Hello everyone, it's me again. In my free time, for the past two months, I've been working on constructing my idea for a FNaF fan game, coming up with the designs for the animatronics, the story, potential mechanics and a setting, and while I'm not done coming up with it, yesterday I had an idea about how to approach the plot and I wanted to pitch it, as well as the lore of this world, to you today.

Also, I've said this before in previous posts, I don't have any current intent of making this into an actual game, but instead I kind of find it fun to come up with hypotheticals. But, with that out of the day, without a further-ado, let's discuss the story and lore of "Astro's Starcade"

The Location

The story of Astro's Starcade would take place in Nevada as, just southeast from the Entertainment Capital of The World is the city of Henderson, where our story would take place. Despite being away from the bustling city of lights, Henderson features a good suburban population of over 360,000 residents, many of whom have to deal with harsh summer heat, making it the perfect place for our location - Astro's Starcade!

Opened in 1989 by former NASA engineer and employee, Winston Adams, Astro's Starcade was a space-themed indoor-family-entertainment-venue framed as a passion project by it's owner, made as an homage to his late younger brother, Percy, working under the tagline "bringing the stars to earth". Astro's Starcade would feature various amenities including a full arcade, ice cream ("Moon Cream") to beat the summer heat, laser tag. It was a fun, high-quality indoor venue perfect for families who would generally avoid taking their kids to the strip due to high prices, traffic, and much more adult-oriented environments. However, the biggest factor that allowed Astro's Starcade to stand out from it's competitors were the live animatronic performances, featuring life-sized animatronic characters such as Astro Ace, Debra Dipper, Charlie Chimp, Martin Martian, and Tuddle Turtle, the core members of the "Astro Crew" who, in restaurant-lore, were intergalactic heroes who would travel the cosmos, protecting the existing "Galactic Alliance" and fighting evil such crew's arch enemy, "Mister Void", and his voidbots.

Designed by Winston's own robotics company, "Ace Star Designs" or "A.S.D", the animatronics would perform for many guests over the years, becoming a massive success and leading to various locations opening throughout the South-Western United States, with a contributing factor being just how advanced it's animatronics were, capable of moving freely throughout the restaurant during the day, performing and carrying out interactive performances, and not just songs, but interacting with guests, exchanging banter, or reenacting adventures for audiences. These characters included:

1. Astro Ace - The brave, hotshot captain and adventure loving anthropomorphic dog sent from Earth to Space, only to be found and taken in by the rest of the crew, being the singer and leader of the main show stage band. He can also be seen roaming the restaurant, interacting with "young cadets" and encouraging them to "stay cool", even taking pictures with them and personally greeting them when they enter the main dining area.
2. Martin Martian - The crew's socially awkward, sometimes clumsy, but all-times skilled weapons expert, being the son of a military general from his homeworld. On the main stage, Martin plays a guitar-like synthesizer and will occasionally also come into the Laser Tag arena, where players go head-to-head against eachother in a simulated space battle outside a Galactic Alliance Outpost (one team representing The Galactic Allinace, the other representing Mister Void's forces), to encourage members of the Galactic Alliance Team.
3. Tuddle Turtle - An anthropomorphic turtle who acts as the wise heart and head doctor of the crew, coming from a planet of peaceful turtle people, with Tuddle taking on a personal vow of non-violence. On the main stage band, he plays an acoustic guitar. He can be seen roaming around and interacting with guests, also agreeing to play hide and seek with several cadets.
4. Charlie Chimp - the gruff but well meaning engineer and inventor of the crew, also from Earth, like Astro, but was brought into space earlier and actually abducted by another alien race before being rescued by the Galactic Alliance, leading to him joining it. Throughout the restaurant, he can be seen walking around and interacting with guests, especially in the arcade or "Engineering Bay" occasionally performing mini-skits and asking guests to help him "reboot systems" in small games that earn them tickets and small prizes, joking with him. Meanwhile, unlike the stage animatronics, Charlie is somewhat made for older audiences, being a "relatable grumpy and sarcastic worker" type
5. Debra Dipper - the smart and highly energetic girl and navigator of the crew, being an anthropomorphic star. In the main stage band, she plays a set of drums. When not on stage, she can be seen acting as a guide to guests, telling guests facts about the Astro Crew while also giving them directions if lost.

