Blacklight had the truth. He knew what he was. He knew Alex was dead, and that he was never human. He knew that Dana was never his sister, and that he was never even slightly related to her. He knew that there was nothing tying him to Dana, no real memories or biological similarities or even species based empathy. For some reason, Blacklight loves Dana like a sister he doesn’t have.
Perhaps this is what keeps him tame when he is brought into a place he does not belong. A scenario where a being of chaos and war brought to a place of harmony and peace is not often a pretty one. Yet with Dana there, somehow he manages not to go berserk and start murdering everything in sight.
Now the Monster of Manhattan contemplates his place in the world, lies to his sister and the ponies, and questions his lack of empathy when he begins to feel remorse for his actions. He is beginning to miss the simple times where the only things he had to deeply contemplate were methods of horrifically mutilating armies with the maximum amount of efficiency. At least that was straightforward.
(This fic operates under the assumption that Prototype 2 and its tie-in comics never existed. If you really have to ask yourself why, play the first game, then play the second game. The reasons should become apparent.)
(Well I'll be damned. Front page on the first day. Thank you all for your support!)
(Well, enough of you seem to think this is funny enough to be a dark comedy, so I added a comedy tag. I have to warn you though, I'm not entirely certain as to how consistent the comedy will be. So don't come into this expecting the wacky misadventures of a murderous psychopath.)
The guy who wrote clockwork did a prototype crossover?
hell to the yes!!!
awesome chapter
Never understood why people hate the second game ... givin I haven't played the first but I still believe the secong is genuinly a good game ...
Holy fucking shit I have been waiting for something like this to be written ever since I joined this site.
I particularly like the detail you added where ZEUS refers to himself as Blacklight rather than Alex. That surprisingly says a lot about his character.
Good God man, continue!
3697828
Play the first game. You have to play the first game to understand. Until then, you have no right to speak of how 'good' the second game was.
Okay, you have my attention and I like what I see. This is being favored.
Damn that was a easy read, this is incredibly well written...
"This fic may include; traumatized ponies (as already witnessed), Celestia pissing herself in fear, tremendously overpowered beings kicking the shit out of each other, hefty amounts of the not-so-fun chaos involving viral infections, and an actual explanation for the main character’s presence in Equestria."
Oh good sir, I am happily looking forward to seeing these events in action! Please don't keep us waiting for too long now...
Fİnally, a good prototype crossover.
This is really well written and also i am relieved to learn ı am not the only one who hates the comics and and sequels after protoype. Good work my friend.
Are you, kind author, aware that this fic has been around for roughly 24 hours, and I just saw it on that top bar thingy at the top of the homepage... No really, what is that called?
*bows down* I am not worthy. You are amazing! Don't stop writing this. I forbid you.
One thing to note about Alex is that he actually does react to water. One of the WoI nodes mentions that Blacklight and Redlight are both unable to travel across water bodies, and as the incarnation of Blacklight...
*snerk* Oh, Dana, I love how you write her so much! That's right Dana, nothing can survive getting hit by a Nuke. Getting hit by a nuke a mile away that's under water, however...
Ah, MoM Creepypasta. I can see it now.
AHAHAHA! I completely lost it. I absolutely adore the way you write the Mercer psuedo-siblings.
Yeah, 80% of the population gone. Not to mention how people keep getting infected later on. Prototype 2 dropped the ball on that as well – there simply wouldn't be people left to infect.
Twenty pounds of dog food nothing. Alex Mercer tosses tanks, 65 ton tanks, like they're a baseball. You do the math, he comes out to slightly over 350,000 times stronger than a human. With musclemass and a good grip, he could lift the Eiffel Tower four times over. Jesus-fucking indeed.
I love how you always write Alex's name as Blacklight. It really drives the point home, twists the knife, and leaves it in. And I love it!
I thought you said it was Redlight? Or are the Walkers unique?
Oh Dana, underestimating Zeus, king of the gods. He's called that for a reason...
They dunz goofed!
Oh no. Alex has just introduced Redlight to Equestria. Well... at least Redlight is only made to infect humans.
