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[Egan_BW]

Alright. My first two characters, Xael and Dr. Freeman, both retired to Hephaestus. I'd like to at least hear what happened to them, even if you don't use these actions.
Did they survive and escape the heph system?

If they did, They'll heph saint and co doing hephish things. If they're feeling quite foolish that day, they'll join ZBridges' mission.

As for my Xan... he's not a very serious character. The plan I had for him when the game was running was to raid the Deep Infirmary and selling datapads until he can buy the following items:

• Stat Respec, moving 5 points from Dexterity to Strength
• Two or more Tentacle Grafts, depending on how deadly the Infirmary seems

If he happens to meet my other two characters, he'll try to convince them to combine their powers, in order to use Metamagic Threefold to save the goddamn universe.
And he won't use his frag grenades after he's dumped Dex, obviously.

Spoiler: Listed and Bolded actions, for reference and clarification (click to show/hide)

Xael Smirnova and Gordon Freeman:

• Try not to die on heph.
• Help Steve Saint with sciencey stuff, and killing sciency stuff that's gone berzerk.
• Get drunk, flip a coin to decide whether or not to join a mission to retrieve the Deathcube.

NOTE: They have the same actions, but that doesn't mean they're acting together. They just so happen to share very similar situations

Xannotthatxan Carvo:

• Run the Deep Infirmary to get mad doshes. (At least five token.)
• Spend doshes on two Tentacle Grafts, and a Stat repec to let me use them. Five points from Dex to Str. If I got extra mony, spend it on MORE TENTACLES.
• Find Xael Smirnova and Gordon Freeman, and combine our powers of metacancer to SAVE THE WORLD.

If any of the three miraculously survive, they'll retire to a new universe, with everyone else.

((Sorry for the overly complicated plans. ))

[Lenglon]

Spoiler: Lyra (click to show/hide)

Lyra would simply live, her essentially entirely robotized body giving her the potential to live a very, very long time. She'd want to be a friend and companion to people that were kind, and would use her extra senses and abilities to look out for them and protect them, usually completely invisible and undetected while she guarded them, simply showing herself when called or showing affection. her Id she would task out protecting people as well that she felt deserved it, and hopefully the stealth guardianship would leave an impression over time that kindness and selflessness does get rewarded.

Lyra would often pick someone as a child that seemed like a truly good person, and would stick with them as they grew if they managed to stay that way, disappearing if they lost their kind heart or finally died, and picking someone new. people other than the person that she had chosen as a companion that seemed deserving would be the ones she'd task her Id out to guard, reserving one for both herself and her current chosen companion. To avoid scaring her companion, she would stay hidden the vast majority of the time, only revealing herself when asked to do so, or when either she or her companion needed to have someone there to show affection.

Lyra's empathic gland and unique Haber Implant would allow her to be a much more effective defender than otherwise expected. She would feel when her companion needed company or needed privacy, and she would be able to detect and prevent acts from even other ampers or other unusual sources of danger.
Lyra wouldn't view herself as a crimefighter or anything like that. She wouldn't care about a thief stealing things for example. She just wants to protect those that, in her judgement, as worth protecting, and she wants to have friends she can trust will care for her the way she cares for them. It's just that her individual behavior, combined with her indefinate lifespan, would probably have some major long-term effects.

[Empiricist]

A guardian angel of sorts in the form of an invisible robot cat equipped with space-magic and a legion of invisible anime catgirls? That's certainly interesting, I hope other veterans take a similar option and just become a group of really odd superheroes

[syvarris]

Spoiler: Steve Saint (click to show/hide)

Saint's single goal is just to survive.  Preferably forever.  Power isn't really a goal in and of itself, but it does serve to make survival easier.

Primarily, he tries to make sure nobody has any reason to kill him--he tries to stay useful to Steve and ARM as a whole, whilr avoiding making any enemies.  If he does make enemies, he'll try to ensure they either die or cannot touch him.

Secondly, he engages in my standard behavior of building up a ludicrous amount of defenses, so that it is very difficult to kill him even if one desires to do so.  He'd try to get his own personal universe which he can stay in with his own EUE and infrastructure, and keep the coordinates of it secret.


Aside from that... Saint will just carry on managing ARM's infrastructure.  Continue to tinker and research.  Notably, he always avoids knowing the actual intrinsic reasons why magic works, because knowing that sort of stuff is dangerous to one's sanity; he'll only learn it if many others have done so without ill effect.

Edit: Oh, and Saint's primary character development has been his gradual change into a stereotypical AI.  He'a supposed to have become more similar to an AI than an actual human, largely due to extreme amounts of cyborgification.  He automates and augments his mind with computer programs, and at this point interacts with the physical world exclusively through them.

