what happens if you give shroud the prototype

In the game Dispatch (often discussed under “Dispatch Ad Hoc”), giving Shroud the prototype Astral Pulse leads to him seeing through the bluff, powering up anyway, and then deciding you are too dangerous to leave alive, which triggers a more hostile version of the confrontation and its aftermath.

Quick Scoop: Core Outcome

When you hand Shroud only the prototype (fake) Astral Pulse, he very quickly realizes it is not the real device. Instead of being fooled, he reads the situation, treats you as a major threat, and escalates, leading to him turning the tables and ultimately attempting to eliminate you because your continued survival sharply lowers his odds of winning in the long run.

How The Scene Plays Out

• Shroud detects the fake almost immediately and “calls your bluff” rather than being confused.

• Rather than being thrown off balance, he stays composed and leans into his predictive mindset, concluding that keeping you alive is too risky.

• The scene then converges on a version where he moves to kill you, framing it as the rational choice once he has run the odds in his head.

Emotional And Story Tone

• This route keeps Shroud in full control of the situation, emphasizing his arrogance and hyper-rational “odds calculator” persona rather than exposing his weaknesses.

• The emotional tone is harsher and less “clever victory” for the player; it feels more like being outplayed by someone who anticipated a simple fake-out and refused to be embarrassed by it.

How It Differs From Other Choices

• Giving the real Pulse lets him fully power up and briefly become godlike, but it also sets up a more tragic, sacrificial, “heroic suffering” type of climax for your team.

• Giving both (real + prototype at once) is the only path that genuinely scrambles his predictive edge; with no clear signal to read and no way to lean on his normal methods, he makes a bad 50/50 call and ends up physically reeling and sick, which is treated as the most satisfying “outsmart the genius” option by many players.

Mini Forum-Style Take

“If you give Shroud the prototype, he just calls your bluff and goes for the kill. The whole point is that a simple fake isn’t enough to break his prediction game—you have to give him both to really overload him.”

TL;DR: Giving Shroud the prototype does not trick him; he spots the fake, doubles down on cold-blooded logic, and chooses to eliminate you as the optimal survival move, creating a more punishing, less triumphant end to that encounter.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.