The Former Human

[Jaxxoon R]

40oz said:

Maigc demun list

I read this at least thinking it'd prove to be a source of cool ideas for a monster or something, but to no avail.

[Clonehunter]

40oz said:

I suspected the Doomguy to be an exception to possession, perhaps too firm in his good judgment (the way he assaulted an officer for firing upon civilians the doom bible says) to be occupied by a spiritual invader. The other marines less so, and the ones who were good people that were immune to possession were the ones who were killed. Leaving Doomguy to be the only one left who was both badass and a naturally good person. i dunno.

I thought it was because the Doomguy and his team arrived after the outbreak. His team was never possessed either. They simply arrived after the fact, the marines were all killed (As you encounter many marine corpses, but never Former Marines), and the Doomguy was left. They weren't possessed because that stage of the attack was finished.

As for Doom 3, the shambling zombies primarily seemed to be the dead brought back to life, with the exception of Dr. Ishi who transformed right in front of the player. I figured the marines were possessed while alive, so they retained their motor abilities and are more along the lines of being under control (Although, yes, there's that one Z-Sec in the Underground security room, but I remember him being the only Z-Sec to resurrect). Though, interestingly enough, the Doom 3 novels portray zombies like Ishi to be extremely fast and very robust in their abilities, while the Z-sec shambled around slowly while taking occasional potshots at John Kane. Seeing that the books were based on Matt Costello's scripts for Doom 3 (I'm guessing, though. General Halocyn (?) appears in some D3 storyboards, but not in the actual game. He's in the books, though), it's possible that the Doom 3 undead were meant to be dangerous and fast, while the Z-Secs were supposed to be more like their classic counterparts. Now, why would the possessions create fast zombies and slow soldiers? I don't know. Also note that Betruger apparently possesses or submits a marine into a Commando somehow. But that's not really explained outside of "SNORT SNORT MAGIC."

[Doomkid]

Without reading any info on it, I always assumed they were possessed and undead. Their flesh looks slightly rotted / discolored and they're covered in blood and what look, to me, like wounds. If they weren't possesed they surely would be long dead from blood loss/skin decay?

Either way this is an interesting topic, I'll know exactly what to say next time someone asks "If they're zombies, why can they carry guns?"

[Maes]

Doomkid said:

"If they're zombies, why can they carry guns?"

[Vermil]

The bad guy is internally called 'possessed' and it's sprite is 'poss'. Along with the games theme, one can see what the bad guy was probably suppose to be.

In game and in manual, where most players will read the name of the bad guy, it is called 'former human', which is open to more interpretation: it simply implies that it is no longer and never will be a human again.

Given that the bad guy makes sound's that are typically associated with zombies, people will call it a zombie.

Of course, one could point to Heretic's Golem bad guy as an example of a bad guy basically being completely designed and then being repurposed later. The internal name and sprite for the Golem is 'mummy' and 'mumm' respectively and one can practically see the bandages and similar on the sprites.

[Maes]

Vermil said:

The bad guy is internally called 'possessed' and it's sprite is 'poss'. Along with the games theme, one can see what the bad guy was probably suppose to be.

And wait until you see the creepy (unused) POSS sprite from the Alphas...



It's quite obvious at first they wanted to have something akin to Doom 3's Z-Secs (possessed marines), which also have glowing red eyes, unlike the zombies.

[scalliano]

Very much in the "former human" camp here, myself. As for missing body parts, IMO that's more "rule of cool" than anything else.

[TwinBeast]

For me former humans are half and half. Sometimes they're possessed, sometimes they're undead zombies, sometimes they're undead possessed zombies, and sometimes they're half and half piles of putrid globs.

[Avoozl]

To me they're only possessed since that was the intention.

[SYS]

Possessed husks. Possession radically taxes human physiology, the demonic entity is in the driver seat so it can manipulate the husk to fire weapons. Undead demon marionette.

[VGA]

Doom 3 shows the dead marines' bodies being reanimated/possesed by Lost Souls.

[june gloom]

None of this really matters when I only need to know one thing: Where they are.

[40oz]

dethtoll said:

None of this really matters when I only need to know one thing: Where they are.

well theyre not on these forums that's for sure. Youre in the wrong place.

[june gloom]

Fwoosh!

[BaronOfStuff]

Not zombies in the (George A.) Romero sense, but zombies in that they're shells of their former selves, just vessels for whichever Hellish entity has possessed them, in a similar fashion to the Kandarian demons in The Evil Dead. Accelerated decomposition and body-horror, etc. soon follows.

[Doomkid]

BaronOfStuff said:

Kandarian demons

I read this as 'Kardashian demons"...

[BaronOfStuff]

Get possessed by one of them and you slowly morph into a fat-arsed moron.