Ratchet & Clank Wiki
Register
Advertisement

Vox Industries is an organization in Deadlocked. It was a conglomerate owned by Gleeman Vox based in the Shadow Sector. Vox Industries was involved in a variety of businesses, primarily weapons manufacturing, merchandising, and holovision mass-media broadcasting under the Vox Network. Its most notable production was DreadZone, an illegal gladiatorial combat reality show in which heroes were forced to fight to the death.

Vox Industries developed a variety of weapons that Ratchet made use of when he was a forced contestant on DreadZone. Throughout his time, Vox News, a news channel on the Vox Network hosted by anchormen Dallas Wanamaker and Juanita Alvaro, made slanderous pieces and false accusations against Ratchet, while spinning Vox and the DreadZone Exterminators in a positive light. After Ratchet defeated Vox and destroyed the DreadZone Station, little was heard of Vox Industries again.

History[]

Before Deadlocked[]

The Vox Industries conglomerate was founded in the Shadow Sector at an unknown time, and included a variety of business ventures by Gleeman Vox. It extended to holovision stations across four galaxies, weapons manufacturing, merchandising, and fourteen slugha rescue operations and glue factories.[1] Gleeman Vox kept employees in line with cruel methods, including feeding his weapon design team to a leviathan after they disagreed with a weapon proposal,[2] and using one of Vox Industries' weapons, the Fusion Rifle, in board meetings.[3] Vox eventually conceived of the holovision show DreadZone after seeing heroes on the news, and thinking about coercing them into battle for bolts and entertainment.[4]

Through DreadZone, Vox Industries kidnapped heroes and forced them to compete in the show, holding them in the DreadZone Station containment suites, and giving them deadlock collars that would kill or harm them if they disobeyed.[5] Vox Industries also built battlecourses on several planets in the Shadow Sector, converting some of the planets' existing notable sites and historic locations into settings that were exciting for the show. In some cases, such as with Orxon, the sites for the show would be destroyed and rebuilt weekly for different episodes.[6] DreadZone was extremely successful, gathering at least six trillion fans[7] across four galaxies,[1] all while still operating beneath the notice of much of the Solana Galaxy.[a] Vox had ambitions to spread the show further, as a means to not only increase his profits, but also conquer all of known space in adding a battlecourse to every planet.[1]

Vox Industries also made merchandise based on DreadZone. This included a popular hair removal and body works system sold at The Everything Store,[1] collectible trading cards,[10] and commercially unsuccessful merchandise based on the champion Exterminator, Ace Hardlight.[11][12] The poor sales led to a toy factory on Torval going abandoned and being reused for a DreadZone station.[13]

At some point, Pepper Fairbanks was a weather girl on the Vox Network when she was in a pictorial in "Women of Igliak".[14]

Deadlocked[]

Meet Vox 2

Vox in his office.

When Ratchet and Team Darkstar were forced to compete on DreadZone, Ratchet made use of Vox Industries weapons exclusively during his time competing.[15] The equipment for his combat bots, however, were provided by Go-Comet, with the exception of the Hacker Ray.[16]

Ace Hardlight's merchandise continued to underperform, leading Gleeman Vox to threaten Ace that he would be replaced if he did not make himself more endearing to audiences.[11] Vox began to see this replacement in the form of Ratchet, whom he had underestimated but noted that his popularity even eclipsed Hardlight from Hardlight's heroic youth.[17] Ratchet's success led to fuzzy lombax ears, a product packaged with the Tiny Tots Assault Weapons Kit that Vox never approved of, being the only well-performing merchandise product for them.[12] As a result, after Ace Hardlight was defeated by Ratchet, Vox offered to make Ratchet the champion Exterminator to replace Ace, though Ratchet refused.[18]

Salutations

Ratchet in Vox's office.

