I could easily see you giving First a voice at the end of the story, just to A. Signify the end of First’s story, and B. Satisfy those who wish for First to get a voice.
Doing so at the end would also make it so you don’t have to worry about the whole “relatable” thing.
Heck, you could even make it a choice, such as a Doctor telling First they can get their voice if they so wish, and First could decide whether they wanted to remain mute, or get a voice.
Giving First the choice could also satisfy those who wish for First to remain mute.
Just to be clear, I don’t really mind whether First remains mute or not.
I think a clichéd recovery is the last thing we need. And making it a choice would also be a poor idea (in my mind), since I can’t see any good reason why First themselves would ever choose to remain mute (even though the readers may prefer it).
Oh I don’t want to change First from a mute. My interest is purely scientific.
As for why to make them mute, I think it makes more sense if the point of studying First was to learn as opposed to keeping them.
I think the next stage Dr Lydia saved us from was one we would not have survived. Having learned what they could the subject would be terminated before it was to late.
I thought about that too, it would explain the urgency of getting First away from krv. But we can’t be sure about that either. First is a very valuable test subject for them, alone for their abilities, but we still don’t know what exactly they tried to get out of the tests with them. Is it just foundational research? Did they wanted to clone first to get a new test subject? Where did they even get First from (are they a test tube baby genetically manipulated or just some child they buyed/stole that seemed promising)? By now we really don’t know that much tbh.
It also seems like there is much money to make with the right Freak/Swing under a companies control, not just through research. However, First could be deemed to be too dangerous and uncontrollable because of their near invulnerability…
@Snoe Oh noticed that Lollipop’s profile gets also displayed when chosing Nyoka’s.
I’d assumed the scientists made First mute to make them easier to control. Their thoughts might have been that not being able to speak would make First more dependent on them and less able to argue against them. First can sit with arms crossed and pout, but can’t really make elaborate requests and demands when they can’t communicate effectively with people. It’s the whole “children should be seen, not heard” thing. If First was meant to be used as a weapon (which I also assumed) it would make sense that you wouldn’t want your weapon to speak back to you. They should take orders and carry them out, not ask questions.
But what about follow up questions to orders? Questions to clarify unclear orders? Asking questions is not the same as questioning given orders. They are necessary to avoid mistakes.
And First anyway is still asking questions even when it’s just by writing on a white board. And they certainly find ways to be noticed, even when it’s not by being heard, especially a troublemaker First. The drawback from making them mute is making communication with the test subject more difficult and opposed to making them depending on the company it only makes them depending to few close people that mind to learn and communicate with them through sign language…however Dr. Cormel’s special position could be on purpose, even when it backfired in the end.
It also makes simple questions to see how the test subject itself sees the tests difficult. And that kind of information indeed could be important depending on what they research with all the tests. Wanting to know how resistent the subject is to pain? You only can ask. Wanting to know the quality of the pain (sharp, dull, only a light prickle)? Only the test subject can answer this question.
I agree, but whoever is giving the orders might not. First is not a soldier, but a weapon. A weapon is not a person. It makes me think of the scene in Ghost in the Shell when Batou gets freaked out when one of the AI tanks ponder its lack of a soul and asks about his view on God. This is not the kind of behavior you want from your weapons, and making them unable to communicate helps prevent that.
Yea, if their goal was a silent weapon that did what it was told without questions or objections, their plan certainly didn’t work out how they’d wanted. I imagine it was the sort of decision that sounded reasonable at the time: Removing the subject’s ability to talk would make them less able to object and further assist in their dehumanization and conditioning. Obviously that failed. This is only what I thought was their initial plan, I never tried to argue it was necessarily a good plan.
It’s a plan that makes only sense when the bosses don’t even know a minimum of human behavior. First is no machine and that can be an advantage when using them, them being able to evaluate a situation on themself and quickly reacting to it is a plus. If treated right they can be indoctrinated and manipulated into loyality. And then them not being able to easy communicate is a hindrance for them working effective. Plans have to be changed, objectives change and them not being able to easely communicate with their client is a hindrance.
But making someone mute doesn’t stop someone from communicating. People still interact with their environment. If they wanted First stop from communicating they should have thought of something else. And it’s not even useful when First’s only purpose is being a lab rat, communication with the test subject gives insights in things that can’t be tested by machines.
If Firsts aphonia is caused by the people making tests on them, they certainly didn’t thought that through.
One of the only plausible reasons I can imagine for them causing First’s aphonia is if they already knew pretty early on how First’s darwins syndrom would manifest and what kind of test that had to do and they wanted to go easy on some of the scientist’s feelings. Children screaming from pain is nothing nice to hear and we don’t want the poor poor scientists suffer from remorse or headaches or something… (Look how honest my sympathy for them is *sarcasm*)
How early do the effects of darwins syndrom even show? Is it different from person to person? First most likely showed from the beginning some celluler differences and the constant training fueled the effects through stimulating an adaption to the stress. Or do they just have some standard test they make until they can determine how the darwins syndrom manifests in their test subjects and only after that they start their specific tests to look were the limits of the subject are?
We are told that our power set is conveniently similar to a former big bad. I want to say their name was Kreegan? If the tests are less about understanding our power and more about knowing when we’re ready to be harvested then it would make a lot more sense.
To clear some things. (and to avoid international incident lol)
No First’s being mute isn’t an intentional condition, they were born with it.
Darwin’s Syndrome is something someone is born with the greater the ability to the more it afflicts the carriers physiology. Powerful Freaks often suffer some sort of genetic disorder of physical handi-cap while lesser powered had a reduced chance of being born with these health problems though most powers tended to fill a gap to cover for some of these short comings and most going beyond that as Darwin’s Syndrome doesn’t stop at that it mutates beyond correcting the problem into a complete genetic overhaul and BAM superpowers. Its why the majority of the first-generation Darwins having a short life expectancy; because of underlying medical conditions.
