I like Noob Saibot and I like Sub-Zero. What if Bi Han(1st Subby) was turned into Cyber Sub-Zero, killed, then turned to Noob Saibot. A lot of resurrecting, but we end up with Sub-Zero and Noob at the end. I've always wanted to see an alliance of Scorpion and Sub-Zero as well. Even if they eventually turn on each other like Quan Chi and Shang Tsung did.

Biggest disappointment about Cyber Sub-Zero is that he dies. It seems like a total loss. Especially if we miss out on the MK:D version of Sub-Zero, not to mention Frost :(

Bi Han loses to Scorpion as usual, except he isn't charred to the bone. Some of him remains salvageable. The Lin Kuei takes his remains and as a way to "honor" him, creates a cyborg with his remains. Kuai Liang takes this as an insult and goes renegade. This even leaves the door open for Noob Saibot as Bi Han's soul descends to the neatherrealm.

Bi Han can go on to newer things as Noob Saibot, and Kuai Liang has further reason to hate his clan...admittedly, not the most thought out way, but, I really don't think what we got was very well thought out either.

In MKA I Kreated-a-Fighter named Absolute 0. Its story is that since Kuai Liang kept eluding the Lin Kuei, the clan used their most advanced AI technology to reanimate Bi Han's remains and track him down. The result: an undead robot cryomancer with Bi Han's natural abilities and no ambitions of its own because it's pure computer.

The complete lack of personality makes it even more of a loyal, thoughtless killing machine than Sektor or Cyrax; it will never try to defect or usurp the clan, and its unwavering loyalty to the current Grandmaster would make it a deadly threat to the other two 'borgs as their story arcs progress in those directions. Absolute 0 would be set apart from the others, filling in the third side of the cyber triangle: we already have Domination Robot (Sektor) and Sympathetic Reformed Cyborg (Cyrax), and Absolute 0 would be the full-on Silent Seek-and-Destroy Drone.

And he wouldn't have looked like the other 'borgs. He would have looked a bit more like a modified human corpse, and thus more sinister, like this.

Also, I would have done some different things with the special moves. A freeze missile instead of a standard ice ball, because come on now. A jet-propelled ice-slide attack instead of the usual ninja slide because, I mean, really. Ice grenades should freeze every time, not just whenever they freaking feel like it (if that makes them overpowered, just shorten the freeze range and/or duration). Exploding teleport? Why not make a nod to his old MK3 move and have him turn himself into an Ice Shower? Imagine this: he explodes into ice crystals and shoots straight up, then showers down and coats the opponent. A second later the ice coating explodes, and he reforms as the enemy goes flying across the screen. For the enhanced version, it becomes unblockable and the enemy has to dodge out of the way.

All in all I like the idea of a Cyber Sub Zero, but I think he was given a halfhearted execution in this game. How much more dramatic could it have been if Kuai Liang had to face two versions of his brother who want to kill him? Maybe knowing the whereabouts of both Bi Han's body and soul would give him hope of restoring and redeeming him? And why are so many of CSZ's specials just copy-pastes of Sub Zero and Cyrax, when an ice-robot fusion opens up so many new opportunities?

Instead NRS blindly marched into territory where they're surrounded on all sides by enraged fans, when they really should have known better. But at least CSZ's death makes it possible to hit the Resurrect button and undo the whole mess.

I also would've gone with them reanimating Bi-Han's dead body as a personality-less cyberdrone.
...I would've still automated Smoke too, though. Cyrax sucks as the "feel sorry for him because he was turned against his will" character because there's no best friend who cares for him, feels bad for him, and wants to save him/turn him back dynamic like Smoke and Kuai have, and he ends up learning to live with his tech enhancements rather than wanting to escape them.

Agreed, very true.

In all honesty, I like how NRS did it in Story Mode, and I hope to see him return as a canon cyborg in future games. As I wrote in another thread, a human Subbie would be nice to have as an alternate outfit, like with Sektor and Cyrax, but his main and canon appearance should be his cyborg one, in my opinion.

