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Story Arc
Topic Started: Jan 15 2009, 03:02 PM (1,080 Views)
~Shin-Ra~
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The Other Guy
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Note: Final part, but for some extra info if anyone's actually interested.

The Exiled Part 2.5 and 3- A Mirror Darkly, Exodus

On the return journey it was discovered that all of the Rings lacked energy cells and power cores, meaning that they would still be required to hunt down the one compatible power source they knew of, the Ring stolen by the Consortium.

Additionally, the truth about the Auranar was finally revealed (translated somewhat reluctantly by Lenav.)

The history of the race’s origins ironically mirrored that of the Commonwealth:

The mysterious race had indeed been Chozo who had gone into self exile due to their disagreements with the decisions of the ruling elders such as the verdict to return to a life seeped in prophecy and lore, and to become pacifists.
The Chozo who had disagreed with such actions had banded together and finally broken away in secret when talks amongst the Elders began saying that the younger races should be allowed to control the galaxy, and that the Chozo should simply allow them to do so.
Sending a number of the dissenters aboard a fleet of sleeper ships to create an artificial wormhole in another galaxy allowing for the others to pass through and set up an independent power from the other Chozo. As both Rings were completed and the ‘Auranar’ departed, and immediately began to build a new civilization in a section isolated from the other species of the galaxy.
They were clearly not constricted by the same morals as the Chozo, as it was mentioned later that the Auranar began to clone themselves and alter new borns with genetic manipulation at the first sign of devolution, while there were a great many flaws in these processes, these were quickly removed by experimentation upon the more primitive species who had similarities to them in their DNA.

Over the years leading up to the formation of their empire, the Auranar travelled back and fourth between the galaxies in secret, using the Rings to spy on the Chozo and monitor the events of their place of origin. It was partially through this that they continued to remain far more advanced than many of the larger opposing raced they faced, and ultimately their reason for their sudden aggressive expansion many years later.
Having lost their ability for precognition due to their lack of spiritual connection and also their repeated genetic alteration, it was only through their spies that they learned of the premonitions of the future rise of violence within their home galaxy and the decline of their own race but rather than reacting to it in horror and making preparations to form an alliance between the younger races,
The Auranar simply considered this a sign that their race was required to take a far more direct and authoritative position in their galaxy and began preparing their warriors to begin expanding their influence and to unite all the warring forces in the stars under their banner weather it be through force or diplomacy, and prevent such a rise at all costs.

While the Auranar were both highly advanced and as of yet unknown to all other races lurking within their galaxy, there were still a great many capable of both destroying their race even with the newly developed technology such as cloned warriors and nano-machine shipyards. What the Auranar required was a weapon, a living weapon capable of defeating and destroying all in their path, capable of wiping out every threat with a great power the likes of which none had ever seen but at the same time more than capable of being commanded and controlled by those who created them.

In order to do this a number of Auranar altered their bodies to match those of the devolving Chozo, and worked their way into the labs and divisions working to create a ‘cure’ to the X Parasite which had plagued SR388 for many years now, using their knowledge and skill to gain influence within the project and to secretly alter it into the warrior, the weapon they required.
Over time several requirements were met such as the ability for the weapon to have an ability to evolve to various environments, into different stages, at a rate far faster than any other known species was capable of,
to have a characteristic weakness which could be used to control and train it should a more direct method be found,
and finally to have a terrifying ability which would put fear into the hearts of the Auranar’s enemies, the ability to drain the very life energy of any being it encountered or was set upon.

While the Chozo developed their weapon (now dubbed ‘Metroid’ by them) the Auranar secretly sent their data back to a hidden research facility within the same system as the ring allowing for the facility to create the Metroids and further enhance them to fight not only X, but any enemy they came across. The evolutionary abilities of these creatures were also altered, allowing them to not only adapt to their environment but also the weapons used against them over time and to have their bodies absorb the genetic data and specific traits of those they defeated and to spread it through their race.
What was most unique about the Auranar’s Metroids was the apparently empathic abilities they gave them allowing them to discern threats (enemies) and violent thoughts from those thoughts who belonged to their allies and also to understand the intensions of others around them.

These early variants were sent back through the Ring to be cloned and prepared for deployment, leaving a limited number in the facility to continue their research upon the species allowing them to predict future developments within the race before they took widespread effect.

Within months the Metroids were set upon those they viewed as being a threat to any chance of harmony between the races of the galaxy and as escorts to emissaries sent to the civilizations they viewed as having the best chance of survival and becoming part of the Auranar’s new order.
As expected, the enhanced Metroids did indeed live up to the expected standards and were more than capable of adapting and developing individual genetic data from personal experience which the Auranar would then take and add to the next batch of clones, allowing the immunity or resistance of one living Metroid to be spread throughout their entire race.
Eventually, after enough of the Metroids had devoured the lifeblood of the insect-like Grond, they took a great many of the species known biological traits,
including somehow the base elements psychic hive mind of the race allowing for the Metroids to no longer require the use of the Auranar’s cloning facilities to enhance their next generation.

From the Grond they also took their ability to strip almost any material (artificial or biological) and convert it into hives, living mobile hives which would act as ships to the species and respond to their commands through chemicals and hormones within the ships cores or ‘brains,’ furthermore these hives were to soon develop their own variant of cloning facilities, using the materials stripped from the enemies they killed to create more of their own race.
From their next enemy, the genetically advanced Trilon, they gained the ability for the systems of their ships to convert matter into energy and vice versa, allowing for their hives to create other ships and ‘eat’ father materials to use as fuel.

But as the Metroids became more and more deadly to those they fought the Auranar began to question just how potent a weapon they would prove to be, and just how much longer they would remain under the Auranar’s control.
The Labs in the first galaxy (the ones in which the Metroid series is situated) had noted a major change within the Metroids, while they had adapted well to their environments they were ultimately becoming less ‘feral’ and some of those working nearby the creatures spoke of strange voices speaking in an utterly unknown language.
Nothing was heard from the facility for months until a heavily damaged Auranar ship exited the Ring into the second galaxy, containing a handful of survivors from the facility.

The survivors explained that the Metroids had begun to develop sentience and powerful telepathic capabilities, including the ability to alter the perceptions and mentally control those with weaker minds then use them to gain control of the ships and technology their bodies wouldn’t allow them to operate.
Through this method the Metroids had broken out of containment and manipulating a number of Auranar warriors and scientists had fought their way through the facility and had attempted to reach the surface, leaving the planet in the process. A number of warriors planted explosives on the entrances and exits of the facility, burying the creatures and those under their control deep underground.
One also mentioned that the Metroids had begun to show signs of begin capable of long term hibernation and that any attempt to take back the facility within the next few years could quickly result in an ambush or worst a major attempt by the Metroids to break out and leave the moon.

To make matters worse was the fact that the other Metroids were fighting the last major race, the Arithean, a race of energy beings who were highly psychic and were known to be very powerful telepaths. Should the Metroids all develop the same capabilities those in the facility had, they would utterly overwhelm the Auranar Empire and it’s races along with every other race in the galaxy.

The Auranar leaders secretly met to discuss which action was to be taken the vote was unanimous that the Metroids should be dealt with immediately, before they could become a threat or develop the abilities which had appeared within those in the lab facility. When the Auranar had begun to view the Metroids as a possible future threat a virus had been developed which would slow their evolution and kill off the cells in each Metroid’s body, allowing for them to devolve and die out in a matter of months if not weeks.

A major attack was made on every Metroid force in the galaxy, on every planet they were positioned on the Auranar released the virus using it to spread quickly and kill all of the race at once. However, the creators of the race had greatly misjudged them and within weeks the Metroids (while having their enhanced evolutionary development slowed considerably) had developed an immunity to the cellular degradation and recognizing Auronar as a threat to themselves, turned on them and began an all out attack upon the race.
Ironically, this provocation actually achieved the Auronar’s goal as the Metroids had not gathered enough of the Arithean’s life force to gain their psychic abilities or (as predicted) develop true sentience. While the species had become far more individually aware of one another, they still acted in a hive mind state and were unable to overcome their natural instincts or programming.
With their great enemy having found a new target, the Arithean silently went into hiding, planning to rebuild and hoping that both races would wipe each other out in the oncoming war.

Over the next following weeks the Auranar quickly began to fall to be Metroids, for all their technological and biological enhancements they were unable to develop any virus, bomb or ship to defeat what they regarded to be the perfect weapon. More and more soldiers and members of the Auranar race were drawn from places within the protectorates in a desperate attempt to contain the Metroids and a media blackout was created to hide the war from the other protectorate races.

Ultimately, the Auranar were apparently wiped out by the Metroids in the war as the last entry on the terminal was a simple note made by a Praetor (Auranar commander) noting that the Metroids were now bombarding the planet having overcome the orbital defences. A short video attached to the log, with the recordings of the security scanners revealed that several surviving Arithean had arrived demanding all data relating to the Metroids combat and evolutionary capabilities stating that were they to do this the race would help to eventually defeat the Hive fleets and bring the galaxy back under control.”

While the visual data was too corrupted for any clear view of this meeting it did show the outline of several armoured hulking figures speaking with the Auranar, with the designs and patterns of their armour mirroring those on Lenav’s exosuit.
While this answered many of the questions about who the Auranar were and how the Metroids had come to be in this galaxy, it left open the question as to just who the Arithean were and where they were now. Before anyone could question Lenav about this, alarms began echoing throughout the ships as a large Metroid fleet began bearing down on them.
Building up just about enough power to make a second jump the returning attack fleet were able to open up several gates and escape, from the enemy attack force.

Returning to Commonwealth space it was revealed that the Consortium had begun using stealth ships with high energy flare launchers to draw the Metroids into the civilized planets and have them attack specific targets in order to further weaken the Commonwealth’s powerbase.

With the large majority of the planets they had occupied and had been attempting to restore destroyed, and the city ships in which most of the populace resided in being hunted down and either captured or destroyed the remaining leaders of the Commonwealth had chosen to put almost half of it’s entire navy into finding the stolen Ring and begin the Exodus protocol.
The Exodus protocol had long since been the ‘failsafe’ plan of the Commonwealth since it’s founding, this outlined the plan to put all their resources into the rebuilding the Ring and completely abandon the Metroid infested galaxy to it’s fate while they escaped into the systems held by the ‘First’ Commonwealth.

With the High Guard quickly losing ground to the repeated attacks by both the Metroids and the traitors under the command of the Consortium, the only option there seemed to be for their survival seemed to be a full retreat and mass exodus.
The search and the battles continued for some time until, out of luck more than actual skill, managed to bring down one of the Consortium’s stealth ships when it was hit by defencive fire as it attempted to disable one of the Avalon city ships. Capturing it and disabling the crew before the self destruct sequence could be activated, the High Guard were able to repair the ship and use the logs of the it’s black box recorder to track a number of possible locations where the Ring was being held and attack all of them simultaneously.
While the Ring itself was destroyed in the fighting it’s power core was recovered from the wreckage and was placed into one of the more intact Rings liberated from the Auranar homeworld but it was clear that whatever experimentation and alterations the Consortium had made to the core was causing it’s power to quickly drain, in less than a week it’s cells would be completely depleted.