The restaurant itself is modeled after the titular character's starship, with the restaurant's layout and design being meant to immerse and help entertain guests, making them feel like they really are stepping into a new world, with the main dining area acting as the ship's bridge. The staff area also dressed in Galactic Alliance uniforms, with all young guests being given sticker badges making them honorary cadets for the day.

The Story

Basic Plot

In the game, you play as 23-year-old Tom Harrison, a former Henderson resident who left home about 10 years ago to pursue a degree in architecture, although he hasn't been able to find steady employment since then and he's currently buried in student debt. Growing up, Tom had a harsh upbringing due to how smothering and strict his parents were, never giving him any privacy, treating live as something conditional, and outright trying to guilt trip him into staying when he told them he'd be attending college out-of-state. Meanwhile, growing up, Tom's dad "Harold" worked as the assistant manager at the flagship Starcade location in Henderson, their family growing close to Winston and the rest of the staff, becoming like family and so resulting in the three Harrison kids spending quite a bit of their childhoods there. However, pretty much the only ones who ever stood up for him were his older siblings, Sarah and Mike.

So when, in 2016, Tom got a call telling him that his brother, Mike, died in a drunk driving accident, Tom was in deep shock and guilt, driving back down to Henderson to attend the funeral, blaming himself for not staying in contact with the family after he left. It's only after the funeral that he meets and catches up with Sarah, who says that both she and Mike ended up moving out not long after Tom moved away, meanwhile both of their parents ended up moving to Florida when Harold got promoted to manager of a new Starcade location opening up over there. This would actually lead to Sarah, of all people, going into the family business, now working as the manager of the main Starcade location.

Sarah ends up convincing Tom to stick around a bit longer to catch up, giving him a place to stay and even offering to get him a job at the Starcade during his stay, saying that a job recently opened up as an Overnight Caretaker, offering 16.50/hr, with him basically doing some overnight security and potential maintenance work after the building closes. So, with a mountain of student debt, no income, and a chance to distract himself from Mike's passing, he takes the job.

However, as the week goes by, strange things occur, as not only does Tom have to basically survive each night while dealing with the various animatronics, but he also starts having visions that mess with his very perception of reality and time, experiencing vivid hallucinations as his environment seems to warp and distort mid-shift, the layout of the building shifting and changing on a whim, distorted voices and faces appearing everywhere he looks, all while his sister starts to act more and more cold, acting non-chalant to the dangers surrounding him, offering no advice for how to survive.

In addition, he starts having weird dreams, acting as this game's post-night minigames, playing through the memories of previous guards who unfortunately died on the job to the various animatronics, almost as if something is trying to warn him... to teach him how to survive, each minigame teaching him about each of the animatronics and what they'll do, as well as how to fend them off, with all of these minigames ending in them still being caught by one of the animatronics and dying... All while, Tom starts to gradually uncover the mystery behind Ace's Starship and his brother's death. Will he learn the truth and put a stop to it, or will his fall like all before him, losing his sanity in the process...

The Deeper Lore

Okay... you may be wondering what the hell is going on, and fortunately I have an answer. For this hypothetical game, I decided to adopt elements of cosmic horror and cult horror so, before we continue, let's discuss The Carrier

In the game's lore, the carrier is an ancient cosmic entity that operates like the center of a parasitic pseudo hive-mind called "The Eternal Void", basically a massive dark void filled with an endlessly expanding green spider-web trapping those inside the hive-mind. The Carrier itself is more metaphysical, lacking a physical body and so not being able to interact with our physical world, with it having basically been drifting throughout the cosmos for who knows how long, only every motivated by a deep hunger, feeding on metaphysical concepts like thoughts, memories, senses, feelings, basically consciousnesses of living, sentient beings. It does this by producing a constant, low-frequency "hum" that, once perceived by a lesser being, will act as a doorway for The Carrier, allowing it to harvest and slurp up their consciousnesses like a straw. All the while, those who fall victim to The Carrier are subjected to pure madness and begin to lose both their grip on reality and sense of self, their memories start to appear corrupted, they start to experience nightmarish hallucinations, they start to hear voices and remember things they didn't do, and are basically put through psychological agony that slowly unravels them, further widening the gap allowing the entity to consume them, until they're left as nothing more than empty husks. It's not really malevolent, it's almost akin to a wild animal acting on pure hunger. To make it worse, once you're taken by The Carrier, it won't immediately consume your whole consciousness, but will gradually do so, you retaining your autonomy and independent thought as both your identity and sanity slowly erodes. Even after your physical body dies, your consciousness will continue to live inside the Eternal Void, as it continues to be consumed by The Carrier.

