Sektor

Sektor is a player character from the Mortal Kombat fighting game franchise created for Midway Games by Ed Boon and John Tobias. Making his debut in Mortal Kombat 3 in 1995, he is a member of the Lin Kuei clan of assassins who underwent transformation into cyborgs. Along with counterparts Cyrax and Smoke, Sektor was assigned to hunt down the rogue former clansman Sub-Zero, but unlike Cyrax and Smoke, Sektor never bothered to rediscover his human side and has pledged his complete loyalty to the Lin Kuei. He battles with Sub-Zero over leadership of the Lin Kuei, and also forms his own faction, the Tekunin, composed entirely of other cybernetic warriors. His backstory prior to his transformation is expanded in the 2011 Mortal Kombat reboot, in which he is officially seen as a human prior to automation for the first time.

Sektor has also been featured in other Mortal Kombat alternate media such as the 1996 animated series Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm and the 2011 web series Mortal Kombat: Legacy. The character has received mostly positive reception, particularly for his Fatality finishing moves and personality, but response to his gameplay has been decisively mixed.

Appearances

In video games

When the Lin Kuei decide to automate their ninja in the events leading up to Mortal Kombat 3, Sektor was their first member to volunteer to undergo the process, purely out of loyalty to the clan. Designated as unit LK-9T9, he was sent to find and kill the rogue defector Sub-Zero, who had quit the clan after refusing to be transformed. Future events would leave Sektor as the only active cyborg remaining of the original three created, with Smoke having been captured and shut down in an Outworld prison and subsequently becoming enslaved to Noob Saibot, and Cyrax joining Sonya Blade and Jax Briggs as a member of the Outer World Investigation Agency after his human soul was restored. During his many violent battles against Outworld forces, Sektor's programming became corrupted to the point that he believed the Lin Kuei Grandmaster to be inferior and killed him, but he was stopped from claiming the Dragon Medallion, the proof of the clan's leadership, by a returning Sub-Zero, who then defeated Sektor in battle and claimed the title of Grandmaster himself. Sektor fled to Japan thereafter and formed the Tekunin, his own clan of cyborg ninja warriors.^[3]

Sektor received no official biography in Mortal Kombat: Armageddon (2006), but he plays a minor role in the game's Konquest mode when Taven is in the temple of Argus (his father) searching for his weapon that he had left behind, when he is captured by Sektor and imprisoned aboard the Tekunin warship. Sektor interrogates Taven about a message he had received from Argus, but Taven refuses to talk, and when the warship is soon attacked by Sonya Blade and the Special Forces, Taven escapes his captivity in the ensuing chaos, but Sektor confronts him before he can leave and is subsequently defeated in battle by Taven. He escapes from the warship before it self-destructs.

In Mortal Kombat (2011), an alternative-timeline retelling of the first three games, Sektor is actually the son of the Lin Kuei grandmaster, a position Sektor hopes to usurp from him.^[4] He is introduced during the Shaolin Tournament, and is seen in his human form for the first time during the game's story mode; he is revealed to be a Japanese member of the clan who, along with Cyrax, was paid handsomely by Shang Tsung to compete in the tournament and kill the Earthrealm fighters. He and Cyrax have conflicting views over the Lin Kuei's impending plan to transform its members into cyborgs (the "Cyber Initiative"); while Sektor wholly supports the proposition, Cyrax is reluctant to surrender his humanity. Sektor becomes angry with Cyrax when the latter refuses to kill Johnny Cage in battle, but is defeated by his comrade, who then quits the clan on the spot. Sektor threatens Cyrax in return before being knocked unconscious. He first appears in his robotized form during the events of the second tournament in Outworld, where he assaults Smoke while invisible in the Living Forest, and attempts to take him to Lin Kuei headquarters for automation but Raiden's intervention prevents this. However, in a reversal of Smoke and Sub-Zero's storylines from MK3, the clan manage to capture Sub-Zero inside Outworld emperor Shao Kahn's arena and transport him away, with Sektor and Cyrax pledging their services to Kahn in exchange. Near the conclusion of the story mode, Sektor and the rest of the robotized Lin Kuei launch an attack on the Earthrealm defenders who have assembled to protect the realm from Kahn's takeover, but they are thwarted while both Sektor and Cyrax are individually defeated by Nightwolf. However, Sindel arrives moments later and completes the clan's objective of slaughtering the Earth warriors.

