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Wikus van de Merwe
1
Vital statistics
Title
Gender Male
Race Alien (mutated)
Faction Aliens
Status Alive. Mutated into an Alien
Location South Africa
District9pic3

Wikus Van der Merwe with some Non-Human characteristics

Wikus van de Merwe is the protagonist of District 9. He was portrayed by Sharlto Copley. He was one of the head operatives for the relocation of alien prawn-like residents of District 9 to their new home in District 10. There he was exposed to an alien chemical, causing his DNA to rapidly fuse with Prawn-DNA, giving him the ability to operate alien machinery and weapons. This caught the attention of the MNU, who sought to capture Wikus before his transformation was complete, they intended to dismember him and try to replicate his prawn DNA so that other humans would be able to use alien weapons, there were millions of dollars in weapons, but they could not be used by humans.

Christopher Johnson didn't trust Wikus at first, but he knew Wikus could not betray him because he was the only one that knew how to fix him, so both found weapons and went to MNU in order to obtain the fluid that turned Wikus into a hybrid and could start the Prawns mother ship and all its weapons. They make their way to MNU, there they find illegal medical experiments, but on their way out Christopher changes his mind, saying he needs to get help for his people, and it will take 3 years. An angry Wikus hits Christopher hard and starts the ship. But later a missile system is activated and destroys one of the engines, making it impossible to reach the mothership. Wikus and Christopher are arrested and on the way to MNU when they are attacked by Obesandjo and his gang.

Obesanjo wants Wikus' power to use alien machines, they were superstitious and believed that if they eat Wikus' arm then he will be able to use alien weapons. When Christopher witness Wikus being treated like a prawn he finally realizes that he is one of them, and humans will do everything in order to obtain Wikus' DNA. Christopher's son from the damaged Command ship initiates the commands to turn on the mother ship activating all alien machines, even the suit that was given to Obesanjo by a prawn in exchange for food, this suit kills Obesanjo and all his gang, when it is about to destroy Wikus it sees Wikus' hand and turns into manual mode. Wikus decides to use the suit to get out of there, on his way out he finds Koobus Venter a xenophobic soldier who loves to kill prawns and is the one hunting Wikus for MNU, Wikus tells Koobus to let him go, and leaves Christopher to him, the mother ship is completly activated and heads to the ship, for it turn into the command module.

Wikus heads to the command module and listens to Koobus ordering his team to kill Christopher for he didn't talk about what happened to the mother ship and why it is activated after almost 20 years, then Wikus realized he could not let Christopher get killed as he was the only chance of ever being normal again, so Wikus used the suit to killed Koobus' team and helped Christopher get to the command control and tells him to go home. Christopher knew that the suit was badly damaged and would soon render useless, but Wikus insists and Christopher leaves after promising Wikus he will return in 3 years to fix Wikus. Inside the command ship, Christopher and the mother ship pulls the command ship up, Wikus continues to fight against Koobus' team until only Koobus remains, Koobus shot Wikus' suit, and that was the final blow to the suit before it had to eject Wikus. When Koobus sees Wikus he realizes then why everyone wanted a piece of him. Koobus' orders are to take Wikus alive but at this point he just wants to see him dead. Then out of hiding, the other prawns who watched what Wikus did saved him and killed Koobus. At the end of the movie, Wikus is seen, now a complete Prawn, making a flower for his beloved wife.

District 9

A fully transformed Wikus, notice the heterochromia in his eyes, no other Prawn in District 9 shows this apart from Wikus. Blue eye on the left from his original human form. Yellow on the right, appeared during the mutation process. Possibly indicating a fully transformed Wikus still retains some of his humanity.

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