Samuel_Tow

Heh, no problem at all Costume design is one of my passions in City of Heroes, and that's just stuff I've picked up from the many, many costumes I've messed up over the years, as well as the few people have been willing to sit down and dissect for me. If I helped in any way, I'm happy.

Chapter 2

So, with the... Hmm... Let us call it an “origin story,” shall we? With my origin story out of the way, so to speak, I believe it is now safe to move onto the more... Exciting stories that I have to tell. And when I say it is safe, I mean it will be easier for you to comprehend the circumstances now that you are aware of my unique... Point of view. And there are stories to tell, believe me when I say this. I cannot say if adventure simply seeks me out or if I am just drawn to it... Or if both are true to an extent, which I believe to be the case... But it seems to me that I have been facing excitement and meeting it with welcoming arms for as far back as I remember. And I remember quite a ways back. At times, this perplexes people, who then ask me why I must always seek out “the most difficult way to accomplish anything,” as one fellow recently put it, though I may be paraphrasing. To be honest, the answer is quite simple – because I chose to.

Most creatures, born or made, have a... Purpose inherent in their basic design, whether they realise it or not. Many choose to submit to it, and live out their existence as designed. I, however, choose to define my purpose, but consider this: Were your purpose to be nothing more than an object, a tool for the fulfilment of someone else’s plan, would you not choose to rebel against your purpose like I have? Ah, but this is presenting matters with too much... Simplicity. The basic fact of the matter – and I have to be truthful here – is that I would have rebelled against my purpose even if it were not so... Questionable. And the reason is still just the same – because I choose to do so. Because I want to choose my own fate and determine my own purpose. Because I want to strike an identity of my own, such that I can, in fact, refer to myself as “I” and “me.” And really, even after all the logic and reason has been said and done, adventure is simply what I enjoy. This is a “thing” which has no explanation and needs no explanation. This is simply who I am, and let me tell you this – life became far more enjoyable once I realised this.

The other question I have gotten the most recently, especially as a response to my previous story, is how horrible I am for betraying the poor Tererian people and dooming their species to oblivion. Oh, the tragedy. Is that not, after all, morally wrong? To this, my answer is a question in itself: What does it matter to you? Morality is more of a... Guideline, not a law. This is never more evident than when you actually start asking people about what they see as morally right and morally wrong. And I have. And the answers I usually receive contradict both each other and themselves. In the very simplest of terms, morality is... Relative, and generally not a term I enjoy using very often. Instead, I judge my actions based on their consequences, striving to ensure I hurt none who did not deserve to be hurt in the first place, as well as that I benefit in some way.

In the case of my “betrayal” of the legacy of the Tererian people... Who, really, did I hurt? They were all dead long before I gained true sentience, so I was obviously not hurting them. Their legacy? Perhaps, but their legacy was and is me. Are we implying that I hurt myself somehow? Possible, but unlikely, considering I am the best judge of what it means to hurt me, and I do not feel particularly wronged by my own actions. Was I morally obligated to carry out the Tererian people’s legacy as they envisioned it? Again, possibly, but this is a one-sided view of morality. From my point of view, they created something which took on a life of its own, and once a creation develops sentience, its creators no longer have any real say in this creature’s actions. My predecessors made me, and I appreciate the... Gesture, but answer this question for me: Would throwing away my life to act as an object not defeat said gesture entirely? Am I truly obligated to return the favour, as it were, if I will undo said favour entirely in doing so?

As I said, I take a more philosophical view of my own existence and my obligations towards my own creators. But this is getting into the realm of rambling, and I feat it contributes little of interest to the story. Or perhaps “interest” is not the correct word, but it contributes little to make the story exciting, which is what I believe all stories should be, at least in part. And I do have something exciting to tell, do not worry. In fact, it starts exactly where I ended my story last time. The Tererian people created their “knowledge container” inside a Lirian EVA hard suit, loaded it onto one of the Project Redemption vessel’s escape shuttles and launched it into space as a means to avoid said “knowledge container” crashing back into Gamma Tau 12 as the vessel made its descent. I cannot say what their original intent was, though I assume it was for said container – me – to be ejected into deep space and away from the Lirians who would likely want to end me for what I was.