Over the next few days the call was made throughout Commonwealth space to regroup at the site where the ring had first been found.
Hundreds upon thousands of ships grouped together prepared to move through the Ring in one push, Crais and the other leaders not wanting to risk the core losing power before all of the Commonwealth’s citizens could reach safety. As this took place both the Templars and High Guard fleets fought a major rearguard action to hold off the enemy ships until the evacuation of the planets and ships was complete, losing many of their own soldiers and ships to waves of Metroid attack craft and Consortium flotillas.
By the time all of the civilian ships had gathered and the word was given for the rearguard to fall back, just over one third of the entire Commonwealth armed forces had been lost.
Using one of the crew from the captured ship (a former Navel Intelligence agent) the codes to activate the Ring were given out and the armada of civilian and military vessels escaped, leaving behind them a growing battle between the Consortium and the Metroids.

What was found on the other side however, shocked the Commonwealth survivors to the core.
Rather than finding a number of thriving or even surviving free worlds, every planet which had been under the First Commonwealth’s control had been utterly devastated by massive amounts of firepower, with many derelict Commonwealth, Federation and even Space Pirate craft floating between the planets. The scouts which were sent out to find out what happened found a vast number of Federation automated gun stations, to Crais and the surviving members of the original Commonwelath members, it was apparent that the Federation had attacked and destroyed the government they had once pledged their loyalty to.

A few stealth ships were able to break past the defensive positions, and into several of the core Federation worlds and found out that no record of the Commonwealth, the Berliskner, or even any colonies existing in the blockaded systems was present in any official databases. Instead it had been noted that the Berliskner had been destroyed in dry dock while a number of religious zealots had colonized the systems where the Commonwealth had resided, then attempted to raid Federation freighters and planets before swiftly being quelled by several Federations ‘peace keeper’ fleets.
The systems were now supposedly a high security experimental warzone.

This was relayed back to the Commonwealth leaders at about the same time as a long dead bioship of unknown origin was found and brought back by scouts, after a few hours autopsy it was discovered that this alien was also a Metroid, one who had evolved in a different direction from those they had fought up until now. While it was uncertain what they were capable of, everything about the creature’s physiology (from it’s humanoid appearance to the enlarged crainum) suggested that it was far more evolved than any of the others and that they were fully intelligent.

While the other Commonwealth ships prepared to begin terraforming the devastated worlds, the spies reported back the information (or rather the lack of it anyway) along with the fact that the station which had been used by the Federation to monitor activity was still in use, despite the fact that it should have long since been destroyed and demolished many years ago.

To find out just why the station was in operation and also to capture it for possible future expansion, Lenav along with a number of Templar troop carriers and multi-beam frigates were sent on a recon mission to the station, the one remaining element of the Commonwealth’s twilight years:

Eplosion-XII

Ghost Light

Author’s Note: I had no real plan for this RP, more guidelines than actually anything. However, there were several points I had thought of which I had planned upon introducing:

- The entire station was a Federation experimental battlefield to test a genetically altered Metroid (cloned from one of several captured Metroids during the Federation-Commonwealth war) to be used as a controlled weapon, Agent Donovan’s supposed part in this would have been to deliver Grey Fox into the hands of several other Navel Intelligence agents to test her against the Metroid.
This would have infact been only a small part of a much larger experiment to test the Metroid against your ‘average’ Federations station personnel and also a number of ‘extraordinary individuals’ who would have been drawn to the station and driven in one way or another into direct combat with the Metroid.

- A number of the surviving station personnel would have been revealed to have ‘imprinted personalities,’ people with fake or imprinted personas enforced by various methods over their true personalities with memories and high level skills implanted or sleep taught into them as a secondary test to see just how well the section would be able to create units of sleeper agents or conscript Federation citizens into their ranks to act as personal guards and elite soldiers to the Section.
It would have also been hinted that several of the characters were clones or have had similar ‘imprinted personalities’ but I would have left that up to the players’ decision whether or not they chose to do this or not.

- The one unexpected factor which was to take place was attracting a Metroid ship who had survived the war along with it’s occupants, who had detected the altered Metroid and been summoned there by it’s mind.
Like those fought in the war, these would have been highly psychic and capable of draining specific sources of energy with ease from a very long range and focusing it in massive bursts of ‘lighting’, additionally they could transfer people (teleport them) to their ship to be stored and used for energy.
Lenav would have been the one force to counter it, blocking the vital electrical systems and items of many of the characters from being completely drained and from being directly teleported. He would have chosen them as (if asked) he would have considered them the best chance to “defeat the abomination.”

- Lenav himself would have made a number of appearances and actions similar to that of G-man in Half Life, both hindering and helping the characters in their actions and very rarely speaking to them.

- One of the first enemies to be encountered after the members of the station disappeared would have been Space Pirates, these would be under the control of the Metroids who boarded the station and used as guards and cannon fodder against the characters and station personnel, and constantly under mind control.

- The various systems of the station would have continuously faltered and on more than one occasion failed, forcing the characters to try and repair them, running the risk of attracting the Metroid and Pirates as power were added to the station’s systems.

- After a while (along with several plot developments, fights and encounters and small crisis’) the Commonwealth fleet would have arrived and attempted to board the station with orders to execute all hostiles and capture the station. The would most likely have been a fight both aboard the station and also the UEO Venture with a few space battles or dog fights involved as the Commonwealth attempted to land.

- No further plot points were decided upon but the end of the RP would have ultimately resulted in the deaths of both Metroids after a prolonged fight again both of them and she psychic shockwave of the psychic Metroid’s death revealing that many of it’s race had been surviving and breeding on the outer worlds, unseen and unwatched so that they could build up enough strength to slowly take over the Federation. The ending would have resulted in both the Commonwealth attack force falling back to it’s boarders and the few surviving Space Pirates commandeering ships and attempting to escape the station.
An epilogue would have reflected the further experiments by Section 6 and the Federation, the rumors of a new government attempting to take over a number of systems on the eastern fringe of the Federation (Commonwealth) and mysterious attacks by a race, leaving entire settlements intact but with every person there missing without a trace (enhanced Metroids.)

Leaving the plot open to any future RPs.

The Future
The future RPs after Ghost Light would follow the various different plot lines which would play out:
A possible threat of an invasion (and war) by both the Commonwealth and the genetically enhanced Metroid fleets against the Federation,
The presence of Metroid scouts in the Federation and surrounding governments,
The fate and possible future actions of the Consortium breakaway faction and also where loyalties lie,
The involvement of the more immoral elements of the Federation and their schemes,
And finally possible aspirations by the Federation to expand through the Ring network into the next galaxy, and also to obtain Chozo tech.

One constant plot element would have been the intervention and manipulation of events by Lenav’s race who would eventually have been revealed to be the Arithean and were trying to alter the conflicts between the Federation, Commonwealth and Metroids to their own advantage.

I did have an outline for an RP much later on involving the Commonwealth secretly hiring hunters for a massive jail break on a prison facility in an attempt to gain the support of a number of political prisoners, but nothing truly intricate or solidly planned.

Anyway, that’s all I had thought up before Ghost Light ended. The Space Pirates would have also been involved to some extent, either trying to control the new Metroids, or being controlled by them.

Thanks for reading and sorry if it was a bit long.

EDIT: Oh yes, and any positive or negative crit on this would be welcome.
Edited by Shin-Ra, Feb 23 2009, 06:24 PM.
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Despite the length, I enjoyed this quite a bit. There's definitely a lot potential to be had in these plots, assuming one could get them set up. There is some confusion to be had in some of the newly presented groups; chiefly speaking, these guys called "Arithean." We didn't get much description of them, and they seemed to be a significant part of the metroid development and plot. Who are they exactly?

I'd also like to present some of my own ideas, so that way we can brainstorm and chat about stuff; toss ideas around here and there. Plus I don't much of a chance to present some of my own story stuff, so that would be nice.

To start off, I did have my own idea about the origins of the Scurge organisms and it connects to the Metroid verse in a way. Scurge, despite their appearance have a unique physiological aspect that might be unlike most other organisms or 'entities' found in the galaxy. It's very different from that of normal carbon-based organisms, and we're talking about the actual organism itself; not any of the creatures or 'variants' afflicted by its virus. I actually made up a profile analyzing them, and I'll post it sometime later on.

This actually has to do with a small bit of phazon hitting a planet, but probably wasn't a full fledged Leviathan. The stuff had a similar affect on the planet's native organisms like those found on Tallon IV; either mutating and corrupting them or killing off anything else. There was, however, a small exception to this effect; an organism whose physiology was similar to the Scurges, and was, in fact, their ancestors. Unlike other organisms, this creature's body was not entirely held up by DNA, but mostly by a bizarre, complex bio-energy that acted like the creature's real DNA. This bio-energy acted on a similar level with that of the phazon level, where they both had very life-like characteristic. The difference was that phazon was erratic, chaotic and filled with an unorganized amount of energy; so much it's probably the reason why the stuff gives off radiation. We might even consider phazon has some a type of 'life-force' in it that is essentially different from your usual stuff; just like the Scurge's.

*Ahem* In contrast, the pre-Scurge organism's energies that held it's form is well organized and compact and knew how to construct itself to hold the organism's form (Most phazon afflicted creatures probably has some sort of DNA to begin with, and the phazon, being alive in some manner, would most likely need the DNA to retain the form). Let it be said that these two different energies, obviously, don't mix, like oil and water, and the pre-scurge's bio-energy did recognize how the phazon was bad for its organized 'structure.'

Though vulnerable, the organism began to take an evolutionary stance, the off spring quickly loosing many of their traits that would relate them to a normal carbon-based life form. Soon enough, all that was left was DNA to form some of its bone structure, its brain and a few other bits here and there. The bio-energy, having recognized the phazon as a threat, had given the organism itself to the ability to distinguish between many various types of energy, including the phazon itself. Over a short radius around it, it could sense these energies like it skin was all about the air, and as if the energy felt like 'heat' but distinguished by a unique 'scent' instead of the hot and cold variations. It could also see these energies within a short radius as well, being displayed in various colors.

As a side-effect, though, it lost many of its original senses, and certain basic needs, as well. Taste, smell and hearing was completely gone, most likely due to the fact that phazon could poison any food supply; it primarily subsisted on the air it breathed, probably being that of oxygen and the free floating energy particles (This in turn made the Scurge very efficient at energy usage, considering how it's bio-energy became so intuitive with it).

Even with these evolutionary traits, however, the pre-Scurge was still quite vulnerable because of how in the 'dark' it was. Many of the normal traits that gave any organism a fare perception was lost to the Scurge, and the range it's unique sense limited. It did become more resistant to the phazon, at least the more subtle variations; but it was still vulnerable. Thus, the Scurge made one final adaptation that gives its distinction within the very game itself: a virulent physiology (Hence the reason why Scurge are called a 'virulent organism' and not just your common case virus). With this, it could infect other organisms to defend itself with, scout ahead of it, and do everything else that had been done in the game.

In due time, since the phazon was a generated supply and the Scurge virus became one, the phazon was eventually dissolved. Though the virus could not completely 'turn' a few of the phazon-afflicted organism, the virus was like a base being constantly added to an acid; the acid would be become neutralized as first, then there would be more of a base.

