What year is deus ex set?

[Morpheus]

Spent a while searching for this as I know I saw it on here somewhere but didn't find it. Its not made clear when Deus Ex is set, but given that on the datacube in Area 51, the datacube for JCDenton reads his birth date as 3/17/29 and Morpheus AI says he is 29 years old so wouldn't that make the date Deus Ex is set in 2058?

[bobby 55]

I don't know why but 2052 rings a bell. I'm not saying 2058 is incorrect, just that there's something about 2052 that's nagging at me.

P.S. What about the newspapers in-game? Do they have the year on them? Good lord, looks like another DX/ TNM playthrough in the not too distant future.

[Morpheus]

Crud, JC isn't 29, he is 23! Morpheus doesn't say 29 he says "JC Denton. 23 years old. No residence. No ancestors. No employer. No –" so that would make the game set in 2053 as you said Bobby and since the game has the date when JC was born and that morpheus conversation, thats more or less proof to when the game was set this and a book, this one:

Chlorine and Water Treatment:
Report for the New York City Council, 2053

...on the other hand, opponents claim chlorine compounds can cause cancer,
infertility, or birth defects. However, recent research indicates that the
increased risk of cancer from chlorinated water is minimal or nonexistent.
For example, a 2034 toxicological study found no carcinogenic effects at
chlorine concentrations a thousand times higher than the Environmental
Protection Agency revised Kyoto standards. And the International Agency for
Research on Cancer concluded population studies on cancer rates were too flawed
to draw any conclusions.

Water chlorination is just one target for some activists; they advocate
eliminating some or all of the 15,000 chlorine compounds now in use. This would
include more plastics, almost 85 percent of pharmaceuticals, and 96 percent of
crop-protection chemicals.

Yet most of the chlorine in the world occurs naturally. The annual global
emission of some 1,500 naturally occurring chlorinated organic chemicals totals
five million tons, compared to human emissions of chlorine compounds of only
26,000 tons...

Based on that saying 2053 and JC being born on 17th March, easy to guess the game is set early on that year, sometime between Jan 01 early March (before 17th, JCs birthday which would make him 24 if set sometime with that day in it)

As for newspapers there is no dates in them. (Not that I can recall, didn't check them all)

There is mentions of 2050 and 2051 as well:

Bulliten:

Know Your Enemy -- Silhouette

Famous for inserting 20th-century style commercials into the Net broadcast of
the World Cup in 2050, Silhouette favors "feats of spectacle" over violence.
"Printed circuits, part of this nutritious breakfast," the announcer told
children in one of the World Cup commercials. "You ain't mech 'til you eat mech.
[A mech boy chews a memory chip.] Boys who eat organics get stomped by their
posthuman classmates. [Mech boys in UNATCO helmets and metal boots take turns
kicking another boy.]"

Despite their numerous pranks, these intellectuals, artists, and labor
organizers pose a serious threat. They are well-armed and have been linked to
the murders of numerous European politicians and journalists. They will not
hesitate to use lethal force.

Book:

CIA Factbook 2050: Hong Kong

Economic Overview: In the decades since Hong Kong has been returned to Chinese
control it has seen its economy thrive under the newly resurgent authority of
the Chinese central government. Led by a thriving technological market in human
augmentation technology, the real GDP has peaked every year since 2041 with all
forecasting models predicting that this trend will continue well into the next
decade if not beyond.

However, the statistics do not present an entirely accurate depiction of the
state of the Hong Kong economy as they fail to depict the flourishing gray and
black market that operates with at least the tacit approval of the Beijing
regime. While political oppression continues to present a major and ongoing
problem to those living under Chinese rule, entrepreneurism is alive and well in
the form of organized crime -- as has always been the case, anything and
everything can be had for a price in Hong Kong. Many of these criminal
organizations can trace their lineage directly to the Triads that have existed
for thousands of years throughout China and Southeast Asia...

Bulletin:

Know Your Enemy -- Templars

There is some debate as to whether the Templars should be considered a
"terrorist" organization because they do not employ the typical tools of
terrorism. But make no mistake, the Templars are just as dangerous as any other
group that might use guns and bombs to intimidate the free citizens of a country
-- only the Templars wield blackmail and extortion as their weapons. Supposedly
the direct descendent of a so-called "secret society" with its roots in the
medieval Crusades, the present-day Templars are mainly concerned with increasing
their own bank accounts in elaborately illegal financial manipulations that have
left entire markets collapsed in their wake.

