was AR M16A1M16A1M16A1, who participated in the Butterfly Incident. William first discovered the results of Persica's work while monitoring the events of the Butterfly Incident, and encrypted M16's memories of the incident to prevent Lyco's warnings about his plans to reach Persica.[14]

At some point, William also founded Paradeus, a Yellow Zone sect he used to gather subjects for his human experiments,[21] including children sourced from orphanages,[22] partnering with Zeratul-Worcester Pharmaceuticals to obtain powerful sedatives.[23] William applied Relic technology to make Paradeus into an illegal army made of ELID-infected corpses like the Strelet units,[24] augmented humans like Machlian,[25] or cybernetically enhanced Lunasia clones like the Nytos. While many clones could not withstand OGAS implantation and were discarded as Isomers, some clones were much more successful like Nimogen and Mercurows.[26] However, William did not consider any Nyto to be sufficiently close to the original model.[26][27] According to Gray and Morridow, the only abnormal Nyto William tolerated was Nemhran due her role in the Bee Sting System[28] (she in fact served another personal role).[9] The telepathically-controlled blades used by Narciss have been called one of William's best works.[29]

At 90wish, one of William's projects was the use of Epiphyllum flowers as a mean to access Relics. 90wish scientists had led simulations on the potential of using the large doses of Collapse radiations released by blooming Epiphylla to modify the genetics of human subjects to the point where they would be registered as authorized users by Relics, but failed to find a method that would not trigger ELID disease in the subject, nor could replicate the unique Collapse radiation immunity of Kawasaki Kazusa. William believed only live tests could bear results, and since 90wish denied human experiments, he used the Red Zone city of Tallinn for his own experiment, using the Isomers and refugees as live subjects[11] and Paradeus units to prevent them from leaving the city.[30]

Search for the key

In order to bring Elisa closer to becoming the key, William worked again with the KCCO in 2064 to make Elisa merge with AR M4A1M4A1M4A1, another of Persica's experiments. The KCCO organized with Griffin & Kryuger an all-out assault on the Sangvis Ferri main base[31][12] and Elisa successfully made contact with M4A1,[32] but when Captain Yegor eliminated SMG RO635RO635RO635, who was trying to break the connection between Elisa and M4, he unknowingly caused M4 to break the connection herself[33] and triggered a strong counterattack from Elisa against KCCO. While this crippled KCCO's battlenet, it enabled William to track down her position for KCCO to capture her.[1] Eventually, Elisa fled the battlefield, and Persica, Angelia and Havier Witkin started suspecting William's involvement after accessing KCCO's data.[12]

I didn't think the OGAS support system would actually be so amusing. It's just the dregs of an old civilization, but to think it could actually learn and adapt to the technology of modern civilization... It's practically...it's practically a miracle that mankind has no right to touch! I confess that this has gone slightly beyond my expectations. On average, something that surprises me to this extent only occurs once every three years.[1]

During the Belgrade events, William deployed some of his best units, Nimogen and Mercurows, to lead a terrorist attack on the Neo-SovietPan-European Union peace talks.[26] He then tried to extort from Statesec the access codes of a location he called Base 22 in exchange for the location of 13 other bases and ceasing Paradeus' attempts on Chairwoman Gilda Ulrich's life.[34] Statesec apparently rejected the offer, and Ulrich was successfully evacuated from Belgrade by Griffin & Kryuger. Soon after, William made another call to Statesec, offering them the coordinates of the Paldiski Submarine Base in Estonia as a location of interest,[17] and Statesec sent Griffin & Kryuger, K and Angelia to investigate.[35] G&K found William's Epiphylla experiments when they crossed Tallinn by train, and William had the Isomers in the city establish contact with M4A1 to test her potential. Contrary to William's expectations, M4A1's OGAS successfully absorbed all the Isomer consciousnesses.[36]

