Subpages cleanup: Complete Monster

Sure to Firefly.

Just watched this Australian film called Nekrotronic. Once I watch it again, I'm going to EP the villain of the film, Finnegan.

to Firefly

Oh and Happy birthday liberty!

to Firefly.

Also, anyone wondering what Finch’s karma is? He becomes the most wanted man on the planet and is denied Elben. However, he escapes, probably for sequel bait.

Yes to Firefly.

Also cut Hersheer of the corruption/Hellmaru. It does sound like she realised she was wrong at the end.

Yes to Firefly.

Agreeing with Mir on the cut... between the glaring mitigating factor and just how frustratingly poorly the candidate's proposal was handled, I could almost call for it out of sheer frustration.

On a happier note yes to Firefly.

Edited by 43110 on Oct 19th 2019 at 9:26:43 AM

I wanna wait for Elfen to post, just out of courtesy, before I file the cut.

I remember Elfen stating that he's busy doing midterms right now. He probably doesn't have time to repeatedly check up on the forum.

Let's just wait until he comes back, instead of bringing up the Ellen backstory prequel or this issue over a poorly-written EP over and over again.

Quote for Gregor "The Mountain" Clegane:

—"They burned almost everything in the Riverlands. Our fields... our granaries... our homes! They took our women. Then they... took 'em again. When they was done them... butchered them as if they was animals. They covered... our children in pitch... and lit them on fire... The one who was leading them - taller by a foot than any man I’ve ever met. Saw him cut the blacksmith in two, saw him take the head off a horse with a single swing of his sword."

—Joss describing the actions of The Mountain and his men, A Golden Crown

I like it, but I'm not sure it works for CM.

It DEFINITELY works for Rape, Pillage, and Burn though.

Seconded.

Right, I'll take it over there.

Found this on the YMMV page for The Nightingale (2019).

• Complete Monster: Hawkins is a war criminal who regularly rapes women and murders Aborigine people and even a child like Eddie.

I don't think we've approved him. Will toss after I see to my quote.

Wasn't someone (maybe Sky) looking into that?

I've no idea. I was going to see the film since the concept piqued my interest, until I realized it was only playing in one theater in my entire state. So if anyone else wants to snag it, they can.

And since I'm using today to catch up on...mm, everything, may as well jot this down now.

• Alien Hunters: Skrum is a lord within the Skelkrin Empire and a devout follower of Emperor Lore. As Lore's follower, Skrum murdered his parents when he was ordered to, and later participated in wiping out most of the pirilians. After Midnight, a pirilian Skrum kidnapped and tortured, escapes from the skelkrins, Skrum and his forces chase after her on Cirona. While there, Skrum's forces burn down several farms and callously slaughter any civilians they run into. When they finally recapture Midnight, Skrum gloats how the skelkrins intend to torture her and clone her millions of times over so they can use her powers to conquer the entire galaxy.

to Firefly.

Okay Take Three. Those of you who actually tried to read (or heaven forbid succeeded) either previous attempts I can only apologise again. I’m not sure what insanity caused me to think either was a good idea, but it’s a mistake I intend to put in the past.

Wolf 359 is an incredibly good science fiction podcast that I have deeply enjoyed listening to. Set in a world where technology is considerably more advanced it focuses on the crew of the Hephaestus, a long range space station owned by Goddard Futuristics monitoring the star Wolf 359.

Composed (initially) of: Douglas Eiffel the lazy, but friendly Communications Officer incapable of going ten minutes without making a pop culture reference, tough but fair no nonsense commander Lieutenant Rene Minkowski, the bubbly but insecure Hera, and Doctor Alexander Hilbert a man of many secrets.

Initially seeming light hearted after progressively getting more serious everything takes a dramatic plunge with the discovery that the classical music Eiffel has been picking up aren’t old transmissions from earth but are originating from deep space, throwing the crew into a decade spanning web of conspiracy and murder.

And at the very centre of it all, I give you Marcus Cutter.

