| “ | My name is Sam Fisher. I used to be a hero — now I'm a wanted man. I used to hunt terrorists — now I am one. I used to take orders — now I execute them. I've become... a double agent. | „ |
| ~ Sam Fisher on Splinter Cell: Double Agent (Version 1) |
| “ | I have a message for those who stand in my way... Pray. | „ |
| ~ Sam Fisher in the Splinter Cell: Conviction trailer. |
| “ | Few presidents have ever granted the Fifth Freedom. It's the right to defend our laws, by breaking them. To safeguard secrets, by stealing them. To save lives, by taking them. To do whatever it takes to protect our country. The Fifth Freedom is mine alone. I am Sam Fisher. I am a Splinter Cell. | „ |
| ~ Fisher in Blacklist trailer. |
Samuel "Sam" Fisher is a top-class secret agent and is the main protagonist from Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell series.
He is voiced by Michael Ironside in the series while Eric Johnson voiced and motion-captured the character in Splinter Cell: Blacklist.
History
Early life
Sam Fisher was born on April 17, 1957 in Towson, Maryland to unnamed parents, and grew up in the Baltimore suburbs. His father was a case officer for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) who worked undercover in Moscow during the Cold War. While not much is known of his childhood, it is known that Sam attended a military boarding school after the death of his parents when he was a child and that he majored in Political Science while at the U.S. Naval Academy. During the mid-1980s, Sam was working for the CIA, under the cover of being deployed as a diplomatic aide in Eastern Europe where he later met an NSA crypt-analyst named Regan Burns in the then-Soviet Socialist Republic of Georgia.
They had a "stormy" affair and Regan got pregnant. After learning of the pregnancy, they had a small, quiet wedding ceremony at a U.S. military base in Frankfurt, Germany, where their only child, whom they both named Sarah, was later born on May 31, 1985. Despite it was a distant, difficult marriage, Sam and Regan did love each other but their professions kept interfering. They eventually divorced after three years of marriage. Regan went back to the United States and took Sarah with her, reclaiming her maiden name and changing Sarah's.
Sam became estranged from Regan and Sarah as he dedicated himself to his work, operating extensively in "Afghanistan (during and after the Soviet invasion), East Germany, and the Soviet satellites in the years leading up to the collapse of the USSR." Regan later died of ovarian cancer when Sarah was fifteen, sometime around 1999 and 2000. After Sam gained guardianship of Sarah, he moved back to the U.S. and took a bureaucratic job with the CIA, where he worked in weapons development and studied experimental weaponry and information warfare, in order to spend more time with her as well as focusing on her upbringing.
Career History
Military Service
Acknowledged as one of the finest servicemen in his lifetime, Sam Fisher was a highly-decorated commissioned officer of the United States Navy, where he attained the rank of Lieutenant Commander (O-4) while serving as an operator within the U.S. Navy's elite SEa-Air-Land (SEAL) Teams.
As a SEAL, Sam conducted numerous special operations in the Persian Gulf, Bolivia, Colombia, Senegal, Kosovo and led numerous other operations in various hot spots around the world. At some point during his time in the Navy, Sam spent nearly three years (2 years, 11 months) as an intelligence analyst. At one point he was awarded the Defense Distinguished Service Medal. He was honorably discharged from the Navy at some point during 1996.
1989: Operation Just Cause
Fisher took part in Operation Just Cause, when he was part of a CIA raiding team that went into a bank in Panama searching for Manuel Noriega's drug money. He later spent most of the rest of the year "sleeping in a ditch on the road between Baghdad and Kuwait."
1991: Gulf War
Sam Fisher is a veteran of the Gulf War (1990–1991), during which he participated in SEAL operations throughout the Persian Gulf.
Operation Desert Storm
During mid-February, Fisher was rescued from a hostage situation by fellow SEAL teammate Victor Coste (call-sign "Husky") while on a mission during the Liberation of Kuwait campaign after being captured by Iraqi Republican Guard soldiers following an ambush that killed two men (one from an IED, the other was shot to death) under his command while leading a four-man SEAL team on a patrol through a highway in Southern Iraq leading out of Kuwait back towards the Iraqi capital of Baghdad.
Umm Qasr, Iraq
On March 4, Sam Fisher had his first contact with Douglas Shetland.
Operation SCARAB TOOTH
On March 12, Sam Fisher had his second contact with Douglas Shetland in Kuwait.
1992: Operation Selva Verde
On 2–3 May, Sam Fisher had his third contact with Douglas Shetland, then a SEAL liaison on loan to the Colombian Army, during Operation Selve Verde in Norte de Santander, Colombia, where he solely rescued Shetland, who was captured after his unit was ambushed by FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) guerrilla forces. Though Sam was caught in the process, he and Shetland were able to extract from the bunker in one piece.
Government Service
2004-2005
Splinter Cell
Sam was on his first mission to kill a rogue Georgian President named Kombayn Nikoladze who is controlling all Georgian cities and connecting Chinese for conspiracy and more. Sam was in Georgia infiltrating the police station for answers before finding the bodies of two CIA agents in the morgue and Sam learned that they were murdered by a man named Vyacheslav Grinko who was at the Defense Ministry and used his laser microphone to record Grinko and Philip's meeting about the top secret organization in Azerbaijan when Sam recovers data from Azerbaijan.
Sam was in the oil platform, but the U.S. Air Force fighters arrived to support Sam and kills the scientist while taking the briefcase. Sam was in CIA headquarters after learning that Mitchell Dougherty is a mole of Grinko and Sam captures him and transport him to Third Echelon for interrogation. Sam was in Kalinatek to stop all the Russian mercenaries from slaughtering all the workers and destroying the computers containing information. Sam was in Myanmar recording a Chinese chairman named General Kong Feirong that they were going to slaughterhouse to execute all the US soldiers and Chinese delegates, so Sam was off.
