CactusBrawler

Well seeing as the EU could only get one type of helmet as we only had one store doing the pre-order deal I say unlock all the Arachnos helmets.

Chapter Six. Forget Me Not Sweet Infiltrator.

Forgive me the rather poor poetry of this chapters title, I was deep in my cup when writing it. After all it has been a rather troubling couple of days and a man is allowed to drink within reason. Though of course as that night above the British channel reminds me, reason can sometimes vanish with a nights revelry.

Let us first discuss allies, no that is far too loose a term for the pair of women I met that night. Business partners would be a more apt term, no nothing like that I can see what your thinking. My interest in them was purely financial at the time, but who knows they were both attractive looking lasses and who but God can dictate the path of a mans heart?

But still both women were not as you might put it maids of high society, both were of low class connections and both seemed to be associated with both magic and death. Yes magic and death surrounded me that night, I really wonder what attracts that type of person to talk with me, the clothes maybe?

Perhaps I have an almost impeccable animal magnetism that says come to me oh creatures undead and tell me your tragic unlife story!

Still the first was establishing a gang of street thugs here in the Rogue Islands, all to avenge her own death at the hands of some magic hero in Paragon City. What brought her back she didn’t know or if she did know was not willing to tell a random stranger in a bar. Still she was in the same situation as me, eking out a pittance doing tasks for one criminal after another. I saw right then a chance for mutual gain, as I mentioned before I had created a drug popular back home. While I was merely using it as a weapon, a tool to covertly wipe peoples short term memory, this ‘forget me not’ could prove a valuable source of income to fund my various plots and inventions.

Off course I am but one man, a hyper intelligent, sublimely charming, wickedly handsome man and almost priestly in my humbleness, but still just one man. I also am well aware that my dress sense though it seems to attract the undead would not attract a clientele of people looking to get high.

So I proposed a business deal with the young woman, through her street level contacts she would distribute the drug around the Rogue Islands. In return we’d split the earning thus funding her revenge and my own interests.

The second woman I met that night claimed to be an African priestess of some death cult, she certainly looked the part towering over me in her ceremonial bone like armour. She claimed to have contacts with the street gang known as the ‘Skulls’ and more importantly she claimed to have methods of getting my drug to Paragon City.

Truthfully she seemed more interested in the havoc that a new wave of addicts would cause to Paragon City and its law enforcement agencies than any actual profit from the deal but still it takes all types to make the world, and I could hardly deny that I had no interest in what would happen next.

You see at the time of writing this ‘Forget Me Not’ is not actually illegal, the components that make it can be bought in any drug store throughout the US, I merely take these chemicals and through a process that is mainly science with only a slight hint of the arcane turn it into the ‘Forget Me Not’ gas. Placing this gas within a small plastic bubble all the user has to do is break the bubble in their mouth and breath the gas into their lungs.

And hey presto! They are reliving all their happiest memories. Of course its dreadfully addictive and in most cases leads to the addict being so consumed by reliving their memories that they forget to do simple things like watch out for traffic or feed themselves.

Still it doesn’t concern me after all I don’t make them take it.

The third person I met that night was the same patch work girl from Paragon city, and what deals I made with her will remain secret until I have used my little bartering offer.
Suffice to say she is the reason why I currently have a Brontosaurus skeleton in my apartment and am quite pressed for space because of it.

Of course one doesn’t go from personal use to whole sale drug pushing without a little work and heavy modification to the production equipment.

And so it was in the middle of this process and severely hung over that at four AM I received a phone call from one of my contacts. The man was a ****, in the criminal rings he was considered a real loser but lately he’d gotten some rather profitable work for one of my skills and willingness to disregard things like crossing other organisations.

He informed me that he’d discovered something that would of got us both killed. The person who had been contacting him with these jobs was actually a operative of the US meta-human forces known as Longbow.

Now on the one hand Recluse is a dangerous power hungry, mad man who controls the Rogue Islands with an iron fist, but despite that Longbows actions in the Rogue islands could be considered those of a terrorist organisation. Still it’s not the first time that a country has tried to hide its wrong doing behind spandex and claims of justice.

Still in the Rogue islands working with Longbow has one outcome should Arachnos find out, your death. I’d been careful in most of my jobs so far only with the stealing of the Dinosaur had I shown off an let it be attributed to me.