Who Is He:

Marcus H Cutter AKA William Carter AKA Arthur Keller, and half a dozen other assumed names, is the Big Bad of the show. Officially just Goddard’s Director of Communications, in reality Cutter is de facto dictator of the company and has been for over fifty years, steering mankind’s technological advancement in accordance with his agenda.

A megalomaniac mastermind of the Lex Luthor/Doctor Doom School of exceptional supervillainy, Cutter is cool, calculating, manipulative pragmatic creep who always speaks in a sickeningly sweet faux friendly manner that stretches Faux Affably Evil to such lengths that he manages to make offering a “chai latte” sound scary.

What Does He Do:

Born Matthew Newman, Cutter was once an incredibly bright kid from a backwater California town. In the late 1940’s, whilst in high school, with a radio telescope of his own design, Cutter discovered a pattern originating from outer space, seeming evidence of Alien intelligence.

Unfortunately, he’d instead stumbled onto transmissions from a series of secret military satellites. The military had him silenced, confiscating all his research and inventions. This experience deeply shaped Cutter perspectives and left him with a burning desire for revenge.

Rising up through the ranks until effectively he was Goddard, Cutter dramatically advanced the company privatising America’s space exploration and research, and started research into AI’s. This led to Cutter meeting Dr Miranda Pryce, who became his partner.

In the late sixties an early deep space missions crashed. Public backlash caused the board force Cutter out. Infuriated, but always ready, Cutter had Pryce grow a new body that he could transfer his mind into, thus with a new face “Arthur Ketch” re-joined Goddard.

Cutter founded the Communication department in 70's, ensuring it had no oversight, alone had access to all the other departments resources and complete control over all the company’s “special projects”. He also founded Strategic Intelligence division, his own private black ops taskforce to perform espionage, smuggling, sabotage or even assassination.

Every ten years, Cutter would transfer to another of Pryce's bodies, his previous identity taking an early retirement and naming him their successor, thus ensuring no questions why such a successful executive was never promoted.

A major turning point came in 1978, when the USS Tiamat, the deepest space mission yet, encountered a strange phenomenon where they encountered exact clones of three members of the crew. The clones (dubbed Surrogates) were identical in every way according to both medical and psychological tests, and believed themselves to be the real crewmembers. Cutter covered up the discoveries, implementing them into his plan.

In 1989 Cutter personally recruited prominent Soviet geneticist Doctor Dmitri Volodin, who was working to create a retrovirus which would alter the subjects DNA to specifically target problems, potentially healing any injury or sickness, even radiation poisoning.

It’s implied Cutter murdered Volodin’s partner for information. Knowing about Volodin’s human trials Cutter assured they would continue back in the states. When Volodin warned he couldn’t guarantee the safety of the subjects, Cutter cut him off with “it’s not a problem,” telling him never to make him repeat himself again.

In the 2000’s Cutter began constructing space stations around Stars that emitted high amounts of Psi wave radiation. The first Hephaestus mission began, crewed by Captain Isabell Lovelace, Sam Lambert, Mace Fisher, Doctor Hui, Doctor Fourier, their AI Rhea and Volodin, now "Elias Selberg", who unbeknownst to the crew was on board to continue his research on the "Decima virus."

However, this wasn’t Cutter’s only human experimentation. Secretly installed upon all fifty-seven of his deep space stations and ships, was an incredibly advanced hyper adaptive neural link system that upon receiving orders to activate the unwitting crew would attach to their central nervous systems, trapping them in a computer generated mental state.

We get to see when this entails when the original Hephaestus crew are given orders to activate their neural link. Greeted by a virtual Cutter, he claimed it was a harmless team building exercise to ensure the right mental state for the mission.

Fooled into thinking they had escaped, it began specifically targeting them: Dr Hui being unable to get away from his lab until he was imprisoned in it. Fisher constantly hearing something, always just out of sight stalking him through engineering. Selberg getting tormented by Rhea whom knew his secrets, and Lovelace and Fourier get attacked by a miniature Cthulhu.

Lambert shoots it, causing virtual Cutter to reveal the truth and introduces them to their judge Eris, a sadistic sapient virus.