Sam was in the slaughterhouse, rescuing US soldiers and Chinese delegates after killing Grinko. Sam was back to the Chinese embassy while Sam interrogates Kong before Sam ran off to stop Nikoladize once and for all. Sam was back to Georgia recovering a weapon known as the Ark, but the Ark was missing when Sam kills Nikoladize and escapes with the activation key.
After eliminating Nikoladze, the NSA and government officials in the U.S. determined that Philip Masse, knowing too much about America's infrastructure and still capable of manufacturing weaponized computer algorithms, was too dangerous to be left alive. In January 2005, while infiltrating the Severomorsk region in Russia, Fisher assassinated Masse and ex-filtrated.
2006
Pandora Tomorrow
The U.S. installs a temporary military base on East Timor to train the developing defense force of the "world's youngest democracy." Resistance to the U.S. military presence in Southeast Asia is widespread and passionate, but the threat the Indonesian militias pose to Timorese democracy was deemed as sufficient justification. At the same time, the U.S. doesn't mind having an excuse to install active military personnel within easy reach of both North Korea and the largest Muslim population in Asia. Anti-U.S. resentment comes to a head under the leadership of guerrilla militia leader Suhadi Sadono (former CIA-trained combatant of Communist ideology in the region), acting with the unofficial support of major corrupt factions within the Indonesian government. Sadono's men attack and occupy the U.S. Embassy in Dili, taking dozens of civilian and military personnel hostage in the process. Splinter Cell Sam Fisher was sent in to destroy a top-secret document held in the embassy before Sadono's men could access it.
Sadono then smuggles numerous ND-133 bombs containing the smallpox virus (codenamed: Pox Box) onto U.S. soil that is designed to detonate if Sadono is ever killed or captured. In an effort to combat the nationwide menace of the ND-133 bombs, Third Echelon establishes a sub-branch within the organization named Shadownet to locate and disable the weapons, under the watchful protection of a private military corporation called Armed Guardian Services (ARGUS). With the ND-133 devices disabled, Fisher is sent to capture Sadono alive. Later, Third Echelon learns that rogue CIA agent Norman Soth has smuggled a final ND-133 device into LAX International Airport in Los Angeles, California, and dispatches Fisher. He successfully eliminates Soth and the LAPD bomb squad disables the "Pox Box" before it's deployed.
NSA mole and Stolen Weapons Cache
In August 2006, shortly after the incident at LAX, Sam Fisher is sent on a mission to discover the NSA mole and anyone who was behind the plot to steal an NSA weapon cache to sell to foreign terrorists. He infiltrated a steel factory in Warsaw, Indiana, eavesdropped on Ernest (then knocked him out), and captured Agent Frasier for later interrogation. He successfully located the weapon cache.
2007
Chaos Theory
After the controversial decision to establish its own Information Self-Defense Force (I-SDF) headed by Admiral Toshiro Otomo, Japan's shipping routes in the Yellow Sea are blocked by naval vessels from the Chinese and North Korean fleet; forcing the United States to intervene. Fisher is dispatched to Peru to investigate reports of a computer hacker's attempt to re-engineer the devastating computer algorithms developed by Philip Masse, now considered to be the super-weapon of the 21st century. The war between North Korea, South Korea, and the United States sparks when a North Korean "Super" Silkworm missile destroys the USS Clarence E. Walsh (CG-80), an advanced U.S. information warship, on the Fourth of July. Following claims the missile launch was unintentional, Sam investigates and discovers a private military corporation named Displace International, headed by Fisher's old friend and comrade Douglas Shetland, had been recruited by Japan's I-SDF to utilize the "Masse Kernels" and orchestrate the attack on U.S. forces in order to re-militarize Japan and ignite World War III.
Fisher learns that Otomo is forcing the Japanese SDF to repeal the post-war constitution with the threat of using a North Korean missile against a major Japanese city. Given the "Fifth Freedom," with everyone but Otomo, Fisher is tasked with capturing Otomo, who commits seppuku to avoid capture. U.S. officials want to interrogate Otomo and ask Fisher to save the Admiral from his own hand. Fisher complied and was successful in capturing Otomo alive and preventing World War III, ending the Crisis in East Asia.
Hallucinogenic Testing
In the fall of 2007, Sam Fisher had been somehow "kidnapped and detained in an old German bunker in Normandy, France." Since CIA agent Hisham Hamza of the Defense Department's Interdepartmental Operative program and Third Echelon had managed to "track Fisher's position" and contact him via his sub-dermal implant, they monitored Sam while he was on an unknown hallucinogenic drug for one week. During that time, he barely escaped his captors and saw Hamza. In reality, Sam was still at Third Echelon Headquarters in Fort Meade undergoing hallucinogenic drug resistance testing after he had signed himself up a few days before, even though Lambert had tried to persuade him not to take part in the experimental exercise. Sam claimed that he had no memories about that but hoped that his memory would come back.
Sarah's Kidnapping
Sam Fisher learned that Sarah and two of her friends were kidnapped coming home from a club in Washington, D.C. They were stashed in a van, and taken aboard a cargo ship, thus prompting Sam to take the initiative to go after Sarah's kidnappers. He managed to sneak aboard the ship before being contacted by Lambert, who asked why he's going on his own. Fisher explained himself and Lambert compiled to help his friend. After Fisher retrieved his daughter and her friends alive and in security, he discovered that arms dealer Raheem Kadir was the one who ordered the kidnapping and the target was actually the daughter of a high ranking diplomat. Fisher managed to take down the kidnappers and escape the boat before police arrival.
