Quick summary of this AU
CONTENT WARNINGS: experimentation, death, body horror, mental/physical torture/abuse, mental health and physical health issues
Basic Summary
2 years after the game’s current time, the war between toons and cogs is going in favor of the toons. The chairman is getting both nervous and desperate. Prethinker, who'd been quite aware of the whole situation, had a plan. That plan was a project he wanted to propose known as project overdrive. It had been his secret passion project he'd been working on with his husband Bellringer.
Prethinker had discovered a way to harness pure “toon energy” from the gags of toons and toons themselves, and after a complicated process was able to combine it with cog technology to create what’s essentially an upgraded override. Cogs who are given the overdrive chip, otherwise known as changnium, can achieve an overdrive state. Overdrive is a monstrous form that has animal traits based on random animals if toon energy from gags is used, and specific animals if toons are used.
Prethinker suggests sending these monstrous cogs out at night to take out resistance members. The chairman, who again is desperate and under blackmail shortly into the project’s company endorsement, puts more funding and research into this project. He was worried that the very limited energy from gags would make the project difficult, but then prethinker’s husband bellringer suggested using toons themselves. With the help of dip of course. The chairman, much to the secret horror of the VP and CFO, agrees to this and using some of the managers as test subjects if regular cog test subjects work. They do, so after six months to a year the managers the chairman is willing to let get experimented on get overdrive forms.
What no one but the chairman, Brian, Ben, and Brian’s “suppliers” (his family) know is that the chairman was blackmailed into letting this project happen. He'd wanted to back out when Ben and Brian revealed that the idea of using gag energy had been scrapped a long time ago, and that toons were being used. As it turns out, Brian has been working on Project Overdrive ever since his failed tune-up on Buck. During that time Brian discovered that toons themselves were better than gags as “toon fuel”. The narrative of the chairman being concerned about gags not providing enough energy and agreeing to using toons is a fabrication. Ben and Brian hold over the chairman’s head that they could go and tell everyone back in Suitopia that none of this was their idea in the first place, and that the chairman forced them to do it. Ben was good at fabricating evidence and acting after all. The chairman basically made a deal with the devil without fully realizing what he was getting into. To make things even worse, the CLO and CEO end up promoting and support Ben and Brian once they learn all the juicy details. The VP and CFO are forced to stay under threat of harm.
Managers with an overdrive have to deal with two new programs in their codes: Guides and killing instincts. Guides appear in their dreams to try and steer them in the “right direction” while killing instincts make them act animalistic. Toons cause them to go into a violent and dangerous state. Overtime during the AU, the managers learn how to take back control slightly so that they don't hurt their toon allies. Speaking of which, thanks to Will and Rain a secret alliance forms between the resistance and the managers to try and keep toons safe from both manager and employee overdrives. Managers who have control over themselves will still act animalistic, and then not remember much by morning (werewolf rules).
Supporting Details
-Rain and Will are the leaders of the Overdrive Containment Program
-The managers who have overdrive are Chip, Dave, Graham, Misty, Mary, Holly, William, Flint, Prester (late story), Desmond, Wilde, and Dana. Boardbot employees, specifically magnates and insiders, are used for employee overdrives to give manager overdrives allies in killing toons.
- the monstrous cogs are only sent out either at night, or during missions where toon groups are fighting in buildings
- there's very little known about monstrous cogs by the general public, half of them thinking that they're just rumors
-the toon resistance is trying to learn as much as they can with the help of the managers, though at first a lot of them didn't even want to associate with cogs. Rain had to convince them to work in secret with the managers, and in the process earned ire from some of them for dating a cog manager.
-threats against the managers and their loved ones are the only reason the managers haven't blasted this all out to the public
-The overdrive managers get better control of themselves over time, but there's a still a struggle to prevent shifting and aggression at times
-secret groups in the resistance are established and coined as “cog control”, a play on animal control
These groups are made of only the resistance’s strongest warriors
They're sent out either to seek out overdrive threats in the night and to come to the aid of weaker toons that have encountered them while in a building
They wear special uniforms and voice modulators that conceal their identities so that cogs.ink can't target them outside of work
They're also the ones that help the managers when it comes to getting over the “kill initiative” of the overdrive
Multislacker helps immensely with avoiding security detection, and if possible the managers try to obscure their identities (some such as Alton can't really do that)
Rain is the leader of the strongest cog control group and the tutor of all cog control groups, bubble (oc partner of chip) providing assistance when not busy with helping with taming overdrives
-”kill initiative” is coding that activates in the presence of a toon that has gags on hand. It heightens the fear and aggression of overdrive, making it so they're more likely to deal fatal damage rather than merely self defense when fighting toons.
Ways to activate overdrive: prolonged exposure to toons if there's too much aggression and stress, a special whistle
Overdrive forms produce dip, which is how they're able to kill toons
Overdrive forms have the animal traits of the toons that were killed in order to make the changium core that the overdrive chip resides in
There are toons known as “specialized toons”, which are toons with very powerful and unique gags. These toons are the primary targets for overdrive forms.
Important Notes
- the overdrive concept was originally made for @linxprime giants AU, so check out this page if you wanna see more cool art and AU stuff!
