Clutch Nixon

Clutch Nixon was a renowned American stunt performer, and one of the most famous people to ever come out of Hope County, MT. Born and raised in the Holland Valley region of the county, Nixon first gained notoriety in 1960 after surviving a stunt which nearly took his life after. This first stunt involved swerving drunkenly around a crude backwoods obstacle course, but with the added complication that Clutch's car was on fire at the time. Clutch completed the course and survived by plunging into an inlet of Deep North Irrigation Reservoir.
Word of his willingness to perform recklessly dangerous (and often hastily improvised) feats in front of large crowds spread quickly. Before long, Clutch Nixon was a household name, at least within a small section of rural Montana. Nixon, who was both innately innovative and chronically impulsive, would incorporate a wide variety of (often weaponized) vehicles (and, on at least two occasions, a homemade wingsuit) into his stunts, at least eight of which he performed in his home state of Montana. His act would garner him fame and fortune throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, but would also cause him to sustain multiple severe injuries and left him with numerous chronic health issues. Having achieved everything he had ever wanted and more, Nixon disappeared on July 18, 1975, after plunging off of the side of a mountain in his native Hope County while wearing his famed wingsuit. His body was never recovered, and he was eventually declared legally dead.
In fact, due to an unprecedented astrophysical phenomenon, Nixon was launched from his last known earthly location—flying high above Silver Lake—into outer space. After traversing the void for 299 Earth days, he managed an emergency landing on the planet Mars on what would've been May 12, 1976 back home. He then spent the better part of that year exploring the Martian surface, interacting with its native lifeforms, and planning and executing his most audacious stunts yet, before finally disappearing for good on January 5, 1977 in a final act of glorious derring-do.
He was never heard from again.
==Events of Far Cry 5==
Sometime after Nixon's disappearance, a number of plaques were erected in his honor around Hope County at the sites of his most famous local stunts. All bore a flattering bas-relief of Clutch Nixon, as well as detailed (and probably hyperbolic) descriptions commemorating those stunts, possibly taken from Nixon's own accounts of them. In 2018, the Junior Deputy, at the height of their battle with the Project at Eden's Gate and for reasons known only to themself, would faithfully recreate eight of these stunts to the best of their ability.
===Famous Stunts in Hope County, Montana===
*"Baptism of Fire":Performed on May 1, 1960, in the central Holland Valley, this was the first of Nixon's stunts to gain broad notoriety.
*"Descente Dans la Folie":Performed on April 20, 1961, in the ghost town of Prosperity, MT.
*"Old Glory Holes":Performed on July 4, 1963, over the lower Henbane River.
*"Spray and Pray":Performed on June 19, 1964, near the Copperhead Rail Yard.
*"The Mooseknuckle Run":Performed on April 15, 1968, in the eastern foothils of the Whitetail Mountains.
*"Quadzilla":Performed on May 10, 1971, just east of the PIN-KO Radar Station.
*"The Lord of the Wings":Performed on August 21, 1973, north of Wishbone Lake.
*"Godspeed":Performed on July 18, 1975, over a mountain stream flowing west into Silver Lake, this was Nixon's last-known major stunt in Hope County—or anywhere else on Earth...
==Events of Lost on Mars==
During their quest to save Earth from Martian invasion, Nick Rye and the roaming transferred consciousness of Hurk Drubman, Jr. (both lifelong residents of Clutch Nixon's native Hope County) came across six mysterious shrines, with plaques (identical to those found back in Montana) detailing Nixon's finest Martian exploits. Unable to resist the Nixonian call of greatness, Rye took precious time from his heroic campaign to reproduce all six stunts described on the plaques as faithfully as he is able.
===Famous Stunts on Mars===
*”The Real Big Bang”:On May 12, 1976, Clutch Nixon's 299-day journey came to an end as he performed an emergency landing in the southern end of the Martian Desert of Despair with his usual grace and panache.
*”Red Rocket”:Performed in the middle of June, 1976, roughly a month after Nixon arrived on Mars.
*”Premium Rush”:Performed on June 20, 1976, on Mars.
*”Patriot Missile”:Performed on July 4, 1976, on Mars.
*”Spirits of Christmas”:Performed on December 24, 1976, on Mars.
*”Clutch Wept”:Performed on January 5, 1977, on Mars.
==Trivia==
*The outsized character of Clutch Nixon is most likely based on legendary daredevil Evel Knievel, another Montana native who gained notoriety in the 1960s and '70s for his outrageous stunts (and the extensive injuries resulting from them).
