Hugo

Real pleased to meet you! I'm Hugo, Hugo Patrick. I came here from Earth as a crew member of the spaceship Hermes...

― Chapter 5

Patrick Hugo (Japanese: パトリック・ヒューゴ) is one of Doctor's patients, making his first appearance in Chapter 5. He is a talkative astronaut who was supposed to participate in a space program to visit other planets.

Appearance

Most of Hugo’s physical features are obstructed by the EMU suit he wears, but he appears to be a portly fellow with a large body and rounded hands and fingers. The suit has an emblem of a white bird flying over a green-and-blue planet on the left shoulder, possibly the logo of his space exploration company. One promotional artwork shows his twin daughters both having blonde hair, though it’s difficult to determine how much of their father’s genetics they retained. He states there is a picture of his family affixed inside the helmet, although he has been unable to see it properly as it is stuck to the back. During his Mindhack, Hugo recalls a memory of his daughters laughing at his mustache after it became covered in foam from a Guinness beer.

Personality

Hugo is said to have an open-minded and forward personality. He has a sense of humor, once jokingly suggesting to Hermes' commander that they should consider installing a chimney on the ship for the holidays, and has no problem connecting with just about anyone. Upon crash-landing near the facility, he immediately saved Newbie Guard by tackling him out of the way of a falling tree at the crash site, which Newbie is incredibly grateful for. He is quick to refer to Doctor as his friend and has a tendency to describe things as "grand". Hugo is an optimist and tries to make the best of any situation he's in, opting to think of his status as the lone-survivor of his crew as an "unexpected vacation". While the Doctor can optionally threaten him in Chapter 5, Hugo simply accepts the possibility of living in a nightmare and is grateful to not be by himself. His modus operandi as a space explorer is to be kind, positive, resilient and wise. Above all else, Hugo is an incredibly loving family-man. He speaks of his beloved wife Sarah and twin-daughters Mia and Daisy at almost every opportunity, devoting messages to them in public transmissions to his home planet. He speaks of them often in his Mindhack, even having Sarah's name be one keyword the player must type to progress later on.

Being such a social person, Hugo does not handle himself well alone. Following a failed excursion through an unknown substance in space, Hugo woke up in Hermes, after the cold-sleep device meant to keep him in a temporary coma while they travelled through it on autopilot, had malfunctioned. Hugo was the only one left on the ship, realizing that his crew mates had all passed within stasis. Hugo soon became incredibly lonely, gradually losing his mind over the months he spent alone. He began to play chess with two personas of himself to cope, dubbed “Patrick” and “Hugo”, and wrote numerous letters address to his own name. Along with his designated cold-sleep device, the food storage module on Hermes became damaged, leaving Hugo alive without any food left to eat. He soon began to starve within the ship, losing both his sanity and memory as time went on. As his starvation and loneliness persisted, he became more aggressive and emotional and was wracked with guilt after consuming the remains of his crew mates to survive.

The events of Chapter 5 reveal that what’s seen of Hugo in game is actually a hive-mind of alien parasites disguised in his body, basing their behavior on what remains of his memories. Despite becoming a self-described “zombie”, Hugo only flies into an animalistic frenzy once his mental structure is completely destroyed, implying the memories of his life and the feelings attached to them were strong enough to defy even death. In one extra file, Hugo describes feeling his body burning with love for his family, defying even his own paradoxical death and retaining his consciousness for the chance that he may see them again. Once his personality structure is erased, Hugo--or rather, his parasite--becomes vicious and aggressive, hissing and growling wildly and attacking the nearby HOTFIX guards. Strangely, Hugo seems to become docile once accidentally tackling into Unid later on, ceasing his attempt to attack Doctor.

Story

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Background

Hugo Patrick was a member of Hermes, along with Ryan, Sally, and his commander the space ship sent from earth, on Earth he was a loving husband to his wife Sarah, and a loving father to his two daughters Mia and Daisy, on the year 199?/1/6 in a personal recording he remarks "Today, our payload specialist, Ryan, reported something strange. A certain "foreign object" in our path." due to the object they agreed it was safe enough to leave it to the ship’s autopilot and go into a suspended sleep for two weeks. Hugo woke up a week earlier tben orginally planned, the crew was still "asleep." he found that the whole ship was off and they had strayed onto a whole different path, he was stranded in space with no food. he starved for 7 days straight, hallucinating from the hunger, such hunger resulted in him opening up one of the cryogenic pods, specifically Ryans, and inside he didn't find his crewmate, but rather a writhing mass of horsehair worms, due to his mental state, Hugo ate the worms, thinking of them like noodles "it tasted like chicken" was all he could describe it as. he slept that night and opened sally’s the next, only to find that it was the same for all of the crew. none of them remained, as isolation set in Hugo began to talk to himself, spliting his mind into two, Hugo and Patrick. the only thing that kept them going really was the thought of seeing his family and two daughters again. slowly though, whether due to the parasites already being inside him like the rest of the crew or from consumming them, Hugo slowly lost himself, no longer being human.

Chapter 5

A long time later, his ship crashes into the courtyard right outside the doctor’s office, directly in a tree, when hugo emerged, his body moved on autopilot and lunged towards Newbie, wether this was Hugo lunging to newbie to protect him from the tree falling, or the parasite lunging towards Newbie out of hunger is unknown, its only known that Hugo Patrick sees it as if his body was moving on autopilot, Newbie brings Hugo inside due to him being injured, Hugo attempts to communicate but can not, but judging by the amount of letters, it is likely he is attempting to say his name. once hes brought inside FORMAT finds a bug on Hugo and Hugo is taken to the debugging room to be debugged

Gallery

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Trivia

• His hobby is playing a button accordion, and his favorite song is Sally Gardens Reel.
• His favorite drink is Irish Coffee.
• The thick collar of Hugo's EMU suit is inspired by a rabbit's dewlap.
• Hugo shares a name with one of his crew members, Patrick Neal. To ease confusion, he goes by "Hugo" to differentiate himself.
• According to the parasites posing as him, Hugo is Irish-American and speaks with a slight accent.
• Hugo's name may be derived from the Hugo Award, a literary award given to the best science-fiction stories.
• In Chapter 5, Hugo makes a reference to American astronaut Neil Armstrong's famous quote; “That’s one small step for a man. One giant leap for mankind.”
• The name of Hugo’s spacecraft, Hermes, being taken from a Greek mythological deity may be in reference to NASA’s Apollo Program, which follows a similar naming convention.

• Hermes was known as the messenger of the Zeus, the ruler of gods in Greek mythology, as well as a guide for the deceased who lead their souls to the underworld. This may have influenced Hugo’s role as a messenger of Earth as well as his status as an undead being.
• Hermes was the Olympian god of numerous things, including travelers and hospitality, language and writing, astronomy and astrology. Some of these ideas are present in Hugo’s story, such as his role as an astronaut and explorer and his desire to communicate with the people of MINDHACK’s home planet.
• Hermes’ association with birds and travel may have inspired the logo for Hugo’s space program, that being a white bird flying over a planet.
• Hermes later became known as Mercury in Roman mythology, which shares the name of the space program that prefaced the Apollo Program.
• One myth involving Hermes and Apollo involves Hermes stealing some of Apollo’s cattle, disguising their tracks with woven boots to lead them away and eat them. This may resemble Hugo “disguising” himself with his EMU suit, becoming unable to take it off after consuming his crew mates.