Presidential Palace

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Presidential Palace
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Next	Kola Cell (Mission Pack) Dili, Timor (PS2/GameCube)
Game	Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell
Mission Details
Location	Tbilisi, Georgia
Date	13th November 2004 / 00:04 to 01:29 Hours
Objective	Find Kombayn Nikoladze and The Ark.

"Welcome back to Georgia, Fisher. Our cleanest path to the Ark is President Cristavi's records. Details on your OPSAT."

― Irving Lambert

Presidential Palace is the tenth solo campaign level in Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell, and the final eleven-tenth level on PS2/GameCube. Splinter Cell agent Sam Fisher must infiltrate the Georgian Presidential Palace and find Kombayn Nikoladze and The Ark.

Briefing

00:04 / 00:25 / 00:42 / 01:06 – PS2/GameCube

Find Kombayn Nikoladze and The Ark.

Kombayn Nikoladze has returned to the Georgian Presidential Palace in order to retrieve a weapon known only as 'the Ark.' The great risk involved in Nikoladze's personal return to T'Bilisi suggests its enormous value. Any threat posed by Nikoladze or the Ark must be dealt with.

Data & Transcript

Main articles: Presidential Palace/Data, Presidential Palace/Transcript

Information

Goals
Recover the Ark Interrogation File, the record of an interrogation conducted by Georgian agents representing current Georgian President Cristavi. The file details a interrogation of one of Nikoladze's high-ranking mercenaries, possibly revealing the identity of "The Ark".
Use Nikoladze's retina to unlock the safe inside the vault in the library.	Use Nikoladze to open the retinal safe.
Retrieve the Ark from the safe inside a vault in the library.	Obtain the Ark.
The death of Nikoladze before retrieval of the Ark will result in mission failure.	Additional objectives pending.
Kill Kombayn Nikoladze.
Rendezvous with the Osprey for extraction.	Reach extraction.
Notes
🗣 [Lambert] Nikoladze's successor, President Varlam Cristavi has taken residence in the palace. The death of President Cristavi will result in mission failure.
💼 [Satchel] The garden gate doorcode is 2126.
💼 [Satchel] The corridor doorcode is 70021.
💻 [Notebook] The library doorcode is 66768. [Xbox/PC/PS3 only]
🗣 [Talk] The Elite Forces tasked with capturing Nikoladze and reclaiming the Ark have been issued night vision gear by President Cristavi.
Pick Lock
🔑 [Room to The Left of Lasers] 6-pins: ↓ ← ↑ ← → ↑ [Xbox/PC/PS3 only]
🔑 [Room Behind The Stairs on Second Floor] 6-pins: ↓→ ←↓ ←↑ ←↓ ↑→ ←↑ [PS2/GameCube only]
🔑 [President's Office] 6-pins: ↓ ↑ ← ↑ → ↑ 🔑 [PS2] ↓→ ←↑ ←↓ ←↑ ↑→ ←↑
🔑🔑 [Sniper Position – Both Doors on Second Floor] 6-pins: → → ← ↑ ← ↓ 🔑🔑 [PS2] ↑→ ↑→ ←↓ ←↑ ←↓ ↓→
Lost data, missed in mission
💼 [? Verify] There are weapon stock hidden in the west wing of the storeroom.

Overview

After the assassination of the Georgian President in early-2004, industrialist Kombayn Nikoladze launched a "bloodless coup" in which he secured power over the country, thus making the palace his official residence and place of business. After the discovery of his crimes in neighboring Azerbaijan and the subsequent occupation by NATO, Nikoladze was forced to flee the country to continue his terrorist campaign against the United States. As a result of his departure, the CIA installed Varlam Cristavi as Acting President of Georgia, who immediately occupied the palace.

After the events at the Chinese Embassy in Myanmar, Splinter Cell Agent Sam Fisher had to finish the job by eliminating Kombayn Nikoladze. With the Georgian Information Crisis over and his campaign in shambles, Nikoladze returned to Georgia, where he intended to recover a nuclear weapon known only as "The Ark", which was reportedly hidden in the Presidential Palace and posed a grave threat to the United States. Recognizing the threat, Third Echelon, a top-secret organization of the NSA, deployed Fisher to the palace to eliminate Nikoladze and recover the Ark.

Fisher infiltrated the palace through the palace gardens, evading guard dogs and snipers in the process. Inside the palace, Fisher evaded the guards but soon found himself facing Georgian Special Forces loyal to Cristavi, suggesting that Nikoladze was in the immediate vicinity. Fisher was able to force a route past the Georgian forces and soon reached Cristavi's office, where he recovered the "Ark Interrogation Files". From the recorded interrogation and torture of one of Nikoladze's colonels, Echelon discovered that the Ark was a SADM, a "Special Atomic Demolitions Munitions"; in short, a suitcase nuclear bomb. Fisher was ordered to recover the Ark immediately, which was hidden in a vault below the library.