I want to see how this goes! Keep writing! Please!
3697828 What GGKKDAJF said. Prototype 2 would be good as a standalone game. Hell, it'd be great as a standalone game! THE PROBLEM IS that it takes every plot point from the first Prototype and pisses on it. Alex Mercer cares for Dana? Gone. Alex doesn't like the infection? Gone. Dana cares for Alex Mercer? Gone. Pariah? Gone. And on and on.
This is what Prototype 2 should have been. Alex wondering if he was truly human or not and more story on Dana and Pariah. Prototype 2, while admittedly a good game, simply gives the middle finger to everything in Prototype 1.
Anyways, I do like the direction this is going and I hope you'll finish this till the end.
3698874
Incapable of crossing water bodies doesn't necessarily mean that they are poisoned by water. I'm pulling his immunity to the stuff from the fact that when you jump in water in the game, you just jump out no worse for wear. I like to think that due to the density of his body, he would sink to the bottom as if the water wasn't even there. Hence, when he thought he was human, he thought he would drown.
Oh thank goodness. For a second while writing this I thought I was overdoing how strong he was. Now a new problem arises; I appear to have greatly underestimated him.
Though really, what do you expect from a being that can liquefy a human being from simply clapping his hands together hard enough to clear entire intersections with the resulting shockwave?
Ah, whoops. When I first started writing this chapter, I was a bit hazy on the plot of the first game. Later in writing the chapter I was replaying the first game making special note of the Web of Intrigue and found out that what infects Manhattan in a variant of Blacklight controlled by Greene, and not Redlight alone, which was only seen at the Hope outbreak. Thanks for pointing that out, I'll have to fix that little inconsistency.
...Yeah. Thank God it can only infect humans. There's no way that's changing any time soon.
No, my eyes are not shifty! Stop looking at me!
Anyway, thank you for your support. I didn't expect this story to get as popular as it did. So now I am obligated to bring the next chapter out faster, aren't I?
OMG, I love you. Keep up the good work, there needs to be more prototype stories out there.
3698874
Maybe initially, but the thing is, that weakness would be a easy thing to patch up with how much self-control Alex has. All he would really need to do is get skin. Skin's job is to keep unwanted stuff out (water) and wanted stuff in (you). I went into it with more detail here.
3699897
You weren't over playing him, but Europa's estimate is a bit much, not sure how he got to that conclusion. Yes, he can toss tanks, but he has alot of stuff working for him. The worlds strongest man can dead-lift about half a ton, Alex doesn't have to worry about hurting himself, and can put his entire body into it rather than just certain muscle groups. so lets boost his dead-lifting limit to 4 Tons. Now Alex is Dense, alot of muscle in very little area (about 20 humans worth, the amount of people you consume to go from almost dead to full), so he goes up to 80 tons dead lift, that's 2.4 times more than a broken tank, plenty for tossing.. Now, all these numbers are when he is in default form, he is a shapeshifter, there is no real limit to what he can do (like you said, if he wants to do better, all he has to do is try harder), so we have to impose limits, default form. If we take account Muscle-mass, which is stated to double his strength, he goes up to 160 tons. That is a damn lot, but not nearly enough for the 10,000 ton Eifle tower.
It was engineered for humans, and diseases can be very picky about who they work on. But things happen.
And I hope you keep any viral things to a minimum for a while, just Alex and Dana (first time I have seen her taken along for the ride) socializing would be great to watch, without a bunch of violence distracting from it, Alex trying to keep a secret exactly what he is from not just Dana, but the other ponies as well. Pinkie's super-socialness vs Alex's anti-socialness. Dana scolding him for being anti-social, so much good stuff that fighting a virus would get in the way of. Plus, Alex has killed and consumed Greene, unless something happens to really change the Virus, he should be able to take control via the Hive-mind if he needed to.
You haven't really looked at the Prototype fan-base have you, there is a pretty poor selection of good stories out there, and the few good ones are given a ton of attention and praise for being shining examples of what we want.
And you can take your time with the chapters, quality over quantity and what not.