That's it for me. I'll just say that I too have my own plans on bringing some of the Scurge to the federation borders, but in my own way. I can probably go into more details, but I've said enough for the time beings. Comments would be really appreciated.

Side note: I have though up a small idea of the Confederation's origins.
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Despite the length, I enjoyed this quite a bit. There's definitely a lot potential to be had in these plots, assuming one could get them set up. There is some confusion to be had in some of the newly presented groups; chiefly speaking, these guys called "Arithean." We didn't get much description of them, and they seemed to be a significant part of the metroid development and plot. Who are they exactly?


I figured that I was going to have to explain this race’s involvement in the background as the ‘flashback’ layout was somewhat confusing. The major reason I didn’t go into any major detail about them was because the overall lack of information on them fitted with the ‘characterization; I had in mind for the race.

Anyway, they’re a race of energy beings with high psychic capabilities who were a major power in the ‘second’ galaxy and who the Auranar considered to be a threat during their conquest phase.

Despite being particularly vulnerable to the enhanced Metroids’ energy draining capabilities, they were the only power to survive due to the Auranar themselves attempting to kill off the Metroids fearing their growing abilities, including the first steps towards telepathy and individual thinking outside their creators will. Withdrawing from all fights the Metroids began to attack the Auranar after their attempt to destroy the race with a virus failed, allowing for the remaining Arithean to withdraw and regroup then go into hiding.

Nothing else is known of them before the founding of the second Commonwealth other than the fact that several arrived on the Auranar homeworld shortly before it fell, demanding all data on the Metroids so that they could help the other races defeat them.
They were wearing a form of exosuit when they appeared at this point to both hide their true forms and also to mask the energy and psychic energy which made up their bodies (I didn’t add this last detail to the background but that’s what I had in mind anyway.)

Despite apparently doing nothing to help the remaining ‘free races,’ secretly they used one of their people (Lenav) to help convince Crais and the crew of the stranded Commonwealth fleet to begin, they also used their telepathic powers to help each race within the Commonwealth understand one another (as there was no ‘universal language’ which could be used.)
The race continually worked in the background of the Commonwealth’s rise to power, reverse engineering various advanced technologies, systems and weapons which could be used against the Metroids but very rarely took any direct action in any of the battles or decisions made.
Truth be told, they were using the Commonwealth as a shield more than anything, to protect themselves against the Metroids while making themselves an integral part within the new order (universal translators) so that they could never be removed without doing resounding damage to the governments and people consisting of the Commonwealth.

Later RPs would have seen them taking a very scheming and G-man-like approach to any affairs, trying to trigger conflicts between the Metroids, Federation and Commonwealth for unknown reasons, hindering each power at certain times while helping them at others.
To sum them up, they’re not ‘evil’ or antagonistic but instead very self focused and more than willing to take extra precautions and actions to ensure that there is a balance of power in which they always have the upper hand, but never truly become directly involved with external affairs.

Quote:
 
I'd also like to present some of my own ideas, so that way we can brainstorm and chat about stuff; toss ideas around here and there. Plus I don't much of a chance to present some of my own story stuff, so that would be nice.


I’d be very interested to hear your own background both involving the Scurge itself and the other elements of the Confederation, so by all means post any ideas you have in here. Also, how would the Confed be governed? I know that the governmental idea has a number of differences with how a Federation works, but I’m just wondering what you had in mind.

Quote:
 
To start off, I did have my own idea about the origins of the Scurge organisms and it connects to the Metroid verse in a way. Scurge, despite their appearance have a unique physiological aspect that might be unlike most other organisms or 'entities' found in the galaxy. It's very different from that of normal carbon-based organisms, and we're talking about the actual organism itself; not any of the creatures or 'variants' afflicted by its virus. I actually made up a profile analyzing them, and I'll post it sometime later on.

This actually has to do with a small bit of phazon hitting a planet, but probably wasn't a full fledged Leviathan. The stuff had a similar affect on the planet's native organisms like those found on Tallon IV; either mutating and corrupting them or killing off anything else. There was, however, a small exception to this effect; an organism whose physiology was similar to the Scurges, and was, in fact, their ancestors. Unlike other organisms, this creature's body was not entirely held up by DNA, but mostly by a bizarre, complex bio-energy that acted like the creature's real DNA. This bio-energy acted on a similar level with that of the phazon level, where they both had very life-like characteristic. The difference was that phazon was erratic, chaotic and filled with an unorganized amount of energy; so much it's probably the reason why the stuff gives off radiation. We might even consider phazon has some a type of 'life-force' in it that is essentially different from your usual stuff; just like the Scurge's.


This is a good start and a very good basis for the Scurge, but I just have one or two recommendations about the source of the Phazon itself.
Rather than making it a small scale or ‘non-fully fledged’ Leviathan have the Phazon piece be a very small amount of the substance, a fragment of a destroyed Leviathan or a piece of a infected planetoid rather than an actual mini-Leviathan.

I have two reasons for suggesting this, the first being the fact we know Leviathans would be followed up by something else and also guarded by something very big and ugly which would most likely not take the Scurge’s ‘conquest’ or merging of the Phazon too kindly.
A large enough piece would also attract the attention of any monitoring stations from major powers such as the Federation or Space Pirates and from the games I think it was commented on more than once that Phazon had a very high energy signature.
Actually, if this source was detected at a later date and a research team sent out to land on the planet, it would explain how the Scurge managed to get off world.

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*Ahem* In contrast, the pre-Scurge organism's energies that held it's form is well organized and compact and knew how to construct itself to hold the organism's form (Most phazon afflicted creatures probably has some sort of DNA to begin with, and the phazon, being alive in some manner, would most likely need the DNA to retain the form). Let it be said that these two different energies, obviously, don't mix, like oil and water, and the pre-scurge's bio-energy did recognize how the phazon was bad for its organized 'structure.'

Though vulnerable, the organism began to take an evolutionary stance, the off spring quickly loosing many of their traits that would relate them to a normal carbon-based life form. Soon enough, all that was left was DNA to form some of its bone structure, its brain and a few other bits here and there. The bio-energy, having recognized the phazon as a threat, had given the organism itself to the ability to distinguish between many various types of energy, including the phazon itself. Over a short radius around it, it could sense these energies like it skin was all about the air, and as if the energy felt like 'heat' but distinguished by a unique 'scent' instead of the hot and cold variations. It could also see these energies within a short radius as well, being displayed in various colors.

As a side-effect, though, it lost many of its original senses, and certain basic needs, as well. Taste, smell and hearing was completely gone, most likely due to the fact that phazon could poison any food supply; it primarily subsisted on the air it breathed, probably being that of oxygen and the free floating energy particles (This in turn made the Scurge very efficient at energy usage, considering how it's bio-energy became so intuitive with it).


This sounds very reasonable, I’m not sure about the whole idea of having sustenance obtained through the air though as, from what I knew, Phazon is capable of infecting just about anything and everything from (as you mentioned) food sources to environments to creatures. So what about any airborne viruses on this planet? (if there were any actually there) Would the Scurge also survive on these while avoiding any Phazon-infected versions? Or would they simply have a much greater resistance to them?

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Even with these evolutionary traits, however, the pre-Scurge was still quite vulnerable because of how in the 'dark' it was. Many of the normal traits that gave any organism a fare perception was lost to the Scurge, and the range it's unique sense limited. It did become more resistant to the phazon, at least the more subtle variations; but it was still vulnerable. Thus, the Scurge made one final adaptation that gives its distinction within the very game itself: a virulent physiology (Hence the reason why Scurge are called a 'virulent organism' and not just your common case virus). With this, it could infect other organisms to defend itself with, scout ahead of it, and do everything else that had been done in the game.


Again I like this idea a lot, it gives a great deal of distinction to the race and also sounds pretty plausible from a sci-fi perspective. I just have one question to ask though:

In your idea for the Scurge, is their ability to infect and take control of others simply a biological advantage they hold over other species or is it a survival requirement?
There are plenty of creatures who can use symbiosis to take control of other lifeforms in sci-fi (Goa’uld for example) but there are also a few which need to do this in order to reproduce (Xenomorphs) and on a few occasions even for sustenance (parasites.)

Also, from what you said earlier about the pre-Scurge losing much of it’s normal senses, perhaps the species would instinctively try to infect and/or inhabit something or someone in order to gain these senses.

I just think that there should be a very solid and definitive reason for the Scurge to infect something and continue infecting other lifeforms.

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In due time, since the phazon was a generated supply and the Scurge virus became one, the phazon was eventually dissolved. Though the virus could not completely 'turn' a few of the phazon-afflicted organism, the virus was like a base being constantly added to an acid; the acid would be become neutralized as first, then there would be more of a base.

That's it for me. I'll just say that I too have my own plans on bringing some of the Scurge to the federation borders, but in my own way. I can probably go into more details, but I've said enough for the time beings. Comments would be really appreciated.


As I said before, this is a good beginning. The overall stages of the Scruge’ origins have been explained and in it’s own way this was a ‘natural’ event considering that no race chose to directly try and turn the pre-Scurge into a 'virulent organism' and it managed to do so under it’s own strength.
The base-acid explanation is a little hard to understand but it get’s the meaning across.

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Side note: I have though up a small idea of the Confederation's origins.


Is this a detailed idea or just a thought? Either way (and as I noted before) I would like to hear this origin idea.
Edited by Shin-Ra, Feb 10 2009, 04:31 AM.
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This is a good start and a very good basis for the Scurge, but I just have one or two recommendations about the source of the Phazon itself.
Rather than making it a small scale or ‘non-fully fledged’ Leviathan have the Phazon piece be a very small amount of the substance, a fragment of a destroyed Leviathan or a piece of a infected planetoid rather than an actual mini-Leviathan.

I have two reasons for suggesting this, the first being the fact we know Leviathans would be followed up by something else and also guarded by something very big and ugly which would most likely not take the Scurge’s ‘conquest’ or merging of the Phazon too kindly.
A large enough piece would also attract the attention of any monitoring stations from major powers such as the Federation or Space Pirates and from the games I think it was commented on more than once that Phazon had a very high energy signature.
Actually, if this source was detected at a later date and a research team sent out to land on the planet, it would explain how the Scurge managed to get off world.


Actually, I think that's what I meant, but I’ve could have stated it wrong. I was aiming for something that didn't involve Leviathan or planet killing amounts of phazon, for various reason, some of which you stated. Although, it could be said that traces of phazon are left someone where on the planet, untouched; just the Confederation hasn't found it yet. Of course, they could have stumbled onto the planet by coincidence, but who knows. I don't see much of an importance right now in thinking about it.

On another note, I'm thinking that since phazon is a high energy source, the Scurge would sense it a mile away. Whether they would outright avoid it like the plague or not is a bit difficult for me to figure out, since it might contradict with the resistance they built up. Then again, things could be a bit mixed and not one side; they could have developed resistance to the more subtle levels (Plausibly the kind of environment that we see occurring in all the phazon infected worlds in Corruption, I.E little bits of phazon 'growth' or moss here and there. Stuff like we see in the Phazon mines is still dangerous to them, since it's so concentrated). The bit of phazon we're talking about contaminated a small part of the planet they were, and didn't have any major source; it was more or less like a chemical spill. There being no continuous source of Phazon, the Scurge, evolved, sent it's infected creatures to smother the place.