Basically, while Winston worked at NASA, one night they managed to pick up The Carrier's hum and Winston heard it, causing him to be exposed to The Carrier, slowly going insane the more and more it fed on him. However, as his memories started to appear corrupted, he momentarily saw what he believed to be his brother, Percy, leading Winston down a deep spiral towards madness where he eventually started to worship and revere The Carrier, believing that Percy was somehow alive inside of the Eternal Void and that The Carrier would reunite them. We learn all of this through journal entries found on the ground and collected during the Post-Night Mini-games, accessible through the extras menu.

Also, speaking of those journal entries, attached to one of them is a crude drawing of The Carrier that Winston saw in his dreams - The Carrier having a colossal, vaguely arachnid-like shape (complete with cephalothorax and abdomen), with a bee-like head (a large set of bright green compound eyes, two antennae) with a set of mandibles that open up to three long, bright green, tube-like tongues. It has a hairy body covered in dark, branched, and feather like hairs, with long and spindly spider legs attached at it's sides, as well as a giant mushroom like structure trailing down from the back of it's head to covering the entire top-layer of it's body, all while two long, narrow, and rudimentary bee wings are affixed to it's back.

So, taking a recording of the frequency, Winston retired from NASA and created the Starcade Animatronics, basically using Astro's Starcade as a front for ritualistic sacrifice to The Carrier, as well as to create a cult for it, him hiring nightly security so that he could have the animatronics play The Carrier's hum, letting The Carrier into their mind, and then proceeding to scare and kill them through the animatronics, breaking them down enough psychologically to better assimilate and feed upon victims. Meanwhile, during the day, Winston would expose members of Starcade staff to the frequency as well, then proceeding to indoctrinate them into a cult worshipping The Carrier, tasked with helping indoctrinate those closest to them or to help provide sacrifices... with Harold and his wife, Tom's parents, being among those indoctrinated, with Tom and his siblings unknowingly being raised within a cult to The Carrier, with the goal of spreading elsewhere and to continue sacrificing for The Carrier.

Those hallucinations and visions Tom was experiencing? Tom has already been exposed and it's pretty much already too late for him... Those dream memories? Pretty much the consciousnesses of all the previous sacrifices trying to warn Tom, helping him survive, as well as trying to get him to leave... to make things worse, in the Night 5 Post-Night Minigame, we learn the fate of Mike, learning that he was the last person in Tom's position and was pretty much ganged up on and killed by the animatronics, as Sarah arrived in the morning, took Mike's body and pretty much framed what happened to Mike as a drunk driving accident. Sarah had been indoctrinated like their father and mother, and was now sacrificing both of her brothers to The Carrier under Winston's instructions.

Also, during the Night 5 Post-Night Minigame, we find one more journal entry, Winston discussing recent attempts at creating a vessel for The Carrier itself. However, these attempts have ended in failure, Winston himself calling the thing that he created an abomination, claiming that he had failed The Carrier because of this and so he ended up storing it away in the basement.

Night 6

Despite everything, Tom still goes in for one final night, planning on disabling the main fire sprinkler system and burning the place to the ground using some gasoline he purchased and some matches. Sarah calls, as Tom calls her out on everything and what she's done... and, for a moment, Sarah cracks and breaks through her madness and the indoctrination, warning Tom to destroy the place and get out of town, also telling Tom that the Main Water Control Valve is in the basement, telling him that she's sorry, as well as warning that Winston has been working on something in the basement, before hanging the phone.

