-
We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
You have two issues that requires thought. One is blind loyalty to one's group (in this case human species). The other is small seemingly insignificant species versus needed resources. Thanks
- 1
I must admit I was hoping it would go the other way, but these things never do. One day a group of explorers will come across something valuable and interesting that could be life, but then find out that it isn't. Or it is alive but is basically like bacteria and entirely non-sentient. The show ends on the mining companies moving in and everyone on board learning a valuable lesson about not jumping to conclusions.
As all of this could have been avoided if the co-captains had just followed protocol so I do find it hard to be too upset about either of them not surviving the mission. That said this reflects mostly badly on the commanders back on earth who sent out this shambles of a mission. Neither Maskim nor Weatherford seem suited to command and are both bad leaders in their different ways, this is made worse as co-captain is just a bad system that must lead to problems all the time (how do you pick a path if you have two, equal, leaders proposing different things?). This poor leadership in part explains why are their crews so lax at following protocol and so eager to avoid it, but even then you'd hope they'd actually been trained before being sent out and had some professionalism. It's just shocking all round really.
As all of this could have been avoided if the co-captains had just followed protocol so I do find it hard to be too upset about either of them not surviving the mission. That said this reflects mostly badly on the commanders back on earth who sent out this shambles of a mission. Neither Maskim nor Weatherford seem suited to command and are both bad leaders in their different ways, this is made worse as co-captain is just a bad system that must lead to problems all the time (how do you pick a path if you have two, equal, leaders proposing different things?). This poor leadership in part explains why are their crews so lax at following protocol and so eager to avoid it, but even then you'd hope they'd actually been trained before being sent out and had some professionalism. It's just shocking all round really.
- 2
I was wondering about the catch here. Yeah, Maksim was right here, but neither of them was a great person.
If the beings can feel, Earth might have some explaining to do.
If the beings can feel, Earth might have some explaining to do.
- 2
Trade would certainly be interesting, though as things stand extraction of resources at gunpoint or mutual avoidance are also very possible developments.
Yeah, that's an interesting one. Stellaris is interesting because even in it's more "fixed" storylines like event chains and digs, a great many loose ends still remain and can be twisted to weave very different stories depending on the wishes of the player.
Oh, I see what you did there... naming the vessel ISS Columbus.
Well spotted! I don't think what they were waiting for back on earth, naming an exploration vessel like that...
Yeah, a bit trope-heavy this one, I might try that idea on a later date. Maybe with X-Human or some other friendly megacorp...
Indeed this mission did not display any indication of being in any way ready to serve as humanity's ambassadors to an alien species, or even of possessing the mental stamina and cohesiveness needed for such a long exploratory mission into the void, did it? My initial aim was to show it more explicitly as a purely politically driven mission where both the ridiculous Co-captain system and the seemingly ramshackle nature of the crew were a result of it being launched purely as a show of pretense unity between Earth and Luna for the consumption of a human public fed up with the rivarly between these two mega-states, with the crew itself having being hastily picked of low level people more used to cargo runs than any scientific or military work. Then I slashed some scenes and dialogue that seemed a bit to clichè even for me, and that may have been lost on the subtext.
Indeed neither Maksim nor Heather were well suited for leadership of an exploratory crew, which is a post that requires a great deal of psychological toughness and crew discipline along with a certain degree of flexibility and capacity to improvise when unexpected situations arise. They could have done well on routine cargo shipping or ferrying VIP tourists about, but not as ambassadors of the human race.
Earth might do some explaining, or might use the old tactic of sweeping the carcasses under the rug and wait for future generations to face the consequences unprepared to finally deal with it's crimes.
- 1
This one is a very stream of consciousness piece that I had an idea and typed all on my phone while on the beach, so sorry for potential typos and formatting weirdness. This is a bit surrealist, a bit horror and a bit just silly. Obviously related to the Worm. Do not read this story if you are scared or exceptionally grossed out by worms!
To See Beyond
I was walking Nessy today when I noticed a worm writhing in the grass, turning and spasming in a contortionist fury. Bugs, crawling, slithering or flying give me the creeps so I reached with my foot to put it out of it's misery. Just then it spasmed and disappeared. I shrugged and resumed my walk.
At night, after dinner, Nessy coughed out a worm. It slithered away before I could stomp it.
At night, after dinner, Nessy coughed out a worm. It slithered away before I could stomp it.