At Paldiski, Angelia and K recovered several critical pieces of intel from the Paradeus laboratory, including William's experiment logs, his rough location, and several juvenile Nytos.[37] At the end of the battle at Paldiski, M4A1 decided the play into William's hand and become the “key” by merging with Elisa in order to save the T-Dolls trapped in the lower levels of the base as it was being flooded in sea water. Using the surge of computational power of the merge and nearby stockpiles of Collapse fluid, she successfully caused a Reverse Collapse phenomenon to teleport them to an unknown location, definitely proving to William that she had become the closest thing to his final goal.[2]

After the Paldiski battle, William's research was secretly protected by Griffin & Kryuger to prevent the Neo-Soviet government from accessing it.[38] Angelia also took her investigations to Germany following her findings that William was hidden in the city of Bremen, but declined help from the Stasi as she was wary of William's spies.[39] Her caution paid off when she uncovered the true identity of PECMAR secretary Morridow as a Paradeus augmented human.[25] William also expanded his operations at this period, delivering Collapse radiation payloads made from Epiphylla cultivated in Bremen by the local Flora Institute sect as far as Area S09 in Eastern Europe,[24] as well as plundering former Sangvis Ferri bases to obtain experimental Neural Clouds suited to the needs of Paradeus.[40]

During their investigations in Berlin, the Commander discovered William's Operation Cocoon: using Iaso's Boxes to contaminate the entire city, William hoped to identify a pan-immunosome among the survivors, killing millions in the process.[41][42][43] Cocoon would be a repeat of the operation during which William discovered the semi-immunosome Machlian using similar methods in an unidentified settlement,[44] but she became a liability for constantly opposing his research.[27]

Avernus

Now that's how we are different from each other, Angelia. Our aim is actually one and the same. We're just using different methods—you resort to guns, while I go with research. We have both taken many lives along the way... Yes, I do admit that was wrong. But this wrongness is the very proof that this world requires change. I am a creator. I am creating a power that is capable of changing the status quo. That's on a whole different level from putting bullets in the heads of a few inconsequential goons. Only when we possess this power will we have what it takes to do what is right. When that time comes, Angelia, think about it... Who has the right to wield such power?[9]

After MG RPK-16RPK-16RPK-16 betrayed Task Force DEFY in Berlin, Angelia was brought to Avernus, where William attempted to convince her to willingly join Paradeus. William argued that Angelia's idea of justice was skewed since she didn't target the people in power manipulating the world, and that while her concession to justice was to work for corrupt politicians, his concession was to create weapons of indiscriminate destruction in search of a better world.[9] William also agreed to let RPK-16 join Paradeus, judging that her backers had paid a sufficient price.[28]

After being captured by the Commander in Berlin, Morridow briefly met with Lunasia and returned to Avernus to relate her encounter to William and reveal how he could contact Lunasia, waging that the discovery would be important enough for him that he would spare her life despite her failure. While William was angry that Morridow saw memories of him and his sister, he rewarded her by performing upgrade surgery on her himself.[45]

During the Battle of the Dead Sea, Statesec deployed Task Force DEFY to carry Operation Kriemhild, the capture of William.[46] Griffin Lyons opposed the operation, aiming to take control of William and Paradeus for the aims of the Prometheans.[47] During the battle, William retreated to a hidden room, where he gave Morridow with secret instructions before she left. Soon after, he was seized by Task Force DEFY[10] and brought aboard the Elmo, where he would be kept until delivered to the Stasi after exiting the Dead Sea. As the Commander was about to interrogate him, the Elmo was attacked[48] and William seemingly vanished without a trace along with the Commander and Dandelion.[49]

Reverse Collapse: Code Name Bakery

William is a top URNC scientist involved in the development of the Shrike and a former leader of the GAVIRUL Project. He is described as a Caucasian male with dirty blond hair, about 180cm tall and of average build, wearing glasses and having otherwise no other identifying traits like scars or tattoos. While he spoke English, German, Polish, and Russian, he had no obvious accent except for a slight Central European Russian accent. Coupled with his lack of specific ethnic habits, this made it impossible to determine his origins.

Though there is no trace of his professional achievements or education, William has displayed in-depth knowledge both theoretical and practical in the fields of biology, genetics, cloning, medicine, artificial intelligence and Relic Technology. He is also knowledgeable in counterintelligence and counter-surveillance.

