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Considering that Maverick is the last of his squad, even if he is just a LT, it could be viewed as his duty. But then again, I'm not quite sure how much he cares for that, just thought it would make a good characterization moment: does he have to do it, or does he want to? Props to Jester for the idea, of course.
Random does turning to soldier require any rolls,stats or skills to survive from mako exposure without dying or being mind raped? Does Shinra have any sort of mindwashing machine or technique?
Both Turks and soldiers appear very appealing options or we could just become legendary grunt who stops sephiroth using every dirty trick there is to stop local demigod.
Well, that's that for now. Congratulations, you survived the prologue with only your second character! Also you get to see the actual title of the CYOA, and there's no restarts from here. If you die now, you die for real.
No Zero Credibility we are the protagonists and we are not going to be killed so easi- Oh wait. We still can fuck up Sephiroths plans nicely, namely snatching black material before him. Difficult and meta? Yes, but Sephiroth is quite big bad guy, while we are just talented average joe. Killing cloud was bad for the world, but Tifa is still alive and rest of crew are alive. Besides Shinra doesn't want Sephiroth to win either, We just have to gather our own dirty dozen to take him down.
Anyway, I wonder how are they going to escape without the keys to the vehicles. Or maybe they are going to get captured instead
Depends how badly sephiroth fucks the place or how we are going to act, but mostly how Seph fucks the shinra. Avalanche can still blend in the slums, but they defninately lose precious time at chasing sephiroth.
Oh, I wasn't being sarcastic with "good job". As far as I'm concerned that guy had it coming just for carrying that insult-to-common-sense sword, let alone killing all of our men and trying to kill us.
Now we just have to figure out a way to survive the shitstorm heading our way.
Oh, I wasn't being sarcastic with "good job". As far as I'm concerned that guy had it coming just for carrying that insult-to-common-sense sword, let alone killing all of our men and trying to kill us.
I was just joking around. It should be interesting to see how we are going to save planet and interact with rest of characters. Barret (black guy) will hate us since we are part of shinra and being one to shoot him doesn't help things nor we should considered mending our relationship. Tifa (boobie girl ) is much difficult to think how we should deal with her. She is formidable opponent and terrorist, but she did spare us two times despite us killing her love interest. Marcus and her definitely have beginnings of ideological battle between them and they both have punched each other below belt both physically and emotionally. Both seems to be little confused mess about each other; Markus is cold blooded killer who hates her for what she has done yet he has time to enjoy viewing her feminine assets, but doesn't have strong feelings either about planet killing techonology and going backwards in technology to save . Tifa is idealistic and good natured terrorists, who seems to have inner conflict between her own ideals and reality what she has done.
Now we just have to figure out a way to survive the shitstorm heading our way
Well we are sided with shinra, the single most powerful corporatio/organization in the world. I am sure that they have few tricks to help us at stopping sephiroth. Besides there has to be other 1st class soldiers besides cloud and sephiroth.
Hmm looks like i am only voter who actually liked this game
Depends how badly sephiroth fucks the place or how we are going to act, but mostly how Seph fucks the shinra. Avalanche can still blend in the slums, but they defninately lose precious time at chasing sephiroth.
I think that Seph assasinated president shortly after Cloud and Co were arrested, so we are about to witness power of Seph soon. Tifa and Barret are resourceful people, so there is good chance that they can hold out till then. Not to mention it seems that real soldiers are dead in HG and there might be bunch of troopers at the upper level, but I think they stay there to guard managers.
I'd have given you guys around four characters before I threw up my hands and just said everything happened the way they did in the games because y'all niggas incompetent. To be honest, I thought that you would be able to do the deed with just your first character, but that was proven dreadfully wrong.
Random does turning to soldier require any rolls,stats or skills to survive from mako exposure without dying or being mind raped? Does Shinra have any sort of mindwashing machine or technique?
