If I was bringing him back in I would mention how he died as a motive for what he is about to do.

EG: A decorated general of Shao Kahn's armies, Reiko was killed in battle because his Shokan (or Tarkatan) army refused to follow his command.

Due to his cruelty on the battlefield, Reiko found himself in the depths of the Netherrealm.

Shinnok then enlisted him into his newly formed Brotherhood of Shadow and he quickly rose up through the ranks.

While he still feels loyal to Shao Kahn he will take great pleasure in watching the genocide of Shokan forces.

As for his role: I cant imagine him beyond lackey status. Probably a more high profile lackey like Ermac or Mileena, but lackey none the less.

I'd go and give you another crazy idea...

Reiko is Rain! Rain is Reiko! You just got Inceptioned!

Also, Rain still works for Edenia! He's just undercover.

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I've heard the idea before, as you said, and I've played a bit with it myself. I think it's a good concept, but it's also more of wishful thinking. I doubt NRS would actually do something like that.

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The idea of him being a half-brother of Kitana and tied into all that family drama just doesn't sit right with me. 'Course, I have ideas of my own about Kahn's family, both natural and extended, an actual genetic offspring with Sindel would not fit in there comfortably for me...but that's a discussion for another thread I think.

I see Reiko's role of military strategist having all the potential depth he ever really needs as a character. Primarily because it is unique to him, MK does not already have a single other character with that as their area of expertise, all the other villains are either idiots or sorcerers.

As far as where his loyalties lie, the little bit of personality he's given in Armageddon portrays him as a consummate professional, he's civilized, calm, polite, almost honorable even, when talking to Taven. I get the impression he does behave with loyalty and dedication to whatever army he finds himself serving in...but he's smart enough to see an opportunity and take it if it favors him too. Obviously, something got him killed at some point and that's why he was working for Shinnok instead of Kahn in MK4, but the moment Shinnok's campaign went bad, he saw it coming enough in advance that he was able to cut and run rather than be sent back to Hell with Shinnok, lie low for a while 'till the heat died down, and sign back up with Kahn in Armageddon, so one presumes he definitely prefers being in Outworld.

With the helmet thing...I think it's a case of being loyal to the realm rather than to the man ruling it. Reiko obviously thinks he could do a better job running the joint...and maybe he's right since the defining aspect of Outworld under Shao Kahn's rule is anarchy, chaos, and constant rebellion, and Reiko is clearly a very order-and-discipline kind of guy. It's kinda surprising he never sided with Onaga.

"Future ideas"-wise, I believe the best chance to grow and develop Reiko would be in an Outworld where Kahn is dead and he has his chance to advance. Perhaps in MK10, Mileena's the heir to the throne but clearly too retarded to be a leader on her own. Someone's gotta teach her how it's done or, to put it more bluntly, pull the puppet's strings. Or conversely, there could be a civil war for control of the realm, her and the Tarkatans on one side, him and the non-crazy people on the other. And since MK10 would be in a timeline where MK4 has not yet happened and he is still supposed to be dead, you could then reveal that he's a mole Quan/Shinnok placed in Outworld to manipulate things, and he could either stick to that and help them try to conquer the place, or he could decide "screw them, I want Outworld for myself."

Had a similar idea in this topic:

http://www.mortalkombatonline.com/content/forum/showmessage.cds?id=142027

Except for I'd leave him actually alive, with the idea being that he died during the Outworld invasion of Earth in the original timeline, but not in this one

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It's not logically possible for Reiko's death to have taken place during MK1, 2, or 3, it had to be before then.

Reiko's rank was General both before and after his death. But Outworld only has one General at a time, it's the rank of the supreme commander of the army, there's not a whole bunch of generals at once, there's just one.

In the old timeline, Motaro was the General of Outworld during MK3. And the story said Kahn made a centaur the General specifically because the Shokans failed and died in MK1 and 2, meaning Goro and Kintaro preceded him. (which matches up with the movie also claiming Goro was General of Outworld, so the film didn't make it up, Tobias did.)