2007/2008: Double Agent (Version 1)
Fisher working undercover during JBA operation
In September 2007, Sam Fisher is sent on a mission to Iceland. After obtaining a list of the launch of a warhead, and stop a missile from launching. Fisher is quickly pulled out only to find out from Lambert that his daughter, Sarah, was killed by a drunk driver. After her funeral, Fisher disappeared from sight.
Unable to cope with his mounting personal losses, Fisher is relieved of duty as a Splinter Cell. Later, Lambert reassigns him to a high-risk, deep-cover operation to infiltrate the ranks of John Brown's Army (JBA), a domestic terrorist organization founded and led by Emile Dufraisne. After agreeing to take on "the most dangerous mission of his career," Sam's first step was to win the group's trust by freeing one of their members, Jamie Washington, from Ellsworth Federal Penitentiary in Kansas. He went undercover as a convicted felon and prison inmate in order to befriend Jamie and help him break him out of Ellsworth. After proving himself, Sam was introduced to Dufraine's organization and offered membership. He accepted, becoming a double agent within the JBA.
During the course of his assignment, Sam discovered that the JBA and their allied terrorist groups had obtained Red Mercury, a substance capable of nuclear weapon-caliber damage, and planned to launch attacks against three major cities, two of them being Los Angeles and New York City.
In New York City, Emile offers Sam a gun and the chance to prove his loyalty once and for all by shooting Lambert, who had been captured inside the JBA compound and beaten. Sam reluctantly complies, taking the gun and shooting Lambert, maintaining his cover. However, Lambert is still alive and gives Sam his last orders to stop the bomb before falling unconscious. Dufraisne and his second-in-command Carson Moss are both killed by Sam before either is able to detonate a Red Mercury device on U.S. soil. Fisher also kills Jamie and Stanley Dayton. Lambert dies of his wound.
2009: After JBA operation/Last Goodbye
In January 2009, Sam Fisher visits his daughter's grave at Elysian Fields Cemetery in Washington, D.C. before being captured and interrogated. He was suspected of helping Emile Dufraisne with several terrorist attacks, and the NSA wanted to find out if that was true. Sam was forced to explain himself over several key points during his career before and during his time in the Splinter Cell Program which didn't seem to match up with Third Echelon's records. One of the arresting agents, who believed he was innocent, tells of Sam's rescue of Douglas Shetland during Operation Selva Verde in May 1992.
With the help of Anna Grímsdóttir, Sam learns that his records had been tampered with by Lawrence Williams, Third Echelon's acting Director of Operations, in order to frame him as being a rogue agent, with each of those events rewritten to make Sam appear as if he had completely disobeyed orders or was involved in committing treason and/or acts of terrorism against the United States. Anna Grímsdóttir and William Redding explain what really happened during the events. Williams discovers that his hacks to the record had been discovered, and stole the CD containing the evidence from Grímsdóttir. Sam escaped his captors and infiltrated the NSA Headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland. After sneaking into Williams' office and recovering the evidence, he confronts Williams, explaining he would expose him. Sam then escaped, taking the evidence with him.
2011
Nexegen Technologies/RDEI Incident
Three years after the incident that took place in New York, Sam Fisher, now retired from Third Echelon, is under attack from an unidentified infiltration team. Three days prior to this pursuit, Sam arrives in Vancouver to meet with former Voron agent Ruslan Lupul. Lupul requires Sam’s help for a freelance job concerning stealing some DVR technology from a Korean electronics firm called Nexegen Technologies. In return, Lupul agrees to provide Sam with a file he has concerning the death of Sam’s daughter, Sarah.
During the infiltration of the company headquarters, Sam becomes suspicious, and Lupul admits that Nexegen is actually a front company for the North Korean RDEI (Research Department for External Intelligence). After completing the data transfer Sam is double-crossed by Lupul but manages to evade security and escape the premises. Sam then confronts Lupul at his mansion and forces him to provide the file on Sarah. Before Lupul is able to provide Sam with the name of his source, he is killed by a sniper bullet. Back to the pursuit, Sam manages to escape the mansion unharmed after killing several Korean squad members.
Twenty-four hours later, Sam is in Valetta, Malta, having a phone conversation with an unidentified source in order to learn more about his daughter’s death in exchange for some Voron intelligence Sam procured from Lupul’s home.
Conviction
After learning that Sarah's death was plotted, Sam decides to investigate who murdered his daughter and why. While at a cafe in Malta, Sam receives word from Grim that a local gang was hired to kill him. Shortly after eliminating the hitmen, he brutally interrogates Dmitri Gramkos, the gang's leader who gave the order, and finds out that an arms dealer and drug trafficker named Andriy Kobin was the man who drove the car that killed Sarah. Fisher then sneaks into Kobin's mansion, eliminating several of Kobin's men as he does so. Sam reaches Kobin and interrogates him. Right before Kobin is about to talk, Splinter Cells storm in and surround Fisher, during which he is convinced by Grímsdóttir to go with the agents who take him away.
Later on, Sam obtains equipment such as a portable EMP generator, Sonar Goggles, grenades, and sticky cameras (which are now thrown by hand), all courtesy of Sam's old friend, Victor Coste, and a Third Echelon employee named Charlie Fryman. During his investigation, he discovers that his daughter is alive. He learned from Grim that her "death" was orchestrated by Lambert to lead him to uncover a huge mole in the NSA, Tom Reed, who was soon appointed as Third Echelon's new Director. At the White House, Grim pretends to capture Sam and takes him to the Oval Office, where Reed has captured President Patricia Caldwell. Grim and Sam proceed to eliminate Reed's Third Echelon bodyguards and rescue the President, whom Reed was about to kill and blame Sam for her death. Sam grabs Reed and interrogates him about the whole conspiracy. Sam chooses to spare or kill Reed, which prompts Grim to kill Reed which ends the conspiracy. Sam then tells Grim how he has chosen to "walk" away.