But this **** of a man had a plan to make me correct his mistake, should Arachnos come for him he’d tell them I was the one he’d contacted to perform the actual missions, thefts and assassinations. I believed him to be cunning enough to have certain facts come out should I take the simpler path and do away with him.

So I had to interrupt my own profit making exercises to traipse around Caup Au Diable hunting down this Longbow operative, during my shake ups, bust ins and observations I saw many unrelated things, some profitable, some deadly several rather obscene but none of which I’m writing about.

With almost cosmically perfect comic timing I found him talking to several of his Longbow associates about how he’d managed to trick some stooge into doing several of his missions. A short sharp punch to the jaw shut him up and made my hang over feel a lot better.

Now of course I still had my contact to deal with, I wasn’t about to let some little **** of a man force me to do things like some sort of indebted servant. I took a quick stock of my resources, one very unconscious, very wanted by Arachnos Longbow spy and a lot of psychotropic drugs. Let us just say that **** of a man won’t be bothering me with any early morning calls any more, not after the story the spy told his interrogators at any rate.

I am Baron Eternity and I will work with you if it benefits us both, but cross me and I will put you in the morgue or some place even worse.

You have been warned.

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Those of us who actually play PPD officers might take offense at that...


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Tell your fellow officers that standard response to a villain attack is not to run around with the arms in the air performing Jazz hands.

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All fairly good rationalizations. In fact, the only one I find a little doubtful is:

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a vigilante acting outside the law with the cops well pleased to have someone who can deal with super powered villains


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Why would the cops suffer an illegal vigilante in a city stuffed FULL of registered superheroes?

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Every hero helps?

And give how useless the PPD are I'd say anyone who pulls their [censored] out of the fire while a bunch of Arachnos take pot shots at them would get a clean slide at least from Officer Dibbs and Jenkins whose [censored] were just saved.

Chapter Five. Mercenary

Matthew Burke is a man walking a fine line between being crushed and obliterated. When Arachnos conquered the Rogue Islands many people were pushed out or swallowed by the organisation Burke is not one of those people.

The fine line he walks is that between being pushed out by Arachnos and being killed by Arachnos. Still walking that line allows him to maintain a modest area of influence. Day to day he has to maintain a fine level of danger, just enough that Arachnos doesn’t step on him but not so much that they’d stomp on him.

And that is where people such as myself come in. Burke and his connections and more importantly the money said connections can provide are invaluable to some one trying to re-establish their reputation both in the under world of villains and on the world stage.

His first task was a simple act of espionage to place simple tracking devices on a number of Arachnos air vehicles from what I understood said devices could alert Longbow of the vehicles location and get them shot down. I guess this is what allowed him to keep operating here, the resources gained and irritation removed by having him eliminated were less than the resources lost and irritation gained by having the flyers shot down.

Still the bugs are findable, and so he wages a silent war having people new to Mercy Island plant new bugs for him before he will send them on to new contacts, in turn Arachnos find and remove the bugs occasionally killing and locking away some of these new powers.

Of course with such a genius as my self on the task the outcome was a forgone conclusion though of course my methods as were unexpected.

The drug laboratory the Hellions were operating had given me the necessary chemicals to construct a mind altering agent. Back home this agent went by the name ‘Forget Me Not’ when inhaled the drug rapidly travels to the brain and affects the pleasure and memory centres of the brains stimulating them both the effect I’m told is to be living in your most pleasant memories for hours on end. Certainly it proved pleasant enough to become an epidemic back home with millions of addicts world wide.

Armed with enough of this gas for thirty people I vaulted the fence into the restricted area, moving from shadow to shadow like a wraith. That’s not to say I was being cowardly merely that given my current resources it was not wise to gain the anger of an organisation while in the middle of one of their powerbases.

Its human nature when surprised to inhale sharply, priming the blood stream with oxygen so that you can run and escape or fight should the surprise be a threat.


The flight or fight instinct has served mankind for millennium.
However when said surprise is a super genius spraying you in the face with a fast acting chemical agent inhaling will simply send you spiralling off into a blissful state. More importantly it messes with your short term memory.

Leaving the Soldiers of Arachnos to dream, I placed the bugs and returned to burke. Payment bought me food and a place to stay, also a cellular phone for use in contacting people of influence.

His next set of tasks simply involved the reptilian life form known unsurprisingly as the Snakes. Resembling a snake with a human torso these creatures had apparently infested the tunnels below the Rogue Islands, according to some people they’ve always been there long before Pirates and others colonised the Rogue Islands.

