[MajorTom 2417]

For some reason, the thought of Hunter S. Thompson having Johnny Depp named as a Kentucky colonel led me to this train of thought: we know, from Duke Nukem I, that Duke was a CIA agent, but what---if any---history does he have in other military branches?

[Jblade]

I don't think Duke's ever had a proper canon past - DNF for instance has a picture of him in standard desert fatigues suggesting he was a soldier in the US armed forces.

[PsychoGoatee]

Interesting question, and Hunter will always be the man.

Me I like Duke kind of just being an asskicker without too much history, almost like the Clint Eastwood Man With No Name in that respect. Just some dude who decided those alien bastards are gonna pay. That's why the idea of an origin game like Duke Begins appeals to me a bit less. Kind of like all these Tomb Raider prequels where Lara is inexperienced and not confident, I'd rather see these characters in their prime wrecking fools. Though this doesn't have much to do with your question.

I assume Duke was in the military for three years and in that Duke got more honors than anyone else in human history, until he got bored of it and became an expert gambler or something. Then the aliens kept interrupting his R&R.

[hismasterplan]

Based on everything before DNF, I interpreted Duke this way: He served for the US government and often would ignore orders to do things his own way instead. To get rid of him, he was unknowningly sent on a suicide mission but his behavior and skill incidentally stopped a corrupt war plan by kicking too much ass when he was originally thought to fail, similar to Solid Snake in his first big outing. He goes into hiding after becoming wanted but rises to public fame during Duke Nukem 3D - that's when the government has no choice but to put up with him. General Graves, secretly his dad, is sympathetic towards him and Duke returns some of that respect. He loves action movies which is why he quotes them. I don't see him as patriotic like in DNF. More of an anti-hero like Snake Plissken in Escape From New York.

[Jolteon]

I always though of Duke as a guy who likes to kick alien ass, so I never thought about his backstory before (At least when I was a kid). Maybe he was in a war for few years, then afterwards he becomes a CIA agent, then eventually he joins the EDF after killing aliens. (At least this is what I think )

[CruX]

I'd always just assumed he was some kind of operative in the EDF at one point but was too badass/rebel/loose-cannon and either left or got kicked out, but would still end up fighting, just on his own terms. I don't know how much of that was based on actual things I saw in the games and how much of it was just me ad-libbing the parts that are left out, but I feel like that interpretation fits the narrative best.

[MrFlibble]

hismasterplan, on 21 March 2016 - 04:14 PM, said:

He goes into hiding after becoming wanted but rises to public fame during Duke Nukem 3D - that's when the government has no choice but to put up with him.

Duke is already a celebrity at the beginning of Duke Nukem II.

The backstory of the first game pretty much sums it all up:

[dnskill]

I always imagined Duke was at first a grunt in the military or a bounty hunter, that caught the attention of the CIA to be used to defeat Dr. Proton, but instead of following orders, he did things his way, and then he kind of became a super hero almost after DN1, and so he was like a one man army, and after the first game he was abducted by aliens and saved the world again, returning home, expecting a heroes welcome, when he is caught off guard by another alien invasion.

I know that is one long run on sentence.

EDIT: In terms of realism, I would think Duke has a very high Top Secret clearance, and he may not hold any true ranking in any military, law enforcement, etc. but is highly respected by them. In DNZH the soldiers call him "Sir" so he may actually have some kind of a rank, but it would most likely be a CIA type of thing, not so much a military one.

He'd probably be one of the junior ranks listed here, and I would guess maybe he'd be a Chief Special Agent.
http://z13.invisionf...gency/ar/t9.htm

EDF seems to be a military kind of deal, so if he was ranked in the EDF, I'm assuming he'd be an E-7 or E-8 (Gunnery or Master Sgt.), with affiliation with the CIA. If EDF used police ranking, I'd think Duke would still be some kind of Sergeant, but again with CIA affiliation.

Duke doesn't seem to give or take orders, he makes orders, and goes about it on his own, and if someone is willing to help him that's good for them, doesn't make a difference to Duke. So no matter what rank he has, I doubt he really cares.

[OpenMaw]

The DNF backstory fleshes him out more than one might think. (DOB, POB, height, weight, etc... ) and it mentions that he served in some small conflict in Beruit (Dylan references this on the Dam.)

What we know from the words of Scott Miller and other is that Duke was in the military, and he went rogue, and was "looked upon as a renegade in society." Later, Proton enters the mix and Duke is contracted to deal with him. After that Duke is rocketed to fame, which is what get's the attention of the Rigelitans. The rest everybody knows like the back of their hands. Duke returns to Earth, beats the alien bastards for stealing our chicks, and his stardom goes up and up from there, until DNF.


