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Let's start with quotes first.
The Machine
At least Extraordinary Genius: Can predict deaths before they happen. It prevented at least 54 terrorist attacks. The machine can simulate and evaluate the results of different strategies. It can create and process hundreds of thousands of highly detailed, highly accurate simulations in just a fraction of a second(“If-Then-Else”)(“Asylum” and “QSO”). By analyzing Ko's blood, he reviewed 5 trillion possible combinations of human and bird flu, calculated the appropriate rearrangement of chromosomes that could reveal the super virus that killed James Ko, and developed a treatment in a very short time("Reassortment"). An entire alternate world where the machine did not exist was simulated with 96.8% accuracy(.exe). After being armed by Root, it was able to defeat the samaritan, whom he had previously lost in over 10 billion different scenarios("ShotSeeker")("Return-0").
Harold Finch
Extraordinary Genius: Finch is extremely adept with technology, having created several bugs and SIM card readers to clone phones. He created some of the most advanced computer systems in existence, including the Internet(“Dead Reckoning”). He also created The Machine and was able to create a clone of Samaritan with a small piece of Samaritan's code. Upon receiving a mere sample of code from the Machine, Finch is able to recode it around to act as a virus within a virus, crashing but then freeing the Machine(3x16, "RAM"). On missions, often uses a number of techniques to acquire information, such as reversing a speaker to form a crude microphone, tampering various tech, or good old social engineering. On one occasion, he even managed to be a good impromptu sniper spotter, accurately calculating distance and atmospheric conditions. He claimed he could hack the Pentagon(“Identity Crisis”), he also hacked the Department of Defense(“Dead Reckoning”). He hacked the CIA and added Michael Cole as an agent to the CIA's system(“Trojan Horse”). Finch is skilled at creating and deciphering coded messages, having programmed the Machine to send him numbers using the Dewey Decimal System, and once left a message for Reese in the Tap Code. He can read braille and understands Morse Code(“Bad Code”) (“Provenance”). Finch was able to slip a burner phone into Reese's isolated cell inside of Rikers Island without being caught despite Agent Donnelly ordering that Reese and the other three men be left with no way to contact the outside world(“2πR”). To communicate with Reese without being detected, Finch was able to disguise cell phones under cloned IMEI signatures, which the police and FBI were unable to track for over a year and a half. The FBI only figured out Finch's system after working for months to figure it out after learning that Reese had been communicating with his "handler." However, although they were able to track the phones via signature, they were unable to listen to the calls or find Finch himself(“Shadow Box”). Finch has demonstrated ability to defuse bombs. When faced with a bomb with a cell phone timer, Finch was able to analyze the bomb and, using his knowledge of electronics, hack and defuse the cell phone moments before the bomb exploded. Finch was able to do this, even though he had never disarmed a bomb before, and Mark Snow, a trained CIA agent, had been unable to disarm a similar vest for months(“Dead Reckoning”). Finch at least has enough chemistry knowledge to blow up a meth lab and walk Shaw through it(“Razgovor”). Although Finch is skilled in computer science, he also demonstrates proficiency in Electrical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering.(“Legacy”) (“Nautilus”) (“YHWH”). He also managed to beat The Machine at chess.(“If-Then-Else”)
Root
Extraordinary Genius: Two years after leaving Texas, she hacks into a drug lord's bank account, stealing $100,000, and framing her friend's killer for the robbery, getting him killed(2x02, "Bad Code"). Discovered the existence of the machine single-handedly, and learned the operating patterns of Harold Finch and John Reese, successfully drawing them out into the open. Root managed to get his number sent to Team Machine by putting a hit on herself. This involved creating a fairly complete fake identity, including anti-tracking techniques such as paying people with their own money. This made him so untraceable to Team Machine that the Machine itself was forced to give Reese a clue(2x01, "The Contingency"). She managed to hack Harold Finch.
Sameen Shaw
Gifted: Shaw was a member of ISA. She is trained in surveillance, information-gathering (passive, active, and "forced") and counter-intelligence techniques. She has also received training in interrogation techniques and shows a near inhuman resistance to physical, mental, and emotional torture herself (her SERE instructor must have loved her). Along with being able to plan assassinations, Shaw is also capable of using her knowledge to prevent one. Shaw is a medical doctor, and described by her colleagues during her residency as "technically brilliant" and having a "brilliant mind". She is noted to have gone to truly heroic measures in an attempt to save a patient though she ultimately failed. Shaw is also good at reading others, and determining a plan of attack in response. Recognizes secret service agents by formation. Spots weaknesses in every person in the room. She managed to resist of over 7,053 simulations over about nine months. She even managed to keep count.
