Steampunk, Time Travel and Suspension of Disbelief
By
AncientSpirit_NA,
Posted on: 2009-05-31 16:42 in Mission Architect
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The worst faux pas is the Nemesis automatons, which should be easy for anyone to spot if they're really done with steampunk technology.
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I've been looking through the canon descriptions of Nemesis technology, and found some interesting things to note. I said before that the office worker automatons were something of a joke (i.e. office work is something robots can do and doesn't require any human qualities). That leans towards the idea that the automatons aren't all that sophisticated.
That doesn't hold up in the RWZ arcs though. The Nemesis automatons that fooled the Rikti would have to pass muster against an advanced technology (including mind readers... though I thought the Rikti magi were Lost converts who had Mu blood in them, meaning they shouldn't have existed on the Rikti homeworld?)
Anyway, I did find this interesting tidbit in the RWZ arc clues:
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These are the remains of the Nemesis-built Manticore Imposter Automaton. It shows signs of wear, but is still a convincing copy. This would have fooled the Rikti easily, convincing them that they were under attack by aliens from another world. An attack so severe that they'd have to retaliate with overwhelming force. Though parts of its memory core are missing, deep inside are the details of its attacks, physical evidence that Nemesis started the Rikti war as part of his mad schemes.
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Emphasis mine... the phrasing "memory core" implies that the Nemesis automaton has elements of technology much more advanced than steampunk. I find it believable that Nemesis' technology has advanced with time, and that he keeps things like the Jaegers around because they're just easy to manufacture and do what they do reasonably well.
And for a while things were cold,
They were scared down in their holes
The forest that once was green
Was colored black by those killing machines
You might remember that the Manticore autamaton references .txt files in his combat text. Nemesis might say he uses steam, but it looks like robotics to me.Oh hey, look, a continuity editor [censored] up. Thankfully, only a tiny sliver of the popularion give a damn, so they can write as badly as they like.
I'm happy to swallow the ridiculousness of steam tech, and even impossibly intricate nano-clockwork, because it's all a black box. I assume that Nemesis has somewhere found a system of phlogiston that gives the steam effect and has other valuable contributions. That's generally fine by me.
Time travel, on the other hand, exists to be handled badly.
It's a comic book universe, get over it. 
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That doesn't hold up in the RWZ arcs though. The Nemesis automatons that fooled the Rikti would have to pass muster against an advanced technology (including mind readers... though I thought the Rikti magi were Lost converts who had Mu blood in them, meaning they shouldn't have existed on the Rikti homeworld?)
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The Rikti Priests are from the homeworld. Their bio on ParagonWiki:
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Though the Rikti are not known to be religious, they do have a number of individuals that fill a role similar to priests in their society. These cultural officials also investigate instances of aberrant thought, and seek to correct them. Few had ever been seen on Earth, until recently.
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So you'd think, being psychic and all, the Rikti would notice those automatons had no minds. And then they'd look into that. But no, like any highly advanced civilization they immediately went all "grr, snarl, let's invade earth." Even though the warlike faction was a minority at the time.
The Positron and Manticore automatons don't have to make sense, because they're just an office worker joke taken way too far, and an excuse to have heroes fight some AVs with annoying debuffs.
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While the technical operation of Nemesis technology is explained by hand-waving (as it should be, in my opinion), some of the old Base Salvage implied that it's more an "alternative modern" technology than just steam-powered stuff. The Nemesis Vacuum Circuits come to mind. Don't MiG fighters use something vaguely similar?
In a larger sense, I think this forum just needs to accept the fact that some people hate Nemesis, some people like Nemesis, some both like and dislike, and some just don't care, then move the heck on. Everyone's always down on Nemesis, but there's one thing I can say for the faction that isn't true of any of the other "high-power" ones, with the possible exception of Arachnos: they have a strong sense of style and look interesting. I, for one, wouldn't have thought of giving an Evil Genius a pseudo-19th-century army. Certainly, they're more distinctive than Malta (ooh, Evil Scary CIA Guys Out to Rule the World), Crey (ooh, Evil Corporation Out to Enrich The Evil Suit-Wearing Guys At Everyone's Expense), the Council (like COBRA, only an uglier base color and fewer accessories to get lost), or even the CoT (what's with those tall hats?).
I've come to the conclusion lately that there are two kinds of people in this world: those who think Nemesis is an unrealistic joke and those who think Malta and Crey are unrealistic jokes.
Edited to reduce pointless viciousness.