SOLDIER is a program that only recruits from the best of the best. In theory, if you did a bunch of training for it and pushed yourself to the limit (had all your stats aside from Intelligence at least at 6) you would qualify, although there's a 90% washout rate for those who actually manage to get into the program, and here "washing out" means turning into a horrific monster from overexposure to Mako. And then you get shot to death. I would simply roll a d100 and see if you're part of the 10% that doesn't get fucked.
There's no indication that Shinra Electric Company, evil totalitarian corporation that took over the world, brainwashes SOLDIERs. Zack very easily betrayed them without any sort of mental struggle. Hell, if you've read about the prequel games at all, it turns out there's been like hundreds of rogue SOLDIERs before. Shinra probably should do some sort of brainwashing on SOLDIER recruits, but it seems that of all things goes against their morals. SOLDIERs seem to be treated like ordinary people as long as they stay loyal to Shinra. On the other hand, there is no retiring from SOLDIER, either, and attempting to do so apparently means the Turks knock on your door and kill you and your whole family to cover up the incident.
Oh, I wasn't being sarcastic with "good job". As far as I'm concerned that guy had it coming just for carrying that insult-to-common-sense sword, let alone killing all of our men and trying to kill us.
Nonsense, the buster sword is clearly a step forward in weapons engineering. You get a super strong, super fast dude, you hand them a giant slab of steel, and you tell them to swing it into whatever gets in their way. It's genius. Nothing can survive getting hit with a hunk of steel like that. Screw having a sharp little dinky sword, all you need is sheer mass. It makes perfect sense when you stop thinking about the physics of the thing, and how it weighs more than the person swinging it, and how it would be terrible for in-door fighting and fighting in cramped spaces in general.
You wake up in a comfy bed. You recognize the room as being one of the prisoner cells in the large jail on floor 67. You briefly wonder what the heck you're doing in it, and then realize that the cell has been outfitted with various medical equipment, including monitors and an IV hooked into your vein. You feel a lot better. You were really exhausted, and while you're still quite sore all over from pushing your body harder than it normally should be able to go, you feel rehydrated and mostly revitalized mentally. Your hands have been wrapped up in much more proper dressings and bandages then the makeshift job you did for yourself. The job is so good that you don't feel any pain at all anymore. Unfortunately, the flip side of that is that you can't really grab or pick up anything as the wrappings act like a very stiff mitt that you can barely bend, with the exception of your thumbs, which seem to have been excluded from the wrappings (they weren't torn up so badly by the elevator cable in the first place).
Glancing at the monitors, you see that it's been about eight hours since the assault came to an end. Clean up is probably well under way by now, but it's gonna take a while. Floor 44 is usually the medical center, but it got completely destroyed. You saw that for yourself during your hell sprint up the tower. That's why you're in a cell on one of the intact floors, probably. You wonder if anyone you know survived. You didn't get the chance to check the bodies on the 60th floor, but you're sure your squad was there. It's technically not your responsibility to deal with the families of the deceased, but it's company policy to send a bouquet of flowers, a kind letter, and a generous sum to the family of a lost trooper automatically. You aren't supposed to interact with or contact those families at all, since it's apparently a security risk, but... you think you'd like to contact them somehow and send them your personal condolences. None of this is your fault, you weren't even supposed to be on duty today, but you feel like they deserve to meet the sole survivor of the squad anyways. You make a mental note to ask the files department for a favor later, when you've been discharged by the doc.
...Where is the doc? Where is anyone? The door to the cell is wide open, and you can't hear anything. You understand that things are probably gonna be quiet in HQ for a while, until people start to recover from the trauma, but there should at least be someone walking around, some hushed whispers, anything. You start to feel a strange sense of dread. Then you recognize it as the urge to relieve yourself. Time to head to the restroom. You pull the IV out of your arm and stretch out in your bed. You swing your legs out from under the covers, and you can feel each muscle in you, sore and raw, strain under the sudden pressure. You're gonna be sore for days, but it's the good kind of sore. You feel like you might have gained something from all of your struggles yesterday. Standing up, you see your torn up, ruined, and blood-spattered dress clothes laying folded on a chair, along with your (ruined) fancy leather shoes. You sigh and pull off the hospital gown, getting dressed in the only clothes available, even if they are completely trashed. What a waste of 500 gil. You struggle to button your shirt and pants with your hands the way they are, but through some ingenuity you manage to get the job done.
