Rowan O'Shea was a Rogue Division Agent from Washington, D.C. who led an attack on the Division Cores. She is the primary antagonist in the Operations Crossroads novel Tom Clancy’s The Division: Recruited and a supporting character during flashbacks in Tom Clancy's The Division: Hunted.
A former Green Beret and member of Brenda Wells' Division cell, Rowan turned against the Strategic Homeland Division after the deaths of her family on Roosevelt Island, murdering her fellow agents and joining Aaron Keener's rogue network. Her mission became to cripple The Division by targeting its regional Cores, thereby causing an SHD Network blackout.
Biography[]
Rowan O'Shea first joined the United States Army when she was eighteen, and passed their Special Forces Qualification Course at age twenty-one. She went on to serve two four-year contracts overseas as part of the U.S. Army Special Forces, or “Green Berets”. She also took classes between deployments, and eventually chose to leave the Army to pursue a doctorate and start a family in Alexandria, Virginia.
In 2014, Rowan obtained a PhD in Epidemiology from John Hopkins University. A year later, she was contacted by recruiter Brenda Wells, who persuaded her to join the Strategic Homeland Division.
Tom Clancy's The Division: Hunted[]
When the Green Poison pandemic reached Washington, D.C. in the spring of 2016, Brenda reluctantly left her husband and young daughter, Anara, to form a cell with Brenda and two other Division agents, Eric and Leo Fourte. The team helped the Joint Task Force fight emerging hostile factions in D.C., including the Hyenas and Outcasts. Over time, witnessing their cruelty agitated Rowan, who took each atrocity personally and became more violent and ruthless. Her allies Eric and Brenda took notice, but hoped that she would recover with time.
In the summer, Brenda received news that Rowan's husband and daughter had been killed on Roosevelt Island - caught in the crossfire between Outcasts and Division agents. Fearing that the truth would drive Rowan to turn rogue, she lied that the True Sons had been responsible. Rowan proceeded to retaliate by poisoning an encampment of True Sons using a weaponized sample of the Green Poison; the virus spilled into nearby civilian communities, killing hundreds.
Her tactics won the tacit approval of the Outcasts, who contacted her and revealed the truth about her family's deaths. When a pair of Division agents arrived to detain her, she killed them and fled, eventually joining Aaron Keener's band of rogues. Brenda would later blame herself for Rowan's downfall.
Tom Clancy's The Division: Recruited[]
Rowan devised a plan to attack the Division Core in Kansas, which maintained regional SHD Network coverage, with the intent to cause a network blackout and deprive agents access to ISAC or their SHD Tech. In preparation, she obtained a hacking program from fellow rogue Theo Parnell to subvert SHD Tech, raided nearby Division supply caches, and allied herself with the Outcasts and Roamers, a band of extortionist truckers from the northern states.
She also continued monitoring her former teammates. When Brenda and her remaining cell led an expedition to the midwestern United States, Rowan believed they were hunting her, and harried their progress by sending a convoy of Outcasts to ambush them in West Virginia and bombarding them with chemical weapons - nearly killing Brenda's new recruit, Maira Kanhai, with chlorine-filled mortars.
At the Cumberland Gap, Brenda brokered an alliance with the Roamers' rivals, the Freighties, using Turrets and Sticky Bombs to help them regain the key supply route. However, Rowan used Parnell's program to seize control of the Turrets, forcing the agents to destroy their own SHD Tech. She then sent a Drone after them, revealing herself via a projection. Brenda was unable to convince Rowan they were not pursuing her, and she in turn failed to convince her former cell to return to D.C.. Maira later extracted Parnell's code and developed a countermeasure to shut down any hacked SHD Tech.
The agents eventually deduced Rowan's plan to attack the nearest Division Core in Kansas, and secured transport from the Freighties to reach it before her. Anticipating their route through through St. Louis, Rowan ambushed their truck with gunfire and a dirty bomb, blanketing the area in radioactive dust. The agents were shaken but unharmed, and used disguises to procure more fuel at a Roamer depot.
Rowan managed to arrive at the Kansas Core first with a convoy of Outcasts and Roamers. She hacked its automated defenses and descended to the Core itself, intent on triggering its emergency EMP charges, while her convoy held off Brenda's cell outside. However, she found her access blocked by Maira's countermeasure.
When Brenda and Maira reached the heart of the facility, Rowan crippled Brenda with a shotgun and held her at gunpoint, forcing Maira to disable her countermeasure blocking access. Maira complied, then shot Rowan dead in her moment of victory. The wounded Brenda removed Rowan's Smart Watch and reset it to recognize Maira, making her a full-fledged Division agent.
Legacy[]
Rowan's death would continue to haunt Brenda, who had considered Rowan one of her most promising recruits. She blamed herself for lying to her and Aaron Keener's rogues for turning her against The Division, leading to her downfall.
Although Rowan ultimately failed to bring the Kansas Core offline, her actions revealed the existence of the Cores to The Division's enemies, including the Outcasts, Roamers, and Black Tusk. Consequently, the Cores would suffer further attacks in the weeks and months after her death..
News of Rowan's dirty bomb in St. Louis would reach the East Coast. Black Tusk CEO Natalya Sokolova consulted with EOD Specialist Zachary "Stovepipe" Beattie about hypothetically using similar radioactive munitions, which greatly unsettled him. Stovepipe eventually became convinced the bomb from St. Louis was an experimental prototype stolen from Black Tusk, and angrily confronted Sokolova, leading to his death at Coney Island.
Maira's countermeasure, based on Parnell's code, in turn became the basis for a hacking protocol she would unwittingly develop for Black Tusk and use in an aborted attack on Texas Core.
Personality[]
Rowan was a driven individual who constantly sought challenges that would force her to grow and learn, and maintained peak physical condition as a cultivated habit even after leaving the Army. She also felt a strong sense of justice that led her to join the Strategic Homeland Division, in the hopes of preventing existential threats from harming her family. However, that self-righteousness would lead to her downfall, as Rowan became emotionally hardened from witnessing rampant death and cruelty amidst the Green Poison epidemic. She began manhandling belligerent survivors and coldly executing surrendering enemies, using her authority under Directive 51 to mete out ruthless punishment.
After learning of The Division's role in the deaths of her family, her altruism turned into a sociopathic vendetta against The Division, whom she claimed were just as murderous as the insurrectionist factions they fought. Her background as an epidemiologist assisted her in employing chemical, biological, and radioactive warfare, justifying her atrocities and those of her Outcast and Roamer allies as The Division forcing her hand. Rowan also became paranoid in believing Brenda had led her cell away from D.C. to hunt her down and refuting all contrary claims. However, she did not explicitly want to kill them, instead giving them an ultimatum to spare their lives if they turned back. She even admired Maira Kanhai's similar moral fiber, and believed that Maira would join her if she only knew of Brenda and The Division's misdeeds.
Appearances[]
- Tom Clancy’s The Division: Recruited
- Tom Clancy's The Division: Compromised (mentioned)
- Tom Clancy's The Division: Hunted (flashbacks)