Honestly the origin of these creatures doesn’t interest me so I’ve never felt the need to investigate them.

Still others showed interest in them and thus I was tasked with various sample gathering operations, a section of skin to be sent to one lab, shell to another and a hatch of juveniles to a third.

The tasks weren’t hard but the money was proving enough to upgrade my finances soon however the tasks simply weren’t paying enough so I moved on to the island of Port Oakes.

Burkes last action was to put me in contact with a broker, a man who kept his rather large ears to the ground and sold on the information to various powered individuals in the area.

He operated in away that he assured me was standard throughout the isles after initial contact he would teach you or in some cases give you something to decode the information he would place in the news papers adds and personal sections.

It took me a few seconds to crack his cipher clever, but not clever enough, I am a super genius after all.

Knowing so many people made it easy for him to make a living not only by fencing information and devices stolen by those villains who decided to take him up on his offers, but also by putting interested parties in contact with those villains they wished to offer jobs directly to.

After all some jobs are simply too important or secretive to advertise to any one with decent code cracking skills.

Now you may be asking this mercenary approach doesn’t it grate on my ego?

A worth question true but nothing could be further from the truth.

To become some one outside the law whose actions are only constrained by their own beliefs, yes you need the arrogance to decide the laws of lesser men don’t apply to yourself.

Of course you also need the power to break free of the law after all no amount of posturing and self congratulation will get you back on your feet after some one has hit you with a car to the face.

Not that super powers are all you need though they help make that initial leap, there are after all other powers available that bring there own sense of self worth.

The power that only generations of having more money than everyone brings is different from that of being able to bench press a tank.

Likewise being more intelligent than all those around you is a different type of power, it’s the most important in my own rather humble opinion.

You see a rich person can buy strength, but not make him self any smarter.

A strong person can become rich, but again no smarter than they are fated to be.

An intelligent person can mimic the strength of a strong person through other means and also gain the wealth of a rich person by applying themselves the task.

But I digress.

With the power and the arrogance to escape the laws of common men you enter a new world a world of people like you.

And this is where a third ability is required to succeed in this new society, the ability to realise when it’s better to bow your head and tow the line. We are in a ocean of big fish, but until your sure you’re the biggest you should keep your splashing to a minimum.

Now given the amount of jobs I was pulling you would think I was living the life of a rock star, doing drugs off the backs of various hookers and playing the base ball in my bathroom yes?

You couldn’t be further from the truth my income was spent on three things a place to stay, food to eat and the construction of devices.

There has been a time or two when I’ve been sat in some dank basement eating, greasy Up ‘N Away fried chicken and trying to salvage a workable piece of equipment from a dozen shop bought utilities that I’ve been tempted to give up.

Still a smiling face and the weight of my task keeps me going even when times were that bad.

As I said I’m smart and given time I could construct my devices from nothing, but that takes time to do, so jury rigging a bunch of standard devices into something fantastic proves to be the best way to start.

Eventually the devices will help me gain the resources and finance to build proper versions of my equipment.

Thanks to whoever decided to blow up the various Science Squad resource dumps that proved to be useful when I went looking for them.

Re-establishing your self as a super genius requires time and resources, resources require money and to gain money you have to spend time.

So I worked doing jobs perhaps I was lowering myself however the price of depleted uranium shells demand that I did anything for any amount of money.

That’s not to say I was a stooge, a henchman if you will. Many a person who thought themselves my superior have found an unexpected monkey wrench in their death ray or an emergency teleporter that sent them straight to a holding cell.

I can put up with a lot but there are some people who crossed the line, I’m not sure if any of them ever figured out I double or in some cases triple crossed them. Can’t say they were all the type able to figure it out.

I worked to do two things, to gain resources and to forge contacts.

Eventually without allies even the most cunning of plans can be destroyed.

I dismissed the Family, the Skull and Hellions out of hand they simply were not suited to my aims, their sights were set too low with such low goals as get rich and get more magic powers. Simply unsuitable to my own goal.

It seemed as I sat working on a system for harnessing the bodies electrical field into an attack, that I would have to look elsewhere in our particular society for allies up to the task.

Of course this would not doubt mean more mercenary tasks.

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AHA! And this is where the problem lies. I am not and never have claimed that "thus and so is the only way to do it". What I have done is say that "thus and so is how the game-world assumes it works". Break the mould. That's where good characters come from. But by the same token, since the game-world assumes things work in a particular way (enforced by the game-mechanics), people need to consider the consequences of going against the flow with their characters.