Oh, and something you could consider adding is a Language barrier. They are really fun if you play it right.
3700257
I never said it was going to happen due to random chance. A direct guiding hand would be needed to allow an engineered virus to have similar symptoms on entirely different species.
...I mean that's not going to happen! Ever!
Oh, it will be a while before anything too chaotic happens. As the title suggests, this story will be focusing on the psychology of ZEUS, and his relationship with his sister.
I really can't see ZEUS behaving himself without her there to hold him on a leash. Without her there, I would imagine that he would begin consuming as many different samples as possible just due to the temptation of magical aptitude.
Well it's a good thing there are no more Runners anywhere at all to take control in his stead! No really! There are none! They will not at all be affecting this story because they're all dead!
...Maybe.
Well actually I have, which is why I am surprised by the reception. I figured there would be much bitching at my decision to ignore the sequel.
Language barriers don't tend to last between a race of creatures that seem to have a magical miracle cure for everything and an information sponge with perfect memory and the skills of a few master linguists swimming around in his head. But, you know, that's just how I see it.
YEAH A PROTOTYPE CROSSOVER HOW I HAVE MISSED THY IDEA OF IT THANK YOU FOR WRITING A GOOD ONE
:
3700409
Runners are rare, ones that maintain a portion of their rationality beyond infecting more people even more so. Whats more, depending on the exact strain they have, their powers can vary widely. Greene for example, she has shown no sign of shapeshifting, or the ability to consume. However she has been show to be able to do things Alex couldn't, a memory transfer thingy when Alex 'freed' her (She was actually waiting for one reason or another, everyone was already dead), that Hive-mind (Alex had to actually acquire it), and then those giant green orb thingies (those must be fun). Alex seems to have the unique power to copy abilities, and incorporate them, which would put him a fair bit above everyone else, and with all those minds in him, I would like to think he could over-power any other walker mentally.
Mostly its Zeus behaving himself (mostly) in honor of Dana, Dana would have wanted him to do good, so he does. And in those stories, he generally does go around consuming things for powers. HOWEVER, logic says you don't need to consume a whole person for their powers, their physical make-up, and hence their powers, should be on their DNA, which Alex can absorb and replicate. So he would only need a DNA sample, a drop of blood, some saliva, a lock of hair, and he's good. The difference here though, he is getting just the power, none of the skill.
As for the magic, I always hated Translator spells.
In my mind, to do magic you have to will something to happen, however unless you want a very crude and energy costly effect, you need to picture whats happening in your head. The more in-line with the laws of physics you are, the less energy needed to do whatever, so a intense understanding of what you are trying to do, and how you would go about doing it is needed to do most things beyond simple levitation. Hell, we are still having a hard time making a decent translator that doesn't garble your sentences, and that's when we know what both ends should look like, and having been working on it for years. Here, ponies are facing a language they have absolutely know clue about, a word that could mean 'good', might mean 'oh god, its awful, kill me now'.
Then Alex, you are correct about him having master linguists in his head, but the thing is, languages are damn complicated. Hell, a simple removal of a comma changes "Lets eat, grandpa!" to "Let's eat grandpa!" . And you don't say commas, you pause. A pause that one might not know is important. He could figure it out after a while... given that he tries. He ain't social, and generally doesn't give a damn about anyone save Dana, and learning the language would require him interacting with them (Probably Twilight, who I feel Alex would find irritating) on a regular basis, for long periods of time.
I never did like the second Prototype.
Mostly because it made Mercer the bad guy, but I could accept that, except the fact that he FAILS at being the bad guy!
He loses!! He loses to some unknown loser that no one cares about!
That's impossible for Mercer!
Moar!
3700554
You say this under the assumption that Alex, or ZEUS rather, is a Runner. He isn't, as many Web of Intrigue nodes point out. The things ZEUS can do that are unique to him can never be replicated by a human, no matter what type of virus infects them. Rearranging one's body so drastically and so quickly would kill any living thing faster than a blink, because their organs would be shifted around and messed with in ways they could not withstand. ZEUS technically doesn't have any bones or organs, hence why he is so damn durable and why he can mess with his own body like he's made of play-doh.
