Anyone who is compared to David Bowie is up there on my ‘get to know’ list. Also the whole unknown Michaelangelo deal is incredibly interesting.
As for the sexual identity deal! I mean as long as you flesh him out past just being a third-gender character and that’s that it shouldn’t really take away from his narrative.
It all depends on how you write him, because right now it sounds almost like you’re almost writing him as an intersex character.
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That’s a pretty good way of putting it, all things considered. It won’t be a huge part of his personality, more a talking point that gently informs some of his opinions. The crux of the character is still his artistic side, presenting a dry, somewhat cynical sense of humour with a sort of amused aloofness.
As long as they’re tightly integrated into the story and don’t come across as a character who is only there to pander everything should be fine.
I never really bought into David Bowie as androgynous despite his penchant for the occasional bit of cross-dressing and make-up. His high cheekbones aside, his face has too many other high-testosterone derived features like a heavy brow and chin for me to buy into him as someone whose appearance straddles the border.
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I really like the idea of a Michaelangelo-esque character integrated into this group of rowdy rebels, especially in such a society as you’ve set up where the poor are in poverty and the rich are decadent, (“he”, as you’ve said you’ve yet to quite decide Engel’s pronouns,) seems to sort of transcend that border. An artists amongst poverty, evoking the masterworks? I love it! And especially the tidbit of Engel being a part of the Yeomen, it makes me wonder if he’s ever put his talents into propaganda for them/against the government? Will his artwork be able to open the eyes of the blind to the injustices going on? A rebel masked in paint and sculpture’s stone seems like a really cool character to me. As for your worries, well, I don’t see a problem with Engel’s gender. A good character is a good character, male, female, intersex, androgynous, or otherwise, same way a bad character is a bad one. But Engel (if you couldn’t tell from my above rambling) seems like an awesome character, so yeah. I’m all for Engel.
EDIT: Also for the apology, don’t worry about it! The best kind of stories are always done with time. (Also the bit about four day crippling migraines did make me laugh, so I applaud your use of humour.)
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Interesting counterpoint. I would say that while I don’t disagree with that statement inherently, Bowie’s sexual fluidity was more in what he did than what he looked like, and I drew the inspiration for Engel from what I saw in that picture. Bowie is one of those artists who is everything to everyone, loathe as I am to use this cliché, he defies explanation.
Some people see androgyny, others merely ‘outsiderness’ in him, it would be a disservice of me to merely categorize him as the Patron Saint of Androgyny, so in that respect you’re quite right.
The thing that Bowie typifies for me is the idea of the Outsider, the unusual being looking in on Mankind, having that rare outside perspective that means they can see through a lot of the BS we make for ourselves. An outsider could observe that having special clothes, words and actions divided up by gender was ultimately an act of pointless division, and would communicate this fact by blending both genders to highlight the best parts of both and expose the subconscious revulsion people felt at someone so flagrantly breaking the rules.
In short: Rebel Rebel is not the kind of song someone writes when they think society is on the right track.
Thanks, I see Engel being the most ideologically furious at society’s injustices, fuelling his work with that fire and passion. He feels aloof, cynical and deeply intelligent to me. Torn between giving himself over to pure artistic impulse and trying to live in the ‘real’ world. There’s a little bit of Wilde in him and the way he sees the world, hiding his anger behind biting commentary and rapier wit.
Yay! Socially respectful character depiction-five!
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[quote=“Moreau, post:828, topic:15992, full:true”]
Interesting counterpoint. I would say that while I don’t disagree with that statement inherently, Bowie’s sexual fluidity was more in what he did than what he looked like, and I drew the inspiration for Engel from what I saw in that picture. Bowie is one of those artists who is everything to everyone, loathe as I am to use this cliché, he defies explanation.[/quote]
Ok, I can see your overall point.
[quote]Some people see androgyny, others merely ‘outsiderness’ in him, it would be a disservice of me to merely categorize him as the Patron Saint of Androgyny, so in that respect you’re quite right.
