Before meeting and being seduced by Amelie, Higgs Monaghan, also known as the “Man in the Golden Mask,” worked as a porter and was a close friend of Fragile Express. To protect Edge Knot City’s independence at Amelie’s request, Higgs served as the leader of the militant separatist organization known as the Homo Demens.
Story
Background
After both of Higgs’ parents passed away early in his life, his uncle reared him. He was beaten by his uncle whenever he inquired about the outside world or attempted to leave the shelter as a child, leading him to believe that the shelter was the only place in the world.
- Higgs would finally use a knife to kill his uncle in self-defense and see the body become a zombie.
- When Higgs removed the corpse, he felt the Beached Things creeping closer and unknowingly gained his DOOMS. He would eventually learn that death was what activated his powers.
- Higgs had no other choice but to work as a porter to survive. He once provided medicine to a local prepper who lived nearby just to discover that he had passed away.
- To carry the body to an incinerator would have been too late. Instead, he transported it to the BT area, where he began to sense BT’s reactions to the corpse and started seeing images of the Beach, which led Higgs to question whether he might have DOOMS.
- Higgs eventually starts to become known for his hard work as a porter.
- In exchange for extending their operations, a courier company in the West that didn’t fall under Bridges’ purview gave him a job.
- The leader of the group, a woman by the name of Coffin, was the one who sought out Higgs and recognized his abilities.
- She informed Higgs that the sacrifice of unborn children was part of Bridges’ strategy for reconstructing America.
- By the boatload, the so-called BBs were being transported to a factory to be butchered.
- Higgs found that Coffin and her team were responsible for the recent uptick in terrorism in the area, but because he believed what she said, he chose to follow her advice covertly.
- Coffin, who started to think of Higgs as her son, would instruct him in the military and pass along her ideals, which would be crucial to the young man’s future.
- The group’s movement and survival in BT’s domain would also depend heavily on his DOOMS skill.
- The rebels were nearly all killed in the explosion as they attacked a facility that had been destroyed by the UCA.
- Due to the area’s high concentration of chiral crystals, the survivors developed fatal cancer.
- Coffin assigned Higgs a task before they parted ways: to save the BBs and stop Bridges, travel to the west, continue to play the good porter for a while, and finally assist Coffin’s daughter should the two ever meet paths.
- Higgs left his past as a rebel behind and learned to value helping others, contributing to a community, and disobeying his adoptive father’s advice to care just about oneself.
- Higgs started to wonder if his abilities to detect BTs were waning when he was unable to assist one of his porter teammates who was calling for assistance while stuck in the mountains.
- Higgs started reading a book about ancient Egyptian ideas of life and death that seemed to foretell the changes brought on by the Death Stranding at the same time. The book was titled Wisdom of the Egyptians.
- He started to wear a gilded death mask, “but one for a living—for ruling,” borrowing from the wisdom of the great pharaohs.
- Higgs decided it was time to team up with Fragile Express, led by Coffin’s daughter Fragile, who also possessed strong DOOMS abilities, in light of the rise in terrorist activities in the area orchestrated by the terrorist organization Word is Demens and rumors that Bridges was dispatching an expeditionary force out west to “facilitate the reconstruction of America.”
Together, they intended to streamline operations across the continent, just like UCA had intended. Higgs believed he was the only person capable of leading the populace and establishing a new, free, and harmonious society.
Becoming a terrorist
Higgs ultimately encountered Amelie, and her abilities enchanted him. He became her herald because he thought she was the one person who could bring America together.
- He received a false Bridge baby from Amelie so that he could access her beach and avoid being discovered by BTS.
- She also gave him some of Death Stranding’s truth. Higgs communicated her intention to cause the Last Stranding earlier than she had expected, and after the first trip, he utilized the new abilities Amelie had given him to create the tar belt that isolated Edge Knot City and gave her a reason not to go back to the Bridges HQ.
- When Amelie’s plan still hadn’t materialized, Higgs united the terrorist organization Homo Demens and took control of them, aiming to destroy the UCA.
