Deakin Abbott

Deakin Abbott was an engineer and a Unitology lay preacher on the Aegis VII colony, one of the faithful whose devotion turned the discovery of the Red Marker into a tragedy. He led congregations toward the artifact, told the sickening colonists that their symptoms were the Marker preparing them, and finally led his followers to take their own lives.

Background#

Deakin Abbott was born on Mars, a second-generation Martian whose parents were both first-generation natives of the planet. An unremarkable early life and education were tempered by an aptitude for mechanics and engineering, which led him into those fields. He came to specialize in vehicles built for hostile terrain and was working for the Martian police's vehicle and engineering division during the Mars Capita riots.

His wife, Tina Abbott, a civilian, was killed in those same riots by police fire on a crowded street. Disillusioned with the world, Abbott sought solace in Unitology. The Church only deepened his growing distrust of government and its officials, even the new administration of Mars Capita, and Unitology soon became the center of his life. He began lay preaching while continuing to work as an engineer, though he no longer accepted state contracts.

Abbott was slowly becoming unwelcome on Mars and began looking for a way off the planet. A former colleague from his police work, now with the Concordance Extraction Corporation, headhunted him for the company, and he seized the chance to escape his bad memories. He worked his way up to supervise the Vehicular, Transport and Mechanical division of the CEC's colony operations, and he kept preaching the gospel of Unitology.

The Second Aegis VII Incident#

On Aegis VII, Abbott was shown to be deeply devout, leading numerous congregations of Unitologists in the colony. His fervor was a source of frustration to Abraham Neumann. When the Red Marker was discovered, Abbott led a small group of Unitologists to the dig site, where he had a strange vision of his mother telling him to protect the Marker. He later led a congregation toward the site but was refused entry, and the group simply stood nearby and prayed. As the colonists' condition worsened, he led another gathering and told them that their symptoms were in fact the Marker "preparing" them.

During the initial removal of the Marker, a temporary, irritating screech was released into the minds of all the colonists. Abbott interpreted this screech as the voice of God and ordered the assembled Unitologists, and himself, to take their own lives. Their bodies were moved to the morgue and kept under preservation. His toetag was later found there, but his body was gone despite records claiming the dead had not been moved, implying that Abbott had been reanimated into one of the first Necromorphs to overrun the colony.