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This sounds very reasonable, I’m not sure about the whole idea of having sustenance obtained through the air though as, from what I knew, Phazon is capable of infecting just about anything and everything from (as you mentioned) food sources to environments to creatures. So what about any airborne viruses on this planet? (if there were any actually there) Would the Scurge also survive on these while avoiding any Phazon-infected versions? Or would they simply have a much greater resistance to them?


I think they would have a much greater resistance, since the phazon levels we're talking about here are more subtle. It's plausible to assume that that the bacteria in the air may also provide some sort of nourishment, though I'm iffy on that. I mean, from what I've seen in the game, it seems like quite a few of the variants don't seem to have the appropriate body parts, though a few do have teeth (Probably to chew out anything that gets in their mouths). There's also the matter that we're dealing with a virus, a virus, might I add, that turns every single entity into a variations of the Scurge itself; kind of killing your food source there).

But I digress. I have had some small qualms with the no need for food idea, but it does seem to be the most appropriate idea I have at the moment. I can't think of anything else it would need to feed on.

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Again I like this idea a lot, it gives a great deal of distinction to the race and also sounds pretty plausible from a sci-fi perspective. I just have one question to ask though:

In your idea for the Scurge, is their ability to infect and take control of others simply a biological advantage they hold over other species or is it a survival requirement?
There are plenty of creatures who can use symbiosis to take control of other life forms in sci-fi (Goa’uld for example) but there are also a few which need to do this in order to reproduce (Xenomorphs) and on a few occasions even for sustenance (parasites.)

Also, from what you said earlier about the pre-Scurge losing much of its normal senses, perhaps the species would instinctively try to infect and/or inhabit something or someone in order to gain these senses.

I just think that there should be a very solid and definitive reason for the Scurge to infect something and continue infecting other life forms.


That is a difficult question to ask. From a human standpoint, it looks like an advantage it has over other species, one that was evolved to probably also infect and prevent any other creatures from being tainted by phazon; since we know most phazon nasty to quite aggressive, unless I’m mistaken. Although it probably also evolved it to combat the phazon with its own energy based pathogen, one that could be generated constantly. I can't think of any primary survival reason this would be developed other than to defend itself, though it can always be made out on in RPs. Perhaps it does it keep itself from going sterile, but that's one idea.

[SCURGE: HIVE SPOILERS]




I forgot to mention that in the game, the original Scurge organism, the one that emits the pathogen, is dubbed the 'Source' by the scientists. Makes senses. Anyway, at first, it didn't seem like the source was intelligent or sentient to begin with, but while it's body emitted the virus, it seems to me also capable of absorbing any organisms into its mass. This assimilation eventually led it to a growing collective conscious, one that made the Source sentient. Hence these creatures can become intelligent, and the Source made its own plan to escape from the place.

Anyways, at the beginning of one of the boss fights, after Jenosa (The main protagonist of the game) became aware of what the Source truly was. Even though the boss didn't have anything that remotely looked like an 'ear,' she did say, "I know you can hear..." It could be one of her own assumptions, but you know, I think it did hear her, because it did assimilate organisms with ears. So something about the bio-energy in the boss could have been modified to recognize and translate the actual vibrations in the air. So it is entirely possible for the source to regain various senses through various means and 'modifications.'

But yeah, there should be a really good reason for Scurge to keep on infecting stuff. One reason is that the more people infected or so on, the more control it has over stuff; the safer it is. And that idea that they also do it to regain their senses, and perhaps explore news on as well via assimilation.

Actually, there is something that I would like to bring into discussion here, also being a Scurge spoiler. The Source had planned its escape since it became sentient, and had been wanting to get off the planet. Obviously it didn't want to stay on the planet for some reason, but for what, we really don't know; we can speculate though. It obviously assimilated some of the scientists working within the labs, and that raises the question in what it will think from the knowledge it possesses. Since many of the variants were being kept as 'pets,' we can assume that the Commander of the confeds would think it a bright idea to use them as biological weapons. The Source obviously became aware of this, and probably didn't want to be some dog on a leash. There are many ways to go about its own personal viewpoint, but it's plausible to say the Scurge preferred 'freedom' over chains.

Another reason could be some sort of inbreed instinct in it, but what I just can't think of right now.

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The base-acid explanation is a little hard to understand but it get’s the meaning across.


Yyeeeaah, I get these funnies ideas, but sometimes I can't quite find the right works to explain it properly. Then again, I did get the point across. Although, could be different ways of looking at the evolutionary process.

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I’d be very interested to hear your own background both involving the Scurge itself and the other elements of the Confederation, so by all means post any ideas you have in here. Also, how would the Confed be governed? I know that the governmental idea has a number of differences with how a Federation works, but I’m just wondering what you had in mind.


That’s actually a tuff one to go about, but this may also key in with the Confed's origins, which is mostly a skeleton of an idea. We know that both governments comprise of humans, though the Feds have a varying amount of species in it. One idea is that we can say during the earlier days of the pre-Fed or while the feds were colonize, a group of colonists got snagged and used as slaves by an alien race. A little common or perhaps cliché, but it's a place to start. There was probably some sort of uprising, but it also plausible to say that during the slave days, people had come across the buried remains of another civilization, either one destroyed by the enslaving alien race or dead for another reason. This race probably wasn't as technologically advance as the Chozo or anything, but they certain were a level above today's current tech.

Now there could have simply been weapons or left overs that could have helped start an uprising, but it's also plausible to assume that some sentient revenant, organic or artificial, was left and still alive; perhaps left in suspended animation or the other. This sleep entity could have taken pity the enslaved humans, and decided to help, and with the right thinking, managed to beat down. That's one way of looking at how they start, but it's not a definite idea at the moment.

As for how the Confederation themselves act in comparison with the Federation, I'm not sure. They obviously didn't take kindly to be used as slaves, so they'll have probably focused on their military to prevent another incident like that. They obviously had the Scurge under the works as well as other neat little toys, and they probably take to guarding their borders a bit seriously. Social, economic standards and health care may be the least focused area that the Confeds look into.

I do feel that there is something missing with the Confeds that would differentiate them from the Federation. Obviously they don't like the idea of having to follow what the Federations says, and may dislike the idea of joining them because they're little paranoid there's may be a hidden agenda on the Feds (This idea I’m not really keen, but it's all I can come up with for the moment).

Anyway, I'll leave it that for the moment. I wrote quite a bit. on a side note, I did post the Scurge bio at the Races and Groups thread.
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Actually, I think that's what I meant, but I’ve could have stated it wrong. I was aiming for something that didn't involve Leviathan or planet killing amounts of phazon, for various reason, some of which you stated. Although, it could be said that traces of phazon are left someone where on the planet, untouched; just the Confederation hasn't found it yet. Of course, they could have stumbled onto the planet by coincidence, but who knows. I don't see much of an importance right now in thinking about it.


Well, that’s fine. Many authors have key element’s of a race or civilization’s history left largely ambiguous so they can expand on it later on and introduce new plot points and twists, just as long is the phazon wasn’t intentionally hurled at the planet by Dark Samus, the Metroid Prime, or whatever keeps firing Leviathans through space at planets up to MP:Corruption.

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On another note, I'm thinking that since phazon is a high energy source, the Scurge would sense it a mile away.
Whether they would outright avoid it like the plague or not is a bit difficult for me to figure out, since it might contradict with the resistance they built up. Then again, things could be a bit mixed and not one side; they could have developed resistance to the more subtle levels (Plausibly the kind of environment that we see occurring in all the phazon infected worlds in Corruption, I.E little bits of phazon 'growth' or moss here and there. Stuff like we see in the Phazon mines is still dangerous to them, since it's so concentrated). The bit of phazon we're talking about contaminated a small part of the planet they were, and didn't have any major source; it was more or less like a chemical spill. There being no continuous source of Phazon, the Scurge, evolved, sent it's infected creatures to smother the place.


That’s pretty plausible and based upon what we’ve seen in the MP games, I think that part of phazon resistance would fit in well with the whole idea of the substance, but I’m interested in the point you made about the state of the worlds in Correuption and how they had very subtle forms of infection and resistance.
All I’m thinking about here is that this could be used to link how the Scurge became able to infect machines, we know that phazon can both infect machines and biological creatures in various different forms.

If the pre-Scurge were able to detect the Phazon and also it’s energy signature, the right level of Phazon infecting a machine would draw the Scurge to it so that it could devour it and inadvertently ‘spark’ it’s ability to begin infecting machines.
The only reason I’m saying this is because I think that up till now the all the Scurge’s specialised senses seem to point towards it detecting bio creatures and infecting them, and I’m just trying to draw a link to how this could be used to infect machines.

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I forgot to mention that in the game, the original Scurge organism, the one that emits the pathogen, is dubbed the 'Source' by the scientists. Makes senses. Anyway, at first, it didn't seem like the source was intelligent or sentient to begin with, but while it's body emitted the virus, it seems to me also capable of absorbing any organisms into its mass. This assimilation eventually led it to a growing collective conscious, one that made the Source sentient. Hence these creatures can become intelligent, and the Source made its own plan to escape from the place.


So, would you make this a ‘sped up evolution’ or simply a natural change built into the Scurge’s (or Source’s) existence so that a creature could become the ‘leader’ or alphs of the Scurge and control it, or would you make this an alteration by the scientists working with the creature?

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Actually, there is something that I would like to bring into discussion here, also being a Scurge spoiler. The Source had planned its escape since it became sentient, and had been wanting to get off the planet. Obviously it didn't want to stay on the planet for some reason, but for what, we really don't know; we can speculate though. It obviously assimilated some of the scientists working within the labs, and that raises the question in what it will think from the knowledge it possesses. Since many of the variants were being kept as 'pets,' we can assume that the Commander of the confeds would think it a bright idea to use them as biological weapons. The Source obviously became aware of this, and probably didn't want to be some dog on a leash. There are many ways to go about its own personal viewpoint, but it's plausible to say the Scurge preferred 'freedom' over chains.

Another reason could be some sort of inbreed instinct in it, but what I just can't think of right now.


I put some thought into it, but I’m not sure what to say about it right now.

But going back to the previous freedom idea, I think this makes a lot of sense when tied in with the concept of it’s growing intelligence. The Scurge may have already wished to infect people but simply lacked the power or numbers to do so when they were being used as pets,
But the most obvious reason I’d to leave the planet, would be to find a much more densely populated one to infect more hosts. This is a possibility as I don’t recall the game ever mentioning just how complex or developed the planet’s eco system was.

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As for how the Confederation themselves act in comparison with the Federation, I'm not sure. They obviously didn't take kindly to be used as slaves, so they'll have probably focused on their military to prevent another incident like that. They obviously had the Scurge under the works as well as other neat little toys, and they probably take to guarding their borders a bit seriously. Social, economic standards and health care may be the least focused area that the Confeds look into.