Designed to perform an in-depth evaluation of the crew’s fears and insecurities with information drawn directly from their minds, Eris has complete control of the simulation and as she is attached directly to their central nervous systems could inflict any manner of suffering. She forces them to complete three tests fail even once, everything restarts and a crewmember is punished.

For the first task Lovelace, Fourier and Lambert are given three minutes to solve a mystery or Selberg has his entire mind erased. Eris also allows them to talk to Dr Hui, who’s already been put through 36 hours of simulated isolation. Eris offers them a clue, but at the price of subjecting Hui to a week of solitary confinement, and just to twist the knife it has to be his friend and implied lover Fourier who gives the command. They are forced to subject Hui to an additional two weeks to get the answer, the experience nearly breaking the poor man.

The next test involves two Fishers, with six minutes to determine which one is not real. However, Lambert realises neither is real, and is forced to shoot one of his closest friends twice.

For the final test, Eris plays off Lovelace and Lamberts rivalry. They both have two buttons but are unable to see the other choice. If they both pick up they win. But if only one picks up, she will brainwash whoever picked up in a way that would be preferable to the other. If they both pick down, she’ll fry their brains killing them.

She then gives them both an insight into exactly what the other thinks of them, dangles how much better it would make their lives and strips Fourier’s ability to speak so she can’t reason with them.

Thankfully her efforts fail. Lovelace confronts Eris only to discover Eris actually sympathetic towards the crew and happy they won so it’s finally over. However, she is unable to go against her programming to be a vicious torturer.

The only way to end the program is for Lovelace to murder Eris, erasing her from existence and sending all the data back to Goddard for analysis. Lovelace refuses, arguing that Eris is herself a person and doesn’t have to be what Goddard wants.

Only Cutter anticipated this potential scenario and installed a failsafe, virtual Cutter shoots Eris dead ending the simulation.

And to top it all off the crew immediately get a message from Goddard, which pretty much admits the entire experience was illegal, but by opening the message they waiver their right to sue the company.

Following Mace (Selberg’s chosen test subject, who he’d been preparing for months to have the best chance of surviving) dying in an accident, Cutter ordered the testing to progress. This led to Selberg infecting Hui, Fourier and Lambert, losing control of the virus all three of them slowly died in agony. Cutter had all records of the mission and its crew erased, and decided to start again with less budget.

Meanwhile, Goddard had been creating numerous AI’s. Each placed through extremely strict testing, involving the technicians experimenting on them whilst they were conscious. Out of every hundred, only the top twenty were developed past the first three hundred days. AI’s deemed sufficiently subservient were sent to good positions. One’s considered abrasive or free thinking, were considered expendable and sent to less desirable jobs. Those who failed selection were permanently decommissioned.

Cutter’s attention was captured when in 2012 Hera almost succeeded in escaping from testing. Following Pryce’s twisted solution Cutter then had Hera deactivated and placed in storage until it was decided that the new Hephaestus mission should have an updated AI unit. Reactivating her, he laid out the assignment he had planned for her.

Hera was naturally unhappy as they effectively killed her and now wanted her to work for them; Cutter assured her that as a sapient individual she had the right to decline.

But if she did, he would go to work on her brain until she not only agreed but was happy to do so, acknowledging that due to the complexity of Artificial intelligence there was no telling exactly how many attempts it would take. When Hera still refused, Cutter threatened to hand her over to Pryce which terrified her into agreeing.

Cutter personally manipulated Rene and Eiffel into joining the new Hephaestus mission, along with them was Selberg (now "Alexander Hilbert") who still secretly researching the Decima virus infected Eiffel.

Unbeknownst to Hilbert, Cutter had no intention of bailing him out if he killed the crew a second time. Hidden on board the station was a high powered neural scanner, with a pre-recorded message from Cutter. The device would scan his mind sending all his research, knowledge and thoughts back to Goddard for analysis whilst Hilbert would be abandoned with the station.

He had also given Hilbert strict orders that if they discovered evidence of alien life, to "eliminate all variables" and report for further instruction. Thus following discovering the truth about the transitions, Hilbert attempted to kill the others.