In the end, the game implies that Sam was in the middle of freeing Victor Coste from captivity by a private military company named Black Arrow.
This is shown to be true; during the credits of Splinter Cell: Conviction, a conversation between Sam and Victor at a restaurant plays. They speak of a time when the two of them were offered to buy an elephant, to which Sam replied, "Sorry, I already have one."
Post-Third Echelon Conspiracy
Bored with civilian life, Fisher allows himself to be recruited into Coste's PMC, Paladin Nine Security. He and Coste then only take contracts which they believe in. During the first Blacklist attack in Guam, Coste is critically wounded protecting him from a grenade.
2013: Blacklist
6 months after the events in D.C., Sam worked in Paladin Nine Security with Victor Coste and Charlie Cole until an attack on a U.S. military base in Guam leaves Victor wounded by a fragmentation grenade. Sam is later appointed by President Caldwell as the commander of a new special operations and counter-terrorism unit called Fourth Echelon, with Grímsdóttir as the unit's technical operations officer, Briggs as a new operative and Charlie serving as the tech specialist at Sam's request. The unit was mandated to prevent a series of escalating terrorist attacks against U.S. interests known as "The Blacklist."
Fourth Echelon sent Sam into Benghazi, Libya to pick up a man who had walked into the CIA safe house: Andriy Kobin. Sam goes to Libya to extract Kobin, as he has information about the attack on Guam. Fisher frees and interrogates him, then imprisons him on the Paladin. Following the buyers for Kobin's weapon, 4E goes to a terrorist training camp in Mirawa, eastern Iraq. Fisher infiltrates and discovers that the man is Jadid Haidos, an ex-MI6 agent. Fisher then discovers a kill room with a soldier's corpse, and a message from a man they identify as Majid Sadiq, the leader of the Engineers.
The second Blacklist attack is set in Chicago, IL. The Engineers were trying to poison the city's water supply with weaponized syphilis, which Fisher managed to stop. Tracking down leads, Fisher goes to Paraguay to find Nouri, a source of Engineer soldiers. He breaks into his safe room and then extracts him under fire from a hit squad. Instead of imprisoning him, he turns him loose as an asset. Following intelligence gained from Nouri, Fisher goes to London to uncover what a sleeper cell is doing. Briggs provides sniper fire while Fisher infiltrates the mill. He sneaks into where they are deploying cargo and plants a tracker on the cargo: a variant of VX nerve gas. He gets infected but continues the mission. He is briefly captured by Sadiq, who is on-site, but Briggs rescues him and disobeys Sam's order to pursue Sadiq to save his life. Briggs is then taken off active duty.
Intelligence gathered in London points to Iran as the force behind the Blacklist. Facing a possible war against the country of Iran, Fourth Echelon decides to visit the reconverted American embassy in Tehran (now Quds Force HQ) to uncover the truth. Fisher then escapes the embassy with data on the truth and Briggs picks him up in a van, being subsequently returned to active duty. They are pursued, and Grim decides to use the drone to free a path. They escape, and President Caldwell says that there was a "drone malfunction." The mission gives proof that Iran is not behind the attacks.
The third Blacklist attack targets Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Engineers have held hostages on a metro train and also plan to bomb outside the subway terminals into the city streets, where Sam and Briggs cooperate and take out the Engineer driver with their snipers. Fourth Echelon is held up in thwarting the fourth Blacklist attack, American Fuel, by a virus implanted in the Paladin. With the combined efforts of Kobin and Fisher, the plane is kept from crashing at the last moment, but the attack goes through, and the continuity of government protocol is issued.
The American Fuel attack was against a Liquid Natural Gas Facility in Sabine Pass, Louisiana. The Engineers introduced a virus into its fire suppression systems, then rammed a tanker truck into the facility. Fourth Echelon deployed Fisher into the facility to activate a terminal so Charlie could reactivate the defenses. From the intelligence acquired on the ground from Navy SEALs, Fisher then chased after the High-Value on-site Engineer, interrogating him until he managed to get the fact that Sadiq was going to attack Site F directly. Sadiq raids the bunker of Site F, taking all the high government officials hostage. Sam surprises him and they engage in close combat. Sam manages to defeat him, but Sadiq claims that he'd already won, threatening Sam that if he kills him, all twelve nations that stand behind him will rise up in his defense. If he puts Sadiq on trial, he will spill every secret he knows about special operations, including Fourth Echelon. Leaving him with no choice, Sam employs the Fifth Freedom and unofficially imprisons him. Majid Sadiq was announced dead by President Caldwell, who relays it to the country without revealing the existence of Fourth Echelon or anyone's name on it. Sam than reunites with Coste, who had recovered from his injuries and was in the process of interrogating an imprisoned Sadiq.
2019: Operation Watchman
Some time during 2019, six years after the Blacklist operation, Sam (call-sign, Matchwood) is deployed to Bolivia in order to recover sensitive intelligence from a rogue CIA officer. Knowing the mission to be a difficult task, Sam has Grim (call-sign, Paladin) contact CIA case officer Karen Bowman in order to borrow a Ghost Recon team led by Major Anthony "Tony" Perryman (call-sign, Nomad). Sam's deployment takes him to a Unidad base in La Cruz, where he infiltrates the base ahead of the Ghosts and assassinates the rogue agent prior to Nomad's arrival. Upon greeting Nomad, Sam hacks into the Unidad servers in order to erase all traces of the sensitive information while Nomad's team provides tactical support and security. While ex-filtrating from the base, Sam discloses the nature of the intelligence to Nomad, revealing it to contain sensitive, highly technological research and development data that could "change the nature of warfare" and "put (the special operations community) out of business."
Upon having a brief reunion with Bowman, Sam learns that Grim has another emergency for him to take care of, hearing the words "Empty Quiver" (U.S. military code word for the seizure, theft, or loss of a functioning nuclear weapon) from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Fisher compliments Nomad's skills and takes a brief coffee break with Bowman before returning to the Paladin.
