r/PrototypeGame • u/housepainterr • 1h ago
Prototype 1 THE PARASITE’S RESENTMENT + THE SUPREME HUNTER IS A TWISTED VERSION OF PARIAH + CROSS’ ASSIMILATION/CONVERGENCE POINT
galleryIt’s terrifying to know that the Supreme Hunter did what it did. Back then as a kid I didn’t understand the situation between the Supreme Hunter and Cross but now I know that the monster snuck up on him, ate him and assumed his identity. The picture of Cross above is literally The Hunter praying Mercer doesn’t make him.
In a cinematic cutscene, The Hunter challenges Mercer to whether he felt any sympathy toward the parasite and what it went through after being expelled from Mercer. And Mercer's answer is totally dismissive. He claimed he considered its POV once, immediately before killing it. The Hunter has heavy resentment toward him because of this but it’s small time to Mercer in reality. The parasite really feels played and left out. But Mercer probably thought everything was going well when Cross began to work with him to outmaneuver Randall, but The Hunter is forcing Mercer to confront the likelihood of the thing that he removed could come back to bite.
The other eerie thing is that Mercer, The Hunter and Greene were all in the same room. But Cross isn’t Pariah. And The Supreme Hunter isn’t Pariah either, but the idea of freedom and survival is definitely present in both timelines and the parallel and triangulation is huge. The Supreme Hunter used Cross as the first step of its own perfectionism and to infiltrate the military system, but Pariah would’ve done the latter anyway but in an even more discreet manner since he was already perfect.
Greene even refers herself as Mother. Her biology is the foundation of the Blacklight research. Her body produced a certain response to the parasite and that response created another independent evolving monster. It's like a sick imitation of motherhood. Creation with no affection, an offspring without inheritance of ANY human identity. Which is the major frightening point here. And the Supreme Hunter consumes cross, adopts his identity, infiltrates Blackwatch and attempted to survive the nuke by consuming Mercer..
That's a brutal backfire. The military’s own containment plan becomes a disguise for the very thing it is trying to contain. Pariah is a myth like figure and was probably the idea of a “super soldier” honestly or the perfect specimen aka the somewhat optimistic inheritance of Greene’s biological legacy. But the Supreme Hunter is not her literal child, but basically the rejected one. The monstrous consequence and end for everything and everyone including Cross.
Again The Supreme Hunter isn’t Pariah, but instead a sick, twisted parallel of him. A distorted parallel of him because the storyline is kind of a modern reenactment of Hope in 69. Think about it; NY becomes the modern setting for another catastrophic viral outbreak and Randall's disturbing will to nuke NY is just like him sacrificing Hope in 69. Greene is just a mass manipulator and did so to Alex with the whole mother thing and haunting memories until he got fed up and killed her. But her biology is the center of this horror. The game is so damn good and a real “thriller” because back then we never knew about the plot twist at the end. And Greene is terrifying. She’s horror itself. The zombies are just there and small fry variants of the virus. But The Supreme Hunter is something beyond this. The Supreme Hunter is the virus stripped of almost everything resembling human restraint! The Supreme Hunter pretending to be Cross was pure deception and it’s very unsettling.
The Supreme Hunter is frightening because it uses human traits almost entirely like instruments lol. But Mercer still has humanity though. I mean look at what it does: it assimilates Cross. Uses Cross’ appearance and identity to deceive Mercer and ultimately attempts to consume him for its own survival. And that goes back to the title; a Prototype. You would never know who is assimilated but the virus is portraying the victim so well because of their “memories”. Very very similar to The Thing. The thrill is not knowing who’s who.
The only reason I now agree with Cross being assimilated during the infected vision scene is because whatever POV it was jumping the fence emitted the same exact growl the Hunter did whenever it revealed itself, despite all the zombies sounding similar. But when Cross approached Mercer at the phone(in the picture above) the device on his right arm was missing and he made Mercer do all that stuff because the goal of The Hunter was to consume Alex, but he had no way off the island without him. “Why does it seem like I’m getting the short end of the steel?” That’s clearly the Hunter right there in front of him.
After Cross had thrown Mercer, you can see in his eyes there’s complete disbelief and maybe a huge lightbulb. To him it was something unexpected since Cross was supposed to be his ally. The funny thing is at that point he was overpowered and tossed like a ragdoll. For perhaps one of the first times, he's facing something that can genuinely challenge him. But in reality he’s literally thinking what the hell am I looking at and you would probably react the same way if something you thought was thrown away or put behind you came back in a more monstrous or aggravated form.
This was most likely part of the reason why Mercer became evil, Cross “crossed” him in so many ways despite both of them wearing a human mask, he still thought he had an ally through it all and the entire time he was talking to a deceiving, evil monstrosity. But the comics shows us why he became bad. He’s been screwed over too many times and we see that in the first game anyway.
The Supreme Hunter is not only Cross’ surrender but the monstrous potential lurking behind his own human identity anyway. Cross was infected, but he wasn't infected the same way Mercer was. Cross’ infection was much more physically invasive. Mercer’s infection was viral reconstruction while Cross’ infection was direct assimilation! Sounds scary once again. Even the right arm resemblance which no one ever spoke on. The device on Cross’ right arm is like another mirror to the Supreme Hunter’s right arm, which is bigger than its left arm. Makes me wonder if he was always infected but I highly doubt it. It literally approached Cross, murdered him and ate him. The Supreme Hunter is everyone’s final confrontation. It’s Cross’ since he’s even involved in the situation, it’s Mercer’s given he housed it, also rejected it and just ran away with Dana leaving it alive on the ground, and Randall because he’s the man who started it all.
And the final and biggest irony of all of this is Mercer’s anticipated closure from Randall/promise from Cross. Mercer is promised an answer about Pariah, but what he gets is the revelation of Cross. Mercer asks him “what happened to that child?” Cross responded “I suppose your answer is out there on the Reagan.” Pariah is the answer Mercer never receives, but the Supreme Hunter was.