Whether or not different Runners display different abilities is up for debate, as Greene is the only one seen in action in the first game.
Let me quote something from a Web of Intrigue node to prove my point.
Yeah, I have played this game religiously. I check things like this.
3700831 As far as I can tell, that's just a point of semantics. What makes a Runner a Runner isn't every really explained, beyond the fact that it seemed that all of them have been female, they escape, have some basics in logic (around earth animal level), and they generally work on spreading the infection. If you know more facts about them, please tell me. I love the game and back-story, but I don't think I could keep myself playing long enough to find all those people again.
3700831
That's... actually right.
Obsessive Prototype enthusiast master race! High five!
3700874
Well, the first prerequisite for a Runner is that the subject must have been, at some point, fundamentally human. ZEUS trips at the first hurdle here, making him not a Runner.
What a Runner is, is someone who had a unique reaction to Redlight or Blacklight. They have symbiotic relationships with the virus, and often are capable of loosely controlling what variants they are capable of producing. It is stated that Elizabeth Greene created thousands of variants every day in her blood, while the virus itself seemed to optimize her biological makeup so she no longer ages or requires things like sleep or constant sustenance.
Unfortunately, it seems that all Runners share a common trait; they're all completely batshit crazy. The few times other Runners are mentioned in the Web of Intrigue, they are stated to have been hunted down after infecting some small towns no one noticed when they suddenly went under. These reports, combined with Elizabeth Greene's behavior, mean that Runners appear to have an instinctive need to spread their affliction to as many as possible. As witnessed with Greene as well, she seemed to have lost all memory of her life before aside from small scraps.
So, in conclusion, ZEUS is not a Runner because he is still (relatively) sane, doesn't require blood or a beating heart to sustain himself, and was never human in the first place.
Though honestly, ZEUS could create a virus he could control several thousand times worse than what infected Manhattan. He has enough control over his own biology to create this virus, as well as the expertise of countless geneticists in his head. If he wanted to be, he could be a thousand times worse than any Runner could ever be. Which is another reason why the second game can suck a fat dick; if ZEUS wanted to infect everything, it would be a lot worse than what was witnessed in that game.
3700878
Hell to the yes!
3700977 Interesting. I'm assuming all of this is back-able with evidence in game. Now, question
Then, what would Heller be? I don't recall the piece of evidence that changed Alex's thinking from being turned into Black-light, to being Black-light, wearing Alexander's skin. Because, so what if Alexander died first, if he was reached quickly enough, death is hardly permanent. Your heart could stop beating for a while, and your fine. You could lose almost your entire body, many of your organs replaced with medical machines, and still be alive.
And personally, my little theory for P2 is, Alex wasn't trying. It was largely a complicated suicide plan. He believed the world was broken, and he could fix it... but he didn't really care all that much to do it. It was a sorta "Might as well" thing, and the final lines "Welcome to the top of the food chain." makes more sense in that context. He had a successor now, who could fix the world if he wanted to, and Alex could finally die in peace.
3701068
Things would be much simpler if you completely ignored the second game altogether, considering it just pissed all over the first game's plot with countless inconsistencies all for the purpose of needlessly changing protagonists.
But if you want an explanation for Heller, there is none. He exists because the writers of the second game didn't even seem to read the footnotes of the first game's plot. ZEUS is one-of-a-kind. This is hinted at many times in the first game. There can never be another like ZEUS, as in, there can never be one who can do all the same things he can do.
Allow me to explain. ZEUS was created in Penn Station, when the Blacklight virus was released. In that state, it is far too deadly to properly spread, and it killed millions within seconds. Alex Mercer was shot to death, and his corpse fell upon the broken vial of Blacklight, allowing the most exposure. The others in Penn Station died before the virus could fully assimilate them due to their immune systems interfering. Alex Mercer, however, was already dead before he hit the ground, but had died recently enough to be assimilated. As he had the most exposure, the Blacklight virus slowly overtook and copied his genetic code, essentially eating his corpse and leaving perfect copies of his cells in the wake of the virus. However, by the time the virus got to his brain, he had been dead for a while, causing necrosis and unrecoverable data. This meant when he awoke, he had amnesia.