Ratchet, Clank, and Al eventually hatched a plan to drop the containment fields in the DreadZone Station, releasing all heroes, by sending Ratchet to destroy the central computer in the control level. Gleeman Vox took advantage of this situation by wiring the Battledome with six gigatons of nitroglycerin, setting a detonation timer, fleeing to a remote location, and sending cameras to film Ratchet for a high-stakes DreadZone episode.[19] Ratchet was successful in freeing the heroes and defeating Vox, and due to Vox's rigged explosives, the DreadZone Station was destroyed, effectively ending Vox Industries. In place of DreadZone, a continuous loop of Lance and Janice episode 10,972 titled "I Like You, But I Don't Like-You, Like-You" was played.[20]

A Crack in Time[]

Vox Holo-films was prominent in the Polaris Galaxy, with several movies set for release, including Unicop[21], My Blaster Runs Hot,[22] and A Boy and his War Grok[23]. Vox was also the only channel airing the Lance and Janice season finale at the time.[24]

Products[]

Subsidiaries[]

A number of businesses operated under the umbrella of the Vox Industries conglomerate.[1]

Name Description
Vox Airways A travel company. Also operated the shuttle used to transport DreadZone contestants to the Battledome.[5] Presumably also responsible for the interplanetary transport vehicle used to move contestants to various battlecourses. Said transport traveled on a fixed course, with any nav computer tampering resulting in a self-destruct sequence.[25] One was also used to ambush the Starship Phoenix.
Vox Network A commercial broadcast holovision company that produced many shows under its umbrella, including Vox News and DreadZone. Also provided the entertainment used in Vox Airways flights.[5]
Vox Magazine A magazine produced by Vox Industries that voted Shellshock "Sexiest Robot Alive".[26]
Vox Pharmaceuticals A drug company that at one one point developed portable lava technology while designing a heated massage oil, which became used for the Napalm Mod.[27]
Vox Space Casino and Resort A betting company that handled gambling for DreadZone.[28]
Vox Laboratories Created an experimental superweapon, the Obsidian Blade, with a core consisting of vorpal matter from the center of an H-class black hole.[29] The laboratories also created a range of other technologies, including Alpha Clank.[1]
Vox Holo-films Produced several holo-films.

Vox Industries also had fourteen slugha rescue operations and glue making factories.[1]

Holovision shows[]

The Vox Network produced a variety of shows, aired in holovision stations across four galaxies.[1]

Name Description
DreadZone An illegal reality holovision show in which heroes fight in gladiatorial combat to reach the top score of the leaderboard. The heroes were forced to fight against their will, given deadlock collars to prevent them from leaving. Dallas Wanamaker and Juanita Alvaro were the main commentators. Ace Hardlight was the five-time grand champion,[7] until he was defeated by Ratchet.
Vox Entertainment Known productions include documentaries on the DreadZone Exterminators, such as one produced on Reactor.[30]
Vox News A news channel hosted by anchormen Dallas Wanamaker and Juanita Alvaro. Reporting by Vox News was largely inaccurate, with the network frequently slandering Ratchet[7] and competing news networks.[31]
Vox Sports Provided updates on DreadZone.[32]
Lance and Janice Vox aired Lance and Janice, being the only channel to feature one of its season finales.[24]

Merchandise[]

Vox Industries also sold a wide variety of merchandise based on its DreadZone heroes.

Name Description
Ace Hardlight products Various products were made to market Ace Hardlight, including action figures, a video game, lunch box, movie rights, and collectible trading cards, but were broadly unsuccessful.[11] A focus test was done as a result, producing unfavorable outcomes for Vox.[33] Many were manufactured on Torval, though the poor sales caused the manufacturing plant to be shut down and be used in a DreadZone battlecourse instead.[34]
DreadZone hair removal and body works system A product sold under the DreadZone branding exclusively at The Everything Store.[1]
Exterminator Trading Cards A series of trading cards made for each of the Exterminators: Reactor, Shellshock, the Eviscerator, and Ace Hardlight.[35]
Tiny Tots Assault Weapons Kit A kit that accidentally included fuzzy lombax ears as an accessory. These proved very successful, but were released entirely beneath the notice of Gleeman Vox.[12]

After Ratchet became grand champion of DreadZone, he was offered action figures, sports shoes, deodorant, breakfast cereal, earmuffs, cologne, drinks, breath mints, movie rights, reality shows, video games, and commercials produced in his likeness.[36]

Weapons[]

Vox Industries developed a variety of weapons used by DreadZone contestants. Though Ratchet purchased the majority of these through vendors throughout the show, the Dual Vipers, a set of dual pistols with nano-optic refire technology,[37] were given to him for free.

