Mr. Crimson

Mr. Crimson

"I am the head of CCORP, one of the greatest humanitarian organizations in the world. We care for all people and all their facades."

- Excerpt from Crimson's monologue in ACT II

Mr. Crimson is the main antagonist of No Time. He served as the final known leader of the family corporation CCORP (Crimson Corp) and also served as the overlord of the Time Agents. Later in life he became the apprentice of The Great Leader and supported him in his ambitions which were to rule the world. His influence on the island started during the mid 1980s when CCORP was founded, to begin his search for world domination.

At the beginning of the game, Crimson initiates the attack on the prominant Scientific facility, known as the Manhofer Testing Grounds on a large island close to the mainland called Root Island. The purpose of the attack at the facility was to steal important blueprints that were used to build the Time Machine created by E.R. Athor, to create a machine capable of time travel. Crimson used this technology to support The Great Leader and alter the past to give supreme power to him.

Early Life
Crimson was born somewhere on the island seemingly during the mid 1960s, considering his age in the late 2000s and his appearance in a graduating photo. He likely attended the St. Thomas School for education during his early childhood, then he went to St. Therese University in St. Andrey to get his major degree. Inside of E. R. Athors Laboratory is a photo of PC and Edward's graduating class, with Crimson located in the back with his standard blank expression. He also had 2 brothers which he had to fight for the family inheritance with, after his dad Sir Crimson ll died.

In the photo, the main character, Edward, and Crimson can be seen. Crimson can be seen in the background without his graduation cap on, darker hair, and his standard blank expression while looking at the camera.

However, before Crimson graduated, it is stated by himself during the mission, "Base of Actions" while inside Fort Dun, that Edward supposedly stole his ideas for the Sir Coffee machine, which started their conflict and what made Crimson despise Edward.

CCORP Influence
While CCORP appeared that it was it's own science research corporation on the outside, the corporation was actually responsible for stealing other scientific knowledge from separate scientific organizations. These events can be heard if the player is the in 80s and has a radio, but the St. Andrey station does not identify CCORP as the culprit.

Raid of the Manhofer Testing Grounds
While CCORP mainly stole technology, it is mentioned in the Prologue of the game that they were competing with Manhofer to create nuclear-fueled cars for the future of the island, and while doing so Edward discovered time travel while using the Uranium nuclear energy supplied to him. On the morning of April 14th, 1984, Crimson launched a raid on the Manhofer facility while Edward and PC were testing the Time Machine to go one hour into the future. Right after PC came back from the jump, the facility was on fire and the agents attempted to kill him, but with the help of Edward's taser gun, that was prevented. After the raid was a success, and Crimson had the time machine's blueprints, CCORP then created portable time machines for the agents to use on their backs, beginning the schemes of Crimson to being the Great Leader to power.

Facility Mission
On June 7th, 1989, Crimson ordered his agents to go to the small Manhofer Facility (Known in the future as the Manhofer History Museum of Science) behind the Courthouse in Pine Lake to steal more technology. The technology Crimson wanted to steal was Edward's blueprints for the Dimension Box that were contained in a safe on the upper floor of the building. In the mission, the player goes back in time to prevent the purloining of the blueprints, so that it can be used for the player's benefit. When knocking out one of the agents from the top floor, a letter will drop from Crimson, however, he he refers to himself as C as the sender in the letter. The writing mentions the fued that Crimson has with Edward, regarding the Sir Coffee project from their university, and gives the instruction to the agents that he must not impede his plans, and that he needs to be taken down.

Crimson in the Alpha Timeline
After Crimson gained the ability to travel through time from the raid, he started planting Trackers around different points of time in the town. These trackers were used to lure the two main characters into investigating them and giving Crimson their location. Initially, Edward thought that the devices were used to create portals in time to the dates they were in, but after taking apart one, he realized his mistake and the Time Agents appeared right outside his laboratory to take them as prisoners in an alternate timeline.