Now, Blacklight in the form in which it was contained in Penn Station burned out. The Blacklight you see infecting Walkers in the city has been twisted into a less lethal version by Elizabeth Greene. ZEUS himself has tainted the pure Blacklight sample by simply existing. Meaning that for another version of ZEUS to exist, it would require another recently-deceased corpse and, more importantly, a pure untampered sample of the Blacklight virus that Alex Mercer synthesized. Alex Mercer is dead, ZEUS did not receive his memory of how to make another Blacklight virus, and the sample broken in Penn Station was the only one; a prototype (hence the name of the game). Because the only one who knew how to replicate it is dead and every other sample has been tampered beyond recognition, ZEUS is one of a kind now and forever.
Which is why Prototype 2 is such a giant middle finger to the first game's plot. You can't just stick someone with a certain variant of a virus and expect them to get shape-shifting superpowers! You can't even make a regular Runner that way due to the incredibly picky hard-to-spot genetic prerequisites!
3701136 Again, it seems like the Difference between Black-light in the guise of Alexander, and Alex with amnesia is really just a case of semantics, "A rose by any other name smells just as sweet" and what not, but whatever. It does serve for some interesting character personality implications though.
While Alex might not have gotten all of Alexander's memories (he got at least some, those flashbacks), he did go on to consume almost all the surviving people who worked on the project, and a fair number others. That combined with him being Blacklight, it would seem Plausible he could re-create it. And if he can somehow make some of Blacklight that didn't carry his memories (even small scraps of him do, he survived being turned into just a small pile of good, with no noticeable memory loss), couldn't he let that consume someone, and with lack of memories for itself, basically become them? He could even guide it, and tweak it till it does that by itself, Heller wasn't his first evolved. Yes, P2 has some quite a few glaring plot holes as a sequel, I just never considered the ability to Evolve people one of them.
3701203
Everyone who worked on project BLACKLIGHT died before Mercer did. That was why he was running in the first place; people around him were disappearing. Alex Mercer was the head of the project anyway, meaning while everyone else would know how to replicate bits and pieces, only Alex would know how to replicate the whole thing. All ZEUS has of Alex's memories are a few flashes and basic things, not the entire genetic structure of a pure sample of the Blacklight virus. Anyone else with knowledge of how to synthesize it was dead before ZEUS was even born.
It's not semantics. ZEUS, or Blacklight, and Alex Mercer are two entirely separate entities. This isn't a theory, this isn't only stated in the Web of Intrigue, this is the big plot twist of the game. It is literally spelled out to you by Captain Cross right before Bloodtox is introduced in the game.
http://youtu.be/WSmSpTpvstE?t=6m
That video, at six minutes. No semantics. Fact.
"Alex is just the role I play." - ZEUS
3701259
3701203
Legitimate debate on the plot of Prototype...
...It's beautiful. I can't believe my story encouraged this wonderful art.
...And damn GGKKDAJF. You know your shit. I wish I could reach through this screen and give you a handshake.
3700257 Here's how I did the math. You're going by dead-lifting the 80 tons, but keep in mind Alex doesn't just dead lift, he chucks it the length of a football field.
The math I used is this: A tank weighs about 68 tons; call it 65 to be generous, because only lifting broken tanks is a game mechanic. That's 130,000 pounds, but Alex treats it the same way a human treats a 0.35 pound baseball.
130k / 0.35 gives you ~370,000. I actually went with a lower estimate on human strength, and said the maximum lifting for a human adult is 120 pounds. Multiply that by the 370,000 and you get Alex being able to lift 44,571,000 pounds, or just over 22,000 tons. Double that with musclemass, and you get the 4 Eiffel Towers I arrived at.
3701398
Note; fully upgraded musclemass quadruples strength, not doubles it.
Even in believing he can lift four Eiffel Towers, you have underestimated the power of ZEUS. Incredible, eh?