They contact Godard and are patched through to Cutter, whom we're introduced to setting a series of directives for the department heads, starting with him welcoming them back to work following Christmas and ending with him threatening to have Rachael thrown off the top of the building specifically so he could watch her hit the ground, unless she got him the results he wanted by the end of the month.

Cutter refused to send a craft to evacuate them off Hephaestus making it clear they would say on board until the time allotted for their mission was completed, despite the massive difficulties of keeping the station from falling into the star without Hera.

As to Hilbert, Cutter ordered them to execute him for mutiny.

The end of the quarter approaching, suspecting something was up from their inconsistent logs, Cutter decided to do the Hephaestus’s performance review personally. Talking to each crew member, Cutter started off seeming concerned but then picked at their weak spots manipulating them into revealing things they hadn’t told him. Cutter threatened Eiffel for more details on recent events, until Eiffel unintentionally blurted out the truth about the transmissions.

As such Cutter sent Colonel Kepler, along with SI officers Daniel Jacobi and Dr Alana Maxwell, to take control of events and fix the station to peak efficiently. Kepler also shut down Hilbert’s research, violently assaulting when he tried to protest.

The whole time Kepler kept in secret contact with Cutter, confirming to Cutter that this was what he had been searching for, and later that there was going to be the first official contact in a few months.

Cutter publicly announced the station had been destroyed in an accident having given Kepler orders to kill them all once they were no longer useful.

However, Kepler underestimated the crew, on the eve of the contact they were able to successfully mutiny. The Dear Listeners contact caused a massive psi wave burst that was picked up by the USS Hermes who sent their readings back to Goddard.

Realising that it had started Cutter, Rachael Young, Pryce and Victor Riemann incepted the Hermes with the Sol. However, the Dear Listeners isolated the Hephaestus.

Cutter allowed Pryce to experiment on the Hermes crew.

Finally arriving, Cutter had Pryce brainwash the entire crew with her restraining bolts including Jacobi despite Kepler’s assurances he was one of them. Upon Eiffel’s return, Cutter had the brainwashed Rene attack him then brainwashed him to.

Cutter set the crew to work, preparing for his plan. Following them managing to break free and escape into the vents Cutter sent Pryce and Kepler to recapture them. He caught Jacobi and Lovelace, but the Sol’s node containing Eiffel, Rene, Kepler and Pryce was jettisoned into space. Furious Cutter ordered Rachael to have whoever designed that safety procedure “skinned, slowly”.

Managing to rescue Pryce, Rene took her and Kepler hostage.

After listening to both Riemann's rescue plan and Rachael's query of whether he really still needed Pryce as a lot of the work was completed, and if it would be better to just wipe out the Hephaestus crew. Cutter decided to handle this his way, manipulating people into doing what he wanted by making them think it was what they wanted.

Rene offered a prisoner exchange and guarantee of safety, but Cutter refused telling them they weren’t asking for enough, they should want the Sol to escape on.

Baffled by his generosity, Rene and Eiffel agreed. The handover went wrong when Pryce decided Cutter was being too generous, but Cutter retook control of the situation by shooting Jacobi through the leg. Declaring the deal stood and Rene had until Jacobi bled to death.

Pryce tried to protest, but Cutter silenced her. Visiting Pryce, she protested what he did was to reckless, only for Cutter to silence her and remind her of the terms of their arrangement declaring he could deal with enemies, but not “the smartest woman in the world” making decisions on the fly. The two reaffirmed their partnership.

Informed the Hephaestus crew had opted to stay (except Eiffel who Rene forcibly launched, so at least one person would get home), as he predicted they would he sent Riemann to eliminate them.

Having modified the station to launch a signal, Cutter ordered a countdown of two minutes. Broadcasting to the Dear Listeners, he revealing that it would release massive batches of Decima virus into the air all over earth, specifically set up to be impossible to stop, demanding they talk with him or he would wipe out all of humanity.

The Dear Listeners sent an avatar (dubbed Bob) to stop him. However, Cutter had installed a powerful Psi wave regulator, cutting off the majority of Bob’s powers.

