Thomas X - Spoiler Warning

Summary:

Thomas who?

Thomas X - Spoiler Warning

Mystic 16 Jan 2007 17:03

Spoiler warning included just because the MK2K bible had one. I doubt anyone on this board is avoiding those :)

I was setting up in my last story (Patrol:Debriefing) to give Thomas X a brief cameo opportunity with the goal of giving the readers a chance to know the character exists prior to being assasinated. It occurs to me now to ask whether this would be desirable.

Do we want him on the reader's radar by the time he dies, or is it preferable that he remain some distant concept of a character who is revealed only through/after his death? I can see benefits to the feel evoked by both approaches. Which way do the rest of you lean?

I'll also ask out of morbid curiousity, what does "assassinated by unknown means " look like. Is he just going to collapse on the podium, does he explode in red shower, petrified and shattered, a magic bullet that the avatar is somehow not invulnerable too, etc. What is the person watching tv going to see when it goes down?

Re: Thomas X - Spoiler Warning

RavenB 17 Jan 2007 06:03

Cameos are fine; I don't have a problem with people seeing a bit of old T-X before his untimely end. Noble, powerful paragons of virtue are boring, though, so I'd advise against using him too extensively, except perhaps to see him through the eyes of an ordinary person and see what T-X's existence means to them on a symbolic level.

"Assassinated by unknown means" translates, in this case, to spontaneous decorporation. Avatars have a boatload of divine energy inside them, the kind of energy that is just begging to exist in a noncorporeal state. Trouble is, neither the avatars nor any of the pantheon currently have enough juice to transition into a noncorporeal state and still hold themselves together. (Rough Analogy: it takes more energy, properly applied, to control a sustained fusion reaction than to make a fusion bomb.) Avatars are taught to channel divine energy in their corporeal bodies, and the gods do it instinctively, so normally this isn't a problem. In Thomas's case, however, someone uses some very clever magic to short-circuit that control, like pulling the control rods out of a nuclear fission reactor. All that energy inside him leaps into a noncorporeal state in a huge, uncontrolled rush — and scatters Thomas into component atoms in the process. Thomas is suddenly wracked with pain in mid-speech, he gets all glowy, and then he explodes in a brilliant flash of light, leaving nothing but scorch marks and psychic residue all over the Square.

An Idea...

Interloper23 28 Dec 2007 16:42

I was reading about the background trying to get some inspiration and I had an idea for this. Would it be possible for Thomas X to suffer from crushing depression, like Mother Theresa? It would be a way for him to be interesting and he could be written about a little more and he would be very sympathetic and admirable because of what he struggled against in order to be as good and highly regarded as he was. Below is a very brief sample, written in the form of a letter written to "Urizen", a religious figure that he corresponds with.

"Dear Urizen,

I wish that I could put into words how fortunate you are. The divine spark within you is clear and strong as it should be. You are indeed blessed, unlike me. I do not know what is wrong with me, but when I look deep into myself I do not see or feel that spark anymore. I feel only a bottomless pit deep within me, a vast expanse that aches like a phantom limb where my soul used to be. All I can think about is the suffering in the Street, the beatings, theft, murder and worse. I know that other people should do their part but that doesn’t make it hurt any less. Just waking up and doing the tasks required of my position is sometimes very hard. I have such power and everyone talks about how good I am, but in the end all I see is darkness. I must go on, however. Please pray for me, Urizen.

Thomas"

Re: An Idea...

RavenB 28 Dec 2007 19:35

That's a cool idea. I haven't really done anything with Thomas X as a person yet; it would definitely be worthwhile to show him and the burdens of his position before we knock him off. Sort of a "day in the life of the superman" sort of thing. :)

Re: Thomas X - Spoiler Warning

Cubist 15 Nov 2008 14:25

If divine energy obeys anything in the general neighborhood of a Law of Conservation, it may be that Thomas X isn't quite dead after he goes glowy and boomy. Instead, his spirit/soul/personality/whatever may still exist — just in a very different, very much less organized, state than he used to be in. Just an idea…

Re: Thomas X - Spoiler Warning

RavenB 16 Nov 2008 10:02

Well, his human soul would definitely still exist — it would either pass on to the afterlife, or get "stuck" and become a ghost or revenant. Given the manner in which he was killed, and his sense of duty to the city, becoming a revenant is actually quite a likely possibility. He wouldn't have anything like his old power, but people may catch glimpses of him wandering the city at night, looking for his killers.

As for the divine energy that was invested in him, it blasted out in all directions. Some of it was probably captured and reclaimed by Kyia. A lot of it would have gone out and perforated the fabric of reality, making weak spots in the barrier between the material world and the outer planes. And if some enterprising mages happened to know that T-X was about to go boom, they might have been able to channel that energy into a magic ritual that was already in progress. Only avatars, aedra, daedra, and potential Keys/Vessels can store divine energy, but it could potentially be steered into a waiting spell in order to power it. Hmm…

Re: Thomas X - Spoiler Warning

Ryx 03 Nov 2008 23:24

Point of consideration:

Such an immolation, a detonation of raw power on the Deific level, would floor damn near every mana sensative in the entire city with a migrane. It would disrupt the mana flow of every device within a goodly range (briefly, in the case of vehicles, as safeties kicked in). Thomas X was a the containment bottle of a fusion reaction and someone shut off the magnets… boom, but entirely on the mana level.

Mana sensatives within the same room might very well get pulped in the same instant, or drop over dead if not rendered comatose by the pulse of raw mana that slammed into them unwarned. Mana-powered devices would 'short out', some perhaps violently.

Re: Thomas X - Spoiler Warning

RavenB 04 Nov 2008 01:56

Good point. The disruption will definitely be widespread and widely noticed.