Replying to some of the comments of the reader gallery now: It all comes down to the simple matters of: -Can you hit him with it? -Does it affect him in any debilitating way? Vampires are demon possessed corpses. When Alex 'consumes' a vampire, all he gets out of the deal is a human-weight amount of biomass and the memories of the person they were in life. I've said this before, in the Prototype Ideas thread, with Drusilla as an example. Yes, yes he should, were he a normal person. Sadly, Blacklight is this nasty little biological horror with its origins coming from scientifically modified and magically altered/enhanced 'DNA' of an Old One - it wouldn't take. It all comes down on how creative, and how knowledgeable you are in devising a curse that would do such things. Alex doesn't do Halloween. He doesn't see the point of dressing up in costumes if you can virtually be anyone in the world. ...Huh? Again, it depends how creative you are - and how much you know. Some diseases are notoriously hard to get rid of. Thanks. My personal theory is that Alex more or less immediately converts body mass into some sort of plasma and stores this within himself, and uses it how he sees fit - regeneration takes very little, whereas a Destructor takes a fairly large chunk. Viruses are, arguably 'living', cellular organisms. You have to keep in mind Alex is an unreliable narrator regarding his own nature. What happened, according to the Prototype wikia - which is probably the most accurate version of things - is that after Alex was shot, the virus basically took his genetic code and copied it almost perfectly. Save, for, you know, the fact he's now a Blacklight construct. Eventually something like this is going to happen, yes. Buffy, Willow, Xander and Giles are going to spazz. Yes, but as far as I'm aware Amy Madison wasn't a Blacklight construct. I've outlined the circumstances already, and I'm not going to repeat myself.
If Alex eats, say, Xander, during the Halloween, which memories will he get? If he eats Xander immediately after the Halloween (when the memories are fresh)? Oh, and if Alex eats Amy's Mom, will he get magic skills? Because there are a lot of magic users (both human and not) out there.
It'sa me, Mario! The illusion of Alex being a pacifist wouldn't last long enough, I'm afraid. It'd depend on how much Alex cares about keeping up the guise. Prototype I takes place in 2008. I've mentioned somewhere exactly how many years Alex was slapped backwards through time. The Scoobie Gang is frantically looking for ways to buff up - necessity is the mother of invention, or in this case, survivability, after all. Alex looks on, amused. Alex doesn't need magic to be badass... and as for Xander's various mishaps regarding possession - well, let's just say that there's going to be someone who happens to understand where Alex comes from when the subject of consuming people comes up in conversation.
He doesn't. It is, however, a way to help Dana. After all, the logic would probably be "W&H had a cure (though they didn't give it to me). What Did they have, that I didn't? Magic". So this, at least, a motive for Alex to learn magic. Plus I, at least, believe that his curiosity is not totally dead. And magic is new and changes many things he knows about science. Like, say, theory of evolution. So this too, is a motive. Oh, and very interesting info about Xander and Scoobies. But I used him as an example. Say, random nobody dressed up as Tony Stark. Now, in normal continuity he dies (because his arc reactor in his chest malfunctions) and thus there are no consequences. In this continuity Alex eats him before he dies. Will he get memories of Tony Stark? Oh, and about Scooby buff-ups... Well, I guess all of them would have some spell-casting. Early Willow will probably go for Robot army and exoskeletons (made using Ted's and Moloch's tech) as means of getting power up, Xander will probably go for possession (at least I can't think of anything else out of hand), and Buffy may actually go for major battle spell casting (i.e. fireballs, illusions, invisibility, intangibility), being that she is already a mystical being. Or she may abuse steroids like there is no forever relying on slayer healing to deal with side effects.
Man, Alex and Illyria have a hell of a lot in common, don't they? Both of them are basically walking abominations walking around in the form of a human that their essence overwhelmed(and have bits of the original in their own head); they're both physical gods, almost unkillable, have troubles dealing with mortals... although he's a bit closer to a full-powered Old One than she is in physical terms, endlessly evolving stronger, whereas Illyria's body couldn't handle her base power level. She does seem to have exotic effects, however, in her favor; portal-creation and temporal manipulation. It's possible that Redlight was the diffused essence of an Old One(or a proto-Old One, even... it's mentioned as "The Source of all life on Earth." Redlight could be proto-demon/Old One infection) and Blacklight is the distilled/evolved essence thereof. Thus, why there's not a swarm of Zeus-clones running around; there's only on e actual Old One in Blacklight form, whereas Redlight is more of a proto-Old One infection/evolution. So Greene would have been a proto-Old One; the Prototype, if you will. Mercer would be an actual evolved Old One. Maybe more than that, because he IS rapidly evolving, something Old Ones and demons don't seem particularly good at. Heck, he could be the biggest nightmare of the Watchers given form: an entity with human+ intelligence, adaptability, lethality, and constantly evolving to even better heights. Adaptability is a big part of that terror generation, too, because most demons et al are... pretty dumb, to be blatantly frank about it.
Well, you said that Mercer wants to have some money and that money owned by vampires turns to ashes when their owners are killed. What better way to get some money and remain under radar at the same time? He could even spare the time to research the cure for Dana and heck, perhaps even getting some funding to do so in the process.
Ah so you are making mercer demonic in origin. Then Wolfram and heart and the Mayor and similarly edged magi should still be able to mess with him. Considering the first may be headed by Old Ones or at least has the extra-dimensional and likely temporal resources to target check on things like that given enough time and the mayor had enough research going on to become an old one it would be reasonable for them to be able to something with him with proper maystic scanning. In addition while most demon are slow to adapt most actual threats including the only people mercer has to worry about are not. Note I wouldn't be surprised if Wolfram and heart had their fingers in alex development with the tack you are going on. I mean its not like you are going to do any editorial reset, keep people from thinking, or just leave Alex as this moslty to effectively unstoppable Juggernaut with no weakness save the psychological for decades, are you?
