Discussion: Paragon Times - 70 Years In Office
By
Alchemedic,
Posted on: 2007-09-27 14:21 in News, Events and Announcement Discussion
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If Manti and Recluse are working together to fix the timeline (or to alter it), it must have happened after Manti turned evil. Why pretend to be that violent, make up a story about how you killed your parents, if you were going to fix something? If this was something to do for the greater good, why all the subterfuge?
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Actually, I think I may have an answer for this one.
Imagine you are born into a world very much like the one we live in now, but some crucial event changed your life and you still remember the world we live in now and consider it to be real!.
Manticore was mentored by Back Alley Brawler, but now suddenly the Brawler's all comatose (possibly from some dire mishap Manticore himself was responsible for), but Manticore remembers being mentored by the Brawler. His memory is rich in detail from all the good times they had together that suddenly never happen!
That would tend to make a person a bit insane. They cannot trust their memory because when they compare their internal world to the world around them, there is a major disconnect. They are delusional, and they know they are delusional, but they also know without a doubt that the problem is the external world not linking up with their internal one, not vice-versa.
This would naturally lead to all the problems Manticore is described as having: substance abuse, violent acting out, complete disregard for human life, etc. Even his blunt dismissal of his girlfriend (arrow to the chest is a pretty final way to break up, eh?). After all, from the perspective of his internal world, she's not even real!
So Manticore finds the one person just as insane as he is and joins forces with him: Lord Recluse.
Maybe, just maybe and this is pure speculation now, the main game world is going to become this alternate reality the Paragon Times is hinting at. Only three people remember the world the way it should be: Lord Recluse, Manticore, and YOU! Lord Recluse then becomes the mission contact for villains trying to set things back to normal while Manticore becomes the hero contact.
Or maybe I'm the one who's delusional. 
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I like the way you think 
Protector Server
Animatrix: lvl 50, Martial Arts/ Regen, Scrapper
Dark Fairie: Lvl 50, Ninja Blade/ Ninjitsu, Stalker
Twitter | Facebook
Animatrix: lvl 50, Martial Arts/ Regen, Scrapper
Dark Fairie: Lvl 50, Ninja Blade/ Ninjitsu, Stalker
Twitter | Facebook
P.S
Oh and while you're at it, it being the whole temporal readjustment thing, can you see if you can find it in your hearts to ressurect Protean. He was badass.
I have this creepy crawling feeling that we'll see one more article like these, and in that one, Lord Recluse will have failed to take over Arachnos. Or SPIDER. Or whatever they were called back then.
Thought for the day:
"Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment."
=][=
Thoughts on the Wallpaper:
The Infinity symbol combined with the Ouroboros "snake eating its own tail" implies an infinite loop. Definately sounds like time-travel to me.
I can't tell what material it's supposed to be made out of, looked like bronze or brass at first, but more like wood on closer inspection.
Virtue:
Grul Doctor Pinnacle Swarm Caller Pity Fist Smashdozer Dhuuln
Did I miss something with Manticore? What have I managed to miss in backstory? I'm confused. Then again, I've not been reading the comics...
Ok Question, if Manticore flips in i11, what happens to his TF?
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I have this creepy crawling feeling that we'll see one more article like these, and in that one, Lord Recluse will have failed to take over Arachnos. Or SPIDER. Or whatever they were called back then.
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I have a sneaky hunch we'll see three or four more that keep changing as the timeline gets more and more thrown off course.
WELL DONE DEVS!
@Nameless Hero, Insane Sword-wielding Video Game Hero - Also a character in CoH
Yukie Bikouchi, Halfway Lost, and others
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If Manti and Recluse are working together to fix the timeline (or to alter it), it must have happened after Manti turned evil. Why pretend to be that violent, make up a story about how you killed your parents, if you were going to fix something? If this was something to do for the greater good, why all the subterfuge?
[/ QUOTE ]
Actually, I think I may have an answer for this one.
Imagine you are born into a world very much like the one we live in now, but some crucial event changed your life and you still remember the world we live in now and consider it to be real!.
Manticore was mentored by Back Alley Brawler, but now suddenly the Brawler's all comatose (possibly from some dire mishap Manticore himself was responsible for), but Manticore remembers being mentored by the Brawler. His memory is rich in detail from all the good times they had together that suddenly never happen!
