It's generally not in my nature to speculate or get involved in the rumor mill, but I'm super-bored at work.
I spent about 30 mins looking through paragonwiki and the COH backstory and I've come to the conclusion that the impetus for the bizzaro universe outbreak plague probably starts a lot earlier than the Rikti war, and certainly doesn't preclude the existance of the first Rikti war.
The first Rikti war started in 2002-five years ago-and ended the same year with Omega team...yada..yada...yada... When the war ended, Crey got a hold of some Rikti weaponry that was eventually confiscated by Vanguard. According to the pre-bizzaro Outbreak contaminated villian background, "street thugs" (which could have been the Skulls) high-jacked Crey facilities and found the outbreak drug. This is all consistent with the bizarro paper article. What is different, however, (aside from the pandemic) is 1) the death of Dr. Miller and 2) the capture of operative Jenkins. Of course, both these events can be explained logically...the non-existance of either common Heroes or Villians (i.e. the player). As such, I looked at the COH background to a possible cause for this pre-condition. As it turns out, both have a common cause--Nemesis.
At the end of World-War II, Nemesis attacked Washington, D.C. This event was the impetus for the 2nd Citizen's Crime Fighting Act, which was the pre-cursor for the Might for Right Act. For all of you that read your plaques. This is the legislation that makes vigilantism (what we do Heroside) a legal enterprise. Before this legislation, only government sanctioned groups (i.e. Freedom Phalanx) could fight crime. The Nemesis invasion is also what allowed for the proliferation of super-powered criminals, by way of example. Quote: "Although Nemesis lost, he had done great damage and, more significantly, ushered in a new era for super powered heroes the world over and in Paragon City particularly. With the defeat of the Axis powers, the disappearance of the Fifth Column, and the crippling blows organized crime had received before the war, Paragon City had suddenly become a remarkably safe place to live. But villainy abhors a vacuum, and Nemesis had shown the way. A single individual with extraordinary powers, evil ambitions, and enough loyal minions could challenge a whole nation. Yes, Nemesis had failed, but there were more than a few willing to step up to the plate and show him where he'd gone wrong. The age of the super villain had begun."
Where I'm going with this is that if Nemesis had not attacked the capital after WWII, neither COH or COV would exist as we know it. If there were no heroes to assist Dr. Miller and help contain Outbreak, he might have died and the plague might have spread. Also, without Nemesis to show the world that one villian could rise to power, no villians would exist to rescue Jenkins before he could squeal to long-bow.
I bet I:11 will be about Nemesis and the possible mechanisms that might have prevented him from invading the capital. This could have come down to something as small as poor-planning on his part or a lone unsanctioned hero impeding a critical step of his plan. OR it could have been something much bigger...like WWII never happening. If the Heroes hadn't been occupied with defending Great Britain, Nemesis might never had the opportunity to invade the capital. Given that the Devs have mentioned the 5th column, the later possibilty or something else having to do with messing up the events surrounding WWII would be a nice platform to reintroduce them as a villian group.
The I:11 wallpaper suggests that whatever the Devs are doing probably involves time and repetition (the beginning is the end, is the beginning, etc.). Whatever happens in the next issue, we can be sure of one thing...we'll end up exactly where we are right now, but whatever it is that we have to face-no matter how wierd or disjointed-will be a necessary step toward the future, even if we have to go back to the past to get there.