True, but while he knows they have something like 'magic' - his inadvertent trip backwards in time breaks most of the rules of ordinary science he is familiar with, he doesn't understand the exact mechanics of it yet. It depends. If the memories fade to minimum, like what happened with most people I think, he doesn't get to retain a lot of specifics, only the vague memory that he has consumed someone who built a man-sized mech armor suit - without the knowledge of how to replicate the thing, it's basically useless. A bit like the random, low ranked blackwatch grunt that you consumed merely to find out the location of their superiors. Willow, yes. Xander... tactics, martial arts (Krav Maga is a martial art used by the army, I think), assorted weaponry. Giles is going to brush up his knowledge and aptitude with magic, and Buffy... I don't know yet. Yes, yes they do. They're absolute monsters. Lack of opportunity for development brought on by ineffectual enemies tends to do that, yes. Evolution as a concept requires that you constantly strive to improve yourself in order to overcome your flaws as a way to make sure that your enemies can't take advantage of your weaknesses. It's why Alex (at least in Unslain) and Illyria are so bloody terrifying. They don't need to adapt. Alex has the advantage of eleven years of knowledge regarding various developments on several fronts. Medicine, technology, heck, even weaponry. If he supplies to the military as an independent advisor/merchant he can easily make millions if he plays it right. 'Should' being the operative word. The Wolf, Ram and Heart aren't Old Ones as far as I know. The First Evil, YMMV. Wilkins, problem with him is that he thinks long-term as opposed to, well, day-to-day. I ain't saying he's not wrong for looking so far ahead of himself but you have to do both to be at least somewhat receptive to deal with someone like Alex Mercer, who is fairly whimsical - of course, this is from other people's perspective, as Alex has the ability to assimilate memories through consumption. The First Evil, not in the slightest, though Bringers are a somewhat iffy factor. Wolfram & Hart, yes, they might become a force to watch out for. Eventually Alex will have an adversary, probably an alternate version of himself, which he can't deal with as easily as anything he's fought until thus far, but that isn't until much, much later in the story. Illyria is also there to contend with... eventually. I plan on incorporating the second game into the story in some form as well, though I may have to discard that notion if there's not enough circumstantial leeway for me.
Only magic and Illyria poses any real threat to Mercer. The rest are just canon fodder. Now, now. Don't be a human supremacist . Mercer and Illyria are not human. Why should they give a crap about human morality or laws? Especially, Illyria who If IIRC a member of the race who once considered Earth their home long before humanity ever showed up. So that makes us humans squatters .
Powers-That-Be, First Evil and Senior Partners, for all we've seen of them... *shrug* If anything, Illyria is going to loathe Gentek/Blackwatch for their meddling with the 'blood' of her fellow Old One. If they can do it with the Nameless One, they can forcibly 'create' from her 'genes' as well.
Who will only interfere if their precious balance is being disturbed and if they send in BTVS demons against Mercer. Those demons die. The PTB need to use magic to get rid of Mercer which is what I've already said. Doing what? Talking Mercer to death or by sending Mercer up against Turokhans who might as well be lunch to Mercer. As you said, we have never seen them in action. Agreed.
He doesn't. But there are a lot of demons (and human mages / witches) who have the knowledge. Actually, just right after the possession (say, next day), Buffy was retaining enough memory to be able to speak french. Which is a lot of memory. If Alex noms somebody when they are possessed, he may get full memories, if I understood you correctly. Martial arts... I would assume just enough of them to disengage and then shoot the bastard with exploding ammunition / willow-built ray gun? I think that at least Giles would know that getting into close quarter combat with mercer (or, really, most demons) is suicide for non-enchanted beings. Angel would probably start feeding on his fellow vampires and would probably try to find some time-dilation field (in order to age his demon) to get stronger. Oh, and probably all of them would get at least some magic training.
Mercer has been hit by tank rounds and survived a nuke detonating near him. Exploding ammunition and ray guns, please .
If they make it a battle of attrition eventually Alex would go under... that's only if his biomass reserves are getting too low for him to adequately regenerate himself. That said, if you can dodge tank rounds and RPGs, exploding bullets are both easier and harder. Ray gun... meh. Side-step and gank their shit. ~~~~~~~~
Except Mercer has dealt with far more dangerous crap than the 'Scooby Gang'. He dealt with Blackwatch, tanks, Apaches or whatever those Monsters in the games were and nukes. Buffy and Angel pose a threat, please . Only Willow as full powered witch using deus ex magicus poses a threat to Mercer somehow. Or climb a building and them dive bomb on top of the Scoobies
Note I said 'Only If'. While the odds are abysmal, this doesn't mean that it can't happen, nor does it mean that it will. Semantics, mostly. Look to your nose. Now look higher. See the snippet. Enjoy.
It will take a lot of contrivances for such a situation to ever grace the Scoobies Gotcha . Oh don't be mad. I was just having a discussion . Nice snippet :drevil:.
How long will it take Buffy to "slip" while dissecting a frog and plant a scalpel into Mercer's head in order for him to flee? Only for him to calmly take it out and resume the lesson as if nothing happened. And the class going along with it.
Then assign her extra homework because of it If I was Buffy, I would seriously consider raiding the local army base and take as much heavy ordnances as she can carry, then look into ways to magically enhanced their firepower. Also get some training in Firearm.