My life is a morose uneventful slog, these days. I wake up, make coffee and drink it while chowing down an apple or two and skimming through a news website, then I close the website and think that at least things here aren't just as bad as over there- I could be scavenging submerged malls for a living in NYC, or serving as an indentured soldier for some Warlord in Beijing. I go to walk Nessy. I come back and apathetically go through the inevitable messages from my family or my supervisor or even the odd friend who still hopes I might get back to the city sometimes to hang out.
I have lunch at François' Full Hand Bar, and take home the leftovers for Nessy. I walk her again. I spend the evening staring at my thesis and writing small sentences only to delete all of it in a fit of disgust moments later. For months now I have added nothing new to it. In fact, I have even began to delete entire paragraphs which I am not happy with only to discover I don't know how to rewrite them.
Eventually, Nessy drags herself to my side and hits me with her skeletal pows until I close my computer and walk her again. I return home, make a soup, get some bread from the attic and dine. Before I go to bed, I walk Nessy again.
I never sleep well.
Yesterday, for the first time in years, I slept well. When I woke and opened my window there was a blackbird just outside rhythmically hitting the ground with his beak in search of breakfast.
I opened my computer and stared at my thesis. I saw it then, truly saw it in it's whole, grotesque, useless form and knew only one course of action could be taken. Three clicks later the labour of the last year and a half was irretrievably lost.
I laughed heartily and went to walk Nessy.
That night, I cried myself to sleep.
I opened my computer and stared at my thesis. I saw it then, truly saw it in it's whole, grotesque, useless form and knew only one course of action could be taken. Three clicks later the labour of the last year and a half was irretrievably lost.
I laughed heartily and went to walk Nessy.
That night, I cried myself to sleep.
A week later, I Nessy went alone for her night walk and didn't come back. I found her hours later, laying by her side in the middle of the woods, her belly swollen and disfigured, her mouth frozen in a silent cry of agony. She'd been poisoned, or eaten something poisoned. I began to to break down sobbing. Then I saw it, and the world stopped; a worm as big as my hand was slithering from inside Nessy's half closed eyelids. It pulled itself forward in an S-like movement, it's rings moving with a rippling effect. I stared at it mesmerised until I could hear it move, as loud as a wave crashing upon a rocky shore, as it pulled through Nessy's nose and down into the grass.
As soon as it touched the ground, I fell upon it kicking as I shrieked like a madman. But my kicks all hit the loose soil, missing it. I threw myself to the ground, trying to punch and slash and bite it, but I could not reach it, as if it was a projection which I could perceive but not touch. Eventually I fell asleep, exhausted, letting the worm crawl away.
When I woke up, Nessy wasn't there anymore. I crawled back into my house and slept the whole day.
As soon as it touched the ground, I fell upon it kicking as I shrieked like a madman. But my kicks all hit the loose soil, missing it. I threw myself to the ground, trying to punch and slash and bite it, but I could not reach it, as if it was a projection which I could perceive but not touch. Eventually I fell asleep, exhausted, letting the worm crawl away.
When I woke up, Nessy wasn't there anymore. I crawled back into my house and slept the whole day.
I woke up well the next day. Happy even. All had been a dream, I knew, so when I called for Nessy and she didn't come, It didn't bother me. She was there, I knew, I just couldn't see her.
I did all I usually did with her. I walked her, bathed her and fed her, and though I could see that the food was still there afterwards, and on the day after that and on the day after that day, it didn't bother me, and I kept taking care of her as I always did. I knew she was there.
A week afterwards, I was thinking about what my new thesis would be about when I came across all the food that I had given Nessy the past week. It stenched, or so I imagined, because I knew there was really no food there and Nessy had eaten it all. Worms were crawling all over it. But they didn't repulse me, for I knew they weren't really there. I crouched down and looked at them attentively, and in their waving movements I saw, clear as the day, my new thesis.
For the next two days I wrote my thesis from start to finish, crouched down or lying next to the worms, typing as they dictated it to me.
I did all I usually did with her. I walked her, bathed her and fed her, and though I could see that the food was still there afterwards, and on the day after that and on the day after that day, it didn't bother me, and I kept taking care of her as I always did. I knew she was there.
