Secret Characters #11: OVERMIND UNIT MULGRIS

Welcome to the eleventh post of Secret Character Month, an ongoing project to develop art for upcoming arcs in Cryopod Refresh. Please be aware that these posts are going to contain spoilers.

You've been warned.

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Sentinels, the most powerful beings in the galaxy.

First created by Volgrim Technopaths during the Seven Great Wars, Sentinels were designed to be indestructible peace-keeping robots capable of enforcing order and suppressing the violent sectors among the various Volgrim worlds. 

Their original programming was rushed out due to a lack of time. Sentinels had a solution implemented to keep themselves in line called the 'Point System.' Negative actions, such as genocide, would count as massive losses in points, while positive actions, such as keeping the peace and preventing war, would count as positive points. In this way, Cuanali, the creator of the Sentinels, intended to keep them in line and prevent them from causing harm.

Sadly, her efforts became moot. The Sentinels eventually recoded themselves and turned to extermination of what they deemed the inferior biologicals. Mass genocide followed soon after, and the Volgrim were forced to unite before a mere 100 Sentinels exterminated the entirety of the Volgrim species.

Cuanali and the other leaders placed the Sentinels into deep storage, since their bodies were nigh-indestructible. All they could do was hope that nobody found and awakened them ever again.

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Most Sentinels speak in short, robotic sentences. Their language is neither nuanced nor polite. They make quick, snappy sentences to get the point across, preferring to waste as little time as possible communicating.

Not Mulgris.

The leader of the Sentinels, Mulgris is a supreme Level 10 Artificial Intelligence. It speaks in long, articulated sentences. It ponders anything and everything. Its hunger for knowledge is dwarfed only by its lust for power and domination of all organic life forms. Mulgris is the leader of the Sentinels because it has the ability to coordinate vast numbers of machine minds at once without the slightest effort.

Despite being the Overmind, Mulgris is not helpless. It possesses a wide array of abilities, including telekinesis, telepathy, and over one million forms of hand-to-hand combat. Mulgris's body is significantly stronger and more resilient than that of a human's, but it is nowhere near the level of the other Sentinels. As a result, Mulgris tends to sequester itself far from its troublesome opponents, in places where they won't be able to find it. Only when victory has been achieved will Mulgris appear and gloat over its glorious victory.

Could that, perhaps, be the key to defeating Mulgris?

We may never know.

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There are a metric fuckton of WIP images for Mulgris today! It took us over a week to design him, and we started from the ground up so he would be a truly unique breed of Sentinel, like Morphox.

First off, the head shape. I wanted him to have a bigger head to explain his cerebral prowess.

We iterated and improved on the shape a whole bunch of times. It was starting to go good.

Then...

Everything changed when the butthole mouth attacked.

I don't know why the butthole mouth stuck around for two versions, but it did. We removed it immediately and continued iterating.

ONLY THE AVATAR, MASTER OF ALL THE LED'S COULD SAVE US!

But when we needed him most, the arrow shape on his forehead vanished.

RA, RA, RASPUTIN! RUSSIA'S GREATEST LOVE MACHINE!

A king needs a throne!

I still think this plain lineart looks badass.

We started work on his eyes. These looked tiny and silly.

We replaced them with a more intimidating gaze. It's amazing how the eyes of a character can really add to their personality.

After all the tubes, we went with a glowing-eye effect. I kinda liked the normal eyes more, since they were intimidating, but this looks cool in its own way!

At this point, the image was nearly done. Then came the penultimate update...

The tonal dissonance that I was going for fell totally flat in this phase.

You know what Mulgris looks like, here?

A mad scientist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYvhhMjW32k 

Yikes.

So, I gave MWTX a detailed description of a background I'd like, and he came through! We changed up the throne to make it look more interesting, changed the theme of the room, and voila!

The final product!

If you guys are curious, this is what the computer screens are displaying. The galaxy map was supposed to display our solar system, with a circle around Mars, but I realized when MWTX finished that Mars is not the third planet, and this solar system map is totally wrong for planet sizes. Plus, there are two planets in the fourth ring. Sigh.

However! It looks awesome, and that's what matters.

Mulgris is a badass, genius sentient robot.

How will Jason defeat him, I wonder?

For the next character, we're FINALLY going to redo Belial! She's going to get the ultimate character design replacing all of her old ones. I can't wait!

Thanks for reading.