Santiago Camacho (da Costa in ARK 2) is a Terran Federation hacker. His knowledge of how to weaponize Element makes him the backbone of his Tek tribe. Ever since he woke up on the Aberrant ARK and learned about the fate of Earth, Santiago has been driven by learning more about Element's effects on planets. Specifically, he wants to understand how Element could have ruined Earth.
The Santiago in Ark 2 is not a clone of the Santiago we know from Ark Aberration/Extinction. He is a clone of the Santiago that gets introduced in the Genesis 2 DLC of Ark: Survival Evolved. Santiago in Genesis 2 is like the Aberration/Extinction Santiago a clone of the original Santiago, that lived during the war between the Federation and the URE. His memory was altered like maybe his body and even personality to better fit for the tasks he was assigned to at the Genesis 2 ship. He doesn't remember most of his past and does not know what he has done at the war. He finds out some about it later.
A clone of the Genesis 2 Santiago returns in ARK 2, but with an incomplete set of memories and personality of Santiago. This clone acts as a father-figure to a mysterious child.
Background[]
Santiago grew up in a country occupied by the Terran Federation more specifically, São Paulo, Brazil a few years before the Element War. Because of that, he hates the faction's rival, the United Republic of Earth. On a personal level, he finds them to be loud mouthed, overly self-satisfied, and naïve people, but he never let it influence him completely as he wanted to let the transhumans in the faction to mind their own business. In his former life as a hacker and data terrorist, Santiago has undertaken many classified espionage missions acting against various corporations to test and develop his skills. When the Element War came, many people in the Terran Federation saw Santiago as a hero against the United Republics of Earth due to his hacking skills during its duration. At the end of the war, he was last seen in a Terran Federation shipyard in Central America and Santiago's death is what officially ended the Element War. According to Uma, Santiago's mind had been manipulated to make his clone think that he is still alive and is working on Project Genesis.
After waking up on the ARKs as a person who doesn't have Genesis Santiago's memories, those skills quickly earned him a place as the head engineer for the Tek tribe. Upon arriving on an Element ravaged Earth, Santiago wants to know how a harmless chemical can cause global devastation.
Personality[]
| “ | I had a talk with Santiago today. A real one I mean, not the sarcastic banter that's his preferred method of communication. I was pretty surprised, I didn't think that had an off switch. | „ |
| ~ Helena |
Santiago is a calm, sarcastic, creative survivor who wants everyone to be safe. He loves messing with people and sees himself as a jerk but also understands and respects the reasoning of other people, as shown in his response to Helena's reluctance to travel with the Tek survivors down to Earth after the destruction she brought through Rockwell. Santiago is considered the brains of the tribe, always coming up with a grand project to either escape the ARKs, or fight against titans. He is quick at analyzing and applying facts. His witty, sarcastic style of communication is widely noted.
He also seems to be a perfectionist, as he wants his coding to be spot on to ensure his projects function flawlessly. For example, he becomes concerned about the gateway project being 8.93 meters off its intended target, and worries over a simulation of the Mega Mek's fusion process when the base Mek's reactors melt down over a problem in the energy flow.
When Santiago and the other survivors reach Earth and find it barren, Santiago remains calm and level headed. His focus is on surviving the challenging situation rather than panicking like many others would. He takes initiative to lead the tribe to get them back together.
Santiago eventually deduces that the Element poisoning Earth likely came from Tek warfare based on weapons he designed. He feels guilty for causing such destruction, even though he did so unwittingly.
Genesis Santiago has some clear differences and similarities with his ARK version of himself. He is rather assertive, and has firm qualities of a leader that Uma sees, giving him a position in coordinating Project Genesis, contrary to ARK Santiago. He has the same guilt of being responsible of severely polluting Earth to a point it looks permanently damaged. With a project that has a mission that can undo all the damage he had done, Santiago sees a chance to both swallow his pride, and redeem himself to make things that fix, not break things.
Relationship with Other Survivors[]
Extinction/ARK Santiago
- Diana Altaras
- A URE fighter pilot from the 22nd century, Diana always liked to mess around with Santiago. Santiago got to know Diana when they made the first known Tek suit made within the ARK system.
- Li Mei Yin
- They didn't interact with each other very much, but both of them had an antisocial personality and a connection with Diana. Santiago chose Mei Yin to be the CQC Mek pilot in the Extinction lore events.
- Helena Walker
- Santiago interacted with Helena many times in Aberration and Extinction. He was always there for Helena when she was distraught in seeing the cloning chamber and the ravaged planet Earth.
- In Aberration, both of them worked on destabilizing the Obelisks.
- On Extinction, he chose Helena to be the Mek pilot oriented around making strategies because of her creativity as well as her perfect sync scores. She was also the one he discussed the cloning chambers with.
- Kazuma
- He chose him to be the third Mek pilot for his military experience.
Genesis Santiago
- Uma
- She is a URE transhuman that he works under.
- Santiago at the time is in disbelief that the Terran Federation and URE are permanently at peace now as evident of him working with Uma.
- Uma also told Santiago about how Element is proof of something of a higher power that is out in the universe and it wants humanity to see the source. Santiago joked that they used that same power to end up burning their home instead.
- Santiago was jealous of his transhuman higher up for being able to easily set aside emotions for the greater good, downloading a skill, and process information at a higher rate.
- He also learned about how little time anyone on Earth has left from her when Yongki tried to pry information out of Uma.