The weapons used state-of-the-art technology, even among their standard weapons, suggesting Vox Industries had access to potent scientists and engineers and invested heavily in weapons. Their standard grenade launcher, the B6-Obliterator, was voted "Weapon of the Year" by the Galactic Association of Ridiculously Unnecessary Firepower.[38] The Magma Cannon, the pride of Vox Industries' personal protection line, fired a cone of magma at enemies,[39] and the Fusion Rifle used hydrogen fusion combined with state-of-the-art magnetic optics scope for acuracy.[3] The two most powerful weapons were the Arbiter, which could pierce carbonox armor,[40] and the Harbinger, a superweapon created to rival the Apocolator and the R.Y.N.O., which launched a volley of missiles pointing lasers to the ground for orbital ion cannons to fire.[41]

Many of the weapons were named or developed by Vox on a whim, and used by Vox or his close associates for intimidation. The Hunter Mine Launcher, for instance, was proposed by Gleeman Vox as "a gun that launches highly explosive homing mines"; the original weapons design team opposed this idea, only to be fed by Vox to a leviathan, causing the second to accept.[42] The Fusion Rifle also became a favorite of Vox as he used the weapon himself in board meetings when he was interrupted.[3] The Arbiter was named by Ace Hardlight, after he used the weapon to settle a legal dispute.[40]

As with most aspects of DreadZone, at least a few weapons developed and sold by Vox Industries were illegal, using stolen technology. Vox Industries' Holoshield Launcher, for instance, used patented quantum technology from Gadgetron Corporation's Holoshield Glove,[43] while Vox's Mini Turret Launcher used technology patented by Megacorp in its own Miniturret Glove. In the latter case, Megacorp sent lawyers in response, who were kidnapped and forced to compete on DreadZone.[44] The Fusion Rifle also uses patented technology, but it is unclear if Vox Industries were the owners of the patents.[3]

Vox Industries also developed some melee weapons. The most notable was the Scorpion Flail, a mace weapon with an extendable hain that had a wide area-of-effect on impact. However, the company developed OmniWrench upgrades that Ratchet used during his time as a contestant. The Versa-Wrench Lite and Fission Lance were mentioned as Vox Industries products, described as "melee-weapon household tools".[45][46] The Obsidian Blade, however, was released by Vox Laboratories.[29]

Gadgets[]

Relatively few gadgets were developed by Vox Industries. However, it did develop the Hacker Ray, a top security bypass device, for the combat bots, which they used to hack security orbs during the DreadZone challenges.[47] In contrast, most of the combat bot's tools and weapons were developed instead by Go-Comet, a leader in the industry.[48]

Gladiators[]

Sneaky Lombax 2

A group of assembled robots and dropships.

Vox Industries produced a multitude of gladiatorial robots for DreadZone, but also made use of biological species for combat. The DZ Striker was the most common kind of bipedal robot, featuring in most challenges, with a different paint job and slight design variations depending on the tournament. Robot swarmers served as recurring fodder, and were actually based on the biological shrieker enemy. Tremors, reapers, and leviathans were also a recurring organic enemy type, the latter featuring metal armor plating in later tournaments.

Alongside the leviathans, Vox also produced heavy hitting robots such as the Executioners and Laser Backs. The latter could fly, but would not truly engage in aerial combat unlike the Cycloids and Pincer Rays, although all three featured distinct organic designs. Uniquely the Striker, Executioner, and Cycloid also each had a ghost variant encountered on the Ghost Station.

Vehicles and machines[]

Alongside robots, Vox Industries also made several turrets, such as the Beam Turret, Missile Turret, and the dangerous 70 millimeter Stalker Turret. Stalker Turrets were in fact legless Landstalkers, which infrequently appeared as enemies, but more often as vehicles for contestants to use in specific challenges. Other such vehicles include hoverships, hoverbikes, and the Puma; an armored assault car with a mounted cannon.