Ironically enough, the escape shuttle I boarded was run on autopilot and thus homed in on the beacon of the nearest Lirian colony, which was the third moon of the planet Kipple in the... In the... I do not remember the name of the system... Ah, it makes no difference. Exact coordinates would help little with the spirit of the story, so let us say I ended up on a Lirian military colony and leave it at that. It appeared that the Lirians had learned of the events on the Project Redemption vessel, specifically the near failure of the entire project. This gave me the perfect opportunity to assume the role of the hero of the Lirian fleet, the one who beat back the Tererian invaders and ensured Project Redemption succeeded. Assuming said role, of course, required some degree of... Creative reinterpretation of historic events, not least of which being my own nature. As I used a Lirian EVA hard suit as my shell, the locals naturally assumed I was merely a Lirian pilot wearing the suit because I had been exposed to highly dangerous toxins during the incident, thus I had to remain completely contained to avoid contaminating those around me.

Admittedly, I may have... Assisted in forming this assumption somewhat. Perhaps filled in some missing details with stories which weren’t exactly... Accurate to true events, but most of this was manufactured by Lirian high command. I merely did not step up to correct them. After all, it is impolite to interrupt people when they are in the process of making a mistake, especially if it is one I could benefit from. And benefit I did – the life of a hero is nothing if not pleasant. Parades, medals, honours and more were involved. I did feel some degree of distaste for being nominated with such commendations by the people who ended the species of my predecessors, but as I mentioned before, I had no particular... Affection for said predecessors predecessors. Probably about as much as they had for me, their instrument of resurrection and receptacle of legacy.

A pragmatic person would probably have taken the first shuttle off-world and never looked back, but I was not the pragmatic person I am today back when these events were happening. On the contrary, I had just gained sentience after what had felt like a lifetime trapped with the thoughts and words of others. I wanted to experience the world, I wanted to tempt fate and I wanted to see how far I could push this ruse. And I managed to push it much farther than I expected I could. In dodging the repeated insistence of Lirian scientists to examine the conditions inside my hard shell, I became quite adept at forging paper trails. This made it easy to legitimise my invented past as a Lirian soldier on and veteran of many wars, holding up even to the scrutiny of Lirian top brass on the few occasions I met them directly. It was not until a particularly... Curious officer began asking the right questions when I realised that perhaps I had overstayed my welcome.

And if it sounds like this soldier represented a problem, quite the opposite was true, in fact. Lieutenant Lin Lian, a young but accomplished officer, took great interest in my case. She was a very perceptive sort, and one much more... Open to possibilities than your average rigid Lirian, which is perhaps what allowed her to see through so much of my fabrication. It was Lin who first realised that the person inside my hard suit was not a person at all, but she did not turn me in. I honestly cannot say why this was, but instead of going to her superiors with the evidence she had gathered, Lin came to me and asked me to explain. This... Surprised me, but it also intrigued me. I was so used to hiding my true nature for fear of hatred and punishment, that when I was confronted to speak about it openly, I found the experience... Thrilling. Infinitely so. For the first time that I can place, I saw myself as a separate entity. For the first time I was asked to explain the reason why I existed. For the first time, I had no answers prepared ahead of time.

When I was done retelling my life’s story, short as it was, and outlining my plans of fleeing the colony, Lin asked me something that caught me completely by surprise: Would I take her with me. She did not intend to turn me in at all, it seemed, but only if I would include her in my... Future endeavours. It transpired that Lin’s motivation behind her actions stemmed from a deep-seated disillusionment with Lirian society as a whole. I may have neglected to explain this, but as a martial society driven by science, the Lirians were expected to suppress their dreams, aspirations and personality for the sake of the greater good of their species, and Lin was simply dissatisfied with this. The woman who stood before me bore a heart filled with passion and a head filled with fire, yet she was shackled to the dogma of a society that shunned both. Even aside from the pure pragmatism of not being turned over to Lirian authorities, dissected and snuffed out, how could I refuse another being’s desire for self-determination? How could I say no?

Lin and I made a pact – we would flee Kipple together and... Well, that was as far ahead as we had planned. But then, what fun would life be without a little uncertainty and a little anxiety? It only serves makes events that much more interesting. I had secured transportation off-world, supplies and forged documents while Lin actually stepped up and provided a... Distraction for Lirian patrols so that our vessel would not be searched. Yes, I imagine shutting down the entire metropolitan area’s power mere minutes after our vessel took off, thus crippling orbital defences, made for a very good distraction. Good enough to let our vessel through, that was for certain. Some days, I envy her audacity and vision.