John Reese
Gifted: John is shown to be very intelligent. He can quickly come up with tactics and strategies to subdue his opponents with ease. He has been able to identify former military personnel by their tactics and weaponry. He is good at blending in and "hiding in plain sight." He has been able to go undercover in more than one situation and play a convincing role. Not surprisingly, he can quote from Sun-Tzu's The Art of War
The Machine
The Machine's durability while in the suitcase must be at least wall level. The Suitcase takes no damage from falling from an airplane and is bulletproof.
-Reese
-The Machine, to Harold
- Greer, to Samaritan
The Machine
At least Extraordinary Genius: Can predict deaths before they happen. It prevented at least 54 terrorist attacks. The machine can simulate and evaluate the results of different strategies. It can create and process hundreds of thousands of highly detailed, highly accurate simulations in just a fraction of a second(“If-Then-Else”)(“Asylum” and “QSO”). By analyzing Ko's blood, he reviewed 5 trillion possible combinations of human and bird flu, calculated the appropriate rearrangement of chromosomes that could reveal the super virus that killed James Ko, and developed a treatment in a very short time("Reassortment"). An entire alternate world where the machine did not exist was simulated with 96.8% accuracy(.exe). After being armed by Root, it was able to defeat the samaritan, whom he had previously lost in over 10 billion different scenarios("ShotSeeker")("Return-0").
Harold Finch
Extraordinary Genius: Finch is extremely adept with technology, having created several bugs and SIM card readers to clone phones. He created some of the most advanced computer systems in existence, including the Internet(“Dead Reckoning”). He also created The Machine and was able to create a clone of Samaritan with a small piece of Samaritan's code. Upon receiving a mere sample of code from the Machine, Finch is able to recode it around to act as a virus within a virus, crashing but then freeing the Machine(3x16, "RAM"). On missions, often uses a number of techniques to acquire information, such as reversing a speaker to form a crude microphone, tampering various tech, or good old social engineering. On one occasion, he even managed to be a good impromptu sniper spotter, accurately calculating distance and atmospheric conditions. He claimed he could hack the Pentagon(“Identity Crisis”), he also hacked the Department of Defense(“Dead Reckoning”). He hacked the CIA and added Michael Cole as an agent to the CIA's system(“Trojan Horse”). Finch is skilled at creating and deciphering coded messages, having programmed the Machine to send him numbers using the Dewey Decimal System, and once left a message for Reese in the Tap Code. He can read braille and understands Morse Code(“Bad Code”) (“Provenance”). Finch was able to slip a burner phone into Reese's isolated cell inside of Rikers Island without being caught despite Agent Donnelly ordering that Reese and the other three men be left with no way to contact the outside world(“2πR”). To communicate with Reese without being detected, Finch was able to disguise cell phones under cloned IMEI signatures, which the police and FBI were unable to track for over a year and a half. The FBI only figured out Finch's system after working for months to figure it out after learning that Reese had been communicating with his "handler." However, although they were able to track the phones via signature, they were unable to listen to the calls or find Finch himself(“Shadow Box”). Finch has demonstrated ability to defuse bombs. When faced with a bomb with a cell phone timer, Finch was able to analyze the bomb and, using his knowledge of electronics, hack and defuse the cell phone moments before the bomb exploded. Finch was able to do this, even though he had never disarmed a bomb before, and Mark Snow, a trained CIA agent, had been unable to disarm a similar vest for months(“Dead Reckoning”). Finch at least has enough chemistry knowledge to blow up a meth lab and walk Shaw through it(“Razgovor”). Although Finch is skilled in computer science, he also demonstrates proficiency in Electrical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering.(“Legacy”) (“Nautilus”) (“YHWH”). He also managed to beat The Machine at chess.(“If-Then-Else”)
Root
Extraordinary Genius: Two years after leaving Texas, she hacks into a drug lord's bank account, stealing $100,000, and framing her friend's killer for the robbery, getting him killed(2x02, "Bad Code"). Discovered the existence of the machine single-handedly, and learned the operating patterns of Harold Finch and John Reese, successfully drawing them out into the open. Root managed to get his number sent to Team Machine by putting a hit on herself. This involved creating a fairly complete fake identity, including anti-tracking techniques such as paying people with their own money. This made him so untraceable to Team Machine that the Machine itself was forced to give Reese a clue(2x01, "The Contingency"). She managed to hack Harold Finch.