William's behavior is essentially identical to William von Oberstein's in Girls' Frontline: cold, arrogant, rational, objective and inscrutable, suspected of obsessive-compulsive, paranoid and antisocial personality disorders, harsh with his pairs while refusing to develop personal relationships and avoiding communication outside of academia, with an unhealthy lifestyle and no hobbies, vices or personal life. He also shares William von Oberstein's fascination with Relic Technology and his pursuit to create a pan-immunosome individual capable of activating relics.[50] He also claims to be the father of Helena Martin,[51] who was once named Helena Oberstein.[52] He is described as looking in his 40s in an Antarctic Union report from the early 2090s,[50] which is consistent with the description of William von Oberstein as a teenager in 2064.[53]

There are oddities regarding William's identity, such as the mention of the death of a senior researcher called William Zinn, reported as dead in a car crash in Miami in 2053. This report is parallel to the reported disappearance of Vincent Baldassa in Rio de Janeiro in 2056, a man who actually worked with William in Warsaw between 2054 and 2064,[54][55] a period over which William von Oberstein would have been quite young and also active within Paradeus. Another curious feature is that William never expresses interest in Lunasia over the course of the story, instead being focused on Jefuty.

Biography

William worked for the URNC Ministry of Science and Technology and he was both highly protected and monitored by the URNC, due to the importance of his research but also his willingness to ignore orders and focus on creating pan-immunosomes. He has been credited for most of the URNC's advances in the field of Relic Technology, including the Shrike,[50] and led the URNC Central Relic Agency.[56]

He was one of the technical supervisors for the GAVIRUL Project in Berlin between 2078 and 2085. In 2085, Antarctican intelligence noted his disappearance in Canberra, and he was presumed under the URNC's custody.[50]

For a time, he was in charge of a URNC military scientific research facility in Warsaw, Poland.[50] He has been suspected by the URNC to have intentionally caused the Warszawa Incident in 2088[57] and the AU thought him dead for a time until he was confirmed alive again in 2090. Another Antarctican report from 2091 found that he was leading a secret military center in the Inner Caucasus and called for his elimination as part of the AU's prime targets.[50] His elimination was made part of operation Bakery and a high-altitude bombardment prepared.[58]

Codename: Bakery Girl

Portrait of the man who claims to be Noylu and Jefuty's creator.

In the original game which was de-canonized, William is a scientist of the Union of Rossartrism Nations Coalition who worked on the Three Goddesses project as head biologist between 2078 and 2085. He is the one responsible for naming all three subjects.[59] During the First Antarctic War, he intervened during operation Bakery to recover subject Noylu after she was killed by a Coalition tank while serving as a sleeping agent under the name Lige to track subject Jefuty. William accelerated Noylu's recovery with a drug and gave her back her true identity, presented himself as her father and gave her the mission to capture Jefuty.[60] Despite Noylu's involvement, Jefuty managed to evade the Coalition at the end of operation Bakery,[61] though she was later captured.[59]

William is left unnamed in-game and only named “Professor” in the game's files. His identity must be pieced from reading the Secret Documents.


Gallery

Girls' Frontline

Reverse Collapse: Code Name Bakery

Trivia

  • Yuzhong once stated during the release of Chapter 13, which revealed much about William's motivations: “If your nice, gentle, beautiful, big-tittied sister you live alone with died suddenly, you'll want to take revenge on the world, too.”[62]

References[edit]