The thing that Bowie typifies for me is the idea of the Outsider, the unusual being looking in on Mankind, having that rare outside perspective that means they can see through a lot of the BS we make for ourselves. An outsider could observe that having special clothes, words and actions divided up by gender was ultimately an act of pointless division, and would communicate this fact by blending both genders to highlight the best parts of both and expose the subconscious revulsion people felt at someone so flagrantly breaking the rules.[/quote]
An illuminating analysis. You’ve just given me a new perspective on Bowie.
True. I never really gave Bowie’s song much thought before since it was written before my time. Thank you for sharing your insights.
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Been there and do that. I’m sorry you suffer the curse.
If 2 weeks without an update is unacceptable, then my work is beyond repair. The truth is it will be updated when it is and as a dedicated author, the community has faith in your ability.
We may not always be on the same page but when it comes to viability, a true author such as yourself will persevere - migraine weariness and all.
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Poor offering that it is, I can offer a few snippets from the Codex which should serve as proof of my continuing work (however slow) on the project:
Myrmidons:
The Myrmidon is one of the last great legacies of Mankind, a reminder of the power wielded by humans before the Fall.
Myrmidons come in a variety of shapes and sizes, and can often be found roaming the wilderness alone or in packs. Modern travellers must be wary of Myrmidons, as many are quite mad and resort to violence as their only method of communication.
For all their flaws, technically speaking the Myrmidons are amazingly versatile and complex machines, sometimes able to pass for Humans with unusual abilities. Most Myrmidons have been damaged or disabled in some way over more than 4000 years of technological collapse, so actually seeing a fully intact Myrmidon is a once in a lifetime event for most people.
Myrmidons are designed and specialized to perform certain tasks, which is reflected in their physiology. Some Myrmidons have hardened bones and powerful muscles for hard manual labour and combat proficiency, while others are designed to use their minds. Many Myrmidons were designed to be ‘Companions’ to Mankind, built to be beautiful and accommodating to their masters.
This all changed after the Fall, when the Myrmidons were given free will by the mysterious ‘King of Golems’ and rebelled, forcing the survivors of Mankind to take shelter behind the Three Rings. The irony of their position is that the only one keeping the outside world at bay is a Myrmidon. The Nomad is a two-mile high metal quadruped who walks the peripheries of the Third Ring, looking out over the edge.
Myrmidons: The Fighter
You have begun your new life as a Myrmidon, specifically a custom-tooled Grissom-Hapt Model 161-A, a combat and crowd-control design favoured by Vovodan law-enforcement agencies in the centuries before the Fall.
Your skeleton is a dense mesh of tightly interwoven carbon-nanotube structures covered in a tough outer layer of ceramic armour, studded with hardened ‘Vital-Point-Protection’ sections covering important areas.
Your muscles are similarly over-engineered for increased power, precision and speed, and are laced with a mesh of self-sealing ‘Combat Injury Foam’ ™ that increases your likelihood of surviving injuries that would kill a baseline Human.
Your Central Nervous System uses a liquid-state redundancy system that ensures that a Myrmidon can be restored to full functionality no matter how debilitating their injuries. When a limb or nerve cluster is damaged, the area is flooded with fresh nerve fluid, restoring full sensation in minutes.
Your mind is pre-programmed with several different hand-to-hand combat disciplines and contains Grissom-Hapt’s patented ‘Overclock’ ™ technology, which allows you to enter an artificial adrenaline rush state where you perceive actions and react to them much faster than any baseline human ever could.
Unit Warning:
Your programming has been customized by an unauthorized third party.
If you believe that you have been tampered with illegally, please report to your authorized line technician immediately.
Myrmidons: The Lover
You have begun your new life as a Myrmidon, specifically a custom-tooled Grissom-Hapt Model 120-C, a personal companion design which was heavily favoured by wealthy Vovodan connoisseurs for its flexibility and adaptability.
Your bone structure and muscular is standardized to be roughly equivalent to a baseline human, but is designed to produce minor electrical stimulation through the epidermis, as well as other minor alterations that are said to enhance the unit’s capacity as a personal companion.
The unit’s programming includes advanced conversation and etiquette subroutines, and is able to blend in to any party or social event flawlessly.
