54 Immortals

The 54 Immortals, often referred to as the 54i, is a faction that appears in Call of Duty: Black Ops III, V.E.R.S.I.O.N. and Call of Duty: Black Ops 4. Founded in the late 19th century, the 54i is a large, organized crime syndicate that operates primarily in Singapore; as of the mid-21st century, the 54i has thousands of members and substantial military equipment, including drones, GI Units and a variety of military-grade small arms.
They are referred to as Vultures later on in the Nightmares game mode.
==History==
===Early history===
The 54 Immortals was originally a secret society founded by a first-generation Singaporean of Chinese descent called Goh Qiang in 1894. Back then, most of the 54i's membership was made up of Chinese, Indian and Malay immigrants to Singapore. Throughout the next century, the organization would rapidly expand through organized criminal activities, such as human trafficking and the trade of illegal narcotics.
The 54 Immortals would be headed by descendants of Goh Qiang until 2046, when leader Goh Cheung was murdered by his bodyguard, Hyun Jian, who would then declare himself as leader of the organization. Goh Cheung's children, Goh Min and Goh Xiulan, were taken into the care of Jae Xiong, a high-ranking clan enforcer. Two years later, Xiong killed Jian, handing leadership of the 54 Immortals to the young Goh siblings. Xiong acted as their adviser through their teenage years.
===Singapore disaster===
In 2058, the CIA, in collaboration with the Coalescence Corporation, began seeking human test subjects for the secret mind control project SP/CORVUS. The CIA is known to have kidnapped members of the 54i, including Jae Xiong, who were subsequently used as guinea pigs for DNI experimentation at a Coalescence research facility in Singapore.
On the 2nd of June 2060, the Coalescence facility in Singapore exploded after complications involving SP/CORVUS. The facility began to leak large quantities of an unknown toxin which would spread across the city, eventually killing over 300,000 people over the course of a year. International relief efforts failed and the authorities quarantined the region. The quarantine zone would become a lawless wasteland, which the 54i would use to their own advantage; after bribing the Singapore Armed Forces, much of the 54i was allowed to illegally enter the quarantine zone and amass significant wealth through the looting and trading of whatever they could salvage. They also hunted survivors of the disaster to sell into human trafficking.
By 2062, the 54i effectively controlled the quarantine zone, and their membership was at an all-time high with an estimated strength of about 5000. They had also salvaged abandoned military equipment, including a substantial amount of Coalescence-built GI Units. They received military training from private military companies and funding from the Common Defense Pact, who sought to destabilize the Winslow Accord and utilised the 54i controlled quarantine zone as one of their key ports for covert arms smuggling.
===Conflict with the CIA===
The 54i continued to grow in strength until 2064, when they were contracted by the CDP to explore the long-abandoned Coalescence facility in search of illegal chemical agent Nova 6, which Russian scientists had identified as the unknown substance that had leaked from the facility following the disaster. The 54i had previously be paid by the CIA, prior to the disaster, to acquire prisoners from secure facilities for CIA experiments. The 54i expedition team exploring the facility triggered an alarm which alerted the CIA of their presence. Fearing the 54i would find evidence of SP/CORVUS, the CIA sent in a clean-up crew to eliminate the 54i explorers and bury the evidence implicating them in the Singapore disaster. The CIA's team consisted of Dylan Stone, Javier Ramirez, Alice Conrad and Joseph Fierro.
After Stone's team had cleared the 54i forces, they went against orders and delved deeper into the facility, seeing for themselves the evidence that linked the CIA's illegal experiments to the Singapore disaster. Disgusted, they defected from the Winslow Accord, wiping out a nearby CIA black station that was tasked with spying on the 54i. They proceeded to steal the station's data drives and take them to the 54i's stronghold at the Singapore bio-domes, where they met with 54i leaders Goh Min and Goh Xiulan. Stone's team came to an agreement with the Gohs; they would leak the data drives to the 54i in exchange for safe passage out of the quarantine zone. Ramirez, however, stayed behind, and returned to the Coalescence facility to retrieve more evidence implicating the CIA in the disaster.
Jacob Hendricks and John Taylor, sent by the CIA to retrieve the stolen data drives, attempted to infiltrate the bio-domes disguised as arms dealers. After a brief meeting with 54i fixer Danny Li, the pair were compromised by the Goh twins, who saw through their facade and confronted them. The ensuing shootout saw Goh Min shot dead and Danny Li critically injured; the latter managed to survive through the use of a stolen Rejack unit. Goh Xiulan narrowly escaped with the data drives.
As Hendricks and Taylor fought their way through the bio-domes, they tracked down Goh Xiulan, who was in the process of uploading the intel from the data drives onto her personal computer. After knocking her out, Taylor cut off her right hand in order to bypass her computer's fingerprint recognition system. Hendricks and Taylor retrieved the data and escaped, having inflicted high casualties on the 54i and killed one of their leaders.
