Faction #2 - Faction Leader Naming Poll

I think if you are trying to parallel a biblical story line, "High Priest Ezek" fits pretty well, if you read the story of Ezekiel from the bible.

Picked High Priest Ezek, since it's a religious zealot faction.
Sadly, seems to be the least popular.

Exactly. Let's face it, in a robot religion, faith isn't going to rank too highly. Well, it might in this setting, what with the missing memory and all, but it likely wouldn't be identified as such. Besides, seeing as the Progenitors are starting to sound like another name for Human, wouldn't they want to divorce themselves from such human concepts as a religion we would recognize? I went with Nemicus as well.

That's the reasoning I choose Nemicus as well.
Priest is too religious and in my eyes not someone who follows a simple with-or-against belief.
And Inquisitors are folks that seek out heretics or other traitors to their faith, but with the machine-faith of with-or-against there won't be any deviators, the machine mind either follows the creed or rejects it in which case you don't need an Inquisitor to judge if they follow...
First Follower would be the only option I'd give a second chance but Incorruptible just sounds better: No matter what you do, he will stand to his beliefs.

"The Incorruptible" sounds like a robotic religion/cult in its own way.
Nemicus's robotic faith (programming) is closest to that of the original founder programing, and Nemicus's views on the universe are still unchanged over the many millennia of Nemicus's dormancy (his programming is not corrupted).
And regardless of what Nemicus might encounter his programming will stay true to its original form as it is incorruptible (maybe the first progenitor has a ROM instead of RAM.. hahaha.)

bleh. i saw this coming.

Can we ditch the stereotypical "convert or die" mentality? it's been to death, reanimated, struck with a stake, reanimated, burned, reanimated to an ash golem, again struck, again reanimated, nuked from orbit, reanimated, asteroid crashed into it, reanimated, Death Star fired at it, reanimated, thrown into a black hole, blown up the black hole and ended with the universe itself.

and reanimated.

First of all the machine God. cool story and all, but i prefer something to what the Cylons of Battlestar Galactica had. A god that has god-like properties like compassion and love. Not just "smite your foes because death". Why not have this NOT be a cult? why not have it be robots who learned of this creator, but when revealing this to other commanders, the other feared or ridiculed them? why not have the opposers be the bad guys?

Taking this from my POV, Nemicus The Incorruptible seems like the only good fit. A guy that stood in the face of evil and injustice and did not bow to it.

That would be ironic.

My thoughts exactly. It's a machine religion.
Anything too close to a world religion unless highly muddled up seems like a cliche.

Reminds me of the ontological dilemma of HAL 9000 but something tells me these machines won't be singing daisy bell as they die!

I do love the Battlestar Galactica idea! Willing to rework all my opinions if they shift it slightly in that direction!

I'm going with
First Follower Malach

The other ones are either to "complicated" (Incorruptible, non native speakers will have serious problems speaking that flawlessly. And also the name doesn't make much sense when his data core had been corrupted...) or too bland. Inquisitor... that's like the most generic term for something religious ever. Every game seems to have an Inquisitor these days.
"High Priest" could work for me, but it implies a strict hierarchy and some kind of religious service which seems to anthropomorphic to me. I would expect robot religion to work quiet differently to what we do and know. "First Follower" seems the most "robotic" and most interesting term to me because it doesn't give away too much. It still has some "mysticism" around it.

Inquisitor Malach would get my vote over Inquisitor Zor

First Follower Malach.

He is the first follower. It fits far better than High Priest (age and history trumps a generic rank) and Inquisitor again seems like an underling.

The Incorruptible seems to, well, not fit.

I like Nemicus!

Although you could go for something simpler like "The Prophet".

I vote for Firs follower Malach wich in my point of fit the best with the backgroud.

Like said mo73, the term "Prohet" would also fit very well. It definitively takes a good parallel with current religion and it's perfectly coherent with the background.

Make it Lord Inquisitor Nemicus, please

Inquisitor fits to the picture of destroying anything that doesn't agree with you

Going along with my preference for the Faction being called 'The Founders', I'm going to again mix-and-match these pretty 'meh' poll options and go for Grand Inquisitor Malach

Im going to draw a little bit of inspiration from protoss names. But would something "Purifier" probably work better? Since it does imply fire, however I'm not sure what could be counted as "pure" here.

I vote "Nemicus the Incorruptable". It was the only one that jumped out at me as being different form other stories and games.

Likewise, voted for "the Incorruptible". The other titles aren't really something I'd care for on a sentient war machine.

His programming was clear, his logic perfect. These beings deserved punishment, and he was but a tool to be used by greater beings than himelf. His path clear before him, the only discouragement coming from the growing possiblity that there may be nothing more to mete. If justice has been served fully, what of its arbiters? To what end and purpose would they now serve?

These misgivings give rise to the concepts of forgiveness, reconciliation, and rebirth. Would these Progenitors even be capable of forgiveness? Could their primitive meat brains have possibly understood the penalty for their actions, or was it their purpose to fight against the truth until their dying breath? Is extinction their only choice, or would they embrace a new path? Would the machines be able to embrace a new path without the Progenitors?

He quickly abandoned these threads of heresy and weakness. He shortly pondered whether others in service also experience such distractions from their purpose? Did other machines also have doubts which they hid in the darkest corners of encrypted memory?

It will not be relevant. Doubts can be erased. Memory will not be allocated for heresy. Weakness is for the Progenitors, and the Movement shall continue until it engulfs the cosmos.

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I also liked Nemicus because of the symbolism in the title, but can see the allure of the Inquisitor as well. Having played WH:40k Space Marine, I can certainly see parallels with how one whose purpose it is to destroy "evil" can tread on or over the line and become corrupted themselves by using the same tools and means as those they are intending to destroy.

I could see the character as being like an Inspector Javert, or akin to a Maiev Shadowsong from Warcraft or perhaps Principal Rooney from Ferris Bueller's Day Off. They may have a righteous goal, but their zeal for correcting an injustice may override their ability to see the purpose and place of grace and mercy, or may push them to means which could never be justified by the ends.

That said, I'd also like to see some of Erasmus from the Dune prequels as opposed to Ominus. Ominus was not clever enough to see the value of humanity, where Erasmus was morbidly fascinated in what made them tick and what made them resist the machine rule. Just some thoughts, I'm not the writer so it'll be interesting to see how the character develops officially.