connor / verses.
V.01 : CANON / DEFAULT .
— SPOILERS FOR DETROIT : BECOME HUMAN. default verse takes place during the events of the main story ! my canon connor follows the good path ( yes, he saves the fish ) and therefore is in the slow slide of deviating while desperately struggling with his identity. certain details of the verse can be altered / discussed in plotting ( e.g. whether or not simon dies and connor was traumatized, etc ).
V.02 : POST DEVIATION .
— SPOILERS FOR THE GAME. takes place within the parameters of dbh, but is post canon ( with a pacifist revolution + a deviant connor ).
— connor stays with jericho after the revolution’s success. he knows they may have won the battle, but the war has just begun, and is desperate to help however he can because of the immense guilt that gnaws at him for being their enemy for so long ( despite the fact that he was just following his programming ).
— this verse can produce a variety of plot ideas and dynamics depending on when a thread is set ! connor struggling to find himself and to feel like he belongs at jericho only a week into being with them ? check ! connor being the bridge between jericho and the DPD and working on active cases again ? check ! did someone say bodyguard connor ? hell yeah !
V.03 : REVOLUTION’S END .
— ENTER RK900. the revolution fails after jericho is raided, sending its people scattered to the wind or to watery graves after RK900 ––– assigned to the deviant case after RK800′s failure to comply ––– locates the abandoned freighter.
— connor deviates and joins jericho much earlier along. when jericho is raided, he narrowly escapes the sinking ship, and not without injury. after blowing up jericho himself to buy the others more time, connor is left with several failing biocomponents. he has no choice but to forego the rendezvous, and barely manages to drag himself back to hank’s house in the hope that the lieutenant can save him. he does, but connor’s ability to tune into police radio frequencies tells him one thing : RK900 is tasked with locating his predecessor. the deviant hunter has become the hunted.
— RK900 is released and assigned to detective reed, who is assigned the deviant case after lieutenant anderson is taken off due to RK800′s deviancy. it is RK900 who locates jericho, notifies authorities, and does a clean sweep of the ship himself, even after the ship begins to sink. RK800 might have saved the deviant leader from a bullet between the eyes in the control room, but a scuffle with connor allows RK900 to probe his memory ––– however briefly ––– and gives away the location of the rendezvous. the revolution is lost, and RK900′s new mission is to locate both the deviant leader and his predecessor for deactivation and analysis.
— this is the main verse i’ll be writing RK900 in, though there may be others to come ! this verse also allows for threads set before the raid of jericho, where connor is working with the revolution before its demise.
V.04 : CONNOR OF THE NORA .
— ALTERNATE UNIVERSE. an AU based in guerrilla games' horizon zero dawn, in which connor is a member of the nora tribe, and his own path intersects with aloy at various points throughout the events of the main story. the adaptation of this also employs game mechanics.
— his mother having died under circumstances which are unknown to him when he was just a child, connor was taken in by the nora’s war – chief, sona, to be raised alongside her son (varl), and her daughter (vala). connor is the eldest of the three, and knowing he is the adopted child, struggles with feeling as though he belongs, and feels he needs to work thrice as hard to gain sona’s approval.
— in his need to prove himself worthy of sona’s care and charity in adopting him, connor spends much of his time growing up similarly to aloy: training and preparing for the proving of his age. he toils tirelessly, and in doing so, he becomes a son sona can be proud of by winning the proving of his generation. as the years pass, he retains the nomen of being one of the best of his age, and is renowned amongst the nora as being an incredibly skilled hunter and warrior both.
— during his teen years, connor ventured to the outskirts of mother’s heart to further challenge himself in his training. like aloy, he fell into a relic of the old ones, and came across a focus. connor, however, didn’t stumble across how to use it, and so it remains bound by leather, strapped around his neck as a pendant. it is not until he meets aloy that he learns of what a focus is, and how to use it.
— connor’s nora war paint is in a similar style as both sona and varl’s, indicating his familial ties.
getting vengeance.
— when varl left to find his fellow braves and head to devil’s thirst, he locates the war party and aloy, joining them just after they killed off a group of eclipse cultists. the once missing war party includes connor, who was with their mother. upon arrival, the seeker would find the location of the remaining killers: the ring of metal in devil’s grief, taboo to the nora. agreeing with aloy that there wasn’t time to beg the matriarchs for an exception, varl convinced sona to break the taboo, with connor’s support. aloy meets varl, connor, and the rest of the war party at red echoes, where they work to disable the three checkpoints set up by the killers.
— from this point forward, aloy can opt to have connor join her more closely to clear out the camp and exploit the ring of metal. during the events therein, connor is injured, and sent away by sona to return to mother’s cradle to recover.
— note: it is during this chapter sequence that aloy can take note of the focus around connor’s neck. noticing this unlocks connor’s subsequent sidequest.
connor of the nora.
— after the events at the ring of metal, aloy can choose to pursue the sidequest connor of the nora to speak with him about his focus. she can find connor making camp on his way back to mother’s cradle. upon being asked if she can gather medicinal herbs to help with his injury, she can choose to do so, and then will be invited to camp with him.
— if aloy accepts, she has the first chance to talk to connor about his focus during the night by the campfire and teach him about what it is and how to use it. if this path is not chosen, the second chance to teach connor about the focus comes later.
— regardless of the first choice, the camp is attacked by a sawtooth in the night. this is when the second opportunity to teach connor about his focus arises. if aloy did not take the first chance to teach connor about the focus, she is presented a second opportunity during combat with the sawtooth.
— after the events of the night, the two part ways. if aloy chose to teach connor about his focus, he becomes a far more valuable companion in combat and is able to be called on for help with quests going forward. if she chose not to, they simply part ways, and he continues to wear his focus around his neck, ignorant of its purpose.
— note: if aloy chose to teach connor about his focus, he is capable of using it for reconstructing scenarios and tracking. at no point is he able to override machines, unless we plot that aloy chooses to teach him how to do so. connor’s involvement in subsequent storylines is heavily dependent on plotting outside of the following.
— additionally: in order to contact connor through the focus network, she must ask that sylens patch her through, which he may or may not be inclined to do, making it frustrating on more than one occasion.
the eclipse’s assault.
— during the assault on mother’s heart, aloy can come across connor outside of the safety of mother’s watch, having fallen due to the strain of his previous injury. aloy can either choose to help connor back to the safety of mother’s watch, which would allow him to assist her on her way, or to leave him by the side of the path.
— note: inside of all-mother mountain, if aloy chose to teach connor about his focus and she then berates the nora for bowing to her and for being such an insular and proud society, connor greatly approves.
meridian.
— depending on aloy’s previous choices, connor can be a part of the small party that assists aloy in meridian against HADES and the deathbringer during eclipse’s final assault on meridian.
overall.
— note: it is my every intention to adapt connor to hzd while remaining as true to his character as possible. in this way, i have adapted connor’s relationship with amanda into the universe through his relationship with sona, and have adapted his abilities within dbh (reconstruction, tracking, etc.) by giving him a focus that he may or may not learn how to properly use, depending on interactions with aloys.
— connor’s mutation resulted in white hair and eyes as red as the blood moon the ritual was performed under.
— most recently, he was hired by the guild of merchants to investigate the recurrent thefts along several of their trade routes, and to trace the apparent thieves’ patterns back to their hold : jericho.