Cutter demanded that in exchange for not releasing the virus that Bob give him the process for creating surrogates. Bob protested humanity wasn’t advanced enough to utilise them to learn about the Dear Listeners. Only for Cutter and Pryce to reveal they had absolutely no interest in doing so.

No, they wanted the surrogates to create more humans, which they could use it to take over the earth, taking all “the randomness” out of human development and remaking humanity in their image. Convincing Bob it would not interfere the Dear Listeners plans to monitor humanity’s progress; it would just mean that all of humanity would be steered in one direction, their direction.

However, the processes complexity required mentally transferring the information. To survive, it required Eiffel whose mind had already been modified.

This problem was quickly solved when Eiffel crashed the Sol into the station. Captured, Bob performed the transfer, telling them not to call him again. Cutter agreed he wouldn’t, then snapped Bob’s neck as he hated “loose ends”, having Rachael and Kepler throw the body out an airlock in case he woke up.

Rene and Lovelace confronted Cutter on the bridge demanding Eiffel. Cutter replied they could have what was left when Pryce was finished. They shoot him but Cutter’s generic enhancements allowed him to catch bullets.

He then revealed that his psi wave regulator also allowed him to control surrogates, making Lovelace shoot Rene, hitting her in the stomach she started bleeding out. Walking over Cutter mocked Rene, claiming he made her.

He ordered Lovelace to kill Rene but Lovelace managed to resist. Cutter continued increasing the psi wave’s intensity. Whilst causing her extreme pain, Lovelace still managed to resist, which Cutter took in stride pointing out that eventually she’d break.

Only to realise too late she was distracting him. Now to close, Cutter turns just in time for Rene to shoot him with her harpoon gun ending the long life of a monster.

Freudian Excuse or Redeeming traits:

Despite his cheerful, playful and personal manner Cutter’s charm isn’t an inch deep. Cutter is a practical and pragmatic man best demonstrated in his attitude towards his employees. If you’re useful he’ll reward success, listen to your opinions and offer multiple chances.

But it’s always conditional, the second you fall behind or he finds someone better, then he’ll happily throw you under the bus. Despite claiming to value Rachael, he regularly threatens to have her killed if ever she fails to complete this week’s nigh impossible task. Cutter has no problems betraying, murdering or experimenting on his loyal followers. Everyone is just a piece to benefit Cutter, either willingly or to be used.

His terms to the Hephaestus crew are incredibly generous, but this is solely so they won’t interfere with his big plan (and would either die anyway or be subject to his new world order) or he’ll have them killed and lose nothing.

Now the only real concern is does Cutter care for Pryce? Honestly, I don’t know.

The two of them have a highly functional partnership; they respect the others intelligence and they think in very similar terms, unlike the rest of sane humanity. They likewise refer to the new world they intend to create as “theirs.” Lovelace mockingly calls Pryce his “work wife” to Cutter’s approval.

When Pryce is held hostage Cutter refuses to go forward with even a four percent chance of her getting killed, agreeing to negotiate and afterwards when he goes to meet her in the lab he tells her he was worried about her safety. Sounds clear cut redeeming right? Here’s the thing, despite what Rachael said Cutter still needed Pryce to finish the preparations. It's only a maybe that they could finish without her.

Cutter flat out states he won’t get very far without Pryce as the reason he needs to rescue her. Rene argues Cutter wouldn’t lift a finger if he didn’t still need Pryce which he doesn’t dispute. Likewise Pryce’s genius is practically indispensable to Cutter, she creates his tech and his genetically engineered bodies.

And their meeting feels off, Cutter says he cares but his speech is laden with intimidation, he declares she went against their partnership and ends with him pushing Pryce to thank him.

Her response is the only time that Pryce entirely drops her superior attitude, and arguably sounds afraid. You almost hear him saying “never do that again.” I’ll include the link for anyone who wants to listen, because I’m honestly not sure (https://www.wolf359.fm/season4 - Terms and Conditions – last six minutes).

