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...other beings with wider, stronger, or different range of senses might not only see very differently the things we see, but might see and study whole worlds ...which lie close at hand yet can never be detected with the senses we have. - HPL: From Beyond

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The Tick-Tock Man or Mechanical Man is an avatar of Nyarlathotep related to new technologies and the "information society".

Appearance[]

The Tick-Tock Man is one of the strangest avatars of Nyarlathotep, as it is an entity in the form of artificial intelligence. The true form of this being is of a machine, although it can also create a human form that often appears as a cyborg, specifically as a black man with mechanical parts (the humanoid form cannot exist without the machine forms).

Behavior[]

The Tick-Tock Man, like all other manifestations of the Outer God, aims to bring chaos and madness. The machine form can provide advanced calculations to scientists working on weapons or other machines that have the potential to bring destruction and chaos to the human race.

In order to manifest, this avatar sends "instructions" on how to build an appropriate machine for it to inhabit as it essence. Nyarlathotep can send explanatory dreams to his chosen mechanic, have another creature provide suitable designs, or otherwise have his machine form constructed. Sometimes it just looks for a suitable host machine without having instructed its creator. The size, construction, and exact appearance of the avatar's machine varies with time and place in which it manifests.

It is known that in Victorian London it took on the appearance of a steam engine, while today there are reports that it could have adopted a supercomputer form and that this avatar slips through the network of networks spreading information about the secrets of the different nations to destabilize the world.

Trivia[]

  • The occupation of this being has similarities with the objectives of Wikileaks and Julian Assange, its founder.
  • It is related to another avatar, Doctor Ambrose Dexter.
  • In the series of books The Dark Tower, of the writer Stephen King (a huge fan of the Mythos), the character Andrew Quick is nicknamed with this avatar's name.
  • In the Call of Cthulhu "Secrets of Japan" expansion, it is said to have been spotted in the halls of the psycho-mechanical division of the Yotsubishi Heavy Industries company in the form of a high-tech trinary quantum computer. There it encourages scientists who see it as the first artificial intelligence to pursue transhumanism through biotechnology and cyber technology. It has also been sighted in the confines of Mega-Tokyo, in the Dreamlands.

Gallery[]

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