The current generation and ‘some’ of the early Darwins are lucky to have minor conditions comparatively or lucked out with none at all. So atleast 50% of Freaks have something wrong with them on a physiological level.
Swigs on the other hand are healthy by comparison but develop neurological, psychological or nervous system issues and this happens at a much higher rate since Darwins is induced rather suddenly and its a shock to the system.
I could get into the entirety of First’s condition but that’d take a while and be a lil spoilerish *snicker
Kreagan, and yes he does have a similar powerset. Bad depends on your point of view and who’s side you’re on.
As for First on Ice, why waste a specimen, one could always open the fridge and continue research without worrying about the specimen ‘thinking’ too much. I wont say thats the whole story though there’s plenty of room of wild reasons.
Heck for all you know they could have been using First to figure out how to bring down Kreagan? or how to Make the monster? Or maybe they were trying to cure cancer? Create new armor systems based off their skin? or Figure out how cryogenics could work? or maybe First was the THE first! Maybe there was a information leak and they needed to move First to a new location before they were freed by an competitor or an army of Freaks! Or maybe First is an alien?..nah… Or maybe they are actually magic!
And… lets stop before I go on the First is actually a dragon in human form waiting to take of the world with an army of Furbies wielding KFC sporks.
But the way Dr.Cormel talks about First when Francis brings up phase 2 seems to make clear that the main use they have for First is research. Why else should Dr Cormel try to stop Phase 2 by saying:
“No! First isn’t ready for that, there’s more we can learn!”
Even how Dr. Francis dismisses this makes clear that research seems to be a (if not the) primarly use for First:
“About what? How high your pet can jump when told to? Give it up it’s not your child, it’s research material! Just another freak.”
What also indicates that they did/do tests also on other Freaks, though First is still a special case with their abilities. Or Dr. Francis is just an even bigger jerk as we already think he is.
I spend 20 minutes formulating the arguments for my reply only for the author to step in and tell me my interpretation was wrong. I guess I’m just quicker to ascribe something to malice than chance
First is called First because they are a prototype. If the tests are successful, more will be cloned and harvested to make armor from their skin!
1st Battalion of the Fighting Furbies reporting for duty ma’am!
Between this and the previous talk of puppy dog First, I suddenly have images of 101 Dalmations running through my mind with Dr. Francis as Cruella DeVille evilly planning to skin cute puppy Firsts. Horrors!
I only started playing works in progress just recently but this really ranks wi``th the best, not least because it’s so different from a great deal of stuff I have played. It never would have occurred to me to create a mute MC and though you must have heard it hundreds of times by now I’m gonna go ahead and say that it was an inspired choice, particularly matched with a powerset like Em. It creates an almost entirely unique dynamic which I’ve greatly enjoyed thus far.
Well if we really need First to speak, in order to give interviews or something, there would be nothing to stop them from using a radically more advanced version of the system professor Hawking uses to “voice” their thoughts.
If you can make a true neural or telepathic interface for that kind of gadget it would have the effect of rendering First able to talk.
I mean First would hardly be the first attempt to use tech to (partially)overcome an inborn handicap, that is as old as the first wooden legs at the very least.
As to why they were not provided with such a gadget during their captivity I think that could be explained by what others said about them not wanting any “backtalk” from their labrat, but now that First is free and perhaps even working for a tech company specifically developing products for superpowered people there would, realistically be nothing to stop them from at least looking into that possibility.
Just need a device that’s sturdy otherwise expensive tech will get crushed far too often to pay for.
So don’t expect anything too fancy I’m being practical and First hasn’t the cash.
it would be expensive to calibrate it since you did mention firsts brain works louder than others so it would have to be specially tuned to be considerably less sensitive on top of sturdier so very custom made for that thought one
for a eye choice well just sturdy still a problem for someone like first who has trouble with doors chairs tables “squishy” people. All in all those things would already be costly without customization so im most sertainly able to believe first could not afford that. Even if first could afford One it would still break quickly regardless of durability as first is tough and gets into issues Crashing planes getting shot with sun-blasts not worth replacing all the time when they can just use a board and chalk, Sign language or Empathy/Ten as a go between or just you know not talk to the media if they cant be smart enough to provide a means themselves of communicating with first
My problem is that if you do that they will frame your narrative for you completely, as in even more than they would otherwise and that would in all likelyhood saddle my First with an image he really does not want particularly since the media likes to frame people who cannot speak as “slow” and dimwitted.
Could not afford that now, yes, but the superhero stuff had better pay, otherwise what’s the point?
Modern media don’t have the patience to conduct an interview that way, as it takes considerably longer.
Sorry, but that usually looks terrible on TV.
This would be worst of all, as modern gossip media would interpret that as only one thing girlfriend , when my First is gay as fuck. Plus, unlike Empathy, Ten does not seem all that useful as a go between as they seem likely to say what they want to say anyway, instead of voicing what First might want them to.
When not doing so leaves them totally free to make up whatever bullshit they might want, which is the gossip media’s wet dream, get real, they’ll never do that. The best they’ll do is provide a (fake)telepath who’ll just say what they want them to.
Point is if you cannot speak for yourself they’ll find a way to do it for you and that practically guarantees you won’t like what they have to say.
Well then the only alternative is hiring a very good, which also means very expensive PR/law firm in order to get any control over our own narrative, but if First can’t pay for tech they can’t pay for that either, and if we can pay for that we can pay to keep replacing broken tech too and it is something my First would rather do than pay those people.
.
(Look how honest my sympathy for them is 
I guess I’m just quicker to ascribe something to malice than chance