The most obvious and impressive feature of the 120-C is it’s highly adaptive epidermis, constructed from a semi-organic meta-material called ‘Mimic’ ™. This material can perfectly emulate the colour, texture and to a limited extent the physical properties of any material the Myrmidon can imagine. The unit’s hair is also made of Mimic, and each strand is prehensile, able to be shaped and moulded and even combined into a solid keratin-like mass with a thought from the Myrmidon.
Post-Fall many units like this have survived in quiet exile in the wild corners of the world, often confusedly trying to fulfil their original purpose. This has lead to a great many stories and superstitions of travellers being seduced by beautiful creatures and drowned in pools or otherwise lost forever.
One such unit has lived in Kadana for more than a thousand years, being a quiet but consistent feature of dozens of successive governments. Calling herself simply ‘The Concubine’, she rarely speaks or interferes with politics or people, but can occasionally be roused to take an interest if a situation sparks her interest or her droll sense of humour.
Unit Warning:
Your programming has been customized by an unauthorized third party.
If you believe that you have been tampered with illegally, please report to your authorized line technician immediately.
Myrmidons: The Thinker
You have begun your new life as a Myrmidon, specifically a custom-tooled Grissom-Hapt Model 215 ‘Special’, a Myrmidon designed for advanced R&D and theoretical research.
Pre-Fall Man had long since progressed beyond the scope of their own scientific potential, however considering they were using brains designed to pilot apes from one fruit tree to another it is impressive that they got anywhere at all.
The human scientific method could not go much further than it already had. Humanity had traversed the stars, mastered the sciences, probed dimensions beyond the ranges of their comprehension, but they couldn’t move forward from a certain technological point. Strokes of inspiration were now functionally useless, all the good ideas had already been taken.
Scientific progress was therefore reduced to a brute-force application of machine intelligence to an existing scientific discipline. A human scientist might once have had a stroke of genius that would have turned the world on its head, but now progress was made by thousands of robotic minds working in tandem, applying scientific knowledge like a codebreaker trying number combinations.
Science labs were now gargantuan Myrmidon-mills, where thousands of Myrmidons like yourself would toil away hoping to incrementally refine existing technologies and theories.
While your body is a fairly standard human-equivalent model, your D-Tello 7 ‘GroupThink’ ™ brain uses Contained Quantum Entanglement to instantaneously transmit and receive data from your ‘true’ brain, which is stored in a data-server that could be anywhere in the universe. This gives you a great deal of extra brain power, and pre-loaded knowledge on all STEM fields, as well as primers on Philosophy, Law and other fields which might aid your research.
Such a surfeit of information is too much for one consciousness to process at once, so your program uses a ‘Kissing-Gate’ algorithm that only allows you to access data you personally need at the moment, erasing it from your memory immediately afterwards.
Unit Warning:
Your programming has been customized by an unauthorized third party.
If you believe that you have been tampered with illegally, please report to your authorized line technician immediately.
That might give a little extra insight into what your Myrmidon capabilities are, and also I could use some fresh eyes to tell me whether it all makes sense.
Either way, here you go.
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Sounds very interesting. And it gives some good insight into what exactly the Mc has become. Though in the last part I think the word dearth doesn’t fit if I’m not mistaken since you’re trying to say the amount of information is too much. If I’m wrong ignore me and carry on with the awesomeness.
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Nice catch, I’m pretty sure I meant surfeit but evidently it wasn’t to be…
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What can I say, I have my moments good sir.
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Also I have a question regarding the Thinker. It say their brains are connected to the “real” brain in a hive mind sort of way and that information gets deleted from their brain to free up space for information and knowledge they need based on the situation. Now my question is, does the MC have access to this storage of knowledge as well? And will they subsequently delete or send and then delete things they learn about people around them and other information to then “download” it when next needed?
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Good question.
In short, the ‘Thinker’ has two brains, and probably a pretty complex philosophical position on the existence of the soul to boot.
They have a brain, which as the game tells you is a near-perfect simulacrum of the original subject’s brain.
It also has access to another, much larger brain somewhere it cannot detect. This brain’s job is to act as a sort of repository of knowledge, tucked away very safe in some strange corner of the universe.