I do feel that there is something missing with the Confeds that would differentiate them from the Federation. Obviously they don't like the idea of having to follow what the Federations says, and may dislike the idea of joining them because they're little paranoid there's may be a hidden agenda on the Feds (This idea I’m not really keen, but it's all I can come up with for the moment).


Well, I don’t want to influence this too much but I can make one or two suggestions as to how you can develop this further in the sense of how their military works and what their aims are, and based upon what you’ve put thus far I would have thought that less direct forms of combat would be more plausible to them and with very few large groups or fleets tasked with making offensive actions in times of war or conflict, and much more with defence.
There is also the possibility that they would use spies and saboteurs more than anything else, as (as you stated) they had the Scurge under the works but this wouldn’t have been the best traditional military force the could have created and would have been put to better use being deployed behind enemy lines.
For example, a group of Confed enter a strategically valuable planet held by the enemy and when they leave, they leave behind a number of Scruge organisms to infect various beings and machines and weaken the enemy government’s grip on it from within.

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Anyway, I'll leave it that for the moment. I wrote quite a bit. on a side note, I did post the Scurge bio at the Races and Groups thread.


Okay, do you want me to make any components upon it? (in this thread not the Races and Groups one, for obvious reasons.)
Edited by Shin-Ra, Feb 16 2009, 12:01 PM.
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If the pre-Scurge were able to detect the Phazon and also it’s energy signature, the right level of Phazon infecting a machine would draw the Scurge to it so that it could devour it and inadvertently ‘spark’ it’s ability to begin infecting machines.


That does make quite a bit a bit of sense; especially considering how their other traits might be related to counter the [mini] phazon epidemic. Let’s have a small list of their traits that can be noted within the game:

Scurge can also infect energy-based systems (Or in other words, super condensed energy creatures and we see quite a huge variety of them. One of which are unique, deadly and annoying at the same time). It also hasn't been stated what they can't infect, and some of the systems in the lab were probably developed to has some resistance against Scurge infection (At least from my theorizing). So that sort of thing is open to debate.

They're highly adaptable. It stated in the intro, and there are quite a few examples shown. It was mentioned in a log that Pryonaughts (Pesky little, floating fireballs, being technically made up of purely condensed energy) were infesting one area of a building (Ransol Industry), and were momentarily kept at bay via a containment field. yet they managed to somehow bypass these fields, and while it's mentioned they do use the air vents to navigate, it seems from the way the log was written that people had already accounted for the vents.

Plausible theory: the variants were able to shift their energy frequency to bypass to the fields. Another ambiguous example is when you're trying to rescue a scientist who's barricaded himself in a control room. The only plausible way to get in is a teleportation nexus; a transporter that has a complex lock on it. Judging by the setup, I don't think your normal scurge infection will get around the lock.

However, when you were last speaking to the scientist, he screamed, "No, impossible. How can it!? Ahhhh!" all before being cut off. It's never stated directly what was impossible, but when you get to the room the guy was in, you meat with another unique-looking boss. It somehow mucked with the electrical wires in the system and uses the energy to creature a net over a hole; in the game, it was harmless, but it prevented you from going down the shaft and pursues the capture scientist. And it only disappeared when you beat the boss.

It probably used this same ability to somehow bypass the transport lock.

More in-game examples is how you meet in different versions of the same enemy, always having a different color and some times different abilities. And the later versions were usually much stronger; this could employ some kind of evolutionary tactic.

There's a lot more I could state, but I'll leave that to the Scurge profile. I will mention that different types of Scurge react differently to various types of energy (I.E. energy based entities get stronger from electrical/EMP attacks). They've been known to mix their types to make it more difficult to choose the right element.

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So, would you make this a ‘sped up evolution’ or simply a natural change built into the Scurge’s (or Source’s) existence so that a creature could become the ‘leader’ or alphas of the Scurge and control it, or would you make this an alteration by the scientists working with the creature?


This is difficult to place considering that there can be many explanations for either option. Considering how phazon can create various abilities here and there, the Scurge's adaptability came around to deal with whatever 'unforeseeable' traits one might possess. It would slowly go with the flow of chaos, and due to that, it probably needed to have more awareness other than just natural instincts. Considering how the traits of the Scurge variant can be so multifarious, the Source needed to know what to do with these variants; and not just through them at what phazon freak it attacked.

Hence (Probably due to the lack of DNA to quickly grow a brain), it assimilated creatures or merged some of its own kind to its body to help develop the intelligence to fight back. This intelligence might have only been primitive considering that none of the Confeds found signs of sentience when they discovered it; or it could have devolved after the phazon was wiped out.

Probably once in the lab, it probably had enough primitive intelligence to realize it was being trapped. Or, simply put, the ability to assimilate stuff was already there (Developed through the fight with phazon), and through the scientists experiments, it assimilated various creatures and other stuff it couldn't obtain at its planet. The experiments didn't involve needles or such; mostly just basic stuff, like giving it a creature to see what would happen. Perhaps through a few accidents, it absorbed a human or two.

There can be various things that those scientists could have done to the Source, but overall, I think what experiments did help promote its intelligence.

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But going back to the previous freedom idea, I think this makes a lot of sense when tied in with the concept of its growing intelligence. The Scurge may have already wished to infect people but simply lacked the power or numbers to do so when they were being used as pets,
But the most obvious reason I’d to leave the planet, would be to find a much more densely populated one to infect more hosts. This is a possibility as I don’t recall the game ever mentioning just how complex or developed the planet’s eco system was.


Those seem to be some very good explanations. Considering how it planned it's escape, it must have been 'given' information retaining to whatever else the scientist were experimenting on aside from the Scurge; and thus it had it's first taste of said information. Sentient, human information, and Inos (The planet it was on) didn't exactly carry many sentient creatures aside from the humans.

Plus, from my analysis, it was going to have babies; it had little larvae eggs in its 'hive.' So it knew these creatures couldn't be left unintelligent, considering that none-infected creatures probably retained most of their information before being assimilated.

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Well, I don’t want to influence this too much but I can make one or two suggestions as to how you can develop this further in the sense of how their military works and what their aims are, and based upon what you’ve put thus far I would have thought that less direct forms of combat would be more plausible to them and with very few large groups or fleets tasked with making offensive actions in times of war or conflict, and much more with defense.


Y'know, given what I've already come up for them, that actually makes a lot of sense. Can't say much else except...

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There is also the possibility that they would use spies and saboteurs more than anything else, as (as you stated) they had the Scurge under the works but this wouldn’t have been the best traditional military force the could have created and would have been put to better use being deployed behind enemy lines.


[SPOILER ALERT]


About the end of the game, when you kill the Source's body (At leas that what I think you did), its 'conscious' was still alive. The bio-energy cell (A condensed form of bio-energy or 'life-force' that's visible to the naked eye) that comes from every boss you beat retained the Source's mind. This sphere of energy used Jenosa's suit as a median to transfer it's conscious inside of her body and head, and while I can't be too certain, I think the bio-energy was clean of the virus (Considering how every other cell fully cleansed your body). Either way, there was a mental battle inside of her.

A similar fate could be presented for future people who encounter the Scurge, assuming there are certain 'things' in place (I.E. A method for it to get inside the body). I was even thinking that one scientist had failed to fight off of this mental invasion, and the Source now inside a (Probably) human body, used his new identity to deceive the rest of the Confeds and help his brethren. Sorta make the Military think they have control over the organism when the Scurge is being surprisingly insidious.

A similar fate could happen to Gfeds, pending on the circumstances. Considering these circumstances and the usual lack for a way for a Source to get into one's mind, this sort of situation would be rare. Now, also around the end, it was show the Source was a making a crude replica of Jenosa, made out of some sort of blue material. The replica would be more common, but they probably could be detected more easily than those whose mind had been taken over. This being because the replica has the actual virus in it, while the other would simply appear as a human.

This could definitely lead to some neat plot usage.

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Okay, do you want me to make any components upon it? (in this thread not the Races and Groups one, for obvious reasons.)


I believe you were trying to say 'comments' not 'components.' That word confused me for a moment; but yes, please do so. It could probably do with a nice update and grammar.
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Scurge can also infect energy-based systems (Or in other words, super condensed energy creatures and we see quite a huge variety of them. One of which are unique, deadly and annoying at the same time). It also hasn't been stated what they can't infect, and some of the systems in the lab were probably developed to has some resistance against Scurge infection (At least from my theorizing). So that sort of thing is open to debate.

There is another possibility relating to why some of the systems were effected, which is the fact that the Scurge found ways in which they could alter them in one way or another to bypass this resistance and gain access to them.
If you recall the second and third bosses of the game (Cyclops and Atlas), these were both clearly original machines who had been altered to meet the Scurge’s needs and in both cases they showed some biological matter in their constructs which could have been parts designed to resist the Scurge, which the Scurge had simply replaced with their own variations.
This is only a theory more than anything else but Atlas’ outer plating had almost completely been replaced by some form of bio-matter and it was shown towards the end being capable of expelling the same matter towards the end of the fight to prevent you moving around to dodge it’s attacks.
Something similar to this matter could be seen making up the vast majority of Cyclops’ innards (wiring and core) when it opened up and right at the beginning you could see the ‘pathogen’ leaving it. Another supporting element of this theory can be seen in the first boss who has similar bio-elements linked to the electrical systems of the ship you start off in, possibly hinting that this is the energy giving it the power to regenerate. This same matter appears right across many of the game’s sections and is last seen linking the Source to it’s surroundings.

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They're highly adaptable. It stated in the intro, and there are quite a few examples shown. It was mentioned in a log that Pryonaughts (Pesky little, floating fireballs, being technically made up of purely condensed energy) were infesting one area of a building (Ransol Industry), and were momentarily kept at bay via a containment field. yet they managed to somehow bypass these fields, and while it's mentioned they do use the air vents to navigate, it seems from the way the log was written that people had already accounted for the vents.

Plausible theory: the variants were able to shift their energy frequency to bypass to the fields.

That sounds like a very possible theory, as if they were able to gather enough data upon the field itself then they would most likely soon find the system’s weak points and overcome them. However, there are other theories as to why this may have happened. In the game (from what I remember) you never see any of the Scurge actually attack one another or attempt to use one another for food which gives the impression that they are either A a social species willing to work together and use numbers to their advantage, or B linked loosely by the Source in one way or another (chemicals, pheromones etc.)
They could have simply found a way of infecting the generator or supporting sections of the field and shut them off.
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Another ambiguous example is when you're trying to rescue a scientist who's barricaded himself in a control room. The only plausible way to get in is a teleportation nexus; a transporter that has a complex lock on it. Judging by the setup, I don't think your normal scurge infection will get around the lock.

However, when you were last speaking to the scientist, he screamed, "No, impossible. How can it!? Ahhhh!" all before being cut off. It's never stated directly what was impossible, but when you get to the room the guy was in, you meat with another unique-looking boss. It somehow mucked with the electrical wires in the system and uses the energy to creature a net over a hole; in the game, it was harmless, but it prevented you from going down the shaft and pursues the capture scientist. And it only disappeared when you beat the boss.

It probably used this same ability to somehow bypass the transport lock.

