(SPOILERS) The Freedom Phalanx novel
By
Alloric,
Posted on: 2006-05-30 08:25 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Doesn't matter anyways. Recluse could have the power of 100 titans and Statesman only have the power to make really slippery ice. Somehow, Statesman would win the battle against Recluse by tricking him into stepping on his ice slick and falling into a lava pit or something.
In comics, good just beats evil as a general rule.
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Hush you. I see you've resigned yourself to this rule so far as to not bother with a villianous name. 
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Hey Positron, now that you're around and all, got one more question. The book implies that Ray doesn't have any superpowers and the suit does everything. The game and comics imply that he has powers that are presumably being focused by the suit (and later contained). Am I missing something?
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Yes. His suit was damaged during the Rikti war, infusing him with antimatter. Now he can't take it off for fear of irradiating everyone around him.
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Hey Positron, now that you're around and all, got one more question. The book implies that Ray doesn't have any superpowers and the suit does everything. The game and comics imply that he has powers that are presumably being focused by the suit (and later contained). Am I missing something?
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Yes. His suit was damaged during the Rikti war, infusing him with antimatter. Now he can't take it off for fear of irradiating everyone around him.
[/ QUOTE ] Thanks. That was throwing me off, especially because Doctor Null had a very different problem with his suit.
Now on a different note, did anyone else plow through it in an afternoon like I did? I really didn't want to leave anything hanging on it.
Pillars of Virtue - Hope, Justice, Discretion, Courage, Help
Now seeking new volunteers!
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Hey Positron, now that you're around and all, got one more question. The book implies that Ray doesn't have any superpowers and the suit does everything. The game and comics imply that he has powers that are presumably being focused by the suit (and later contained). Am I missing something?
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Yes. His suit was damaged during the Rikti war, infusing him with antimatter. Now he can't take it off for fear of irradiating everyone around him.
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Except, he is talking about the fact the the game said the suit, initially, FOCUSED his power - it wasn't until the rikti war that it was the only thing containing him.
Orc&Pie No.53230 There is an orc, and somehow, he got a pie. And you are hungry.
www.repeat-offenders.net
Negaduck: I see you found the crumb. I knew you'd never notice the huge flag.
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And more importantly, unless Azuria lied about her birthdate to MAGI, she's less than 10 in the book. So...um...what about that?
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Magic
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Uh... since when has Azuria been competent enough to cast a "Don't steal this [censored] jewel" spell, let alone anything related to aging?
She must be an Arachnos operative.
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure. --- Thomas Jefferson
Formerly known as YFNDBA
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Doesn't matter anyways. Recluse could have the power of 100 titans and Statesman only have the power to make really slippery ice. Somehow, Statesman would win the battle against Recluse by tricking him into stepping on his ice slick and falling into a lava pit or something.
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States would just nerf Recluce's powers and tell him it was to make the fight more "fun" for Recluse.
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I thought the titans were more powerful than the gods.
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No, just older. The gods did usurp the titans after all. In fact it was Zeus who "pwned" his old man, Cronos, and send all the titans to Tartarus.
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Only with the help of other Titans, though. Gaia (Zeus' grandmother) helped him take down Cronos. (well, in one set of the stories anyway)..and Cyclopse and some others helped fight the rest.
It's been a while.
It may just be that they were more powerful because they had more experience and wisdom or something.
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Could Zeus also be considered a Titan since he is the child of 2 Titans?
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I thought the titans were more powerful than the gods.
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No, just older. The gods did usurp the titans after all. In fact it was Zeus who "pwned" his old man, Cronos, and send all the titans to Tartarus.
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Only with the help of other Titans, though. Gaia (Zeus' grandmother) helped him take down Cronos. (well, in one set of the stories anyway)..and Cyclopse and some others helped fight the rest.
It's been a while.
It may just be that they were more powerful because they had more experience and wisdom or something.
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Could Zeus also be considered a Titan since he is the child of 2 Titans?
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No, he's an Olympian, not a Titan.
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This novel, while a good read, still bothers me on the timeline because if its in canon at all, then Synapse, Positron, and Manticore are way too old compared to how they're depicted in the game and the comics. Synapse and Positron are pushing 50 and Manticore's age is never given but he's still got to be somewhere in the late thirties to possible mid-40s.
