Update: Fans will be pleased to know Tremor will join the game as part of The Kombat Pack. The DLC fighter was revealed in a trailer along with Tanya in March, 2015.

The nebulous world of the fan petition is far from an exact science, often ranging from the absurd, to the unlikely. Change.org hosts the good and the bad indiscriminately, offering a free platform to collect e-signatures for just about anything. The distinction of supporters is dubious, but every now and then a petition garners so much interest it stands out from the crowd. Such is the case with Make Tremor A Playable Kombatant in Mortal Kombat X.

The petition has freshly counted more than 4,000 supporters, with more arriving each day. Even taking into account inflated numbers supplied by dummy posts and spoof votes, that's an impressive figure for a character whose existence dwells in spin-off obscurity, trivia, and fan-fiction.

Tremor first officially appeared in the ill fated 2000 third-person shooter: Mortal Kombat: Special Forces. He was given an unlikely reprieve in 2012 -- as featured by Mortal Kombat Online -- finding his way into PlayStation Vita versions of Mortal Kombat: Komplete Edition.

Fans in the Twittersphere will have become aware of the campaign through the tireless dedication of @TremorBD and the FeelTheTremor hashtag. His efforts as petition founder supporter have also been shared by various NetherRealm Studios staff, including Executive Producer Shaun Himmerick, and beleaguered series co-creator/notorious Special Forces denier: Ed Boon.

So, why Tremor?... In their petition outline, [@mk10news & @mk102015] make the case, "Tremor would make a good addition to Mortal Kombat X's roster due to the fact he has a unique relationship with the Black Dragon and the Lin Kuei, the latter of which he was rumored to abandon, the first Lin Kuei ninja to do so and live."

As a burly bruiser with a ground pound special among his most prominent weapons, he made a convincing counterpart warrior for Jax, when finally appearing. Fan-fiction has expanded on Special Forces to reimagine him as an elementally based earth warrior -- a valid option to embellish an incomplete character visually, and functionally. The thought of a modern grappler in MK, also attractive. [See; Bane (Injustice)]


Popular Tremor Fan Design by Artist jaggudada.

When Mortal Kombat Online discussed the character with series co-creator John Tobias, he offered a tantalizing tease of what might have been, "I do remember having big plans for Tremor, but when I conceived him, he wasn't a member of the Black Dragon. He was a Lin Kuei hired as muscle by a mad man who was trying to open a gateway between Earth and Outworld."

What ever the outcome, it's clear fans are eager to see what the developer could do with these basic ideas. The characters of Special Forces may have been condemned to star in an unimpressive, troubled project, but their existence has helped flesh out the criminal underbelly of the Black Dragon clan, and added to the mystique of the sprawling fictional universe. With MKSF sub-bosses Jarek & Tasia showing up in the comics, and fan created costumes confirmed for DLC - now seems as good a time as any to make the leap!