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Excellent now we are all agreed and chummy again I can actually get back to the writing I was planning to do today

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Game-world lore includes some tidbits of information such as the fact that Vanguard won't let just anyone into the RWZ. There are MANY explanations as to why your character can or cannot get in. However, the default assumption is that heroes are registered and have a Security Level, and once that rating pops up to 35, Vanguard will happily let them through. Interesting characters, however, spring from people who aren't cookie-cutter, but is it unreasonable for players and characters to assume unless they found out otherwise, IC that the default assumption is the right one?


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True and if said unregistered person was talking about stuff that would require a clearance level to obtain and said registered character knew the other character wasn't registered I'd expect the unregistered person to have some explanation as to how they got in there.

But while IC assuming everyone does things the same way as you is fine slightly naive but pretty much normal characterization for most people in the world, OOC claiming its the only way because you use certain game play mechanics in way X is a bit much.

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I was just saying alright, you know different interpitation and all that? >.>

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Yeah I wouldn't of mentioned it but I was actually looking at my ID card rewriting something at that moment

I'm still waiting for an answer as to why they'd let a normal guy into a war zone, with out his power armour thats the source of all his abilities, just because he'd brought along the correct piece of ID.

I'd also like to know why they 'trust' you less when your being side kicked, and why if your security level goes down you forget how to use your powers.

I mean since were all apparently playing the game wrong maybe those who are playing it correctly can tell us why this happens?

Please note I have reached the point after a late night where I become made out of unprocessed sarcasium.

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Mabye teh Threat Level for villians isn't done by Arachnos? But Longbow or Wyvern hell I do belive there was a villianside mission where you attacked Wtvern to rack up your plece on a "threat list"


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It has Arachnos water marks on the card :P

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And here we are in perfect accord. FFM and I are saying that it is possible to come up with a standardised explanation for certain aspects of game-mechanics. If you choose to buck the system with a character, that's fine. Have a L40 hero (unregistered) cheat to get into the RWZ. Go for it! It's my kind of interesting characterisation, and I'd love to see how Richard would interact with someone who lied and cheated that way!

BUT we have a ready-made explanation for why some characters can't do things, and it's tied to their Security Level, so why not use it?

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Just because something works doesn't mean you can't find a more entertaining way of doing it.

Okay.....since I'm still on a buzz from how good IRonman was lets use a suited hero.

He's level 50 clearance level as Ferrous-Male and level 1 as Antonio Harsh billionaire playboy.

If he turns up in full war gear as Ferrous-Male he'd be let in yeah?

As Antonio not let in.

However if he turned up with his credentials as Ferrous-Male but without any gear at all he'd still be let in aka costume slot 2, tuxedo guy.

And thats why security levels don't do it for me.

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I would still maintain that the city/state/federal government must have some say in who gets to enter or leave the Warzone from Paragon City. It's a border of the territory of the United States - they're allowed to police it.

Picture the scene. A supervillain has just had a heist in Founder's Falls go badly wrong. The heroes have seized his getaway vehicle. There's no escape. So he just strolls down to the local Vanguard office and heads into the Warzone. He's one teleport away from the Rogue Isles. The Paragon authorities wouldn't allow that, and they're entirely within their rights to stop it.

Besides, Vanguard are going to want to know that the people they're letting in and out can be guaranteed not to collaborate with the enemy. It's not just about how much Rikti [censored] they can kick; if they can't be trusted, they won't be trusted.

You can still sneak into the Warzone, in theory, just like the Malta Group do. But you'll have to answer a lot of questions before you're able to join or work with Vanguard.

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Which is what you do IC.

Saying that there is only one way of doing things and therefore you must do it the way that those who follow one facet of the games mechanics or you are wrong is a bit much.

When a bunch of black clothed exceptions are not only staring you in the face but also shooting you in it as well.

As I keep saying if you can work out how game play mechanic affect you character when he/she/it is not registered does that make you less right than some one who just uses the normal mechanics?

Lets go back to the RWZ, I've moved the toon through the arcs as and when my game level lets me, I've collected the salvage etc for costume pieces.

Yet even with a few pieces of vanguard tech said character hasn't done the arc didn't have the clearance, has been to the war zone 'illegally', isn't a member of vanguard and has a few pieces of tech she found abandoned and damaged while exploring.

