Rogue members of the Many

[665b1a2687c0fCompuLord_542]

Kind of a "What-if" concept: Some member of the Many that regains their own free will.
I proposed one such being when I wrote this mega-crossover, "Goggles and the Tears", with one chapter featuring a rogue Cyborg Midwife.

The lady cyborg stood up weakly from her crouched position, trying to wipe the grime off her body with her unwieldly metal hands, and explained through forced breaths “My...um, my name’s Susan Forthright. I...well; I was one of those awful cyborgs who protected those gross eggs.”

Suspicious, Lieutenant Fillmore asked, “Are you sure you’re telling the truth? My first instinct on seeing those cyborgs was to shoot them before they shot me. And I’m guessing your weapons still work?”

Checking the precisely attached gauntlet lasers on her arms, Susan nodded, “Yes, they work. But honest, I’m not like those people!”

Trying to shake off the confusion, he remembered the task at hand and said, “Then come with me, there’s something we’re actually held up with at the moment.”

As they cautiously stepped back towards the shuttle bay, hearing Susan’s metal feet clink and whirr along the corridor, Lieutenant Fillmore asked preemptively, “So how long were you in that vent?”

“I don’t even know. Hours? Days? I’ve been scrounging for food in various storage rooms on this deck and surviving on those. All I know for sure is that things got unusually quiet, a while before you found me.”

I admittedly didn't get much mileage out of this concept at the time, but I think it's still interesting.

[665b1a26886b3sarge945]

WBD was able to free himself from the Many, so there's some precedent.

[665b1a26888c5icemann]

And Malick sort of.

[665b1a2688dcdRocketMan]

And Malick sort of.

??

[665b1a268907bkrumpet]

icemannPresume you are referring to his leaving a "back door" open on his changes? Not sure if that counts as being able to free himself. Just that he wasn't fully taken over at that point.

[665b1a26891aeRocketMan]

The many's assimilation of people allows them to retain their unique personal characteristics.  A hacker remains a hacker, a marine remains a marine, etc. but their allegiance and motivations change.  Malick is a hacker so he has this mantra of always having an override or a backdoor or whatever because that's convention when you write malicious code all the time.  This may have nothing to do with the Many.

[665b1a2689425krumpet]

Malick is a hacker so he has this mantra of always having an override or a backdoor or whatever because that's convention when you write malicious code all the time.  This may have nothing to do with the Many.

Fair enough.

[665b1a268983cicemann]

icemannPresume you are referring to his leaving a "back door" open on his changes? Not sure if that counts as being able to free himself. Just that he wasn't fully taken over at that point.

I've mentioned about Malick before and its open to interpretation, but I've always seen him as one who managed to retain more of himself, and rebel in his own way.

So not one who competely joined the collective and stayed more as an individual. "A good hacker always has a back door."

[665b1a2689b59RocketMan]

I guess it would be more believable if he was a somewhat redeeming character but he isn't depicted that way so his rebellious nature may simply be a characteristic he retained.  He still tries to bullshit Bronson and act like he didn't sabotage the sim units.

There's another point we mustn't forget.  Irrational invented this sim unit quest and then had to think their way out of it so they could give the player a means to defeat the problem.  Having "moving keycards", the first of which is presented to you as a sort of training, is very very much a plot device.  They wanted to make the quest a bit interesting with some story behind it but it still boils down to Doom's "find the red blue and yellow keys to exit the level".  After creating this elaborate decoration for it, they had to go back and justify why they were doing the whole thing in the first place.  Why are there ninjas carrying keys?  Why are there keys at all?  Sounds like a Deus Ex Machina thing right?  Any decent bad guy knows not to give the good guy a way to win.  So they created this Malick character who's already sort of a scumbag.  We can infer this from the way the other crewmembers talk about him.

"...and who was behind it?  Malick (in discgust).  Oh he denied it of course..."

So he's clearly a shitty character without redeeming qualities.  The Many of course is completely non-discerning in their choice of who to assimilate.  So they assimilate someone who's adept at covering his ass.  What can they expect?  He's covering his ass... almost instinctively I might add.  What the hell does he really need overrides for anyway?  He's just doing it because this is how he always codes... because he's opportunistic and might flip sides in an instant.

It might sound like I'm making your point for you.  Maybe I am.  But I just see this behaviour as more of an autonomic response than a free will choice to fight the Many, in Diego style.

...but it's not a closed case by any means.  You could argue that some buried part of Malick, seeking redemption, forced this superficial behaviour so that he would get murdered by Bronson, thus freeing him from suffering and righting the many wrongs he's done.

[665b1a2689db5sarge945]

I have definitely noticed a trend where slimey, double-crossing and self-serving characters (Korenchkin, Malick, etc) tend to fall to the many very quickly, while people with strong moral convictions (Bronson, Polito, Bayliss, etc) tend to be much harder to take over.

