Systems Malfunction: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''Worlds end, heroes die, systems malfunction''|Unofficial motto}}

 

 

The game at one time had a website at http://systemsmalfunction.webs.com/, but it appears to be long defunct. However, they have a [https://www.facebook.com/systemsmalfunction Facebook page] indicating that the game is still an active concern as of the end of 2016.

** The aptly-named character of "Ace" embodies this trope.

* [[Affably Evil]]: [[Mad Scientist|Dr. Langley]] is a PERFECT example of this.

* [[Aliens Are Bastards]]: Averted with the Xel, who had a completely peaceful utopian society before they were taken from their homeworld by the GAIA. After they integrated themselves into human society, though, [[Nature Versus Nurture|they became]] [[Humans Are the Real Monsters|no better than the rest of us]].

** Played [[Nightmare Fuel|terrifyingly]] straight by the [[Insectoid Aliens|Praxar]], who are basically a cross between [[Mechanical Monster|the Xenomorphs]] from [[Alien]] and [[Hive Mind|the Borg]] from [[Star Trek]], with a [[Might Makes Right|Survival of the Fittest outlook]] [[Social Darwinist|towards sentient life]] ([[Blue and Orange Morality|not that they generally bother trying to explain their motivations]]; [[Starfish Aliens|they're so monstrous and animalistic]] [[It Can Think|it took a while for anyone to even figure out that they were intelligent]]). They'll [[You Will Be Assimilated|assimilate]] you, but only if you're considered ''worthy''; if not, you'll probably be used as [[Human Resources|a living battery]], [[Body Horror|having the life very slowly drained out of you]] [[And I Must Scream|over the course of several weeks]]. It says something when the ''best'' outcome their captives can expect is to be [[To Serve Man|devoured]] [[Swallowed Whole|whole]] and thus given at least a ''relatively'' quick and painless death.

** Completely averted with the game's more recent editions. The first three years of the game may or may not have been a dream (even the game's creator hasn't given a definitive answer) but the newer editions take place in an [[Alternate Universe]] that's definitely "real." At least, as far as we know...

* [[All There in the Manual]]: A lot of seemingly bizarre or nonsensical character decisions actually make a lot of sense when you look at said character's backstory. Unfortunately, since these backstories usually aren't seen by anyone other than the person who created and played the character in question, this isn't very helpful for everyone else.

** There are also Matre'ds, which are essentially walking bombs with human skin. Thanks, GAIA.

** That goes double for characters that forgo cyberware and cybered-skills entirely, relying instead on SKILL ALONE to go toe-to-toe with the many monsters of the galaxy.

* [[BFG]]: The most common examples encountered in-game would be the anti-take rifles, rocket launchers, and smartguns, which are all [[BFG]]s but not excessively so. The BOROS H-TLAW and C99 Contact Beam both take this [[Up to Eleven]], the first being a barely man-portable laser canon that can melt a battle tank, the second being a barely man-portable mining laser that could punt that same battle tank into orbit.

* [[BFS]]: The Chainsword, historic weapon of Armand Carter (and later Adam Rensozuke) is a hybrid Greatsword and Chainsaw.

* [[Black and Gray Morality]]: The closest thing to good guys in the setting are the forces of the benign dictatorship who are trying to control galactic society for the greater good. On the other hand, you have DEMONS TRYING TO RAPE THE MULTIVERSE. Every shade of dark-gray in between is represented as well.

** It is possible to play a heroic character, just don't expect to survive long.

* [[Chewing the Scenery]]: This is the inevitable outcome when you have non-actors engaging in what is essentially dramatic improv.

* [[Cyberpunk]]: Very this.

* [[Cyberspace]]: Played straight with GalaxyNet and later Y.G.G.D.R.A.S.I.L.

* [[Devil but No God]]: Whether or not he's really the biblical devil, Lucifuge is a nigh-omniscient being of pure evil, but there's no sign of God anywhere. {{spoiler|It's eventually revealed that Armand Carter severed God's connection to the physical world.}}

* [[Evil Plan]]: Every villain has one, and there are many, many villains.

* [[Face Heel Door Slam]]: Dante il-Grigori was just starting his [[Face Heel Turn]], plotting to kill the vampire overlord he'd been working with for the past few months and return to the church to beg forgiveness for his sins, only for [[Big Bad|The Shadow]] to appear out of nowhere (at least from his point of view) and murder him, along with several of his allies and enemies alike.

* [[Heaven]]: Surprisingly averted in the first metaplot arc: Heaven has either been destroyed, lost, or made innacessable due to events that took place between [[Iron Gaia]] and the beginning of that plot arc.

