Re: Reason behind immortality

Quote: So far I think I am glued to the idea that they are pursuing immortality, but this immortality will remove their physical bodies. I like that idea, but I cannot figure out a motive or reason for them to pursue this goal other than just to become immortal.

Because they think they can but the others don't believe it. They receive no respect and the only way to fix that is to become immortal. What would they do after they are immortal? First, they get to say, "We are right! You are all wrong!" What do after that? They will think about that afterwards.

Since they think they can do it, they might as well be the first ones. So they are very aggressive about it. If they don't die, they will always be the oldest individuals alive. It is a record title that no one can ever beat. How cool is that?


Alternative:

The system can only support one immortal. If they don't become it themselves, someone else could and they would never be able to attain it. Since they could get it now, they would not wait for someone else to get it first.


Third reason:

Because there is something they think they deserve but they don't understand how to get. They figure that if they are immortal, then they have forever to figure out how to get what they really want. Since it is easier for them to become immortal than to figure out the path to their primary goal, they equip themselves with immortality first.


Fourth reason:

They are addicted to something and they never get enough of. They are getting immortality so that they want to keep living the good lives they have.



[Edited by - Wai on July 23, 2009 11:24:29 PM]

On reading this, my first thought was simply that they had faced death and it terrified them.

Perhaps they came close to dying and saw a glimpse of the next world. Whatever they saw could have been real or their own oxygen-starved brain hallucinating; they may even know this, but the single chance that it was real is enough to convince them that they would be going to a bad place.

Maybe, drawing from the twisted altruism idea, they lost someone they relied on at a delicate time, leaving them alone and feeling abandoned, so they swore never to abandon those who need them.

You could steal one from [a certain cult Bioware game]; they were a pure soul that did something so unforgivable that they know that their soul is damned for it, no matter how much they atone for it. They see immortality as their only chance, the only way to give themselves the time to truly atone.

A thought that just came to me: the antagonist wants to become a Lich (or functional equivalent). In order to become immortal, he needs to place his life force in a phylactery, which could be anything. From there, be creative with what this phylactery needs to be. Maybe the antagonist uses some presumably holy relic, then tricks the "good guys" into keeping it as safe as possible, thus making his immortality "more immortal". Once it's safe, he doesn't need to do as much evil stuff, or maybe it's someone else doing evil stuff by proxy, some sort of secret servant; maybe he betrays this servant at some point. You could also bend the "rules" if you wanted, since Liches are fictional, after all.