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Trent Easton is the corrupt director of the National Security Agency and heads some renegade members of said organisation of the U.S. government. He is a valuable ally for dataDyne and has helped them on several occasions. Easton is one of the secondary antagonists of Perfect Dark.
Early Life[]
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, not much is known about Easton before the events of Perfect Dark. It is known that he is highly intelligent, having entered Loyola University at the age of fifteen in 1991. On January 19th, 1995 Trent was hired as a cryptographer at the United States National Security Agency in Fort Meade, Maryland but left the NSA in 1997 voluntarily due to the fact he was fed up with government bureaucracy.
Shortly after he left the NSA, Trent accepted a position at Ellison Electronic Security, Inc. (a subsidiary of dataDyne). Several years later on April 13th, 2000 Trent is named to head up a digital information security program contracted to the U.S. National Security Agency. Seven years later, Trent is made Deputy Director of the NSA.
Then, on January 1st, 2018 Trent was named Director of the NSA.
Perfect Dark[]
Trent Easton is mentioned briefly in Perfect Dark: Initial Vector and Perfect Dark: Second Front, having provided the head of CORPSEC Anita Velez with valuable information (the first being satellite maps and images for the Core-Mantis OmniGlobal facility at the Solomon Islands, the second being satellite imaging for the meeting between Joanna Dark and CMO agent Portia De Carcareas in Mexico City).
Easton first appears in Perfect Dark in the G5 Building explaining to his fellow conspirators, Cassandra De Vries and Mr. Blonde, that while he is not able to convince the U.S. President to help dataDyne by loaning the Pelagic II to said corporation, he could obtain a tissue sample from him in order to create a clone of him that could do whatever they want (implying that the clone would have some sort of mind conditioning or similar acts done to it) and use it to completely usurp the President. He also tells Mr. Blonde that the alien technology that was given to him for Area 51 is fully functional, leading up to the events of the Maian Ambassador called by Daniel Carrington being shot down at the end of the mission, forcing Joanna to rescue a bodyguard named Elvis from the military base with the help of Jonathan Steinberg.
While aboard Air Force One, Trent, his men and a few cloaked Skedar (Mr. Blonde guards) make their terrorist attack to kidnap (and almost certainly assassinate) the President. However, Joanna was able to successfully evacuate the President safely into an escape pod before Air Force One crashed in Alaska. During Crash Site: Confrontation, Joanna discovers the President's clone and destroys it. At the end of the mission, when Joanna meets and rescues the President again from his clutches, Mr. Blonde has had enough with Easton's failures and ultimately kills him.
Trivia[]
- Trent Easton's weapon of choice is the deadly DY357-LX, and the infamous weapon itself was supposedly custom-built specifically for him. Despite this, Easton is not the only person to wield the powerful golden revolver in Perfect Dark, but actually one of three people; the others being a certain Area 51 guard who dual-wields them in Maian SOS, and the Perfect Buddy Hotshot, who carries one in addition to the regular DY357 Magnum. The Area 51 guard's use of the weapon(s) may not be canon, however; the level in which he appears is a bonus mission, although it is linked to the main storyline. This particular guard may have been likely placed there simply as a target to use the Psychosis Gun on, as he also has more health than the others. Of course, Joanna herself can optionally have the DY357-LX by stealing it from Trent in Crash Site or through cheats.
- Being the director of NSA, Trent's part of the conspiracy with dataDyne and the Skedar is in fact a treason; Alongside using illegal alien technology in Area 51, his actions of performing a terrorist attack on the Air Force One to abduct and kill the President and replace him with a clone due to refusal of loaning the Pelagic II is no doubt a traitorous capital crime to the United States of America.
- Trent himself is noticeably a slight reference to Bond villain Francisco Scaramanga from the James Bond series, as his gold-plated revolver is based on the original Golden Gun from the 1965 The Man of the Golden Gun novel by Ian Fleming and shares the exact same instant kill properties as its 1974 film counterpart seen in GoldenEye 007.
- In the novel Perfect Dark: Initial Vector, Cassandra claims to be friends with Trent Easton and that they exchange information, similar to the game.
- Easton's original N64 model somewhat resembles James Bond's appearance in GoldenEye 007.
- In Air Force One: Antiterrorism and Crash Site: Confrontation, although Trent cannot be killed due to a virtually unbreakable Shield being applied on to him (for plot reasons), Trent acts just like a generic enemy when fighting Joanna, if he's followed to a corner and not disappear. In the former mission, as Easton attacks, he will say the same lines as guards such as "Die!" or "You made your last mistake!". When he misses shots, he'll say "My gun is useless!" or "How did I miss?". Notably, his reaction speed before he fires is slow, presumably to give the player time to avoid his lethal DY357-LX shots. Ironically, Trent's voice actor is actually one of two men of Rareware's development staff who voiced the enemy soldiers.
- Trent is also a coward. Despite wielding a very powerful weapon, he runs away from Joanna in both the Air Force One and Crash Site missions, with in the latter level intentionally letting the President go rather than killing him and he fails to shoot Mr. Blonde after threatening him. However, he does still shoot at you in both cases (with the former if you deliberately follow him to a corner) and in The Duel (though it was a Simulant and not the actual Trent).
- Trent Easton is the first character to witness a Skedar Warrior as Mr. Blonde in this form slays him with a single punch to his face. Coincidentally, this is also the first time the player sees one anywhere in the game.
- Due to the fact Hotshot shares the DY357-LX (alongside Jonathan's regular DY357), the unlockable Co-Op Buddy is considered a good-alignment counterpart of Trent Easton.