Commentary - Influence - Part One

New Year, new arc. Similar as to how Volume 1-4 on the show were on big story arc, Influence is the start of a new arc for Trevor and Undaunted. As a constant fan of duality, the title Déjà vu, Trevor experiences it and how others see Undaunted compared to Primatech.

First off, I added to the Black Swan theory I quoted back in the first story I wrote. Sort of like a puzzle piece, I add one line of thought to it until it becomes something entirely different.

CLEARWATER

A bit of a red herring, I hope to have fooled someone that Trevor and Clara was together before they realized it was an undercover op commissioned from events of the last volume. If you notice the description of Trevor, it’s the same clothing from the image on his HSG page. The duo is going after the second to last member of the faction(s) that attacked Undaunted on Thanksgiving and the 29th. Konrad is the only one that knows where the last person is, and this person is the leader. So I decided there has to be some sort of code or phrase so I used a famous one from a satirist that’s better known by geeks to be used on the Watchmen.

Then to tie things up, I decided that the final locale would be Montreal, where Peter and Caitlin went to and found Adam Monroe’s place in Volume 2. And used the cool super spy shoot ‘em through an object and kill them motif and another sighting of the DNA Symbol. Then I decided to slow things down with a comedic beat and have a brief regroup at Zhang’s house.

REWIND

Playing on the current story from HSG and iStory, I wanted to explore Trevor’s past but felt the flashback technique I previously used would be too old hat. Upon reading that Mulligan was going to be important, I started spinning the mechanics of time travel. I decided Trevor would have a Groundhog Day of his own but had to think later of how. Ultimately, I throw the question of what happens to someone being teleported when a special like Mulligan uses his Temporal Rewind? They go back to a time they were thinking, hence why there was the small line about Trevor staring at the ring Clara gives back to him, it was his dead fiancee’s.

I decided then he would teleport a year or so back to that fateful day when his life was changed forever. The Company accidentally killed his fiancée and Trevor began his quest for revenge. Inspired by the Haitian’s name reveal, I casually revealed his fiancee’s. I also made sure to make some references to what we already know about that day, things you can find in Trevor’s HSG bio or AT file.

Since Trevor doesn’t quite know what’s going on, he goes through memory and doesn’t alter any events. Will be next time? We’ll see. And Trevor remembers the rewind, because he has…super memory and sort of realized what happened.
MONTREAL

We finally meet the special who was duplicated and clones were sent to the Garden of the Gods to kill everyone in Undaunted. He’s a killer, but he appears to be pretty intelligent and in the know, being pretty concerned that Undaunted would become just another Primatech. The irony is that he chose to try to wipe them out instead of just talking. Does that make him any better?

I also wanted to put in more humor and wanted to play with the logistics of a subtitle for a long time since seeing Hiro & Ando and Maya & Alejandro on the show. So it’s done through a joke. At I least I hope people get the joke…maybe if you’re Canadian it’s a sure bet.

Anyway, the death of Keegan ends the leftovers from last time and begins a new quest for Trevor and Undaunted. Where it takes them next…stay tuned.