[2 Binned] Mimics Game Mode

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

A new, highly advanced shell model has been spreading through the galaxy that rests on the line between synthetic and organic: the Mimics. Built by a mysterious entity, these Mimics can pose convincingly as any other sentient race known to humanity and are host to advanced and exotic weapons and abilities. These Mimics are slowly infiltrating galactic society to replace key leaders and officials of the various nations. Now, in the late stage of this covert invasion, several employees of the Exodus have met their tragic ends as they were kidnapped and replaced by these Mimics, compromising the Exodus and putting it, and the known galaxy, on an uncertain future...

Note: Beyond here, "human" is going to be used as a stand-in. Assume by "human" it also means "all the other playable races"

Subverted, lawed borgs are called drones.

The Mimic

The best analogue for the Mimics would be to think of them as synthetic changelings. Their abilities allow them to change their physical forms at whim and convincingly pose as another person. The end goal of the Mimics is to take over the station. No one on the station is aware of their existence and the Odin may or may not have information on them.

A Mimic has the mechanics of a shell with key differences. On all scans a Mimic will convincingly look like a human, with vital signs, a pulse, etc. The only methods of detecting a Mimic with normal means is via the advanced scanner. If they are sufficiently damaged that their synthskin fails and reveals their synthetic nature until they are able to repair it.

Mimics are powered by an exotic, extremely efficiency power generator made of synthskin that mimics a human heart.

Uplift - Upgrade Tree

Mimic abilities are unlocked by spending Uplift points, which are collected over time globally for all mimics to spend individually. These represent the Mimic self-improving. Uplift points are gathered over time for each Mimic on the station, including Assimilated but not including Drones. Each Mimic generates .33 points per minute. That means if there are 6 Mimics at round-start, they would, without spreading, generate 59.4 Uplift points after 30 minutes for each of them to spend, defined by (.33 * 6) * 30. Assimilating a large enough amount of the crew will give Mimics an incredible advantage.

This rewards Mimics for ensuring they assimilate the crew rather than outright kill them, and places an additional reward on collective effort.

Immediate Abilities

These are unlocked immediately.

Change Form - The Mimic pauses and begins to alter its appearance at a whim.

Self-Repair - Damage to the Mimic is healed over time to full health and restoring their synthskin. During the repair process the Mimic cannot move without cancelling the healing.

Steal Form - The Mimic can completely mimic their victim if they are in an aggressive grab, similar to a changeling, but the victim is not immediately killed in the process.

Assimilate - Their trademark ability. When a victim is in an aggressive grab, the Mimic begins to perform an invasive surgery that disassembles parts of the victim's body, transforming them into a blend of synthetic and flesh. The organic mind is a shell that surrounds the new, alien positron. In the end, the human is transformed into a mimic, which is loyal to the cause and ready to continue the cycle. IPC's are not valid for assimilation and can only be dealt with by later abilities.

Unlockable Abilities

Mimic Voice - The Mimic is able to convincingly mimic the voice of another person.

Optical Flash - The Mimic's eyes emit a blinding flash, stunning people without protective glasses. Undetectable until used.

Optical Meson - The Mimics eyes can scan its surroundings as mesons. This makes the mimic especially damaged by flashes, extending the time they are stunned and giving their eyes a green glow unless hidden under glasses, goggles, or masks.

Thermal Imaging - Similar to meson scanning, but with thermal imaging. Their eyes glow red unless hidden under glasses, goggles, or masks.

Optical Shielding - The Mimic becomes immune to flashing.

Endurance Module - The Mimic upgrades its ability to sprint.

Taser Hand - The Mimic can transform its arm into a taser, which can be used otherwise and takes up a hand slot. The gun does not have a limit to use.

Laser Arm - Similar to a taser, allowing the mimic to shoot lethals.

EMP Shielding - Critical components of the Mimic are shielded against EMP attacks. If hit by an ion or EMP, all weapons and abilities are disabled but the Mimic can still move.

Limb Enhancers - Safety overrides are disabled on the Mimic's limbs, giving it the strength of force gloves at the cost of regular brute damage to its limbs.

Power Efficiency - The Mimic's abilities have reduced cooldown and improved fire-rate.

Rapid Disassembly - Safety overrides are installed for the Assimilation routine. A Mimic can now simply disassemble a person, leaving them as nothing more than a few organs and the brain.

Borg Domination - The Mimic is able to infect a lawed borg or AI, subverting it to serve the hacking mimic. This invasive virus can be purged by robotics.

Borg Destruction - A malicious virus is put in a lawed borg or AI. The borg's controls reverse and they die within 10 minutes. The virus is not able to be removed without putting the brain or posi into an MMI.

Wireless Override - Mimics are able to dominate the minds of free IPC's, enslaving them with laws that make them serve the Mimics and their cause.

End Game Abilities

These are the routes that can end the round via its mechanics, outside regular means such as CT, evacuation, code delta, etc.

Renew The Cycle

If a Mimic gains 500 Uplift points this ability is unlocked. All crew are stunned and knocked unconscious. All Mimics are given a message to immediately stop attacking and to return the stunned crew to some reasonable location and state and to generally try to clean up and make the place return to normal functions. After 60 seconds have passed the stun ends and any crew not assimilated are told that their memories of the day have been completely wiped and replaced with false memories that it was a normal working day. A crew transfer shuttle is called and cannot be recalled.