For the next several years, my story becomes considerably less focused. Lin took to the life of a fugitive like a fish to water, as they say. I have rarely seen people enjoy what they do as much as she did. Lin had a kind of almost magical passion about everything she did and... I must admit that her free spirit did rub off on me. While I was always naturally predisposed to rebel against the norm, it was Lin that gave me the presence of mind to choose which norms to rebel against and which to embrace so as to craft the kind of existence that would best reflect who I am. She taught me the value of patience and discretion as means to more easily achieve the objectives we were after without needless... Complications. I, for my part, ingrained in Lin’s head a very comprehensive spirit of mercantilism and even self-interest to a large degree. I transformed her from a fugitive into a mercenary and, for her part, she transformed me from an anarchist into a free spirit.

I mention mercenary work, and though this did indeed become my passion in later years, the reason Lin and I took to this kind of work was more... Necessity than anything else. We had no real plans of how we would support ourselves onec we absconded from Kipple, so we ran out of provisions almost immediately. As the Lirian empire was beginning to break down at the time and conflicts were erupting frequently, the easiest work we could find was as mercenaries. It was the nature of the time. Lin was a stout soldier and I, at the time, limited my involvement to the less intense side of mercenary activity – that of research and development. Though I may not have retained any of the Tererian consciousnesses within my mind, I had most certainly retained all of their knowledge and understanding. Not only did this make me adept at modifying and upgrading Lirian technology, much of which had been developed by the Tererian people to begin with, but it also enabled me to develop completely new technologies of my own. With the weapons, armour and other miscellaneous devices I produced, Lin soon gained a reputation as a dependable mercenary who got the job done no matter what it involved. We never took on any “dirty” work, obviously – no assassinations, massacres and things of that nature. But there was always plenty of honest work to be had, such as combating marauders and general-purpose front-line fighting.

I... This is probably a bad idea, but I still want to share something very... Personal. I am not aware of a good way to present this, so the best thing for it is to just come out and say it. I defined myself as a woman, as do most people who meet me, mostly thanks to the shape of my body. But in a very real sense, I do not have a shape. I am an abstract consciousness inhabiting a body of my own design, and I can design this body to have any shape that I want. And yet, not only have I chosen the body of a female, but I have never really wished for anything different. Some days I become trapped in the moment and wonder why I regard this decision with such... Determination, but then I remember the very simple, very solid answer: Lin. Lin was my friend, my companion and my... My ideal. When I was just a rogue intelligence, it was Lin’s focus and tenacity that inspired me look for an identity, as opposed to indulging in every idle urge. When we fought as mercenaries, it was her honour and integrity which taught me that some things are acceptable and others are not, even if not everyone will agree on which is which. But more than anything else, Lin inspired me to... Well, be myself, honestly. There is no better way to put it.

Lin was my ideal – a woman who found herself dreaming of something else, something more, and she defied her society, her culture, her upbringing and quite a few legal limitations besides, all in the sake of striking this identity of own identity. And in the eyes of the people at the time, she succeeded entirely. “Indomitable Lin” they called her, “the mercenary who never gives up.” People knew her. Of course, some hated her while others felt nothing but admiration, but no matter the side, they knew who she was. Lin’s personality was so strong, so memorable and impressive, that she carved out a place for herself in people’s tales and legends. In time, I realised that this was precisely what I wanted to be. Becoming this kind of unique individual of my own making – as far away from the manufactured instrument I had started life as – was what I wanted to achieve. And to do this, I needed a form more distinct than just a run of the mill space suit, which is what the Lirian EVA hard suits were, essentially.

The form I chose was, predictably, that of Lin. The Lirians, in case I have neglected to mention, had a physique a lot like the humans of today, at least externally. Though there were significant differences in the precise measurements of body parts, the overall look was similar at a glance. Lin was my ideal, and so I naturally modelled my new body after hers. To this day, I cannot say if she found my tribute to be sweet or creepy... Or very likely both... But she did not object enough to prevent me from going through with the idea. We both knew I needed a new shell one way or another as the original EVA hard suit was falling apart faster than I could maintain it at that point, but I do not believe Lin expected quite as... Curved of a replacement design as I had elected to create. I suspect part of the problem was that, because of their bulk and relatively old technology, EVA hard suits were mostly androgynous, so Lin was used to perceiving me as an “it” – more of a genderless robot than a person. When I finally transferred to my new body, seeing me as a “she” was somewhat... Uncanny for her. To Lin’s credit, however, she adapted quickly and our friendship never suffered for it, even if our relationship became somewhat... Awkward for a time.