Expended Universe
Operational history
The following operations in which Sam Fisher is involved take place in the Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell series of novels. Although several details from the novels have made it into the games, their overall level of canonical to the game series is unclear.
1980s
In the 1980s, Sam Fisher saw action during the Soviet War in Afghanistan, where he was forced to hide under dead bodies to avoid being killed in the middle of an operation.
1991: Mauritania-Senegal Border War
Sometime between April and July 1991, Sam Fisher and a squad of Navy SEALs were sent to the African country of Senegal to hunt down a French black market arms dealer who had been arming both sides of a bush war between Mali and Mauritania. Fisher and his SEAL team tracked down the arms dealer in Dakar where they eliminated him after weeks of searching through the jungles along the Senegal-Mali border.
2003: Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Checkmate
While preparing to test a new DARPA product, code-named the Goshawk, Sam Fisher is called to intercept a cargo freighter speeding towards the eastern seaboard. The freighter named the Trego is loaded down with radioactive material. Fisher boards the ship and quickly reaches the bridge to find one Middle-Eastern crew member. Fisher attempts to disable the man and does so, but not before the man enters the command to speed the boat up further. Fisher proceeds to slow the ship by disabling her engines. Meanwhile, the residents of Slipstone, New Mexico begin showing the symptoms of and then dying from radiation poisoning.
2004/05: East Asia Assignment
In late 2004 – early 2005, Sam Fisher was on assignment in the Far East for three months. He was in Hong Kong preparing for the Macau job. He collected data from a casino's computer and killed several individuals, including Kim Wei Lo.
2005: Babylon Phoenix Crisis
In the spring of 2005, an Iranian terrorist group known as "The Shadows," led by Nasir Tarighian, planned to use a weapon of mass destruction codenamed "The Babylon Phoenix" against the city of Baghdad as revenge for the actions taken by Iraq against Iran during the 1980s. While there really isn't much benefit to the group today, Tarighian attempts to sell the scheme to his organization by claiming that it would also create further disorder in Iraq and in the Middle East, which would inevitably cause the people to turn against the "West," namely the United States since Iraq is currently under their watch. Tarighian, a former "great warrior" during the Iran-Iraq War and often proclaimed hero in Iran, hoped that by doing this the Iranian people would rejoice and urge the Iranian government to invade and conquer Iraq after the U.S. is forced out of the region. Most of the members of the Shadows disagree with the course of action, feeling that the result is extremely unlikely and that the scheme is nothing more than a 20-year-old vendetta by Tarighian to get back at Iraq for the death of his wife and children during the war. These members feel the same effect of destabilization in the region can be achieved by attacking either Tel Aviv or Jerusalem in Israel.
Meanwhile, an arms dealing organization known as "The Shop" has taken the liberty of assassinating Splinter Cells whenever possible thus to increase their profit margin by keeping the shipment of arms from falling into unwanted hands. The Shop is one of the few organizations in the world that is aware of Third Echelon, who deploys Sam Fisher to the Middle East to uncover the truth about the murder of a Splinter Cell and track down the source of a shipment of arms seized by the Iraqi police. There he surveys and infiltrates numerous locations relating to both the Shop and the Shadows, all the while unaware that the Shop has targeted him and his daughter, Sarah.
2006: Operation Barracuda/MRUUV Incident
Taking place almost a year after the Babylon Phoenix Crisis, the plot picks up with Third Echelon attempting to search and bring to justice the members of The Shop, an international arms dealing ring that played a large part during the crisis. While Sam Fisher is working to collect information on The Shop in Ukraine and Russia, Third Echelon is continuing its investigation into how The Shop had previously managed to gain the identity of a number of Splinter Cells and assassinate them as well. However, when a German scientist named Jeinsen, who defected to the United States from East Germany long ago, goes missing and then reappears dead in Hong Kong, heads begin to turn. Jeinsen had developed a new submarine vehicle for the United States Navy, that could theoretically carry a nuclear weapon. Sam Fisher is sent to learn why the scientist was in Hong Kong and who killed him; it is suspected that a local group of Triads named "the Lucky Dragons" had involvement. What the Third Echelon does not yet realize is that Jeinsen, the Lucky Dragons, The Shop, and a traitor inside their own government are all part of a much larger picture involving a rogue Chinese general named Lan Tun, with ambitions to invade and conquer Taiwan. With Fisher not even aware that he is the world's only hope of stopping an international crisis, he has to balance his job and a new romantic relationship that he is hoping will finally bring happiness to his life. Ultimately, General Tun threatens to use the submarine vehicle to detonate a nuclear weapon off the coast of California, destroying L.A. with a massive tsunami, unless America abandons Taiwan when it is invaded by China. Fisher manages to foil the plot, and all the conspirators involved including the traitor, the general, and The Shop are killed.
2008: Operation Fallout
Soon after undergoing unfamiliar espionage techniques training in the streets of San Francisco in a joint exercise between the CIA and Third Echelon, Sam Fisher is summoned to Maryland by Irving Lambert. Turns out, Sam's estranged brother, Peter (real name Pyotr Limonovich), has been found barely alive off the coast of Greenland. Sam is told that Peter has developed a strange disease and has few days to live. It is soon revealed that Sam's brother died of poisoning caused by plutonium hydride-19, or PuH-19. This deadly powder is 1,000x finer than flour and is capable of wiping out New York's entire population with just a cup's worth of the chemical.