This makes me think that the many doesn't use mind control in the direct sense, but that they manipulate people into thinking that joining the mass is what's best for them. Diego wanted to be a part of something bigger than himself, which was why he joined the UNN in the first place, and so had a weakness they could manipulate, but eventually his strong moral convictions and desire to not be like his father won out.

Given this, I think it makes perfect sense that Malick would add in a backdoor. The Many aren't controlling him directly, they are just giving him the desire to hack the sim units. He's still an intelligent and cunning hacker with his own interests, and a good hacker always has a backdoor. It's also possible (likely even) that someone who is naturally suspicious by nature would be somewhat hesitant or suspicious when joining the many and still want to retain some level of control as a contingency.

Obviously hybrids say "sorry" etc when they shoot you, so everyone retains some humanity, and I feel like a lot of the people that were manipulated into joining the many for self-serving reasons never intended to actually hurt anyone, but sort of "got carried away" until becoming a hybrid where they really did lose control over their own actions.

[665b1a268a008RocketMan]

+1, I never thought of it like that but I think you're absolutely right.  There is a correlation there between morality and propensity to join the Many fully.

However this does create a new conflict I think.  There is sufficient evidence to suggest that the Many is not "evil" at all and while they obviously don't observe the value of individuality, they nonetheless want the best for their colony members.  The biggest hint is after you destroy the brain.  They don't say fuck you or scream out in horror.  They accept their fate in a sportsman-like way and give the player a warning about Shodan (who is arguably being depicted as more evil).  Furthermore, their backstory is one of abuse.  They are a result of wreckless experimentation, unleashed as a weapon against the hacker in their infancy, crash landed on some rock and abandoned with no sentient life to connect with...  kind of like some abused child that starts gutting cats in his spare time.  Basically I think we're meant to feel sorry for them and to understand their rocky adolescence.  In a sense they are almost anti-hero like.

So if the Many is exploiting the depraved and the weak and the immoral to sort of brainwash them, then it looks like malign intent.  I'd prefer to think that rather than morality being the deciding factor, perhaps it's willpower and self-preservation that makes the difference.  The aforementioned Bronson, Polito, Bayliss, Diego were all people of conscience but they were also proactive and in most cases strong people (Maybe polito isn't strong but she did kill herself so I don't count her as part of those who resisted the Many).  Diego also said "They got Korrenchkin but that bastard is weak"

I just think it is more self-consistent to say that the Many can't easily assimilate strong-minded individuals rather than moral ones because then the implication is that the Many is fundamentally immoral.

[665b1a268a126OName]

I agree. I think the Many are supposed to be anti-heroic, sorta. In the lore. In gameplay they're just bad guys you click on sight because they do the same to you, which is a bit unfortunate but I don't see any real way around that. They tell you to surrender to them but there is no such option.

[665b1a268acefsarge945]

However this does create a new conflict I think.  There is sufficient evidence to suggest that the Many is not "evil" at all and while they obviously don't observe the value of individuality, they nonetheless want the best for their colony members.

The problem with their mindset is that the body of the many is essentially a utility monster. It needs to be fed constantly and at the expense of the rest of the colony.

The Many is a logically extreme version of utilitarianism, and is probably also a critique of communism, with TriOp being a critique of capitalism.

Morally the whole game is a tangled web and if we really got into it then this thread would inherently end up multiple hundreds of pages in length.

So if the Many is exploiting the depraved and the weak and the immoral to sort of brainwash them, then it looks like malign intent.  I'd prefer to think that rather than morality being the deciding factor, perhaps it's willpower and self-preservation that makes the difference.  The aforementioned Bronson, Polito, Bayliss, Diego were all people of conscience but they were also proactive and in most cases strong people (Maybe polito isn't strong but she did kill herself so I don't count her as part of those who resisted the Many).  Diego also said "They got Korrenchkin but that bastard is weak"

These go hand in hand.

People with moral convictions tend to stick to them against all odds, while those with slipperier and more self-serving moral codes tend to abandon things that turn out not to be in their favour.

Conviction and willpower are related.

The reason I don't like this theory is that Polito is a very meek and cautious person in general. Her logs paint her as a very reserved person, not someone with strong willpower or resolve. Her suicide to me speaks more about how she can't stand to bare the consequences of what she's done, rather than having the willpower or resolve to be part of the solution. I haven't read the short story though, I guess she has more conviction in that.

I just think it is more self-consistent to say that the Many can't easily assimilate strong-minded individuals rather than moral ones because then the implication is that the Many is fundamentally immoral.

Any entity that is willing to kill in order to forcibly control someone else for it's own reasons, even if it believes those reasons are good, is fundamentally immoral.