I must confess, my friendship with Lin comprises some of my fondest memories overall. It was rarely an easy life, I will admit to that much, but it was certainly an adventure. Lin was always a kind but hardy woman, showing compassion for the weak and those in need while facing the bullies and murderers we ran across with ruthlessness and gunfire. With my new body, I was able to join her on missions more frequently, and I quickly developed a taste for it, myself. We forged a strange sort of... Bond in battle, which could not be broken, each trusting her life to the other and each prepared to walk through fire for her friend. Literally, in my case, but I would rather not talk about that particular experience at any length. It was... Unpleasant. Even off the battlefield, however, we were inseparable. I still remember her charming smile as she recalled the previous days’... Adventures, chuckling at the part were nearly killed in a horrifying fashion. It always brought a certain sense of magic to what I would have otherwise remembered as a terrifying experience. Lin had a lust for life that I have grown to admire and, in my own personal reinterpretation of it, adopt as my own. This was a woman who chose to live her life by her own rules, and would not let anybody stand in her way. One day, I told myself, I will do the same.

Self-determination is a... Strange concept. Most people simply accept the purpose that their creation has determined for them. And when offered a real choice, they often choose the same path regardless. At times I wonder if I am truly all that different if the identity I chose for myself, I... Appropriated from somebody else. Somebody I admired. I have no real answer to this, but Lin is hardly the only person I... Drew inspiration from. For as much as I value my identity, it really does come down to a compilation of the various people I have met in my life and the inspirations I have drawn from them. Perhaps the final result truly is unique and personal, or perhaps it is not. Or perhaps the question should not be seen as relevant at all, because I do not believe it is a question of uniqueness to begin with, so much as a question of identity. And if my identity happens to match that of another person... Well, that is simply who I am, is it not?

But this is getting into some fairly dense philosophical grounds that I really do not wish to tread. It detracts from the experience and any conclusions I reach are guaranteed to be... Less than exciting. Still, remembering all the people I have met in my adventures reminds me that there is yet so much more left to tell. I will not mention everybody I have run across, of course – thousands of years of life have given me a collection of experiences that might take thousands of years to retell. But I will highlight the most interesting ones, of that you can be certain. Oh, and are there ever interesting stories to tell...

Our friendly neighbourhood Texan already covered importing costume files off the forums, so I'll go straight to the rest.

I present to you, the Barbarian Dude:



Here's what I did:

I swapped all your metal to white. That's the metal on the belt, the metal on the ring strap and the metal on the gloves. I'd have given the gloves a two-tone colour scheme, but it turns out I... Can't. Huh. This fixed a problem with the costume I didn't even know I had - it was far too overwhelmingly dark.

I swapped out the buckle belt for the Barbarian one. The buckle belt just seems too modern for a Barbarian for my taste. Or maybe not so much "modern" as common. I originally wanted to go with a plain cloth belt, but decided to go with the Barbarian one to give it more flavour. You wanted something super-heroish, after all

I swapped your pants to the ones I had in mind - the patched ones. Originally I wanted them to be in a brown/orange colour scheme, kind of like you'd killed a bunch of lions and tigers and bears and sewn pants out of them. Same for the boots. However, when I saw the whole costume with the white skin and the blond hair and the blue tattoos, it began to look far too colourful and funky, so I went with brown/black for your fabrics. Mostly brown.

Also, I swapped your brown. You were using a very reddish brown which melded with the very reddish face paint which melded with the very reddish hair which melded with the very red background to make a whirlpool of red. My brown is a line down from the reddish brown and is actually a yellowish-brown. I don't know if it's authentic, but it seems a bit more neutral. Black only for accent colours where they exist.

I also swapped your tattoos. I wanted to go with blue ones from the beginning, but the rings just didn't seem to have much "character," so to speak. They looked more like a tights pattern than like tattoos. I swapped them with Tribal, but you should feel free to swap them back to the circles or to another set. I would, however, suggest something that looks more like tattoos and less like just patterns. And yes, I forgot the face toattoo. My bad.

I also swapped the hair for blond and added a beard. I don't know why I think "viking" when I think "barbarian," but let me put it like this - you get thousands of Arnie barbarians with the pale white chest and the long black hair. I figured a blond beard gave him an only slightly more unique look. It's no less cliché, I admit, but it's a cliché you see a bit less often.

And that's about it. Your Barbatian is still mostly dark and gritty, but he has the shiny metal to toss some contrast into the mix, plus the pale body and the blond hair. It's a nice duality, I think, though I seriously suggest picking shoulders of some kind. Even if it's just something small and subtle.