Although driven by first solely by vengeance, Sam soon realizes that Peter's death should be the least of his worries as a network of Kyrgyz Islamic fundamentalists have toppled the moderate government of Kyrgyztan and, with the help of the North Korean government, have devised the ultimate antidote against the pervasive influence of the West and its technology: they will try to mutate a species of petroleum-eating Chytridiomycota fungus into a strain capable of making the whole world's oil supply disappear, a threat Fisher and Lambert continually refer to as Manas, in reference to the Kyrgyz epic poem. In order to do this, the terrorists snatch some of the world's leading scientists and force them to cooperate. Sam gets his final lead by tracking one of the abducted scientists in a search that will lead him to a place such as the streets of Montreal, Quebec, Canada, an isolated Kyrgyz community in Cape Breton Island, the Great Rift Valley in Kenya, Pyongyang, North Korea and a Kyrgyz complex hidden in the Tian Shan mountain range.
2008/09: Korfovka Mission
While in Korfovka, Sam saves Ben Hansen's life by sniping Hansen's field runner Sergei Luchenko.
2009/10: The Search for Sam Fisher/Doppelganger Factory Arms Conspiracy
Sam is on the run and becomes a freelance operative selling his abilities, and taking missions where he can, in order to make money to survive, while staying one step ahead of the Third Echelon.
Sam secretly saves Ben Hansen's life by shooting a dart at a thug in the Russian territory of Korfovka, but leaves before Hansen figures out he is there. A few months later, he takes a mercenary mission in France but soon alerts Third Echelon to his whereabouts. A group of Splinter Cells led by Hansen begins pursuit, and Grim (who has become director of the Third Echelon) contacts Sam for help in exposing the corrupt NSA Director, Nicholas Andrew Kovac (a mole in the NSA). Sam ends up protecting Hansen's team, and joining them together, they help expose Kovac. In the end, Grim offers to allow Sam to return to Third Echelon but he'd turned her down, saying he wanted to finish his vacation at Zahn's villa before making a decision.
Professional Profile
Sam is 177 cm (5 ft 10 in) tall, weighs 78 kg (170 pounds), has greying, brown-black hair and green eyes. He still has an athletic build physique for a man in his late 40s. He was the first person to be recruited as a field agent of the "Splinter Cell" program, Third Echelon's top secret black ops project. A highly decorated veteran of JSOC's DEVGRU, and the CIA's Special Activities Division, Fisher is a master in the art of stealth, having been trained in various undercover and covert infiltration tactics. He not only specializes in night-time combat but in close-quarters combat in urban warfare and field-craft-related skills as well. In addition, Sam is extremely proficient in trade-craft skills such as surveillance tactics, computer hacking, handling explosives and the use of nearly any conventional firearm ambidextrously. He is also a highly trained expert in various forms of martial arts but he far excels in the Israeli self-defense and combat system of Krav Maga. In Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction, he utilized the Center Axis Relock, a modern shooting stance used in close-quarters combat and was invented by Paul Castle.
He prefers to work alone in the field. Established from the novels, Sam is known to have command of a startling number of languages, including native English, Spanish, German, Russian, Korean, Chinese, Arabic, Burmese, Georgian, and Persian. While not on assignment or stationed at Fort Meade (while he was working for Third Echelon), Fisher resided in a townhouse in Towson and a farmhouse in rural Germantown, Maryland (according to the novelizations of the series). According to the 2013 graphic novel, Splinter Cell: Echoes (which takes place during the end of Conviction and before the events that happened at the beginning of Splinter Cell: Blacklist), Sam now resides in a two-story house in Falls Church, Virginia, where his daughter, who currently lives in Atlanta, Georgia, stayed with him for a while during the book before moving to New York. Sam's signature sidearm is the FN Five-seveN, which is also his preferred weapon of choice throughout the Splinter Cell franchise. During the "Washington Monument" level in Conviction, he retrieves the Five-seveN from Victor Coste, who refers to it as Sam's "favorite pistol".
Fisher has conducted operations all over the world: Bolivia, Canada, Cuba, the former East Germany, the Democratic Republic of Congo, China, Iceland, Israel, East Timor, Indonesia, Guam, Japan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Libya, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, North and South Korea, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Paraguay, Myanmar, Serbia (when it was part of Yugoslavia), Georgia, and France. He has also conducted operations inside the United States, in places such as Los Angeles International Airport, Sabine Pass, Chicago, Philadelphia, Fort Meade, New York City, New Orleans, Washington, D.C., Ellsworth Federal Penitentiary in Kansas, Denver International Airport and the CIA's headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
The novel version of Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell establishes that Sam hated his time in the CIA when he was working there in the mid-late 1980s, and that he mostly had official cover (i.e. he was a "diplomatic aide"). It is also established during the "Bank" mission in Chaos Theory that Fisher served in Panama during Operation Just Cause when Redding reveals in the level's pre-mission briefing that Fisher was part of a CIA team that raided the same bank during the conflict searching for some of Noriega's drug money.
It is also established during a mission in Chaos Theory that shortly after or around the time the conflict in Panama ended in January 1990, Sam was called back to active duty with the Navy SEALs and deployed to Iraq, where he spent the next several months leading up to the Persian Gulf War "sleeping in a ditch on the road between Baghdad and Kuwait" prior to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, and he was already present once the Western military intervention by the U.S.-led coalition forces began at the beginning of the Gulf War itself in January 1991.
Personality
Sam Fisher is basically a man that prefers to be alone, whether it is in the field or in his personal life. He doesn't have a lot of close friends, except for ex-Colonel Irving Lambert, Frances Coen and William Redding from Third Echelon, and enjoys the company of a few selected ones including his daughter Sarah, some old friends from his SEAL career (Victor "Husky" Coste, his former C.O. Arthur Partridge and ex-Marine Doug Shetland, the Displace CEO whom Sam had killed on the rooftop of a bathhouse in Tokyo) and Grim from whom he has learned a great deal when it comes to technology and others. Thus this makes him an individualist; a self-dependent human being.