A week afterwards, I was thinking about what my new thesis would be about when I came across all the food that I had given Nessy the past week. It stenched, or so I imagined, because I knew there was really no food there and Nessy had eaten it all. Worms were crawling all over it. But they didn't repulse me, for I knew they weren't really there. I crouched down and looked at them attentively, and in their waving movements I saw, clear as the day, my new thesis.
For the next two days I wrote my thesis from start to finish, crouched down or lying next to the worms, typing as they dictated it to me.
Today I sent my finished thesis to my supervisor. I explained to him in excruciating detail how I had come to understand that our world is infinitely more complex than we think, a world of dozens even hundreds of dimensions of which we see just four. We are like ants, incapable of looking up, or keeping track of time, just acting in mindless simplicity blindly stumbling through a world we cannot even hope to understand.
Then I turned my computer off forever. I couldn't care less wether he published it or not, wether I am remembered as a prophet or a charlatan, a madman or a genius. I opened the door of the house, freeing Nessy and walked away behind her. I have gained some perspective. I feel free and weightless. I am free and want Nessy to be too.
Then I turned my computer off forever. I couldn't care less wether he published it or not, wether I am remembered as a prophet or a charlatan, a madman or a genius. I opened the door of the house, freeing Nessy and walked away behind her. I have gained some perspective. I feel free and weightless. I am free and want Nessy to be too.
I have spent some time (hours? days? weeks? Who cares? Time is a flawed oversimplification of reality, only a fragment of a much greater puzzle) crawling through the forest, digging worms from their underground tunnels and watching them contort and ripple. Through them I can see a glimpse of the future and the past, and I can see above and below and through, inside and outside. I see so much more, I understand so much more.
My body aches, my stomach is empty and my hands are raw and bleeding, but I feel like I have at last found the way to escape our pitifully small human perspective.
I have glimpsed at Her through the worms. She is the conduit, the tunnel, through which I can not only have a fleeting vision of the other dimensions of our existence but, one day, claw out of this body, of this cage with four walls and into the real world.
She is the hand that guides us to excel and shapes us into something capable of breaking down the walls of the mind to see clearly.
I will give myself to her. She loves us and guides us. I am at peace and know the truth. I lie down and wait. It won't take much longer now, I already feel the worms crawling.
Above me, below me, through me.
I have glimpsed at Her through the worms. She is the conduit, the tunnel, through which I can not only have a fleeting vision of the other dimensions of our existence but, one day, claw out of this body, of this cage with four walls and into the real world.
She is the hand that guides us to excel and shapes us into something capable of breaking down the walls of the mind to see clearly.
I will give myself to her. She loves us and guides us. I am at peace and know the truth. I lie down and wait. It won't take much longer now, I already feel the worms crawling.
Above me, below me, through me.
I at last understand my purpose.
When you read this, I'll have been long gone. Dead maybe, or maybe still alive, but probably neither one nor the other or both simultaneously. Either way it won't matter. I'll be happy, for I'll have fulfilled my purpose.
All because of her love.
I now see beyond.
When you read this, I'll have been long gone. Dead maybe, or maybe still alive, but probably neither one nor the other or both simultaneously. Either way it won't matter. I'll be happy, for I'll have fulfilled my purpose.
All because of her love.
I now see beyond.
- 1
- 1
Another solid argument for treating all aliens as hostile and malevolent until proven otherwise, even if they do in some way resemble worms.
- 1
- 1
Indeed. Assuming, of course, that the man has genuinely experienced something beyond a crippling mental breakdown...
- 1
The way I see it, our POV protagonist suffered a breakdown after losing Nessy, the Worm-in-Waiting saw a vulnerable mind, and jumped at the chance.
Also, obligatory Horizon event reference:
TIME IS SIGHT
GRAVITY IS DESIRE
Also, obligatory Horizon event reference:
TIME IS SIGHT
GRAVITY IS DESIRE
- 2
Or did the worm poison Nessy to cause them to suffer the final breakdown?
- 2
I'm not certain the Worm was involved in this at all. It could just be a straight plot of a man being driven to madness.
Assuming it is involved, though, why is it female? Because Nessy was?
What is the wider world like here? I think our protagonist is in France and America and China aren't doing well, but I kind of want more detail there.
I do like this reimagining of the Worm, though... especially given that I have also reimagined the Worm (and made it a composite character with something from Norse Mythology because this was in Nordica).
Assuming it is involved, though, why is it female? Because Nessy was?
What is the wider world like here? I think our protagonist is in France and America and China aren't doing well, but I kind of want more detail there.