*The in-game narration for the mission "Godspeed" mentions that Nixon was declared dead after months of fruitless searching following his July 1975 plunge; his year of death, however, is repeatedly listed as 1977 on plaques throughout the game map. As the people of Earth would have no way of knowing about Clutch's pioneering adventures on Mars, this is either an oversight by Far Cry developer Ubisoft, or else Clutch Nixon was such a beloved figure to the people of Hope County that they refused to give up the search for him for at least eighteen months. Both of these situations seem equally likely.
*In 1975, in the weeks leading up to his final stunt and subsequent mysterious disappearance, Clutch Nixon memorialized his most cherished late pets in the noblest way he could imagine: by stitching their hides together into the very wingsuit he would last be seen by any human wearing.
**It is presumably with this same wingsuit that Nixon performed his mythic Martian stunts, as it was the only article of clothing he brought with him to the red planet.
*Nixon was well known for his philanthropy, including his multiple literacy programs for children (child literacy being a cause dear to his heart). His charitable efforts flagged during a bout of lingering nihilistic ennui, but after some intense soul-serching, he decided to redouble his efforts.
*The launch party for one of Nixon's passion projects, a multi-volume collection of his own erotic poetry, is widely considered the impetus for a 1963 race riot. The collection shared its name with the spectacularly American July 4 aerial stunt he performed that same year: Old Glory Holes. The riot was unintentional; the book is considered to be a paradigm of the genre to this day.
**Indeed, Cluch Nixon's legendary sexual appetites truly knew no constraints: the day after his arrival on Mars, Nixon made contact with an indigenous being and, having no other way to communicate with it, chose to seduce it instead. This would be, in more ways than one, humanity's first known contact with extraterrestrial life, and the two beings' month-long lovemaking session would pave the way for a strong (if totally estranged) bond between the two species that wouldn't be broken for over fifty years, as the Martian arachnids would even gather to cheer Clutch Nixon on for his very last recorded stunt.
*Nixon's best friend was another Hope County local by the name of George Rye—a possible relative of noted pilot and Fall's End resident, Nick Rye.
**By some cosmic coincidence, it would be the same Nick Rye who would reenact Nixon's stunts on Mars, which would've otherwise have been lost to humanity forever.
*It is not known how the plaques detailing Clutch Nixon's exploits arrived on Mars, or who built the shrines that house them. While the shrines seem to be of the same design as the structures that surround them, the plaques contain information that predate their arrival by decades. One could thus surmise that the most likely explanation is that they were forged from locally-sourced Martian materials by the only other human being known to have set foot on the planet before them: Clutch Nixon himself. Perhaps sensing that humanity would one day have need of new legendary exploits, it is probable that "the Greatest S.O.B. Who Ever Lived" chronicled his own most jaw-dropping low-gravity stunts on these plaques, then left them at the sites of his stunts so that, should mankind one day slip the surly bonds of Earth to walk upon that rusty soil, they would have new legends of his greatness to bring back home with them.
**It goes without saying, of course, that for this very reasonable theory to be true, Nixon would've had to have created the plaque for his ultimate feat—"Clutch Wept"—before he actually performed the stunt. As this is the last physical record anywhere of his presence, it is therefore quite possible that Nixon survived this final act and lived for a further time on Mars. Perhaps he lives there to this day.
**It is similarly unclear (though of less importance) how Nixon survived his both 299-day journey through outer space and his subsequent stay of (at least) 238 days on Mars without any obvious source of sustenance, oxygen, or protection from exposure or high levels of radiation.
*Although highly unlikely, it is possible that Clutch Nixon is the only known person to survive a spontaneous human combustion incident.
*Although the stunt Descente Dans la Folie took place in 1961, the Bailout buggy unlocked after completing the stunt states that it is a 2013 model year, and that Clutch Nixon drove it, although Clutch Nixon died in 1977. This is likely an oversight in the design of the vehicle and its description on behalf of Ubisoft.
*Although the stunt Baptism of Fire took place in 1960, the "Uncle Sam" Kimberlite ZT muscle car unlocked after completing the stunt is a 1967 model year. This is again a likely oversight on behalf of Ubisoft.
==Gallery==
FC5 clutch memorial.jpg|Clutch Nixon's memorial.
Clutch Nixon's Exploding Eagle.jpg|A bald eagle explodes from a powerful firework in honor of the great Clutch Nixon.
Category:Far Cry 5 characters
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Category:Far Cry 5: Lost on Mars characters
Category:Deceased