Joanna Dark

Biography

Early Life

Joanna was born in Atlanta, Georgia on March 18, 2000. Her mother died shortly after giving birth, and Joanna was left with debilitating spinal damage that would render her unable to walk until the age of five. Her father Jack Dark, a highly skilled bounty hunter, began to teach her to fight and operate small arms. Joanna traveled around the world with her father, performing weapons maintenance and training while he completed his assignments.

Perfect Dark Zero

Nathan Zeigler

Under mounting financial stress, Jack accepts a $475,000 contract to locate and apprehend Nathan Zeigler, an independent researcher who has recently gone missing. The two track Zeigler to Hong Kong, where Jack reveals to Joanna that this will be her first field mission. Joanna waits for orders as Jack extracts Zeigler from a local nightclub. Upon observing that Jack has been overwhelmed by enemies inside the club, Joanna intervenes but causes Jack to break his concentration, allowing the nightclub's owner, Killian, to injure him and escape.

Zeigler demands that his research be recovered before he leaves, and with Jack unable to continue, Joanna is sent to find the documents. She sneaks through the streets of Hong Kong and locates the documents in a safe house. Arriving back at Zeigler's location, she finds him dying of wounds sustained from Killian's gang. Zeigler's last act is to implant information into Jack's subconscious using a neurodrive as his "insurance policy." Moving quickly to the extraction point, Joanna is separated from her father due to the Killian's interference and is forced to cover him from the rooftops. After fighting through attacks by dataDyne Corporation and eliminating Killian, Joanna escapes unharmed, but her father is captured.

Zhang Li

Joanna tracks her father to the mansion of dataDyne founder Zhang Li. After successfully infiltrating the mansion, Joanna stumbles upon two combatants in a VR DeathMatch and is stunned when the loser actually dies. Zhang Li, mistaking her for a professional, pits Joanna against his daughter Mai Hem. Joanna wins handily and escapes deeper into the compound as medical support is summoned for Mai Hem. Joanna locates Jack and springs him from his holding cell, and the two fight their way out of the mansion. They steal a hovercraft and make for the extraction airfield.

Before they can escape, Mai Hem arrives with a dataDyne security retinue. Pinned down by enemy fire, the two realize that there is no way out. Suddenly, Jack takes Joanna's weapon and charges suicidally at Mai Hem's team, giving Joanna one way out Joanna makes a run for it and watches as her father is cut down. Hijacking a dropship, Joanna flies by Mai Hem and sets her on fire as a final act of revenge before exfiltration. Using Zeigler's documents for guidance, Joanna tracks Dr. Eustace Carrol to the Trinity Research Platform. Carrol successfully extracts Zeigler's information just before being killed by a bounty hunter. Joanna, unarmed and vulnerable, is seconds from being killed when an agent by the name of Jonathan Steinberg suddenly appears.

The Carrington Institute

Jonathan and other agents of the Carrington Institute move Joanna to a computer terminal where she can upload Zeigler's data and then fight to the surface. They escape in a dropship, and Jonathan introduces Joanna to the founder of the Institute, Daniel Carrington. He informs them that dataDyne has moved large numbers of troops to a temple in the amazon rainforest. Joanna agrees to come along to investigate.

Upon arriving at the drop zone, the craft is shot down by dataDyne, and Joanna and the pilot fight of large numbers of enemies before Joanna escapes into the jungle. She infiltrates the temple and discovers that dataDyne has unearthed some sort of ancient artifact. Planting a tracking device, Joanna boards a dropship. She bails out upon learning that Jonathan has been captured, and sets out to find him. Her rescue is interrupted by Mai Hem, who somehow survived their earlier encounter (albeit without escaping disfigurement). Joanna destroys Mai Hem's hovercraft, this time definitevely killing her. Joanna, backed by Institute forces, makes for the excavation site and faces Zhang Li in a heated one-on-one duel, barely killing him.

Intermission

Between the events of Perfect Dark Zero and Perfect Dark, Joanna trains at the Carrington Institute, perfecting every training mission with record speed and accuracy and earning the nickname "Perfect" Dark.

Perfect Dark

Dr. Caroll

Joanna is tasked with the recovery of a sentient A. I. known as "Dr. Caroll" from dataDyne Corporation. She successfully steals Dr. Caroll from dataDyne's headquarters and brings him to Daniel Carrington's villa. Two days later, dataDyne security forces arrive at Carrington's villa and take him hostage, demanding that the A. I. be returned. Joanna is unable to keep dataDyne from recovering Dr. Caroll, but Carrington has extracted enough information to justify convening the Institute's members and summoning mysterious "friends" to assist him.

"Friends"

Joanna is dispatched to Chicago to perform surveillance on the conspirators. She discovers that Trent Easton, head of the National Security Agency, plans to kidnap the president and take his place. Joanna relays the information to Carrington, who immediately gives her a much more urgent assignment. For some reason, the "friends" of which Carrington spoke have been shot down and moved to Area 51. Upon breaking into the medlab, Joanna is shocked to discover that these "friends" are Maians, an alien species most closely linked to Greys. The only survivor is a Maian by the name of Elvis.

The Conspiracy

Joanna heads for the secret air base where Air Force One is being kept. She disguises herself as a member of the President's crew and boards the plane, discovering that Trent and dataDyne are working with a militaristic alien race called the Skedar. Joanna arrives at the President's room just before Trent's men do and escorts him through the plane to an escape pod. A Skedar craft has attached itself to the plane and is impossible to detach from the inside, so Elvis uses his ship to ram the connection. The Skedar ship's latch is broken, and all three craft go down. The Air Force One escape pod is jettisoned, and seconds later Joanna blacks out from impact.

She awakes to find herself in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness, where she attempts to locate the President's escape pod, the plane, the President and the conspirators. She discovers that Trent has a clone of the president, which she destroys, calling in the military and bringing Elvis and the President to safety. The Skedar, furious, kill Trent and enlist dataDyne to help capture an advanced US submarine known as "Pelagic II," which they plan to use to recover technology from a downed battle cruiser from a now-extinct alien race. Joanna and Elvis cripple the submarine and infiltrate the battle cruiser. On board the ship, Joanna and Elvis finally locate Dr. Caroll, restoring his personality from a backup and escaping back to the Carrington Institute.

The Skedar

As Joanna is preparing to leave the Institute for a Presidential banquet, Skedar forces assault the Institute. Joanna is able to evacuate most of the staff but is knocked unconscious in the process and taken prisoner. She awakes in a Skedar holding cell on board the assault ship with a dataDyne executive, who repents at the last moment and sacrifices herself to allow Joanna the distraction needed to escape. Joanna fights her way through the ship, disabling the docking bay shield to allow Elvis to bring in Maian reinforcements and capture the craft. They fly the ship to the Skedar homeworld, where Joanna sets bombardment targets and heads for the Skedar leader. She destroys a Skedar army in suspended animation, confronts the leader and kills him. Elvis rescues her amidst the bombardment and they escape the planet.

Personality, Appearance and Skills

Joanna's personality and appearance vary between the two game. In Perfect Dark Zero, she is portrayed as hotheaded and craving praise. She often makes rash decisions that get her into trouble. She is thin with short, bright red hair. In Perfect Dark, she is calm and collected. She is slightly taller and has brown hair.

Joanna can use every weapon she comes across, human and alien. She can operate a wide variety of vehicles and has a massive range of technical skill, including defusing charges, hacking computers, and disabling security systems. She is extremely fit and strong and has lightning-quick reflexes. She performs well in stealth missions and can use disguises to go totally unnoticed.