Other vehicles include dropships for both delivering troops and enacting air-to-ground attacks, as well as the interplanetary transport used by Vox Airways to ferry contestants around.

Behind the scenes[]

Vox Industries is known as Pox Industries in the European (PAL) version of Ratchet: Gladiator (Deadlocked). The names Vox Network and Vox News parody the real-life Fox Network and Fox News.

The demo for Deadlocked mentions Vox Industries had loads of fun testing the Arbiter on their competitors before it was released to the public in The Arbiter's description. The in-game description for The Arbiter was changed in the final release.[citation needed]

Notes[]

Annotations[]

  1. Despite DreadZone having over six trillion fans,[7] after both Ace Hardlight and Starshield's disappearance, their whereabouts were still not well-known,[8][7] and the kidnapping of heroes was still considered by Sasha Phyronix and Captain Qwark to be an unsubstantiated rumor.[8][9]

Citations[]

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 Off 2005, p. 7
  2. Deadlocked menu § "Hunter Mine Launcher"
  3. 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Deadlocked menu § "Fusion Rifle"
  4. Deadlocked, game manual (NTSC), p. 12
  5. 5.0 5.1 5.2 Deadlocked script § "Tutorial (gameplay)"
  6. Deadlocked script § "Labyrinth of Death (gameplay)"
  7. 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 Deadlocked script § "News Break"
  8. 8.0 8.1 Deadlocked script § "Not Captain Starshield!"
  9. Deadlocked script § "Death of a Salesman"
  10. Deadlocked script § "DreadZone: The Game!"
  11. 11.0 11.1 11.2 Deadlocked script § "Vox has a Hissy"
  12. 12.0 12.1 12.2 Deadlocked script § "Under where?"
  13. Deadlocked script § "Hoverbike or Bust (gameplay)"
  14. A Crack in Time script § "Gimlick Valley"
  15. Deadlocked menu § "Weapons"
  16. Deadlocked menu § "Combat Bots"
  17. Deadlocked script § "Ratchet, eh?"
  18. Deadlocked script § "Salutations"
  19. Deadlocked script § "DreadZone Station 6"
  20. Into the Nexus, Intergalactic Museum of History
  21. A Crack in Time script § "VX-99 Defeated"
  22. A Crack in Time script § "My Blaster Runs Hot"
  23. A Crack in Time script § "A Boy and his War Grok"
  24. 24.0 24.1 A Crack in Time script § "Lance and Janice Season Finale"
  25. Deadlocked, Advanced Qualifier (gameplay)
  26. Deadlocked script § "Showdown with Shellshock (gameplay)"
  27. Deadlocked menu § "Napalm mod"
  28. Deadlocked menu § "Reactor Battle"
  29. 29.0 29.1 Deadlocked menu § "Obsidian Blade"
  30. Deadlocked script § "Reactor: Introspective"
  31. Insomniac Games official website October 21 2005
  32. Deadlocked script § "Showdown with Shellshock"
  33. Deadlocked script § "Ace Toys Suck"
  34. Deadlocked script § "Hoverbike or Bust (gameplay)"
  35. Deadlocked script § "DreadZone: The Game!"
  36. Deadlocked script § "Salutations"
  37. Deadlocked menu § "Dual Vipers"
  38. Deadlocked menu § "B6-Obliterator"
  39. Deadlocked menu § "Magma Cannon"
  40. 40.0 40.1 Deadlocked menu § "Arbiter"
  41. Deadlocked menu § "The Harbinger"
  42. Deadlocked menu § "Hunter Mine Launcher"
  43. Deadlocked menu § "Holoshield Launcher"
  44. Deadlocked menu § "Mini Turret Launcher"
  45. Deadlocked menu § "Versa-Wrench Lite"
  46. Deadlocked menu § "Fission Lance"
  47. Deadlocked menu § "Hacker Ray"
  48. Deadlocked menu § "Pistol Flux LX"

References[]

Advertisement