Protagonist

The unnamed protagonist (also known as the Brigadier General) is the only player character and the protagonist in SANABI. He is a formerly retired veteran who is equipped with a prosthetic arm.
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==Throughout SANABI==
===Operation Zero===
Formerly a retired brigadier general living alone with his daughter, the protagonist is forced out of retirement after a mysterious entity known as "Sanabi" makes an attempt on his life and detonates a bomb in his home, apparently killing his daughter. 17 days after the tragedy, the general interrogates and kills an arms dealer who sold Sanabi the bomb, revealing that his hunt for Sanabi has been fruitless. He is found by his old comrade Colonel Baek, who asks him to take on a mission in Mago City, allegedly connected to Sanabi. 24 hours prior, the 2.97 million inhabitants of Mago City seemed to disappear, and all network connections went offline, presumably as a result of Sanabi's actions.
One survivor from an investigation team sent into the city, a computer engineer named Mari, sent a distress signal shortly after her arrival, claiming she has found important information regarding the mysterious blackout. The general is given two objectives: to find Mari and get her to safety, and to find out what she has discovered. However, the general's helicopter is fired upon by the city's anti-air defenses, shooting it down and causing it to crash in the city. Forced to proceed on foot, the general continues onward, using his Chain Arm to navigate the seemingly abandoned city while being attacked by its automated defenses, which have also presumably been hijacked by Sanabi.
===Into Mago City===
The general is tailed by a small, floating drone, who he soon accosts and demands to know why he is being followed. The drone reveals itself to be owned by Mari, and guides the general to her hiding spot, where he discovers her hiding in a pile of trash. She promptly complains about their dire circumstances, before the two are attacked by a giant mechanical worm, forcing them to flee. Upon reaching safety, the general questions Mari about the information she found, only for her to reveal that all of the city's data was wiped, and that she lied about finding any information in order to ensure her own rescue.
Frustrated, the general orders Mari to leave the city for her own safety, but she refuses. Instead, she devises a plan to destroy the worm by using a crane to rip it apart, in order to reach its black box, which would have intact data. After arriving at the worm's maintenance center, hidden in a garbage facility, the general battles the worm and lures it to the crane hook, successfully ripping it apart and destroying it. They discover that there is no black box inside; however, they discover an electronic key that grants access to the underground maintenance facility, as well the Mago Group's executive offices.
Hoping to find information within the executive office, the general follows Mari, but is frustrated to once again find that there is no data left. However, Mari discovers a corrupted file related to Sanabi, prompting the general to warn her to stay away from anything related to Sanabi. Although the general continues to insist that Mari leave, she once again refuses, and reveals from the file she found that Sanabi is hiding at the topmost floor of the city. Reluctantly, the general allows her to continue accompanying him.
While proceeding through Mago City's business district, the pair encounter a sword-wielding mercenary inside of a large, mechanical suit, a famous vigilante named "Justice." Although Mari is excited to meet her, the general is skeptical of her presence in the city and attempts to question her. However, Justice disappears, and continuously tails the general through the city. When the two attempt to steal a flying car from a nearby warehouse in order to reach the top floor of the city, Justice intervenes, destroying the last remaining car and attacking the general.
After defeating Justice, the general is soon attacked by a number of identical copies, which he promptly destroys. After interacting with the wreck of the last copy, he reveals an entire army of cloaked, dormant "Justices," revealing that, despite their human appearance, the Justices are in fact robots. The general posits that the real Justice had her personality "datafied" and copied, expressing concern that the Mago Group has access to such technology, as it is considered a serious offense.
===Entering the factory ===
Still searching for a way to reach the top of the city and reach Sanabi, the general and Mari enter Mago City's central factory, where they are soon attacked by the factory's automated Overseer. Mari is too frightened to proceed, and the general finally manages to dismiss her, leaving him to navigate the factory and evade the Overseer on his own. Along the way, he discovers that he can take control of the factory's worker robots, which are equipped with a similar grappling arm to his own. The Overseer manages to trap him, but he is rescued by Mari, who stole a flying car.
Unable to safely proceed upwards until the Overseer is put out of commission, Mari devises a plan to disable its power core. However, they are attacked by the core's automated security, which believes the general to be a rogue worker robot and attempts to vaporize him. After successfully hacking and disabling the guardian, the two disable the core, only to discover that the factory is equipped with a massive array of additional cores. The Overseer equips a plasma cannon, attempting to kill them and tear the factory down from the inside, and destroys the elevator leading upwards in the process. With no other options, the two use Mari's flying car to ride a crumbling ventilation shaft to the top of the city.
