AnOne wrote:<Dr. Mouse and others>
Being Dr. Mouse's creator, I think I should chime in on this matter. As things go, Dr. Mouse isn't looking to become ruler of this city's or any area's bubble. While it's not delved into too deeply into the game, his aim isn't to rule but to instead exploit the depths of what the nanites can do to people to his own ends. Doing so fulfills many desires of his: scientific curiosity, unrivaled expertise, personal perfection and pseudo-sexual satisfaction, among other more mundane desires like greed.
1> Scientific Curiosity: Dr. Mouse seeks to probe the depths and breadths of the nanite infection and its effects for scientific curiosity. While this is not a bad aim on its own, he is cold, calculating and heartless in what he'll do or who he'll manipulate in his quest for knowledge. Nor does he seek to gain this knowledge to help others in a positive way - any use of this knowledge is, in the end, always to further his own goals and desires. Enhancing the hospital staff or the player makes them better tools for him and allows him to test and/or observe the effects of his research.
2> Unrivaled Expertise: Dr. Mouse desires to be the foremost expert on the nanite infection and its biological effects. The reason for this is two-fold. Firstly, he wants the self-satisfaction as well as the notoriety of being the best, and the best by far. He doesn't want fame from this outside of the envy of all other (lesser, in his view) scientific minds and hushed whispers from government and industry leaders unscrupulous enough to seek his high-priced services. And at this crucial, initial stage of the outbreak, it is important for him to get the biggest head start he can, and hamper or eliminate any would-be competitors along the way.
3> Personal Perfection: Mastery of the nanites is mastery of his own physical form. Infected with a weak, feeble form, Dr. Mouse seeks to correct this by careful and meticulous manipulation of the myriad strains of infections and DNA sources he can obtain. This is in part the reason why he is collecting so many and such diverse samples. And when the player brings him samples, he tweaks and tests how they might first make improvements on the hospital staff. In the end, he plans to cherry pick some of the best abilities and physical aspects while keeping his mind intact or even further enhancing his intellect. He seeks to achieve an immortal body that is monstrous enough to be imposing, powerful enough to be unstoppable, but humanoid and reasonably sized so he might continue his work in his new, immortal body. While this is a distant, long-term goal of his, should the player challenge him, he'll be forced to use his preliminary experimental version to 'enhance' himself for the fight.
4> Pseudo-sexual Satisfaction: There is only indirect evidence for this in the game and more examples of it are planned to appear in future material, but Dr. Mouse (untransformed) has only a limited interest in sex in and of itself. While not asexual, his libido is lower than that of a normal person's was before the outbreak. Sex in its many forms and the myriad kinks holds no real interest to him and would provide no proper relief. He instead is aroused and obtains pseudo-sexual satisfaction from his experimental procedures and the corruption and mutation of others by himself. Think of experimenting on others as sex for him. This makes him particularly dangerous, as it leaves his mind free to do his testing and measurements to increase his ability knowledge and skill with the nanites, but also gives him a pseudo-sexual desire to perform kinky experiments with that knowledge. Dr. Mouse transformed has an increased libido, though still one that he can generally keep in check by using some experimental victims for relief.
In the end, his motivations are always self-centered, only wanting to fulfill selfish or self-aggrandizing goals. Any empathy shown or clever words spoken about helping the player or others are always manipulative or simply concealing his own aims. While he may be capable in hiding his motivations by seeming benevolent and helpful, in the end, none matter but him.
While I don't want to go into too much detail about his future goals, Hospital Quest 2 will partially parallel Main Storyline 2, with him having you assist Zephyr on his behalf so he might gain more information from them. As rivals go, Dr. Matt's probably the only one sufficient in the city to be taken out. The other are simply potential sources of information, but are beneath elimination. Nermine, as a magic entity, was only useful as a source of an item of power, but isn't seen as a scientific rival. The military are largely a distraction and a hazard in that their eventual advance will force him to cut short his experiments at the hospital, so delaying them is more his goal than their defeat. Since they cannot end the nanites or the infection, they cannot truly stop him and their rescue attempt will stir many of the infected to spread beyond the city to infect others, an event he's eager to observe and analyze.
You're right that Sam, especially uninfected Sam, is the most noble of the researchers. While's doing it for a job, he does hope that it might be able to help people and he isn't seeking to misuse the knowledge he gains. Once infected, he does pick up greater urge to fuck and breed, but that mostly makes him eager to sex up as many different critters as he can find rather than to spread his infection. Infecting the player is a fun and kinky bonus, but isn't a widespread goal. Should he be driven out, his self-restraint does waver further and seeing his offspring grow in numbers and spread becomes an active goal.
Dr Medea is also fairly good, seeking to help others with their maternity issues, mainly because everything to do with pregnancy now turns her own and helping others become better breeders is a kinky pleasure because of this. This doesn't always result in fully good behavior though, as she encourages the player to taking stronger and riskier forms of adjustments, such as animal heats and the UB ability. She's not really able or really desires to investigate the nanite infection beyond the fertility aspect though, so her qualification as a research/knowledge source is limited.
I agree that Meredith is by no means saintly. Her goals and ambitions may be good, but her infection has twisted this such that she's quite lax about infecting other humans she likes. Permission's not quite necessary - her infection was unplanned and it turned out great, didn't it? She's sure they'll agree that they're better off once it's over and done.