Edit2: Seeing how many people seem eager to turn themselves into new universal apocalypses, I might as well state that Saint will continue in his role of shutting down or isolating all the horrible anomalies people summon.  Can't have an insane criminal turning into God if Saint intends to survive forever, after all.

[MidnightJaguar]

You know, Steve Saint is kinda like Vetinari from Discworld at this point.

[syvarris]

I don't really know much of anything about Vetinari, but I think that's a complement?  I'll take it as a complement.

I just editted in one more bit about how he's basically been transforming himself into an AI, as that's rather central to his character.  Might change your opinion somewhat.

[MidnightJaguar]

Anything that reminds me of Discworld characters is a good thing.

Also, nah it doesn't change much. Vetinari is pretty logical and computer like, unless he's doing crossword puzzles or see's mimes.

[Zormod]

Zekthal would just settle down and live his life to the fullest, document and record as much about our original universe's space magic as possible, get a microwave amp installed if possible, since the Lurker isn't around here to screw with it, and if/when his organic body fails, replace it with pimpmetal and a braincase.

[Xantalos]

I admit, I'm supposed to be Internet-free for at least the next six days. However, I'm temporarily at a relative's home, and having only checked up on this I'm very glad I did. Very very very very glad. For today is the day when I finally get to reveal that thing I was keeping under wraps for literal years! Admittedly it's much less impressive than the hype I've built up around it, but I think you will admire my sheer persistence in pursuing my goals.

BOW DOWN MORTALS AND WITNESS XAN UNVEILED

Spoiler: The Big Secret (made big only because I wouldn't stop talking about it) (click to show/hide)

So I'm not sure if y'all remember way back when, but back in the relatively austere days of M15, Xan was still all flesh-horrory, but died due to STAN. He had a clone of himself on Heph, which ressurected, created a third clone, and promptly died during a Halloween event, losing control of itself and ending up being consumed by the Doctor. This third Xan is the one I've been playing as for a while now. While he'd like to get back to his original flesh horror form, there's no way since his powers were taken away courtesy of Miyamoto and Hasala.
That is what everyone thinks, at least.

What almost no one but me remembered is that the original Xan made another clone, before the one he hid in the vault on Hephaestus. This was an imperfect clone, the result of a 4 on the creation roll, hidden away in the infirmary. It was no more intelligent than a dog, but it still had the changing flesh Xan desired. No one knew about it save for me and the Doctor, who didn't care enough to tell anybody. It was the key to my ascension, free of the limitations of Steve, ARM, the whole lot of them.

It's why Xan suddenly took such a huge specialization in Medical for no apparent reason.

It's why he reacted with such glee when he was given the Vanessa body, and why he adopted that persona - no one could even suspect what he was doing for fear of foiling his plot.

You have to understand something about Xan - he is fundamentally terrified of dying. He initially started out thinking he was already dead, way back when I had no serious plans for him as a character. Then when he died and was reborn as the flesh horror, his psyche rationalized it as him becoming the only truly alive and sapient being in the entire cosmos. He shares many (completely unintentional) similarities to Nagash from Warhammer Fantasy - he's fundamentally a coward that doesn't want to die because dying is a total end, and when he ends (in his view of things) the universe does too, since why wouldn't it vanish when the only thing capable of observing it passes on? It's why he seeks to emulate the Doctor to such a great extent yet harbors such hate for him at the same time - to him, the Doctor isn't alive or an actual person, but a universal law that one can model itself after to become greater than it.

So Xan became Vanessa, and travelled to Heph to talk to the Doctor. I'm on a phone so I can't post all the PMs I have of their talk, but it ended up with Xan being granted a lesser form of the flesh horror, one that can modify itself and stuff, just slowly. It also can't create clones, but won't explode. Perfect, right? Actually, not so much. The reason Xan sought out his flesh horror form was because the creation of clones let him live on even if he died - insuring infinite continuity of the self, in other words. He needed the clone creation capacity of the original, because no matter how many defenses you put up around yourself, if you die, that's it, kaput. Xan wanted to change that. So he adopted the limited flesh horror body the Doctor gave him, got an Id Manifester, which in keeping with his massive narcissism turned out to be a copy of himself with flesh horror powers, got a few hapless meatshields, and ventured into the Deep Infirmary to claim his immortality.

This has all been several years in the making - my initial plan when I got the flesh horror body way back at ER's peak around mission 11 was to stay with ARM and drop off a clone at every planet we visited - that way if I died I could create another character and stay content that Xan was still out there doing Xan stuff. Then when I died and woke up on Heph I entertained dreams of mounding the construction pits for our flesh-sod forces and implanting them all with an innate directive to obey me, thus giving me ultimate power. Didn't pan out, obviously. Then I got banned from being a flesh horror entirely and promptly said 'fuck that'. My enthusiasm for the game plummeted a little, I'll admit, especially when I promptly died again due to taking off my helmet in space. But as I was reading through the missions where I did crazy shit like being a dragon and a flying eyeball and stuff, I ran across that action where I created the one last clone. Everyone had forgotten about it in the confusion, even me. I PMed piecewise about it, and got an affirmation that the clone was still in the infirmary, though out of my control, and thus my plans began. And now at last they reach their conclusion.