Sameen Shaw
Gifted: Shaw was a member of ISA. She is trained in surveillance, information-gathering (passive, active, and "forced") and counter-intelligence techniques. She has also received training in interrogation techniques and shows a near inhuman resistance to physical, mental, and emotional torture herself (her SERE instructor must have loved her). Along with being able to plan assassinations, Shaw is also capable of using her knowledge to prevent one. Shaw is a medical doctor, and described by her colleagues during her residency as "technically brilliant" and having a "brilliant mind". She is noted to have gone to truly heroic measures in an attempt to save a patient though she ultimately failed. Shaw is also good at reading others, and determining a plan of attack in response. Recognizes secret service agents by formation. Spots weaknesses in every person in the room. She managed to resist of over 7,053 simulations over about nine months. She even managed to keep count.
John Reese
Gifted: John is shown to be very intelligent. He can quickly come up with tactics and strategies to subdue his opponents with ease. He has been able to identify former military personnel by their tactics and weaponry. He is good at blending in and "hiding in plain sight." He has been able to go undercover in more than one situation and play a convincing role. Not surprisingly, he can quote from Sun-Tzu's The Art of War
The Machine
- Sound Manipulation: While Root was being tortured by Control, as soon as given the opportunity, the Machine was able to communicate via morse code at 15kHz (beyond the torturer's range of hearing) in order to transmit info so she could save herself.3x12, "Aletheia" After Root's death, he adopted her sound.
- Immortality (Type 1 and 6): The Machine can live forever and transfer itself to other devices.
- Heat Manipulation: An earlier version of the machine overheated a server and burned it.
- Immortality (Type 1 and 6): Samaritan can live forever and transfer itself to other devices.
- Stealth Mastery: John's time in the CIA has provided him with a wealth of skills in secrecy and investigation. He also does a good job of the basics, such as pickpocketing and lockpicking. Reese has been shown to be able to pickpocket people to determine who they are or grab keys to information. He lifted the wallets from three other candidates for a bodyguard job, thus showing them to be incompetent. Reese is good at blending in and "hiding in plain sight." He has been able to go undercover in more than one situation and play a convincing role, such as in when he went undercover as a new driver for the fixer he was following
- Immense PainTolerance: Reese has an unbreakable will and a remarkably high threshold for pain. Physically, he often can continue on with little detriment, despite gun wounds of various severity. He was once tortured with electricity in Kandahar for sixteen hours simply for refusing to give his captors his name. When former Stasi agent Ulrich Kohl was looking for his wife, he tortured Reese by punching needles into specific nerves on his body, such as the humerus, and Reese never cracked. (“Foe”) In addition, after Carter's death, he went on a one-man search for her killer, even though critically wounded from gunshot wounds (“The Devil's Share”). Despite being shot from a sniper rifle in the gut and leg, John managed to escape the CIA agents. One particular time, fueled by vengeance, John was able to storm across the city to his target, including defeating a squad of U.S. Marshals while critically injured.He only failed to kill his target becaue his gun was jammed by his own blood.
- Master Interrogator: Reese knows how to get people to talk. In order to get information about a kidnapping, he captured one member of a gang and threw him in the trunk of his car and drove around an open track recklessly. When he captured another member, he untied the first member's hands and offered him a burger if he could get their boss' name from the second member, which he did (“Judgment”).
- Hacking: As a part of his job, Reese regularly spies on persons of interest by cloning their phones, hacking their emails, and following them from afar.
- Explosion Manipulation with grenade launchers
- Vehicular Mastery: The supervisor of the Special Activities Division in the CIA remarked that he displayed "particular... creativity in hand-to-hand combat and evasive driving exercises("5x03, "Truth Be Told").
- Marksmanship: Reese is skilled with any kind of firearm, including shotguns, rifles, submachine guns, sidearms, and even grenade launchers. He shows his skill regularly as he usually shoots hostiles in the shoulder or kneecap to incapacitate them without killing them.
