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Indigo Rat Blog Entry |
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March 31, 2023, 5:00:46 AM 3/31/23: r/SketchDaily theme, "Your Cozy Place." I don't really have a cozy place, our house is garbage. Here's this instead. ... This week's character from my anthro WWII storyline is Lance Corporal Indigo Rat. He's one of the members of the original unit that was incorporated into the battalion; he opposed the new leadership at first, but settled for a position as a medic helping out the chief surgeon. There'll be more about him later in my art Tumblr and Toyhou.se. Regarding his design, hm, he's a bit plain, maybe he'll be tweaked in the future; unsure. TUMBLR EDIT: Although Indigo is an older character--not one of the original original characters, I think he dates to the intermediate, circa-2000 reboot--I know relatively little about him, as he isn't a MAJOR character and despite me gently poking at him he hasn't revealed any extensive backstory yet. I'll just tell what I do know. Indigo is Australian. This fact was an iffy, unexplained one in my original version of him; I think the implication was that he was actually a member of the Australian military who ended up recruited into the Marine Corps (what the Trench Rats started out as, thus the lance corporals--but they must be a completely fictional military branch now, as the Marines apparently don't have medics, who are an important part of the Trench Rats so I can't eliminate them), but this no longer stands--he's an American citizen, in the American military. So he must have immigrated to the US for some reason. Unless it has some bearing on his backstory (leaving Australia why?--Turquoise's recent ancestors had departed from Ireland, for example, following the famine), I guess it doesn't matter much, people immigrate all the time. Another detail that survives from the earlier version is he has a fiancée, so is engaged to be married when he heads off to Europe; aside from my feeling that the two of them got engaged shortly before he shipped out and this was the reason why (i. e., "Come home to me safe and we'll get married"), I don't know anything about her or the nature of their relationship. I figured she's also Australian, and perhaps immigrated along with him, but on second thought, what if she's American and he met her here? I guess it's possible, and for some reason I find it more intriguing. I have no reason to suspect anything hinky about their relationship--she's not his beard or anything, like Lt. Wozniak and the woman he marries--but like I said, I honestly don't know anything else, she's a mystery. There's always the possibility a citizenship aspect could be involved though I doubt it, Indigo is apparently settled enough to join the US military, he probably doesn't need to get hitched to a citizen in order to stay. *shrugs* In the previous reboot, Indigo was established as both an "intern" to Burgundy (I think medic is probably a better term, though I'm unsure--he's not a total newbie, he has decent basic medical experience, but isn't skilled at it like Burgundy--he does assist Burgundy with surgical procedures, so maybe he's training?) and as a field medic, as well as being the one in charge of handling the animals (raptors and dogs) the Rats use for transport and rescue. This latter point is an aspect I don't discuss much as it's kind of odd though it still stands. In the Trench Rats universe, there are both anthropomorphic canines (an entire half of the cast) and what I guess are known as "ferals," non-anthropomorphic canines. I haven't explored the talking dogs having non-talking dogs as pets/service animals yet--I suppose for example hunting characters like Dobermann or Heidenreich could have hounds, while camp employees like Dannecker or Franke could have attack dogs--though so far this hasn't entered the plot. Only the rodent characters, specifically the Trench Rats, employ birds and dogs as service animals. (I haven't explored the Axis characters making use of them yet, it seems to be implied the Rats came up with this idea on their own.) Nowadays I focus more on mechanical transport--motorcycles which existed in the original storyline, trucks, cars, tanks, trains obviously, even airplanes (an older character I need to develop more, Adalard von Staden, is a pilot who crashes at the beginning of the storyline and is captured by the Rats, so presumably he flies a plane)--but the Rats do still make use of their raptors (in this reboot, Corporal Drake complains about the training he and Sergeant Camo go through learning to use the birds, and refuses to engage further, saying God intended for him to keep his feet on the ground), and especially of their dogs--these latter are most often used to transport rescuees and injured parties in a sort of saddlebag/side basket setup which the dogs wear while the Trench Rat perches high up on the dog's neck to guide it via a harness. Burgundy is the one who makes the most use of this technique, which means Indigo is closely tied to it as well. In the previous reboot he was sort of the "animal wrangler" in charge of the stables where they're kept; I have no reason to