Seschat

I had a Essayon this subject, just hadn't felt like posting it. Today I shall. I call it "Free Will Does Not Exist In Praetoria" One moment...


All right. I was thinking about Praetoria (bad idea, I know), and came up with a theory that fits what we know about the place, and patches over the plot holes littered across the mission map by writers not paying enough attention to the development bible. Simply put, there is no free will in Praetoria.

Zero. None whatsoever.

Now, for some time I've been of the opinion that nothing happens in Praetoria save by Cole's will. Two recent storylines have jelled my theory above. The first was the recent Hamidon invasion event, where we learn that Cole has access vat-grow a pair of clones of Colonel DuRay, and have them instantiated with custom memories to order. The second was after completing the First Ward arc, and noticing that this was the first ever mention of _childhood_ In any Praetoria story-line, and only out here in the "abandoned" part of the nation.

Think about it: in Praetoria proper (Nova, Imperial, and Neutropolis), civilians talk about how happy they are to live and work here, but not how safe it is to raise a family. Hostages express relief that they weren't chomped by ghouls, but never express how they hope that their children grow up to be like their rescuers. In fact, the only _offspring_ we know about are "Special": Penelope Yin (daughter of an immigrant), Diabolique (born while the ultra secret Midnighter's Club was still functioning), Dominatrix (Cole's own granddaughter), Katie Hannon (most likely part of a long term scheme to keep Tillman out of Cole's head). People may talk about "brothers" or "sisters", husbands and wives, but never children or parents.

At this point, I have to conclude that nearly everyone in the city is vat-grown in those countless gold Revenant Project tubes we see in every lab map, programmed for their place in society, and installed for the greater (Cole's) good. If the societal programming breaks down, the Seers find them and send them off to the BAF for reprogramming. If the non-violence controls weaken, they're recruited into the PPD. If both systems fail, then the unhappy citizen is recruited by Cole's most loyal deep-cover minion: Calvin Scott. Stable citizens with psionic potential get sent to the seers, and the real loons that have the potential for true power? That would be you, the player character in Powers Division. And by the time you've had enough personal development to start looking for the curtain behind the man behind the curtain, you get a free trip to Primal Earth (or First Ward). Remember to fight the power, the State needs traitorous enemies to stand against.

The Praetors and their ilk are kept under control by Cole' iron hand, their incessant infighting, their overwhelming psychological issues, and most recently, Cole offering fast-track drinks of Incarnate kool-ade. The Hamidon is as firmly under the thumb of Tyrant s the Going Rogue briefing made it out to be. Sorry veterans of the underground trial, but You Have Been Had. All we actually see is Desdemona picking up an empty Carnie mask and announcing that she feels Vanessa's psychic impressions telling her the Great Truth. Des isn't a psychic, she's a pretty brute force sorceress, and as anyone who has played the red-side alignment and morality missions knows, a fairly gullible one.
And as for the big man himself? Marcus "I will bring order to the multiverse" Cole is dancing his little tyrannical dance on the marionette-strings of the Well of the Furies.

Apologies for spelling & grammar: typed the first draft at work on my phone.

At this stage, I'm of the opinion that 99.9% of the entire population of Praetoria are clones, not just the Olympian Guard. Which then begs the question: why are we being so nice to these people?

The rest of the bloody cosmos.

Merging my commentary with another of your earlier posts. We've been fighting the "Kree" since 2002: aka the Rikti. We haven't seen the equivalents of the Skrulls, Shi'ar, Dominators, Khunds, Dormammu, the Red Lantern Corps, or anyone else who might have legitimately higher power levels than us Terran monkeys. We've fought the CoH answer to Hero Games' Tyranon the Conqueror, aka Rularuu, also for years. But when we actually start becoming godlike (any metahuman qualifies as demi-godlike, just ask Romulus), we end up fighting the Dorks From Next Door, aka, Praetoria. And despite being a tiny ground down, post-apocalyptic population, they have infinite troops, and their civilians can kill us. With rocks.

So yes, we would like to feel godlike at this, the halfway point in our incarnate journey. If not Galactus, can we at least meet the vanguard of Darkseid's armada?

Recharge Intesive Pets. Which Gremlins takes.

Stalkers would need hammers for that. *grin*maniacal laughter*

[Placate] Move a long, citizen, nothing to see here.

I'm more worried about trying to get the 200 Banished Pantheon masks needed for Eye of the Magus. DA was the only place in the game that this was practical, due to 1) the limited portion of the BP content that allows them to spawn, 2) Totems (their higher-level replacements) not counting towards the total, and 3) the absurdly high number of kills required.

Should this badge get the Carnival of Shadows treatment (reduced kill count and increased variety of legitimate targets) I will cheerfully withdraw my concerns.

Joss Whedon is hardly a shining example to follow in the art of writing HEROIC fiction. His comic book credits are primarily X- books, deliberately grey and gritty. And let us not forget he's responsible for the depressing travesty of Firefly.

Ran into that too on my redsider. Forgot to mention that I ran into the above bug on the blue-side version of the arc.

Which is odd. My main villain hasn't done a Morality Mission in quite some time (like spring), and still gets Villain Merits when she does these. Whereas my Heroic Dominator finished the Vigilante-Villain-Rogue-Hero trip in September, and had to reaffirm his Heroic status AGAIN.

No, please no. Mister "Washed-out-dim-transparencies" guy annoyed me to distraction in the I-21 beta. And his repeated disinterest in putting WORDS on the interface just added to the frustration.

Unfortunately, it isn't, if I recall a post from years ago by Castle or another sadly-no-longer-with-us Dev properly. A lot of the original costume parts are hard coded into the game engine as a numbered list, with a few gaps in place to allow for the "unlikely" event of additional costume parts being added. (Memories of Y2K, anyone?) This is why most of the newer parts got added haphazardly to the end of the parts list: there is no sane way to stick them in the middle where they belong without decompiling the main application code, making fundamental changes, recompiling, and distributing the change as yet-another-2GB-download.

(Yes, I am aware of the miracles performed on the head and chest piece lists, which gives me hope for the rest of the costume editor. We just need to give the coders time to resolve the issue. And they've been busy up until late. This whole "Freedom" thing. )