Black Lotus

Black Lotus is China's hero unit in Command & Conquer: Generals and its expansion, Zero Hour.
==Background==
The Black Lotus was a master hacker. Though unarmed, she could capture enemy buildings, disable vehicles, and steal cash from supply centers using her laptop. She was always stealthed when not using her laptop, making her difficult to detect.Command & Conquer: Generals manual. Los Angeles, California: Electronic Arts Pacific, 2002. Very little else was known about the Black Lotus. It was likely that she was not a unique individual, but part of a unit all operating under the same name.Electronic Arts Pacific, Command & Conquer: Generals. China mission 4: "Broken Alliances".
==Abilities==
Capture Building		Captures an enemy building.
Disable Vehicle 		Disables an enemy ground vehicle.
Cash Hack 		Steal up to $1000 from an enemy Supply Center.
==Game unit==
===Strategy===
In spite of the fact that she lacks the plain destructive power of Colonel Burton and Jarmen Kell's outstanding ability to subdue any infantry or manned vehicle instantly, Black Lotus is equally threatening with her combined attributes. She makes for an excellent forward scout that can alert advancing forces of oncoming threats and spot for artillery, since she has stealth and detects enemy stealth units. Her abilities also have a variety of uses - Cash Hack can provide a boost in income and slow the opponent's economy, Vehicle Hack can significantly impede enemy vehicles, and she can seize buildings from afar, including neutral tech buildings, while other friendly units keep her away from the line of fire.
===Counters===
Black Lotus, though devastating when given the chance, must be used tactically for maximum effect. Unlike Colonel Burton and Jarmen Kell, Black Lotus is unarmed and will be quickly destroyed if exposed to enemy fire, which can occur frequently as all her abilities force her to break stealth. As with most infantry units, vehicles could run her over regardless of visibility.
=== Usage ===
Despite her lack of weapons, Black Lotus is ideal as a saboteur because of her wide sight range and ability to hack buildings at distance. Her main role is as a scout, moving forward of the base perimeter to alert the Chinese player to incoming ground attacks; on the offense, she can spot lurking stealth units, camouflaged defenses, demo traps and land mines. The ability to disable vehicles is less useful against swarms, but isolated ones still prove to be easy targets if used well. Her ranged abilities means that careless base setup can allow Lotus to steal or disable a building from outside the base perimeter, in some cases bypassing obstacles like land mines or uncrossable terrain. 
==Campaign==
While many of Lotus' covert operations remain a mystery, she is known to have assisted in a number of Chinese and one combined US-Chinese operation against the GLA. The very first appearance of her in China's missions was at the Three Gorges Dam where she joined the surviving garrison forces to rebuild their base and destroy the dam. In the Tanggula Mountains, she led her commando team consisting of Red Guards and Tank Hunters to destroy five Stinger Sites to clear the way for a MIG attack on a GLA toxin factory. In Scorched Earth, Black Lotus guided the Chinese forces through the booby-trapped city and captured an oil complex. She also planted a bomb on the railway bridge at Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan to prevent GLA reinforcements arriving by train and assisted during the attack on the GLA main stronghold in Dushanbe.
Later in the conflict, she appeared in a joint Chinese-American operation with US commando, Colonel Burton to destroy a GLA research facility located in Mount Elbrus, Russia. As Burton prepared his explosives, Black Lotus managed to infiltrate the facility and stole several files holding intelligence to the GLA invasion of Europe. As she escaped the facility, Burton detonated the bomb which caused an avalanche and destroyed the facility. She later appeared in the very final mission to end the GLA war in Europe by capturing or using her Nuclear Missile to blow up the American and GLA bases near Hamburg in Germany.
==Selected Quotes==
==See also==
* Super Lotus, Shin Fai counterpart
* Colonel Burton, American counterpart
* Jarmen Kell, GLA counterpart
==Trivia==
* Originally in Generals, Black Lotus was supposed to be able to attack enemy Units, but this ability was removed for unknown reasons. However, the voice quotes remain in the original Generals sound files.
*Despite being patched (see below), a bug allows an AI-controlled Black Lotus is to move immediately after initiating a building capture command. The building will be acquired as long as Lotus survives to the end of the process, giving the AI player a significant advantage.
*Black Lotus may be named after the Asian assassin of the same name who appears in Marvel Universe strip 'The Femizons'. In turn, the Chinese assassin 'Black Lotus' from the BBC's 'Sherlock' series may be named after her.
*In the mission Broken Alliances, if Black Lotus is killed, another Black Lotus will be airdropped in, with Lin Zhong saying "General, another Black Lotus operative is being dispatched to your position. Protect her." Similarly, Boss General Leang will comment that the player has corrupted a Black Lotus unit if the player deploys Lotus on the battlefield. This implies that Black Lotus isn't a single person, but an entire organization within either the People's Liberation Army or the Ministry of State Security (the latter being the case in the canon for the Rise of the Reds mod). This is consistent with the other two factions' heroes who, despite being given proper names and even personalities, are merely representative of highly trained infantry deployed in small numbers on unconventional missions.
== Changelog ==
*Generals patch 1.07: Jarmen Kell, Black Lotus and Colonel Burton now have a special icon on the radar map
*Zero Hour patch 1.01: fixed a bug that allowed Black Lotus to capture a building while moving
==Footnotes==
==References==
Category:Generals 1 infantry
Category:Generals 1 characters
Category:Zero Hour characters
Category:Chinese characters
Category:Generals 1 commandos
de:Schwarze Lotusblüte