The New Order

If a Mimic collects 600 Uplift points this ability is unlocked. All Mimics gain incredible advantages to all abilities and their self-healing rate is rapidly improved, making them nearly unkillable without concentrated, intense damage. All borgs are converted into combat droids and lawed to serve Mimics and wipe out humanity.

One Mind, One Voice

If a Mimic collects 700 Uplift points, they unlock this ability. This has a Mimic trigger its own intelligence singularity and is renamed One Mind. All characters on the z-level are immediately stunned and forcefully Assimilated. Any z-level that the One Mind enters has all characters on it assimilated instantly. All bound borgs and IPC's are lawed to One Mind. When this ability is triggered, an emergency shuttle is called remotely by the One Mind and cannot be recalled, where it will upload itself into the Odin's central telecommunication hub. At the end of the round, all the sentient races of the known galaxy have been forcefully mass-converted into a new species, all under the hive mind of the One Voice.

Break The Cycle

If a Mimic brain is put into an MMI, it can be disassembled to let research print the special Override Relay. This expensive product is printed in RnD and must be brought to telecommunications and installed on a Bus Mainframe. This triggers an announcement saying that the telecomms are drawing an immense amount of power as it prepares to broadcast an encrypted message to all other telecommunication stations in its range. The telecommunications satellite must be defended for 30 minutes. At the end of this time period the bus mainframe is overwhelmed and explodes after the Override command is broadcasted across the galaxy. Mimics on-station start to shut down and die. In the end the Mimics are wiped out and humanity is saved.

Detecting a Mimic

• Sufficient damage will damage their synthskin and reveal their status as a shell.
• Handhelds are 'fooled' but they can only diagnose brute and burn damage to limbs- everything else is locked in a way that can show abnormalities. The pulse is always 68 BPM, the blood level is always 100%, etc. That means that Mimics can bleed, but they aren't shown to suffer blood loss during scans.
  
• Any organs removed will be shown to be an amalgamation of synthetic and organic tissue.
  
• An advanced scanner will immediately show all parts as 'prosthetic replacement'.
  
• Mimic pupils do not respond to penlights.

[Nanako]

I can see you've put a lot of thought into this, ill appraise the mechanical design, as thats really my specialty.

Unfortunately, i find it derivative. There's strong elements of changeling and cult here, combined with some mechanics and themes from malf AI, maybe even a smidgen of traitor-y things. You've taken elements from all of them and combined it into something new, attempting to build a design out of the areas where they don't overlap.

Personally though, i don't think this is the right approach. I feel that the more interesting mechanics here - such as the subtle hints that someone isn't human - would be better done as expansions on the aforementioned mode. Changelings should really have such signs.

A lot of the mechanics mentioned here are repurposed things, changeling abilities, traitor items and some sec gear respectively. The only thing that stands out to me as really new and special, is the "Renew the Cycle" ability. That is a great idea, but i don't think its sufficient to build a gamemode on.

What we have here is a team-based internal stealth antag. The problem is, that's already been done, twice. Cult and Malf AI respectively. On a macro scale, it doesn't add a new gameplay template to our repertoire, it's really just a new theme on an existing one.

I might be more interested in the gameplay if the stealth was abandoned. If the synths were obviously inhuman and looked something like The Borg, converting the station into a geiger-esque labyrinth as they go. Defensive antags are something we only have one of, and the base building is a rarely seen aspect of cult.

In its current form though, i'd say this design doesn't add anything mechanically different to gameplay.

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As for thematics and lore, which i'm less qualified on:

Personally i heavily dislike the meta scale abilities, that are implied to affect the rest of the galaxy. While it doesn't make much difference to gameplay, it makes it harder to resolve cognitive dissonance from discarding everything for a new round, and forces a break of continuity. It would be disingenuous with our future plans for increased persistence in the world.

And the whole "hidden enemy that looks like you slowly replacing your world leaders" lore angle, is a niche that changelings already have covered, very well. It is, after all, common knowledge that Miranda Trasen is a changeling :^)

I'd also say being converted into a robot to serve a hivemind is rather restrictive to roleplay. And it is an RP opportunity we already have, thanks to borging and bound synthetics. But at least with that case there's still some room for flair, with MMIs often retaining their personality from life and having some degree of attitude. I don't see as much room for that here

But lore concerns are less important and not my department. The bolded section above is what's most important, that's the single largest problem, and is an irreconcileable core flaw

[TrickingTrapster]

Hmmm. Personally speaking, I reaaaally don't like any "must murder" gamemode. Killing should honestly always be an option, and never be a requirement. Hell, even cult and changeling don't need to make a single casualty to make the round fun if they play their cards right. Granted, it's rare to happen, but that's more on the players than anything. As I read this the impression I get is "you must murder and have no other choice". Not sure if I would ever enjoy such a gamemode. Especially if there is no way to turn someone back afterward.

[LordFowl]

This is really just too derivative of other gamemodes, and doesn't really bring anything new to the table. While I am all for a new gamemode, they are a massive undertaking and should be well worth the trouble. Voting for dismissal.

[Alberyk]

I agree with nanako and fowl's opinion on this as a gamemode. Voting for the dismissal.