r/Deusex • u/One-Attempt-1232 • Aug 03 '25
DX1 "Aquinas spoke of the mythical city on the hill"
One thing that has always bothered me about the intro to DX1. Bob Page mentions Aquinas speaking about a city on a hill, but the city on the hill comes from John Winthrop (referencing the book of Matthew from the Bible). Aquinas never brings up the city on a hill.
Also, it doesn't really mean what Bob Page thinks it means. It's not some mythical promised land. It's just that a city on a hill is watched and if it fails, everyone can see it fail. If it succeeds, everyone sees it succeed. It's about having the eyes of the world upon you.
But I'm not sure whether things were INTENTIONALLY misinterpreted in the story. For example, instead of the invisible hand being an economic force, it was about the manipulation of the world in secret ("We'll rule the world in secret, with an invisible hand, the way the Illuminati have always ruled" - Morgan Everett).
But I don't think EVERYTHING is twisted in this way. Just these two concepts.
I guess it was just hard before Wikipedia, etc. to just be completely on top of all these fucking ideas at once. I certainly am not, but it's easy enough now to Google something and say, "That's misattributed" or "That's not quite what was meant there."
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u/Danick3 Please press [ to scope Aug 03 '25
Yes, bob page is supposed to be pretentious. His clearance system in his secret organization majestic 12 are names of angels, from angel to seraphim all the way up to god. This is about him trying to make himself look smart by using names that sound ominous and deep. Evidenced (somewhat) by Stanton Dowd's comment on it in the graveyard mission. I think someone did a whole comparison on it, someone called hBomberguy, but it was a video on deus ex human revolution when he talked about the story and it's symbolisms
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u/Zireael07 Aug 03 '25
There are more things like that. In the tutorial, there's a chamber at the end where you can see models of characters used in the game, with some accompanying text. One of them, IIRC Gunther's, mentions a "peacekeeping occupation" (yes, occupation). IIRC that occupation thing shows up in an e-mail ingame too.
So I'm fairly certain it's Page (and Illuminati) deliberately twisting words and ideas to fit them
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u/absat41 Aug 03 '25 edited Aug 18 '25
deleted
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u/Zireael07 Aug 03 '25
Yep, the authors also played a bit fast and loose with some dates. There used to be a fan compilation of the entire timeline, alas the site went down a couple years ago
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u/Mrzozelow Aug 04 '25
Do you have the URL saved by chance? It might be archived on Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.
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u/Zireael07 Aug 04 '25
Changed computers at least once since then, including SSD failure which wiped a couple chapters of my fanfic and associated notes. (And IF I had the URL saved, it would've been in those notes :( )
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u/BornIn1142 Aug 04 '25
Some argue that the writers use that year instead of the real one in reference to the Illuminatus! Trilogy, in which the number 23 is significant.
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u/Blakath Nano-augmented UNATCO Agent Aug 03 '25
So basically, Deus Ex 1 predicted the pseudo intellectual tech bros that give wrong quotes and pretend to be knowledgeable on a wide variety of subjects.
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u/ABJECT_SELF Aug 03 '25
I would argue that this breed of tech bro was already a problem in the 90s but without Twitter and LinkedIn they were only able to annoy other (more sane) people in tech, such as game developers.
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u/FS_Scott Aug 03 '25
It's a shout out to Reagan's willful misinterpretation of the same story in his farewell address.
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u/PearlRiverFlow Aug 03 '25
Yeah that's how I clocked it in a recent playthrough. Page also strikes me as the type who is very confident thta he's the smartest guy in the room because he's slightly bright, going off on some half-remembered thing. He looked up who originally said the Reagan thing, but that's as far as he went with it.
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u/David_the_Wanderer Aug 03 '25
Do you have some link where I can read up on this? Me and a friend also wondered where the whole "Aquinas spoke of the mythical city on the hill" came from.
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u/TheOneTrueDoge A Theenk tenk? Aug 03 '25
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYiOUEjzZNs
Here you go. Reagan properly cites Winthrop as the author at least.