Personally I think a character like Duke is akin to a comic character like Lobo. You don't really want or need a backstory. That's just not what the character is about, and that is actually rather fitting given what we know about the intention of the character even back in the early 90s. He was conceived as a comic book-esque hero that could be adapted and put into all kinds of adventures and stories. The problem with fleshing him out is you begin to restrict the character to only certain situations. Duke is the kind of character you can have fighting aliens one minute, and then turn around and fight roided up nazi-zombie Hitler clones while dual wielding MG-42s and having a scantly clad occult-babe wrapped around his leg. He was designed to eb and flow from plot to plot.

In all the writing I've tried to do with the character, I've found Duke is at his best when most of the arc elements are thrust upon the plot and story, and not on Duke. You can't really do a lot with Duke's character in terms of growth, because if he shifts too much you lose the essence of the man.

A lot of this is hot air to get back around to the point. I don't think Duke has an official military rank anymore. If he did i'd imagine he was probably a high NCO. Like a Gunner or Master Sergeant. A guy chomping on a cigar and beating a lot of ass.

[Jblade]

The Beruit comment was just a jab/reference to a near identical line in Modern Warfare 1 where Price mentions about remembering Beruit, I don't think it should really be taken as an official thing.

[MrFlibble]

There's an urban themed GruntMatch map called Beirut in the Platoon TC which was then re-implemented in NAM.

[Altered Reality]

This is my Duke headcanon:

Some time during the second half of the 20th century, scientists at Area 51 were researching a way to create supersoldiers. They failed, until one of them, Dr. Blunderwitz, attacked the problem from another angle. Instead of attempting to enhance existing soldiers, he created synthetic DNA which he used as a base for his model of supersoldier. The new synthetic human was then enhanced with nuclear-powered nanites, which would give him superior strength as well the ability to regenerate whenever he did something he enjoyed, and for this, he was given the name Duke Nukem.
Later, Dr. Blunderwitz attempted an experiment on himself, which failed and left him scarred. Dr. Blunderwitz quit his job, and for a time, nobody heard from him again.

Duke lived his entire life inside Area 51, and he eventually became a soldier. He always had problems with rules. but the army kept him because he could win missions anyway.
One day, a general gave him an order that would result in the mission failing. Duke beat up the general instead, and broke his spine. The general lived, but was completely paralyzed from the neck down. Duke was booted out of the army, faced with the prospect to live in a world he had never seen.

Duke settled in the outskirts of Los Angeles, living an uneventful life, until he was contacted by the CIA about a madman called Dr. Proton, who wanted to take over Los Angeles with an army of robots. Duke jumped at the call and defeated Dr. Proton, without, however, recognizing him as his creator.
The reward for accomplishing his mission gave him his first taste of wealth and fame, and Duke became a celebrity overnight. However, just one year later, during an interview, he got abducted by aliens who wanted to extract his brain pattern. He disposed of the aliens and returned to Earth, only to discover that a different species of aliens was invading.

Duke single-handedly battled the aliens in and around LA, as well as in space, he won and was given a large sum of money, which he used to build a casino in Las Vegas and call it Lady Killer.
For twelve years he lived as the most important person on Earth, until the aliens he had defeated returned for revenge. He fought them in Vegas, in the surrounding desert and in the Hoover Dam, despite the orders of the president not to. He got caught in the blast of a nuclear warhead dropped on the Hoover Dam, and he woke up inside Area 51, where he discovered that Doctor Proton was still alive and had turned himself into a mechanical monstrosity.

Doctor Proton's new plan was to have a robotic Duke clone run for president, giving people a face they liked, while making all decisions from behind the curtain. Doctor Proton would have also conquered the secret alien base on the far side of the moon, with the goal to expand his domain to other planets. None of this, however, came to fruition, because Duke ripped Doctor Proton's head off his body and killed the alien empress.

And in the future...
Doctor Proton's head had a mobility system which allowed it to escape, reach a time machine and transmit a message to his younger self.
In the new timeline, Doctor Proton changed his plan. Instead of creating a supersoldier, he created two. A male and a female. The male lived as Duke Nukem, while the female lived as Shelly "Bombshell" Harrison. In the new timeline, they eventually met, and Duke was surprised as to why this enigmatic woman was not attracted to him, despite denying to be a lesbian.
Eventually, Bombshell dropped the bomb (pun intended). She was not attracted to him because they are like brother and sister, and Doctor Proton created them both.