As a reserved man, Sam doesn't talk as much but he tends to be good and somewhat philosophical with the use of words when doing so, depicting the long years of experience through the things he says and in times the dark sense of humor he's known for. That doesn't mean that he has lost that certain childish and even innocent sense of humor to the point where it could be confused with his sarcasm. Sam tends to rely on the usual 'smart' comment when remembered of things that seem too obvious for him or when treated like either too old, or too young, although the sole mention of him being 'old' bothers him a lot. Few are the ones that manage to get away with those jokes towards him and bring a smile to his face.
Although the suave, sophisticated style isn't his, Fisher tends to be somewhat flirty with nearly every woman he sees, but he's able to hold himself back and knows his limits, always being respectful. Even if he is flirty, he fears relationships because of the many failed ones that usually ended with the other one dying or suffering. Call him selfish, and perhaps he is, but he is certainly afraid of being hurt again knowing that it will be extremely difficult for him to consciously hurt someone he would be so attached to - something that he learned the hard way through life - and knowing that if hurt, his wounds don't heal as fast. However, he grows attached really fast to the people he cares for and would go as far as to kill and/or die for them.
Sam loves a good challenge, any kind of challenge whether it is risking his life as usual or trying to convince a lady for a date, or having a date that is a challenge for him whether in an intellectual point of view or even physical point of view. Sam usually takes a methodical approach to things - planning them first and acting on them later. However, sometimes his tactics make his strategy turn riskier than he planned. This had earned him a few injuries, but injuries that he rarely regrets. He's a street-smart man that relies a lot on 'experience over books'. However, even if he doesn't give the impression of being very smart, he is, and even if he might not look the part, Fisher is indeed a 'bookworm.' In fact, Sam is a man that learns and adapts quickly to either a technological advance or a change in world politics. An example of this is the highly advanced equipment he easily uses for the job that requires it. However, even if all this equipment could help him a lot, he tries not to rely too much on the technology in order to keep himself self-dependent.
Even if Fisher seems like a man of a calmed and collected manner most of the time, some people have been able to know him by his anger. It's good to point out, that is rare to see Sam losing his determination or focus because of emotional distress but it's not something that hasn't been seen. When in extreme anger against his enemies, he's able to stay determined and focused on his goal although it's certain that his enemies do suffer the consequences. Sam tends to be a character with a certain burst of depression whether it is because of something that is currently happening, or because of the painful things that he had been gone through in his life or both.
He 'stacks' every painful memory, so to speak, and most resorts on the self-destruct mechanism of blaming himself for the negative effect of something even when it wasn't his fault. It's true that only hard enough situations are the ones that usually work like the trigger of said mechanism. Fisher keeps himself away from alcohol of any sort when he can. This is mostly because of how alcohol plays a dangerous part when in deep depression, clouding his mind.
Fisher is quickly angered by the intentional slaughter of innocent civilians or unarmed military personnel by his enemies. Also, liars, cowards, and arrogant people tend to cut his patience short as well as people who overuse their power such as bureaucrats which were the main reason for him to leave the CIA. Sam approaches his enemies in a ruthless and no-nonsense manner and usually keeps a light conversation with his temporal hostages. He doesn't have too much patience when it comes to interrogating and resorts on his dark sense of humor and threats that are everything but idle. Do mind, he's not a sadistic man, but will do anything he needs to do to get the job done.
Fisher is a man that believes in respect, dignity, and compassion towards even the most unlikely individuals as proven during the first three years of his NSA/3E career, in which he had gone to the point of disobeying direct orders because of what he believes is right. Loyalty seems to be another one of his strong points to the point in which he has sacrificed himself various times despite the knowledge of a possible betrayal by a person/agency that he holds in high regards. Call him determined or stubborn, Sam is more than just a focused soldier and a patriot. He is a man that is driven by the roots of his moral fiber in doing what he believes is right. This pushes him through even the toughest circumstances like the death of loved ones.
Training
From his Navy SEAL background, Sam is an expert in handling all types of weapons. Also, with his exceptional precision, speed and reaction, he can eliminate many targets simultaneously without wasting a shot. He proved perfectly capable of handling sub-machine guns, assault and sniper rifles, as has preferably pistols, which he uses a custom Five-Seven USG pistol as his preferred weapon of choice. Fisher could handle handguns with his unique ability, using both in the physical attacks and shots, he often quickly disarms his enemies, and use their weapon while using their body as a human shield. His accuracy is unmatched with weapons while shooting he always targets specific parts of the body.
An expert marksman, Sam is skilled in the use of nearly any conventional weapon and is almost on par with the world’s best sharpshooters in terms of accuracy. Trained as a sniper at first, Fisher has an eye for marking and executing multiple targets simultaneously. Although rare, it is possible for him to miss a target. However, this is not a superhuman characteristic, but rather an ability that he acquired from his long years of training and practice same as his ability to aim and shoot with both hands even if he is right-handed.
Other than that, Sam is skilled in the Israeli martial art of Krav Maga, a combination of different forms of martial arts. Krav Maga tends to go more towards self-defense while the offense tends to be quite lethal and usually includes broken joints and even the chance to induce paralysis on the enemy for a certain time with the certain hit(s) unto central nerves such as simply knocking out enemies or others, or even death. While employing the art in combat, Sam fights with tenacity, with his attacks based on accurate and fast strikes, or counterattacks. Generally, he neutralizes his opponent, breaking limbs like arms and wrists. Sam also has a tendency to use objects in the environment to his advantages, such as heights, desks, pianos, doors and windows and even the weapons of his enemies.
Years and experience in night ops have also gained Fisher the ability to see even better from the dark spots than from lit ones. Although light does not damage his eyes, he has the ability to adjust quickly to darkness and when his vision is not enough he resorts to his other senses, especially hearing. Fisher is actually better at identifying targets while operating from concealment, which makes him a very dangerous threat to his opponents in dark environments.
