Sep
2nd
2016
HiE - Dead Space thoughts · 2:35am Sep 2nd, 2016
Lately I've been playing a lot of Dead Space, and then I moved onto Dead Space 2, and maybe later on Dead Space 3. And since you can't skip the cutscenes, you've got little choice but to pay attention to the story and the details involved.
Some readers have wondered about the darker elements of the story, jokingly asking if a Marker is somewhere in Equestria. Humor aside I'm curious about what sort of effects this might bring about. Some ponies would obviously be driven insane, some would strive to create new Markers, and dead ponies would be converted into necromorphs. But how would the Marker signal affect someone like Ulquiorra, if at all?
That is a good question.
All the people we see who are infected by the marker in Dead Space seem to have hallucinations of people they cared about in the past. Examples of this are people like Isaac, Dr. Kyne (DS), Carver (DS3), Stross (DS2). However, in Ulquiorras case, I'm not sure if there was anybody, when he was alive and after, that he truly cared about or was an important figure. So, maybe he would not be affected by the marker because he would not have hallucinations that would cause him to kill others or himself.
This is all just speculation from the knowledge that I picked up from the game.
That's an interesting question, one open up to interpretation.
Assuming it can even affect him-remember, he doesn't really fit the categories of living or dead that the Marker can affect and for all we know he might be in its blind spot- I don't think it could drive him mad. For one, he's smart enough to comprehend much of its message and the markers typically sent very intelligent people hallucinations or mind patterns that often contained instructions on how to build another marker. But, what makes Ulquiorra different from most is how little he cares for anyone, so it is unlikely he would get a hallucination of a loved one, and even if the hallucination of someone he once cared for appeared (Orihime is literally the only one that comes to mind) he would likely disregard everything it might tell him as he knows it is dead and conclude he is going insane.
At this point, the only option left would be to find what is driving him insane. In humans and other similar sentient beings, they would like be driven mad with paranoia at who could be causing them the hallucinations, but Ulquiorra would in all probability calmly start searching for the source of his hallucinations and, should he ever find the marker (and I'm assuming he might be able to sense it when he gets close) I suspect he will obliterate, thereby fucking up its plans utterly.
Never played the games, but now I'm thinking of the quote 'Fuck you! And fuck your marker!'
DS1 to was very meh, 2 was good but I hated 3 none of the weapons had any punch to them unlike the first two games
4187147 Well said.
4186544
4187147
What if the hallucination came in the form of Sosuke Aizen ordering him to follow the marker's instructions. Would he realise it was a hallucination or would he obey his master?
4188270 My guess is that his pesquisa wouldn't be able to detect Aizen. So he would assume it was a hallucination. Like Hidden said, Ulquiorra might be in the markers blind spot, with him being physically alive but spiritually dead, if that's how it is.
4188287
Possible, but in the Bleach manga Aizen stated that no one could sense his reiatsu unless he purposely lowered it to a level that they would actually be able to comprehend, suggesting that most if not all wouldn't be able to sense anything from him. The same would quite possibly apply to Ulquiorra as well.
4187147
Him destroying the Marker might be easier said than done. If the movie Aftermath is canon to the continuity, Stross stated that every molecule of a Marker carries the signal with it, so no matter how small you smash it, it'll just keep on transmitting. The only way they destroyed the shard that remained from the Aegis VII incident, was to toss it into the manmade equivalent of the heart of a star, being the shock point drive of the ship. If that's the case, would his Lanza Del Relampago do anything?
4188325 You do have a point there, and that is something I forgot. I suppose, if he was aware of this, he could take it into orbit or stash it on the moon, but that's getting into mechanics of your setting I'm not familiar with. Alternatively, he could just take it to the nearest frozen wasteland/have Discord teleport it to the center of the planet. See how it handles that.
4188325 I honestly think you might have to play this by ear. Of all the DS fics that I have read, none of them have described the effects of a marker, in a descriptive way, from a dead persons point of view. Mainly because they are dead.
4188446
Whether or not Ulquiorra would be driven insane, or driven to construct more Markers is an interesting question. Whether or not the Marker's signal would be able to affect him like other dead tissue is another interesting question.
Of course another question would be if necromorph ponies would ignore him since he's technically dead, or if they'd see him as another pile of flesh to infect and convert?
4188515 Is he even made of flesh?
4188540
No, but he doesn't have a pulse.
Well, for a Marker to work...
It needs to have a Black Marker somewhere around. There was one in Dead Space 3, I believe, that kept ALL the other Markers going. If you take out the black one, the signal shuts down/all the Markers go kaput. This leads me to believe that the black Marker itself is sending out the signal, and the red Markers are just amplifying and transmitting it from there. Because if the Black Marker's signal could affect humans without such an amplifier, humanity would have all turned into Necromorphs before they even reached the stars. Unless, of course, it was buried or something up until then and humanity digging it up is what created this whole mess in the first place.