- The majority of them have Chiralium contamination. Higgs began trafficking weapons and bombs into the country’s middle region after introducing many of his Homo Demens to Fragile Express.
- They got their hands on thermonuclear bombs, and Higgs conned Fragile into delivering a nuclear weapon to Middle Knot City, which was destroyed.
- Only by escaping on her Beach did Fragile manage to stay alive. Fragile interrupted Higgs’ attempt to destroy South Knot City with a nuclear weapon after several terrorist assaults.
- Higgs caught her with the nuclear device in her hands because he assumed she would be aware of his scheme.
Fragile was then given the option to either utilize her beach to flee, leaving South Knot City to be destroyed or to run through Timefall wearing nothing but her underwear to carry the nuclear bomb to the Crater Lake, where it wouldn’t harm anyone. The nuclear weapon was delivered to Crater Lake in time by Fragile.
Confronting Sam
Concerned by Amelie’s fascination with her adopted brother Sam, who was scheduled to lead the second expedition to unite America, Higgs confronted Sam and his Bridges colleagues, producing a void that blew out Central Knot City and the second mission, except for Sam, who was repatriation.
- At this moment, Higgs learns the truth of Death Stranding and Amelie reveals that he is an Extinction Entity, not a DOOMS victim.
- While facing Sam in Port Knot City, Higgs discloses his grasp of the Death Stranding and alludes to Amelie being an Extinction Entity, then uses his powers to call a BT that would defeat Sam and create another void out that would destroy the city, but Sam defeats the BT.
- Later, Higgs posing as a Bridges operator in Lake Knot City tries to deceive Sam into transporting a nuclear to South Knot City, but Sam realizes his plot midway and Fragile helps him dispose of the nuke again in the Crater Lake.
- He doubts Amelie’s dedication to the Last Stranding and must figure out the supercells’ meaning on his own.
- Higgs visits Amelie’s beach and takes her quipu, probably to prevent her from dreaming about Sam as he approaches the tar belt.
- Higgs appears again before Sam and transforms into a giant, four-legged BT, challenging the deliveryman to avoid being eaten.
- Higgs welcomes Sam to Edge Knot City by obstructing and insulting him while continuing to imprison Amelie.
- Sam joins all the nodes to the Chiral Network when he ultimately connects the city.
- Higgs conjures a massive BT and, with a “possessed” Amelie inside, tells Sam that Amelia is an Extinction Entity, that she must launch the Last Stranding, and that she is the cause of the DOOMS and nightmares.
- While Sam is astonished, Higgs controls the massive BT and attacks him, but is defeated again.
- Higgs kidnaps Amelie and takes her to the Beach, but not before breaking BB’s pod and fatally wounding Sam, who then comes back as a repatriate.
- When Sam comes to the beach, Higgs is kneeling in front of Amelie, proving his complicity, but he continues his performance by obscuring Amelie with his mask and trapping her in a “net”.
- Knowing that the human race has little time left, Higgs informs Sam that they should become extinct like the species of the previous extinctions, and thus begins the last fight with the adversary, first with his rifle, then with a knife, and last with a fist fight at Amelie’s feet.
- Higgs fails to control Amelie when Sam overcomes him and Fragile arrives at the Beach.
- Fragile taunts him and punches him with her bare fist, knocking him out.
- Higgs is bound and brought to Fragile by Sam, fulfilling his pledge.
- Fragile then gives him two options: suicide or beach stranding.
- Higgs confessed that Amelie gave him his powers, that she was the genuine head of the Homo Demens, and that the terrorist squad always served under her while in Fragile’s captivity.
Higgs later wrote about his defeat in his diary, before writing about his youth, meeting Fragile, and his fall into madness after meeting Amelie. He left part of the journal entries under his stage name, Peter Englert, on a memory chip, and others on different memory chips around the game.
Who Died From Higgs?
On January 16, 2021, Higgs was put to death by lethal injection. He was the thirteenth and last person put to death by the federal government under President Donald Trump when executions resumed after a 17-year hiatus.