Fisher was soon ambushed by Nikoladze's best mercenaries but quickly dispatched them before he finally met Nikoladze face to face in the cellar. He took hold of Nikoladze and asked about The Ark. Before long, a Special Forces team stormed the cellar after having betrayed Nikoladze's surviving forces and hold the two men hostage. Nikoladze then confessed that the vault only held the activation key to the Ark, and that the bomb itself was already in US. Nikoladze agreed to reveal its location in exchange for his freedom from Cristavi, and was escorted to Cristavi's office while Fisher was interrogated. However, Third Echelon caused a blackout in the cellar, allowing Fisher to neutralize the Special Forces and escape with the activation key. The palace went into red alert and searched for Fisher before he could escape with the key.

Sam takes aim and prepares to assassinate former Georgian President Kombayn Nikoladze.

Fisher was ordered to kill Nikoladze at all costs to ensure Cristavi never learned of the Ark's location, so Fisher fled into the courtyard, where he spotted Nikoladze in a window talking to Cristavi. Taking aim with his SC-20K M.A.W.S., Fisher pulled the trigger and sent a single round towards Nikoladze's head, finally killing the rogue President. Alerted at the assassination, the palace guards pursued Fisher through the palace grounds, but Fisher evaded their search and soon escaped on the V-22 Osprey, finally ending the crisis in Georgia.

Debriefing

Intelligence gained from the Georgian Presidential Palace identified the Ark as a Special Atomic Munitions Device. The fact that it was already in place a short distance from Washington, DC made Nikoladze a clear threat to the safety of the American people. In accordance with the Fifth Freedom, that threat was neutralized.

Trivia

• This is the first level where opponents are wearing night vision goggles (in this instance, it's the Georgian Elite that the player encounters when they meet Nikoladze in the cellar). They are identifiable by their glowing goggles (which show only one light), with it glowing red.
  • If you shoot the goggles it will spark and do no damage.
• The PS2 version's beginning sequence is much different than Xbox/PC. You begin outside of a locked gate with a patrolling guard and searchlight. In addition to the notes on Cristavi, Lambert also informs you of a no-alarm restriction until you get inside. To gain entrance, you must repel down to an underground cave filled with lasers (visible on thermal vision) and wall mines. Upon exiting the cave, the hedge maze is a bit longer and more confusing to navigate. Eventually, you'll enter through a window just like in the other versions, which is when the alarm restriction will disappear.
• In version 1, this is the first level in the game, as well as the Splinter Cell series, where Sam Fisher wears his balaclava. It's second appearance is in the second level of the second title, Pandora Tomorrow.
  • In version 2, Sam wears the balaclava in the CIA HQ as well as with his snow suit at the beginning of the Nuclear Power Plant (PS2 version).
• It is possible to climb the water fountain the gardens area in the courtyard; this can be one way for players to lose the Guard dogs in the courtyard area.
• There are two palace guards in the main hall, if you stun them and then lift the body, they will say a few lines.
• There is a part where Third Echelon stages a blackout when Fisher is 'held up' by Georgian Elite commandos in the basement. In Splinter Cell: Blacklist, there is a section where Fourth Echelon arranges a black out in a very similar fashion to help Fisher out when he was caught.
• There is a screen glitch when the player equips the binoculars to point at something and the alarm is sounded, and if the player unequipped the binoculars the screen automatically zooms in at Fisher leaving that glitch unable to zoom out unless the player reloads the checkpoint.
• It is possible to place wall mines in certain areas in the library's basement as traps before the Georgian Elite commandos arrive but as the mines explode in their arrival, they're still alive resulting Fisher along with Nikoladze to get shot and killed.
• If Nikoladze's men are evaded by the player, but still left alive, they will be found dead when the player comes back up through the library, killed by Cristavi's men.
• In the part where Sam must snipe Nikoladze, he can use the laser mic to listen to the conversation. This, however, will result in mission over unless the player is quick enough to snipe as Nikoladze leaves.
• In the ending cut scene Fisher receives a call from Lambert. Possibly to tell him about the Kola Cell, which is the next mission (in the game) that Fisher takes on.
• If the player jumps off the Palace's exterior as the mission fail screen shows up, Fisher hits the bottom and dies.

Gallery

Avtandil. Why don't you clean up after your dog?

The execution of a former Georgian President