And Kano became General immediately after Motaro's death and stayed there until Deadly Alliance.

So Reiko had to be the General sometime before Goro was. He had to have died before MK1.
'Course in the reboot-verse they just change whatever they feel like regardless of what the old timeline was like, so I'm sure Goro was never general in the new timeline, and Reiko was around and died during MK2, since people say you could hear Shang announcing him vs. Kenshi in the background of a scene.

Well my idea for Shao Kahn's background is basically to explain why he went crazy and became a villain, why he married Sindel, why he wanted Kitana and then Mileena as a daughter...

The way I imagine it, back when he was Protector-God of Outworld and Onaga's advisor, he had a mortal wife and daughter of his own. And somehow, they were killed, murdered or caught in a crossfire by some warring faction or rebel types or criminals, what have you, and Kahn saw this tragedy as a sign that Onaga wasn't doing a very good job of ruling Outworld and Kahn needed to fix the place up with his own hands. Then down the road when he conquered Edenia, he kept Sindel and Kitana because they reminded him of his old family, but he could never quite recapture the magic, since they weren't his real family, and Sindel hated him and whatnot.

To me, the idea of Kahn trying to make more kids with Sindel kinda spoils this "trying to make it like it once was" idea of mine. Especially if the product were a son. Kahn has clearly always been all about wanting "the perfect daughter" for some reason, he seems to only like girls as offspring. Also, there's got to be a reason he, as an emperor who can have any woman in his realm he wants, has never just used sex to get a new child that he can say is biologically his, it's only adoptions and crazy experiments. And besides, if Reiko were gonna be a legit heir to the throne, it damn well would've come up when they introduced the whole stupid "stop sneaking into my throne room and putting on my helmet!" joke, or during one of the brief periods we all thought Kahn was dead. Reiko is obviously not a prince, he's a soldier. Maybe he's Kahn's protegé, to explain the similarities between them, but not his son.
And anyway, I see no similarities between Reiko and Sindel or Edenia. Why would there be? He has two-tone hair and eye tattoos that are similar to her hair and makeup I guess...but HIS are Brotherhood of the Shadow markings like Kia, Jataaka, and Sareena have.
Also, I like to imagine Reiko being the general DURING the invasion of Edenia, that he's so famous as a general because he was the one who was there for SUCCESSFUL invasion campaigns like that one.

I also always had an idea in my head, before MK9, that if Skarlet were to be made a real character, she could be his real daughter from before he turned evil, somehow resurrected, or she could be another one of his attempts to make a daughter with magic like Mileena is, except the base would be that first daughter instead of Kitana, and somehow she's a failure too or not quite what he wanted (like she looks like her, but the personality and memories aren't there so it's not the same, it's just a copy). The second idea could still be made true if one wanted to expand the vastly underdeveloped "he made her out of blood" story she has now.

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I believe Spider got the idea from me, actually. I've never gone into that much detail, but I have mentioned this idea of mine before. And I know I was the first guy to notice that bit in Khameleon's bio about Kahn getting strength from battle and theorize he was Outworld's God of War.
As for your Reiko stuff...how do you reconcile Kahn murdering him because he doesn't want a son challenging his power, with letting him come back and be general again in Armageddon?

Also, Kahn is never away from the throne long. Ever since at least Edenia, ALL realms he attempts to conquer require Outworld to win 10 Mortal Kombats before he's allowed to travel there, and if MK3 is any sign, a merger only takes, like, days at most. So there ARE no long campaigns for him to be away from home and not notice Sindel's pregnant.

Plus, ultimate villain though he is, I really don't see Shao Kahn as the rapist type. I don't think he and Sindel ever consummated their marriage, solely because she would reject it and I picture him as the type who has a psychological need for his "family" to willingly show him love and loyalty, hence why he never simply mind controlled Kitana when faced with the possibility she would turn against him one day.

And again, bottom line, complicating Reiko's backstory with soap opera drama is simply distasteful to me. I just don't think it fits his character at all.

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