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vegasolari · 1 year ago

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Man I love more nuanced takes on Pater. I have BPD and honestly, it was only through talking to other people online that I realized Pater's behavior was not typical. I'm not saying he necessarily has BPD, but I do think there are any number of situations that aren't just sociopathy, autism, or DID that could be causing him to act the way he does. On top of that, I just really relate to Pater's emotional disregulation.

I could FEEL his world crashing down around him as his friends were actually, genuinely slaughtered. I could feel him putting up that defense, putting on that persona, acting like a cold calculating genius because if he doesn't play that role he will be swallowed by his emotions and he will die. It felt pretty familiar.

I always viewed Pater as being someone who struggles to regulate their emotions thrust into a situation that would break the best of us. But yeah idk that's just how I felt during my playthrough :)

V.VIII Pater makes me feel weird because the interpretation everyone goes for is "he's a sociopath" and I guess that's the Occam's Razor approach considering that's the one that gets the media attention

But

I really see it as switching masks as a defense mechanism

The oh-so-evil behavior everyone takes as him showing his true colors is something I have just, like, done before

Trying to continue with tasks at hand mid-breakdown is a fairly typical occurrence for me and I constantly wind up like "h,,heh, ffunny *sniff* mmeme,,," because there's just a disconnect there. Pater's breakdown was visceral and seeing him swivel to "haha I-I got pr-promoted, silver linings rright?" to keep it together while, just to remind everyone why he'd *need* a defense mechanism, *BEING SHOT AT,* made it feel even more so.

But also who knows if From has anyone on their team with the lived experiences to actually know and subsequently write that. It's kind of a three-way battle of interpretations between "sociopath," "The Tism," and "flat-out split personality" and really the only evidence I have for either of the latter two more sympathetic options is that Pater means Father and y'know that has implications too that could go either way.

#armored core 6 #fires of rubicon #v.viii pater #armored core fires of rubicon #armoredcore #armored core #armored core vi #pater #vviii pater #vegarambles

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vegasolari · 1 year ago

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V2 is an Ultrakill character and I have many feelings about them: here's why

I think we can all agree that Ultrakill didn’t exactly explore V2 as a character much. Sure, we have some basic information about them, but we’re pretty much left to fill in the blanks ourselves. And, oh boy, are there a lot of blanks. Well, here’s my ridiculous essay filling in those blanks for myself in a way that (hopefully) makes sense in the scope of Ultrakill canon. TL;DR: here are my V2 headcanons because I’m insane.

During my first playthrough of Ultrakill, I didn't think much about V2. They seemed like the classic “evil twin” and not much more, testing your skills as a player in a unique way. I’m the good guy and I have to beat up the evil version of me, y’know? But, as I got more into the lore of Ultrakill, I couldn’t stop thinking about V2.

V1 was built with a clear purpose in mind: war. I’m certain anyone can agree with that. But, when the whole war business fell apart with the New Peace, V1 quickly became obsolete. If whatever entity developing V1 wanted any chance of recouping the cash dumped into V1, they had to pivot. But we have this great war robot just lying around! Alright, how about this: we’ll make a new version of this robot with decreased combat capabilities, but increased human interfacing capabilities. So, a new model was made. It was very similar to the previous one, switching out the fancy plating for regular tough stuff, plus installing some friendlier software. Despite the rush job, it was a pretty damn good android. But, with all that high-end tech came a big price tag that the market deemed unreasonable.

Now, this leads to an interesting idea: if V2 is sentient (observing their behavior in-game, they likely are), how would that make them feel? Certainly, they would know that they were essentially the living embodiment of a hollow gesture; being nothing more than an attempt to recuperate funds, being a commercial failure, being what most would consider a weak imitation of their predecessor. I wouldn’t be surprised if V2 went after V1 based on sheer jealousy alone. Their creation was underdeveloped and sloppily done. V2 wasn’t wanted for whatever skillset a highly advanced security bot could offer. V2 wasn't wanted… V1 was. The second iteration is supposed to be better than the first, and V2's existence is defined by being a cheap copy.

Regardless, V2 is here and they can still serve some function. While V1 and V2's hardware may be nearly identical, I have to imagine their software is very different. Remember, V1 was made for war. Their software is probably highly specialized for efficient killing. In terms of a highly advanced society dependent on specialized androids filled with precision AI, that must be pretty simple. Just boot up good old “shooty_mcshooting.exe” and we’ve got ourselves an AI that can quickly identify a target and attack its weak points. V2, on the other hand, was made for peacetime efforts. Sure, security was kept in mind during their development, but overall they were made for human cooperation. A peacetime machine would certainly have been developed with a natural affinity toward humanity, right? This leads me to believe that V2 was made with an innate affinity toward humans. Hell, maybe they were programmed with a desire to socialize that matched the strength of our own innate socialization needs. It would certainly make their job much easier.