The Templars are currently classified as inactive after being successfully
diminished by a combined UNATCO/Interpol raid on their Paris headquarters in
2051; however, several key Templar figures are still at large and may attempt to
reform the organization under a new designation.

[bobby 55]

Well done Sherlo.. er, Morpheus.

I'll check it out in a few weeks or so. There's the latest OpenGL dll I want to throw into DX and TNM, so I'll be killing two birds with the one playthrough, so to speak.

[justanotherfan]

Oh, god. When is Deus Ex set...

ChrisTheCynic did a bunch of posts about it, arriving at a clear conclusion. All I can remember is the date is internally inconsistent in the game, and by using the DX Continuity Bible in tandem with another date given in the game, a fairly specific and reasonable year can be given, but something else in the game will still contradict that.

[nerdenstein]

As far as I know, it is set in 2052.
There are obvious inconsistencies with this date as has been pointed out but as soon as I saw this thread, I thought 2052 for whatever reason.
Also, DX:IW was set 20 Years Later and we're told (I can't remember where) that IW is set in 2072.
At least, I think so anyway.
Another playthrough is in order.

[Undisputed]

Set in a dystopian world during the year 2052, the central plot follows rookie United Nations Anti-Terrorist Coalition agent JC Denton, as he sets out to combat terrorist forces, which have become increasingly prevalent in a world slipping ever further into chaos.

I'm sure this plot outline can be found/quoted from the games back cover or booklet...

[Morpheus]

I'm sure this plot outline can be found/quoted from the games back cover or booklet...

Didn't know that as I lost my games cover a long time ago. However seems right, now. I probably assumed that "Report for the New York City Council, 2053" meant the game had to be set in 2053 but it just says "Report for" so that could mean the next years council and not that it written in 2053

[nerdenstein]

Doesn't say it on the back cover of case.
But I think Wiki is right in saying it is 2052.

[fantsu]

All the information is found inside the game.
Just read the back covers and instruction booklets of BOTH Deus Ex (for PC) AND Deus Ex - Conspiracy (PS2), and no years were mentioned. Just "new millenium".

[chris the cynic]

So it looks like this has been cleared up entirely without my help, but I'd just like to add:

Deus Ex is set in 2052.

(Probably in mid to late April.)

-

It never comes out and says, "This is 2052," what it does do is repeatedly say things like, "Ten years ago was 2042." (Or, as has been pointed out, 23 years ago was 2029. Or that one year prior was 2051. That sort of thing.)

There are only a handful of dates after 2052 mentioned in the game and all of them can be reasonably assumed to be refering to things that have not happened yet. And when I say I handful, know that you could count them on one hand in base ten. And still have one finger/thumb left over. (Assuming the usual complement of digits, of course.)

The first is the report for the 2053 city council, as far as I know there is no reason to assume that this report wouldn't exist in 2052. (I could make a report for the 2011 congress right here right now, even though the congress won't exist until January 3rd of next year. I could have made such a report a year ago, it isn't as if we were unaware that there would be a 2011 congress back then.)

The other three are incept dates. JC and Wade's are set for 2054, Alex's is set fo 2055. (Nick's is set for what looks like one month after the game takes place, give or take, and thus is scheduled for 2052.) There's been some debate over what "incept" means in this context, but one thing we know for sure is that JC's is right in the middle, after Wade and Nick's but before Alex's. Any theory on what the word means has to take into account the fact that JC can neither be the first or the last of the four to have it happen.

It also has to take into account that it hasn't happened yet as JC has an incept date set as his 25th birthday yet he is only 23 years old. Thus an incept date of something after 2052 is exactly what we would expect if the game is set in 2052.

In fact, unless someone wants to argue that it is impossible for a report intended for 2053 to be on a computer in 2052, I've yet to encounter anything that isn't exactly what we'd expect if the game takes place in 2052. And I'm pretty sure that I've read every word of text and dialog. (Even some words that don't actually appear in the finished game.)

Someone pointed to some images, but none of them really seemed like something that would indicate it wasn't in 2052.

but something else in the game will still contradict that.

Could you, perhaps, elaborate on this? Because I swear that I've been looking for the contradictory thing at the root of the controversy for years and have yet to come across anything.

With one exception I suppose. 4/16 is a Thursday. Unless the calendar changes (which has happened in the past*) 4/16 2052 will be a Tuesday. That is seriously the only thing I have found in the entire game, after looking through it top to bottom, that indicates anything other than it saying consistently that it takes place in 2052.

