Oracle Program
EarthGov's secret retrieval agents
The Oracle Program was a covert EarthGov operation devoted to retrieval and secrecy, created to assess the threat of the Necromorphs. Its agents, the Oracles, worked in white-clad pairs armed with Stasis rings and laser weapons, answering to authority higher than the government's own.
The Oracle Program was a secret EarthGov operation devoted, in its own words, to retrieval and secrecy, and it was implied to have been created to assess the threat of the Necromorphs. Its agents, the Oracles, moved in white-clad pairs armed with Stasis rings and laser weapons, and they appeared wherever the Markers and the contagion they spread reached, from the derelict USG Ishimura to the falling Sprawl. (Dead Space: Salvage; Dead Space 2: Severed)
Purpose and methods#
The Oracle Program was described as a secret government program designed for exactly the kind of catastrophe that the Markers and the Necromorphs brought about, and EarthGov was understood to have dispatched its agents specifically to deal with that threat. The Oracles themselves were defined by two priorities, retrieval and secrecy, and they stressed that secrecy mattered most of all. They were not authorized to interfere with civilian or military operations unless a situation directly concerned those priorities. (Dead Space: Salvage)
They worked in two-man teams, always dressed in white, and carried unusual laser weapons that they used to drive off the Necromorphs rather than to kill them. Each also wore a finger ring with Stasis abilities, and the same rings could be used to kill: a single touch left a victim dead and bleeding from the nose. A New Game+ log in the 2023 remake, written in Marker script, translates to a poem about the Oracles that casts them as figures who walk in white untouched by red, order the living, shepherd the dead, and freeze their victims with a finger's touch, a nod to their uniforms and their rings. (Dead Space: Salvage; Dead Space 2: Severed; Dead Space (2023))
The recovery of the Ishimura#
The Oracles first surfaced in a meeting with EarthGov Defense Secretary David Chang, informing him of their involvement in the retrieval of the USG Ishimura. One of them implied that the authority of their superiors went beyond the Secretary's own. Later, when Julia Copland betrayed the Magpie salvagers and contacted EarthGov to trade the Marker 3A shard she had stolen, the Oracles were brought in to interrogate her. After learning all they could, one thanked her, and when she asked for a reward he merely took her hand; the ring on his finger glowed with blue light and she fell dead moments later. (Dead Space: Salvage)
Using Copland's information, the Oracles located the Ishimura and boarded it, noting that reanimation had already started and showing their familiarity with the contagion. They searched the ship for the Marker, using their laser weapons to dispatch several Necromorphs and even a Hive Mind, and eventually confronted the salvager Stefan Schneider. When he asked why they had chased him rather than simply seize the Marker shards, they told him they needed to know what he knew and what he had seen, and that he did not possess the language to tell them. They called the outbreak an unfortunate side effect of the Marker. After a brief struggle Schneider escaped in the Oracles' own stealth ship, leaving the two agents to be killed by the Necromorphs. (Dead Space: Salvage)
Titan Station#
During the outbreak on Titan Station, two Oracles arrived in search of Lexine Weller, a subject of the program's study for her apparent immunity to the influence of the Marker signal. They displayed the same mannerisms as their counterparts aboard the Ishimura, and Lexine described them to Gabe Weller only as strange men dressed in white. They searched the Psych Ward of the Titan Memorial Medical Center for her throughout Gabe's journey across the station. (Dead Space 2: Severed)
When Lexine was captured by Colonel Victor Bartlett, he demanded to know why the agents were following him and tried to invoke the orders of Director Hans Tiedemann to eliminate the key subjects. Their answer made clear that they answered to authority higher than Tiedemann's, and they used their Stasis rings to subdue him. They took Lexine to the hospital shuttle bay, but before they could board their gunship the two Oracles were killed by a pair of Infectors, which transformed their bodies into Twitchers. (Dead Space 2: Severed)
Frequently asked questions
- What was the Oracle Program?
- The Oracle Program was a secret EarthGov program created for operations of the highest importance, specializing in retrieval and secrecy. Its agents, the Oracles, were deployed in two-man teams and were implied to have been designed specifically to assess the threat of the Necromorphs in the 26th century.
- What weapons did the Oracles use?
- The Oracles carried unusual laser weapons, which they used to drive off Necromorph hordes rather than kill them, and finger rings with Stasis abilities. The rings could also kill a person outright, leaving them dead and bleeding from the nose.