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Girls' Frontline, Singularity, Minor Pieces Draw II, William enjoys the chaos caused by the Collapse bomb used against the KCCO soldiers
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 Girls' Frontline, Episode 13-4E
  3. 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 Girls' Frontline, Episode 13-5
  4. 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Girls' Frontline, Cartesian Theater, e6
  5. Reverse Collapse: Code Name Bakery, Secret Documents#Razor Surveillance Report: Subject Information
  6. 6.0 6.1 6.2 Reverse Collapse: Code Name Bakery, Secret Documents#Global Affairs and Impacts on Religion
  7. Girls' Frontline, Episode 13-2
  8. Girls' Frontline, Shattered Connexion, Subsurface Homecoming I
  9. 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5 9.6 Girls' Frontline, Fixed Point, E1-8
  10. 10.0 10.1 Girls' Frontline, Slow Shock, SSE06
  11. 11.0 11.1 Girls' Frontline, Shattered Connexion, Fractured Cognition I
  12. 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 Girls' Frontline, Singularity, Queen's Gambit II, Persica and Angelia identify the culprits and motives behind Operation Butterfly
  13. Girls' Frontline, Singularity, Last Resort I
  14. 14.0 14.1 Girls' Frontline, Episode 13-4
  15. The Art of Girls' Frontline Vol.1, Timeline
  16. Girls' Frontline, Polarized Light, Blackbody Radiation I
  17. 17.0 17.1 Girls' Frontline, Shattered Connexion, Confidential Information II
  18. Girls' Frontline, Episode 8-4E
  19. Girls' Frontline, Shattered Connexion, Infinite Connections
  20. Girls' Frontline, Singularity, Chapter 2 Splinter Point
  21. Girls' Frontline, Episode 11-4E
  22. Girls' Frontline, Polarized Light, Causality Separating Plane
  23. Dual Randomness, Ghost Sisters VI
  24. 24.0 24.1 Girls' Frontline, Dual Randomness, Pollinosis III
  25. 25.0 25.1 Girls' Frontline, Dual Randomness, Bridge of Eternity
  26. 26.0 26.1 26.2 Girls' Frontline, Episode 12-1
  27. 27.0 27.1 Girls' Frontline, Poincaré Recurrence, E2-4
  28. 28.0 28.1
  29. Girls' Frontline, Poincaré Recurrence, E1-2
  30. Girls' Frontline, Shattered Connexion, Fractured Cognition II
  31. Girls' Frontline, Episode 10-3
  32. Girls' Frontline, Episode 10-6
  33. Girls' Frontline, Episode 10-4E
  34. Girls' Frontline, Isomer, Lost Bargaining Chip II
  35. Girls' Frontline, Shattered Connexion, Confidential Information XI
  36. Girls' Frontline, Shattered Connexion, Confidential Information XII
  37. Girls' Frontline, Polarized Light, Annealing II
  38. Girls' Frontline, Dual Randomness, Departure Time III
  39. Girls' Frontline, Dual Randomness, The Curtain Rises II
  40. Girls' Frontline, Dual Randomness, Operation Snake Eater V
  41. Girls' Frontline, Mirror Stage, Ariadne’s Clew III
  42. Girls' Frontline, Mirror Stage, Heraclitus’ River III
  43. Girls' Frontline, Poincaré Recurrence, E2-15
  44. Girls' Frontline, Mirror Stage, Nyx’s Night I
  45. Girls' Frontline, Fixed Point, E4-2, E4-3
  46. Girls' Frontline, Slow Shock, E3-1
  47. Girls' Frontline, Fixed Point, E4-13
  48. Girls' Frontline, The Summer Garden of Forking Paths, E1
  49. Girls' Frontline, The Summer Garden of Forking Paths, E2
  50. 50.0 50.1 50.2 50.3 50.4 50.5 Reverse Collapse: Code Name Bakery, Secret Documents#NSC-68
  51. Reverse Collapse: Code Name Bakery, Chapter 4, Memory Fragments
  52. Reverse Collapse: Code Name Bakery, Reverse Collapse Worldview#Philip
  53. Girls' Frontline, Fixed Point, E1-8
  54. Reverse Collapse: Code Name Bakery, Secret Documents#Cp57 Experiment Records
  55. Reverse Collapse: Code Name Bakery, Secret Documents#Small Raptor Photography Project
  56. Reverse Collapse: Code Name Bakery, 2-9
  57. Reverse Collapse: Code Name Bakery, Secret Documents#Warszawa Incident Original Report
  58. Reverse Collapse: Code Name Bakery, 3-3
  59. 59.0 59.1 The Art of Girls' Frontline Vol.1, Confidential Files, part. 7
  60. Codename: Bakery Girl, chapter 8
  61. Codename: Bakery Girl, chapter 10
  62. Yuzhong's Weibo post