Or it could have infected the locking mechanism’s internal workings and by trial and error eventually shut it off, but that’s a less plausible theory

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More in-game examples is how you meet in different versions of the same enemy, always having a different color and some times different abilities. And the later versions were usually much stronger; this could employ some kind of evolutionary tactic.

There's a lot more I could state, but I'll leave that to the Scurge profile. I will mention that different types of Scurge react differently to various types of energy (I.E. energy based entities get stronger from electrical/EMP attacks). They've been known to mix their types to make it more difficult to choose the right element.

This last part does again support the idea of some form of evolution and adaptation to their environment as the fact that they later on chose to mix elements could be seen as an attempt to remove or hide an obvious weakness in their species. This is actually supported by the Scurge having such a high number of diverse sub-species, despite being the results of infection they ultimately continued with this rather than simply choosing to only infect the most advanced and adaptable life forms, giving the idea that the Scurge itself was trying to become a more diverse and numerous race rather than moving in one simple direction.

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Those seem to be some very good explanations. Considering how it planned it's escape, it must have been 'given' information retaining to whatever else the scientist were experimenting on aside from the Scurge; and thus it had it's first taste of said information. Sentient, human information, and Inos (The planet it was on) didn't exactly carry many sentient creatures aside from the humans.

Plus, from my analysis, it was going to have babies; it had little larvae eggs in its 'hive.' So it knew these creatures couldn't be left unintelligent, considering that none-infected creatures probably retained most of their information before being assimilated.

I’d forgotten about the eggs, and the suggestion you’ve made does reinforce the idea for it’s need to jump to the next planet but this could also simply be from a natural instinct more than any other greater reason.
Jenosa had up till then been quite happily been sprinting across the entire world killing every last infected being with essential ease and was making a slow but definite path towards the Source. It could have been attempting to planet in an attempt to both continue it’s race’s existence and for it’s own survival by getting away from her. This is also supported by the whole fact of it spending so much apparent energy in creating an exact clone of Jenosa, and even the incomplete version of that was more than capable of fighting the real bounty hunter on even terms.
It found her to be a very possible threat and as such it chose to use whatever data it had from the pathogens infecting her to create a mimic to be used as a possible next stage for it’s species then attempted to leave planet to escape the real Jenosa.
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About the end of the game, when you kill the Source's body (At leas that what I think you did), its 'conscious' was still alive. The bio-energy cell (A condensed form of bio-energy or 'life-force' that's visible to the naked eye) that comes from every boss you beat retained the Source's mind. This sphere of energy used Jenosa's suit as a median to transfer it's conscious inside of her body and head, and while I can't be too certain, I think the bio-energy was clean of the virus (Considering how every other cell fully cleansed your body). Either way, there was a mental battle inside of her.

A similar fate could be presented for future people who encounter the Scurge, assuming there are certain 'things' in place (I.E. A method for it to get inside the body). I was even thinking that one scientist had failed to fight off of this mental invasion, and the Source now inside a (Probably) human body, used his new identity to deceive the rest of the Confeds and help his brethren. Sorta make the Military think they have control over the organism when the Scurge is being surprisingly insidious.

A similar fate could happen to Gfeds, pending on the circumstances. Considering these circumstances and the usual lack for a way for a Source to get into one's mind, this sort of situation would be rare. Now, also around the end, it was show the Source was a making a crude replica of Jenosa, made out of some sort of blue material. The replica would be more common, but they probably could be detected more easily than those whose mind had been taken over. This being because the replica has the actual virus in it, while the other would simply appear as a human.

This could definitely lead to some neat plot usage.

I can’t see what’s wrong with that idea at all and if the Confeds (or another group) were to know of this power then they could easily use it to their advantage. A simple example of this would be for the Scurge to be deployed near major military and political locations in some way, I.E. infect the planet or nation’s major leaders to convince them that any growing presence of the Scruge is not a threat and then (possibly) completely infect them and replace them with controlled copies.

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I believe you were trying to say 'comments' not 'components.' That word confused me for a moment; but yes, please do so. It could probably do with a nice update and grammar.


I had to rush that last post and I was suffering from lack of sleep at the time, but I think I did mean comments. Anyway, I’ll have a read through it and edit in (or post) any comments I have in a few days time.
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There is another possibility relating to why some of the systems were effected, which is the fact that the Scurge found ways in which they could alter them in one way or another to bypass this resistance and gain access to them.


That's probably of one way of looking at, and is very plausible. There's even a hint of Scurge bio-matter growing within the lab walls when Cyclops blows, leaving a nice little hole in the wall to go through. If you look close enough, you can make out some red stuff inside the hollow section of the wall.

The only reason some of the other systems, such as Security Nexus, teleporters and gravity shafts, probably weren't affected yet was they were much more resistant and/or isolated from the infection; it would probably need more time to infect (Atlas being an except most likely due to the factory being dirty and rife with bacteria. Hence the terrible smell in the Ransol industry).

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Something similar to this matter could be seen making up the vast majority of Cyclops’ innards (wiring and core) when it opened up and right at the beginning you could see the ‘pathogen’ leaving it. Another supporting element of this theory can be seen in the first boss who has similar bio-elements linked to the electrical systems of the ship you start off in, possibly hinting that this is the energy giving it the power to regenerate. This same matter appears right across many of the game’s sections and is last seen linking the Source to it’s surroundings.


Ahhh yes, the bio-matter that often afflicts machine, especially the purple stuff; the purple tendrils or webbings have often fascinated me. The purple bio-matter has appears to either acted like a sort of nerve or vein to transfer energy, hold something in place (I.E. the Source's body), or both.

Actually, it's probably this kind of stuff that makes some people refer the Scurge as a parasite, which is kind of a misinterpritation. The bio-matter that we see all about Inos is probably a clumping of bacteria afflicted by the virus, and thus that makes bacteria reacts to any kind of energy source or sublte current it comes into contact with; and said bacteri-turning-bio-matter ends up fusing to whatever matter it comes into contact with (I.E. Metal), literally becoming a part of the system. This would explain why when you kill an important, 'biological' mechanismof the infected machine that the integrity of it (Like Jenosa's ship) starts to fall apart.

A machine could probably have the virus simply tainting current flowing inside of it, and that through some sort of virus build-up, it eventually starts to affect any bacteria that lands on it's metal plating. This might explain why, even with the knowledge that machies can be afflicted by the virus, that the scientists were unable to pinpoint the cause of the malfunctioning machines before everything went nasty; they only suspected Scurge infection when they saw bio-matter in a machine, but none of their machiens, for the time being, had anything in them. It was simply due to how the virus was saturating inside of the machines that they began to show odd behavior.

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In the game (from what I remember) you never see any of the Scurge actually attack one another or attempt to use one another for food which gives the impression that they are either A a social species willing to work together and use numbers to their advantage, or B linked loosely by the Source in one way or another (chemicals, pheromones etc.)


Or both A and B are slightly mixed together. There's a plausibility that the varients can think independley of another but bow to the will of the Source, as if through some sort of emphatic link. One thing that might suggest this is that indepent on some nature is when it's trying to take Jenosa's ship for a joy ride. But the real question we should be asking first is: What is the range of that the variants can communicate with the Source?

This is a very difficult answer indeed, as we have little to no proof or reference as to how the scurge can really communicate, and how far. One theory is that there some sort of bio-energy wave emissions, like a radio or harmless radiation wave. This might link up with the bio-energy of recently destroyed Scurge (The pulsing green globs in other words, etc), where if know that this stuff can contain the Source's mind, then this stuff entering Jenosa's body it mindless. Considering that Jenosa doesn't have to fight or consciously will it to 'improve' her survival rate, it's plausible to assume that this stuff attunes itself to whatever mind it comes into contact with.

It's most likely what processes the Source's thoughts for the Scurge variant, or acts like the variants 'brain.' The virus probably makes the variant sensitive to whatever the Source sends out to communicate; hence it's body acts like a median to 'hear' the Source. Only when the flesh and matter is destroyed and made incapable processing the Source's thoughts and/or manipulating a body does it loose contact with the actual brain. Hence the stuff is comfortable when inside Jenosa's body, possibly acting like a metaphysical muscles, obeying her whims, to efficiently produce the energy her gauntlets fire (And possibly create a biological integrity field, which would probably fits into why her guts don't change. Well, I'm assuming they don't).

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This last part does again support the idea of some form of evolution and adaptation to their environment as the fact that they later on chose to mix elements could be seen as an attempt to remove or hide an obvious weakness in their species. This is actually supported by the Scurge having such a high number of diverse sub-species, despite being the results of infection they ultimately continued with this rather than simply choosing to only infect the most advanced and adaptable life forms, giving the idea that the Scurge itself was trying to become a more diverse and numerous race rather than moving in one simple direction.


Now this is something that brings to mind a few questions about the Scurge's behavior and what motivates it to do certain things. A few of big time assimilators races taht have been made (I.E. the Borg and the Zerg) generally strive for perfection. The concept that the Source or Scurge infect whatever they want would suggest that their not interested in following a 'made up concept,' as 'perfection', in certain contexts, is mere an idea of how thigns should be to ones point of view. This could possibly help one develope the Scurge to more than just a simiple minded, cliche creature that would attempt to ravage the galaxy.

Let's start with why they would prefer a more diverse. One obvious reason is that it helps to hide weaknesses; there maybe also the matter that the Source really doesn't care whatever the virus gets into. I mean, the virus itself, spreading away from the source, probably can't be told to discriminate anybody in particular, and the Source will probably make use whatever it infects. It is said in the beginning of the game that the specimen can rapidly infect all sorts of stuff and manipulate, which could lead to the idea that it pretty much uses infected variants as puppets. But that could be considered a first-hand observation.

Going back to my point, we know the Source's sentience is a collective conscious. Further more, any creature it infects may retain some sort of perception, or may gain a form of perception from assimlating something else. As it grows and reproduces, new information and experiance is aquired, and possibly including the memories of those they infect. They eventually grow to somewhat appreciate the multifarious traits their race has grown over the years (Hypotheticaly speaking of course), including whatever memories that they've 'collected. Considering that they don't have all the five senses, and that there may be more than just humans in a Scurge, every assimilated mind would do more than just think with one another to accomplish a task; they would also share certain experiances with them.

Not that in due time, with assimilating all sorts of creatures, that they may become benine. After all, assimilation tends to wipe various ideals and characteristics; and perhaps those capture by the Source would no longer experiance various feelings that would otherwise make them hesitate in doing or, or doing an 'inexplainable' action. Love, hate, revenge and other various emotions, as well as ideals, would be supressed by whatever primitive instincts that dwell within the Source from the beginning, and those instincts makes all of these minds see each other as a community, a group of people focusing on one common goal rather than their own individual desires. This common goal may deal with whatever threatens the Source, since they are a part of it.

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I’d forgotten about the eggs, and the suggestion you’ve made does reinforce the idea for it’s need to jump to the next planet but this could also simply be from a natural instinct more than any other greater reason.


And that comes to say tha the Source isn't immortal. It could have it's own kind of age, and perhaps with all those mind, they may slowly fagment over the years until it's thinking capabilities are obselete; there by making it 'dead,' whether it's body was destroyed or not.