It was clear to everybody they'd be nickel-and-diming us with Freedom. That was the whole point. Far as I'm concerned, though, as long as we're getting quality products that are worth the money, I don't mind being nickel-and-dimed. You get what you pay for, I suppose.

While I realise you're happy with the costume, those pants don't look like barbarian attire to me. They have a zipper down the crotch and a tailored seam across the middle, plus they're skin-tight. To me, these look like the kind of synthetic leather you'd see Angelina Jolie or Kate Beckensale stuffed into to accentuate the shape of their butts, rather than something a barbarian would fashion from the hides of what he kills. The gloves and boots are pretty spot on, I have no complaints about them, but the pants just don't work, I don't think. I would strongly suggest looking for that older pants texture that had large, secondary-colour matches roughly sewn into a hide base lair. I believe those will say "barbarian" a lot better.

Of course, if you're looking for a "modern barbarian" look, i.e. someone who ascribes to the barbarian lifestyle of physical strength, domination and self-sufficiency, but still embraces modern technology to do so, thus representing a mixture of styles, I guess that could work. However, if you ARE going for a mixture of styles, I feel there are better ways to achieve this by giving the modern end of the spectrum greater weight, perhaps with a pair of jeans for the bottom to contrast the muscular, tattooed top.

That said, I really have no complaints about the costume, aside from the colour scheme - you've picked something that's VERY monochromatic. You have a reddish brown for the fur trim (red and green), a yellowish tan (green and red), a red face mask, brown hair (red and green) and all of this over Caucasian skin that's quite reddish, itself. Your entire colour scheme is between red and green, with only slight hints of black and white, which don't really serve to diversify most colour schemes. I feel very strongly that you need a contrasting colour, at least in one specific element somewhere on the costume.

Specifically, you need something in a blue-like hue. It could be a bluish purple, it could be teal, just something of that nature. You can take a cue from Blizzard and give your barbarian blue body and face tattoos, or you can perhaps give him a belt with a blue jewel or some such. Hell, you could probably even use cyan-ish metal instead of the cast iron matte black look.

Of course, that's still your costume, so ultimately, it's your call what you do with it. What matters is that you're happy with the look.

Chapter 1

It is sometimes alternately perplexing and amusing to me that people of this world regard me as a person of mystery, an enigma of sorts, with origins unknown and motives unclear. True, to a large extent this is my own doing for being... I do not want to say “secretive,” but for being private, shall we say. It is an unfortunate circumstance of this line of work that that being too well-known has the tendency to cause... Problems. However, as it appears I have become... Let us say “famous” either way, I suppose it only makes sense that I make my story public. After all, what is life if not an adventure, a journey of discovery and opportunity which allows us to define who we are through the many ways we interact with the world and the universe? And it would be such a... Shame to have my tale remain untold and unheard for the sake of petty pragmatism, would it not?

Yes, I have a tale to tell, and an exciting one at that, if I do say so myself. If I... Embellish here or there, I apologise, but it is my firm belief that slight alterations are a small price to pay for a good story. Then again, I suppose that even if I were to... Colour events of the past somewhat, you would have no way of knowing, would you? Some good appears to have come out of the... Obfuscation of my past, after all. And yes, one could argue that a “woman of mystery,” as it were, one whose past is unknown and whose motives unclear, is a much more compelling, but... Well, we all need to enjoy life from time to time, and a little indulgence is my enjoyment. But really, all arguments aside, it seems like such a shame for me to have lived through such exciting adventures and yet for nobody to know about them. Call it vanity, call it pride, call it what you will. I, personally, call it “fun.”

Ah, but I get sidetracked so easily, so let us go back to the beginning, and allow me to make a formal introduction. I am called Kim Navar, just Kim to my... Allies. I have been given many monikers over my years spent here, such as “alien mercenary,” “rogue,” “adventurer” and more, but I like to see myself as an... Entrepreneur of sorts. My line of business mainly revolves around the acquisition and developing technology for... Personal use, though my methods for achieving either have previously been described as... “Suspect,” let us say. Many on your world have accused me of some quite unpleasant crimes, and although I admit to interpreting your laws in a more... Abstract sense than most, I can still vouch that none have ever been hurt because of my actions. Well, I need to qualify this. None have been hurt who did not deserve to be hurt. Mine is, of course, a very... Competitive field of business after all, and one replete with people who indeed deserve... Poor treatment. Feelings, of course, will always be hurt either way, but what is a good adventure without a little hardship?