I mean, maybe Synapse has an excuse for his appearence due to acts of science and nobody knows what Positron looks like, but Manticore is the normal one.
I mean, this didn't bother me too much during the book, but it's still not being addressed. I don't suppose that some rednamed bastion of the Story Bible could clear the age descrepency up?
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Never worry about the age of a hero. Batman has been 39 forever and will stay that way until the storyline needs it to change....:>
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Which reminds me of Batman Beyond.
Which brings to mind a thought for City of Heroes 2, if you guys ever make one.
Modernize the city further. Advance the timeline substantially. Retire the Phalanx (except for Immortal Statesman, of course) and bring in the next generation. Could be fun to think of our CoH2 characters as the legacy of our CoH1 characters.
Just, you know, food for thought.
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This novel, while a good read, still bothers me on the timeline because if its in canon at all, then Synapse, Positron, and Manticore are way too old compared to how they're depicted in the game and the comics. Synapse and Positron are pushing 50 and Manticore's age is never given but he's still got to be somewhere in the late thirties to possible mid-40s.
I mean, maybe Synapse has an excuse for his appearence due to acts of science and nobody knows what Positron looks like, but Manticore is the normal one.
I mean, this didn't bother me too much during the book, but it's still not being addressed. I don't suppose that some rednamed bastion of the Story Bible could clear the age descrepency up?
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Never worry about the age of a hero. Batman has been 39 forever and will stay that way until the storyline needs it to change....:>
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Which reminds me of Batman Beyond.
Which brings to mind a thought for City of Heroes 2, if you guys ever make one.
Modernize the city further. Advance the timeline substantially. Retire the Phalanx (except for Immortal Statesman, of course) and bring in the next generation. Could be fun to think of our CoH2 characters as the legacy of our CoH1 characters.
Just, you know, food for thought.
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Or, instead, make COH2 (essentially) a standalone expansion (but with more!).
Basically, when COH pretty much stable and stagnant, COH2 arrives. It retains everything from COH1 (basic) but advances everything and basically acts like a traditional sequel - when you 'beat' 1, you go on and play 2. Sort of the concept in Age of Conan where you play one part of the game (offline part) and then go on to the next (online part). COH2 however has interconectivity just like you said - legacy and what not, encouraging at least some play of COH1.
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Umm...a few of the backstories kind of don't mesh with what they they seemed to be in other sources. (i.e. Synapse volunteering for the experiment that gave him his powers vs. Dr. Null forcing him to be subjected to it)
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Where'd you get the idea that Steve volunteered for the science experiment that made him into Synapse? The lore about it is pretty sparse and I don't think I've ever had the impression that it was "voluntary". In fact, the word "torture" tends to get used a lot which meshes just fine with the origin presented in the novel.
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Umm...a few of the backstories kind of don't mesh with what they they seemed to be in other sources. (i.e. Synapse volunteering for the experiment that gave him his powers vs. Dr. Null forcing him to be subjected to it)
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Where'd you get the idea that Steve volunteered for the science experiment that made him into Synapse? The lore about it is pretty sparse and I don't think I've ever had the impression that it was "voluntary". In fact, the word "torture" tends to get used a lot which meshes just fine with the origin presented in the novel.
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In the comics, he says he volunteered for testing or something.
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Uh... since when has Azuria been competent enough to cast a "Don't steal this [censored] jewel" spell, let alone anything related to aging?
She must be an Arachnos operative.
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Well, it makes for a nice meta in-joke to say Azuria is more incompetent than Rincewind, but *storywise*, she's powerful and knowledgeable. Remember that stories are difficult to tell in an MMO -- everyone ends up doing the same quests, so someone made up the excuse that Azuria couldn't secure a two-by-two room with only one entrance. The way the stories were probably meant to be read, the city is only in danger *once* from this powerful artifact, which Azuria then successfully locks away.
Looking at Azuria's dealings with heroes in that regard, she's still not the most powerful witch in Paragon, but she's smart and capable. She has to be, otherwise folks wouldn't send me to Atlas Park to talk to her when I ask for a mission in Peregrine.
"We are looking into the possiblity of maybe someday thinking about maybe implementing something similar to this, in the future."
- Positron
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Uh... since when has Azuria been competent enough to cast a "Don't steal this [censored] jewel" spell, let alone anything related to aging?
She must be an Arachnos operative.