Anyway, gtg, as my class is coming up and i don't have a lot of time left.
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That's probably of one way of looking at, and is very plausible. There's even a hint of Scurge bio-matter growing within the lab walls when Cyclops blows, leaving a nice little hole in the wall to go through. If you look close enough, you can make out some red stuff inside the hollow section of the wall.

The only reason some of the other systems, such as Security Nexus, teleporters and gravity shafts, probably weren't affected yet was they were much more resistant and/or isolated from the infection; it would probably need more time to infect (Atlas being an except most likely due to the factory being dirty and rife with bacteria. Hence the terrible smell in the Ransol industry).

Either that or the Scurge were leaving the systems alone until the Source had enough knowledge about them from the captured scientists to infect them without damaging the systems themselves, as you’d think that the scientists would create a few failsafe systems to prevent the Scurge from completely overrunning the facility rather than simply giving all of their machines resistance to the Scurge and hoping for the best.
Look at this from both a medical and a military perspective (as I believe at least a few elements of both would have been present during the examination of the Scurge), if you have an outbreak of a hostile force which you cannot completely destroy or stop, be it a virus or a physical threat, the first reaction of both of these groups would be to limit it’s spread in any way possible and quarantine it. As they almost certainly understood that the Scruge could grow to infect much more of the facility they would have taken steps for systems to be put in place to contain any large scale infection (the containment fields being the most obvious evidence to support this) both the teleporters and the shafts would have had some systems put in place along with the resistance to prevent them from being infected and overrun.
The Scurge would have most likely been allowed to move through these systems and use them (scientists moving samples, pets etc) but I think that they would have protocols put in place to prevent them from being infected or altered by the Scurge, perhaps if the pathogen attempted to change the set coordinates of the teleporter or the direction of the shaft to bypass the containment fields without the authorisation code of an infected person then they would disable or destroy themselves in some way. This would (supposedly) allow for any personnel to quite quickly evacuate the infected area while at the same time preventing the Scurge’s spread.
As you noted yourself however, the Scurge would have been able to infect the very walls of the facility and it’s other systems with little resistance removing the requirement for the use of the teleporters and shafts to continue to spread.
As for the Security Nexus, I suppose that if it did have a similar system it could have malfunctioned or the Scurge could have infected it’s other systems removing it as a long term threat.

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Ahhh yes, the bio-matter that often afflicts machine, especially the purple stuff; the purple tendrils or webbings have often fascinated me. The purple bio-matter has appears to either acted like a sort of nerve or vein to transfer energy, hold something in place (I.E. the Source's body), or both.

That’s what I thought, but I think the webbing would have had an alternate use within infected machines to both hold them together and reinforce their structure. I think that having the Scruge remove half a machine’s insides and scrambling the rest would damage the overall integrity of anything electronic. And it makes sense that the Scruge would place more bio-matter into the machines which were more important to it’s plans or who had been infected longer I.E. Atlas.
This is also partially supported by the point you made below about Jenosa’s ship and killing the major biological systems infecting the machines.

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Actually, it's probably this kind of stuff that makes some people refer the Scurge as a parasite, which is kind of a misinterpretation. The bio-matter that we see all about Inos is probably a clumping of bacteria afflicted by the virus, and thus that makes bacteria reacts to any kind of energy source or sublte current it comes into contact with; and said bacteri-turning-bio-matter ends up fusing to whatever matter it comes into contact with (I.E. Metal), literally becoming a part of the system. This would explain why when you kill an important, 'biological' mechanism of the infected machine that the integrity of it (Like Jenosa's ship) starts to fall apart.

A machine could probably have the virus simply tainting current flowing inside of it, and that through some sort of virus build-up, it eventually starts to affect any bacteria that lands on it's metal plating. This might explain why, even with the knowledge that machines can be afflicted by the virus, that the scientists were unable to pinpoint the cause of the malfunctioning machines before everything went nasty; they only suspected Scurge infection when they saw bio-matter in a machine, but none of their machines, for the time being, had anything in them. It was simply due to how the virus was saturating inside of the machines that they began to show odd behaviour.

I’m honestly not sure how a virus would truly be able to taint the actual energy powering a machine, but considering that this is a creature who’s evolution was influenced by a substance which was able to spilt a planet into two parallel dimensions (amongst other things) I’d be willing to accept that idea.
It does also bypass many of the obvious problems involving the various ideas we’ve had about the machines’ in-built resistance to the pathogen, as if almost all of this ‘resistance’ was built into the outer hulls and circuitry of the machines then it would only take a very small amount of the pathogen to infect the power core of the machine, replicate and multiply within the source while weakening the resistance from the inside out as it grew.
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Or both A and B are slightly mixed together. There's a plausibility that the variants can think independently of another but bow to the will of the Source, as if through some sort of emphatic link. One thing that might suggest this is that independent on some nature is when it's trying to take Jenosa's ship for a joy ride. But the real question we should be asking first is: What is the range of that the variants can communicate with the Source?

This is a very difficult answer indeed, as we have little to no proof or reference as to how the scurge can really communicate, and how far. One theory is that there some sort of bio-energy wave emissions, like a radio or harmless radiation wave. This might link up with the bio-energy of recently destroyed Scurge (The pulsing green globs in other words, etc), where if know that this stuff can contain the Source's mind, then this stuff entering Jenosa's body it mindless. Considering that Jenosa doesn't have to fight or consciously will it to 'improve' her survival rate, it's plausible to assume that this stuff attunes itself to whatever mind it comes into contact with.

It's most likely what processes the Source's thoughts for the Scurge variant, or acts like the variants 'brain.' The virus probably makes the variant sensitive to whatever the Source sends out to communicate; hence it's body acts like a median to 'hear' the Source. Only when the flesh and matter is destroyed and made incapable processing the Source's thoughts and/or manipulating a body does it loose contact with the actual brain. Hence the stuff is comfortable when inside Jenosa's body, possibly acting like a metaphysical muscles, obeying her whims, to efficiently produce the energy her gauntlets fire (And possibly create a biological integrity field, which would probably fits into why her guts don't change. Well, I'm assuming they don't).

I have no real complains with that idea but I think that along with your theory it may also be partially linked with the overall willpower of each person and which is the stronger source, from what we see of her in the actual game Jenosa is shown to be very strong willed and focused the entire time she is in the game, much more so than a soldier with years of training to comply with those of a higher rank or a civilian scientist. Perhaps the overall link with the substance can also be interfered with by various different ways or methods…
Well, I’m going to go on to give the idea and point that Jenosa could have some sort of specific mental training to fight or resist the Scurge (supported by the fact it was unable to take over her body and how she was able to ‘hear’ and even communicate with the Source), but we really don’t know just how much data she was given on it’s overall capabilities or how much the Confederation knew at the point in time of the game and quite frankly everything I come up with comes up with the points “Jenosa resistance = latent psychic or Confed bio-weapon” which oddly feels out of place in the overall universe, so I’m going to just stop with the suggestions you’ve made.
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Now this is something that brings to mind a few questions about the Scurge's behaviour and what motivates it to do certain things. A few of big time assimilators races that have been made (I.E. the Borg and the Zerg) generally strive for perfection. The concept that the Source or Scurge infect whatever they want would suggest that their not interested in following a 'made up concept,' as 'perfection', in certain contexts, is mere an idea of how things should be to ones point of view. This could possibly help one develop the Scurge to more than just a simple minded, cliche creature that would attempt to ravage the galaxy.

Let's start with why they would prefer a more diverse. One obvious reason is that it helps to hide weaknesses; there maybe also the matter that the Source really doesn't care whatever the virus gets into. I mean, the virus itself, spreading away from the source, probably can't be told to discriminate anybody in particular, and the Source will probably make use whatever it infects. It is said in the beginning of the game that the specimen can rapidly infect all sorts of stuff and manipulate, which could lead to the idea that it pretty much uses infected variants as puppets. But that could be considered a first-hand observation.

Going back to my point, we know the Source's sentience is a collective conscious. Further more, any creature it infects may retain some sort of perception, or may gain a form of perception from assimilating something else. As it grows and reproduces, new information and experience is acquired, and possibly including the memories of those they infect. They eventually grow to somewhat appreciate the multifarious traits their race has grown over the years (Hypothetically speaking of course), including whatever memories that they've 'collected. Considering that they don't have all the five senses, and that there may be more than just humans in a Scurge, every assimilated mind would do more than just think with one another to accomplish a task; they would also share certain experiences with them.

Well, we saw a great deal of humans linked directly with the Source and I think the boss Jormungand (the big sand worm) was some sort of insect queen infected by the Scurge, and if it was it would have given the Scurge a better ‘alternative perspective’ of how a hive mind truly works. So while I think that the Scurge would indeed infect just about anything it came across in flora, fauna and machine and absorb their past experiences and personalities into itself the Source would always absorb those of a higher intelligence and of a more compatible mind to further benefit itself.

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Not that in due time, with assimilating all sorts of creatures, that they may become benign. After all, assimilation tends to wipe various ideals and characteristics; and perhaps those capture by the Source would no longer experience various feelings that would otherwise make them hesitate in doing or, or doing an 'inexplainable' action. Love, hate, revenge and other various emotions, as well as ideals, would be suppressed by whatever primitive instincts that dwell within the Source from the beginning, and those instincts makes all of these minds see each other as a community, a group of people focusing on one common goal rather than their own individual desires. This common goal may deal with whatever threatens the Source, since they are a part of it.

Ah, I was afraid of this. While it’s a good idea the overall effect is good it’s already been done before… by Star Trek. To get a better understanding of something like the Scurge I spoke of a friend of mine a few weeks ago and asked him about the more positive effects of the Borg on an individual, and they seem to more or less match what you’ve written.
But, I do like the whole concept of a much more mental form of assimilation and rather than simply completely removing whole emotions of various creatures and beings perhaps the opposite should happen with each Scruge infected creature having it’s emotional limits and aspects extended and balanced out with others linked by the source. Over time, perhaps this could extend further to experiences or later forms of communication through the network created by the Source, but that’s be going to far from what we’ve seen. It would however, still give the various Scurge creatures a reason to near fanatically defend the Source with their lives and at the same time further infect more and more creatures.
This wouldn’t make them right in any sense or have any form or real moral high ground but it would give them a much more three dimensional aspect to their race than other ‘assimilating juggernauts’ from other sci-fis.
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And that comes to say that the Source isn't immortal. It could have it's own kind of age, and perhaps with all those mind, they may slowly figment over the years until it's thinking capabilities are obsolete; there by making it 'dead,' whether it's body was destroyed or not.


It could also give the idea that the Scurge is capable of leaning and evolving on the highest of levels. What if this wasn’t only to reinforce the whole idea that the Source is not immortal, but it is capable of ‘updating’ itself with every generation, taking in some of the genetic qualities of those it had absorbed and making a more efficient and productive variant of itself. To give a much better link between infected creatures, increase the numbers it could link together and also how quickly it could grow or learn (more intelligence.)