You notice there's a small pile of your personal belongings underneath the clothes. You gather them up and then slip on your socks and shoes and start gingerly walking towards the open entryway. You start calling out for someone as you reach the doorway and peer out to the left, but your voice gets caught in your throat when you see what's in the hallway. Blood. A lot of blood, and a pair of guards, just... laying there, motionless. You blink. Surely this is just a nightmare, you say to yourself. You pinch yourself and it does little. Cursing under your breath, you peek out again. It's the same as before. No difference. And still, there is no sound. Horror fills up your being. You want to hide. Is it terrorists? Did the terrorists do this? You doubt it. One was grievously wounded, one is dead, and the last one surely could not do all of this on her own.
You gingerly step out into the hallway, ready for anything. All of the jail cells seem to be open for some reason. The only thing that would do that is if someone hit the emergency release switch. You can hear your own heartbeat as you approach one of the fallen guards and turn him over. He's freshly dead. You can still feel the warmth on his neck. The blood pooled around him and spilt all over the hallway is wet, and fresh. You aren't a doctor, but you would estimate that this guy died from the huge gash slashed in his gut. It looks like the work of a swordsman of some sort. Definitely not the blonde guy, at least. If it was him, there wouldn't be a corpse, only giblets. You look around the hallway at the blood puddles, and realize that they seem to be a trail leading down the hallway. This disturbs you greatly. You really don't want to move on. You just want to return to your cell.
You would take the guard's equipment, but you have no hands to use it with. You glance at your mitt-like wrappings. Your hands don't feel so bad anymore, to be honest. You might be able to remove them and function normally. You pull out your pocket knife, wrangle it open, and then carefully slice the bandages open and pull them off. You check your hand, only to find that it is already mostly healed. There's no red fleshless bits anymore, only fresh scars. How did that happen? You open up the wrappings on your other hand and find the same thing - mostly healed. Bizarre.
The eerie silence of the building gets to you again. You decide to try and ask someone about it later. Right now, you need to find people. This guard doesn't have an assault rifle on him, nor does the other. That's normal for floors 60 through 70, where security is much more relaxed. You take his belt and wrap it around your waist. It has a pistol, nightstick, and two spare clips on it. That'll have to do. Just then, you hear a noise before you and whirl, drawing the pistol. You see the beautiful woman there, with the black terrorist's arm around her, carefully walking. You recall that his name was Barrett. Barrett looks like he hasn't recovered much at all from what you did to him, despite her best efforts to heal him. He's got dressings all over his body, so someone must have treated him, but it's clearly all he can do to lift his legs and help walk. The woman looks at you as she hefts the huge man down the hallway with some effort. She's got some dressings on her body as well. She must have been captured and beaten down. She finally opens her mouth as she approaches you. "...are you going to shoot us?"
You lower the pistol. Of course not. Not right now, at least. "What happened here?" you ask her.
"Why are you asking me?"
"Were you in the cells, too?"
"Yes. The Turks captured us shortly after you... passed out," she said, explaining it matter-of-factly. She glances at your hands with a strange look, but says nothing.
"Something bothering you?" you ask.
"No, nothing."
"Is that big man's arm loaded?"
"No," she says.
"You don't have any materia on you?"
"No," she repeats.
"Alright. You two stay here. I'm going to lock the cells down again for your safety," you tell her.
"W-wait, don't leave us here! We don't even know what's going on!" she says.
"All the more reason to stay in the cell where it's safe. They're designed so that nobody can get out, and nothing can get in. Here," you say, walking over to the other guard's corpse and pulling the belt off of him. You throw it over to her and she catches it with her free hand. "Use this if you have to." She holds the belt up and glances at the items on it warily. "Now's not the time to be picky," you add.
