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Sam Fisher
Real Name Samuel Leo Fisher
Born: 1957
Nationality United States of America
Affiliations NSA (Third Echelon), CIA, Navy SEALs
Gender Male
Hair Black
Eyes Green
Height 5 ft 10 in
Weight 170 lb.
Education Major in Political Science, Advanced Weapons Training, Scuba Training, SAO Qualification, SQT Training, HAHO and HALO training
Voice Actor Michael Ironside

Sam Fisher is the main character in the Splinter Cell series of games based on the world endorsed - not authored - by Tom Clancy. Fisher is voiced by actor Michael Ironside. His full name is Samuel Fisher, as seen when he was using the computer in the Osprey to encrypt his call home in Splinter Cell.

Introduction

Sam Fisher is a veteran of the CIA Directorate of Operations and of U.S. Navy SEAL Team 3. He is 5 feet 10 inches tall, weighs 170 pounds (77 kg), usually has a rough-shave, and has black hair and green eyes. He is an operative of Third Echelon, a clandestine division of the National Security Agency. Fisher is extremely agile and an expert in the art of stealth. Fisher was the first person to be recruited as a field operative, of the "Splinter Cell" program for Third Echelon. He works alone in the field -- in espionage parlance, he is a singleton. Fisher resides in a townhouse in Towson, Maryland when not on the job. Fisher studies the art of Krav Maga.

While Fisher was working on an American Air Force base in Germany during the 1980s, he met and later married Regan Burns in 1984. They had one daughter together, Sarah (born June 16,1985). Fisher and Regan later divorced and Regan went back to using her maiden name, and had Sarah's changed as well. She died from ovarian cancer in 1989. Sarah died as a result of being hit by a drunk driver in 2008.

His direct supervisor is Colonel Irving Lambert, USA, Ret. Lambert an missions by NSA employees Anna Grimsdóttír, Vernon Wilkes Jr (now deceased) and later Frances Coen, who was Wilkes' temporary replacement and was replaced by former Marine William Redding. One of his aides, D.P. Brunton, became the head of SHADOWNET Operations, a sister group of Third Echelon.

Fisher has to travel all around the world to complete his missions. He has traveled to Indonesia, Japan, North and South Korea, Europe, and even in the United States. He also has gone inside submarines, into missle silos, under water bases, oil rigs, and into airports. Fisher is able to use parts of the environment that normal people don't even notice such as pipes, zip lines, air vents, etc.

Background

Lead character artist Martin Caya established in early interviews about the game that during his career Fisher had served in Afghanistan, where he had an experience in which he was forced to hide under dead bodies in order to avoid being killed. Caya also established that Fisher had served in East Germany and in "other Soviet satellite countries leading up to the collapse of the USSR."

The novel establishes that he hated his time in CIA, and that he mostly had official cover (i.e., he was a "diplomatic aide"). The training mission in the first game established that he served in Kuwait; most likely during the First Gulf War. In the beginning of the second game, a conversation between Fisher and Douglas Shetland established Fisher had served with the Navy SEALs. Other than for anti-terrorist operations, which are the purview of SEAL Team 6 (now known as DEVGRU), only SEAL Team 3 has a Middle Eastern Area of Responsibility (AOR).

Fisher is considered to be "non-existent", as much of his actual history is known by only a select few.

Also, in the game Essentials, the second level is when Sam Fisher under took a mission in Columbia, and saved the life of Doug Shetland. He was in the Navy SEALs at this time.

Personality

A gruff and no-nonsense individual, Fisher has little patience for government bureaucracy or political maneuvering. A political realist, Fisher maintains a cynical, jaded and sarcastic sense of humor about the covert, illegal, and often morally ambiguous nature of his work. At the same time, he is highly loyal and a staunch believer in the American ideals his work ultimately protects; he will follow orders even if he finds them disagreeable or inconvenient to his mission, and he is quickly angered by the casual slaughter of Americans or U.S. military personnel by his enemies.

In the original Spinter Cell, Fisher is a new member of Third Echelon, and thus his interactions with his commander Colonel Lambert are relatively straightforward and respectful. At the same time, Fisher does drop the occasional "smart" comment at particularly unusual or obtuse mission orders.

In Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, Fisher is more familiar with his fellow Third Echelon personnel and therefore feels more free to express himself to them. He makes several sarcastic and somewhat cynical comments about the nature of his work. He also demonstrates a somewhat light-hearted side when he is described as "A pumpkin that hunts penguins for the phone company" by a confused security guard.

In Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, Fisher is shown as rather ruthless towards his enemies, and he appears fairly disappointed when Lambert orders him to avoid enemy fatalities as part of his mission parameters. Frequently holding captured enemies at knife-point, his dialogue with them is creative and highly intimidating, though often morbidly humorous to the audience.

Throughout the games, Fisher attempts to uphold what he believes is "right." A notable instance occurs during Chaos Theory where Lambert instructs Fisher to leave the bodies of downed pilots at the scene of the crash, which Fisher is about to demolish. While the game allows the player to demolish the site, he or she can pick up the bodies and carry them to safety. Lambert tells Fisher to stop because it may compromise the mission, but Fisher continues anyway. Lambert then reminds him that his actions will not be recognized and that he will not receive a medal, to which Fisher replies, "medals don't help me sleep at night."

Another instance is when Fisher is ordered to not tamper with the body of a tortured computer engineer because they don't have the means to extract him. The player may choose to cut down the ropes binding the corpse which will cause Lambert to yell at Fisher who will reply by saying, "Just because he's dead doesn't mean I have to leave him there hanging like a piece of meat, you can spare thirty seconds for some simple dignity". If you procede to shoot the corpse Lambert questions you which leads to Fisher replying that he is "making sure he's not suffering."

You can see a perfect example of Fishers sarcasm when, during the interrogation of a captured enemy, he is forced to explain that the prisoner is the bad guy because of the super secret underground hideout, and that Fisher is in fact the good guy.

Also in the second game, Fisher is told to kill Dahlia as she is a double agent. If the player kills her Fisher asks "Tell me what I just did Lambert." If not, Lambert yells at Fisher to which Fisher responds with "I'm going to need a little more warning to shoot unarmed women." If you kill her there are just police at the mission exit, which are easily passed, if you let her live she calls in snipers to assist her in killing you when you resurface. This usually makes extraction much more difficult but for more able players, the snipers aren't much problem.

Tactics and Equipment

Skills

Fisher is extremely athletic, especially for a person of his age. He is capable of many different climbing and scaling abilities, such as step-jumping to climb raised walls, performing a split leg maneuver to keep himself supported for a long period of time, as well as being able to hold tight to ceiling pipes or even the undercarriage of a moving train. He is also strong enough to lift the body of a full grown man onto his back and carry it around, and can run somewhat faster than the average soldier. Nonetheless, Fisher's age is apparently catching up to him, as in Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory he can regularly be heard making various grunts and groans of exertion during a mission, though, throughout the series he can be heard making such noises when doing activities such as hefting dead/unconscious bodies, hoisting himself up, and whatnot. It seems to be more prevalent during his foray into his fifties.

As the nature of Fisher's job relies on stealth and non-detection, he is highly adept at blending into shadows and moving silently. He is able to sneak up on most opponents undetected and quickly subdue them using either lethal or non-lethal means.

The novel establishes that he "exclusively uses Krav Maga" for unarmed combat. Krav Maga is a combat form that was developed by the Israeli Special Forces. He has reached the advanced level of 3B under the tutelage of his instructor, Katia Loernstern. However in the actual first two games, Fisher's hand to hand capabilities seemed limited in direct combat with opponents, although he becomes much more effective in hand-to-hand combat and even gains the ability to use a knife to deadly effect in Chaos Theory.

Fisher is also mixed-handed, as he can switch which hand he fires his rifle and pistol with in Chaos Theory in order to keep better cover without any apparent loss of accuracy. However, he seems to prefer his right hand because he always draws his weapons right-handed, and in the first two games he could only use his right hand to shoot with. It is unknown whether he acquired or perfected this talent in the time between Pandora Tomorrow and Chaos Theory or he always had this ability without it being included in the first two games' controls, but the former seems unlikely.

Weapons

Through the games, Fisher primarily uses two firearms, the SC Pistol and SC-20K Assault Rifle. In Chaos Theory, Fisher added a knife to his arsenal of weapons.