change this detail. A brief aside here to better describe Indigo's personality; he's a bit of a contradiction. He's a big, tall guy, well built and quite strong, and usually has a vaguely brooding look on his face so he often gives the impression of being intimidating and a bully--an impression he sees no problem taking advantage of when it suits him. Piss him off for the right reasons, and he WILL mess you up. I get the feeling he's been in a lot of brawls. He's not really a jerk, for the most part, though; to those on his good side, he's quite friendly and garrulous, the loud-laugher, smack-on-the-back type. (In the weird imaginary "animated series" version of this I briefly mentioned in Turquoise's entry, he's Irish rather than Australian, and rather than Indigo is nicknamed "Galoot," and this is kinda funny because looking this up now "galoot" may in fact have Irish origins?--I didn't know that till now.) He needs a strong sense of compassion in his particular job, and he does not have a hair-trigger temper--notice I said he'll mess you up if you piss him off for the right reasons--most of the time, if someone tries to pick a fight with him, he'll just laugh it off as he's not easily offended, personally. HOWEVER...get on his bad side, and he's someone quite different. He shows this side most often when dealing with the Nazis, who are the main targets of his spite. He doesn't often take offense himself, but he DOES get offended on behalf of others, especially those he considers victims. Bullying and injustice infuriate him, and so he bullies the Nazis right back, an "eye for an eye"-type behavior he feels is perfectly justified. The other Rats know it's best to keep him away from German captives they get as he doesn't make any real distinction between the ones who are Nazis and the ones who aren't (he's antagonistic toward Ratdog and Klemper when they interact with the Rats, for example, despite them both despising the Nazis themselves), and he has a tendency to rough them up if he gets the chance. Of course this is in direct conflict with his role as medic, and he often is reluctant to treat injured German prisoners, an obvious prejudice of his. I don't know at the moment if he's still alive or not (I don't think he is) when camp commandant Major Klaus is taken into custody, but if he were I know he would smirk rather than show concern for the sorry state Klaus is in (broken rib, smashed knee, face beaten so badly his eyes swell shut) when he's treated in the Rats' medical ward. Burgundy, who despite his own pissy attitude is able to set aside his personal prejudices (well, except for when he and Dr. Kammler meet face to face--when Kammler appeals to him as a fellow doctor, Burgundy punches him, twice), is frequently at odds with Indigo over his behavior but can't do anything to change it. A newer development which I mentioned above is that Indigo's involvement in Germany predates the Trench Rats: He's one of the handful of American soldiers who are sent overseas technically before the US enters the war (which starts earlier in my storyline and follows a somewhat different course) to spy on Nazi activities. The US military has received word of suspicious matters including some kind of camps, and something called "Projekt Weltuntergang," literally, Project Doomsday. I haven't ironed out all the details of why Indigo and the others in his group are selected to go, though I'm suspecting it's rather random, they're just the guys who happen to be present when an official closes them off and takes them into his confidence to outline the mission. The vastly differing personalities and motivations of the parties involved are what lead me to suspect they were basically drafted for this, rather than volunteering; Silver and Teal, for example, are mostly opposed to the idea of getting involved, Turquoise and Copper feel compelled to go, and most of the others are neutral. Nobody refuses, however, and they ship out. Indigo is one of this group that sets up in a dugout behind German lines and participates in limited excursions and spying activities, reporting back via radio, until the Germans finally catch on. One of their number, who is later nicknamed Doomsday due to his forced involvement in the medical project (all of their nicknames come later on, I have yet to determine their original nicknames), is captured by the Nazis and the rest are subjected to constant gunfire and attack on their little dugout; they manage to hold their ground, but their food supplies and ammunition start to dwindle, and their radio battery starts to die, making contact with American authorities near impossible. All the Germans have to do is wait them out. They manage to get the finicky radio working one last time and establish contact with a British outpost, outlining the capture and their desperate situation, but the battery dies before they can give their exact location, and they're unsure how much of the info got through. All they can do is sit tight and wait and dimly hope. Some days later, by which point they've almost given up hoping for any sort of rescue, they're startled when a corporal literally drops into their dugout; after quickly establishing that