Given the instantaneous nature of Quantum Entanglement-based communications, this brain could be literally anywhere in the universe, nestled somewhere on the Ring, or safely ensconced back on Earth, or hiding in an asteroid field, or entombed in the middle of a neutron star.
That’s really a side-topic though…
The Thinker’s use of the ‘Upper Brain’ as I’ll now call it, is entirely unintentional, especially at first.
The Thinker has their own thoughts and brain-waves that occur within their body, and those thoughts are transmitted to the ‘Upper Brain’ for backup and contextualization purposes.
What the Upper Brain provides is the hard information that is needed to perform real scientific calculations.
Take the ballroom scene when you’re fighting the King Toise. The Thinker looks at the objects around him, and classifies the mental inquiry as ‘I need a weapon, I need a plan to defeat this Toise’. The Upper Brain consults its own records, filtering them based on what the Thinker wants and what the Upper Brain can contextualize and decides that the Thinker wants to blind the monster with an improvised explosive then drop the chandelier on its head. The Upper Brain beams back the exact calculations (weight, pressure, tension) necessary to bring the chandelier down, and it also sends the chemical and explosives knowledge necessary to safely create and utilize a basic improvised incendiary device.
All of this happens in a fraction of a second.
After the information is used, the precise mathematical knowledge is surreptitiously erased from the Thinker’s ‘Lower Brain’ and send back to the Upper Brain along with another backup of everything that has happened.
Does that help?
This also explains this little exchange:
“That was a very dangerous plan, my $!{lord}. What if you had missed? What if the bottle had burst in your hands? What if the fixtures hadn’t given way.”
You consider this for a moment, as the walls subtly creak and tufts of dust waft down from the ceiling. Her question is somewhat confusing.
“I would have accounted for that and devised a new course of action.”
That’s not bragging. That’s simple fact. The Thinker doesn’t yet understand that everybody else’s brain doesn’t just fill in the answers like the world’s most convenient cheat-sheet.
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This is both amazingly cool but also slightly terrifying. Which part of the brain processes emotion? I assume the Lower Brain since that’s not a mathematical process, but it seems like it could be a source of paranoia. The knowledge that something else, somewhere out there in who knows where, is essentially feeding you subconscious information? Perhaps even verging on mind control? (Since from how you described it it’s not as if the MC decided to use the improvised explosion, but more that they’re told to and thusly did.)
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I must ask a Mass Effect fan? (<3 Traynor)
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Clearly you Thinker MCs have a lot of terrified thinking to do…
Coincidentally yes, but I’m afraid that’s not where I got the inspiration for the method. Traynor was an adorkable little doll, and aside from the ending the only thing the game was missing was a ‘Hug Steve’ button…
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So wait- if the Upper Brain feeds the MC information when the MC is in trouble or when they “request” it, but then also essentially forces the MC to go through with that command, if the MC were to think of the Upper Brain as a life-threatening hazard like I just did, wouldn’t the Upper Brain give the MC information and how to get rid of the problem? Be that either a way to disconnect from the Upper Brain or actually give the Upper Brain’s location and a way to then destroy the Upper Brain? Would either of these kill or harm the MC? But then if the idea scared them, wouldn’t the Upper Brain naturally force the MC to get rid of itself? So even just fear would be dangerous to the MC?
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This is part of the reason the Upper Brain’s location needs to be separated and kept secret. Myrmidons were built as servitors with no free will, so questions of self-determination didn’t concern the original designers. However any machine can malfunction, and the Upper Brain could have conceivably become a target. Hiding the Brain in some distant and unreachable place was the only option, the more unreachable the better.
The Upper Brain purposely censors information pertaining to the location of the Upper Brain from its data-streams, leaving only one question:
What else is the Upper Brain keeping from you?
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All of this is just reinforcing my opinion that the Thinker is the best Myrmidon out of the three.
Especially since the Thinker may later be able to use the vast amount of knowledge in the second brain to figure out how to make themself gain the abilities of the other two Myrmidons.
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It seems to me that the Thinker MC could act as a physics, chemistry, biology, medical and/or engineering text book to another character enabling lost sciences to be rediscovered, but wouldn’t be permitted to remember any of it themselves.
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