As the car crashes through the factory ceiling, Mari is knocked unconscious, forcing the general to catch her and use his Chain Arm to break their fall. As a result, he is unable to save Mufin, who crashes and is destroyed. Having reached the top, the general evades the national army's robots (which have been deployed to indiscriminately kill anything on the top level) in order to hijack a flying train and reach Mago's headquarters, where Sanabi is hiding. Along the way, he becomes increasingly suspicious of Mari and her motives, who begins to act far more secretive and abrasive toward the general.
===Finding Sanabi===
After arriving at Mago's headquarters, the general proceeds to search for any signs of Sanabi, when he is inadvertently granted access to a restricted area after automated security believes him to be a worker robot with the necessary clearance. After finding a sole functioning computer inside, he accidentally reboots himself, revealing the entire building to be full of corpses that he could previously not see. The general attempts to question Mari about the sudden appearance of the corpses, but she dismisses his concerns and tells him that Sanabi is in the basement of the building. When the general continues to press her, she reveals that Mago Group is attempting to destroy the entire city in order to cover up the crime of "[his] mere existence," further confusing him.
Before he can question Mari any further, however, Major Song, another old comrade of the general, suddenly appears. The general attempts to question Major Song's presence, but she suddenly attacks him without warning. Song easily overpowers the general and threatens to kill him, but Mari pleads with her to spare his life, threatening to commit suicide. Song reluctantly complies, and throws the general into an elevator, sending him down to the basement, before apparently apprehending Mari.
Injured and exhausted, the general proceeds out of the elevator and tumbles down a long set of stairs, before he collapses and sees a vision of his daughter running further down into the basement. Determined to stop Sanabi and avenge her, he attempts to follow her, only to see a vision of Mari standing by the stairs leading back up. Faced with a choice to stop Sanabi or save Mari, the player is given the choice of whether to proceed further down the stairs, or whether to turn back and go upwards.
====Going Down====
Should the player proceed down the stairs, the general finds a group of Mago security personnel attempting to overload the city's reactor in an attempt to destroy the city and erase any evidence of their crimes. Believing them to be connected to Sanabi, he brutally slaughters all but one of them, leaving the sole survivor to claim that Sanabi does not exist before he, too, is executed. The general sees a deteriorating hallucination of his daughter, which mechanically informs him that Sanabi has been eliminated and that he has accomplished his mission, and that the "program" will now be terminated. The general declares that "it's important to make it to the end," before the game abruptly ends.
==== Going Up====
Should the player choose to go back and help Mari, the general returns up the stairs only to find that Mari has disappeared, with Major Song waiting for his arrival. She reveals that he is in fact a combat android, and that she cannot understand his attempts to communicate with her. When the two battle, she recognizes his fighting style, and accuses him of being responsible for the general's death, not recognizing him. The general ultimately bests Major Song, but Colonel Baek suddenly intervenes, incapacitating the general. He and Song remove the voice filter that makes him impossible to understand, allowing the general to reveal that he knows their identities. They shut the general down, claiming they will interrogate him while flying out of the city.
===Discovering the truth===
While shut down, the general explores his previously repressed memories, including detailed records of the Mago Group's "Sanabi Project." Within his own mind, the general discovers the truth about Sanabi and his existence: the protagonist is simply a copy of the real general, who was "datafied," similar to Justice, and had his data forcibly altered by the Mago Group. Their goal was to manipulate him into an effective, reproducible killing machine, by making him believe a fictional entity called "Sanabi" killed his daughter, which could be substituted for any target of their choosing. By uploading his personality into tens of thousands of seemingly innocent Worker drones, they would be able to amass an army, which they could use to commit an uprising against the Royal Court.
He also remembers that Mari is his daughter, and that she was responsible for turning his personality into data in the first place. In reality, the general's wife, not his daughter, had been killed in the bombing meant for him. After slaughtering those responsible, the general decided to retire in order to take care of Mari, but his wife's death left him heartbroken. Feeling sad for her father, Mari turned his personality into data and removed the memories of his wife, hoping that it would give him peace of mind. However, this backfired horribly, as her father was enraged that she did so and attempted to destroy the data. Before he could do so, Mago hitmen broke into the house and killed him, before stealing the data.