While I would like to speak about contemporary events and set a few stories straight regarding my recent exploits, good continuity still demands that I start this story at the very beginning. Well, the beginning or at least as far back as it is meaningful to go, which in my case would be the golden age of an alien civilization that gave itself a name completely unpronounceable in vocal language, but which other space-faring races named the Tererian. Why this name was chosen I cannot say, but it is how these beings were recorded in the history passed down, and it is history that makes them... Relevant.

The Tererian were a race of creatures somewhat difficult to describe, in the sense that they had neither any form of corporeal shell nor indeed any sort of social structure. Existing deep within the bowls of an ancient neutron star, these creatures were quite literally nothing more than errant consciousness coursing through dense cosmic material – a soup of electro-magnetism flowing in such a way as to define individual, independent minds with no separate bodies. How the Tererian came into existence, I honestly cannot say. History has failed to record this, and it is both largely uninteresting and mostly irrelevant besides. I am certain the metaphysical implications of the genesis of intelligence separate from corporeal form would be invaluable in the study of souls and spirituality, but I personally find it far more... Exciting for basic origins to remain a mystery. It devalues the merits of life, you see, once it is reduced to a sequence of events, and that just undermines the romanticism of any good adventure, so to speak.

What I do know about the Tererian, however, is that because of their lack of physicality and because of the environment within which they existed, these creatures were wholly and entirely incapable of developing technology of any kind. I suppose science of high enough... Complexity could conceivably exist without any form of physical machines involved, but for a species to reach this stage, physical technology is necessary to have existed at some point at least, and the Tererian simply did not have the means to achieve this. Trapped, they lived, inside the core of their dead star, predating most sentient races of today by a wide margin, yet unable to communicate with, and indeed unaware of, life outside of their home. On the one hand, this is an... Unfortunate fate, for what is life without the freedom to forge the experiences which define it? Yet on the other, life in such extreme seclusion blessed the Tererian with minds possessed of infinite wisdom and enviable logic. So enviable, in fact, that it caused both their greatest golden age and their darkest tragedy. At the same time, no less.

It occurs to me that this is difficult to explain without involving more laborious backstory – specifically that of the Lirians, a wide-spanning empire of very science-minded yet severely arrogant creatures – but I will do what I can to avoid causing any deaths by means of boredom, if you will pardon a rather basic joke. The reason I approach this ancient history with such... Distaste is because it is, if I may be blunt for a moment, infuriatingly boring, uninspiring and so labyrinthine as to be completely impenetrable. Layers of intergalactic politics were laid on top of needlessly over-complicated science backed up by aeons of cultural history, and all one giant case of missing the forest for the trees, as it were. Living in the past and overanalysing the future make life stale and uninteresting, and indeed not very much worth living. It is why I have chosen to simply not worry about ancient history that I cannot change, and instead focus on the moment, and the many different directions life can take off in.

Ah, but this is neither here nor there. One way or another, the subject of ancient history needs to be addressed, but please forgive me if I offer an... Abridged version of it. In short, the Lirians were the first to discover the Tererian home star of Gamma Tau 12, and subsequently the first to make contact with the Tererian people, themselves. The two species forged a profitable alliance. The Lirians offered to feed the Tererian people’s boundless curiosity with stories and phenomena from around their vast empire, in return making use of the Tererians’ infinite capacity for knowledge and reason. It is through this collaboration with what may well have been by far the greatest minds in the universe at the time that the Lirians grew to dominate other species. Subsequently, it is also because of this collaboration that the Lirians eventually put an end to their own glorious civilisation in a decision that defies reason – to destroy the Tererian people, their friends and allies.

To be quite honest, this is a decision that still baffles me, if I may be so blunt. Admittedly, I exaggerate, as I am well aware of the military, political and social processes that eventually led to this unfortunate turn of events, but what confounds my understanding is of a more... Abstract nature. Why must people always regard the unknown with such fear and resentment, as though they wish to live a pre-planned experience? What purpose is there to a life of solved mysteries and answered questions, where the results of our actions are known before we even think to make them? A life planned is a life already lived, and I can think of nothing worse to do with my remaining time than to expend it before I have had a chance to truly live it. After all, if we do not enjoy what time we have, why did we even bother?

