Menial

Menial
Distinctions	Humanoid
Games featured	Resistance: Fall of Man Resistance: Retribution (cameo) Resistance 2 (mentioned) Resistance 3 (Introduction cutscene)

Menials are a strain of Chimera that are not intended for combat but rather the process of basic labor. As such they are the worker caste of the Chimeran hierarchy.

Overview

Menials were tasked in non-combative duties such as overseeing conversion centers. They are known to ignore other Chimera as they mindlessly continue their duties. Such a role makes them rarely seen in combat operations as they are unarmed as well as both sluggish and non-aggressive. However, it should be noted that they are unpredictable creatures which makes them dangerous, especially when they are cornered. During gameplay, Menials attack the player by sluggishly approaching them, then grabbing and viciously mauling them, or (the less common form of attack) simply hitting the player.

Following the Battle of London, Menials were beginning to die out due to a lack of new bodies and the new conversion process of using Spinners.

Resistance: Fall of Man

Menials are first encountered in Grimsby where Nathan Hale and the other comatose soldiers were taken to be converted. Menials are not much of a threat, though they do have a habit of sneakily creeping up on the player. If the player is grabbed by a Menial, an action sequence appears in which the player must shake the Sixaxis controller to fight off the Menials relentless mauling attacks or it will eventually kill the player; this is in fact one of the most damaging attacks in the game, taking one full health bar once the player is in the grasp of the Menial and even more damaged caused if the Menial is to continue viciously mauling the player.

General strategies

• A single melee attack will generally take out Menials quickly. The Reaper Carbine is very effective on a second run due to its double-speed melee attack, allowing almost any number of Menials to be taken down without risk.
  • Interestingly, Menials will simply stop moving and hiss at the player when one of them is killed by a melee attack. This allows players to simply use such an attack against a group of these enemies.
• Do not use grenades; they are surprisingly aware of explosives.
  • Menials are rather stupid despite being wary of grenades, for they may drop an energy ball that they carry and blow themselves up. However, they can also throw the energy ball at you, which does considerable damage. If you meet with a Menial carrying an energy ball, if your quick and accurate, shoot the energy ball to blow them up and any other enemy around.
• Some weapons that are also effective include the Rossmore shotgun, Bullseye, L11-2 Dragon and Sapper mine-launcher.
• Destroy explosive barrels when menials are close to them.

Resistance 2

Menials do not make a reappearance in Resistance 2, but were mentioned in several Intel documents.

Resistance: Retribution

A single Menial makes only a cameo appearance in the opening prologue of Resistance: Retribution, where Johnny Grayson was infected beyond rescue before James Grayson breaks into the room and kills the Menial.

Resistance 3

Menials only appear in the intro cutscene. As shown in the game's summary of the series, it is suggested that they were in fact the very first human-Chimera creature to ever appear on Earth due to direct contamination by the Chimeran virus after the Tunguska Event.

Gallery

Resistance: Fall of Man

Still of Menials in the Grimsby conversion center.

A Menial about to bite the player.

A Menial lunging at the player.

Resistance 3

A Menial appearing in a cutscene of Resistance 3.

A Menial dragging a human victim to be converted.

Trivia

• The strain's name refers to something dull or unchallenging, particularly a task. People called "Menials" were lower-class workers who typically performed such tasks.
• In Fall of Man, when there are more than a single Menial coming at the player, if the player kills a Menial with the melee attack the other Menials stop on the spot and simultaneously hiss at you. It is oddly humorous especially when parts of the game have up to ten at a single time. This gives the player ample opportunity to easily kill Menials through meleeing while they're busy hissing.
• Menials seem to possess basic intelligence on par with humans. Though they will attack if they see the player, Menials can be seen outside in the conversion center in Grimsby, doing tasks such as carrying power orbs and typing on a keypad at stations outside. They can be also found at a mortar battery with Hybrids in Nottingham, manning the mortars while the Hybrids defend their position.
• Sometimes Menials will drop a power orb they are carrying and blow themselves up.
• In co-op, the menials will not bite either player, instead hitting them.
• A Menial appears in the opening cutscene of Resistance: Retribution, but does not appear as an enemy during actual gameplay. In the game itself it is mentioned that Menials began to disappear after the destruction of the London tower to make room for a new type of conversion centers. All playable events in Retribution are situated after the destruction of the hub tower in London, so the Menials were already extinct.
  • This is contradicted by both Resistance 2 which states there were Menials in Chicxulub Crater, and Resistance: A Hole in the Sky which states that Menials are still in use, but instead of the old conversion process they are made by Spinners. It is not at all clear how Spinners are supposed to create the metal parts of a Menial, or whether the claim in Hole in the Sky is canon or an error by the writers.
  • Regardless of the above, no Menials have been seen during gameplay since Resistance: Fall of Man and they were not even mentioned in Resistance 3; as far as the games are concerned the strain appears to be either extinct or nearly so.