YMMV / AsteroidQuest

• Badass Decay: Rokolo in Inside the Quest, to an extent. In her introduction and for some time after, she's a knowledgeable, unflappable snarker who's able to run rings around basically everyone. Around when she appears in the quest proper, however, she starts becoming much more easily riled, allowing posters and other characters to get the better of her. She also becomes worse at explaining the Verse's science and technology, making her less likely to be a recipient of the most popular questions.
• Creepy Cute: Three Stripes. From Inside the Quest:
  Anonymous: What are your favorite activities?
  Three Stripes: Sleeping with neumono buddies. Also eating with neumono buddies and also eating neumono buddies.
  Every Zig: He is like a big, mind destroying puppy.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Three Stripes. He appears only briefly in the first intermission thread, but proved so popular he got his own story thread later on. He's also popular in Inside the Quest, and is Dastrika's father in the Polokoaverse.
  • The "sniper clone" in Polo Quest. From her first appearance, fans loved her immediately, bombarding her with questions in Inside the Quest and hoping to see more of her. Lagotrope seems to have reciprocated, as her diary appears in a later Polo Quest thread, giving her more Hidden Depths.
  • Lukratsa rozu Steelnaut deserves special mention for existing exclusively in ITQ. She was only created to answer questions about the Show Within the Show, but has enjoyed a slow build in popularity and character depth over time.
  • Lakkat, at least to Jukashi. He only appears briefly in the first thread before being murdered, but in the Polokoaverse he survived and is a prominent member of Polokoa's crew. He seems to have caught on, making some commentators wonder What Could Have Been.
  • Dastrika in Polokoa Quest. She appears only briefly in the ship section, but has become the darling of Inside the Quest. Jukashi has been quite accommodating, giving her epic-length responses that showcase her Hidden Depths as well as setting information for the Polokoaverse at large.
  • Polo Quest. It's officially classified as a derivative of Asteroid Quest, being lumped in with its threads on the wiki page, but it has twice as many threads as Asteroid Quest (more if you count the Three Stripes intermission) and its characters tend to get more attention in Inside the Quest.
  • The NCO Arkot, with its bionic eye and Scarf of Asskicking.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • Polokoa's early days. She was a chimera of two barely-alive entities that was constantly fighting and devouring itself. Even with the intense medical attention, she only awoke from her coma thanks to a miracle that annihilated Polo and Rokoa's identities to create Polokoa's. Even now she's a medical nightmare that can only function thanks to state-of-the-art cybernetic enhancements.
  • Rokoa's Training from Hell is pretty gruesome. Polo's pain and horrified expressions from the psychic feedback further underscore how disturbing it is.
  • We only hear about the twisted experiments the salikai conduct, but they are brutal, driving many subjects to insanity, creating terrifying monsters, and slaughtering sapient AIs by trillions. Their Mind Control technology, which has successfully infected many important higher-ups in the political hierarchy, is also prime Paranoia Fuel. Little wonder that they're so hated.
• Tear Jerker: The fact that Polo totally defines her life through her job, with the concept of hobbies or other pursuits not even crossing her mind, to the point that her most important childhood memories are those of her military training, is pretty depressing. In the Polokoaverse, Dastrika even theorizes that she subsumed her entire identity into her role, placing her at incredible mental risk. Her life seems incredibly empty.
  • Which makes this partially heartwarming, partially a little sad — even her most sacred refuge in her memories is tied to her career in some aspect.
  • And then there's this...
    Questioner: How do you like to reward yourself for a day's work well done? If at all?
    Polo: I never thought to do this. If I wanted a reward, I would seek it out whether or not I deserved it. Now that I have goals in mind, I have no interest in rewards. If I succeed in [my current goal], then my reward will be returning to my hive in one piece.

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