#these were meant to be tiny dotpoint thoughts

[kingsofchaos]

I had an idea, and it kinda made sense to me. What if the cops are also immortal? Or maybe not all of them but Key members, and they and the fakes have been doing this dance for centuries. They chased Geoff through the French Revolution, caught Jack a few times Stealing planes in WW1, so on.

Oooh! I actually thought about bringing in immortal cops (would be probably the only way I’d have RT people in the LSPD because I don’t want to kill them oops) but I tend to always consider it as more of a purgatory type situation, all gaining immortality at the same time in the cursed hellscape that is Los Santos. I love your version, with the long term historic kind of fahc immortality, because there are just so many ways it could go.I mean

1. You could go for something really ridiculous and full on, something like immortality itself being stolen in the first place, because humans were never meant to live forever were they? Were never meant to have this kind of power, but where something of great importance exists there will always be people willing to steal it. It’s an object of the Gods, maybe, of the Devils, perhaps, something ancient and terrible, something forgotten and far too tempting to stay that way forever. Not when people like the man who would one day be Geoff Ramsey exist to find and steal it, when the original iteration of Jack Pattillo is around to share it with, not when Ryan, still James, kills them both and takes it only for the dead to track him down and take it back. Not when Gavin has always had sticky fingers, always been a thief, or when any version of Michael would follow him into hell and back, not when Jeremy was always going to jump headfirst into action, touch strange glowing objects first and worry about the ramifications later.But objects like that don’t stay forgotten forever. Objects like that aren’t left unattended. Others have touched it before, of course, immortal beings who were meant to stand guard, who return to their post to find the object missing. Who comb the earth to track the thieves, playing at law enforcement to avoid detection, avoid even more mortals stumbling across secrets they should not know, but while the criminals are found over and over across history the object is never recovered. Even when the FAHC settle in one place, choose fight over flight and demand answers to some questions of their own, even when the trackers infiltrate the LSPD and raid every place the Crew owns, even then the object remains hidden. Because immortal beings the pseudo-cops may be but the FAHC are human, at least mostly, in all the ways that count. Human in their creativity, their deviousness, their cruelty. Human in their their unlimited ability to adapt, to learn and conquer, to outwit anything and anyone no matter how old, how timeless. So war is waged right under the nose of society, each side keeping their secrets but neither concerned with collateral damage, a city turned battleground for those who cannot die, the nightmare that is Los Santos.Then again:

2. It could be far more simple, where immortals just somehow happen at some point, with no connection to one another, except perhaps some sense that there are others, an odd pull to one another. In the way of humanity throughout history the divide between these immortals is simply human nature, the inclination of some to use their advantages selfishly while others look to protect the greater good. The Fake’s, of course, are individuals who upon realising their own immortality quickly work out that they are now in a better situation than anyone around them, that they can do just about whatever they want with no real consequences, and go wild with the power. Thieves and mobsters, criminals and cult leaders, notorious names in history and unknown puppeteers - over the years the one-day members of the Fake AH Crew have done it all.  They meet up eventually, hundreds of years apart, perhaps temporarily as rivals but overlapping interests and shared ability quickly sees them joining forces. Sees them becoming the most dangerous group history has ever seen. That history keeps on seeing, in many different forms and under many different names over the years but never any less formidable. The eventual immortal members of the LSPD, who’ve been everything from soldiers to international intelligence to vigilantes themselves were never any less dangerous. There have always been famous detectives, always been soldiers who survived the unsurvivable, law enforcement who’ve gone above and beyond, and like the Fake’s these individuals are eventually drawn together under their shared quest for justice. Imbued as they are with a sense of virtuous purpose, assured their role on earth is to police the corrupted immortals and prevent them from raining hell upon normal people, these officers have long been just as merciless as the criminals they hunt. They’ve dogged the Fake’s wherever they’ve gone for centuries, first individually and now as a group, set up for the long haul in Los Santos, doing their very best to curtail the criminal behaviour and prevent the death of those who will not come back to life. It’s a battle they are all locked into now, a duty for the police, a defiance for the FAHC, bloody and vicious and all kinds of unforgiving, on and on into eternity.Or alternatively:

3. For the less serious sort of version of the FAHC - immortal criminals vs immortal justice seekers, still at odds of course, always pitted against one another as the Fake’s fight for selfish gain and power and the cops fight to keep them contained, but maybe it’s all become a bit mundane. Maybe eternity has given them all a bit of perspective, thrown them together for far too long to stay entirely objective, to keep themselves separate. They are all the only immortals any of them know, after all, the only ones stuck in this loop, so maybe they’re on opposite sides but they’d have to talk to one another now and again. Eventually learn more than names, learn like and personalities, not friends, no, but certainly a kind of camaraderie, a familiarity that could almost be fondness in the right light, inevitable after countless lifetimes in each other’s presence. Inevitable when there’s no end in sight, no grand finale, no true winner or loser in this never ending pantomime of life and death. Sure, no one likes dying, no one enjoys the pain or the inescapable flicker of fear, no one wants to explain away their lack of injury or, when the death is too public, create a whole new identity, but you can only take murder personally for so many centuries. Can only hold onto anger for so long before it becomes a little trivial. A little childish. No matter how much Hollywood loves to romanticise supernatural grudges the reality is far less passionate - do anything on loop for 500 years and the fire is sure to dwindle, the emotions mute, shit gets fucking boring.The never ending battle wages on, the conflict between two sides that will never see eye-to-eye, and the ever-changing nature of society and technology keeps the fights themselves from growing too stale, but when you run side-by-side with someone for this long there are only so many righteous monologues you can make before you start feeling a little silly. Sometimes you’re going to see Geoff and Jack at a cafe getting breakfast, or Lindsay and Jeremy at the store debating hair dye brands, and you just have to keep walking. Sometimes you’ll sit down next to Michael and Gavin getting drunk at the bar, will see Trevor and Matt filling a shopping trolley with energy drinks and candy bars, spot Ryan wandering around without that ridiculous mask he’s picked up this time around, and just move on.Because you’re enemies, yes, and tomorrow you’ll be back at war, but today you’ve got a date or tickets to that one movie or haven’t had a coffee yet. Today you’re tired or hungry or just need to talk to someone who isn’t Frank because honestly fuck Frank anyway he’s been hung up on that one ruined shirt for seventy goddamn years, Christ almighty. So you look away, or they look away, or you exchange awkward nods that are perhaps less uncomfortable than they should be, silent acceptance that you’ll pick this fight up another day. Because hey, there will always be another day.