Lets keep some perspective. The Many is not a utopic commune where members join in order to experience a new way of life. It's a parasitic organism that manipulates others and forcibly gains control over them to use for it's own purposes. The Many is essentially responsible for every death in the game (with the exception of Polito) - both it's own members that it sent against you en-masse and all the resistance members they killed.

[665b1a268b6d0RocketMan]

The Many is a logically extreme version of utilitarianism, and is probably also a critique of communism, with TriOp being a critique of capitalism.

This is another great theory.  It really fits into the cyberpunk genre too.  If they thought of this, I haven't given them enough credit.

Any entity that is willing to kill in order to forcibly control someone else for it's own reasons, even if it believes those reasons are good, is fundamentally immoral.

Lets keep some perspective. The Many is not a utopic commune where members join in order to experience a new way of life. It's a parasitic organism that manipulates others and forcibly gains control over them to use for it's own purposes. The Many is essentially responsible for every death in the game (with the exception of Polito) - both it's own members that it sent against you en-masse and all the resistance members they killed.

Perhaps good/evil would have been better than moral/immoral but the thing is, morality is inherently subjective.  It depends on time, place and people's individual and collective values.  This is relevant to the SS2 narrative, as the Many's actions would be considered immoral (but perhaps not evil) up until the point that the Many assimilated everyone who could be assimilated.  In fact, playing devil's advocate, I would argue that Goggles fucked everything up by fighting the Many in the first place.  Where's the "utility" in that?  If he just laid down and died, then the subjective morality would have been that the Many are good... mostly.  I mean Diego didn't need any help to rip himself out of their grasp so that internal conflict preserves the immoral nature of his assimilation.  But for pretty much everyone else, maybe they'd be happy in the end.  Who are we to judge from our distant vantage point in time, space and context?  But I see your point.  In any case we're talking about a black box (the VB) but if we expand the box to include a larger area, such as Earth, we're back to immoral status again.  But I would still go so far as to say, not evil.  You can't be evil if you think you're doing something good.  Shodan, by contrast, seems to mostly enjoy causing suffering to humans.  This puts her more on the evil side of the spectrum.

[665b1a268bc72Nameless Voice]

Where are you getting this notion of Malick being a bad person with no redeeming qualities from?

The only logs that mention him are about his actions after he's already been turned by the Many, and in his own earliest log he says that he doesn't know why he's hacking the sim units himself.

Seems like a lot to infer just from the intonation of Yount's log, where he seems to believe that Malick could have been responsible for bringing down the sim unit, but also doesn't seem to be certain.

Yes, Malick lied, but he was already under the Many's control by then.

I always interpreted him adding the back door and keeping a secret from the Many as being him resisting their control to some extent, even if ultimately he couldn't stop himself from doing their bidding.

You can't be evil if you think you're doing something good.  Shodan, by contrast, seems to mostly enjoy causing suffering to humans.  This puts her more on the evil side of the spectrum.

Most villains don't think that what they're doing is evil, except for the card-carrying kind that you often get in cartoons.

People in real life will justify almost anything to themselves and consider themselves to be working towards noble ends.

[665b1a268c30fRocketMan]

The only logs that mention him are about his actions after he's already been turned by the Many, and in his own earliest log he says that he doesn't know why he's hacking the sim units himself.

Hmm... TBH, I was going from memory and I remembered the latter 3 of 4 of his logs.  Looking at the first one does paint him as more innocent.

Reading Yount's log again, it's possible that he has the tone he does because him and his team had repeatedly brought Sim unit 4 back online after Malick repeatedly subverted it.  So this may have been suspicion born of recent events more than any existing prejudice against Malick.

This is my attempt at unbiased objectivity but... there's something about Malick that just reeks of sleeze.  See how easy it is for someone with a thorough knowledge of the game to just side against him as opposed to someone like say... Norris?

Most villains don't think that what they're doing is evil, except for the card-carrying kind that you often get in cartoons.

People in real life will justify almost anything to themselves and consider themselves to be working towards noble ends.

But that's not evil.  Evil is being fully cognizant of the pointless suffering you're causing someone and liking it.

[665b1a268c40aNameless Voice]

Very few villains are evil by that definition.

[665b1a268c584RocketMan]

Which makes sense to me.  I don't believe evil is a real thing in the first place.  It's a concept, and a great many acts could be described as evil but I don't think non-diseased humans can be evil.  When we talk about Shodan we're talking about your "card carrying" villains.  Is there any reason that removing her ethical constraints would turn her into a villain?  It's something we sort of take for granted because every hero needs a foe, though not every foe needs to be evil.  Making Shodan appear to be at least on the brink of evil, if not evil, was probably unnecessary but it's a hallmark of her character now.