* [[Karma Houdini]]: Malcolm [[De Salvo]]. Martin Lyesmith and Vivian/Lucian Delacroix come close, but they at least LOST something meaningful. (Lyesmith was forced to [[Temporal Paradox|go back in time]] and [[By His Bootstraps|rebuild his empire from scratch]], and Delacroix did suffer the indignity of [[Death Is Cheap|losing]] [[Cloning Blues|a clone duplicate]].) [[De Salvo]] got away with his many, many crimes scot free.

** Xeer came VERY close to fitting this trope, but doesn't quite make it: He never actually suffered ANY retribution for all the horrible, absolutely unforgivable things he did, including but not at all limited to [[Villainous Demotivator|constantly beating his only two allies]], [[Chronic Backstabbing Disorder|betraying and eventually murdering two of his former allies]], and [[Cold-Blooded Torture|torturing and killing]] [[Moral Event Horizon|a fifteen year old girl]] [[Nightmare Fuel|over and over again]]. Yet despite all the atrocities he got away with, he suffered through a lot of torment for completely unrelated reasons: [[All There in the Manual|His backstory reveals]] that [[Start of Darkness|he was the victim of years of cruel experiments]], and even after that, the few times he tried to do something good ended up going horrible wrong for him- he was once [[Police Brutality|beaten to the verge of death and imprisoned]] [[Unjust Justice|for trying to break up a fight between two other passengers on a starship]].

** Xeer really wasn't that bad, however--[[Ax Crazy|space geologist cum mass murderer William Flagg]] simply went into an extended period of rehab, and is doing much better now, thank you. The same cannot be said for his many, many victims.

** Frequently a serious and/or intense situation will be working itself out when a character who has no reason to be there or player who has no idea what's going on will stumble in and say something to ruin the mood.

** Player quirks tend to bleed-over into character traits in Narmy ways.

** {{spoiler|Of course, given that said [[Master Computer]] may have been created by God Himself- and served as His only link to the physical universe- the Prise calling themselves angels isn't quite that far off the mark.}}

** Finally, there are the Nephilim, who are supposedly the offspring of humans and Prise. {{spoiler|They were actually created by [[Messianic Archetype|Lady Mariah]] and her church, who infused humans with the essence of the Prise in the hopes of creating true angels loyal to them. It didn't work; the subjects didn't become divine beings (gaining blue or golden skin and a few minor light-based powers, but otherwise remaining human), and most of them didn't hold any particular loyalty to the church either.}} These beings were briefly available as a playable race as well.

* [[Our Demons Are Different]]: Pulsarians are [[Eldritch Abomination]]s that found their way into our universe through the Origin Rift (which was at one point {{spoiler|Earth}} before {{spoiler|Carter destroyed God's only tether to the material world}} and screwed up [[The Multiverse]]).

* [[TV Tropes Will Ruin Your Life]]: In an ironic turn, [http://web.archive.org/web/20111006100837/http://systemsmalfunction.webs.com/ the very last blog entry] on the game's defunct web site (as recorded by the [[Wayback Machine]]) was a report of the creation of a page for the game at TVT. We here at ATT are sure there is no causal relationship here. Really.

* [[World of Badass]]: The character creation system ensures that, even if a given character is not a robot, vampire, cyber-angel, cyborg, psionicist, or magician, they are at the very least a [[Badass Normal]].

* [[Technically Living Zombie]]: Slow Mutants are humans who thawed out of cryosleep prematurely, resulting in a loss of higher brain functions, and Shambling Husks are living people infected with an Ebola-like virus that causes their skin to rot while also making them uncontrollably agressive. Ghouls, on the other hand, are actually undead, being corpses brought to life through necromantic magic.

* [[Thirteen Is Unlucky]]: Star 13 and the surrounding solar system, aka the Frontier Sector. Just two years after the sector's colonization, a nearby Gamma Burst flooded the system with radiation, resulting in millions of deaths and forcing the surviving settlers to evacuate. Over fifty years later, after the radiation had dispersed, the colonies were finally rebuilt... Only for it to be the first target of the [[Alien Invasion|Praxar invasion]].

** Don't forget Tim, the Republic Armada mechanic who ended up destroying the avatar of a godlike A.I. on his first field mission. Yes, he was already a military officer, but he'd been serving in a purely non-combat role up until then. Later on, he became a full-fledged combat engineer... Guess killing a god tends to improve your confidence.

** Subverted with Arnold, a run-of-the-mill computer repairman who somehow survived for months on a hostile space station, all without ever becoming even the slightest bit more badass. He was eventually killed for use in a magical ritual as a [[Virgin Sacrifice]].