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*shrugs* I can't be both? There's a lot of play in the concepts of the high-level game. It's just never been realised. Instead, we get certain simplistic renditions run over and over and over again.
And quite frankly, if you don't have a reason to, why the world would you care about what Venture has to say about Nemesis?
Frankly, I'm of the opinion that if you can imagine it, there's a way to do it, and that's served me pretty well so far. Sadly, a great many people these days have awfully stifled imaginations.
Oh, and while we're at ridiculous enemy groups - doesn't it dawn on people that most of the established villain groups in Paragon City have a good element of 'WTH' to them? IMO, the top of the list there are still Carnies. And yeah, just look at Olantern's list.
Realistically speaking, most of this game's enemies just give me the notion of 'that's just weird' when they just show up out of nowhere in new missions as the player progresses through the game - something I even made fun of in a MA arc of mine by hanging a lampshade on some space pirates.
Does the often-silly nature of the game's enemies mean I don't have fun fighting them? Absolutely not. 
They're silly, they're fun, and for a game set in a comic book universe, I wouldn't have them any other way. 
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Characters
nuclear reactors are steam powered
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Frankly, I'm of the opinion that if you can imagine it, there's a way to do it, and that's served me pretty well so far. Sadly, a great many people these days have awfully stifled imaginations.
[/ QUOTE ]Bad attitude to have as a writer. "Oh, my readers are too stupid."
what i am also suprised at is that no one has mentioned a steam powered difference engine. though i have not completely read either on the threads to verify whether this has been brought up... i am not well versed in COX lore, but this always seemed like a plausible explanation for the purely mechanical route of technology.
global: ridiculous girl
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The difference engine wasn't steam powered, it was set up with a crank. At least, the one I saw was, and I understood it to be a copy of Babbage's. It was also about as big as a damn room. Not super mobile.
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The difference engine wasn't steam powered, it was set up with a crank. At least, the one I saw was, and I understood it to be a copy of Babbage's. It was also about as big as a damn room. Not super mobile.
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but converting from crank to steam powered piston is a very small technological step...
global: ridiculous girl
Hero Therapy! (TM) - 119228
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besides... look at what the ENIAC was back in the day...
global: ridiculous girl
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Just saying that it's a steam-powered difference engine doesn't make it any more believeable. It makes just as much if not more sense to claim that Nemesis has invented a steam-powered quantum computer.
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And for a while things were cold,
They were scared down in their holes
The forest that once was green
Was colored black by those killing machines
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Frankly, I'm of the opinion that if you can imagine it, there's a way to do it, and that's served me pretty well so far. Sadly, a great many people these days have awfully stifled imaginations.
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The rule of cool can make up for many flaws, but for the sake of this argument I think we had to leave that rule behind a long time ago. If we didn't, we would have to accept everything as long as it's "cool". Clearly some of us don't.
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Oh, and while we're at ridiculous enemy groups - doesn't it dawn on people that most of the established villain groups in Paragon City have a good element of 'WTH' to them? IMO, the top of the list there are still Carnies. And yeah, just look at Olantern's list.
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The carnies might look silly and sometimes act silly but their core premise is serious business.
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Realistically speaking, most of this game's enemies just give me the notion of 'that's just weird' when they just show up out of nowhere in new missions as the player progresses through the game - something I even made fun of in a MA arc of mine by hanging a lampshade on some space pirates.
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Where else are they supposed to show up out of? Are we supposed to get a briefing of every new enemy group that appears before we go on the mission that introduces them, or are we supposed to enjoy the unravelling of a mystery?
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Does the often-silly nature of the game's enemies mean I don't have fun fighting them? Absolutely not. They're silly, they're fun, and for a game set in a comic book universe, I wouldn't have them any other way.
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I don't like silly enemies. I avoid Croatoa as much as possible for this reason. Unfortunately the existence of Croatoa with the tuatha and the fir bolg and the goddamned red caps, the clockwork, Freaks (I love Freaks but people think they are silly and write them as silly), Nemesis and even The 5th/Council, seems to have made the impression on people that this is a silly game about a silly world where silly villains bumble along their ridiculous plots and purely by accident get stopped by silly heroes.
If our enemies are ridiculous and unbelievable, our characters become ridiculous and unbelievable, because our characters are forced to take the silly enemies seriously. This makes them look like idiots.
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I like Venture.
That said, I think the reason for this entire thread is not that Nemesis stretches his suspension of disbeleif, but Venture appears to put forth the the idea that Nemesis should stretch everyone's suspension of disbelief.
I for one, don't share that opinion. I am perfectly happy that everyone's suspension of disbelief runs out in various places.