- Stealth Mastery: Finch is an expert in counter-surveillance tactics as he lost both Reese and Shaw when they tried to tail him (“Ghosts”) (“Nothing to Hide”). He can detect even the most subtle interrogation tactics like when Reese asked what's good at the restaurant they were meeting at and Finch deduced that he was trying to figure out if he was a regular and lived nearby. When Philip Chapple slipped a tracking device into Finch's pocket, he was aware of it and promptly dumped the device into a laundry truck from New Jersey, laying a false trail for Chapple's men.
- Vehicular Mastery: Finch flew and landed a small fixed-wing aircraft in heavy weather (“Proteus”) and remotely landed a passenger jet at Rome Airport (“4C”).
- Immense PainTolerance: In “return 0”, Finch was shot in the gut and bleeding out, but made his way across New York City dodging Samaritan operatives and climbing onto and then later off of the roof of a building.
- Genius Intelligence
- Stealth Mastery and Social Influencing: Root blends into roles masterfully having been Special Counsel's secretary and collecting information from him without suspicion for months, impersonating Veronica Sinclair (Michael Cole's CIA contact), assuming the identity of a psychotherapist, and also several times as the same FBI agent.
- Immense PainTolerance: Root has shown herself to have a high tolerance for pain in “Aletheia”, taking nearly all of Control's syringes and enduring a stapedectomy without anesthesia. While being tortured she was also able to pickpocket Control for her knife and escape her bonds.
- Genius Intelligence
- Immense PainTolerance: Again, like Reese, high pain threshold, though this is more due to her personality disorder. It makes her rather tenacious and resistant to pain in general. For instance, after being losing a lot of blood from an untreated shoulder wound, she kept on going, simply duct taping her shoulder together.
Resistant to torture due to some of the same reasons. When being threatened with an iron, she simply replied that she "enjoyed this sort of thing("2x16, "Relevance"). In one extreme example, she managed to resist most of the psychological effects of over 7,053 simulations over about nine months. She even managed to keep count. These simulations had the primary objective of using her own memories against her, to lead Samaritan to the Machine and the rest of the team. Admittedly, her aloof/apathetic nature sort of ended up working against her in this. When Samaritan reached out with its simulations in the last few, she actually killed one of Samaritan's targets(5x07, "QSO"). She has shown an ability to withstand pain enough to perform medical procedures on herself, such as a blood transfusion or removing a bullet. - Stealth Mastery: As an ISA agent, Shaw would also require a wealth of skills in secrecy and investigation. However, she usually prefers to act as an assassin, and often doesn't blend in well socially. Finch provided her with a business card to his Harold Wren identity as a job offer. She turned this down, however within only a few weeks, she managed to track down Harold at their "base." Shaw is rather fond of various bugs and wiretapping as well. She plants a bug in Team Machine's base almost as soon as she finds it, and it was unable to be found by Harold(3x05, "Разговор").
- Marksmanship: Shaw is a highly skilled marksman with a range of firearms, including hand guns and sniper rifles. As a member of the team, Shaw routinely uses a sniper rifle to lend support. She once used a sniper rifle to shoot a man in the dark, in the arm (so as to incapacitate, but not kill him), through a brick wall (“Liberty”). Unlike Reese, who utilizes the C.A.R. System shooting technique (Center Axis Re-lock) as a foundation upon which other shooting skills were built, Shaw is much more traditional in technique, stance, and so forth, likely an intentional difference to show her more "traditional" military history (U.S. Marine Corps for Shaw and U.S. Army for Reese, including Infantry, Airborne, Ranger, Sniper, Special Forces Soldier ("Green Beret"), and 1st SFOD-D Operator.) She was able to shoot at the President of the United States, but purposefully fire near-misses to keep him from falling into a trap. (“Synecdoche”)
- Martial Arts: Shaw is skilled in close quarters combat, holding her own against opponents physically larger than herself with little trouble. She, like Reese, exhibits an extremely high proficiency with numerous hand to hand combat styles, in particular Krav Maga.
- Hacking: As a part of his job, Reese regularly spies on persons of interest by cloning their phones, hacking their emails, and following them from afar.
The Machine's durability while in the suitcase must be at least wall level. The Suitcase takes no damage from falling from an airplane and is bulletproof.
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