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Dr. Gustav Meisner was an ex-nazi scientist who joined the USSR to assist them in advanced espionage, specializing in behavior-modification protocol.

History[]

Meisner developed a behavior-modification program which he dubbed "Cicada", after the real world insects that only appear once every 13-17 years to mate before dying. His program was similarly designed to create secret agents who believed in their cover stories absolutely, even going so far as to suppress all former memories. These agents could then be "awakened" to instinctively perform strategic missions before dying for the cause. He spent a great deal of time torturing and experimenting on humans with different applications of psychedelic drugs until John Randolph Bentley and Frank Ferguson discovered his experiments in soviet-occupied Krakow.

Bentley was subsequently captured by Petra Andropov, and together with Petra, Meisner oversaw Bentley's conditioning into a cicada via a myriad of torture methods such as waterboarding and electroshock therapy. Several times Meisner wanted to terminate Bentley for his lack of progress, but Petra managed to convince him to keep trying long enough for Bentley to become susceptible to Meisner's drug cocktails. Under the influence of these drugs, Bentley saw massive successes, far in excess of any of Meisner's other subjects, to the point where Meisner agreed to Petra's suggestion to send Bentley to Budapest early for torture training.

After Bentley proved that he could lure, capture, and torture his own comrade without compunction, Meisner moved Bentley to Berlin for his final test; to kill his own comrades. When they called Bentley's name however, he began to balk, so Meisner had him taken away for more evaluation.

Treadstone[]

The Cicada Protocol[]

The Cicada Protocol promotional 03

Dr. Gustav Meisner tending to John Randolph Bentley

Meisner had Bentley subjected to 52 hours of sleep deprivation and he administered a cocktail of 100 micrograms of Psilocybin, 50 milligrams of Thorazine, and 85 micrograms of LSD. This largely stabilized Bentley, but Meisner had grown dubious over whether Bentley could perform his final test, especially with Bentley himself continuing to balk despite the administrations. Petra insisted on Bentley's potential however, and when she awakened him, he successfully killed his three CIA comrades in rapid succession without issue.

Pleased with Bentley's success, Meisner tended to Bentley personally. However, Bentley had already snapped, and took the opportunity to stab Meisner in the neck with his own glasses. Meisner seemed to bleed out and die.

The Paradox Andropov[]

In actuality, Meisner survived Bentley's assault and left for Romania to train other cicadas, including Don Matheson.

The Seoul Asylum[]

Bentley was later sent back to Meisner by Yuri Leniov. Meisner greeted Bentley outside his Romanian facility and insisted that he would have "company" this time, throwing him in a cell with Don Matheson. Later, Matheson reported that Bentley wasn’t under complete control, so Meisner arranged for Matheson and Bentley to fight to the death. Rather than kill each other, the pair teamed up and fought their way out of the facility until they encountered Meisner himself on the way out.

Supremely unconcerned by his lack of guards, Meisner insisted that their escape was "all part of the plan", and that even his own death was intended. He advised Bentley to return to the Americans as a hero so that he could finish his mission, and insisted that neither he nor Matheson could ever be truly "fixed". Frustrated by Bentley's indecision, Matheson shot Meisner in the head, killing him.

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