the grubby, famished group are the ones he's looking for, he introduces himself as Corporal Drake, and says a battalion known as the Trench Rats has arrived to relieve them and with hope to rescue their captured comrade. They manage to escape the dugout, Trench Rat forces fending off the Germans, and are brought to the hastily constructed Trench Rat Headquarters, a system of trenches, tunnels, and rooms being dug and fortified in the east German woods. Indigo and his group are fed and introduced to their new unit, for it's been decided that they'll be joining. Most of them are too exhausted and confused to raise much complaint, but Indigo and Silver object to the plan; they're the two among the original group to have the most authority and time in, so they reason that they deserve promotion to corporal or sergeant themselves--why should they take orders from Drake and Sergeant Camo, who've only just arrived and whom they barely know? (Teal has his own reasons for not wanting to take orders from Drake, but keeps this to himself and doesn't buck for a leadership role like they do.) Camo resists their demands, which rankles them quite a bit; throughout most of the story, Silver carries a heavy grudge against the Trench Rats' corporal and sergeant, no matter who carries the ranks. Indigo, however, fares somewhat better, as he's offered an alternative: The chief surgeon, Burgundy (who it turns out outranks all of them, but defers to the sergeant and even the corporal, as he made serving solely as battalion surgeon a condition of his joining the Trench Rats), needs people to help him out in the medical ward and in the field. Indigo has medical experience, so he gets the job. (Others who end up in this role are British nurse Lyndsey Skye, and, later on, Lance Corporal Amaranth Rat.) It isn't quite what he'd wanted, but he finds himself so busy with the job, plus with handling the service animals, that he soon enough forgets his spite over being snubbed for a promotion. Additionally, he's given command of one of the companies, so it's not a bad deal. (Silver is given Echo Company but never really gets over his grudge until very late in the storyline when Sergeant Black Rat is killed, Corporal Gold assumes his rank, then promotes Silver to corporal--a move that catches Silver off guard, as he'd spent the entire story being quite pissy toward Gold.) Eventually he gains enough medical experience to tackle various procedures on his own, unsupervised, though he never becomes a skilled surgeon like Burgundy. Indigo plays a major role in the final story arc, Ultima Thule, which takes place a year or so after the war's end. Toward the end of Reunion, he saves the life of another Rat (I seem to recall it's Mahogany), getting struck by shrapnel in the process; he manages to ask the other Rat, "You all right?" and, hearing the affirmative, says, "Good," then passes out. He bleeds out before any of his fellow medics can arrive to help him. The sudden and unexpected death shocks the rest of the Rats; Amaranth is hastily assigned his position, and word is sent to American authorities to inform his fiancée. What's even more shocking is that Indigo's body somehow goes missing, so they can't even give him a proper burial or send him home. It's a horrible apparent breach of security, and embarrassing as well; nobody can explain it. (Even I can't explain it yet, unless Indigo is carried off while still in the field, before he can be returned to HQ; haven't ironed this out yet.) Exactly what happened is never explained in Reunion, but the bizarre explanation arrives in Ultima Thule. In the epilogue story, several of the Trench Rats and allies still remaining in Germany, including former Wehrmacht lieutenant Ratdog and former SS captain Otto Himmel, catch wind of Nazi holdouts continuing Project Doomsday in the Alpine Fortress; they head into the mountains to look into it. The person in charge of the rebooted Project Ultima Thule turns out to be another SS officer, wearing a strange white replica of the previous black Allgemeine-SS uniform; Himmel, stunned, explains to the Americans that this is his former boss, Major Ludolf Jäger, who was also the one in charge of funding for the original project, which Himmel personally supervised (while privately sabotaging it from the inside). He mysteriously went missing toward the end of the previous story, along with his wife and children, as well as a large number of Projekt Weltuntergang files and documentation. The Allies quickly determine that the Nazis had a backup plan to continue their medical experiment even after their potential defeat, and Jäger is the one to take up the mantle. They also soon enough learn that the nature of the project has changed, from conferring superhuman strength and intelligence, to conferring immortality itself; the first evidence they get of this is when they run into Indigo, also dressed in a weird white SS uniform, and once again very much alive. His eyes have an odd bluish glaze to them now, though, and he doesn't seem to recognize them--he attacks without warning and they can barely fend him off due not only to his size and strength, but also because the serum has of course drastically