-

*Isaac Newton was born on Christmas (December 25th) or Operation Carpetbagger Day** (January 4th) depending on which calendar you use. As such the two day shift necessary to move a date from Tuesday to Thursday isn't that big when you think of it in a calendar switching perspective.

**Yes, I did make that up by picking a random historical event occurring on the 4th of January and add the word "Day" to it. Would you prefer, "Sputnik Falls to Earth Day"?

[Added:] Actually I may have to scratch the thing about one year prior being stated to be 2051, but the ten years ago was 2042 and 23 years ago was 2029 things are definitely accurate.

[nexus]

The other three are incept dates. JC and Wade's are set for 2054, Alex's is set fo 2055. (Nick's is set for what looks like one month after the game takes place, give or take, and thus is scheduled for 2052.) There's been some debate over what "incept" means in this context, but one thing we know for sure is that JC's is right in the middle, after Wade and Nick's but before Alex's. Any theory on what the word means has to take into account the fact that JC can neither be the first or the last of the four to have it happen.

In Blade Runner "incept date" means the real date of birth/production - in DX would mean the planned time when the colne leaving incubator. JC would be removed earlier.

With one exception I suppose. 4/16 is a Thursday. Unless the calendar changes (which has happened in the past*) 4/16 2052 will be a Tuesday. That is seriously the only thing I have found in the entire game, after looking through it top to bottom, that indicates anything other than it saying consistently that it takes place in 2052.

Look at the calendar on the year 2054 and the day 4/16 http://kalender-365.de/calendar.php?yy=2054

I think that at the beginning story was planned in 2054 but later was changed on the year 2052.

[chris the cynic]

With one exception I suppose. 4/16 is a Thursday. Unless the calendar changes (which has happened in the past*) 4/16 2052 will be a Tuesday. That is seriously the only thing I have found in the entire game, after looking through it top to bottom, that indicates anything other than it saying consistently that it takes place in 2052.

Look at the calendar on the year 2054 and the day 4/16 http://kalender-365.de/calendar.php?yy=2054

I think that at the beginning story was planned in 2054 but later was changed on the year 2052.

(Since what you've said about incept dates doesn't have to do with the date of the game, I'm putting it second.)

I think it's more likely that they just didn't look up the dates. In 1998 April 16th was a Thursday. Perhaps that bit of text was written in 1998 and the then current calendar was used as a basis.

Don't get me wrong, I hold Chris Todd in extraordinarily high regard, but given the option of, on the one hand, believing that he didn't look up which day of the week April 16th fell on in 2052 (or looked it up but somehow got the wrong result) or, on the other hand, believing that for some unknown reason there was a decision to shift the year of the game by two years thus requiring the various dates referenced to be reshuffled and basing this theory of a major, if apparently pointless, change to the setting on the days of the week referenced in a single text document in the MJ12 lab under UNATCO ... I tend towards the first option.

The thing is, Todd was hired to write the in game text after they got the plot settled. When I emailed him to ask about changes to the plot his response was largely that he didn't know* because he joined the team too late in development to know those things. That means that the in game text was one of the last things created in terms of story and thus a place where it would be incredibly unlikely for a remnant of a previous plan to accidentally show up.

There are intentional references. The mentions of a moon base and every email from Austin are referencing things that were planned earlier in the process but had been cut. But the thing you have to understand is that the guy who did the actual writing wasn't on hand before the changes were made, meaning that for a reference to be stuck into the in game text he had to be told about it. It does not seem likely to me that someone would say to him, "You know, we were originally planning to set the game in 2054 but we changed our minds before you showed up, do you think you could somehow work in a way to make reference to that fact? Maybe fudge some dates or something?"

The dialogue would seem a more likely place to look for accidental indication of what was before since Sheldon Pacotti, who wrote that, was around before Chris Todd.

In Blade Runner "incept date" means the real date of birth/production - in DX would mean the planned time when the colne leaving incubator. JC would be removed earlier.

Given that you agree that JC's incept date hasn't occurred yet, this is really unrelated to discussion of the date of the game and thus can be of only passing interest to any onlookers in this thread. That said, I think it's worth responding to. I find your theory interesting, but ultimately unsatisfying and implausible.