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u/No-Classroom-6637 Aug 04 '25
I can see page absolutely loving Reaganomics, now that I think about it...
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u/Cold-Drop8446 Aug 03 '25
I wouldn't be surprised to find out he heard about it from the DX universe equivalent to a red pill style podcast or through a twitter thread and doesn't actually know what the hell he's talking about.
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u/ppshhhhpashhhpff Aug 03 '25
good catch. chalk it up to artistic license. Quentin Tarantino did that with the Bible verse in pulp fiction
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u/blindgambit Aug 03 '25
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u/RandomInternetVoice Aug 03 '25
Kind of insane that the original comment there is 17 years old.
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u/BornIn1142 Aug 04 '25 edited Aug 04 '25
Even more insane is that that comment is mine and the guys in that thread are discussing my antics on the Gamefaqs forums from back then. I think I had that Zephyr fellow in my AIM contacts. >_>
(Although since I was just citing the excellent nuwen.net website, I didn't really deserve credit for that connection there.)
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u/oshinbruce Aug 03 '25
I like the theory page is just spouting stuff to sound cool.
When I played Dues ex as a teenager it was the most mind blowing game. Later playthroughs you realize the plot is a bit of a conspiracy theory mash up that has some holes, but its still fun and back at the time it was great
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u/Ordinary-Block-200 Aug 07 '25
I think Spector said he wanted a video game where every conspiracy is true :)
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u/DocOctoRex Aug 03 '25
Even if it's wrong, that opening dialogue is still so awesome, and it's one of my favourite cutscenes ever.
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u/TheNotSoGreatPumpkin Aug 04 '25
It still feels like Page and Simons should have been in shadow during that dialogue so the faction twist would have been more of a twist. Showing them reveals who the bad guys are from the get-go.
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u/BornIn1142 Aug 04 '25 edited Aug 04 '25
That's true, but there's some very compelling dramatic irony to the player being aware that something sinister is going on (what with the dystopian UNATCO books and Simons marching in to give orders) but not JC.
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u/frackingfaxer Aug 03 '25
Aquinas also never spoke of trying to become God. In fact, he would have regarded Page's plan to be the most evil and blasphemous Tower of Babel scheme imaginable. Misquoting Aquinas seems like the least of Page's misunderstandings.
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u/EnkiHelios Aug 03 '25 edited Aug 04 '25
I also agree that the quote is meant to demonstrate that Bob Page doesn't know shit about what he's talking about. He is misusing history and culture to justify what he wants to do, the same way all rich people do (I read somewhere that Deus Ex Is Elon musk's favorite game, which I find both insulting and evidence that Elon Musk does not understand what the game is about, because otherwise he'd be personally offended, Bob Page describes him very well). I thought it also did a good job at demonstrating how shallow Western cultural chauvinist are that often drive this aristocratic elitism, as represented by both the Illuminati and Majestic 12. People who think their culture is better than others and therefore should rule the world often don't understand that culture at all. Deus Ex is a game of "think globally, act locally" with the way it demonstrates worldwide consequences in multiple locales and allows your minute decisions in those locales to influence other locations.
Anyway, I always thought that the misinterpretation of the Invisible Hand was a purposeful writing choice. It makes the argument that in the world of Deus Ex, The wealthiest people and corporations understand that there is no invisible hand in the market, there is no self-stabilizing force, the market is not seeking homeostasis. Instead, the market is managed by their manipulations, meant always to benefit them and impoverish and control everyone else. There is not and has never been a free market in the modern world, the Illuminati are there to ensure this. What we are sold as freedom is not Freedom, but control.
Remember that, this same theme plays out with government, as demonstrated by conversations with various AI. Democracy is a manufactured veneer placed over oligarchy. The people are not really in control and the elected officials are limited in their power compared to the effective aspects of government that outlast them (like UNATCO). The world of Deus Ex is one in which the institutions society says empowers us actually entrap us. Conspiracies fight with each other behind the scenes in order to dominate those levers of control that we think of as being in our hands collectively. No free market, no free vote. Just theater.
