Plague Rat and Chrono Ranger

I'm starting to think that Chrono-Ranger IS PLague Rat.

Let me walk you through it:

Fair warning, this gets a bit timey-wimey, but the rules of time travel, alternate dimensions and paradoxes seem to be more than a little fluid in the multiverse.

1. Jim goes to the future, where he is infected with the Rat Plague and loses an arm.

-We know that the plague is infectious, that being a basic tenant of plague rat's mechanic

-We know that it makes people more animalistic, from the artwork in plague rat's deck that depicts the heroes going feral.

2. Jim goes back in time to find the source of this plague and eliminate it.

3. Jim's bounties grow steadily darker (this is very speculative, and you may have a different perspective)

Dead or alive- he's gaining strength and regenerating health from the hunt.

No executions- he needs to remind himself not to kill.

By any means- He's growing more feral.

Kill on sight- he's starting to give in.

The Whole Gang- He's willing to take out entire groups.

The ultimate target- He's getting stronger and more relentless.

4. Plague rat has Chrono-ranger's poncho in his plague locus.

5. We know that the two of them fight, and going by Hunter and Hunted, its an epic battle. 

6. We know that CR ends up stranded between dimensions.

My thinking is that in hunting for plague rat, Chrono realizes what he is becoming and intentionally strands himself outside of time in order to try and prevent it- or at least make sure that when he changes, there are no victims around.

Now, its true that Plague rat has two arms (and chrono only has one).  but its entirely possible that he'll regenerate it as the infection consumes him.  this seems entirely in keeping with Plague rat's mechanic of infected heroes being able to regain HP through feeding. 

I'm interested to see what other people think.

I don't know how convinced I am, but that would be awesome if true

Interesting!  Plague Rat has no non-mythical backstory yet, so it's conceivable.  You made me notice that the Plague Locus also appears to have two of Gloomweaver's voodoo dolls in it (for Legacy and someone else; Bunker?)  Along with the syringes and the can, there are some glowing spherical objects that I can't identify.

Heh, and knowing >G, that will be important…

The second 'doll' is some sort of idol/artefact, I've checked Gloomweaver, the Ennead and the Tomb of Anubis but can find nothing like it

It's an interesting theory, and I'd love it to be true, but I'm curious as to whether you've put the bounties in that particular order for any reason other than to corroborate your ideas...

Interesting, you think it's something else?  That would make sense. I wonder how Plague Rat got all these items.

Incidentally, what's in the very upper-right of that image?

Part of a pipe outlet, spillng its contents off the side of the card

I think the glowing orb things in the Plague Locus belong to Nightmist - I have a vague recollection of seeing them in one of her cards somewhere, though I might be misremembering. If Chrono Ranger ends up becoming Plague Rat, wouldn't that mean that all of Plague Rat's current biography is false? About him being some drug dealer guy who ended up in the sewers and got all mutated and stuff?

Rats will hoard stuff, so Plague Rat having a bunch of random things in his nest isn't too far from the behaviour of real rats (though they mainly just hoard food, which is why you can't really overfeed a rat - they'll just stash the excess away somewhere).

I suppose if Jim deliberately stranded himself in time, it must be him who broke the sheriff's badge thing which appears to be his time-travel gizmo (it's seen sparking on the floor at his feet on his Incap side, and I think it's glowing somehow in one or two of his cards in which he's interacting iwth timey-wimey portals, like Displaced Armoury).

I put them in that order because of the severity of the effects/language, rather than any knowledge of their timeline.  Its entirely possible that the quote on the bottom of each bounty will place it more firmly in the overall chronology, but I'm not sure.

I'll readily admit that its a hunch.  Mostly I think it would be interesting.  Its entirely possible (likely, I think) that we'll find out some more information about the Rat and Chrono in future expansions that might shed some new light.  the artwork at the bottom of Setback's Bio has him and the Rat in combat, so I can certainly hope!  

Easy to check which issues they come from, the information on who says what on which cards and where they come from is on the wiki.

http://sotm.wikidot.com/heroes:chrono-ranger

And… I think you are unfortunately wrong. His first appearance is in Freedom Five Annual #10, which is the quote on  "By any means", which is your third placed bounty. Though with his time traveling you could still be right, it could be the first time the Freedom Five meets him, but not the first time he meets the Freedom Five

I had forgotten there were two versions of the biography.  The one on the SotM site is vague about origins, but the one in the Rook City rulebook indeed contradicts him being Chrono-Ranger (unless Chrono-Ranger becomes a drug dealer first, which is unlikely).  Neither biography gives a name for Plague Rat, though.

ah well.  another brilliant theory done in by inconvenient facts.