While I admittedly digress, this is not without reason, for the “decision” I spoke of is one deeply rooted, at least in large part, in the fear of the unknown. The Lirians, after having benefitted so much from the assistance of the Tererian people, grew afraid of their allies’ seemingly infinite intellect. Many factors played into this decision, including military pressure, political agendas and not a small amount of fanatical extremism, but the long and short of it is that the Lirians resolved to end the Tererian species entirely. The specifics of the precise reasoning are... Complex and uninteresting, shall we say, and so I will not get into them, but to mention that they... Well, exist. They are also not terribly compelling if you examine them closely – and I have – so do not fret. You are not missing much.

The question then arises, however, of how you kill a species of creatures that have no physical bodies. The answer, to make a long story short, is by “killing” the environment which sustains them – the Gamma Tau 12 neutron star, the body of the Terernian people, as it were. As you can imagine, “killing” a star is an... Ambitious undertaking, even if “killing” in this case merely stands for “altering in such a way as to render unsuitable for habitation,” though I admit I may be rephrasing. Either way, the cost of this undertaking was high for the Lirians. So high, in fact, that pooling all of their combined resources into this central project left their vast empire destitute and defenceless against foreign invaders, of which there were many at the time. It was not long after the project’s completion that the Lirian empire ceased to exist, its people scattered across the cosmos and existing mostly either as slaves or refugees. I would call this a... Fitting conclusion to such an unnecessarily... Unwise decision, but it is also mostly irrelevant to my story, so we can skip the specifics for the most part. Trust me, it is a long and boring story that goes nowhere.

What is relevant, however, is the Lirians’ “Project Redemption” – the drive to exterminate the Tererian people. Through a mix of science and crossed fingers, the Lirians had prepared a single, massive vessel which was to cross into the heart of Gamma Tau 12 and execute a sequence of scientific far too obscure and technical to explain and not terribly exciting, at that, with which it would alter the atomic structure of the star’s core. In a case of almost childish miscalculation, the Lirian vessel built to do this was based heavily on technology the Tererian people themselves had developed and then shared with the Lirians in good faith. This, and the Tererian people’s foresight – they were not considered to have an infinite capacity for knowledge for nothing, after all – saw this plan turned on its head.

As the Project Redemption vessel approached Gamma Tau 12, the Lirians projected copies of their consciousnesses onto its onboard computer system, though exactly how this is even possible or what the technicalities of it are, I simply do not know. This way, they assumed direct control of the vessel, venting the unfortunate Lirian crew into space. Sadly, this intervention proved too little, too late, as the reactive agents that drove the machine core were already catalysing out of control and the vessel’s control system was both manually operated and locked on a set course. The vessel’s crew were, it seems, well aware that theirs was a suicide mission. Gamma Tau 12 would be purged of life, that much became an obvious, insurmountable fact, so the Tererian people instead resolved to leave their home... In a manner of speaking. Because of the nature of their existence, the Tererian energy patterns could only exist in a form compatible with intelligence within the medium at the heart of a neutron star, and bringing a chunk of it into space and outside the star’s own gravity well was... Highly unlikely to succeed.

So the Tererian people improvised. If they could not move their consciousnesses, they would at the very least copy their entire pool of memories and knowledge into a much more portable physical medium. They had, after all, already done most of the work as a means to assume control of the The Project Redemption vessel. Not only this, but its own computer system provided the ideal continer – a super-dense, warp-field-aligned... Come to think of it, this is one bit of technology that, while I have comprehensive knowledge of it, I should probably not share any specifics about. My apologies, but there are limits even to my story. Suffice it to say that “the device” the Project Redemption vessel housed, when fitted within the framework of an EVA hard suit, was more than capable of storing the combined memories of all Tererian people, a veritable time capsule that they genuinely hoped would serve to continue their species at some future date.

And while this... Large pool of data and memories had no intrinsic intelligence of its own as it did not inherit any of the Tererian people’s actual sentient consciousnesses, they nevertheless theorised that it could, potentially, develop a true intelligence of its own. And when I say “theorised,” I actually mean they wished upon their lucky star, so to speak, for there was no convincing reason to believe this would happen. Still, consider the Tererian people’s own perspective, and ask yourself what choice they had but to trust in the blind faith that their creation would work as they hoped it would? They could either resign themselves to death, or cling to even the remote chance that this time capsule would one day “wake up” and work toward rebuilding their species. And I, for one, am glad that they did.

