Isaac Clarke

Isaac Clarke is the main protagonist of the Dead Space series. Originally a ship systems engineer, his life changes for the worse when a seemingly-routine repair mission becomes a struggle to survive the Necromorph scourge. He is voiced and modeled after Gunner Wright.

Childhood
Born on June 5, 2465 Isaac lived with his parents Poul Clarke, a ship designer, and Octavia Clarke, a Unitologist, in the Northeastern American seaboard sector. As a child, Isaac lived most of his life with his mother as his father left on a mission before he could even get to know him. Isaac takes after his father and obtained an education in electrical and mechanical engineering. He was later selected to attend a prominent engineering academy. Unfortunately, he was unable to afford the tuition fees as his mother, a devout Unitologist, spent the family funds to purchase a vested-level title in the Church of Unitology. This led to his distrust and hatred for Unitologists and Unitology in general.

C.E.C. Career
Despite financial difficulties, Isaac manages to graduate with high honors from a lesser college to become a systems engineer. Several years later, he signs up for the Merchant Marines division, allowing him to prove his abilities in original engineering situations to his superiors. Impressed by his progress, Isaac’s superiors promoted Isaac to a position closer to major shipping lines. At an unspecified time, Isaac worked on the Ishimura. Isaac lived with Nicole Brennan, but his career had begun to stagnate around the same time as her assignment to the Ishimura two years prior to its communication blackout.

Emergency Mission to the USG Ishimura
In 2508, Isaac volunteered to be a part of an emergency response unit attached to the USG Kellion. The crew was dispatched to the USG Ishimura, the CEC mining ship was last reported orbiting Aegis VII on its mission to crack the planet, their mission was to investigate the distress signals sent by the ship and to discover the reason behind the total communication black out. Upon their arrival, the Kellion tried to hail the Ishimura to establish communication with the ship’s crew, but was greeted with static messages. Unfortunately, as the Kellion tried to land on the Ishimura, the ship was severely damaged by a docking procedure malfunction and was forced to crash land into the landing bay. Due to the emergency crash land, the Kellion lost its port booster.

Shortly after disembarking from the damaged Kellion and noticing that the ship seems to be deserted, the party was attacked by several unidentified entities in the flight lounge, later these entities were revealed to be the Ishimura's deceased crew members being reanimated by a recombinant extraterrestrial infection known as Necromorphs. In the aftermath of the attack, only Isaac Clarke, the engineer, Computer Specialist Kendra Daniels, and the team’s commander, Zach Hammond survived.

Isaac was separated from the emergency response unit and avoided his pursuers by escaping in a nearby elevator. Still in touch with Kendra and Hammond via RIGlink, Isaac aided in the Ishimura’s repair by fulfilling numerous tasks across the ship. Despite the Necromorph’s opposition, a CQD beacon was eventually placed on an asteroid chunk undergoing ore extraction and purged from the mining hold. The signal attracted the attention of a military vessel, the USM Valor. However, the crews of the Valor were slaughtered shortly, after they recovered an Ishimura escape pod containing a Slasher, trapped and unintentionally jettisoned from the ship's bridge by Hammond.

With most of its crews dead or being transformed into Necromorphs, the Valor was left to drift out of control and subsequently sideswiped the Ishimura, violently crashing into it. A successful attempt to retrieve the Valor’s singularity core nonetheless resulted in Hammond’s death at the hands of an Enhanced Brute. Returning to the Ishimura, Isaac was contacted by Dr. Terrence Kyne, a scientist who planned to return Marker 3A to the colony below via the remaining shuttle.

After Isaac repairs the shuttle with the Valor’s singularity core and restored its navigation discs, Kyne was shot and killed by Kendra. She revealed herself to be a covert Earth Government agent, and that the entire conflict on Aegis VII was due to CEC interference with the Marker. Shortly thereafter she departed with the Marker.

Left for dead on the Ishimura, Isaac was saved by Nicole. After appearing, she compelled him to take the Marker back to Aegis VII, recalling the shuttle in the process. She forced Kendra to abandon ship in an escape pod. Once on the devastated planet, Isaac finally succeeded in returning it to its pedestal. This resulted in a massive EMP that disabled the gravity tethers holding the chunk of Aegis VII above orbit causing it to fall back onto the planet pulled by its gravity. Kendra appeared and removed the Marker from the pedestal with the intention to load it into the shuttle and return to Earth.

Before leaving Isaac to his fate, Kendra insists that he had gone insane. She forced him to watch the conclusion of Nicole’s video where he learned that she had committed suicide during the outbreak on the ship. The Marker used Nicole’s voice and appearance in his halucinations. Despondent, Isaac returned to the shuttle pad in time to see the Hive Mind brutally kill Kendra. It attacked Isaac, but he defeated it.

After the engagement, Isaac piloted the Executive Shuttle just in time to escape the colony as the tectonic load crashed down onto the planet. After his narrow escape, he reviewed Nicole’s video one more time before being attacked by a hallucination of Nicole.