Deus Ex – How to Understand the Meaning Behind Anna Navarre and Gunther Hermann’s Killswitch Codes

JC Denton can figure out the killswitches for each as the storyline progresses, he decrypts Anna Navarre's killswitch "Flatlander woman" on his escape from UNATCO headquarters, and Gunther Hermann's killswitch "Laputan machine" after speaking to Jaime Reyes in Paris.

What I want to know is, do these even mean anything? Searching it up online, I fail to find much information about Anna Navarre's killswitch code, and for Gunther's killswitch it seems to also be an achievement in DX:MD, but nothing more.

Best Answer

Laputan Machine (source):

The phrase itself refers to the flying city of Laputa from Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels. In the novel, the Laputans are masters of theoretical engineering but completely lacking in practical mechanical knowledge; the devices they produce are tremendously innovative "on paper" but badly flawed in practice (like Gunther himself).

Flatlander Woman (source):

Navarre's killphrase, Flatlander Woman, is a reference to the novel Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott, about people living in a two-dimensional world, in which women are just lines. They are invisible when seen edge-on, and dangerous because they are very sharp and can inadvertently cut people in half. The killphrase is a reference to Navarre's cloaking power and her deadliness.