When I first got the main game, I thought the back sides where just interesting to look at. Then I got Team Leader Tachyon at PAX and wondered out loud about the picture on the back. I didn't know all the villains so I didn't recognize the picture. But Christopher was right there and hinted that it mattered who was in the picture and why. I started looking at all the cards and now I want to know more. Is it confirmed that the Incapacitated Sides are canon?
Well, whether they are or not, I would love to start compiling all we know about what we see there. Does a character actually die? Who or what does the damage to the character? What else is in the picture that gives information about the setting, the characters, or the storylines?
I imagine we start adding information and then compile it into a master list. Also, as we learn more, we will fill in more information.
Golem Unity's back side shows that she is indeed not human, but rather a golem who thinks it's the real Unity.
I like how the backside art is often (always ?) a tribute to something. Young Legacy's is the famous cover when Supergirl died, Argent Adept's is a famous cover of Wolverine on a cross, Unity's is made to look like Magneto's prison from the movies, etc. Team Leader Tachyon's seems to be a tribute to the famous Skyrim quote the guards are always saying, about how they took an arrow to the knee. And I'd guess that Unity Golem is supposed to look like the Terminator from Terminator 4, strung up like that.
Someone on the forums also pointed out that Bunker: Engine of War's is a tribute to an Iron Man cover where a drunk Tony Stark is seeing himself do something unusual in the mirror. Since Future Bunker is seeing himself in his old Frightrain armor, that could mean he still secretly wants to be evil, or maybe he's worried he actually is secretly evil. Or maybe he just really likes his old suit... ;)
There is a fairly, ah, succinct explanation for each of the incap sides found here, if you're interested. https://greaterthangames.com/forum/topic/nightmist-incapacitated-side-3251
But what does it mean to be? If Unity's conscience has been transferred to this Golem and it shares Unity's memories, dreams, and aspirations, does it really cease to be Unity just because her flesh was traded for steel?
Ha. Obviously this is an existential debate I dont really expect is to get into since it's not really related in any meaningful manner to the game, but ever since Golem Unity was revealed I was fascinated by the issue and have been working on a fanfic dealing with Golem Unity's issues and how she and her teammates deal with it. I'm working it from the angle that Golem Unity knows she is a golem and still believes she is Unity and the conflicts this creates. I had an outline setup for this story, but the addition of Omnitron-X to the roster was something I really wanted to put in the story, so that has delayed things a bit. Hopefully I'll be able to get it done soon.
She is obviously part Golem. That is clear. However, we can clearly see bones. Human bones. A human skull, and a human ribcage. The way the art is presented, it almost splits her in half (picture wise), where her two sides are distinctly different but part of the same whole.
Why would a Golem have a rib cage? I contend a Golem would not be built this way, instead opting for one solid plate to cover its chest cavity.
Golem Unity thinks she is the long dead Unity because…wait for it…she is! Or at least partly is.
Going off another thread, the Incap side for Golem Unity could also be…gasp…Con! Already hooked up and wired, waiting for the Final Wasteland
Why aren't those metal bones? A golem would have a skeleton for the same reason a human has one - to hang musculature on and to protect vital internal organs. Just because the musculature is synthetic and the organs aren't organic doesn't change that. Plus, if it's going to look like a human, it should connect together like a human, no?
This. Maybe it is because the image strongly resembles the human reaper from Mass Effect 2. But the depiction of a clear robot structure intertwined with a human structure really leads me to think that Golem Unity is an amalgam. Both human and machine.
But I am sure that whatever the >G guys really have in mind is much cooler haha
In a dark future where [REDACTED] patrols and judges the world with an iron fist, the Freedom Six formed from the remnants of the Freedom Five, whose time had long since past. Tachyon scoured the globe for her former teammates and found those who had survived. Most were worse for wear, but, with the addition of an old foe in the hollowed-out shell of an experimental version of the Bunker suit, and a mechanical golem that believes it is actually the long-dead Unity, a new team was formed. Will they be strong enough to withstand the great challenges they face? Only time will tell...
But that doesn't say it believes it wrongly. It could be that no one else believes the golem to be Unity, but in the end it turns out to actually be her (or her conscience) after all.
We are all just speculating here and I don't think anything in the theories that have been posted really contradicts the information that has been provided.
Yeah, but it says right there that it's a mechanical golem, regardless of what it believes. Ergo, those aren't human bits hanging there, they're robot bits.
My theory was that as Unity sustained more and more damage in battle she kept replacing more and more of her body parts with mechanical parts until there really wasn't anything human anymore, but it was still Unity since the changes were all gradual so she never really ceased to exist.
So it could be that different injuries sustained required different types of fixes and also as she required more and more mechanical parts she tried to make them look more human so as to retain some part of her identity... that may explain why her two halves look so different.
Ha. I guess now I'm not so much speculating as to what really happened as I am fitting the information given to my theory.
If she is not at least partly organic, then I must admit that depicting half of her innards as human in structure baffles me a bit. Why not just be all obviously mechanical since she is stripped to the core? I think showing her the way she is shown is significant, but admitedlly probably not in the ways in which I am anticipating.
I give you that she is probably not half of the real Unity, but to say she is not at least partly organic? She is the only Golem to have skin after all...
Maybe she started building herself a new body because her old one had become too damaged or something, with the intent of "uploading" herself into it or something, as a last resort. Then more bad stuff happened and she had to finish in a rush, so the properly-human-looking robotic structure she'd started building just got finished up to be functional rather than realistic (at least inside). Then she had to upload herself but something went wrong, somehow, and forgot that the body she was now in wasn't her original body but one she'd built.
Or something?
Edit - Or maybe Unity started building the body and then someone else finished it, not as good at robotics as she was and therefore didn't get the structure really human-looking. Then uploaded Unity's consciousness (her being dead or whatever meant that she couldn't finish the bot, maybe she was unconscious or something) into it but with the same "doesn't know she's a robot" flaw, if that's really a flaw.
I think you're on to something. Perhaps what Unity does when she brings inanimate objects to life is that she is injecting them with some of her soul. I don't quite remember, but I think her power activates automatically. Therefore, if she is killed, where does that excess energy go? It probably goes to the nearest metal bits and creates a body for itself, as that's what it beleives itself to be. This may be some sort of silly Dr. Who-type stuff, but it makes sense in the context of this universe --er, multiverse.