Crimson in the Beta Timeline
Subsequently after the agents had taken Edward and PC as prisoners at the end of ACT I, Crimson was able to manipulate time without the interference of either of them to stop him, which allowed him to manipulate the timeline so that he ended up being the ruler of the town, naming it City 1. In this alternate timeline, the Beta Timeline, Crimson became mayor in the early 2000s and promised for a good future for the town and the island. He started to introduce the concept of a One World Bank which required the civilians to purchase items via a chip in their hands or their head. A few years later, a deadly virus emerged from a laboratory called the X-09 Plague.

The plague crippled society and many people died, leading to a vaccine which was poorly developed and created many adverse reactions, as well as many more deaths due to severe side effects. Soon after, Crimson built the ATMO Exchange right by Ravenholly that was supposed to reduce climate change and take in energy from the atmosphere. Unfortunately, that did not go as planned and the air quality around the island became extremely poor, wiping out the environment, leaving dead trees scattered around and making everything lifeless. In response to this, Crimson ordered that all citizens wear masks to preserve the valuable oxygen in the air that was left.

In the mid 2010s, City 1 began to develop barriers around Pine Square, along with Seeker drones and gunships that begun to patrol around the town for any suspicious activity amongst the citizens. Also around this time, the Nutrient Gray Station was implemented as the alternate replacement for Bardey's Coffee instead of the Pizzeria, it would seemingly produce servings of a gray substance with those who had their Special mark for the One World Bank economy. In the year 2019, the two main characters were brought to a makeshift prison by the St. Thomas School and they eventually confronted Crimson in Tower 1. He tried to kill both of them with the Executioner, an altered version of Edward's Training Bot, but failed. As a result, he set off a nuke in Tower 1 before leaving with his Time Jet to the 1940s to visit Fort Dun.

At Fort Dun, he imprisoned the documenter Henry Philas and the local sheriff Clint Westwood to prevent the actions of CCORP being documented and taken down by Westwood's children in the future to keep CCORP running. They both are freed by Edward and PC and are brought to 33 A.D. by Edward. Crimson commands the agents to search for them but he is not succesful in finding them so far in the past. Near the end of the Act, Crimson's location is not known but he manages the production of the Trackers by communicating with the agents, via a hologram at the Crimson Mansion in the 1970s. At the end of ACT II, Crimson is sent to 300 BC via the virus created by Edward to prevent him from altering the timeline ever again.

Crimson in the Gamma Timeline
In the year 1979, an alternate version of Crimson which resulted after the Alpha/Beta version being trapped in 300 B.C. was taking his daily stroll around the outskirts of Pine Lake when he encountered the landmark of the abandoned 33 A.D. robot, which was used to fight off the horde of agents as the entirety of CCORP was summoned to take Edward and PC. As he was inspecting it a capsule appeared to him unexpectedly from the past, which contained a letter for PC but it told Crimson the events which occured to Edward after he was taken by an agent to 300 B.C.

After this discovery, Crimson decided that he would find a way to invent Time Travel by himself, instead of stealing the information from other corporations. As CCORP progressed throughout the years, they brought many new inventions and innovations to the town and to the island. Early versions of Hover Technology was being invented and Nuclear Fusion Fuel was already available to the public. Along with these new additions to the island's technological status were Crimson's two structures developed to create Time Travel, one under Mount Uroruh dubbed the Uroruh Time Machine, and one underwater called the Deep Sea Base. Around this time, Crimson decided that he would employ Edward's Gamma Timeline counterpart into CCORP due to his intelligence. After recruiting this alternate Edward, he deployed him at the Aurora to observe the construction of the Uroruh Time Machine and the Deep Sea Base.

Trivia

 * Mr. Crimson's appearance is based off the wizard character Saruman from The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, who also serves as the villian in the series, featuring a similar white outfit that changes hue from different perspectives. And he also says a quote from Saruman “I see that this wise course does not commend itself to you, but why not?”.


 * In the Beta Timeline, a large portion of the story is based off the plot and contents from the Beta and the regular version of the game Half-Life 2, the most notable being Tower 1, a reference to The Citadel, Ravenholly, the name based off the town Ravenholm, the Cremators, the Air Exchange, and the quote, "Preserve valuable oxygen", which is also part of the antagonist's(Dr. Breen) rules to the citizens.