That would tend to make a person a bit insane. They cannot trust their memory because when they compare their internal world to the world around them, there is a major disconnect. They are delusional, and they know they are delusional, but they also know without a doubt that the problem is the external world not linking up with their internal one, not vice-versa.
This would naturally lead to all the problems Manticore is described as having: substance abuse, violent acting out, complete disregard for human life, etc. Even his blunt dismissal of his girlfriend (arrow to the chest is a pretty final way to break up, eh?). After all, from the perspective of his internal world, she's not even real!
So Manticore finds the one person just as insane as he is and joins forces with him: Lord Recluse.
Maybe, just maybe and this is pure speculation now, the main game world is going to become this alternate reality the Paragon Times is hinting at. Only three people remember the world the way it should be: Lord Recluse, Manticore, and YOU! Lord Recluse then becomes the mission contact for villains trying to set things back to normal while Manticore becomes the hero contact.
Or maybe I'm the one who's delusional.
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I like the way you think
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Likewise. Your analysis of what may be going on in Manticore's head sounds pretty spot-on.
Also, I'm thinking that Egon/Aeon/Echo is the key. The 5th Column will return, but not as the cause. Their power in this timeline is broken; they'd have no means. But all it takes is one time travelling mad scientist to go on a bender...
And the Outbreak is never isolated.
The Breakout of the Zig never succeeds.
A man who would be a hero loses his hold on reality and his sanity.
A would-be world conqueror never seizes power.
And the Center does not hold.
"...It's wrong. It's all wrong..."
"Ooo! A little fight in you! I like that..."
"Then you're going to love me."
After having read every responce in this thread thus far I just wanted to point something out.
Almost everyone who brings up BAB keeps talking about how he is supposedly comatose... Am I the only one who read the whole edition though?
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Back Alley Brawler, the Guardians member charged with escorting Recluse to prison, was killed in the skirmish.
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He will pay for what he did to Back Alley Brawler. No one kills one of our own and simply disappears.
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Yes, according to the articles he is mentioned in the BAB of this new dimension (timeline?) was comatose at one point. However he managed to recover, returned to active hero duty, and is most certianly dead now.
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The times, they are changing.
Perhaps a trip in time is in order. Yes, I think we should activate Project Tic Toc. I'll go tell Dr. Tony Newman and Dr. Doug Phillips to fire up their swirly portal.
Bayne
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Only if you can have Lee Meriwether at the controls. Rarw!
- Green Lantern
"Say, Jim...woo! That's a bad out-FIT!" - Superman: The Movie
Me 'n my posse: http://www.citygametracker.com/site/....php?user=5608
Random theory time:
It was said that I11 would contain something that people have been asking for...something big.
It is also apparent that time is being altered in some way, but as heroes and villains we are not directly changed yet.
So, here is my theory.
I11 will introduce the one thing that everybody wants, but nobody believed was possible. Game altering events. Missions that, depending on if you win or lose will alter game zones drastically.
Recluses Victory was the test zone for this type of event. The invasion took it to another level. All the mechanics are in place.
So, my thoughts are a time-travel task force/strike force. Depending on who wins the zones shifts, contacts disappear because they are dead, Contaminated litter the streets.....chaos!!!!
Some of us are reading too much into the articles. We shouldn't speculate on issue 11 by the content of these articles. The world has changed twice already. I'm guessing we will continue to see more articles of our world, each with a different outcome. What we should be looking at is how they were changed.
The reason I'm guessing time travel is that in each article, you can almost pinpoint the exact moment when something in the past changed and has now branched off into a different direction. The first article was easy. The point in time that changed was involving you. You were removed from existence (whether you never got your powers, never born, etc.).
The second article is unrelated to the first. Clearly Recluse did not win his battle with President Marchand and never took over as management in Rogue Isles. Another point that altered history was with Justin Sinclair (aka Manticore). Instead of remaining a hero, he is now a villain. Now that these events have occurred, the first article is now moot. That outcome has already changed.
Again I suspect that we will continue to receive news articles, not relating to the previous one. However each article will show us something in our time has changed by someone altering the past. Butterfly effect.
@Mr Mirage
Become more, become Eternal.
I'll wait to see it ingame.
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If Manti and Recluse are working together to fix the timeline (or to alter it), it must have happened after Manti turned evil. Why pretend to be that violent, make up a story about how you killed your parents, if you were going to fix something? If this was something to do for the greater good, why all the subterfuge?