"No, hold on," she says. "This is all messed up. I'm a better fighter than you could ever hope to be. I'll go out there and search, you stay here with Barrett!"
"No way. I'm not staying here while you go out and roam freely around the building. You're a prisoner, remember?"
"Then we should leave Barrett here where he'll be safe, and we'll go out there together! I'm not leaving this place without him," she says.
You consider her proposition. Having someone as badass as her around would be nice in this situation, and keeping the leader of AVALANCHE here means that even if she escapes somehow, it's not a big deal. "Alright. Leave him in a cell. But if you try anything, I'm going to shoot you," you warn her.
She doesn't respond, and drags Barrett into your cell, leaving him on your bed with the belt. She comes back out and blinks at you. "Well?"
"Alright. Follow me," you say, heading for the guard booth. She follows you, scanning the area carefully. Inside the guard booth, there's blood all over the emergency release button and someone's ID inside the built in reader. You hold your breath and press the all clear button, pulling the ID out of the reader to lock the jail cell control console, and the cell doors slam shut, then return to the hallway, tearing up the ID card as you go. You find the woman looking at the corpses of the guards, examining the slash wounds. "Find anything?" you ask, and she jumps, then stands up, pats off her skirt, and shakes her head. "Well, come on then." You lead her down the hallway to the corner and turn it. The blood trail continues all the way down the next hallway and into the foyer of floor 67. You feel queasy. Even with the hot badass behind you, you still struggle with the foreboding terror that runs through your nerves like electricity. Step by step you travel towards the foyer, and soon you are already there. The blood trail veers right and directly into the science labs. You never liked them, or Professor Hojo, the guy in charge of Shinra's research wing. Both were creepy as hell even on the best of days.
You step past a shattered wooden crate and continue following the trail, despite your animal instincts telling you to run and hide. The only sound you can hear is the sound of the girl's footsteps behind you. That all changes in an instant. You hear a shrill, discordant howl, and then two dog-like creatures come bounding out of the science labs, lightning fast. They are horribly disfigured, with bone-like spikes growing out of their flesh, disgusting fangs, and human like paws that seem to have grown vestigial, bloody fingers. A dark purple substance leaks from their jaws, which reacts with the metal floor and leaves small dimples in it. Some kind of acid? You raise your pistol to try and shoot them before they reach you, but they're too fast - just like guard hounds - and they leap for the kill. In an instant before they reach you, the woman punches one in the head, sending it flying into some boxes, before spinning around and round house kicking the other one in the ribs, knocking it into some machinery. Both of them yelp, return to their feet, and start to circle you and the woman.
"Are they mutant dogs or something?" you ask nobody in particular, going off of a hunch.
"Why would I know? If they are, the moment you slip up, they'll strike. Don't take your eyes off of them," the woman says, keeping her guard up. You do as she says, making sure to keep your pistol trained on the one that circles back and forth in front of you. The question is if you can hit your target if you just fire at it right now. It might be fast enough to dodge, or you might miss, or one little pistol bullet might not take it down. What are you supposed to do here? If you get bitten by one of them, it's obviously game over.
What do you do?
A) [Marksman] Shoot the Zenene
B) Bide your time and wait for the chance to strike
C) [Bluff] Deliberately drop your guard to fake it out, then strike
D) "Hey, can you do that Limit Break thing again?"
E) Other
Thanks to your gritty refusal to give up, even in the face of death and exhaustion, your tenacity has improved! Tenacity is now level 5!
Thanks to exercising incredible restraint and self-control, your discipline skill has improved! Discipline is now level 2!