Coming back to consciousness, the general looks in a mirror and sees his true appearance: an ordinary Worker drone, indistinguishable from the ones he encountered in the city. He reveals his identity to Baek and Song, who in turn reveal that he died ten years ago, and that Mari is still inside the city, which will soon be disintegrated by a massive superweapon in order to prevent the consequences of a nuclear explosion. Determined to save her life, and to "keep a promise," the general returns to the city and rapidly fights his way back to the top, finding Mari in the power facility's control room; the "basement" that she had originally attempted to direct him to.
Mari reveals that the "Sanabi" she programmed into him was the goal of stopping the destruction of Mago City, saving the millions of innocent civilians, who had not disappeared, but were made imperceptible to him by Mago's programming. She also claims that, because he didn't pursue Sanabi, the only way to stop the runaway nuclear reactor is to disable it from the inside, a suicidal task. Despite his attempts to reconcile, she coldly states that he is not her father, and that he is only a replica mimicking the real general (echoing a comment he himself had made earlier). This prompts him to remember a song that he and his daughter used to play for each other on the harmonica, "Sanabi," and plays it for her, causing her to break down and apologize to him.
After a brief reunion, the general insists that he must disable the nuclear reactor himself, knowing that this will kill him. He tells Mari he loves her, before reminding her that "getting to the end is not what's important, but how we get there." After a tearful goodbye, he departs to disable the core, sacrificing his life to save Mari and dying for the final time.
==Character==
===Personality===
As a military man, the general typically displays a serious, no-nonsense attitude, strictly focused on the mission at hand. He is highly courageous, never panicking in even the most dire of situations. He is fairly impatient, however, as Mari's energetic and chaotic personality often results in his irritation towards her. He displays an extreme capacity for vengeance, willing to slaughter entire organizations as payback for the death of his loved ones, and is obsessively focused on getting revenge on Sanabi to the point of self-destruction.
He is shown to have a more gentle, nurturing side, as he enjoys playing with his daughter, even so far as to often roleplay with her. He shows plenty of concern for Mari's personal safety, despite his frustrations with her, and repeatedly attempts to convince her to leave the city and save herself; depending on the player's decision, he may even choose to abandon his original goal of revenge in order to save Mari. He is also seen engaging in banter with Major Song on a couple of occasions, showing that he does have some degree of humor. At the game's conclusion, after learning Mari's true identity, he is willing to scale the entire city a second time in order to save her.
Despite his reliance on technology, the general seems to have a fairly dismissive attitude towards it. He has a lack of knowledge about computers, and is frequently put off by Mari's over-complicated explanations. He appears to hold robots in a low regard, often derogatorily referring to them as "tin cans." He goes so far as to chastise Mari for her attachment to Mufin, claiming that machines are not comparable to people and that they can only mimic human beings--remaining unaware of the irony that he is a robot himself.
===Chain Arm===
The general has a large prosthetic arm with a hook-like claw, attached to a retractable chain. The arm grants enhanced mobility, allowing the user to swing around effortlessly, and can also be used for combat. It is incredibly powerful, capable of ripping down solid metal doors and destroying machines far bigger than its user, and it is incredibly fast, able to deploy and reel its chain in almost instantaneously. In gameplay, this arm is the primary mechanic, being used by the player for the entire duration of the game.
In order to mimic the general's abilities, Mago's Worker drones utilize a similar technology with a grappling arm, utilizing a metallic wire rather than a chain.
==Trivia== 
*The protagonist's name is never given. However, as Mari's last name is stated to be 금 (Geum) in Korean, it can be implied that the protagonist shares this surname.
*The protagonist's designation as a drone is Worker 17287.
*As the protagonist's sprite is simply mirrored, his chain arm appears to be on either side depending on which way he is facing.
**Official artwork shows his chain arm as being on the right, as well as a cutscene where he faces a mirror in-game; however, in the artwork shown during his reunion with Mari, his chain arm is on the left.
*Although it is later revealed that he is a robot, the protagonist claims to have a sense of smell, and is capable of playing a harmonica despite lacking lungs.
*Following the real general's death, Colonel Baek inherited his hat, and is seen wearing it in the present day. He returns it to the protagonist after learning their true identity.
* As there is a filter to make his voice unintelligible, it is not clear how Mari is able to understand him throughout the game. It is possible that she has some sort of translation device, as she wears headphones for almost the entire duration of the game.
*Despite being a Worker drone in reality, the protagonist is able to cross over lasers that exclusively destroy worker drones. This may be due to the fact that the protagonist has been disconnected from Mago's servers by Mari.
Category:Characters