Once again if some one can RP their way around game play mechanics then I can't see your issue with them.

Just because in 'character' you've busted your hump off to raise your clearance level to be told things doesn't mean some one in 'character' hasn't found out the same through other methods, like bribery, seduction, hacking.

Just to finish on a cheesy note, Just because all roads lead to Rome, doesn't mean were all walking the same path.

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Why can't he be let in IC though regardless Fans huh? Stop dodging the question! Well if it was my character I think the easiest explanation would be he simply doesn't want to join Vanguard! Perhaps he always freezes when asked to do the induction, perhaps he doesn't like the idea of the organization and their methods, perhaps he's just a total klutz!

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He wants to get in. He believes strongly in the fight and he has the strength to back it up. But he refuses to register. Vanguard refuse to let him in. Why?

It doesn't matter how you attempt to fudge it; there comes a point where you CANNOT ignore the game mechanics as they WILL stop you doing some things. The only way to get through such limitations is by following the rules of the game world we are in. Getting in to the War Zone requires a hero or villain to have a security/threat level of 35, and the ONLY IC way to get that is to be a registered hero/destined one. You might not like that, but those are the rules of the game.

Do you like playing Backgammon on everyone else's Monopoly board?

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Or get in the same way that Malta do and the other none vanguard/aracnhos/longbow mobs in the zone do?

Which amazingly just requires you to be around the same strength/skill/resource level as some one with a level 35 clearance rating?

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He can clearly handle himself. He is strong, and tough, and powerful, just as requested. But he's not allowed in. Why not?

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Because he failed the speed test upon induction.

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No. What I'm saying is that a Pawn can't use the same moves as a Bishop.


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I think you missed the part where I said IC like most unregistered heroes I've met there are certain things you can't do.

However the toon can still do them, after all its only the toon thats bound by the game play mechanics, not the actual character.

But still you went on demanding to know how certain game play mechanics would work for some one unregistered, and the simple fact is in character they don't work the same way. Hazard zones they sneak in, flash a fake ID (Hell it works for Malta). Rely on not getting killed rather than a 'get me out of here' button.

Really I can't see your problem unless you've met a load of unregistered heroes who Only when playing the toon, not the character use the same game play mechanics as you do, got to remember most of the game play mechanics don't make sense in a real world or RP setting.

How do you buy things with a rating of fame?

Why do empathic healing abilities heal robots?

How come if your following the orders of some one with a lower security level you suddenly forget how to use certain powers?

How come you can carry three shotguns, a bow and arrow, two different types of broadswords and various grenades, medic kits and possibly a robot with you while just wearing a lyrca costume with not pockets and your natural in origin?


You've got to remember not everyone has to go to hospital when they hit the button just because your character does so.

They could be unregistered but with enough money to Tony stark style buil;d their own medi-port network.

They could be using pirated software and hacked hardware to piggy back off of the registered system.

They could have a limited emergency teleporter just enough to get them away from the map so they can give them selves first aid.

Hell you confusing the game play mechanic of 'go to hospital with in character effects. In character given the sheer amount of apparent technology spells and locations that block the medi-port system you'd likely of died of your wounds and or been executed the first time it failed in a council base for example.

But since game play wise we don't have character death its not something you have to face in character?

Back to Hazard zones, just because the game play mechanic sates: you click here -> We check level-> you zone doesn't mean it has to happen in character that way for everyone.

Just because you entered by the doors doesn't mean everyone did, other could sneak in through other routes like the mobs do.

Psychics could simply mind trick the guards into thinking they are a registered hero of sufficient clearance to go in. You don't stop Professor Xavier going where he wants unless you didn't put wheel chair access there of course .

You could have forged credentials.

*Flashes blank piece of paper*

"Hello I'm the Doctor here with Northern Observational Weapons Analyssis and Investigation"

"Come right in sir!"

If your going to obsess that game play mechanics are the only way we interact in the game world then apparently we hack computers, defuse bombs and search things with our mind by simply getting in range and staring at it.

Now whether some one can RP them selves as an unregistered character with all the perks a registered gets is another matter and up to their skill and back story.

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*sigh*

Vanguard want two things from people in the warzone: 1) People who are willing and able to kick Rikti butt and 2) People who can handle the knowledge that you need Omega Level Clearance to know.

Note that word: Willing.

It's important.