Having suffered a humiliating setback against the Winslow Accord, Goh Xiulan swore vengeance against the men who killed her brother. She tracked them to the abandoned Coalescence facility, where they themselves were tracking Ramirez. Although Ramirez was killed by Hendricks, he managed to publicly leak the locations of the CIA's secret safehouses before his death. After receiving this information, Goh Xiulan ordered her men to flood the facility in an attempt to drown Hendricks and Taylor, who both managed to escape alive.
===Vengeance===
Now with full knowledge of the CIA's activities, Goh Xiulan rallied her forces and led them outside the quarantine zone, where they would attack the CIA's Singapore safehouse in an act of revenge. The 54i, battling the Singapore Armed Forces, caused devastation throughout the city and sieged the CIA safehouse, capturing Taylor's handler Rachel Kane. Taylor and Hendricks disobeyed orders to evacuate Singapore, choosing to help Kane instead. After clearing out the 54i forces inside the safehouse, Taylor killed Goh Xiulan and rescued Kane before finally leaving Singapore for good. Leaderless, the 54i fell back to the quarantine zone shortly afterward.
Having suffered substantial losses at the hands of the CIA and now without any leaders, the 54i began to fight among themselves. Although dishonored, Danny Li was spared execution at the hands of enforcer He Zhen-Zhen, who decided that the organization had suffered too many losses and needed all the manpower it could acquire to rebuild.
==Culture==
The 54i's name, like many Chinese secret societies, draws on Chinese numerology. Both numbers 5 and 4 are considered unlucky, as 4 is a homophone for 'death' in Cantonese and Mandarin, while 5 sounds similar to the word 'not' or 'never' in Cantonese. Thus the literal translation of the 54i's name is "Never Dying Immortals".
Unsurprisingly for a group composed of migrants from other cultures, the Immortals cling to the traditions and icons of their home nations, particularly the Chinese tradition of the ruling Goh dynasty. They venerate both their ancestors and fallen clan members.
54i members undergo an initiation ritual that allegedly involves mixing the initiates blood with that of the other members in attendance, toasting each other with a mixture of mingled blood and rice wine. They swear allegiance to the clan in front of an altar featuring a painting of Goh Qiang before making an offering with the remaining drink. Oaths of loyalty are then taken and from that point forward, the new member is considered part of a family.
The Immortals typically mark their territory using symbols of animals that correspond to the Chinese astrology birth year of their founder Goh Qiang and the current leaders. Thus many of their current facilities, territories and equipment are embellished with the Fu Dog (Goh Qiang) and the Snake (Goh Min) symbols.
==Known Members==
*Goh Qiang - Founder (Deceased)
*Goh Cheung - Leader, unknown - 2046 (Deceased)
*Hyun Jian - Leader, 2046 - 2048 (Deceased)
*Goh Xiulan - Leader, 2048 - 2064 (Deceased)
*Goh Min - Leader, 2048 - 2064 (Deceased)
*Danny "Blackjack" Li - Trader
*Jae Xiong - Enforcer (Deceased)
*He "Seraph" Zhen-Zhen - Enforcer
==Equipment==
===Weapons===
* KN-44
* ICR-1
* Man-O-War
* Sheiva SSW
* HVK-30
* BRM
* Dingo
* 48 Dredge
* KRM-262
* 205 Brecci
* Argus
* P-06
* Riot Shield
* GI Unit
===Vehicles===
* P.A.W.W.S.
* R.A.P.S.
* ASP-C battle tank
* Talon-R
* Technical
==Gallery==
54I BOIII.png|五十四 in the "Back in Black" teaser.
54I-Message BO3.jpg|Corpses hung by the 54 Immortals to send a message of intimidation and fear in Vengeance.
File:Black Ops 3 Zipline.jpg
File:BRM screenshot BO3.jpg
54I Model.jpg
File:54i Exosuit Limbs Concept by Peter Zoppi BOIII.jpg|View of 54i exosuit
File:54i Exosuit Body Concept by Peter Zoppi BOIII.jpg|Another view of 54i exosuit
==Trivia==
*The Chinese writing 五十四, meaning 54 in Arabic numeral system, can be seen in the "Back in Black" teaser. 
**五 shares the same pronunciation as the Chinese word "无" (Means "No" / "Never"), and 四 shares the same pronunciation as the Chinese word "死" (Means "Death"). As "No Death" is another way of saying "Immortal", this may be the reason they are called "54 immortals".
*The player can hardly see the entire face of the 54 Immortals enemy, they are either covered by the eyes, or wrapped tightly.
es:54 Inmortales
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