Fat Thor was a Trial Run

He's a god so old that he's given up keeping track of his real age. But what he does know is that at least once every 10,000 years or so he gets really bored and depressed. Like, drink himself to morbid obesity bored.<br><br>The last time it happened, he just drank until the pain went away. But it ended badly. First he turned into what his friends would later describe as "beast mode" - angry, rage filled, and destructive to the point that he had to be dropped onto a frozen planet to cool off.<br><br>Then, when he ran out of liquor, he just cried. A lot. More than he is comfortable admitting to anyone. And the way it affected his relationships with people he cared about...<br><br>So this time, when the pain started hitting him, he decided to try something different. A small dry run of a self destruct cycle that he could observe as a third party to try and identify what he could do better. <br><br>3,000 years ago, he made a clone of himself that shared his memories and put it on Earth with instructions that he not interfere with it. It needed to live a perfectly ordinary life.<br><br>Then, he observed and took notes for 1,500 years until the clone fell into the same pit of despair that consumed him.<br><br>The first thing he learned that his dry run needed was friends. Odin and the other gods were busy being gods, and the clone had no real life connections. So he recruited the help of a few angels and demons who owed him a favor. They created a few personas and introduced them to the clone, and that did seem to help.<br><br>The dry run was still drinking heavily, but the pain was not as bad.<br><br>The next thing that he learned was that the clone needed something to care about. His mind needed something to focus on other than his own pain. So he introduced a small child into the mix. The clone bonded with the child, and the added responsibility began to drive him out of his depression. <br><br>Progress.<br><br>The real trick was what to do when the liquor ran out. His first instinct, to just call it quits and end the simulation, wasn't going to work in the real world. He needed to find a way to make his clone happy without booze, and to make that last.<br><br>After 10 years of real time observation, he hit his first set back. His clone was beginning to form some toxic relationships. No, that wasn't right. *He* was forming the toxic relationships. He had to admit that he had been influencing the clone, trying to force him into relationships that would lead him to happiness.<br><br>It didn't work. It couldn't work. If he didn't want to just hit the reset button, he needed to let the clone find his own way.<br><br>So he stopped pushing. He stopped manipulating people around the clone. He stopped caring for the child.<br><br>And the clone began to thrive. Not because he had been forced into a happy life, but because he had built himself a happy life. The clone had found a person to love, a child to care for, and hobbies to focus on.<br><br>And it worked.<br><br>The clone is still alive, happy, and thriving. The dry run was a success. <br><br>Now it's time for the real thing.<br><br>Maybe in 10,000 years he'll get bored again, or depressed again. But this time, he's ready.