I do like this reimagining of the Worm, though... especially given that I have also reimagined the Worm (and made it a composite character with something from Norse Mythology because this was in Nordica).
- 2
Nessy and worm go together. I think of the Loch Ness Monster when I see the name Nessy and LNM resembles an oversized worm. Thanks
This is a cross between Stephen King and Rod Serling and should not be read when alone.
This is a cross between Stephen King and Rod Serling and should not be read when alone.
- 1
A very probable explanation, but who knows how far back does the Worm begin it's manipulations? After all,
WHAT WAS, WILL BE; WHAT WILL BE, WAS
Both possible. Maybe the man just went gaga with isolation and a taxing and frustrating professional life. Or maybe the worm carefully orchestrated each and every event that happened here as a small step in the direction of infiltrating the whole human civilization.
I don't know why, but I always pictured the Worm as female, even if in all probability dimensional horrors have no gender.
I didn't give it much thought, the basic idea is that all major powers in the world have suffered a considerable breakdown in their authority by a combination of environmental catastrophes, civil disturbances, resource wars and the large scale breakdown of international relations. I can try to develop it further on a later story...
Oh that's cool. I'll have to check it out when I eventually finish trawling at slug speed through my backlog of unread AARs!
Thanks for the high praise!
- 1
I've never played Stellaris so I have no idea how the dynamics of the game effect the story, but I've read through this and really enjoy the different styles and approaches you use with each scene (or as you call it, short stories.) I'm quite happy that I've checked it out this morning. Most especially this last update. It reminded me very much of The Thing but rather from the perspective of one of the crew as the alien being infected them (is infected the right term?) I enjoyed it so much that I have nominated The Worm for the latest Character Writer of the Week. It is certainly deserved!
I'm going to try and follow this @Von Acturus. Be proud. You've got me reading a Stellaris AAR. That is a feat unto itself.
I'm going to try and follow this @Von Acturus. Be proud. You've got me reading a Stellaris AAR. That is a feat unto itself.
- 2
This story has three pillars: the first, the stellaris inspiration, is about a slight variation of the event chain about the lovesick infiltrator and other ways in which things could go wrong for our brave/foolish alien interloper. The second is a vague attempt at a slightly satirical insight into the mind of a dictator. The third was a very depressing news day that resulted in the maybe a bit over the top content of the second part of the story. No way you can miss the moralising message this way at least
The Threat Within
The Leader knows how to make the most of an opportunity. How to seize it and shape it into a triumph. That’s how he came into power and held onto it for so many years, seeing off challengers from within and without his own ranks and maintaining the loyalty of the people.
As his eyes surveyed the captive, his mind raced, analysing all the ways in which the unexpected situation he had seen unfold over the past few weeks could be turned to his advantage. He felt a spike of adrenaline as the captive looked at him. For a moment, he felt that, despite the chains, the guards, the instruments of torture and murder laid neatly on the table, he was not in control.
The moment washed away quickly and he turned to the guards to share a reassuring fatherly smile. The Leader carried himself always thus: confident, dignified, powerful, in control. He doesn’t feel fear, he doesn’t hesitate. He is the personification of victory and power.
In front of him hung the personification of defeat. Held against the wall by an ingenious combination of steel harnesses, was the alien.
The alien who dresses like a man, talks like a man, walks like a man and looks exactly the way a man does. Maybe, a small voice in the back of his mind whispered, it even looked a bit like the Leader himself, if one ignored the dried blood clinging to it’s mouth and nostrils or the unnatural sideways grin frozen into it’s face. Or the eyes. The eyes with the pupils that upon close inspection are not the right size, whose irises are yellower than the irises of any man.
The Leader took a step closer to the alien, surveying his features. The more he looked at it, the more he found wrong and uncanny in it, the more he doubted how it could ever have passed for a man and fooled so many people. It’s fingers were too long, it’s lips too thin, it’s teeth too white.
When the Leader stood no more than few centimetres away from the alien, it’s face twitched and the Leader had the impression it was preparing to bite him. He took a subtle step backwards and smiled at the alien. The alien let out something between a laugh and a pained groan.
One of the guards coughed discreetly.
“What?” The Leader demanded, still eyeing the alien.
“She’s here, sir.”
“Ah!” The Leader’s face opened in a victorious grin. “Bring her in.”