Sam is very flexible and athletic as it is, even though it is getting harder to stay flexible at his age, but he is still able to make full split jumps and hang with his legs from pipes or edges where he can aim, shoot or make a surprise attack on someone. So far though, Sam is known for being fast on his feet, fast in his line of work and on his infiltration style including using the French gymnastic art of Parkour as more than just a hobby and in times even a lethal weapon. Basically, think 'modern-day ninja.'
Sam is at the peak of physical condition for a man in his age who engages in an intense exercise regimen, he is tough and as accomplished as a commando. He is muscular and an impressive physical specimen. Sam engages in daily exercise, these including swimming, diving, climbing, running and shooting. Sam could run for long periods of time without tiring while doing Parkour movements. He is also a good swimmer, with more than a decade serving as a SEAL did most of the job on helping him gain a large lung capacity since he could stay underwater for a rather long amount of time. He swims as fast as the 'free runs' and can swim for long periods of time and sink himself pretty deep. Fisher is able to accomplish silent assassinations from the water by swimming out of it and dragging an enemy down before stabbing them or breaking their necks quickly. Water is his home and has always been.
Expertise
- Advanced Weapons Training
- SEAL Qualified
- SCUBA Training
- SAO Qualification
- SQT Training
- HAHO and HALO Training
- Krav Maga Training (Level 3B/Black-Belt)
Skill Sets
Over the course of his career of more than twenty years of service, Sam Fisher has acquired a wide range of special skills as well as an extensive knowledge of numerous training techniques. The following is a list of skill sets Fisher have applied which are portrayed in the video games, seen in the comic books and described in detail in the novels:
- Tactical Swimming
- Close Quarters Combat
- Applied Explosive Technique
- Rapid Assault
- Dynamic Entry
- Counter Surveillance
- Evasive and Counter-Terrorist Driving Technique
- Parkour (Free Running)
- Covert Communication
- Surreptitious Entry
- Military Free-Fall Parachuting
- Edged Weapons
- Precise Application of Lethal Force
- Urban Sniping
- Unarmed Combat
- Threat Elimination
- Structure Penetration
- Covert Influence Operations
- Support and Recruitment of HUMINT assets
- Interrogation
- Interrogation Resistance
- Reconnaissance
- Extreme Environment Survival
- Field Medicine
Shooting Technique
In the first four games, Fisher uses the standard shooting stance, while in Conviction and Blacklist, he uses the Center Axis Relock, a modified shooting stance used by various special operations forces, and is invented by Paul Castle.
The CAR system features a bladed stance (the shooter's weak-side shoulder facing the target), a close-to-body firearm hold, and sighted or non-sighted fire as the situation dictates. This differs from other shooting styles such as the Isosceles Stance which features a more squared stance (i.e. facing the target directly) with the pistol held far out in front of the face and some form of sighted fire.
The CAR system is primarily intended for semi-automatic pistol shooting, although it can also be used with shotguns, assault and sniper rifles, sub-machine guns, Tasers and OC sprays.
Quotes
| “ | You have the right to freedom of speech. Freedom of worship. From want. From fear. These rights would not exist without a fifth. The right to protect all other freedoms, by whatever means necessary. It's my freedom. It's my duty. It is my war. | „ |
| ~ Sam Fisher. |
| “ | I am a soldier. I've served my country for twenty years. But if I'm captured or killed, I know that nobody will come to rescue me. I won't even get a funeral. Because the nation I protect can never admit that I exist. So my death would go unremarked, my bones would go unclaimed. I don't know if that day will come... but I do know that it must not be today. I am invisible. I am relentless. I am Sam Fisher. I am... a Splinter Cell. | „ |
| ~ Sam in Chaos Theory. |
| “ | Looking for me, asshole? | „ |
| ~ Fisher to Gramkos. |
| “ | You really need to work on that bullet proof thing. | „ |
| ~ Fisher to Vice President Samson. |
| “ | A guy once said, 'The price of success is hard work and dedication. | „ |
| ~ Fisher in Ghost Recon: Wildlands. |
| “ | Then it's only me... | „ |
| ~ Sam after learning that he's the only one left of the covert operatives. |
Gallery
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Add a photo to this galleryTrivia
- In Splinter Cell: Fallout, it is said that Sam and Lambert served together in the U.S. Special Forces (Green Berets) and later in Delta Force. This doesn't make sense considering that there is no mention nor visual evidence that they were both actually part of the unit. It is most likely that Sam (a Navy SEAL) and Lambert were part of JSOC.
- In the cutscene for the "Lighthouse" mission in Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, while aboard the USS Walsh, Arthur Partridge asks Sam Fisher "when was the last time he saw him" to which Sam replies by saying "I'm afraid I have no recollection of that, Senator," which is a reference to a line said in Clear and Present Danger.
- In the book Splinter Cell Blacklist Aftermath, that takes place after the events from the game, Sam Fisher uses a SIG P226 Mk.25 (the pistol used by Navy SEALs) in addition to his FN Five-seveN.
- In the book Splinter Cell (chap. 5 p. 47), Sam Fisher owns a 2002 Jeep Grand Cherokee Overland 4x4 with 265 hp and the V8 engine.
- As of 2019, Fisher is around 59–62 years old around the LA Cruz mission, and as of 2025 for Operation Greenstone, he is 68 years old.
- The Age ranked the character as the seventh greatest Xbox character of all time.
- The character was voted twelfth by Game Informer's of the top character of the 2000s decade.
- Listed as the twenty-fourth most popular video game character in the 2011 Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition.
- Ranked 18 by Complex as the greatest soldiers in video games in 2013.
- GamesRadar ranked him as the 37th "most memorable, influential, and badass" protagonist in games in 2012.