I have never been fond of the whole re-animating Bi-Han's body into a cyborg idea, because then there would be 3 Subbies... And I wouldn't want that. That's just one too many for my preference which might be the reason why I dislike Frost as well, who basically felt like a female Subbie clone at best.

Cyrax might have been automated against his will, but so was Subbie. I prefer to see it as Subbie and Smoke having switched places rather than Cyrax having taking on the whole "victimized cyborg" role. But it's nice to see that Subbie and Smoke weren't the only two to resist the Cyber Initiation. In the later games, MK4-MKA, we see Cyrax wanting his humanity back... why would he want that if he voluntarily became a cyborg? His role in this game makes alot more sense to me.

But anyways, that was a sidetrack. As for Subbie's storyline, I just wanted to see Raiden and Smoke do more to try and prevent the Lin Kuei to grab Subbie at the coliseum. It was rather anti-climatic to have them just stand there, being all "Oh well, not much we can do about it" when we have just seen Raiden fry alot of cyborg ass to save Smoke from the fate that befell Sub-Zero. If only they had fought it somehow, just a bit at least...

But other than that, I find Cyborg Sub-Zero a refreshing change to his original storyline, and he will still be able to do the things he did in MK4-MKA, but just as a cyborg this time around. But first I am interested to see what will happen to him as a slave of Quan Chi along with the other dead heroes...

The sequal can't come soon enough. ^^

Cyber Sub-Zero was fine. But him getting killed off. No! Bad NRS! *Squirts bottle* He could dedicate his life to trying to give all the automated warriors back their souls, starting with Cyrax. Oh, and have Smoke survive and get the scar on his face.

If you're counting Noob Saibot, then there already ARE three Sub-Zeros in MK9 as-is. Which of them is the cyborg wouldn't change the number. There were three Sub-Zeros in the original UMK3/Trilogy too.

I count Kuai Liang as one, wether he's human or cyborg. I don't say "Human Subbie is one, Cyborg Subbie is two", because he is still one person, just changed. So in my book, there have been two Subbie's so far; Bi-Han and Kuai Liang.

However, I would say that a re-animated Bi-Han turned into a cyborg while Noob Saibot still exists would then be a third Subbie, because he is not really Bi-Han - it's just his dead body being re-animated into a cyborg. And then we would have Kuai Liang as Subbie, Bi-Han as Noob, and then a third cyborg Subbie... And THAT is what I don't want.

One Subbie is enough, in my opinion, and right now that is Kuai Liang in cyborg form. I want Bi-Han to stay as Noob and keep his shadow clone powers - I've read that there are people who wants him to return as the original Subbie again, something about the soul vortex cleansing his spirit for the darkness Quan Chi put in him to turn him into Noob, or something like that... a theory I do not support. And Bi-Han's body should stay dead, in my opinion, not being tampered with.

And as for Frost, should she return, I'd want her to have completely unique moveset than Subbie, like NRS did for Kenshi in this game, making his moveset completely different from Ermac's.

Well I don't support Noob ever becoming a Sub-Zero again either, but there's still three spaces on the select screen filled by only two members of the Liang family in both MK9 and Trilogy.
Hell, there's four different iterations of Sub-Zero in MK9 if you count the fact that Sub's primary costume is Kuai but his alt is Bi-Han.

I go for the story interpretation of who Subbie is, not how many slots either form fills on the character select screen.

Well from my point of view, Cyber-Sub-Zero is not Kuai Liang as I know and like him, so him being "not Bi-Han" instead would be no different...except for the fact that Kuai would no longer be ruined AND that cyber armor would become a character of its own that I'd be interested in seeing what happens to next.

The family name is unknown at this point.