[665b1a268c9bbicemann]

I always interpreted him adding the back door and keeping a secret from the Many as being him resisting their control to some extent, even if ultimately he couldn't stop himself from doing their bidding.

Same here. I've never seen him as a "villain". More a victim if anything.

His life prior to being taken into the many was a lot like the hacker from SS1, where he more just did things for his own amusement or interest but which were of no harm to others (eg hacking Xerxes to play Elvis music which wasnt explicitly said to be Malick's doing but he's the most likely culprit).

Beyond Diego, he's the only other one to have resisted the Many, even if that resistance was unsuccessful in the end. Just because someone chooses to be a hacker does not = them being a bad person. More a shades of grey usually.

[665b1a268ceeesarge945]

This is another great theory.  It really fits into the cyberpunk genre too.  If they thought of this, I haven't given them enough credit.

Perhaps good/evil would have been better than moral/immoral but the thing is, morality is inherently subjective.  It depends on time, place and people's individual and collective values.  This is relevant to the SS2 narrative, as the Many's actions would be considered immoral (but perhaps not evil) up until the point that the Many assimilated everyone who could be assimilated.  In fact, playing devil's advocate, I would argue that Goggles fucked everything up by fighting the Many in the first place.  Where's the "utility" in that?  If he just laid down and died, then the subjective morality would have been that the Many are good... mostly.  I mean Diego didn't need any help to rip himself out of their grasp so that internal conflict preserves the immoral nature of his assimilation.  But for pretty much everyone else, maybe they'd be happy in the end.  Who are we to judge from our distant vantage point in time, space and context?  But I see your point.  In any case we're talking about a black box (the VB) but if we expand the box to include a larger area, such as Earth, we're back to immoral status again.  But I would still go so far as to say, not evil.  You can't be evil if you think you're doing something good.  Shodan, by contrast, seems to mostly enjoy causing suffering to humans.  This puts her more on the evil side of the spectrum.

I'm really sorry to have to say this but you need to sit down and rethink your entire perspective on morality

[665b1a268d310RocketMan]

Same here. I've never seen him as a "villain". More a victim if anything.

His life prior to being taken into the many was a lot like the hacker from SS1, where he more just did things for his own amusement or interest but which were of no harm to others (eg hacking Xerxes to play Elvis music which wasnt explicitly said to be Malick's doing but he's the most likely culprit).

Beyond Diego, he's the only other one to have resisted the Many, even if that resistance was unsuccessful in the end. Just because someone chooses to be a hacker does not = them being a bad person. More a shades of grey usually.

As NV pointed out, his first log puts a different light on the latter 3.  I just think if they wanted him to seem either virtuous or the victim type, they didn't do the best job at it because he seems sleezy.  But maybe he was resisting the Many.  It's plausible.

It is also possible that there's no right answer here and that Irrational didn't fully think it through themselves.  I mean you don't tell your cyborg friends to stay away from strangers, but dress them in red of all colours lol.

[665b1a268d7f9icemann]

I'm really sorry to have to say this but you need to sit down and rethink your entire perspective on morality

Lol. I think that it's good to hear different perspectives on the moral corduroy (sp?) that SS2 presents of the individual vs the collective. I found many of the SS2 logs (that dealt with the issue) to be quite interesting from an intellectual standpoint of what is better of an individuals right to strike their own path even if it in the end may lead to nothing vs the collective will of many where far greater things are possible. Which is the "right" option. You as the player decide. And therein lies the interesting part, in what different players make from that.

[665b1a268dbeeRocketMan]

I'm really sorry to have to say this but you need to sit down and rethink your entire perspective on morality

No need to apologize.  I'm curious to know what you think is so wrong about my take on morality though.

[665b1a268e0fbicemann]

As NV pointed out, his first log puts a different light on the latter 3.  I just think if they wanted him to seem either virtuous or the victim type, they didn't do the best job at it because he seems sleezy.  But maybe he was resisting the Many.  It's plausible.

It is also possible that there's no right answer here and that Irrational didn't fully think it through themselves.  I mean you don't tell your cyborg friends to stay away from strangers, but dress them in red of all colours lol.

I think they left it open to interpretation, which adds some brilliance into the mix imo.

For me I read it, as that Malick did not choose to part of the many, it was forced on him. And then bit by bit their influence on him grew, but his hacker side (or individuality) stayed there until the day he was shot by Bronsen's team. Would he have kept doing the biddings of the Many? Of course, but part of him, that hacker mentality of fighting back against the "system" would always have remained regardless as that was core to who he was. Which in that he has my respect.

Now compare that to a lot of the others that got the worm treatment, and you did not see that level of resistance. They more just quickly did the many's call, and that was that. I'm totally going off logs and story for that, as you don't hear of any others fighting back at all.