Character information

Trevelyan was born to Lienz Cossacks who had collaborated with the Nazis but attempted to defect to the UK at the end of World War II. When the UK instead sent them back to the Soviets, many were executed by Joseph Stalin's death squads. Though Trevelyan's parents survived, his father, ashamed to have lived, killed his wife and himself. At the time, Trevelyan was only six years old. He was then transported to the United Kingdom and taken in by MI6, which continued to sponsor his training and education throughout his childhood (by Trevelyan's own account, MI6 thought he would have been "too young to remember"). At 18, he began formally work for MI6 under the alias Agent 006. and subsequently began planning his revenge against the British government for his family's demise.^[2] He had considered recruiting fellow MI6 agent James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) to his cause, but ultimately deciding against it, believing Bond too loyal to MI6.

Trevelyan betrays MI6 on a mission alongside Bond to blow up the Arkhangelsk chemical weapons facility in the Soviet Union. During the operation, Trevelyan fakes his own execution with the help of the base's commander, Colonel Arkady Grigorovich Ourumov (Gottfried John). Bond manages to finish the mission and escapes unscathed by changing the sequence of detonation timers. This action unwittingly leads to Trevelyan being disfigured in the subsequent explosion. Later Bond admits to M (Judi Dench) that he feels responsible for Trevelyan's apparent death.

Nine years later, Bond's pursuit of a stolen helicopter and investigation of an explosion leads him to Saint Petersburg, where he learns from gangster Valentin Zukovsky (Robbie Coltrane) that the head of the crime syndicate responsible for the theft is a man operating under the name Janus, Later, when he finally meets Janus, Bond is shocked to discover the scarred Trevelyan.

Scheme

Trevelyan's scheme begins with the theft of the experimental, electromagnetically insulated Tiger helicopter from the French frigate La Fayette, using his two primary operatives, Ourumov, now a General in the Russian army and head of their Space Division, and Xenia Onatopp (Famke Janssen). With the helicopter, the two fly to the GoldenEye satellite facility in Severnaya, where they murder the staff, steal the access keys for the GoldenEye weapons satellite, and program the satellite to destroy the facility to cover up the theft. The GoldenEye weapons satellite is actually two smaller disposable satellites named Petya and Mischa, which are armed with nuclear warheads that when detonated in the atmosphere create electromagnetic pulses capable of destroying any machinery with an electronic signal.

Trevelyan plans to use GoldenEye to help him electronically steal hundreds of millions of pounds sterling from the Bank of England in London, with its electromagnetic pulse causing a blackout in London that would erase all evidence of the transaction. GoldenEye would also erase the bank's financial records, crippling the British economy and government, triggering a catastrophic currency crisis, and causing global economic chaos.

Bond stops this scheme with the help of surviving Severnaya technician Natalya Simonova (Izabella Scorupco) and CIA agent Jack Wade (Joe Don Baker). Wade helps Bond and Natalya track Trevelyan's Cuban headquarters and Natalya subsequently programs the GoldenEye satellite to crash after resetting the access codes. As Bond attempts to disable the GoldenEye antenna, Trevelyan attacks him and the two scrap on the bottom of the satellite antenna, suspended high above the dish. Bond eventually knocks Trevelyan off the antenna, but reflexively grabs him by the leg.

While hanging, Trevelyan smugly asks Bond, "For England, James?" Bond replies, "No, for me," and lets go. Trevelyan falls several stories down to the dish, but survives, mortally wounded. Moments later, the antenna array, sabotaged by Bond, explodes and collapses in a fiery wreck on top of Trevelyan, finally killing him.