However, Ultimate Target's quote comes from one called "The Last Hunt"... The fact that it's the last could mean many things, but this is definitely one of them.

This used to be the inverse, where the rulebook had short vague bios, while the website had much more in depth background.  I think this changed with the website changeover around the time of Infernal Relics.

My biggest problem with your theory, as awesome as it is, is as follows. We know plague rat infects at least Legacy and Tachyon, but they do not become mutant rats, this leads me to believe they find some sort of cure for the disease. CON, being so far into the future and having the medical technology to amputate an arm and replace it with super awesome prosthetic, probably was also able to cure Jim of the disease while treating him. Also, Jim was attacked by a Rat Beast, not Plague Rat, and they might not be carriers of the disease. After all, I'm pretty sure the heroes cannot infect others, only Plague Rat can.

Still, awesome theory to draw them closer together

Ra gets Infected as well - I've gone completely blank on the card name but it's the one where you hit someone else at the start of your turn if you're Infected. Omg I am gonna kick myself when I remember it, lol - it seems to come out at least once in every game we play :P.

Afflicted Frenzy. The kicking may begin.

Perhaps his repeated exposure to the plague rat virus, through his many battles against him, caused it to mutate into something incurable. 

I would imagine that in order for it to spread as much as it seems to have in The Final Wasteland future, it must have mutated into something that other rat beasts could transmit. 

Perhaps after repeated battles Chrono Ranger kept being sent further and further back in time to try to find the origin of plague Rat to defeat him once and for all until he was sent back to a time where there was no Plague Rat to be found… and that's where he began to notice that the plague rat virus was changing him and he retreated to the sewers and began raiding pharmaceutical labs and drug supplies trying to find a cure. The

urban legends had it wrong, Plague Rat wasn't a drug dealer, he was a desperate man stealing drugs to save his life and the world. 

This I like, don't believe it, but it is awesome

Ha. Yeah, this falls more squarely in the world of fan fiction than it does the world of actually speculation. 

Shattered timelines also means alternate timelines.

Who knows, maybe in one reality Jim and the Rat have their epic showdown, the rat dies but Jim is dying too, but the virus mutates him and he ends up being the rat, only in his last moments as himself does he realize that it was himself he fought.  I could definitely see the ratness being passed on like a legacy powers style werebeast, only in this case to himself in a big old time loop.

Arse, Afflicted Frenzy, that's it. Argh. Thanks, lol.

On a tangentially related subject, did you ever notice that the Rat Beast's bone spurs look an awful lot like those on Thorathians?

Huh, the Thorathians have bone spurs. They seem to be on their shoulders, elbows, and knees. But I don't see one on Plague Rat?

He didn't say Plague Rat. He said the Rat Beasts. The Beasts have spinal spurs.

You know…given the nature of Voss's army, the Final Wasteland timeline could be very, very appealing to our intergalactic warlord. I wonder if there is any connection here. KNYFE's bio mentions special attention being paid to certain timelines over others. /shrug

Anyone else notice the two visual conflics on 'Shadowy Ambush' In PR's deck?

-Chrono's non-bitten off arm is wrong, supposed to be his right side(Not their first fight since he has the dart gun given to him by CON).

-His hat is blue(It's supposed to be brown/tan).

I'd chalk these up to just artistic changes for a character that hadn't been visually finished yet, but it's interesting to see the process...

I'd already noticed the arm-swap, but hadn't twigged the hat colour. Good spot :).

Hat colour swap? Sounds like an alternate universe/timeline to me. Kind of like that episode of Futurama with a gold Bender.

This was my thought as well. It could be just a color/arm swap, or it could depict a separate timelime event where Chrono loses the other arm instead?

Quick. Someone take a look at Kismet. Make sure the correct wrist is being shown.

Christopher once said to me that Chrono-Ranger wears a prosthetic skin coating over his mechanical arm from time to time.

As for the hat color, that is simply an article of clothing that can easily be changed when desired. I personally would think that he has multiples hats for when his others get destroyed.

Blasphemy!

Jim's hat is never destroyed, it is always teleported away milliseconds before it would be destroyed, called back to him by a future Jim via his displaced armory.

Well Fine, the portals are fairly blue. So one of the times he called for his hat, the portal temporarily dyed it.

Preposterous!

Next you'll be telling me Danny-Boy was dyed Green!

Well Danny can get a bit rowdy.  Maybe he thought he was Irish one day.

That was the joke, do you not know Danny-Boy?

Aye, I know him well, laddie.