NO SUPERIORS CAN RELIEVE ME OF MY DUTY, YOU BULLDOZED THEM ALL TO A MASS GRAVE FOR TRYING TO FREE HUMANITY. – {{{3}}}
Iosef Lilianovich Dros is a character in Disco Elysium.
Background
Political Commissar of the 114th Anti-Aircraft Division of the 4th Army of the Commune of Revachol.
Born in the year '92, Dros was ten years old when the Turn-Of-The-Century Revolution reached Revachol and the Commune of Revachol was established through the March Decree. At age fifteen, the year '07, he was recruited from Jamrock as a volunteer revolutionary soldier,[1] receiving both warfare and ideological education in the Ecole de Controle Aérien. However, his training was cut short by the Coalition of Nations' assault on the Commune in the year '08, resulting in an assignment as political commissar of emergency defence duties in the Sea Fortress.[2]
As commissar of the Communist Party, Dros' duty was to ensure the revolutionary militia always answered to civilian control and followed the ideology of the Commune: scientific communism.[3] In addition, the commissar was looked up to as an exemplary ideologue and officer, being seen as a knight-philosopher of the Revolution, a future human.[4]
On May 13th, '08, the assault gave way to the Landing: Operation Death Blow. Coalition aerostatics filled the skies,[5] dropping troops at the beachheads in Martinaise, Ozonne, and La Delta.[6] As the massacre began in Ozonne, Dros became deeply afraid, later describing his feelings as "Reaction",[7] and abandoned his posting,[8] leaving his unit behind and climbing across the supply chains into the mainland, before hiding in a bunker.[9]
As morning came, Dros emerged from his hiding spot and swam back to the islet. The fortress was shelled to rubble, and all of his comrades were dead: some shot, some drowned.[10] In the crucial moment, the anti-aircraft gun malfunctioned, and the tower was left defenceless, as well as without ideological direction.[11] Believing that the revolutionaries would still be able to resist, Dros consigned himself to an eternal fight against the monstrosities of capital.[12]
Though the Insulindian Citizens Militia would eventually sign the Revacholian Instrument of Surrender, reforming itself into the Revachol Citizens Militia, a subordinate organization to the Coalition and Moralist International rule, Dros and other still-resisting communards considered themselves loyal to the Party, and refused to stop fighting.[13] Revachol West would thus become the bulwark of communist resistance, with independent units, bunkers and caches in Jamrock, Faubourg, Grand Couron and especially Boogie Street continuing active into the '10s and the '20s before being ultimately eliminated by the Coalition's mass executions and pervasive investigations.[14]
Even as time went on, Dros refused to reintegrate into society. His sneaking under the city, through the tunnels and bunkers, would gradually give way to simply walking in plain sight, as most people no longer recognized him as anything more than a vagrant.[15] He moved hideouts over the years: first, the island of Résurrection, turned into a spa in '18, which led him to the islet numbered E48, itself swallowed by the sea in '29. Finally, he returned to his original posting, in the ruins of the Sea Fortress.[16] Though he no longer held out hopes for Revolution, he still held his old rifle, and would use it to watch citizens of Martinaise through his scope and snipe those who he particularly disliked.
At a certain point, the brothers Claire found out about Dros' presence, and Edgar went to visit him personally. The two discussed at length, regarding subjects such as social-democracy, Kras Mazov, and the role of the Dockworkers' Union in modern Martinaise. Dros also received items of aid for his survival, such as matresses and a gas cooker. Momentarily convinced that the Claires could reform the Union into a radical socialist institution, Dros agreed to assassinate Tiphaune Holly, the forewoman, in order to facilitate the brothers' ascent to power. Though Dros enjoyed killing the bourgeois woman, he grew to despise the "new" Union just as much as the old one.
Unbeknownst to him, Dros' mental state was being affected by the presence of the Insulindian Phasmid, which had made its nest on the islet. The Phasmid's pheromones hid it from Dros' perception, which also prolonged his life and increased his resilience, keeping his mental state and ideological fervor the same he had as a young revolutionary. Under the Phasmid's influence, Dros would eventually develop a fixation with Klaasje
Without partisan training, Dros found it difficult to survive at first, especially in the '10s, when the Coalition's search for stragglers was particularly intense, supported by the RCM and civilians just wanting to move on. He used the sea fortress as his base, gathering supplies and weapons on the mainland, dashing from bunker to bunker. But slowly, the Coalition's grip loosened: There were no more communists to root out, just impoverished, broken people forcibly fed into the capitalist grinder. Dros could move freely, just another vagrant among thousands. It only radicalized him further. For the next 43 years and 10 months he would remain on the island, the last holdout of the Commune of Revachol. His hopes would be briefly reignited by the Claires, who promised a return of socialism in return for a single favor: The death of the Dockworkers' Union head.