The player first got the chance to wield Fisher's knife in Chaos Theory. In the novel, it is described as a USMC Ka-bar with a hilt covered in compressed leather of standard design. However, in the game, some close-ups of the hilt suggest that it is custom made (Although it looks very similar to the SOG Pentagon, or most closely to a Gerber Guardian II). The knife appears to be double-edged, with a blade roughly 5 inches long. It has a central groove called a "fuller" in order to reduce weight, often mistakenly called a "blood groove". Fisher carries it horizontally at the back of his belt, allowing him to draw it easily and quickly in either forward or reverse grips.

In addition to being a deadly weapon (Fisher always aims for the heart or throat, and thus a single strike with the weapon always results in the immediate takedown of the target), Fisher also makes use of it as a multipurpose tool in the field. Fisher can use the knife to interrogate suspects, cut tent-fabric and plastic sheeting, break locks, disable small machinery (such as gas powered generators), defuse bombs, cut wires, pry hidden microphones from walls, and install listening devices onto phone lines.

The pistol in the game is a 20-round, semi-automatic weapon with an attached suppressor that uses the NATO 5.7 mm ammunition (Fabrique National Five-seveN).

5.7 mm ammo is touted by FN to be able to penetrate NATO kevlar vests and helmets, but in the games the ability to penetrate armor is limited, taking at least three to five shots to the torso to down a foe, which is probably due to the subsonic ammunition used. Afterall, the 5.7 uses a high speed and velocity to penetrate. A suppressor silences the report of the pistol by slowly allowing gasses from the barrel to expand and escape, resulting in a soft "pfft" noise. In addition, subsonic rounds are used in conjunction with suppressors to quiet the report further by eliminating the supersonic crack of a bullet travelling at a speed faster than that of sound. Subsonic ammo also helps by avoiding damage to the suppressor.

The pistol is much more silent than the SC-20K. In Pandora Tomorrow, the pistol is equipped with a laser aiming module. In the series' third installment, Chaos Theory, the pistol is equipped with an OCP, a device that can be used to temporarily disrupt electronic devices, such as light fixtures and security cameras.

  • SC-20K (FN F2000 Tactical)

    This is a 30-round, selective fire 5.56 x 45 mm NATO bull-pup assault rifle with a supressor, a 1.5x reflex sight or a 4x scope in the first 2 games, and an underslung grenade launcher used to launch various less-than-lethal devices.

    The SC-20K was modified for use in Chaos Theory. The 1.5x reflex sight replaced the stronger 4x full scope, but in compensation the SC-20K gained the ability to mount additional undermount modular configurations. It has been designed with a "bull-pup" configuration, allowing for maximum power with a minimum weight and size. In the field, Fisher can carry a maximum of two undermount modules at once. These modules are:

    Launcher: A Splinter Cell's standard loadout (as seen in Splinter Cell and Pandora Tomorrow), the attached 40mm grenade launcher, is able to fire ring airfoil rounds, sticky shockers, sticky cameras, gas grenades and other such less-than-lethal devices. The ring airfoil round is a small ring that can knock out enemies silently but the drawback is its parabolic trajectory. The sticky shocker is a LTL device that shocks enemies into unconsciousness. They are launched at a flat trajectory and causes some noise. Sticky cameras are reusable devices that allow you to observe areas without being detected. They can also make noises that can attract the enemy or can self-destruct which will release a deadly gas. If enemies detect the sticky camera then they will open fire on it which will release the gas.

    Foregrip: A foregrip used to steady firing and counter the effects of recoil, resulting in far more accurate fire when shooting in full auto mode.

    Shotgun: An undermount 12-gauge 000 buckshot shotgun attachment. Useful for close-quarters combat. Extremely lethal against enemy personnel, but also very loud.

    Sniper: A huge modification that chambers the SC-20K for a 20 mm APDS (Armor-Piercing Discarding Sabot) round that can rip straight through armor and cover alike. This version has a full scope and modified barrel, increasing range and accuracy, though it is rather loud and unwieldy. This weapon has the highest penetration power in Sam's arsenal, and is the one weapon he carries capable of destroying certain forms of enemy armor (such as North Korean UAVs).

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