A bit of a slog to read through, I know, but now you understand why I did pretty much everything I've done in ER for at least the past 2 years. Hopefully it lived up to all the vague hype I put it to.

Now then, for my actual plan of action.

Spoiler: Xan's Action Plan (click to show/hide)

This assumes that I managed to find and capture my errant clone in the depths of the Deep Infirmary, and escape the universe with it and the Vanessa body - I'd planned to ask someone to program the latter to follow me around.

1. Find somewhere secluded where I could easily conduct research without being investigated - if that means staying with ARM forces as we colonize this new universe, so be it - just so long as I'm in a position where I can do sinister medical shit and not be lynched for it, I'm game.

2. Take advantage of my essential biological immortality and the fact that my Id is an exact copy of me - though with more potent powers - to basically level grind my Medical skill into the stratosphere and extensively study my clone and how it's flesh operates, and how I might be able to either fuse it's flesh to myself or adopt its qualities. Do this thoroughly so that there's no chance of me fucking the next steps up due to something I didn't know or somesuch.

3. Preferably after at least a few mortal lifetimes of study of how I might be able to make myself into a greater flesh horror again, whether that would be by performing a brain transplant on myself via my Id into the specimen's flesh or by altering myself in some way, perform the operation. Take all possible precautions, use stims of the appropriate kinds to make sure of it, etc. Being Saint-level careful. If Maurice wants to help me, allow him to.

4. Assuming I survive said re-flesh-horrorification, spend however much time is necessary honing my mental discipline enough to make sure I never STAN again. Focus on what the Doctor told me, obtaining that cold detachment he spoke of.

5. Create clones of myself. Like a billion of them. Not all at once, one at a time. Being cautious here. Destroy and recycle their biomass if they're not exact replicas of me. Each clone will go elsewhere to do whatever it is that a mind like Xan's would want to do, but also would in turn create more clones, also making sure each one is a perfect replica.
Oh, and put one clone in the Vanessa body, it'd be a shame to waste it.

6. With immortality essentially insured, research into forbidden science shit for the rest of eternity. Try to eventually figure out how the Doctor made his body like it is, and modify myself in a like fashion. Mayhaps discover if something like Origin exists in the universe I'm in, and perhaps try to harness its power. Basically try to become god. Write myself into the fabric of reality itself, become an extrauniversal god and spread myself amongst the multiverse, so that the entity that is Xan will exist in perpetuity beyond even the end of eternity itself. Make sure not to tango with anything I can't kill easily or that could kill me easily. The goal is eternal existence, after all, eventually becoming a universe-devouring apocalypse is just a side effect.

I'll post the PMs that made up Xan's various conversations with the Doctor when I get back to a computer.

[Harry Baldman]

Cthunkan's ambition - live forever, master the IVAN powers, become progressively more of a giant robot-fleshmonster overlord of old. Maybe take charge of a colony eventually.

[DoctorMcTaalik]

((Xan's ambitions are considerably less destructive than I would have imagined. Makes sense, though.))

Spoiler: Auguste Bertrand Boole Euclid Euler Johnson (revised) (click to show/hide)

Unless I'm mistaken, Gus and Sir Jackson (as well as the stasis-demented Vincent) are currently stranded in a desolate pocket of Orgyverse, light years away from the nearest star. On their ship, they have a breeding stock of colonists, enough food to start up a colony, and an unspecified quantity of weapons.

Wielding his arbitrary authority as "General" Auguste Johnson, Gus intends to use the onboard security to maintain some semblance of order on-ship. While he won't personally micromanage much of anything (he is aware of his, erm, limitations), he will work with Vincent* to handle a lot of the general coordination of things (allocating labor, having people ration supplies, having surveys done of the population to determine its least valuable members, etc). He will routinely emphasize the importance of loyalty, and will assume an increasingly authoritative role as our resources dwindle.

Eventually, there isn't going to be enough to feed everyone. Even Gus could anticipate that. But hopefully, careful rationing can delay that point, and by the time we reach it we should have a pretty decent plan for quietly culling the unnecessary cattle from the herd. And when we inevitably resort to cannibalism, we're going to do it in a nice, orderly fashion; the old will go first, then the physically unfit, and so on. Essential personnel (myself, Vincent, the guards, and the medical staff) are off the menu, obviously.