increased the latter. Return blows have barely any effect on him and the others end up having to flee since they can't subdue him. They try to think of a plan to restrain and get through to him but nothing works, it's as if he's brainwashed. Himmel has a run-in with Jäger, who attempts to recruit him; he explains the purpose of the project, to create a true Übermensch the way the Nazis had tried but failed. Jäger isn't the typical bad-guy Nazi: He genuinely believes in "bettering" humanity to help it achieve its true potential, though this of course involves breaking a few eggs to make an omelet. He always thought the original Nazi plans of exterminating the Untermenschen and focusing solely on race were flawed and doomed to failure; rather, segregation of the races is an easier goal, and instead of suppressing learning and scientific advancements as the Nazis often did, he believes that embracing such things is the way toward achieving superhuman status. Project Ultima Thule, named after the legendary land such superhuman ancestors were believed to have originated from before becoming corrupt, is the key to all this, picking up and perfecting where Project Doomsday left off. Jäger even suggests that in the new Fourth Reich to come, there'll be room for Übermenschen of various races--although they need to remain segregated for the time being, the end goal is a single superior race which will supplant all the rest, incorporating only the best qualities of all of them while leaving the lesser qualities behind. In short, humans (well, dogs and rats) will basically become God. Jäger is so sincere and impassioned in making his appeal to Himmel that it's clear he believes in every word he says, and he hopes Himmel will join him. Himmel, however, is even more horrified than he was before--despite all of Jäger's lofty ideas, he knows what "bettering humanity" means in this case--just as with the old Nazis, it entails killing off the "flawed" aspects, whether through accelerated evolution or outright extermination. Himmel's own son Kolten was born disabled, the reason he tried so hard to sabotage Project Doomsday; he doesn't agree with Jäger's ideal society where all faults and differences are eradicated and everyone is flawless and exactly the same--to him, this is a nightmare. And yes, he understands, from past experience, that the implied death toll involved has been greatly underestimated. He rejects Jäger's proposal. Unfortunately, Jäger is just as steadfast in his beliefs as Himmel is, and no attempts at persuading him otherwise work--he accepts that Himmel won't be joining him, and regretfully declares them enemies. If Himmel and the others won't help him achieve his goal, then he'll fight back until one or the other of them is eliminated for good, no matter what the cost. Himmel finally has the proof of something he'd suspected all his years in the SS: Jäger is a fanatic. Himmel and the others learn a few things from Jäger and their own searches of the Alpine Fortress, however, primary among them that the effects of the serum are at least partly reversible. It has different effects on the subject depending on whether they were alive or dead when it was first administered--yes, the project has made use of deceased persons, meaning the serum has the ability to literally resurrect the dead, albeit with certain caveats attached. The brain of the deceased party has to be intact (making people who died from gunshots or other injuries to the head useless as subjects)--and so pretty much the only way to permanently defeat a test subject is to destroy the brain. The main difference in live and resurrected test subjects, however, is their personal autonomy: Live subjects such as Jäger (yes, he took the serum) maintain their ability to think and act independently, whereas those who were given the serum posthumously act more like zombies, emotionlessly and mindlessly following orders from their handlers. This explains why no efforts to get through to Indigo make any difference. They discover, however, that a sort of tentative "antiserum" can be used to reverse at least these effects, even if not the rest; this is intended for use at a future point in the evolution of the Übermenschen, so it's still highly experimental, yet the Rats set out to find it and use it. Indigo is the first test subject. Burgundy and Ratdog barely manage to administer the antiserum during a fight, and the effects are almost instantaneous: Indigo cries out in obvious pain--his first acknowledgement of anything any of them have inflicted on him--and collapses, writhing and twitching. After several excruciating moments, he falls still. When the others draw close to check, Indigo takes a breath and opens his eyes. They still have that odd blue glaze, but they also have something they've lacked the entire time he's interacted with the others--awareness. Indigo slowly and painfully sits up and looks around, obviously confused. He has no clear memory of anything following when he was wounded, though there are a few very vague sights and sounds and sensations he recalls. For example he has a hazy recollection of being somewhere after his wounding and before he woke up here, but