Fate of Io: Rheya Ideas

Rheya Ideas

2005/04/12 16:25:41 PDT by mystik3eb [0/43]

This is the overall result of a discussion Dev and I had a week or so ago. We were pondering the lack of information about Rheya's past, the reason for why she is the way she is, her "story," ya know. And we (Dev, really) came up with some concepts.

Mystik3eb: Rheya never tells anything about who she is, where she comes from, why she's doing what she's doing, what led her there, and stuff like that. She does seem to grow as time passes, though she would never show that

Dev VJ: Mm. Very secretive, and there needs to be historical reasons for this. We have her visor...And that's sort of become the symbol of her façade. But where it came from...we're not sure.

Mystik3eb: I would think her family didn't appreciate her, didn't give her much time or attention, and she was alone for most her life, faced with the best she had turning her away all the time, forcing her to find the best way to go, but still being hurt by it because everyone else had the bare minimum that she wanted but never got because of inconsiderate parents.
Or maybe a mom who died and just an ignorant father. And at one point he just left her after yelling at her to grow up and learn to figure things out on her own, since "that's what happens to everyone anyway, eventually"...and though it crushes her, she hides it...Maybe finds him dead later and takes his visor....?

Dev VJ: Ahh.... but why would parents be like that? That actually works with the idea I had. Kinda...but I think those stakes are a little low. Here's my idea... Trosene and Serribis have actually just got over a trade war between the nation-states. The war is before the establishment of the Titan Provinces. Rheya was a young kid, and her father was a Serribisean general. Trosene, being the economic powerhouse it was, was clearly winning the war. Serribisean military were as good as dead. Rheya's father has a cunning plan to foil the incoming invasion and stage a final defense... but he has to hide when Trosene assassins unexpectedly break into his house. Rheya's mom holds her while the assassins search the house. They finally notice the little Rheya staring worriedly at some spot on the wall. She unwittingly gives away her father, blaming herself for his death. Not only that, she might blame herself for the downfall and subsequent subjugation of Serribis entirely. And she'd certainly never trust her eyes again.

I really like Dev's idea, personally.

2005/04/12 17:28:32 PDT by Temporal [manager]

Dev's idea is interesting. But, I sort of think that this level of detail is unnecessary. It's also... overly literal, I think. Rheya covers her eyes as part of hiding herself from the world, not literally because she's afraid her eyes will betray her.

Why does Rheya shut herself off? Because she fears responsibility.

Rheya thinks differently from other people. Sometimes she sees things that others don't. Sometimes she fails to see things that others believe to be obvious. As a result, Rheya has made a number of "mistakes" in the past. Most were very minor, and anyone else would probably shake them off and go on. But, Rheya hates making mistakes. Specifically, Rheya hates it when she does something wrong which causes problems for other people. Even if she has only caused a minor, passing annoyance for someone, it bothers her a lot.

To avoid these problems, Rheya simply avoids contact with other people. Rheya does not want to rely on anyone, and she does not want anyone to rely on her. As long as she is responsible to only herself, she is the only one that has to deal with the reprocussions of her mistakes.

Of course, Rheya is extremely skilled at what she does, and she knows this. But even the best make mistakes from time to time, and she just has a very hard time dealing with the fact that she has let someone down.

Now, Rheya wants to accomplish things. And, she would like for those accomplishments to help others. But, she would prefer to set things up in such a way that people will only notice if she succeeds. So, she'd rather that no one pay any attention to her along the way.

Thus, when she first decides to help the party, she does so by following them and looking for ways she can assist without being noticed. Eventually, she realizes that there's not much she can do like this, so she gives in and joins the group. She continues to remain aloof, however, and tries to simply follow orders. Why? Following orders is easy and not very prone to mistakes. On the other hand, if she were to try to come up with plans for others to follow -- something she could do extremely well if she tried -- she runs the risk that the plans won't work out as expected and everyone will blame her.

Over the course of the game, Rheya slowly learns how to deal with responsibility. I think at the end of the game, Rheya should regularly be inventing the plans rather than following orders. Of course, Syne will still be the leader, but he'll be leading the group through Rheya's designs.

Now, as far as Rheya's history goes... We could try to think of specific events in which people relied on her, and she failed them. But, again, I'm not sure if it's all that important to go into a lot of detail on this. ::shrug::