I also read through the section on the Scurge in Races and Groups, and I think that the style it was presented in was quite inventive in it’s own way. You conversed just about all the known aspects of the Scurge and hinted at it’s effects and repercussions in the Confederation, but above all it was very interesting to read and much more so than a simple database stating the various facts of the race in bullet points.
Edited by Shin-Ra, Feb 28 2009, 06:26 PM.
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I also read through the section on the Scurge in Races and Groups, and I think that the style it was presented in was quite inventive in its own way. You conversed just about all the known aspects of the Scurge and hinted at its effects and repercussions in the Confederation, but above all it was very interesting to read and much more so than a simple database stating the various facts of the race in bullet points.


Thanks!!! I don't get a lot of comments about the Scurge work that I do, and it's nice to see hear an in depth comment describing the goods parts of the bio.

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That’s what I thought, but I think the webbing would have had an alternate use within infected machines to both hold them together and reinforce their structure. I think that having the Scurge remove half a machine’s insides and scrambling the rest would damage the overall integrity of anything electronic. And it makes sense that the Scurge would place more bio-matter into the machines which were more important to its plans or who had been infected longer I.E. Atlas.
This is also partially supported by the point you made below about Jenosa’s ship and killing the major biological systems infecting the machines.


I actually have a theory that the one thing that reinforce any Scurge variant - what, in part, holds their bodies together - is a kind of biologically created integrity field. My theory isn't based off when an enemy flashes, indicating that you hit it; though some of it could based off of the little white, floating particles that's emitted from them whenever they flinch.

Let's take a look at a few things here. first, there's the scurge's ability to react of various forms of energy shot at it. Energy will obviously absorb EMP snaffu, but the other two types (mechanical and biological) aren't as obvious. More over, a mechanoid's reaction to the combustion shot (Which could be considered a form of plasma) is a little puzzling. How's does the machine use the heat to energize itself?

One idea relates to the Battle Angel Alita series, where an electromagnetic field was used to hold back a blaze of fire created by an explosion. Now, we know that any of the mechanical systems infected are using electricity in them, and electricity, in part, can create an electromagnetic field. Maybe the infected units create this field to react to the flame, but I've only see an electromagnetic field manipulate plasma on a macro level - in other words, I've only seen it fire or shield against plasma, but not use plasma to actually empower a device.

Perhaps that where the BIF (Biological integrity field) comes in, where in mix with the generate electromagnetic field, it manipulate the thermal energy at a very small level and channel it through the system as kinetic energy (After all, thermal energy is the amount of kinetic energy in all of those randomly floating particles). The metal would definitely provide an excellent conductor since its melting point is much higher than that of normal, biological tissue. The EM field would help 'catch' the plasma while most of the integrity field would help channel the thermal energy through out the rest of the body; though the EM field might help a bit with this channeling as well.

And considering that the stronger the Scurge, the more exp you get for killing; therefore indicating that the bio-energy is behind it's toughness; and possibly hinting that the bio-energy has manipulate the rest of the energy through out the body. Well, that sort of sounds strange, but it's a start.

But there's one other factor to take into consideration: Jenosa and her suit. We know that the more bio-energy she collects, the more hits she can take; but how does the bio-energy make her body more durable. I'm going to assume it doesn't create an actual, physical mutation; just doesn't seem right and we'd probably see Jenosa complaining about something going on in her body. Knowing that the bio-energy already plays a part in increasing weapon's damage, we can assume this energy can also interact with other parts of the suit as well. We can think of the energy is acting as part of Jenosa's physiology, and that, now as a part of her body, it can interact with through a unique connection with the suit.

And the only way I can explain how this bio-energy increase her health is by actually reinforcing the suit with its own BIF. Therefore, we can say that Jenosa's body is generating this field, or perhaps reinforcing an integrity field that is already there but starts off really weak (I prefer the former).

this would probably be related to how the bio-matter of the Scurge can increase the integrity of certain machines (I.E. Atlas), since the biological stuff stuck (And possibly fused) to the metal would contain the complex energy, and would obviously allow t he field to be processed. I mean, I doubt that metal or anything inorganic is a very useful container for bio-energy, and wouldn't definitely help it process a biologically created integrity field.

Of course, with every hit Jenosa takes, the more energy her body is drained to maintain this field flowing in her armor.

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I’m honestly not sure how a virus would truly be able to taint the actual energy powering a machine, but considering that this is a creature who’s evolution was influenced by a substance which was able to spilt a planet into two parallel dimensions (amongst other things) I’d be willing to accept that idea.


Yeah, I'm iffy with the idea, but I honestly can't find any other explanation for the stuff that's happened in Scurge: Hive. Ah well, can't cover everything all in one shot.

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I have no real complains with that idea but I think that along with your theory it may also be partially linked with the overall willpower of each person and which is the stronger source, from what we see of her in the actual game Jenosa is shown to be very strong willed and focused the entire time she is in the game, much more so than a soldier with years of training to comply with those of a higher rank or a civilian scientist. Perhaps the overall link with the substance can also be interfered with by various different ways or methods…
Well, I’m going to go on to give the idea and point that Jenosa could have some sort of specific mental training to fight or resist the Scurge (supported by the fact it was unable to take over her body and how she was able to ‘hear’ and even communicate with the Source), but we really don’t know just how much data she was given on it’s overall capabilities or how much the Confederation knew at the point in time of the game and quite frankly everything I come up with comes up with the points “Jenosa resistance = latent psychic or Confed bio-weapon” which oddly feels out of place in the overall universe, so I’m going to just stop with the suggestions you’ve made.


I kinda like to remain with the idea that Jenosa was a regular person who lived a normal life before deciding to become a bounty through various, but down-to-earth circumstances (Following only a coincidence here or two). It's her mission to Inos that could have an impact on her life (This can be pretty obvious with what happened there. I could explain more about this later).

In which case, we really can't say that Jenosa needs to have either of what you mentioned to fend off the Source; there have been plenty of examples in the fictional universe of normal people's whose minds were strong enough to fend off mental invaders. It's not like we always have to have a character a set of such traits.

But here's something to consider, and that's what happened in the last boss fight; when the Source invaded her head. Was it really trying to posses her, like trying to force her body to do things against her, or something else?

Let's dissect what happened in the fight. Aside from the little energy balls that Jenosa and the Source exchanged, there was also the fact that it created a duplicate of her every now and then by making contacts with...her mind? Or better yet, how about her ego - her identity? Let's bear in mind that what we see in the battle is all mental, not physical, and that these attacks represent some kind of interaction between to the minds occupying the same brain.

So, the duplicate is a sort of echo of her ego, and we see that if the Source creates three of these echoes (Each appearing to have an energy aliment. This I don't know what to make of), the Source can launch out an uber nasty attack. Not only does it look psychedelic, but it's appearance suggest that something mental is happening to Jenosa - not the destruction of her willpower, but psychological break down of her ego.

Considering that the Source needs three echoes to pull this off, there's a good chance this battle is more of a testament of one's identity and ego than that of will; not that willpower couldn't have helped. It's kind of hard for me to describe how these echoes are used to accomplish the ego breakdown, but when you have three mental images of you spinning and dancing around you, seeming like you but not really you at all; it kind of does throw the ego for a loop.

In conclusion: the Source did not possess Jenosa; I was inevitably merging with her mind (Probably much like how the rest of the bio-energy in the game does). Since there were two completely different identities that didn't mix, a fight now doubt ensued. Hey, you don't need to be psychic to have an ego.

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But, I do like the whole concept of a much more mental form of assimilation and rather than simply completely removing whole emotions of various creatures and beings perhaps the opposite should happen with each Scurge infected creature having its emotional limits and aspects extended and balanced out with others linked by the source. Over time, perhaps this could extend further to experiences or later forms of communication through the network created by the Source, but that’s be going to far from what we’ve seen. It would however, still give the various Scurge creatures a reason to near fanatically defend the Source with their lives and at the same time further infect more and more creatures.


That's an actually a neat way of going about it, though we'd need to take in the whole ego thing about Jenosa; at least, that's my assumption. The original Scurge variants in the game appeared to be mostly mindless, so we can perhaps assume that there wasn't enough time for an ego to develop. On the other hand, the Source might have already acted like these variant's ego, therefore the Scurge creatures didn't need to develop their own ego or mind.

Of course, this is all mental stuff, and there's a lot of paths we can take over here with how the Source affects the variants' mentalities.

Now, moving on, as I think we've discussed quite a bit about the Scurge (We'll fill out any other details as they pop up), let's take a look at everything in terms of plot. We have several players here, that being: The Federation, Confederation, Commonwealth, the Metroid, the psychic energy dudes who name I can't remember, and anyone else I've forgotten. There's quite a couple of groups here and there, but obviously with the right balancing, we can make a nice plot.

The matter is introducing the new factor being the Confederation. Being a separate government, the Commonwealth may not know about them right away, but could later on befriend the Confederation since - at least as allies - that they both don't like the Federation. Although, the conspiracy of the Scurge could lead the Commonwealth to question them.

There's, of course, the Scurge threat, which will probably pan out as whatever plot unfolds. And there's another factor in this mess to consider: Jenosa. What happened after the fight with the Source? We notice that the infection becomes healed, or is? Every time she takes in an energy cell, it just restarts her infection. The Source's cell being different from the rest, surely something different must have happened to her virus. Was it cleaned, or did something else happen to it?

From the way I've already RPed her out, there was a very subtle change in the virus. I've noticed how the human scientists assimilated still retain some of their human features on their faces, as of compared to those in the mines. It's plausible that this could have bore more subtle and benign changes; ones that could not be detected.

Actually...this is where I'm about to get a teeny nervous, 'cuz I have been RPing Jenosa for a while now. The first time I actually a did a lengthy RP with her, I had the idea that her virus had gone dormant, and being closed to containers filled with phazon triggered the virus to become active, but either because of the Source or another reason, the virus change her body on a physiological aspect. She stills looks human, but her body works a bit different (I.E. quicker healing).

And that's where I get a little nervous. I was still new to RPing the Scurge at the time, and there was a recent point in time that I got so absorbed in the Scurge virus that I forgot about Jenosa's character. I do want the virus to have an affect on, which will in turn make her immune; it's just with whatever else I've established that I think I've might have over done myself.

But perhaps I'm being too hard on myself. My experience in RPing the Scurge back that was basic, but I nonetheless held an intuitive grasp; but at times I did think I forgot about her character, which was important. I'm thinking that in the recent RP she's in, I'll using a certain planned turning point to change some of these established affects, thought what to change is a difficult to choice.

But I digress, I've rambled off far too much. I won't go in big details about what I've done just yet, although I've recently updated her profile for those to view. What I wanted to point out was that with her immunity and perhaps unique trait she'll develop (Perhaps in cue with the prototype suit she had worn), any of the government might eventually recognize this, especially the Confederation. this could seriously put Jenosa in a situation, although she has befriended people in Federation space like Omega and Adam and Samus. So she definitely has a few allies to rely on, but it's way too early to say anything else about her plot wise.
"I believe that the human spirit is indomitable. If you endeavor to achieve, it will happen given enough resolve. It may not be immediate, and often your greater dreams is something you will not achieve within your own lifetime. The effort you put forth to anything transcends yourself, for there is no futility even in death."
— Monty Oum
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