The guard saluted and opened the door. Outside, a soldier of his private guard clicked his heels and stood to the side, allowing her to enter the room.
“Miss Charity Allen!” The guard announced.
The woman entered the room with small steps and gave the leader a low bow.
When she stood straight again, almost an entire tedious minute later, the Leader noticed her eyes nervously shifting between him and the alien. He suppressed a smirk.
“Miss Allen, good day.” He said, smiling at her “I regret having to drag you all the way down to this nauseous place, rest assured we don’t wish to take too much of your time.”
“Oh no problem at all sir! Delighted to be here sir!” she said immediately in a high pitched, eager voice. “In whatever I can help, I will sir.”
“Wonderful!” He crooned “If only all citizens were like you…”
She lowered her head, blushing. The Leader reached and patted her shoulder with paternal affection. He sensed her instinctively recoil from the contact, before consciously overcompensating by subtly leaning into his hand. “All I ask you to do for now is to tell him the truth.”
“The truth sir?” She asked in a small voice. The voice, the Leader recognised, of someone for whom asking questions was a dangerous occupation.
“The truth.” He said, signalling the guard to approach. The guard handed the woman a stack of papers. “Memorise that on the next few hours. When you’re ready tell me. You’re going to tell him and the nation exactly what happened and how you feel about it.”
She looked at him with an uncertain expression on her face. The Leader felt half amused half insulted at her failure to immediately comply with his clear orders, but decided to indulge her unspoken question. He had no doubt this woman was no dissenter, but a coward, more cowardly and afraid than even a proper respectful citizen should be.
That was why she had been deceived by the alien for so long, because she was afraid to see the truth. And when she could no longer ignore it because he confessed his true nature to her, she turned him in not out of loyalty for her nation or repulse for the outsider, as she claimed but out of fear. Not rational, calculated fear like most citizens had. Not “I’ll sacrifice him so I can live” cold calculating fear, but unconstrained, obfuscating blind fear. Pure cowardice.
And the Leader despised cowards.
Still, he indulged her unsaid doubts. “Those are your statements to the National Guard, slightly modified to emphasize the most important points. So there are no doubts left on his mind about the odiousness of his acts and the repulse you, and, through you, all of our proud people feel about him.”
She nodded intently. “Understood, sir. Will do sir.”
Coward.
The Leader sat at his desk and watched her go back and forth inside the cell memorising the speech. He watched as the alien’s face became gradually more and more agonised at each fearful, hateful glance she shot him. The Leader wondered then if the alien hadn’t been telling the truth. If, behind the alienness of it’s emotions, didn’t truly lie something akin to love for her. He couldn’t see what other reason an alien infiltrator, whose first order was of course to maintain secrecy, would have to do something so foolish as blow it’s cover to a lowly citizen.
If it was indeed capable of love, the Leader thought scornfully, it could at least have chosen a target for his affections other than the poor excuse for a human being that was currently in front of it carefully reading the phrases hatched by his propagandists to paint the alien as a devious manipulator, almost super human in his abilities, part of a vast plan by a shadowy alien power to seize control over their nation and the world by means of impersonation and deception.
A threat of the highest order which his people had to fight. An enemy so odious as it was powerful, so nebulous as it was devious, whose eventual defeat would not be accomplished without more restrictions, more control, more surveillance, more and better weapons.
The woman finished memorising and the guards began to put the cameras in place.
With a flick of his hand, the Leader signalled the beginning of the circus.
As Miss Allen denounced her ex-lover on national television as an existential threat and admitted her part as an unwitting but indubitably guilty part in the treasonous conspiracy that the aliens were hatching against their glorious nation, and, tears streaming down her face, voice shaking with anger and despair, called for the harshest punishment of all those involved, the Leader couldn’t help but feel a sudden feeling of hilarity seize him.
What a marvellous opportunity had the universe decided to give him. And how cunning had he been at seizing it. Here was this lowly alien clerk, who believed itself to have been long forgotten by it’s government, stuck on what according to it was a routine assignment on a lost, primitive, unremarkable planet, who had willingly surrendered itself and all it’s information to his security forces, now transformed into devious architect of an invisible invasion.
The leader smiled contently and allowed his body to relax and slump against the chair. The future was bright.