Though a cynic, Dros obliged and murdered her, only to watch the Claires renege on their promises. He could have asked anything he wanted in return for his favor. Instead, he withdrew onto his island, continuing to subsist on rainwater and whatever he could salvage. Though this style of life should have killed him, Dros stayed alive. It wasn't uncanny endurance or stroke of luck: He was accompanied by the Insulindian Phasmid, which used its psychic abilities to erase itself from Dros' perception. The same process also prolonged Dros' life and helped him cope with the passage of time, though it also caused various mental complications: Missing days, blackouts, and eventually a perverse psychosexual fixation with Klaasje. With a clear line of sight from the island to the Whirling-in-Rags rooftop, he watched her party and have sex. Eventually, he snuck in through the abandoned pinball workshop in the back, watching her through a peep hole.
He snapped when Ellis Kortenaer entered her life, a colonel in charge of a death squad sent to "deal" with the striking workers. He had it. So he took his Triangong 4-46, lay down in the ruined embrasure on the island and waited for the right moment, when Ellis and Klaasje would have sex again. When it came, he put a 4.46 mm bullet through his head. While he planned to explode his skull, the bullet entered through the mouth, killing Kortenaer on the spot. It was the last bullet he ever fired.
Since then, he remained apathetically at the island, no longer possessing the will to fight. An old deserter, used up and spent, awaiting the inevitable.
Interactions
- The Deserter is encountered in the final area of the game, at the Sea Fortress. Confronting him gives the player the opportunity to identify him as a murderer, closing the case (and extracting a motive too), obtaining the murder weapon, and also meeting the Insulindian Phasmid.
- The player is capable of confronting the Deserter with multiple pieces of evidence that prove his involvement, including:
References
- ↑ THE DESERTER - "I was just sixteen years old, fifteen when I volunteered. I had a lapse of faith..." He clears his throat. "And of courage too."
- ↑ THE DESERTER - "From the Insulindian Citizens Militia -- the Army of the Revolution. I was recruited in Jamrock in '07, trained in the Ecole de Contrôle Aérien and consigned to emergency defence duties in '08."
- ↑ KIM KITSURAGI - "His job was to assure the army answers to civilian control -- and follows the ideology of the commune," the lieutenant says softly.
- ↑ THE DESERTER - "Scientific communism!" The tracksuit-clad old man is suddenly reanimated. "A *comissaire politique* is a knight-philosopher of the Revolution, a future human."
- ↑ THE DESERTER - "May the 13th, '08, 44 years ago," he looks north. "The horizon was black with Coalition airships. Their petroleum rose to the sky and it looked like... like it *formed* the clouds. Storm clouds. When they started shelling it was... dark magic."
- ↑ RENÉ ARNOUX - "Martinaise was used as one of the three footholds in Revachol during Operation Death Blow in '08. The other two are off in Stella Maris and the Delta." He points to the northeast.
- ↑ THE DESERTER - "You could say I misunderstood the historic role of the proletariat, and thought Mazovian socio-economics were fallible. For a second I doubted the irreducible laws of historic materialism."
THE DESERTER - "A second is all it took."
YOU - "For what?"
THE DESERTER - "For Reaction to take hold." - ↑ THE DESERTER - "...huddled on the floor. The artillery was eighty kilometres away in Ozonne but I *knew*, I knew the Commune would fall. We would all be turned into ash. So I said I was going to the map room..." He looks east.
AUTHORITY - A terrible shame, still within him. The lobes of his ears are red with it, the shame and smallness of what he became. - ↑ THE DESERTER - "No. I climbed the chain link across the water and hid inland. In the bunkers there, like the weakest of the weak... a mouse. Frightened of the ordnance all night and the sound of the rotors in the morning, whirring -- *thith-thith-thith...*" He looks at the sky.
- ↑ THE DESERTER - "Aerostatics. The Landing had started. I climbed out -- into hell. There were ships all above. Hissing, whirling, and men pouring out. The chain was submerged so I had to swim back. The fortress was half submerged too, shattered."
- ↑ THE DESERTER - "They'd all drowned in the lower levels, or got torn to shreds above. The anti-aircraft gun had malfunctioned -- so had I. I left them without ideological direction..." He opens his eyes and stares right through you. "It was real. I'd seen it. I'd seen it *in reality*."
- ↑ THE DESERTER - "I had to, I *had* to fight it. I had to never stop..." The old man falls silent. His black eyes keep piercing your skin as he looks to some great distance behind you, shaking his head slowly -- retreating from it.
- ↑ YOU - "The communards signed the Revacholian Instrument of Surrender."
THE DESERTER - "Liberal reactionaries signed that instrument -- traitors, who should have been burned alive..." He draws his breath. "I answer to the Communist Party." - ↑ THE DESERTER - "We communards still hoped and they needed to snuff that hope out. The East capitulated, Martinaise and Coal City were turned to dust..." He looks south. "But Jamrock, Faubourg, even Couron; and Boogie Street of course -- those fucking kipts had Mazov coursing through their veins..."
- ↑ THE DESERTER - "From bunker to bunker..." He nods. "Not anymore, no one cares now, I don't even have to hide. They think I'm another antisocial vagrant. I could walk straight into that town if I wanted. I just..." He falls silent, his gaze fixed on the shacks huddled together across the water.
- ↑ THE DESERTER - "I was on Résurrection until they turned it into a *spa* in '18. Then I was on E48, a nameless sound, until the sea washed over it. Then I came back here. That was..." He thinks. "Twenty-two years ago."