I should start by saying that someone's going to have to refresh my memory on how in depth Blade Runner went into the creation of replicants and specifically what part of the process the incept date related to. (I honestly didn't remember that the term appeared in Blade Runner.)

Skipping that, there are a couple of problems here. The first is that you say JC would be removed before his incept date. That is necessary to your theory because if you are correct that incept date is when a clone is to be removed from the tank the only possible way for JC to have been removed while Nick and Wade remain inside is if JC was removed early or they were removed late. And by early and late I'm talking in terms of years.

That's perfectly fine in terms of dealing with the clone room in isolation, but it becomes more difficult to account for when it is placed in context. First, there is no reference to this anywhere and it would seem fairly notable, second, how early are we talking? We know that JC had a childhood, we know that he had parents, we know the country in which he attended school after those parents were killed by order of MJ12. And we know that from information available in the last mission alone.

Exactly how early are we assuming JC was released? A decade? More? And why are we assuming it anyway?

The only memories of his childhood JC ever mentions are ones that MJ12 wouldn't have planted in his head (given that they are of him suspecting he is engineered, something MJ12 had no desire for him to know.)

Wouldn't a clone being released that far ahead of schedule be worth some kind of note. (Page dug up emails from a couple of the major milestones in JC's life, why not the, "We're letting him out a decade early," one?)

Let's move on.

A fairly major problem with this line or reasoning is that it is essentially one of intent, “Well it must have meant ...” There is absolutely nothing wrong with that in itself, in fact it's where you almost always have to start. It is strengthened here by the fact you are right that it probably was a direct reference and in that case the developers may have intended for us to think about Blade Runner when interpreting what it meant**. Where it falls down is that we know pretty much exactly what the design team intended when it comes to JC. They intended him to be a clone of Paul who was implanted into his mother's womb and then born the ordinary way after which he was raised like a normal human being until Page and Simons decided the parents were a bad influence, had them killed, and had JC sent off to a Swiss school (He and JC were both adopted by new parents, if you were wondering. Those parents were also eventually killed. JC had a tough life.)

The designers even went so far as to write the process of cloning a biologically useful child and having the clone be raised as a sibling into an in game email that Page accesses (and Julia Shears manages to copy to her computer while hacking Helios' archives) shortly before the game ends.

So we know what their intent was, and it wasn't for JC to be a replicant. We have to consider that information as well, not just, “Well it references Blade Runner so it must have meant ...”

Another problem, and as I said someone will have to refresh my memory as to the Blade Runner process of creating replicants for purposes of comparison, is the word incept itself. You said, "in DX would mean the planned time when the colne [sic] leaving incubator." The problem is that incept doesn't have to do with leaving, it has to do with entering. It doesn't have to do with taking out, it has to do with taking in. For example, you are incepted when you enter a university***, not when you graduate.

If we look at the term in isolation (and thus ignore both what the developers had planned for JC and what they may have intended when using a term used by Blade Runner) it is hard to make it fit taking JC out of the tank. Incept simply does not mean taking out, coming out, leaving, or anything whatsoever that moves in that direction.

-

* Though he was able to expand on other things. Most notably The Oracle and Decker, Erin, and Young. I don't want it to sound like writing him was useless because I definitely believe it was worthwhile.

** But only may have. Some references, perhaps most, are not meant to make you think of applying the thing being referenced to the situation. When a keypad code is someone's birth year we are not meant to assume that the keypad code is necessarily a character's birth year. When a dog in game is named after someone's real dog, we are not meant to assume that the in-game dog's owner is meant to be be the real person. Just because something in game is a reference to something else doesn't mean it has the same meaning as the thing it is a reference to. Often it does not.

*** In case anyone thinks this use has fallen into disuse, one of the results for "incept date" on Google's front page is, "What is the incept date for fall of 2010 Mission for Georgia State University freshman class?" The answer is apparently "September 28th."

For my part, this always seemed the most likely use for the term. The incept date would be when the clones were to be taken into an organization, specifically MJ12. The conclusion would be that JC wasn't supposed to know about MJ12 for another two years if everything had gone to plan.

[Undisputed]

whoa seriously man^ is the date really that important? lol

[PsychotiK]

Sometimes, an answer is most satisfying and compelling when it is provided in textbook form. His answer suited that bill so perfectly it was almost, in itself, a textbook.
But, that aside, I agree with the points listed. However, the year in which the game was set -- albeit important -- shouldn't cause so much controversy. Still, it's interesting to discuss these things.