Oh...good. The horror comes across nicely, especially with the way Rufus' mnd just refuses to process the body corectly, and he doesn't recognise what he's seeing at first. Makes hm more humman and sympathetic, at least for me.
Rufus has seen violence and death, of course. But that really doesn't prepare him for the sorts of things he will be facing now. He's better equipped, mentally and emotionally, than most people, but even so, dealing with the FEAR game's particular combination of psychological and visceral horror is going to be difficult, even for experienced Turks.
Honestly? If the nightmares are even vaguely accurate I have to agree with Cloud here. And considering his experience with scientists he isn't going to question their validity.
There's no question that vile, horrible things were done to Cloud and Rufus's mother. As you observed, Cloud knows exactly the sorts of atrocities these people are capable of inflicting. It's that very empathy that facilitates the merging between Cloud and his mother's thoughts.
There's really no question that the people directly responsible deserve to be punished somehow -- perhaps even brutally, savagely, and painfully killed. Unfortunately, the clear implication is that Cloud's (and his mother's) hunger for revenge isn't going to be so easily satisfied.
This confuses me a bit. There was only one baby in the dream, and the woman demanded her baby back, not her babies. So which one did it really happen to?
It happened to Rufus, who's starting to consciously remember the moment of his actual birth. We don't know anything similar (or not) happened at Cloud's birth. All we know from the FEAR game is that with the first prototype, the birthing process didn't go a smoothly as hoped -- the mother was supposed to stay comatose through the whole procedure, but she woke up and started screaming for her baby.
I enjoyed this, the way Nero and Weiss clearly respect Cloud and obey him so readily.
Well, to be honest, they really don't have much of a choice. That will become clear when Rosso and Azul show up and -try- to challenge Cloud's authority.
In this AU, the members of Deep Ground were originally designed to be controlled by a psychic commander -- it's part of their core programming. And even though the Origin and Perseus projects were shut down, no one bothered to remove that control programming, so all the Deep Ground soldiers have it. The use of the Restrictors and microchips (as mentioned in the Dirge of Cerberus online game) was actually Shinra's makeshift scheme to keep them under control when the Origin and Perseus projects apparently failed to produce a suitably powerful and reliable telepath.
So all the members of Deep Ground are hardwired to obey someone with the 'right' telepathic abilities (i.e., Cloud). While under Cloud's psychic control, the Tsviets and Deep Ground retain most of their ability for independent thought and decision-making, as long as they operate within the objectives and directives given to them by their commander (Cloud).
Cloud's telepathic powers (now that they're fullying manifesting) are probably strong enough to control Deep Ground even without the programming, but their hardwiring makes his command over them essentially effortless. He can do exert much more active control over them if he wants to (e.g., modifying their minds, emotions, memories, etc.), but that would require the specific intent to do so.
And it's a good use of canon material too.
Thanks! Normally I try my best to pretend that Dirge of Cerberus never happened. ::snort:: But in this case, it really worked well with the FEAR plotline.
In the FEAR game, the psychic commander (Fettel) was supposed to control an army of highly trained military clones (called Replicas). Deep Ground and the Tsviets made an admirable and even more dangerous substitute. ^_-