Of course, when you are presenting an arc to Venture to review, his predjudices come along with the package, so you should take that into consideration before sending him a Nemesis/Time Travel arc.
I'm not sure what the fact that Nemesis' technology is 'steam powered' has to do with anything anyway. I'm not that far up on Nemesis lore, but is there anything in his lore that prevents him from using fusion reactors to power microcircuitry? Is there anything saying his creations are all made from brass, as opposed to special plastics, ceramics, or alloys?
This does not keep me from having my own pet theory about Nemesis: that he and the Clockwork King are one and the same. THAT would explain why his more advanced creations have detectable thoughts. In fact, that could also explain why Time Travel is not an 'I win' button for him: his conflicted, multifaceted mind is a House Divided.
In any case, there is no denying the Rule of Cool: you just have to remember that not everyone finds the same things to be Cool.
Story Arcs I created:
Every Rose: (#17702) Villainous vs Legacy Chain. Forget Arachnos, join the CoT!
Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!
Kiss Hello Goodbye: (#156389) Heroic vs Custom Foes. Film Noir/Hardboiled detective adventure!
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If our enemies are ridiculous and unbelievable, our characters become ridiculous and unbelievable, because our characters are forced to take the silly enemies seriously. This makes them look like idiots.
[/ QUOTE ]This is because the refuge of the mediocre is comedy. Truly great comedy is obscured by the torrents of [censored] that is unfortunately put in the exact same basket.
I think there's a larger and more fundamental problem at work here...
I find a good deal of the City material to be sort of thrown together and somewhat uninspired. I've always assumed that a lot of it was created in a rush, and that's a big part of why it's so thin. I'm also sure much of it was devised under the primary goal of serving a game purpose, rather than a story one. Story was secondary. Probably still is.
I think that limited focus has really hurt the City IP over the years. It's not a game created for a world, it's a world created for a game. And that really shows sometimes. You can't dig too deeply or poke too hard, or it'll all just fall apart.
I do believe this will be a hindrance for many MA authors. Just as I'm certain it's been a hindrance for anyone else who's been tasked with making the City setting plausible outside the context of the game.
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Word of Gawd is that there is a 500 page Story Bible (written by Manticore?) and has been since Day One.
Of course, it seems that not everyone consults it, or perhaps that it is lacking in some details. It probably says something to the effect that "Nemesis primarily uses Steampunk technology" without going into too much detail about what that is or how it is to be presented.
I think this is a game created for a world created for a game.
Any perceived 'thinness' to the material is probably due to the fact that the world/game is intentionally designed to be iconic and generic rather than specific. Got to have an evil high tech corporation, must have Nazis, must have evil sorcerers, etc.
I think that's better than not having, say, evil aliens, because you'd hjust have to put them in due to fan demand sooner or later
EDIT:
I think the main thing that has hurt the 'feel' of the City IP over the years is that there is not what I would call a clear progression to the enemies.
It is not immediately apparent why Family should be more powerful than Warriors should be more powerful than Trolls, for instance. I think it's given a lot of people the impression that City is on a much lower power scale than I think they intend to portray.
Story Arcs I created:
Every Rose: (#17702) Villainous vs Legacy Chain. Forget Arachnos, join the CoT!
Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!
Kiss Hello Goodbye: (#156389) Heroic vs Custom Foes. Film Noir/Hardboiled detective adventure!
It could also be that Manticore is in fact, not a very good writer.
He's an excellent writer. Just ask him 
Story Arcs I created:
Every Rose: (#17702) Villainous vs Legacy Chain. Forget Arachnos, join the CoT!
Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!
Kiss Hello Goodbye: (#156389) Heroic vs Custom Foes. Film Noir/Hardboiled detective adventure!
Any writer who will attach the title of 'excellent' to himself is either Ernest Hemingway or an idiot.
I'm starting this thread to siphon discussion off of Venture's 2nd review thread, so it can go back to focusing on reviews.
Some points made so far (paraphrasing):
Venture: Nemesis technology being steam-powered is too ridiculous to swallow. The devs should have made it steam-powered in appearance only and given it some other actual basis for operations. The worst faux pas is the Nemesis automatons, which should be easy for anyone to spot if they're really done with steampunk technology.
Time travel is never a good plot device because it should be an I Win button for anyone who can use it. Plots that attempt to use it end up falling victim to Timey Wimey Ball, Idiot Ball, or Fridge Logic problems.
And for a while things were cold,
They were scared down in their holes
The forest that once was green
Was colored black by those killing machines