3701426 They don't call him King of the Gods for nothing.
3701259 Alright, but why would you need a pure sample of Black-light? Alex is Blacklight, he can control it, he can alter it, he can make it do just about whatever he wants. And as I said, he has tons of other geneticists in his head, while he has lost his own memories, that is no reason he can't start over. Heck, its easier to work with the Virus now that he can directly manipulate it.
So again, its seems plausible that, after work and testing of course, he could make a considerably less deadly virus, that worked around a Persons immune system, takes over, and replaces all the cells with its own. Done correctly, the brain would also be perfectly copied, meaning no memory loss, or personality change, and said person now would have access to any abilities Mercer felt like giving them.
And people can be wrong. They often are. A clone of a person, given all the memories, and that person. Nothing, they are interchangeable, for there isn't a difference. Now, yes Alex has Amnesia, but that doesn't mean he isn't Alex, people don't just stop being themselves when they forget their entire lives. They can go on to define themselves as another person, but as I said, that is a point of semantics.
3701398 It might be game mechanics, or it might not, safer to assume it isn't. And for the 65 tons... woops. And Alex tosses it fairly differently than one does a Baseball. He throws using both hands over head, while a person generally only chucks a Base-ball with one hand (not that two hands would help in that instance, the mass is too light) Speaking of which, you can probably up the weight of the base ball a fair bit without messing up the distance too much. Try a Shot-put. A Shot-put weighs 16 lbs. Now, following your method using a Shot put instead of a base ball, we get a lift ability of 487.5 tons.
3701521 He isn't Alex. This is said in NO uncertain terms in the first game that Zeus consumed the still-warm body of the original Alex Mercer, and the disguise was so good even he himself believed it. He didn't forget his entire life; he had no entire life, and he stole bits and pieces of his creator's.
When the first game ends, Zeus is not even three weeks old.
3701535 I guess our dissagreement here is what makes a person a person.
3701546 Well, think about it. The original Alex was a psychopath who only realized his sister existed when he needed something from her. Zeus practically vaporized everything in his path chasing her, and then did vaporize everything in his path when he found where she was put.
Kind of a big difference.
3701597 Yes and no. He is and he isn't. Amnesia can do alot. It can turn good guys bad. It can turn bad guys good. Memories do a good bit in shaping a persons personality, and Alex losing them changed who he was. But then, again, what makes a person who they are? Suppose a Criminal Ax-Murderer Rapist suddenly lost his memories. Is he guilty of the crimes he commited, yet has no recollection of doing, and is effectively someone else? I take a bit of a Schrodinger's cat approach to this, and say he is effectively both. He both is Alex, and isn't.
3701521
Blacklight was originally designed to copy and combine genetic traits, and the original sample had a clean slate in regards to genetic material mimicked. ZEUS had already consumed many different human beings meaning that if he were to replicate the circumstances in which he was created with a piece of himself, the odds are he would be creating a braindead duplicate of himself due to genetic information being clipped and combined in ways that shouldn't be. That's assuming the virus would even react outside of his body in such a manner.
Now, he cannot create another version of the pure Blacklight virus even with his extreme control over his own biology and the knowledge of several geneticists because a virus so finely tuned is like a fucking fingerprint. You cannot replicate it by chance. You have to know exactly how it is constructed because even the slightest deviation can make it something completely different.
As for the immune system thing, everyone is different. In order for ZEUS to do the thing you described with the virus and create a symbiotic relationship, he would have to have a very, very intimate understanding of a person's biology down to their molecules. This is the main reason why Runners are so rare; the virus reacts differently when certain genetic traits are encountered, and these genetic traits are pretty much impossible to track or replicate.
So even if ZEUS knew someone that intimately, and created a virus that would work around their immune system and replace their cells with copies, the process would still kill them because their body is literally getting eaten and replaced, and viral cells that work like ZEUS's are simply not compatible with uninfected ones. Meaning that once it took over a major organ, the infected would die anyway. Even if, miraculously, everything went fine and it replicated the entire body, there would still be the issue of a pure sample being unobtainable, thus creating the same aforementioned braindead clone.