Vanguard can't and don't forcibly employ anyone. They ask people to help and, in my theoretical explanation for a game-mechanic/IC compromise, get the SL and TL information they need from the FBSA and Arachnos in an attempt to ensure that anyone entering the warzone meets both criteria.

Or, if you'd prefer to break immersion thoroughly, I'll IC have my L50 main take any L1 toon you'd care to bring along to the warzone. He's Omega Cleared, and is willing to vouch for your L1 character that you are powerful enough to hold your own, after all you faced an invasion force and had no trouble at all.

Now come up with an explanation that fits the facts as to why your L1 can't get in.

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Despite your assurances, the level one looks a bit Rikti-ish there fore said level one is not allowed in.

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Tell me. If you're tabletop gaming with D&D or similar; or hell, even playing chess or Monopoly. Do you throw the game's rule book down the toilet, or do you work within it? It's the same thing here.

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D&D allows for house rules, DM discretion and other such things.

But what you fixating on are purely game play mechanics a way of saying you can't go here until you are level X.

However all these game play mechanics do is show us how things work from one point of view.

I've even pointed out game play instances that show that the mechanics affect the player do not have to affect the game world as a whole.

Hazard zones can and have been infiltrated, hell even the RWZ has none Vanguard affiliated mobs in.

And there is no way in hell your going to convince me that they'd let a shadowy paramilitary organization send its troops into a zone, when nobody knows who Malta take orders from.

What your basically doing is saying that chess can't be the battle between good and evil, elves and orcs, capitalism and communism, because we've only got black and white pieces so if were not playing black vs white were playing it wrong.


Or to put it another way if you fixate on the game play mechanics you miss out that the game world can function differently.

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Vanguard are a UN organisation created to battle the Rikti threat. They have nothing directly to do with the US government, or the RI government, or any other government. They have basically been told by the United Nations "Do whatever it takes to stop those aliens destroying our world". I don't see that they would have any problems using villains as well as heroes, but they have certain standards before they will accept someone to fight in the warzone, where there is a heightened risk of them discovering <Omega Level Clearance Required>.

I can tell that 'trust' was the wrong word to use as far as Villains are concerned, but I seem to recall that when you do your Patron arc, your patron trusts you after the first bit of it. You have acheived a certain level of access to the knowledge and equipment and people within Arachnos, and when Vanguard come along to Lord Recluse and say "Hey, you know that thing about <Omega Level Clearance Required>? Well, we're going to ask anyone from your islands if they wouldn't mind helping us out against the Rikti - can you give us any way to judge people who would be suitably able to handle that knowledge? Oh, nice, you already differentiate them in terms of their threat to you and your organisation, which since this is a Darwinian Society means that they are the fittest? Excellent."

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Not really because in effect they'd be going yeah Doctor Battenburg is a powerful threat to Arachnos you should employ him. I mean its not like the reason we find him a threat is because he keeps switching his loyalties at a drop of a hat to suit his own self interest, and may very well do the same to Vanguard should he get a better offer from the Rikti....oh wait!

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Simple they don't think you can punch Rikti hard enough.

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Utterly beside the point. Combat Level =/= Security Level, but Vanguard work off your Security Level. I'd say that since Vanguard work, to a certain extent, outside the law, employing people from the Etoile Islands as well as Paragon City, they simply use SL as a way to judge if you are experienced enough, in the eyes of others, to handle the things you find out.

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And yet they have the same cutoff point for villians who don't have a security clearance level to work off of.

In fact villains have a threat level, which would suggest they are offered access purely by how dangerous vanguard think they are.

Which would altogether suggest that they base acceptance into vanguard by how well you fight not how much they think they can trust you.

Else no villain would be able to join.

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so you will admit that an unregistered hero would have to be a villain to get in to most place then? or at least be perceived to be a villain.

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I'm going to say as long as you can kill Rikti Vanguard don't care.

Because.

A) they really don't like Rikti

B) you'd make a perfect scape goat should something occur and they need to cover their [censored].

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Vanguard (in my view) wouldn't take in anyone who's not registered and cleared for the warzone - I can see the government as much as Vanguard themselves insisting on that rule. You don't want random citizens getting in or out of a Rikti-heavy area, do you? Especially given that the Rikti can disguise themselves as humans.

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I'd say that if the Government had any say in the matter Arachnos forces and known super villains wouldn't be working with Vanguard either.

In addition to this you've got Mercenary groups like Malta and the Knives of Artemis in the area.

