Ok, so, I've been putting some more thought into my headcannon Black Void big boss character. Here's what I've got:
Her official title and rank in the organization is "The Abyss Lord", and she holds direct command over all Dread Lords. If someone wants to be a Dread Lord, they need her approval, or no go.
She's actually relatively new on the scene, having only come onto the scene a few centuries ago, where she took over by systematically subjugation the most powerful Dread Lords one by one.
Despite her status, she gives the Dread Lords a lot of autonomy. Basically, so long as they stay loyal, pay occasional tribute, and ask how high when she says jump, they can do whatever they want. Basically the same rules as planetary governance in warhammer 40k. She does this, and uses Watson as overseer of the void at large, in order to keep the masses in the dark about her existence.
The way she got to be how she is, though, is another story entirely.
They way she got to be how she is now is cuz of the power she got after her botched attempt at a warp jump lander her in the middle of Tainted Space, like I said above. She used her powers and patience to manipulate each Dread Lords mind one by one. A good number had enough willpower to resist, but she got around that by taking a second person, implanting them with the Dread Lords memories, and reshaping their appearance and personality until they were essentially and exact copy, with the only difference being that they would obey her every word, and then simply killing the original and having the copy take their place.
One of the key reasons she's stayed in power, aside from being almost impossible to go near without being susceptible to her power, is that only the Dread Lords even know she exists. She keeps them quiet with threats, and when that doesn't work, she either does the switcheroo trick or she simply alters their mind a bit so they comply.
The reason she doesn't do this to everyone is cuz she is wary of the limits of her powers. She knows that all it would take is one mistake while doing some mental rewiring to create cracks in the facade, and then everything would come falling apart. It's almost happened before many times, in fact. So she avoids using her powers where she can as a precautionary measure.
In addition, there is one thing that is a utter dead giveaway for those she's used her powers on, and that's how even small alterations can cause large amounts of genetic Taint in the victim. Rewriting someone's whole look or personality, or rewiring them to become loyal, will cause enough taint that gene mods and microsurgions will no longer have any effect at all.
So not only does she have to worry about cracks in the facade of her own creation, she has to worry about what may come later down the line as a result of the Taint.
A few Dread Lords she had to replace more than once because the replacements either went insane or started to mutate. This is yet another reason she doesn't just use her powers like crazy.
Currently, she has 4 goals. The first is to find a way to better control her powers, so that the ones she alters or copies can become completely unnoticeable or flawless respectively. The second is to find a way to stabilize the taint so that she does not have to monitor those she changes. The third is more of q side project that she isn't really focusing on too much, but would he massive if she managed to succeed, that being finding a way to expand the scope of her powers to affect machines, as right now she can only alter organic life. She can't even corrupt or contaminate microsurgions, which is why she doesn't just contaminate a ton of microsurgions and crop dust whole planets at with them to take them over all at once. That and there are a few other reasons, as stated below.
And finally, she is seeking out ways to expand the scope of her powers, as right now she can only use them when making direct physical contact.
And she has already found an answer to the fourth one.
Somehow, when someone with high enough taint of any kind enters Tainted Space, or if someone in Tainted Space becomes Tainted enough, she is able to exercise total control over them so long as she is also in the same Tainted Space, with seemingly no limit on distance. She can turn dozens of people into her slaves and reshape them into anything or anyone she wishes from entire systems away, and give them orders en mass or even directly control individuals like puppets.
And so, she has a new third goal: to find a way to spread Tainted Space across the entire universe, so she can rule over it like a god.
There's only one real monkey wrench in her plan. One person has managed to not only resist her power, but be almost completely immune to it. This is due to the absurd and varied amounts of Taint he had acquired throughout hundreds of years of traveling the stars. And though the it eventually destroyed him, he unknowingly managed to pass on the immunity to his heir, creating the last hope the universe has against the Abyss Lord and her plans to become a god.
I also have another headcanon involving the Abyss Lord. One that, tbh, is kinda fucked up.
Ok, so, Amara one time almost got shade killed while on a job. And while shade forgave her, Amara still felt guilty, and eventually had an epiphany, and realized just how much she cared about shade and her daughter.
So Amara started to hatch a plan to rat out the Abyss Lord and run use the chaos to fake her death so she could live with shade and their kid.
But the Abyss Lord caught on, and decided to swap Amara for a replacement and kill the original.
My plan is for this to be revealed to you and shade at the same time, and for the two of you to look on in terror as the Abyss Lord says that she had to make a second replacement after the first one starting to become mentally unstable, and when shade denies this, the Abyss Lord then proceeds to make another replacement right in front of the two of you, kill the other replacement, and has the new replacement say information only Amara would know, like the date she knocked up shade, the day she found out shade was preggers, and where and how the two of them first met and hooked up, all to prove to shade that she was telling the truth, before ordering the new replacement to kill her and Steele.
Waddaya think?