Character Sheet
Name: Marcus "Maverick" Westford
Class: Ranger
Profession: First Lieutenant of the Shinra Peacekeeping Corps
Age: 23
Inner Nature: X
Dominant Inner Nature: None
Status: Flesh Wounds (Scars on hands)
Inventory: SM-3 Service Pistol, three clips of 9mm ammunition, Nightstick, ruined civilian casual clothes, Shinra Employee ID Card, Jupiter Energy Bar, Pocket Knife, Spearmint Gum, Portable Handheld System, Wallet w/ 20,000 Gil, keys to the display vehicles
SOLDIER is a program that only recruits from the best of the best. In theory, if you did a bunch of training for it and pushed yourself to the limit (had all your stats aside from Intelligence at least at 6) you would qualify, although there's a 90% washout rate for those who actually manage to get into the program, and here "washing out" means turning into a horrific monster from overexposure to Mako. And then you get shot to death. I would simply roll a d100 and see if you're part of the 10% that doesn't get fucked.
Thanks for cold hard spec, I always knew that SOLDIERS were super badass fighters and exposure to mako is like playing with fire but I didn't think that there was such big washout rate. So technically if we pushed to limit every time we do something and train hard as hell we could actually increase our physical and mental abilities and not just skills?
There's no indication that Shinra Electric Company, evil totalitarian corporation that took over the world, brainwashes SOLDIERs. Zack very easily betrayed them without any sort of mental struggle. Hell, if you've read about the prequel games at all, it turns out there's been like hundreds of rogue SOLDIERs before. Shinra probably should do some sort of brainwashing on SOLDIER recruits, but it seems that of all things goes against their morals. SOLDIERs seem to be treated like ordinary people as long as they stay loyal to Shinra.
Just out of curiosity, would you allow Shinra to develop a brainwashing methods if we for some reason or another suggested such thing to Rufus, if current president bites the dust? I know that such things would take probably years and lot of resources, but would it be possible?
On the other hand, there is no retiring from SOLDIER, either, and attempting to do so apparently means the Turks knock on your door and kill you and your whole family to cover up the incident.
A question about Turks. What would actual entail about joining the Turks? Would we have to pass some sort of exam or do we have to have good record in the field or both? Can we actually retire Turks alive, when we reach old age?
Nonsense, the buster sword is clearly a step forward in weapons engineering. You get a super strong, super fast dude, you hand them a giant slab of steel, and you tell them to swing it into whatever gets in their way. It's genius. Nothing can survive getting hit with a hunk of steel like that. Screw having a sharp little dinky sword, all you need is sheer mass. It makes perfect sense when you stop thinking about the physics of the thing, and how it weighs more than the person swinging it, and how it would be terrible for in-door fighting and fighting in cramped spaces in general.
So how ridicilous weapons we may device? Are rocket punches or groin lasers too ridicilous or do we have to think more boring stuff like double barreled assault rifles? Personally I vote for tank for more subtle weapon than bustersword.
Thanks for cold hard spec, I always knew that SOLDIERS were super badass fighters and exposure to mako is like playing with fire but I didn't think that there was such big washout rate. So technically if we pushed to limit every time we do something and train hard as hell we could actually increase our physical and mental abilities and not just skills?
Training during downtime, as well as using your abilities repeatedly, will allow you to increase them.
Ok.
Just out of curiosity, would you allow Shinra to develop a brainwashing methods if we for some reason or another suggested such thing to Rufus, if current president bites the dust? I know that such things would take probably years and lot of resources, but would it be possible?
No reason why not, but I'm not sure what this has to do with the game.
A question about Turks. What would actual entail about joining the Turks? Would we have to pass some sort of exam or do we have to have good record in the field or both? Can we actually retire Turks alive, when we reach old age?
The Turks recruit from the best of the best of military academy graduates, except potential candidates have to demonstrate undying loyalty to Shinra and the ability to maintain secrecy about the work you have to do. It's also a very small branch, and approaches you for recruitment, not the other way around.
So how ridicilous weapons we may device? Are rocket punches or groin lasers too ridicilous or do we have to think more boring stuff like double barreled assault rifles? Personally I vote for tank for more subtle weapon than bustersword.
Rocket punches and lasers of all sorts are around. If you stumble upon such a bizarre weapon, there's nothing stopping you from taking it as your own, aside from the lack of skill and training in the use of such a weapon. Be wary of your own limits.