what he's able to describe doesn't match any location he might have been in in the interim. Most of the others conclude this must have been a dream image he experienced while dying, though the peaceful feeling he describes convinces Turquoise and Himmel--both of whom come from religious backgrounds, and have had various spiritual experiences--that it was something else entirely: possible evidence of an afterlife, from which Indigo was pulled back when the serum was administered. Ironically, the Nazis, in their efforts to become God, may have inadvertently confirmed the existence of Heaven. They have no time to dwell on this, however--ending Project Ultima Thule is the utmost priority. Their success with Indigo gives them the knowledge to help "deprogram" others recruited into the project without their consent, which on the canine side of the story enables the other characters, similarly exploring the Alpine Fortress, to deprogram Lt. Hesse and PFC Helmstadt, who were also given the serum after their deaths. (Hesse, who'd been ready to turn his back on the SS but didn't get the chance before being shot, defects to the Allied side; Helmstadt, who never even belonged to the Nazi Party, just doubles down on his Aryan fanaticism and fights all the harder against them.) Indigo of course aids them in their efforts, and he's seriously needed, given the increased strength and stamina of the enemy. He, Ratdog, Kolten, and Doomsday, the latter two of whom were part of the original Project Doomsday, do most of the heavy work fending off the chemically enhanced Nazi forces while the others focus on gathering info to sabotage and destroy the project. They manage to plant explosives throughout the Fortress with the intent to bring the entire thing down. I'm not sure of all the details yet, such as who takes over immediately afterward, but Jäger ends up killed in a rock collapse after a confrontation and the others narrowly escape. They briefly take cover when they hear multiple gunshots in the distance, but continue when nothing else happens. Ratdog, walking point, soon after makes an awful discovery and tries to hold them back, Himmel in particular, but his insistence that they don't need to see what's ahead just makes Himmel more determined to look--a decision he instantly regrets. In the area within are Jäger's wife, Magdalena, and their nine children...all deceased. From the looks of it, Magda and Jäger had made a murder/suicide pact in case of failure, and upon learning of her husband's death, Magda, just as much a true believer as he was, followed through; she dosed each of their children with a sedative, laid them all down in a row from oldest to youngest just as they always went out in life, and shot each one in the head before similarly taking her own life. Judging from her own body, she was crying the whole time; also, she was pregnant. Himmel, who loves children and had always wanted a large family of his own before his wife died giving birth to Kolten, breaks down at this sight, clutching Magda's hand and staring at the Jäger children; they'd often swarmed him looking for candy back when he was in the SS, and despite their obvious ideological differences he'd considered Magda a friend. "Why? Why do this?" he cries; "I would have gladly taken them." It's almost too much for him to take to understand that this was Jäger's plan all along, and if he didn't survive, then Magda and their children couldn't, either. Both groups escape the Fortress and set off the explosives, destroying what's left of Project Ultima Thule and its adherents. They aren't joyful or exultant about it afterward, however; the losses are far too high (on the canine side, they lose Hesse and Dobermann), so they're quiet and subdued on their way down from the mountains. Indigo takes a moment to speak privately with Himmel, who he remembers only as an enemy; seeing his grief over the Jäger children hit him a bit hard. Although he still isn't sure if he believes that what he experienced was supernatural or spiritual or a dying hallucination or what, he tries to offer a bit of comfort in the thought that perhaps the children will experience the same. Indigo isn't religious--he doesn't really know what to make of it. He can tell that Himmel appreciates his effort, though, and Himmel wishes him luck returning to his fiancée for a second chance. Indigo's fiancée, of course, had been notified previously of his death and the loss of his body...so Indigo's return is expected to be rather awkward. The Rats who choose to remain behind in Germany wish him farewell and he returns to the US. The military does send his fiancée a notice ahead of time, though the details make no sense and seem like a cruel joke; nevertheless, she's waiting there when Indigo's ship pulls in and he disembarks. The two of them stare at each other for a moment, he warily, she in disbelief with her hands over her mouth; she slowly approaches to look him over before embracing him and he returns the gesture. "They told me you were dead," she whispers; unable to think of anything else to say, he haltingly replies, "I'm here now. I'm not leaving again." [Indigo Rat 2023 [Friday, March 31, 2023, 5:00:46 AM]] |