- Who did the Oracles answer to?
- The Oracles served an authority that reached beyond ordinary EarthGov command. One told a Defense Secretary that the program's superiors outranked him, and during the Titan Station outbreak the agents ignored Hans Tiedemann's orders, following directives higher than his own.
Sources
- ComicDead Space: Salvage, Antony Johnston and Christopher Shy, IDW Publishing, 2010
- GameDead Space 2: Severed, Visceral Games, 2011
- GameDead Space (2023), Motive Studio, 2023 (remake)
Spotted a factual error or a primary source we missed? Email a correction. Every flagged claim gets reviewed.
Followed from this entry
EarthGov
EarthGov was the centralized regime that replaced the Sovereign Colonies after the Secession War, ruling humanity from an Earth-centric core. Its decision to revive the Marker program and harvest the artifacts' energy spread the Necromorph threat across the colonies.
Hans Tiedemann
Hans Tiedemann was EarthGov's Director of Operations on Titan Station who oversaw Project Telomere and the building of the Site 12 Marker, then defied his superiors to evacuate the station when the Necromorphs broke loose.
Gabe Weller
Gabe Weller was a Resource Wars veteran and security officer who survived the Necromorph outbreaks on Aegis VII and the USG Ishimura, married Lexine Murdoch, and died on Titan Station to give his wife and unborn child a chance to escape.
Infector
The Infector was a winged Necromorph whose sole purpose was to convert corpses into new Necromorphs, stabbing a proboscis into the skull to inject infectious tissue. Often the first form created by a Marker signal, it acted as an accelerant that spread an outbreak across a population of the dead.
Lexine Weller
Lexine Weller was a CEC surveyor who survived the outbreaks on Aegis VII, the USG Ishimura and Titan Station, and whose unusual immunity to the Markers' signal made her a target of both EarthGov and the Church of Unitology.
Marker 3A
Marker 3A was a Red Marker grown by the Sovereign Colonies and placed on Aegis VII for study. Two centuries later it was unearthed by the Concordance Extraction Corporation, triggering the outbreak aboard the USG Ishimura and imprinting its blueprints into Isaac Clarke's mind.
Mentioned in9 entries
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Hunter's Moon: The Magpie Ship That Caught the Ishimura
The Hunter's Moon was a Magpie salvage ship captained by Jessica Li, the de facto leader of the illegal mining crews working the restricted Aegis sector. When the drifting USG Ishimura shocked into their operation, the Hunter's Moon ran the wreck down, landed in its shuttle bay, and was lost with nearly all hands when the Necromorphs aboard the planet cracker awoke.
Lexine Weller
Lexine Weller was a CEC surveyor who survived the outbreaks on Aegis VII, the USG Ishimura and Titan Station, and whose unusual immunity to the Markers' signal made her a target of both EarthGov and the Church of Unitology.
Magpies: the illegal salvage crews of known space
Magpie was the name given to freelance miners who worked outside the law across human space, running small crews and stolen mineral hauls in systems no licensed operator would touch. Four Magpie ships under the loose command of Captain Jessica Li were working the Aegis System when the derelict USG Ishimura shocked into their operation and killed almost every one of them.
Stefan Schneider
Stefan Schneider was an illegal salvager who boarded the derelict USG Ishimura in the Aegis System and uncovered the truth of the Marker that had doomed it. Hunted by Necromorphs, EarthGov, and the Oracles, he alone escaped the ghost ship alive.
USM Intrepid
The USM Intrepid was an Earth Defense Force shuttle sent after the Second Aegis VII Incident to recover Marker 3A from the USG Ishimura. Lured into an infested cargo bay by a deception, its crew was wiped out by the Necromorphs aboard.
USM Victory: The Blockade Warship of the Aegis Shockpoint
The USM Victory was an Earth Defense Force warship assigned to the EarthGov blockade of the Aegis System Shockpoint after the Second Aegis VII Incident. It hosted Defense Secretary David Chang and the Oracles during the hunt for Marker 3A, received the Magpie defector Julia Copland, and survived the crisis to see the USG Ishimura carried back to Titan Station.
Victor Bartlett: Security Colonel of the Sprawl
Colonel Victor Bartlett was a security officer on Titan Station and Gabe Weller's superior. Acting on EarthGov's order to eliminate the key subjects, he hunted Lexine Weller before the Marker drove him to a fatal end.
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