I'm going to hedge a bet and say if organizations known for terrorist actions can get in then Vanguard aren't as strict and Government controlled as you might think.

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My understanding (and like FFM, I mostly play heroes, not villains) is that Security Level is a measure of trust that the FBSA has for your character. By the same token Threat Level would logically be the level of 'trust' that Arachnos has in the villain. They bear no resemblance to how powerful your character actually is, merely to your level of access within the organisations that allocate those levels.

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However while in heroes you establish trust with the FBSA as you do missions, in villains half the time you are actually working against Arachnos.
If it was based on trust it'd be a reverse system fresh off the flyer from Breakout they trust you, by level 50 you've basically destroyed so many devices and take over the world plots that your kill on sight for the most part, if you weren't powerful enough to not be killed on sight.

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And yet they have the same cutoff point for villians who don't have a security clearance level to work off of.

In fact villains have a threat level, which would suggest they are offered access purely by how dangerous vanguard think they are.

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Is it unreasonable to assume that 'Threat Level' is a basis by which Arachnos measures the skill and trustworthiness of their Destined Ones? In which case Vanguard, who don't CARE if someone's a 'good guy' or a 'bad guy' as long as they're willing to fight Rikti, are simply using a piece of information available from Arachnos, the same as Security Level is available from the FBSA.

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Skill? Possibly

Trustworthiness? Not a cat in hells chance.

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Okay, accepted that there may be illicit methods of entering some hazard zones (I don't really play villains), that's still not going to endear you to the law though, is it? And there ARE still areas where you won't be able to do some things, or garner some information, unless you're registered.

You can sure as hell forget ANYthing to do with Portal Corp.

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Sure and thats where ICC comes in.

I mean we can't change the game mechanics, sure according to the game you've got the required amount of visits to the level up NPC to enter some where, doesn't mean you have to stroll up to GG and start going on about todays missions.

Take my character, I've done the starting Vanguard stuff with her, but she hasn't since Rikti have Robots and she is terrified of robots.

So why do it?

Well it helped alleviate the tedium that is hero side soloing and I want a Talsion broadsword costume part.

IC though she's not been to the RWZ and probably won't.

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Simple they don't think you can punch Rikti hard enough.

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Utterly beside the point. Combat Level =/= Security Level, but Vanguard work off your Security Level. I'd say that since Vanguard work, to a certain extent, outside the law, employing people from the Etoile Islands as well as Paragon City, they simply use SL as a way to judge if you are experienced enough, in the eyes of others, to handle the things you find out.

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And yet they have the same cutoff point for villians who don't have a security clearance level to work off of.

In fact villains have a threat level, which would suggest they are offered access purely by how dangerous vanguard think they are.

Which would altogether suggest that they base acceptance into vanguard by how well you fight not how much they think they can trust you.

Else no villain would be able to join.

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Incorrect. Hazard zones have a level requirement to enter, and it's always mention in game as being a security level requirement, not a combat level. Unless you're a registered hero, you're not going to HAVE a security level are you? If you have no security level, and no hero registration, there's no ID for the guards at the gates to verify, so you won't be permitted to enter.

As for the other things in the zones, those things were already in there when they were sealed.


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Incorrect. Their are villain side missions that head to some of these zones so some things must be going in and out.

Hell one of my fave missions involves going to Boomtown and breaking all the construction equipment so they can't rebuild.

And in a fair few of these go to paragon city hazard zone missions the contact giver isn't even an Arachnos agent, so you don't need the equivalent of a stealth sub or flyer to get there.

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You can forget Vanguard too. They'll only let you in if you have a minimum security level of 35, and you have to be registered to have a security level, so no War Zone or Vanguard membership for you!

Hero Corps won't touch you with a bargepole either; nor will Longbow, or Freedom Corps, or the trainers. And you can TOTALLY forget being allowed in to places like Siren's Call or the PvP zones that use Longbow transportation to reach!

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Sure do wonder how all the mobs get into those zones. Didn't know Longbow had a Tsoo branch.

And again Vanguard hire villains. As long as it can punch out Rikti they'd hire anything.

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Yet they won't allow a hero with a security rating lower than 35 even in to their base. Curious, no?

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Simple they don't think you can punch Rikti hard enough.

Thats why the guy is standing outside the base.

He's sizing people up and thinking to himself 'Can that guy punch Rikti really hard or not?'

And if thinks you can he calls you over.

If he doesn't you can't come in.