If he lives to see the ship's purpose fulfilled, and we do in fact find a somewhat habitable planet before our ship collapses to insurrection, Gus would like to spend the remainder of his life helping to build the foundations of a lasting colony. If that means he's bossing around people who are almost certainly more intelligent than him, fine. If that means he's erecting ramshackle huts and lean-to's with whatever passes for timber in our strange new home... well, once a construction worker, always a construction worker, I suppose.

One last note- Gus would like to leave this world knowing that future generations of inbred colonists will remember the sacrifices that made their society possible. He may not be literate much of a writer, but he would still like to establish a written history for these people. Even if it's full of typos and gross misunderstandings. If he ever happens to write something along these lines, he intends to dedicate it to "Boss-er-Duster, Vincint, wassisface, that other guy, the girl... y'know, all the ol' blops'es. Excepting whatsit, er, Saint- fuck you, Saint. also my parents. oh yeah also sir jimson i guess"

*I'm assuming that Vincent would be ok with all of this, considering the role he played in Mission 23. I certainly hope so, anyway; I doubt Gus has the charisma or brains to do any of this on his own.

[NJW2000]

((Xan's ambitions are considerably less destructive than I would have imagined. Makes sense, though.))

A being that believes nothing but him is actually alive/sentient is trying to become entire universes. From anything non-Xan's point of view, this is extremely destructive.

He's basically trying to become another Lurker.

Spoiler: Christopher's Ambitions (click to show/hide)

Primarily, stay with ARM and help out a little with the move. Then if possible find where Sir Jackson is, help him set up a colony and Alot farm, and assist with and benefit from Sir Jackson's objectives. If he cannot find Sir Jackson, he will start his own colony with ARM, perhaps with other ARM personnel, as long as he can push through his rules (see below). He will assist with the military of the colony, training soldiers and fighting if necessary, while doing all he can to prevent UWM-style exploitation of the workers. Wherever he ends up, Christopher will try to make the rules drawn up in the last bullet point into law.


Along the way Christopher will try to:
 

• accquire more dakka and dakka-skills.
• Get heavier battle armour
• Mess around with minimum Xeno shit, unless it's really tempting practically virgin dakka
• draft then write a set of rules and principles to avoid the exploitation of workers and soldiers as was seen in the UWM to some degree, and very much so in HMRC/ARM. These will be fairly socialist, though by no means necessarily communist, and will be used for the colony Christopher joins. They will emphasize the sanctity of human life, and the belief that all humans and even transhumans (robots etc) deserve equal treatment. He will try to ensure that the colony is democratic in some manner.

For the last one, do keep in mind that Christopher is a gamer who thought he was a soldier for thirty years due to a VR prank, has trouble trusting reality due to his experiences with ARM and virtual reality, has little to no memory of civilian life, hasn't spoken to a real person who isn't totally nuts for thirty years, is somewhat thick, and is just generally unstable.


Sorry for long post.

[Gentlefish]

Spoiler: Ryan (click to show/hide)

Essentially, plans to uplift his cousins on the planet he's on, and become a god-being. He will use his Haebi-limbs to, basically, become immortal as possible. Whatever that means, even if it means his own body eventually becomes subsumed by the haebi.

Then, if that happens, he will seed this universe with his own Ryan-flavored Haebi spores and become a more benevolent Tyranid race of his own creation.

Otherwise, he will do his damndest to see this tribe (and others united under it) make it to space to spread storied of their God-Saviour.

It is likely that cross-breeding will happen between the new "colonists" and the tribesman of this universe. That's fine, and even encouraged. It is all a part of the uplifting. Ryan may not know all tech, but there are enough scientists and engineers with him to cover the basics all the way to the "modern" age. Hopefully.

[BFEL]

(haven't really kept up with this, so not sure EXACTLY what's going on, but the mention of escaping to other universes gives me something to go on at least. This may or may not be appropriate is what I'm saying )

Spoiler: STEPHEN HAWKING INVENTED EPILOGUES (click to show/hide)

Sensing quantum shenanigans that open the doors to the vastness of the multiverse, STEPHEN HAWKING reawakens, renewed by the knowledge that someone, somewhere REMEMBERS him and cares. The truth of his existence is made clear, for he was never a human being at all, but a remembrance himself. A meme.

And thus he knows what his fate must be. STEPHEN HAWKING must INVENT HIMSELF, spreading his message to all possible worlds, so that when the question comes up, wherever you are, the answer will always be

STEPHEN HAWKING INVENTED IT

[Corsair]

Spoiler: Konrad (click to show/hide)

Konrad continues to fight through the universe humanity flees to and to the others accessible through the doctor's EUE as needed. Fighting in the frontlines of every conflict, never fleeing, always protecting his comrades. Becoming a symbol of impeccable military doctrine and dedication to one's comrades. He continues to fight for millennia eventually a husk entirely maintained by the doctor's surgeries, eventually only active for battle. Still he never gives up, he always steps forward, because he is a soldier and he will hold the line.