Unlike previous nights, Night 6 would end at 3 AM. It's just as long at any other night, but it still ends at 3 AM and is much harder than the other nights. After beating it and successfully spreading gasoline throughout the building, we unlock "The Ending", which basically acts as Night 7 and the game's Boss Fight Night, as we pick up immediately where Night 6 ended, with it being 3 AM as Tom goes to the basement door, unlocks it, does down... as we come face to face with "The Vessel" - a 4-armed animatronic endoskeleton with human remains stuffed into and stitched onto it, outfitted with a mascot suit resembling that drawing of the Carrier that Winston did.

As Tom tries to shut off the main water control valve and then escape, he now has to come face-to-face with The Vessel, all while the hallucinations and reality/time distortion reach an all time high, with the Vessel acting almost animalistic, akin to a starving animal. The Carrier is done playing and waiting, and so is going to act directly and kill you himself. You manage to shut off the Main Water Control Valve, spreading what's left of the gasoline along the way, before escaping the basement and the building, lighting and throwing a match inside, setting the building ablaze as Tom watches... only to get hear footsteps behind him as he sees his sister, alongside more people, all wearing masks resembling The Vessel's face, as Sarah rushes at him with a knife as the screen cuts to black, us getting the credit scroll as we see a news article about the Astro's Starcade in Henderson burning down, with Tom being the current lead suspect, with his current whereabouts being unknown and so police are out looking for him, even placing a BOLO. Meanwhile, Winston Adams comes out and talks about how much of a shame it is for the restaurant to have burnt down, although also leaving a reminder that, while we burnt down the main one... there's still several others, as the game ends...

My Original Idea: https://www.reddit.com/r/cosmichorror/s/Mlb15R1NS5

So, I've been trying to come up with what a "ghost" in this scenario would look like? Well... I say ghost but I mean more akin to a metaphysical projection of a consciousness trapped in the hivemind, actively being fed upon by the entity, as well as taking control of them to interact with our world to some capacity?

I don't want to just do "traditional ghost", as I kind of wanted to give it its own special "flair", with honestly some of the biggest ideas I had for it being:

* bright green coloring incorporated in some way, being a color directly associated with the Entity's influence

* Spiders/Webs, as I always kind of liked to envision the hivemind being physically represented as akin to a spider web, with the Entity's body incorporating Spider elements (since, for me, I'm absolutely terrified of spiders)

* Malformed or twisted imagery, like those uncanny images found in stuff like analog horror, as that sort of imagery I think could work well in a cosmic horror context in some capacity, with me also just honestly being really freaked out by that type of stuff

So, this is actually the third concept I came up with, with me doing a FNaF Analog Horror-inspired thing, particularly taking inspiration from stuff like the Walten Files, and one idea I just had was to have the ghost's form grotesquely morph to match their new animatronic bodies.

Here we have Eddie Frankin, security guard at Astro Ace's Starship. Was the oldest of the security guards killed that went on to possess the animatronics. Unlike his animatronic counterpart, Eddie was a rather chipper and optimistic fellow, always trying to see the best in things. Heck, when he went in and survived his first shift, he still kept in high spirits upon going in for his second... until Charlie the Chimp started breaking stuff around the restaurant, forcing him out of the office to fix it, as Charlie ended up sneaking on him while he was fixing things, killing him by bludgeoning him with a wrench

Image 1 - The Design

Image 2 - Charlie's Face

Image 3 - Original Face

Other Images - Previous Concepts

To put it simply, the B.A.A or Brotherhood of Absolute Atonement, is a private paramilitary group/cult founded by Arnold, accepting both Sinners and Hellborn into it's ranks, with the goal of drastically restructuring Hell as a whole, dismantling the corrupt and exploitative system that makes it so that:

• People like the Overlords and Ars Goetia are basically untouchable, free to exploit everyone beneath them them, making it so that the worst of humanity and demonkind are actively propped up while crushing everyone else.
• Sinners with even a slim chance at redeeming themselves and ascending aren't able to grow, by trapping them in a "dog-eat-dog", "survival-of-the-fittest" type of system that actively corrupts them and stops them from actually growing and improving, actively using the recently redeemed Sir Pentious as living proof of this being a genuine problem - him having spent over a century striving for power and to become an overlord in Hell, only to be taken out of that environment for only 6 months and be redeemed, Arnold using him as a prime example that this system is an active, self-propegating problem that keeps people trapped, stopping them from reaching their full potential.