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Well, it makes for a nice meta in-joke to say Azuria is more incompetent than Rincewind, but *storywise*, she's powerful and knowledgeable. Remember that stories are difficult to tell in an MMO -- everyone ends up doing the same quests, so someone made up the excuse that Azuria couldn't secure a two-by-two room with only one entrance. The way the stories were probably meant to be read, the city is only in danger *once* from this powerful artifact, which Azuria then successfully locks away.
Looking at Azuria's dealings with heroes in that regard, she's still not the most powerful witch in Paragon, but she's smart and capable. She has to be, otherwise folks wouldn't send me to Atlas Park to talk to her when I ask for a mission in Peregrine.
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You missed the obvious solution that she's a double agent.
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And more importantly, unless Azuria lied about her birthdate to MAGI, she's less than 10 in the book. So...um...what about that?
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Magic
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Oh my goodness, you nerfed her AGE??
@TURGENEV - Freedom Server / IRON / B.A.N.E / HORDE
Turg Fiction: Ghost in the Machine Acts III & IV coming 2012!
Turg Fiction: IX is now LIVE on Architect Entertainment!
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Hey Positron, now that you're around and all, got one more question. The book implies that Ray doesn't have any superpowers and the suit does everything. The game and comics imply that he has powers that are presumably being focused by the suit (and later contained). Am I missing something?
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If you read the back section of Issue 3 of the Top Cow comic, there's an interview with Positron in which he says that he has an innate ability to create anti-matter and the suit focused that ability.
Now, if you read the novel carefully, you'll see that it doesn't give any explanation at all for the anti-matter blasts. You only see Positron shooting anti-matter in the armor, true. When Ray faces, uhm, whats-his-name, the mutant at the novel's opening chapter, he relies on technology not anti-matter.
Does this mean the suit produces the anti-matter blasts? No, not without some explicit text evidence which isn't provided. Ray's failure to use anti-matter without the suit just means that he needs the suit in order to use the ability safely and effectively.
Keep in mind that a small amount of anti-matter can (theoretically, in the real world) make a big boom. Ray would have to have very precise control over how much and where it's directed in order to use it as a weapon the way he does without outright destroying himself, his enemy, and their immediate surroundings. Using the ability without the suit may be fatal to the people around Ray even if he's somehow immune.
This is all hand-waving, of course, but the point is that the novel doesn't explicitly contradict the previous lore. It even indirectly supports it, given that Positron's suit is based at least conceptually on Null's suit. You'd expect it to have a similar sort of energy burst weapon, not something as exotic as anti-matter. Ray's a certified (certifiable? *heh*) genius but even he would have a hard time building a super-duper particle accelerator into his gauntlets to create the anti-matter in the first place.
As a final note, the published origin for Positron makes more sense given his current handicap. He has to somehow be immune to his own anti-matter. If the suit is generating the anti-matter, there's no such immunity. If the suit malfunctioned and infused Ray with anti-matter, it wouldn't transform him into an anti-matter being. It would destroy him in a nuclear fireball. Positron as we have him today only makes sense if the suit is NOT malfunctioning at all. He's not a man made of anti-matter. He's a man who can summon anti-matter who has lost the ability to turn off the faucet. The suit is the finger in the dike holding back the flood.
In fact, Positron is really a danger to the continued existence of the world. If the armor ever fails catostrophically, Ray will become what amounts to being the core of an uncontrolled fusion reactor. The world, maybe even the universe itself could potentially be reduced to just so much background radiation and sub-nuclear particles.
Anyway, the novel and the published origin of Positron don't mesh perfectly but they don't outright contradict each other.
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If the suit malfunctioned and infused Ray with anti-matter, it wouldn't transform him into an anti-matter being. It would destroy him in a nuclear fireball.
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You sure about that? Being 'infused with anti-matter' sounds like a classic superhero origin story to me.
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In the comics, he says he volunteered for testing or something.
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Hmmm..., you're right. It does say that in issue one of Top Cow.
I suppose you can't help but get a few contradictions when you're dealing with disparate media. Now that I re-read the comic, I remember how much it bothered me that the Synapse's origin as listed in the comic was awfully, well, brazen. It's kind of like they all just take it for granted that Crey is an evil force in the world, which isn't the case at all in the game. Sure, we players know it and even trace the corruption as part of our storylines, but outwardly Crey has a clean image and plenty of plausible deniability. Why would they do something as unsubtle as take volunteers and torture them into having super-powers? Lawsuits galore, let me tell you!
