"Make Horatio great again" -Horatio. Possibly the first. Or the fourth. It's honestly hard to tell.
Job 252: Horatio (Endless)
Who is Horatio?
Horatio is perfect. He is beautiful. He is intelligent. Elegant. A man's man. A woman's man. A self made man. A man who can make the tough calls. A man who can see beyond the mirror. In fact there is not a single thing Horatio is not, because everything will eventually BECOME Horatio.
But perhaps it is best to start with this modest legend's humble beginnings:
"An exceedingly rich and exceedingly eccentric trillionaire who was exceedingly tired of everything, Horatio left the Mezari empire on a solo voyage. Crossing the galaxy in suspended animation, Horatio was awakened by the ship when it arrived at a habitable planet–of which he immediately declared himself Emperor.
Horatio used information culled from Endless ruins on the planet and its two moons to gain unnatural extension to his own life. In-system exploration led to other discoveries and eventually, through advanced medicines and biological adaptation, he evolved his own body into his vision of physical perfection.
Boredom set in after a few years, however, until Horatio had the brilliant idea of filling the planet–and why not the galaxy?–with the brightest and most beautiful sentient creature ever to exist: Horatio.
After a few decades of experimentation his cloning program achieved something between perfection and success... An army of equally gorgeous clones are now ready, and the hordes of Horatios are prepared to follow their glorious leader and give the galaxy a proper make-over."
-Endless Space 2, Horatio.
Whilst clearly a narcissist, does that truly make Horatio a villain? Well...yes. See; he has committed some truly heinous acts throughout his career as emperor:
- Purposely gets his teammate killed in order to find the clone technology within a deadly dungeon belonging to the Endless.
- Abandoned the remaining team members whilst finding a way out, leaving them to be fed on by monsters. These characters are playable characters in Endless Dungeon.
- Creates himself a clone army, killing any imperfect ones...or ones that are TOO perfect and may attempt to overthrow him since they share his ambitious drive and lust for power.
- Said clones are shown to be killed for showing too much individuality, and told to obey the first, being brainwashed.
- Takes over planets and their inhabitants. Seems to be quite reasonable at first though allowing them to live on their homes without interfering too much...
- Liquifies said inhabitants, and splices the DNA of non Horatio into brand new Horatio creating superior soldiers with the benefits of others.
- Can easily wipe out entire planet worths of species using this method.
- Is a space tyrant in general, but goes about it with an air of charisma and elegance to mask his true deviousness...or perhaps he truly believes the universe would be better if everyone was him?
What can Horatio do?
Apart from his clone technology allowing him to summon other Horatio of a lesser standing than himself as footsoldiers to attack his opponents with laser weaponry, Horatio has access to all manner of space faring weapons, and tech. Which is good because honestly, Horatio is more of a mid to long range fighter using primarily a laser gun. He can still grapple(elegantly) but he is weaker up close as the fear of becoming dirty and unperfect horrifies him.
He has access to a variety of almost fish-like spaceships that elegantly float through the recesses of space, including warships. You can look at the 3D models for these (and flip them around, it's interactive!)
here.
Due to Horatio's clone splicing ability, it's not out the realm of possibility of either :
- Turning enemy fighters INTO Horatio briefly with say a physical attack debuff against Horatio himself, whilst giving an attack boost against NON-Horatio enemies. This would be good for representing the way the Horatio are programmed and genetically bred to obey the Horatio, and have disdain for all non-Horatio life forms.
and/or
- Taking on a Kirby style element in which he splices opponents DNA into himself allowing him to steal one of their special moves making himself even more of a perfect being.
I also would consider the more Horatio uses his DNA splice, the more clones he has access to summon with upto three at any time. These clones are easily dispatched(after all we can't have them quite as perfect as the original Horatio) but would be a way to keep Horatio alive.
On top of this the Horatio are a rather slow momentum faction in Endless Space; due to their love of elegance they take more turns to gather fancier resources to build prettier ships but as they get going with their splicing and take over they become more powerful at a rapid rate.
Perhaps this can be indicated by Horatio starting off quite weak, but the longer he remains alive the more powerful he gets with each splice only increasing his overall power.
Horatio's ideal future, and possible arcade ending image: Imagine these tubes filled with other Battle of Ages fighters, as he slowly transforms them all...into Horatio.
For those wondering if there's any alternative design we can have for Horatio, there is a far cartoonier one used for the Endless Space spinoff
Love Thyself, should the realistic design be believed to clash too much with the aesthetics of the other cast members.
Lastly; Why Horatio?
The Endless franchise is a modern Sega IP, and one that doesn't get too much attention compared to Total War or Football Manager...and that's honestly a shame, because the franchise is great and covers several different genres such as 4X RTSs, Rougelikes and even a Dating Sim.
Horatio is by far, one of the most prominent characters across the franchise. Even if he doesn't appear in a game, he has a lore connection to something in it:
- Endless Space: One of the many factions you can play as
- Dungeon of the Endless: The comics reveal these dungeons are where he obtained his ancient cloning tech. To obtain it he sacrifices the lives of three of the playable heroes from the game.
- Endless Space 2: Returns as one of the many factions you can play as. Interestingly not all factions managed this, but the Horatio remained.
- Endless Legend: Reveals his original home and species; the Mezari. Horatio abandoned them after being mocked for his elongated skull.
- Love Thyself: A dating sim that is focused ENTIRELY around the Horatio and no other faction.
- Endless Dungeon: Currently unknown as the game is not out yet, but I'm willing to bet Horatio will somehow be involved. Zed, the first character introduced is from the same original species as he is; the Mezari.
As a result, I feel he's quite the prominent figure within the series...as you would be if you became your own species.