[/ QUOTE ]
Actually, I think I may have an answer for this one.
Imagine you are born into a world very much like the one we live in now, but some crucial event changed your life and you still remember the world we live in now and consider it to be real!.
Manticore was mentored by Back Alley Brawler, but now suddenly the Brawler's all comatose (possibly from some dire mishap Manticore himself was responsible for), but Manticore remembers being mentored by the Brawler. His memory is rich in detail from all the good times they had together that suddenly never happen!
That would tend to make a person a bit insane. They cannot trust their memory because when they compare their internal world to the world around them, there is a major disconnect. They are delusional, and they know they are delusional, but they also know without a doubt that the problem is the external world not linking up with their internal one, not vice-versa.
This would naturally lead to all the problems Manticore is described as having: substance abuse, violent acting out, complete disregard for human life, etc. Even his blunt dismissal of his girlfriend (arrow to the chest is a pretty final way to break up, eh?). After all, from the perspective of his internal world, she's not even real!
So Manticore finds the one person just as insane as he is and joins forces with him: Lord Recluse.
Maybe, just maybe and this is pure speculation now, the main game world is going to become this alternate reality the Paragon Times is hinting at. Only three people remember the world the way it should be: Lord Recluse, Manticore, and YOU! Lord Recluse then becomes the mission contact for villains trying to set things back to normal while Manticore becomes the hero contact.
Or maybe I'm the one who's delusional.
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Still, Manti is not a sheep in wolf's clothing in this timeline/universe, I think. He's been driven crazy by the change, which has affected him so much, he's gone to the darkside. It isn't like he suddenly took some drastic actions to solve his problem, he was involved in BAB's death, he shot his own girlfriend, etc. Why would he be considered a hero contact for this timeline?
Just my speculation will follow.
So he may be working on what we view as the greater good, but to him, he is just obsessed with doing something about his conflicting memories. He is clearly more of a loose cannon in this timeline, a more dirty chracter. I wouldn't even say he is ambigious. If he does have conflicting memories, maybe that is where he got the idea for killing his parents as Protean. But, I don't think he is going to be someone we, as heroes, are going to help.
"Ben is short for Frank."
-Baffling Beer-Man, The Tenacious 3: The Movie
[IMG]http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa10/BafflingBeerman/teamjackface1.jpg[/IMG]
is it must me or does that guy look kinda look like Stan Lee?
So, Back Alley Brawler dead, huh??? And you thought the lag was bad in Atlas Park before! Check it out when there's only one trainer to go to from Outbreak zone.
And Noooo! No more Manticore TF?
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Ok Question, if Manticore flips in i11, what happens to his TF?
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Nothing.
The devs arent going to rework the entire game, this is all most likely going to invlove a new co-op zone set in an alternate timeline with a new TF open to "mixed" teams.
Could you even truely begin to fathom the outcry from all the obsessive-compulsive badge hunters out there if they changed everything around to the way it is now being represnted in the papers?
No sucsessful jail break = no jail bird badge.
Outbreak not contained = nearly impossible to get Isolator badge.
Manti being evil = no Manti TF, hence no badge for that (possibility of it being retconned out of existance).
Arachnos not running the Isles would mean an inability to gain a ton of badges villain side since so many of them require interaction with the members of Arachnos who in one way or another are helping to run the show on the Isles...
I seriously doubt that what is about to occur in I11 will change the 2 games in such a way that 1 of them (red side) would need a complete makeover. It would really piss a lot of people off.
Story arch, sure.
New Co-op zone, possibility.
New Co-op TF/SF, this has my vote for most likely to occur.
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So, Back Alley Brawler dead, huh??? And you thought the lag was bad in Atlas Park before! Check it out when there's only one trainer to go to from Outbreak zone.
And Noooo! No more Manticore TF?
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Uhh, what outbreak zone?
They said in the last Paragon Times that they were never able to contain the spread of outbreak...
Then again, as I already stated before, I just can't see any drastic changes being made to any preestablished zones, tfs, what not... Of course that's just imho.
It occurs to me.
Could this not be a very elegent and complex practical joke?
So, what did we do when the game had no badges? Poor babies miss out on badges?? badges are only bragging rights, with the few exceptions being accolades that actually do something for your character before badges became completely useless ;-)
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Nice article.