- Yongki
- A Terran Federation Humanist that is leading the Engram Reconstruction Project. He was the person who can tell Santiago what is possible on what can be done with the human mind.
- He and Santiago did many things on the Colony Ship such as going to the canteen for some drinks, talking things out in the project, the complications of the Engram Project such as the mangled engram and running simulations in the Genesis Simulation
- Yongki also told him many of the disturbing things about the project such as uploading matrices of people who have not consented despite their clear choice. On a personal level, Yongki told Santiago that his husband and daughters had been uploaded to the bank and is worried that a clone of them might be living on a distant planet.
- Before dying, he told Santiago something that the latter would never forget.
- Mysterious child (Most likely one of Yongki's daughters)
- In the ARK 2 trailer, Santiago was protecting a child from humanoid creatures as if he is trying to keep a promise.
Survival Skills[]
| “ | Despite this, Santiago is insisting on analyzing his readings. The scientist in me is proud of his dedication to hard evidence, but the part of me that would rather not be obliterated by a mysterious, high tech space station really wishes he would hurry the hell up. | „ |
| ~ Helena |
Being the brains of one of the most advanced tribe on the ARKs, Santiago's understanding of technology is his most dominant survival trait. Where he may look like no threat at all, he can create armor that can withstand trees and boulders while running at mach speeds. On Aberration, he is capable of hacking an ARK, a piece of technology that should not be within any survivor's understanding, but is within his since he has a background of living during the Element War, a period before the ARKs and Colony Ship were being built that had technology that was close to the lifeboat projects. Being an engineer and hacker, Santiago is also capable of making weapons based off of element, a substance he worked with extensively before coming to the ARK. In an addendum of his eighth note, he notes he can make Element-based rockets, a new type of jet called orbital strike fighters, and a massive orbital carrier ship. However, those weapons are what caused Earth to become uninhabitable for humans.
Whether forging deadly weapons from simple minerals in a certain area or making robots that break the limits of physics, he is a master of weaponry. The Meks, Santiago's masterpiece weapon, show for how deadly his intelligence can be. He even has learned to reverse engineer robots from just their data processor. Even the Mega Mek, Santiago's greatest weapon, is a result of him fiddling with the Hunter Killer Enforcer robot's teleportation technology. The result of his work? He built robots that can make the biggest creatures retreat with their tail between their legs.
What sets him apart from other survivors is his knowledge of Element, a futuristic substance that can render early 21st century technology completely obsolete and make it look like a Stone Age tool in comparison to Tek technology. He understands that element can grow in tiny amounts so small that according to him, a person can ignore it completely. Santiago was able to deduce that an all out war with Tek tier weapons is what can cause an exponential growth of Element.
In the events before Earth fell apart, Genesis Santiago used his skills as an engineer in making a prototype of the Tek Stryder, a horse-like robot that can clean and mine pollution and materials far more better and far more efficiently than a person. In the long run, a massive fleet of Tek Stryders were able to clean the ring biomes on the Colony Ship before Rockwell corrupted one of the rings.
Tribal Affiliations[]
- Terran Federation (Hacker; based on his memories)
- Tek tribe (Chief Engineer/ De facto leader/ Mek architect)
- Genesis Colony Ship (Stryder architect)
- ARK 2 (Tribe leader)
The End of Santiago[]
When the Titans and Corrupted Horde attack Camp Omega, Santiago we know from Aberration/Extinction willingly sacrifices himself to allow the other survivors to escape. He is later buried by Diana.
The Genesis 2 Santiago diverted Yongki, the crew member that he is friends with, from blowing up the human archive bank at the cost of his life. His engrammic matrix is saved by Uma into the ships data base after she tried to repeat his death several times over to hear Yongki's final words. Uma turns off his engrammic matrix for a very long time.
Notes/Trivia[]
- Santiago has been the most manipulated survivor in the background of the lore.
- Original Santiago had memories of his full life until the end of the Element War when he was killed to officially end it.
- Genesis Santiago had the original Santiago's memories, but he was given additional memories to cover up the time between when he died and when he was brought back to life as a clone.
- ARK Santiago doesn't have his memories of the Element War as he was speculating on what caused the post-apocalyptic Earth.
- This is Santiago Da Costa's/ Camacho name meaning
- Santiago is a name of Hebrew and Spanish origin that means "Supplanter".
- Da Costa is a name from Latin and Spanish origin that means "someone who lives on a slope or on a river bank or on the sea coast".
- Genesis Santiago's full name Santiago da Costa means "The supplanter who lives on a slope or on a river bank or on the sea coast".
- Camacho is a surname of Spanish and Portuguese origin that comes from the Gaelic word that means "twisted or disfigured".
- ARK Santiago's full name Santiago Camacho means "The twisted supplanter".
- Given that Santiago has been cloned repeatedly while also being given a different set of memories, him being supplanted by another clone gives his name a new meaning of him being a supplanter, replacing the previous clone that was previously active.
- His blood type is O-.
- His height is 1.82 meters tall.
Gallery[]
Santiago gathers information from the obelisks by hacking them on the Surface of the Aberration ARK.
Santiago chooses himself to be the fourth mek pilot to teach Mei-Yin, Helena, and Kazuma.
Santiago talks with Helena if they are responsible for their past selves' actions.
Santiago's Grave, constructed by Diana and left on Earth.
Santiago's clone, as seen in the ARK II trailer, sporting a shaved head and face.
Last picture of Santiago before his death in the element war between Fed./URE.
Santiago how he portraits himself in one of his notes in Genesis 2.