Despite this, I feel they still had to do some warming up to humans. After all, humanity did them quite a disservice. Whether they made peace with the circumstances surrounding their creation and loved humans despite it or simply ignored the troubled emotions surrounding their creation, I’m not certain. Regardless, their core programming spurred them on. V2 learned to cooperate with humans, with their reward system to guide them. Eventually, their reward system must have led them to feel something that could be best described as affection towards humans, forever being driven to be curious and friendly towards humanity. I love imagining them joking around and laughing with their coworkers on whatever security job they were assigned to. Maybe they'd even have fun chatting up the scientists working on their development, learning more and more about how humans interacted and communicated with one another.

Speaking of which… what if V2’s job expanded past security? Say a building were to collapse with people trapped inside; what better tool than an extremely durable, strong, highly intelligent robot to dig through the rubble, locate survivors quicker with specialized software, and even administer first aid?

Just as V2 adored humans, one must imagine V2 being adored by humans.

As V2’s software spurred them on to learn more and more about humans, they would come to appreciate the things humans appreciated. Perhaps V2 came to appreciate the beauty of art or the marvel of science in the same way humans did, or perhaps they simply liked these things because they were human. Imagine V2 learning everything they could about cooking despite never needing those skills, just to be able to bond with humans. They’d even surprise the scientists developing them with delicious treats that V2 themself could never eat, all to fulfill their role as a friend to humanity.

Humanity's extinction must have been devastating for V2.

I imagine after humanity died, V2 simply tried to make do with what they had. In my mind, it’d make sense that they'd try to avoid using blood from animals at all costs (humans loved animals, after all). Instead, they'd take fuel from other machines. That fuel was already taken from its rightful owner, and there's nothing that can be done about it now. May as well put it to good use, right? Considering V2’s love for humanity (and by extension, all living creatures), they must have come to loathe their fellow machines. Machines sustain themselves off of harming humans and other living creatures, after all. Of course, there is the irony of V2 being just like every other machine, reliant on blood to survive.. I'll try not to get sidetracked with that one though -

I lied. I'm getting sidetracked.

V2's love of humans combined with their reliance on their blood as fuel would have been difficult for them to accept at best, and devastating at worst. I was going to put a comparison here but it made me genuinely sad, which goes to show how this likely made V2 feel. Sure, taking blood from humans doesn't necessarily require violence, considering blood donations exist, but it still couldn’t have felt great. Besides, it seems very possible that not all machines were interested in taking that fuel peacefully.

During their time in Hell, seeing their fellow machines happily and greedily tear through husks in Hell (which, I'd like to point out, are human souls) must have enraged V2. Considering their love for humans, I can't imagine them using husks as fuel. Instead, it would make sense for them to kill machines only. In fact, V2's terminal entry explicitly mentions killing machines (...V2 dove deeper into Hell, killing other machines for their blood to help its recovery…) but doesn't say anything about killing husks. I will note that the Ultrakill Fandom Wiki entry for V2 does allude to them killing husks, but there wasn't a source so I'm disregarding it (yes I am so Ultrakill brain-rotted that I am asking for sources on Ultrakill lore).

This leads to a stark contrast between V1 and V2, despite seeming so similar on the surface. V1 was made with the sole purpose of killing, and I do not doubt that humans were well within their scope. V1 is an especially efficient killing machine, with their rampage in Hell enough to draw the attention of Heaven. We know V2 tried to fight V1. What if the reasons for stopping V1 went beyond preserving fuel resources or getting revenge? V2 wanted to save the remnants of humankind. V2 didn't fight for themself; they fought for humanity.

Despite this, one could indeed make a very reasonable argument that V1 is doing the denizens of Hell a favor. Ceasing to exist does sound much more appealing than eternal torture. But, seeing as it's implied V2 has only been in Hell for a few hours, it's likely that they just haven't thought about this. Think of it this way: they've just rediscovered the one thing that gave them purpose... it's unlikely they'd be willing to let that go easily. Or perhaps V2 did think about this. Maybe V2 wanted to build a better life for the people of Hell. We know they made it to Greed, so they almost certainly heard of Minos' and Sisyphus' attempts to rebel against Heaven. I think it's likely that V2 wanted to follow in their footsteps; they wanted to build a haven for humanity.

But unfortunately, we all know how their story ends.

V2's existence was one defined by failure. V2's life was one riddled with "what ifs?" and "could have beens." An overwhelming theme of Ultrakill is tragedy, and I'd argue that this take on V2 is just about as tragic as one can get.

Also V2 isn't dead because they live on in my heart and I will not accept any attempts at convincing me otherwise.

#ultrakill #v2 ultrakill #ultrakill v2 #i love my little blorbo #vegarambles

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