I like Laws' version because it gives a justification for the whole business, a rationale why Crey wasn't condemned more thoroughly for it, and an interesting nemesis (as well as a foreshadowing of the Paragon Protector program).
If we have to pick one to believe, I go with Laws on this one. Maybe Sean Fish can weigh in with his take on the subject.
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In fact, Positron is really a danger to the continued existence of the world. If the armor ever fails catostrophically, Ray will become what amounts to being the core of an uncontrolled fusion reactor. The world, maybe even the universe itself could potentially be reduced to just so much background radiation and sub-nuclear particles.
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Which is what makes the comment "Positron can't take a leak without destorying a city block" all the more humorous.
They need to have an NPC say that in game.
Orc&Pie No.53230 There is an orc, and somehow, he got a pie. And you are hungry.
www.repeat-offenders.net
Negaduck: I see you found the crumb. I knew you'd never notice the huge flag.
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If the suit malfunctioned and infused Ray with anti-matter, it wouldn't transform him into an anti-matter being. It would destroy him in a nuclear fireball.
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You sure about that? Being 'infused with anti-matter' sounds like a classic superhero origin story to me.
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Well, when Matter and antimatter meet, they anniliate (sp) each other.
Cosmic rays, radiation, etc, all are classic things to be infused with - don't recall antimatter.
Orc&Pie No.53230 There is an orc, and somehow, he got a pie. And you are hungry.
www.repeat-offenders.net
Negaduck: I see you found the crumb. I knew you'd never notice the huge flag.
Well, if he has some innate ability to manipulate anti-matter, he could theoretically survive having some in him.
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Well, when Matter and antimatter meet, they anniliate (sp) each other.
Cosmic rays, radiation, etc, all are classic things to be infused with - don't recall antimatter.
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Of course matter and anti-matter destroy each other. Exposure to radiation causes cancer, but that never stopped the Hulk. All I'm saying is the reality involved in "infusing" someone with anti-matter (whatever that even means) is not relevant.
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This novel, while a good read, still bothers me on the timeline because if its in canon at all, then Synapse, Positron, and Manticore are way too old compared to how they're depicted in the game and the comics. Synapse and Positron are pushing 50 and Manticore's age is never given but he's still got to be somewhere in the late thirties to possible mid-40s.
I mean, maybe Synapse has an excuse for his appearence due to acts of science and nobody knows what Positron looks like, but Manticore is the normal one.
I mean, this didn't bother me too much during the book, but it's still not being addressed. I don't suppose that some rednamed bastion of the Story Bible could clear the age descrepency up?
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Never worry about the age of a hero. Batman has been 39 forever and will stay that way until the storyline needs it to change....:>
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Actually one of DC's way of taking care of the age was to make "seperate" timeline earths. The Batman of the 40s and 50s died as commissioner of the police in the late 70s a fairly old (the grey hair at the temples kind of thing) and well respected man that had at least one son with I believe Selena Kyle (though it has been ages since I've looked at that comic moldering in my basement).
Generally though comics don't give actual dates for their events because of timeline problems (Captain America was first explained by being frozen for years then the supersoldier serum made him immortal.)
On Justice
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Of course matter and anti-matter destroy each other. Exposure to radiation causes cancer, but that never stopped the Hulk. All I'm saying is the reality involved in "infusing" someone with anti-matter (whatever that even means) is not relevant.
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Granted that we're talking comic book weird science, for me the process is what's important. A person can survive radiation exposure, and radiation causes mutations. It gives you something to hand-wave an explanation around. If the suit springs a leak, it seems to me that it wouldn't "infuse" Ray with anti-matter, it would consume him.
In any case, the published lore says that Positron summons the antimatter and lost the ability to stop summoning it due to his injuries during the Rikti War. No malfunction of the suit is mentioned. The novel doesn't address the question at all, taking place as it does a couple of decades before-hand.
The only point of contradiction is the question of whether the suit is creating the anti-matter or if it's being generated by Ray himself.
Doesn't matter anyways. Recluse could have the power of 100 titans and Statesman only have the power to make really slippery ice. Somehow, Statesman would win the battle against Recluse by tricking him into stepping on his ice slick and falling into a lava pit or something.
In comics, good just beats evil as a general rule.