Story Design: Aaron Walker and Charlie Pace

This could also get sad. Also, this'll contain spoilers for LOST!

Going Rogue was an intense expansion to work on. I could write several blog posts about it, but I'll save that for later. We were in a situation where a lot of content had to get done in a short amount of time - we're talking roughly the equivalent of 44 story arcs in about 2-3 months. John "Protean" Hegner and I were on a break neck pace making these in what you would call crunch mode. We'd both get in at around 8 am and leave around 11pm or midnight, sometimes even 1 am. But, we did it because we were excited about what we were doing and knew it was going to be better than what was originally planned. One of my favorite memories during that time was working on the live and death of a character, Aaron Walker, who I had based a bit around Charlie Pace from LOST.

I was handed the responsibility and warden storylines in Neutropolis, mainly because I had written the power  and crusader ones in Imperial City. Nate "Second Measure" Birkholtz didn't want me stuck in a rut where I wrote the more selfish content. I looked over Aaron Walker, who was set up as this smarmy hacker whose brain could move a mile a minute, making him a genius. I don't know why, but I instantly connected him with Charlie Pace from LOST. They were connected in the sense that both had a past where they basically messed around and didn't do many useful things, Charlie being a drug addict and Aaron Walker being a powerful hacker using his skills to just annoy people. Both characters, however, had the chance to put themselves to use - Charlie helping people get off the island, Aaron Walker helping the resistance fight the regime of Emperor Cole.

Everyone wants to fight the man.

Charlie's fate in LOST is that he was killed. Now, his death was something that really made me sad, but you also sort of saw it coming; there was a character who literally said that he was going to die. Charlie spent most of the season running from it, but eventually accepted his death in order to help save the people he cared about on the island. I looked at Aaron Walker and wanted to try to improve upon that, mainly since I thought Charlie's death, while being pretty intense, also had some holes in it.

I decided to set up Aaron Walker from the get go as having a death sentence; his brain was moving too fast due to experiments done onto him, so he would eventually die. After his main story arc, I wanted Aaron to periodically appear to help the player out, after all, he was the best hacker in an area that was primarily run by a scientist who relied on technology to keep things under control. I wanted Aaron to be fresh in the player's mind after his first arc and not someone they forgot, or else his death wouldn't further motivate the player to push on.

The hammer came down in an arc down the line where you're supposed to talk to Aaron Walker, but he's gone, kidnapped by the Praetorians because of all the help he's been giving the player character. The player runs to rescue him, but discovers that even through rescuing him, they can't save him; his brain condition has been overloaded by Neuron, meaning he will die at any moment. The key point here is that I didn't want his death to be meaningless, otherwise I'm just being a jerk and going, "haha, I killed your dude". I wanted Aaron to show the player that he wasn't really sad about his death, and that somehow, even with him dying, things were going to be OK. Here's the dialog from his death, thanks to the guy over at paragonwiki.:

Aaron Walker's eyes dart back and forth wildly, his arms shaking violently.H-hey... Character... didn't think I'd see you here... funny you're the l-l-last person I see, huh? N-n-neuron, he caught wind of what I did... what we did... I c-covered up for you, e-erased any track of you helping me.
B-but Neuron... h-he accelerated my brain... it's m-moving t-too fast now. G-gonna... it's gonna snap any minute now... t-then I'm a goner... t-that's gonna be it for me.
Hang on, Aaron, I'll get you help!Aaron reaches up to grasp your shoulder.It's too late! It's... too late...
Aaron slumps down to the ground.No time... no time left for me... just minutes... seconds... then I'm done for...
I'm not sad, though... I'm actually... kinda happy. Weird... huh? I was always... just doing random things, never really... fought for anything. But you and me... we did something good... right? We put a stop to some of Neuron's freaks... we saved James Noble... that was good... wasn't it? I got to finally do at least... one good thing for someone... before everything came crashing down.
Just focus, Aaron, I need you to-Aaron cuts you off.I-I know why you're here. You're here to find out what's in that data.
Aaron laughs sadly.T-that's how N-neuron got me... I found out everything... he zapped my brain... pulled it all out of there... but t-there's a guy, t-there's a guy who can help you. I-I wrote it down... before Neuron tapped my brain...
Aaron hands you a piece of paper. On it is written the name, 'Steve Sheridan is here'Who is Steve Sheridan?T-that Dark Watcher guy'll know... Y-yeah... I know he's here. I'm the... I'm the best, r-remember?
Aaron's body jerks wildly before coming to a rest.T-the T.E.S.T... T-they're coming... They're coming to get you... I'll... I'll do one l-last thing... one l-last thing to help you out...
Just... just... remember me... okay... Character? R-remember me for... the g-good stuff I did... not for all the.. r-rotten... useless... things I did with... m-most of my life. P-please... please...
Aaron Walker lets out one last gasp before his body lays motionless....I'll remember you, Aaron. And I swear, I'll make Berry pay for this.You hear the sounds of several PPD T.E.S.T bearing down on your position!

After this, a huge squad of soldiers ambushes the player. However, I wanted to give the players that last thing to remember Aaron Walker for, to remind the player's that he was, essentially, a jerk hacker who was on their side and enjoyed making jokes. As the soldiers were swarming in, I had several large Clockwork robots activate to help defend the player, who, if they were solo, would get absolutely destroyed by the ambushes. I had the Clockwork say the following phrase, which I'm still pretty proud of:

THIS IS THE LAST, BEST, FINAL PROGRAM BY AARON WALKER HIMSELF.EVEN IF PRAETOR BERRY KILLED HIM, HE'LL NEVER BE ABLE TO BE BETTER THAN WALKER.REMEMBER TO TELL THE WORLD. BERRY IS A LOSER. AARON WALKER WAS THE MAN.

So! There you have it. Aaron Walker. I wrote his finale probably around 10 or 11 o'clock at night, but I was spurred on almost through the entire Neutropolis arcs to get there. I won't say it's perfect, because it's not, but I'm pretty proud of it and I look forward to trying to outdo myself in the future after everything I learned writing for Aaron Walker, who was the man. Oh, and a fun fact, I listened to the following music as I was writing Aaron's final dialog, which ended up almost making me tear up. But I didn't, because I'm a strong person.

PS:

Something that people in the studio would sometimes tease me about was that we were going to bring Aaron Walker back from the dead. Or, really, anyone else who was killed in my stories (Statesman, I'm looking at you). This almost always got an infuriating reaction out of me, as I was a very hardcore believer in characters staying dead, something which I'll wrote a blog post about sometime.

Yelling, "Why won't anyone STAY DEAD?!" didn't help me look less villainous to people in the studio.