Well, that's you defining who is who through personal preference and opinion... That's not state of fact though. But suit yourself. *shrugs*

Do Chinese people commonly have middle names and use them in conversation with each other? Because I can't help but notice, Bi-Han has a hyphen, meaning it's one name, whereas there's a space between Kuai and Liang, meaning two. So if Liang isn't Kuai's last name, then why would NRS bother giving him a middle name he doesn't need but leave his last name a mystery? That doesn't make sense for a writer, whose intention was to at long last reveal the birth names of the characters, to do.

Saying Bi-Han's corpse is not Bi-Han because it doesn't have his soul would also be personal preference and opinion, from my perspective. The brain contains identity, memory, and personality, after all, and there are lots of characters in fiction who have no souls, yet are still themselves.

Though I agree, then don't you find it unnecessarily complex to have both Bi-Han's body and soul as seperate characters, just to have another Subbie? I mean, Sub-Zero is a great character, but he's not THAT great that I feel the need to keep making more versions of him to put into the game... Personally, I wouldn't think it would be a good solution. I would rather stick with what we have now - a shadow wraith Bi-Han and a cyborg Kuai Liang.

At least Liu Kang's Zombie and Spirit form were mere alternate outfits of the same character. So if someone wants a human Subbie again, then I would just have it be an alternate outfit rather than a whole new character.

I actually wonder why they haven't given Smoke his cyborg form as an alternate outfit yet... but that's for another thread.

I don't see it as having "another Subbie", I see it as creating a completely new character. Cyber-Sub doesn't look like Sub-Zero or fight like Sub-Zero, after all. (Although, if I had made MK9, Cyber-Sub wouldn't have the deep freeze or slide either, he'd have a COMPLETELY unique moveset.)

And that new character would have a completely new and original storyline we've never seen before, whereas making Kuai the robot just ended up being a rehash of Smoke's MK3 story, with the roles reversed, which is boring and uncreative and resulted in both Kuai and Smoke having worse stories than they did the first time.

Personally I would have made Cyber Sub-Zero the Corpse of Bi-Han, have Scorpion kill him in a way that isnt Toasty, have his Spirit go on and become Noob, and the L.K get freaky with his Corpse.

I would have made Kuai Liang escape as in the old timeline, and for his treachery the lin kuei had been holding his sister in a different area in the case that he and bi han ever decided to defect.

Then they made his sister the cyborg for kuai liang's abandonment. Then he not only has bi han gone but now his sister as well.

i would actually have him survive the sindel massacre. if your gonna make such a huge change to a character dont kill him off a chapter later.

I would have had him and Smoke survive Sindel's massacre only for them to end up swapping stories in MK10. Cyber Sub-Zero gets enslaved by Noob Saibot and Smoke ends up as grandmaster of the Lin Kuie. I know it sounds kinda weak, but it sounded good when I came up with it.

I would have had it so that Sub-Zero is captured and is partially “robotosised” before Smoke breaks him out and he and smoke have their classic Lin Kuei HQ break out. And this time they both make it out,
But Sub-Zero still get’s his scar along with a few extra parts.

I like the idea that Scar_Subby proposed of CSZ being Kuai & Bi-Han's sister only I would have it that this sister was a willing participant and embraced being a cyborg. This would not only give us a female cyborg but would be more interesting plot wise imo, rather than having Kuai Liang become a cyborg for the shock value then have him (likely) rehash Smoke's old story.

Good job with this thread!

Well, I guess it would have been better to see our goody-goody favorite ice ninja make a horrible compromising deal with a deadly enemy in order to secure the return of his human body...and no, please let this deadly enemy NOT be annoying Quan Chi. I've had enough of him.

Anyway, it would have been nice to see Sub-Zero compromise something important for the sake of having his body back.

I would have also suggested Sonya and Jax, but, that would be copying and pasting Cyrax's story...plus the fact that Jax got killed and we still don't know if the OIA is going to come to be (though more than one ending hint that it is indeed being considered).