I know it's too late at this stage if they aren't in, but I'd love to see the Blood of the Black Stream brought into I11. They'd be very unhappy that someone is screwing with the Giant Circuit.
Also, there have already been hints that most zones are going to see at least minor changes as a result of I11.
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Yes. It would be nice if the villain EAT was something other than a rehashed third flavor of the space squids. I doubt there will be wholesale changes to many zones, it would break a lot of story arcs, badge hunts, and the like. I think we will find that temporary protection from temporal disturbances will have been set up and maybe a co-op task force brought in for players to help Recluse and Manticore get the correct timeline reset. Things will likely be back to normal with I12. Just my take on the whole thing.
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So, what did we do when the game had no badges? Poor babies miss out on badges?? badges are only bragging rights, with the few exceptions being accolades that actually do something for your character before badges became completely useless ;-)
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Nice point, and I can understand where you're coming from, but the world without badges went bye-bye with the advent of I2.
And believe me. I pvp in zones a lot. Ive seen just how vocally hostile the majority of badge hunters can be when they go for thier objects of obsession... The devs dont want to piss them off.
<QR>
I'll echo the (0_o)!! sentiments. Cool buildups so far...my brain is spinning, but still fun.
I'm going to have to refer to Manticore as "El Jefe" as now.
global: @SuperSean
Undersecretary of Awesome
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Some of us are reading too much into the articles. We shouldn't speculate on issue 11 by the content of these articles. The world has changed twice already. I'm guessing we will continue to see more articles of our world, each with a different outcome. What we should be looking at is how they were changed.
The reason I'm guessing time travel is that in each article, you can almost pinpoint the exact moment when something in the past changed and has now branched off into a different direction. The first article was easy. The point in time that changed was involving you. You were removed from existence (whether you never got your powers, never born, etc.).
The second article is unrelated to the first. Clearly Recluse did not win his battle with President Marchand and never took over as management in Rogue Isles. Another point that altered history was with Justin Sinclair (aka Manticore). Instead of remaining a hero, he is now a villain. Now that these events have occurred, the first article is now moot. That outcome has already changed.
Again I suspect that we will continue to receive news articles, not relating to the previous one. However each article will show us something in our time has changed by someone altering the past. Butterfly effect.
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Time travel is almost certainly at play, given one of Kerensky's clues on the UK boards. In it, he quoted a (seemingly irrelevant) line from Star Trek: First Contact. The plot of that movie involves the Borg going back in time to eliminate a key figure, and change the present.
I agree with you about the fundamental change bit, but I think that each of the papers has 2 fundamental changes.
For the first two articles, the changes are that your hero didn't stop the outbreak epidemic, and that your villain didn't succeed in breaking out.
For the first change in the second set of articles, I like Zombie_Man's theory. Marchand mentions that he can keep running because the Rogue isles don't have anything like the US's 20th amendment. The trouble is, the 20th amendment doesn't say anything about term limits; basically, all it did was move the date of presidential inaugurations from March to January. It's the 22nd amendment that limits presidents to 2 terms. So why the discrepancy? ZM suggested that it could be because prohibition never happened. That would mean that the 18th and 19th amendments never happened, pushing the term limits amendment back to 20. Now, the history of Paragon says that organized crime got entrenched in the city during prohibition, and that that was the impetus for heroes flocking to the city. Without prohibition, organized crime might not have taken hold, making paragon a safer place, making heroes less necessary, and, perversly, creating a world where Manticore didn't feel the call to defend the innocent.
For the second change, I look at the fact that Aeon seems to be very much out of place. It seems like his being in place at the time of Recluse's attempted coup was the change that let Marchand hang on to power. But Aeon shouldn't have existed yet; he was Carl Egon until Recluse had him "executed" for blowing up his lab on Cap. Therefore, Aeon shouldn't be around unless Recluse succeeded. So for this change, we not only see the effect, (ie, Marchand winning, and surviving) but we also, perhaps, see the cause (Dr. Aeon.)
The new wallpaper is the clue - It carries traits both of the standard symbol for infinity (the sideways 8) and the ouroboros, the snake devouring it's tail in an endless loop. The stylized rendering further suggests that either the cause or the remedy is magical in nature. My guess is that there has been a temporal disruption, and that Recluse and Manticore are trying to fix the problem. Either way, it should make for a very intresting Halloween season!
Way to go devs!