Sektor makes a cameo in Mortal Kombat X. After the previous game, starting with the comic book prequel, Sektor completely cyberized the Lin Kuei, including on cloning to robots in his image. After Sub-Zero is revived by Quan Chi and no longer cybernized, then fully recovered back to full human during an end of Netherrealm War, Sektor sent his robots to recapture Sub-Zero again. Apparently, it failed due to Sub-Zero's being turned into Havik's slave by the dagger he tried to retrieve back to Raiden. After Sub-Zero recovered from the curse and his injuries under Bo'Rai Cho's care, and prepared something in his sleeve to infiltrate the Lin Kuei, Sektor had finally captured Sub-Zero, but failed, as Sub-Zero manage to upload a virus he got from what Kung Jin stole for him, freeing Cyrax and other human Lin Kuei warriors turned enslaved cyborgs freed. After Sub-Zero kills Sektor for good, with the help of Cyrax and most of other freed human Lin Kuei warriors turned cyborgs, he kept Sektor's parts and searched through his memory files to discover the Lin Kuei and Quan Chi's involvement in the slaughter of the Shirai Ryu clan and Hanzo Hasashi's murder. Quan Chi was to receive something in return for his services, but Sektor and the Lin Kuei refused due to Quan Chi deciding to resurrect Hanzo as Scorpion.

Design and gameplay

Sektor (voiced by Andrew Kishino) during the first tournament in MK2011's story mode, which marked his first official human appearance in the MK series

As a byproduct of all the costumes worn for filming of Mortal Kombat 3 being red, Sektor, played by Sal Divita, was the first of the three cybernetic ninjas to be conceived, during which he was simply called "Cyber-Ninja."^[5] When Cyrax was later added to the roster, he and Sektor were nicknamed "Mustard" and "Ketchup," respectively, before their final names were determined.^[6] Co-creator John Tobias said that Cyrax and Sektor's design was in part inspired by Boba Fett and the Predator.^[7] According to MK co-creator Ed Boon, he proved the most difficult of the new MK3 characters to name, a decision that extended late into the development process until "Sektor" was finally chosen because it was the name that the team "didn't hate the most."^[8] In an April 1995 feature about the game by VideoGames magazine while it was still in production, Boon gushed about Sektor's "great" then-unnamed "Compactor" Fatality: "He stands in front of you and all this machinery comes out of his chest and just crushes you."^[5] In the 1995 television special about the making of MK3 that was shot while the game was in production, a brainstorming session among the development team was filmed in which they were discussing the cyber-ninja characters; rejected names included "Saibot X-11" and "Defcon," while special effects designer John Vogel joked that the game would have a secret character named "Mayo," in reference to Cyrax and Sektor's development names. Divita was also shown in one segment putting on Sektor's helmet before engaging series graphic artist Carlos Pesina (Raiden) in a mock fight.^[9]

Sektor's development name is referenced in Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance as the name of one of Sektor's combos in his Sambo fighting style, and he also has a special in Armageddon called "Ketchup's Revenge." Like Scorpion's sprite being multiplied for the series' human ninjas, palette swaps of Sektor were used to create Cyrax and the robotic Smoke. Being a cyborg, Sektor has the abilities to shoot out missiles from his chest and project fire from implements attached to his wrists, which he uses for certain special moves and Fatalities. He also utilizes a teleport uppercut for one of his special moves. When Fatalities are performed on him, his corpse and contents are human, although he bleeds oil when hit.

From MK3 and its updates to Mortal Kombat Gold (1999), Sektor's appearance originally resembled an armored ninja, but the series' transition into full 3D allowed for more mechanical design possibilities, the cyber-ninja template having first changed with Cyrax in Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance. Sektor received an exact replica of Cyrax's design change with a red recolor; the lower body appears more mechanical, yet the head remains the same. Sektor retained this appearance in Mortal Kombat: Tournament Edition. He finally received his own original design in Armageddon, leaving his helmet design as the only visual link to Cyrax. The Krypt in Armageddon has concept art of Sektor holding a weapon similar to a polearm (it is referred to as a "2-hand pulse blade"); the concept was dropped in favor of giving him two lightsaber-like swords in the game.