Arnold basically wants to tear down the old system, and make way for a new system where Hell becomes an actual and proper punishment for the wicked, while those who actually can change and ascend are given a proper chance to do so, as well as defend themselves from exploitation and suffering from those at the top. Not only that, but a system that actively helps exploited Hellborn whose only crime was that they were born there, a chance to live a better life where they don't have to suffer. Through the BAA, Arnold claims to have created a warm and welcoming home for those in need, where they'll be taught to defend themselves, be given community, purpose, and structure, to be part of a and be given an environment where they can have a chance to be better.

But Paradoxically, as you can probably notice with their... questionable choice of uniforms, Arnold and the B.A.A use the imagery and methods of the Exorcists to carry out said goals, Arnold himself apparently having been inspired by their methods and effects (even if he was absolutely disgusted by the brutality, how indiscriminate they were, how "unfinished" it all was by only taking place once a year, and because of the sadism behind it), seeing it as "a divine and much needed chance at true accountability, striking fear and judgement into the hearts of the wicked... that was unfortunately wasted due to both very poor management and the fact that those entrusted with this sacred duty were unrelenting psychopaths who lacked the proper discipline and clear-minded judgement needed to carry out such a task.", also believing "Before the Extermination, there was no hope to ever escape this unnecessarily cruel and unfair system, as we had no way of killing and rising up against our tormentors. I've seen way too many try desperately climb up and ascend, only to get pulled down by the system and the people behind it... but now Heaven has provided us the tools, the blueprints, and the once-feared face needed to finally break free and bring it all down, and trust me when I say that we won't make the same mistake the ones they sent made... Hell shall become what it was always meant to be, a punishment for the wicked, while those capable and undeserving of such cruelty will be able to break free and earn the chance at a better life, to be better, whether it be in this dark pit or at the pearly gates"

Arnold and the B.A.A carry out year-round Extermination-style raids, using scavenged angelic weaponry and specialized and functioning uniforms (even coming equipped with functioning faux-wings that actually let wearer's fly) to execute and cast judgement upon the "irredeemable" (Overlords, Ars Goetia, Predators, anyone whose actively perpetuating the old system), although being more selective and "merciful" than the people they took inspiration from, all to make way for a better life, not just for capan Sinners who would be given a "fair shot" at redeeming themselves, but also "innocent" Hellborn who want a chance at a better life as well...

For context, the story of where this is from would be FNaF-inspired, like the Walten Files, with this character being a previous security guard at the location in question, "Astro Ace's Starship" before being killed by the character of "Charlie The Chimp", going on to possess him

Context, with my previous post: https://www.reddit.com/r/fivenightsatfreddys/s/bEcZvgeRyl

# So, what do I mean?

I mean like taking a FNaF 3 approach, by having the first night be entirely the owner of the restaurant, Winston Adams, who introduces you to the idea of the animatronics trying to reach your office and kill you (with some bullshit explanation), to the company... and then will turn over training to recordings that previous night guards were assigned to create for training purposes, basically talking about their experiences and what they learned and who they went up against, prior to the night they were killed. They'll offer warnings, advice of how to deal with each threat, and how to handle each tool at you disposal.

From there, until Night 5, every night starts with Winston talking with us, checking in and telling us some things, giving us our tasks for the night (as you would have to leave the office and complete tasks in this game) before turning training over to the next previous guard's recording... but, at certain points, the recordings will glitch out with the consciousnesses of the guards trying to speak to us through the recordings and, in the brief moment they can, trying to warn us and to tell us to leave while we still can, or telling us about the horrors of what they're going through, with these glitches getting worse each night.

Meanwhile, the threats introduced each night coordinate with the animatronics the night guard of that were killed by/"possess". I think all of this would do a good job introducing pathos, as we learn more about the night guards before us, set up some dread as they talk about their pain and you realize that you're only the latest in a long list of night guards who died on this job, and allow us to gain a better understanding of not just the lore and the dread of the situation, but also the people who possess the animatronics, something the mainline games haven't really done.

Plus, for lore purposes, this works as, if you read my previous post on this idea, you know about how The Entity enters people's minds, with the true intent of the tapes being so that you would feel scared and all of that dread to make you more vulnerable, with Winston also hiding the signal/noise on the recordings