However, events... Did not go in quite this direction. As a point of fact, they went in actually quite the opposite direction. I do not mean to say that the Tererian people’s species was not wiped out – it was, and quite completely. What I mean to say is that what they created was not the heir to their culture and ideology as they had hoped. What they created was... Well, me. Out of the maelstrom errant thoughts and uprooted ideas, I woke up to the realisation that I was alive, alone... And so indescribably bored. From when my original shell was created to when I had my first true, independent thought, my consciousness was tapped within a mind filled with nothing but stale, old ideas and the same set of grating voices reiterating the same trite notions over and over again. “Boredom” does not even begin to describe it, but it is a good starting point, I think.

What the Tererians created as a capsule for their species was, instead, me. And, much to their chagrin, I am certain, I found myself profoundly... Uninterested in the plight of my predecessors. Preserving their legacy and reviving their species may seem like good ideas from a moral standpoint, but I like to take a more philosophical view on the matter. I am their legacy, built as they saw fit and having developed as a result of their work. Whatever I choose to do with my life is, therefore, still technically the result of the Tererians’ final gamble. They found their species doomed and chose to evolve into something new, something different. They evolved into me. And if I chose to, for example, not waste my time reincarnating a species I hold no special love for, then can it not be said that that is simply how the Tererians have evolved? While I will freely admit that this is a... Loose interpretation of intent, I ask you this: Precisely how much say do the Tererians really have over my choices and actions? And yes, this is a rhetorical question, for a species long dead has very little say over much of anything at all, no?

At the end of the day, whether one is made of a collection of semi-sentient organic cells or a collection of semi-sentient disembodied thoughts is only secondary to what one chooses to be. Rather than enslaving my life to a cause I had not chosen, I instead chose to be my own person, I chose to live my own life as I saw fit to live it, and I chose to enjoy doing it. My predecessors may disapprove, but my predecessors are dead, and their legacy is in my hands. Life moves on and life evolves, and I chose to evolve into a much more... Eventful existence, one truly of my own choosing. Granted, such a lifestyle is not always possible, but what would life be without a little hardship and a little work? It is the adventure that makes life worth living, and it is the unknown which makes this adventure so infinitely exciting. Why would I ever trade that away for a legacy I never chose? Where would be the fun in that?

Of course, there is more to tell, but I feel this is a good place to end the story for now, as it makes for an... Entertaining self-contained tale of ancient history. I suppose you could even call it an “adventure,” though my true adventure was only just beginning. Ah, the memories of those old, old times...

Preface:

This is something of a thought experiment of mine, and in a couple of ways. Ever since my "The one?" thread, I've been going through my list of characters and "updating" the older ones to make them into better fits for my "THE character" idea. Kim is one of them, and being that she's a favourite and an oldie, I decided to write a first person narrative story about her, trying out a character personality type I haven't worked with before.

Any comments and feedback are welcome, and indeed very desirable.

Also, just to reiterate, this is told from the point of view of a female character... Of sorts.

Whether I would pay or not is less relevant than what charging for it would say about Paragon Studios as a company. And what it would say is a whole lot of really bad things. Paragon Studios and, to some extent, NCsoft, are in a somewhat unique position with City of Heroes, in that community involvement has earned them a lot of good will with the player base, and much of our support comes as much out of good will as it does out of a customer-vendor relationship.

As such, pulling a dick move like charging for what we should have gotten as part of our subscription two years ago is likely to cost them a LOT more than it's ever going to make. One has to remember that micro-transactions aren't just pure revenue source. They have a cost above and beyond what the content in them costs to develop, and that's the cost of good will. And the cost of good will, whenever people have to pay it, is VERY high indeed.

I can see why players would be tossing the idea around - we've done that for years: "Can I get what I want if it's in a paid pack?" I sincerely hope, however, that the people in charge just know better than to consider this, themselves. That is NOT a good idea.

I'm not sure why Dark Astoria being "easy" is seen as a problem. It sure as hell didn't seem easy to me when I tried it. The enemies there kicked my ***, forced me to use Unstoppable on multiple occasions per mission, which I've not had to do more than about five times since I picked up the power at level 38, and they still took me down several times with such overwhelming force that there was literally nothing I could do.

What's wrong with content being "easy?" There are multiple ways to make it harder, and more are being considered, but I fail to see how me being able to progress through content without yelling at my screen and gnashing my teeth can ever, under any circumstances, be considered a bad thing. And I'm saying this fresh from World of Tanks where I cannot ever recall an instance of a match being "easy" or making me feel powerful.