Sektor's Fatalities in MK2011 involve the dismemberment of his opponents, whether through an implement fired from his chest ("Scarecrow"), or cutting of them into several pieces before blowing the segments up with missiles ("Robo-Sek"). His and Cyrax's MK3 costumes were released together in June 2011 as downloadable content for the reboot game.^[10]

In other media

Sektor is briefly seen in two episodes of the 1996 animated series Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm. In the series premiere ("Kombat Begins Again"), he and Cyrax led an attack on Earthrealm that was thwarted by the Earthrealm defenders. He individually challenges Kitana but is defeated, during which Kitana deflects one of his missiles with her fans. During a brief flashback scene at the Lin Kuei compound in the fifth episode ("Old Friends Never Die"), he was unmasked, and depicted as a black man with long dreadlocks. They are also shown in their present forms as working for the Grandmaster in attempting to apprehend Sub-Zero while fighting the Earth warriors, before they later retreat from battle by exiting through a portal.^[11] Sektor did not appear in the 1997 film Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, which instead saw Smoke utilizing his chest missiles during a fight scene with Liu Kang.

He makes one appearance in the 2011 first season of director Kevin Tancharoen's Mortal Kombat: Legacy web series, and is played by Peter Shinkoda. In the ninth episode, he and Cyrax are first shown in their human forms, and are being trucked to a nondescript warehouse that serves as the Lin Kuei headquarters. After a successful test battle pitting them against cyborgs disguised as human fighters, Sektor and Cyrax themselves are seen undergoing automation, the process of which is shown in detail for the first time in any type of MK media while featuring moderately graphic imagery. They then fight two against one in hand-to-hand combat against another cybernetic named Hydro,^{[note 1]} who decisively pounds Sektor until Cyrax gains the upper hand that enables them to team up and finish Hydro off by decapitating him, all while the Grandmaster and a pre-injury Kano watch from inside a laboratory.^[13]

In promotion and merchandise

Sektor made his official debut when a close-up of Divita in costume was featured on the April 1995 cover of VideoGames with the tagline, "Johnny Cage is dead. Reptile is missing. The Cyber-Ninja lives."^[5] In 2011, Sektor was included in a "Mortal Kombat Klassic" three-pack of action figures along with Cyrax and Smoke that was released by Jazwares,^[14] and was one of twenty MK characters featured on 2.5" x 3.5" collectible magnets from Ata-Boy Wholesale.^[15]

Reception

UGO placed Sektor 26th—one spot behind Cyrax—in their 2012 list of the top fifty Mortal Kombat characters,^[16] and GamesRadar named Sektor, Cyrax and Smoke in a three-way tie for first in their ranking of "gaming's most malicious machines," commenting that "no one does killer cyborgs quite like MK."^[17] Armando Rodriguez of 411mania.com ranked Sektor as the ninth-best MK character,^[18] while fans ranked Sektor as the nineteenth-best MK character in a 2013 online vote hosted by Dorkly that rated the series' entire character roster.^[19]

In 2011, UGO ranked Sektor's "Compactor" Fatality from MK3 as the fifteenth-most gruesome finishing move ever, adding: "That's some impressive engineering there, whoever built that evil robot. Nice work!"^[20] It was additionally ranked among the series' best by Game Informer,^[21] Cheat Code Central,^[22] and IGN, though the latter also criticized Sektor himself for being a "lazy Cyrax clone."^[23] Both of his MK2011 finishers topped Paste's list of the best Fatalities from the game,^[24] while the "Scarecrow" finisher in particular was ranked second in Game Rant's list of the top ten Fatalities in the reboot.^[25] FHM included it in their selection of the game's nine most brutal Fatalities, describing the mutilated opponent as "looking like an action figure abused by a careless kid."^[26] Complex listed the finisher as the 27th-craziest video game Fatality ever.^[27] Bloody Disgusting's Bill Frye ranked it as his favorite overall Fatality: "I finally like Sektor because of this."^[28] The "Scarecrow" was omitted from Prima Games' 2014 list of the fifty best series Fatalities, but "Robo-Sek" from MK2011 was included at fifteenth and the "Compactor" from MK3 at eleventh.^[29]

Sektor's appearance in MK: Legacy has also been well received. Ben Kendrick of Screen Rant said, "Cyrax and Sektor may not have the same fan-fueled clout as the traditional MK ninjas—but, despite being a bit light on character development, the pair has some of the coolest action-shots featured in the entire run of the series."^[30] IGN gave the "Cyrax & Sektor" episode itself a score of nine out of ten, describing it as "pretty damn terrific" while praising the special effects, and "[their] big fight sequence at the end of the episode is probably the coolest battle of the entire [first] season."^[13] C.J. Miozzi of GameFront wrote, "Cyrax is a whiny baby about [the automation]. I never liked that guy—huge Sektor fan, right here."^[31] Fearnet praised the "complete accuracy" of the episode's depiction of the characters.^[32]

See also

• Fulgore
• List of fictional cyborgs

Notes

References