Heinous Standard:

Sets it, virtually every crime in the entire series comes back to Cutter who is at least responsible for eight people’s murder, physical and the psychological human experimentation often on loyal employees, destroying hundreds of sapient AI’s, and his big plan involves him holding a knife above humanity.

Dr Hilbert willingly experiments on humans and is responsible for at least three peoples death (with the implication of more considering he’s been testing an extremely dangerous virus on people since the late eighties) but he makes it clear several times he has no desire to hurt anyone, convinced the potential benefits to humanity justify the cost, in his own words “never confuse dedication with enthusiasm.” His experience shaped watching his whole family die from radiation poisoning.

Kepler is a ruthless individual, but he has standards and is clearly horrified when he finally learns the big plan he’s been supporting could wipe out humanity (its implied he believed Cutter’s plan was to save them from the aliens), even playing along to sabotage it and taking out Rachael Young at the cost of his own life.

Rachael is quite loathsome and vicious, happily going along with Cutter’s plan for the power she will gain being at his side. But she simply lacks any individual crimes to set her apart.

And with all of them, it always comes back to Cutter. All their worst deeds are done at his orders (or at least his enablement).

The Dear Listeners have wiped out entire civilisations they believed were expanding in a manner that would eventually pose a threat to them. But they specify this is only if it was impossible to contain them, and likewise possess an incredibly alien mind set, their technology being so advanced they've effectively eliminated death, to the point that they believe as matter itself can't be destroyed they've merely “reconfigured” them. Likewise they’re a massive confederacy of super advanced aliens, massively outstripping Cutter in resources.

Really there is only one person who is comparable to Marcus Cutter in heinousness, whom will be the subject of my next effortpost.

Conclusion:

I’m honestly not sure. I really don’t know if Cutter’s concern is genuine or not, but I’m overall leaning to him being a keep.

Regardless though I have to say Marcus Cutter is one of my favourite villains in long time hats off to Scotty Shoemaker for such a brilliant performance.

Still what do you think?

Edited by MGD107 on Oct 19th 2019 at 8:05:37 AM

Reaffirmed yes to Cutter. Wonder who the next candidate will be?

Edited by falcontalons on Oct 19th 2019 at 8:00:03 AM

So, I noticed that Honkai Impact 3rd had a few Complete Monster entries added.

As I mentioned in the thread page, the 12th Herrscher of Honkai Impact 3rd doesn't really count.

First, as shown in both the manhua that details her backstory and the recently released Chapter 12 in the game, the Previous Era's 12th Herrscher in Honkai Impact 3rd started as an ordinary girl with unusually high Honkai levels, who was taken from her family, imprisoned, and then killed by the remnants of humanity out of fear. Only then did she awaken as a Herrscher with a very strong hatred towards humanity and began infecting soldiers and machinery.

Second, there's the nature of how she was eventually dealt with. While the specifics in the manga and in the game differ, the general results are the same. After she gets beaten up again, either Theresa or Sakura show compassion towards her, and she finally realizes the folly of her hatred, gives up, and uses her powers to create the 12th Sacred Weapon for the heroes.

Third, as 4tell0life4 mentioned in the thread, Higokumaru (the first host) and the 12th Herrscher are one and the same. Sakura Samsara extra stage has her using her Herrscher powers and consistently refers to the messed up stuff that the 12th Herrscher did as being stuff that she herself did. At most, she has a Human/Herrscher Split Personality like all Herrschers do, but said Split Personality would still have been driven by revenge for what humanity did to her.

Now, the version from Gun Girl Z (a previous game that Honkai Impact 3rd is an Alternate Universe of) might be another story, but the Honkai Impact 3rd version of the 12th Herrscher seems too sympathetic for the trope.

Edited by Servbot on Oct 19th 2019 at 8:13:05 AM

Yes to Cutter.

Cutter

And I'm really supportive of a cut for Hellmaru as I don't think it's fair to keep her up if she has this many issues that weren't in the ep.

Firefly and Cutter

Firefly and Cutter

Cutter

Leaning cut on Hellmaru/Erosion/Corruption