A week later a thousand bonfires raged on all the major squares of all important cities and villages of his realm. Millions of technological devices of all kinds burned at stake after the Human Protection Ministry, under the wise guidance of the Leader, had declared them to have been engineered by individuals under alien influence to help condition humanity to accept the eventual takeover.
The streets of those same cities were covered in blood as wrathful citizens broke into the houses of those whom the Neighbourhood Watch’s files marked as potentially in league with the alien invaders, and men, women and children were dragged into the streets and beaten, abused and humiliated before being rescued by the merciful hands of the police and national guard.
The Leader, in his infinite generosity, allowed those judged to have been only unwitting collaborators to work their treason to the race and nation away at the labour camps of the east.
For those whose treason was judged to be deliberate and conscious, huge masts were erected at the entrance to the cities and there they were hanged. Thus it was shown to any who might wish to deceive, betray and enslave their fellow men that the brave people, proud of their God-given freedoms and natural rights, would not sit idly by.
As the supply of alien-influenced devices and traitors began to dry, books and artwork appeared which, someone said, and the appropriate authorities confirmed, had been the work of the alien, perversions to erode the faith and moral character of man.
So they too were fed to the fires, which consumed museums and libraries with ferocious abandon.
And, just below the Leader’s palace, was built the biggest show of defiance to the alien invaders. A giant pyre had been erected, and to it were bound the captive alien and his ex-lover, who had given herself to the pyre so great was her remorse at having betrayed her people and her Leader and her God.
The woman was unconscious, her head hanging to the side, her body crumpled, only the chains that bound her to the pole preventing her limp body from falling into the ground far below. The alien was wide awake, looking with an expressionless face at the crowd outside the fence who taunted and jeered.
When the man with the torch walked to his pyre he turned to her and said “sorry”, but it knew that she couldn’t hear it.
After the fire had been extinguished, and the charred remains of the pyre had been presented to the ecstatic crowd celebrating their victory over the alien menace, the burnt but still alive body of the alien was dragged back into the Leader’s dungeon, for the Leader knew that some assets are best kept for the long game.
From the palace, great generals and revered priests clamoured against the alien threat and the weakness and degeneracy that allowed it to gain ground, and promised a national rebirth and a return to God and the natural order of things.
Then, the Leader climbed into the balcony and asked for silence. The crowd settled into a reverent quietness and he spoke.
He spoke in a fatherly tone, voice firm yet forgiving, denouncing the traitors and collaborators who sold out their friends, their family, their nation, their race. Who turned their back on God and Country. He spoke of the need for unity, and of his pride on the brave citizens who all through the nation had proved their moral character by facing the traitors and were as he spoke rooting out alien corruption with immaculate zeal.
Yet he cautioned that vigilance must be ever maintained, not just against the outside threats, not just against those whose suspicious behaviour points to collusion with the invaders, but also against oneself.
For the alien makes use of desires and thoughts already lingering within a man’s spirit. The alien does not create treason, it helps it fester. If one wants to fight the alien one must eliminate the seditious, anti-national, blasphemous, anti-human thoughts and attitudes inside oneself.
If you want to kill the alien menace, he said, you have to kill the alien within.
Ask your priest, your employer, your area’s commissar, your national guard friends for guidance, for those who overcame the temptations the alien feeds on are the ones who will guide you to overcome these impious impulses yourself.
If you detect any of these impure thoughts, suppress them. If you see in yourself or anyone you know any sort of traitorous behaviour report it.
Be vigilant citizens, he urged, and be brave.
And kill the alien within.
So he said, and so the people did.
Last edited:
- 1
- 1
That was an amazing piece. I especially liked the character of the Leader - he is so evil but so fascinating... The part where he has to talk himself out of thinking that the alien was like his kind was especially thought-provoking.
- 1
- 1
A valuable lesson indeed about the dangers traitors and aliens can bring. They are lucky indeed to have such a strong and wise Leader to protect them from such influences. /s
To be a tad more serious any group that goes to the bother of genetically engineering it's infiltrators to try and blend in with society has to be at least suspicious. The Leader starts an over-reaction to be sure, but is it paranoia when you have actual proof they are indeed out to get you?
To be a tad more serious any group that goes to the bother of genetically engineering it's infiltrators to try and blend in with society has to be at least suspicious. The Leader starts an over-reaction to be sure, but is it paranoia when you have actual proof they are indeed out to get you?
- 1
- 1
I wonder who is worse...the Leader or the Alien? Who should be most feared?
- 2