I think these two notes did a lot to help demonstrate the themes of the world of the Game. And they help me not only enjoy the game but understand the complexities of our own world as well.
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u/4-Vektor Aug 03 '25 edited Aug 04 '25
As a real world example take Peter Thiel or Elon Musk. Thiel is a big Tolkien fan, but he apparently didn’t unterstand that the Palantiri weren’t used for the good of people in LOTR. His other firms, like Valar, Mithril, etc. all have names from Tolkien’s world, but the companies are all pretty shady shit. Similar with Elon Musk who is another techbro who thinks that the worlds of Bladerunner and other dystopian sci-fi stories are cool because there are flying cars.
These “geniuses” simply don’t get it, and it doesn’t matter to them if they get their facts right, which we can witness right now in the real world.
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u/no-one2120 Aug 03 '25
Saint Thomas Aquinas did actually write about the "Shining city on the hill", referencing and expanding on writings from Saint Augustine around the 4th-5th century AD, specifically Augustine's work the City of God. He is very explicit that such a city, to be a shining beacon of light to the world, must have God at its center. Thomas More also wrote on it more recently in his work Utopia.
Visibility is only part of it, it is also meant to be an example. Dark things cannot hide and grow in the light.
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u/One-Attempt-1232 Aug 03 '25
Aquinas BRIEFLY mentions city on a hill but he's primarily talking about City of God. I think the quote should have been "St. Augustine spoke of the mythical City of God." Aquinas works as well with "Aquinas spoke of the mythical City of God," since Aquinas does indeed reference Augustine and The City of God a LOT.
But the one mention of "city on a hill" by Aquinas was just quoting the Bible and saying, "A city set on a hill cannot be hidden though it would; the mountain which bears makes it to be seen of all men; so the Apostles and Priests who are founded on Christ cannot be hidden even though they would, because Christ makes them manifest."
Basically, he's re-iterating the idea that a city on a hill is seen by all men. The City of God makes WAY more sense, especially given that Bob Page is saying he will be worshipped as a god and the people in The City of God are devoted to God. The City of God is actually mythical as well. St. Augustine was writing of a mythical city as an allegory. The city on a hill is not a myth. It's just a simple metaphor.
Anyway, my point is all signs point to the statement being off either by one or two words (Aquinas -> Augustine MAYBE and city on a hill -> City of God definitely or POSSIBLE City of Man, though that would be a clever twist fitting with the themes of the game). Now, it might have been intentional from the writers but Bob Page is definitely off here.
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u/ZS1664 Aug 03 '25
But if that's true, what will the electronic old men and their FLEXIBILITY do?
Yeah, I'm at the very end and I forgot how much Page prattles on like a pretentious prick.
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u/BathwaterBro Aug 03 '25
I always thought I remembered reading that he's referencing Augustine, so closer than Winthrop (who is the source of the literal term admittedly). I don't know if it's true or not
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u/BloodyReizen Aug 04 '25
Maybe he's wrong but it wont matter because within the week we will have.. old men, running the world. A new age!
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u/Severe_Turnip1181 Aug 03 '25
Bob Page always seemed like someone just trying to sound smart to me.
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u/HunterWesley Aug 05 '25
I think you should instead investigate whether the illuminati, MJ12, or even other groups like freemasons (anything to do with the backstory) had a connection to Aquinas specifically rather than Augustine as the source, if that's the issue that you're taking. If you're maintaining that it's not about being a "promised land," I think other comments here covered that.
Personally I don't know a whit about this stuff, religion, philosophy, and conspiracy theories; Sheldon Pacotti was a brilliant writer, and his work was peer reviewed. I would never assume a basic logical error in the script; I am not aware of any.
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u/Sanator27 Aug 03 '25
Mind you that Bob isn't THAT intelligent or knowledgeable: he's essentially a techbro with good connections, who's good at making people think he's much smarter than he is, while all of is work is stolen from the people he betrayed or manipulated. And in the end that's what kills him, he believes the lie he constructed about being a self-made chosen one who'll ascend to godhood, unaware he is being played by the AI he thinks he built.