Oh, and once again, his amnesia is not semantics. That video I linked you to is literally canon outright saying what he is. Hell, a few minutes before the six minute mark has Cross explaining to ZEUS exactly what he is. So no, Alex isn't having an identity crisis, because he is dead and his corpse was eaten and assimilated by the virus he made. Not opinion. Canonical fact.
Plus the author says I know my shit. I've been endorsed, dammit!
3701697 He had years of time. And plenty of test subjects. He could have more than likely figured out how to strip the HIM from the virus. And the Virus doesn't need the person alive, heck, you said it yourself that it works better if they aren't. So again, if he could find out how to wipe the virus of his memories and personality, then all he would have to do is let it consume someone, it would form itself with that persons memories, personality, and form, for that is all there was for it to base itself off of. And if he could have it target the brain early on, there wouldn't even be that pesky memory loss due to necrosis. Or he could make it work faster in general, he consumes entire people in the blink of a eye.
And Alex not being Alexander is a opinion. He personally believes that he is just a copy, but that is his opinion. Amnesia does not automatically make you a new person. Nor does a new body. Or even a new personality. What makes you who you are. is largely opinionated, and as I said with Europa, in my opinion, Alex is both Alexander, and he isn't.
3701668 Yes, but this isn't amnesia. This is creating an entirely new being and shoving someone else's memories in.
And even if you use the argument of the memories making the person, then not only is Zeus Alex Mercer, he's also Elizabeth Greene, General Randall, Colonel Taggart, Dr. Morgan Durnel, Leader Hunter #1, Hunter #35, Leader Hunter #2, and thousands of others. In fact, he'd be more of them, because he only has the littlest bits of Alex Mercer's memories.
3701891 I don't see the effective difference.
And they do... to a extent. The mind is a extremely complicated thing. As I also said, this is largely opinions, I see nothing wrong with the interpretation Menial is going with, its a rather interesting one. Just not my preferred interpretation. Mine is that all those people have shaped him, but with Alexander being the first, he is the dominate one. And as he gets more people, the amount they change him is become less and less, for the amount they contribute to the sum-total become less and less.
I really, really like what I'm seeing so far. I love your characterization of Alex - something completely inhuman, but genuinely trying to be good. Not for the most noble of reasons.. but he's trying. And yeah, he's eaten enough knowledge in.. well I guess it would be easier to ask what he isn't passably talented at, really.
I have to wonder if he's got any sort of magic. I'm kinda hoping not, as Blacklight is catastrophically deadly enough without the ability for casual teleportation.
As long as this doesn't head into overblown silly grimdark territory, you've got my attention.
3702105
Well the story will be dark, as if par for the course with Prototype, but not necessarily grimdark... though I say that without entirely understanding the distinction between the two.
I can confidently say that there will be no drawn out torture scenes or rape, if that's what you meant.
3702338
Pretty much. When I think Grimdark, I think the Warhammer 40k setting.
Ponies freaking out because they have a humanoid abomination in their country? Sensible. Alex disemboweling infected or wildlife? Goes without saying. An otherwise innocent local getting killed or hurt? Tragic, but if it leads to plot, it's justifiable.
Say.. Applejack turning into an infected and eating her family while waxing philosophic about how their fear is delicious? A little harder to justify outside of pointing at it and shouting "Shock value!"
3702370
Well I believe the main point of this crossover will be maintaining the ponies' behavior and setting while introducing darker elements. I will be maintaining the light atmosphere of Equestria. Actually, if anything, Equestria will be even more peaceful than implied on the show. You'll see my point in a little while.
So no, Applejack won't be cannibalizing her own family. That job belongs to OCs like poor, poor Brandon anyway. Even then it would probably be implied rather than focused upon.
Ahh, it always makes me smile whenever I see a Prototype crossover.
Your elegant prose combined with your systematic rejection of the failure that is Prototype 2 has won my respect.
Also, I am a fan of profile pictures relating to smiling cinematic murderers.
I am going to enjoy this.