The Praetorian Invasion

So, I've come up with the idea to organise a weekly villains team in the theme of praetorian versions of our heroes!

For those of you that don't know, Praetorians are supervillains from Praetorian Earth that are basically the 'evil opposites' of the Freedom Phalanx, ranging from the opposite of Positron (Anti-matter) to the opposite of Statesman (Tyrant)

So, as you can work out, these villains would basically be the 'evil opposites' of whatever hero they're based off of. Be it a technologically charged villain instead of a hero that trained rigorously to reach their goals, or a mutant child who instead of saving the world, decided to destroy it instead. Powersets don't necassarily have to relate, but of course it helps if there's a good plot reason for their powers too, even if it's a little ambigous.

I'm currently thinking Wednesdays at 7:30 GMT, but this is open to changes based on how many people would like to show up, but can't for whatever reason.

So if you'd be interested, or have any thoughts on the matter, please feel free to post here!

Well, i'm interested, as i think we've discussed... Only possible problem i can see is: "How?"

Sorry but what do you mean by 'How'?

Lol, I'm equally confused. Isn't it obvious?

Anyway...

This is an idea I love. I started a thread on the Militia forums called Mirrorverse which is the exact same thing, only all our Mirrorverse (Praetorian) characters are located on Defiant at the moment.

http://themilitia.org.uk/viewtopic.php?t=153

Unfortunately the Militia Forum PHAILED and lost my introduction thread... Furthermore, Crimson didn't write all those, he saved and reposted them, blessed be his intervention.

I don't have a point right now, but I'm interested.

Quick thought... maybe the opposing Villains/Heroes could be played by different players... That way the two can meet on the battlefield.

Think about it, because I can see it dismissed as an impossibility. I know it'd take a lot of consent, but we're not monsters and we're not going to willfully destroy another persons character. It'd involve respect and would provide insight into the mindset of the original character for the second player.

I like the idea Hatesman, there's just the problem you outlined, and the fact that some of us might like to play our own opposites . Still, if we can figure out a way to make it work I'm sure it'd be fun.

I would jump in, but the time would be a clash for me with my Watchmen character. However, if someone wanted to do a Pratorean version of one of my heroes (God knows I've got a lot!), then by all means, do so. Just tell me what you would prefer to be, and I'll try to make up a shortlist

Apologies, by "How?" i meant "How would they get to Earth?". IIRC, praetoria's dimension technology is almost exclusively in the hands of Antimatter and Neuron, and by association the evil FP. Just curious to know how you planned we get around that.

Well although it's up for discussion among the group, we can always fall back on 'Built it ourselves' or 'Was summoned by some portal technology on regular Earth'

What the hell is it with City of Heroes Lore?!

I mean, parts of it are missing hugely important aspects... but something like this that would be useful for RP has a clear statement that fun can't happen.

I say we (our Praetorian Heroes) storm the Praetorian's hide-out in defiance, taking the technology for our own! That'll show em to keep that [censored] to themselves.

Personally, I'd like to play someone who is reasonably famous, if we are going to swap characters. Otherwise I have a pretty well fleshed out idea for GhostSpy.

Possible reason to world travel.....

1) Having finally had enough of the whole 'we rule the world' [censored] a bunch of Praetorian versions of characters storm a portal lab to look for a world that they themselves can take over.

2) Having had enough a bunch of Praetorians try to take down the current regiem however their entire group was led into a trap and banished to another dimension.

I'm quite intruiged by the willingness of people to allow alternate version of their characters to be played by someone else. Colour me interested. I'd certainly love to take a stab at some of the more well known characters in the community, but I'm more interested in this from the point of view of the challenge. I don't think I've ever been "given" a character before in an MMO, in the sense of not coming up with them myself. Definately sounds interesting.

Well i have already created a praetorian version of Infinitron, unfortunately he is also a hero. Story was that Tyrant wanted him originally to build his army, but Infinus (Infinitron's name is Joseph Infinus btw) refused to help him. This ended up with Infinus being locked away by tyrant.
When tyrant captured statesman, and heroes attacked to save him, Infinus saw that he didnt have to use his powers for evil. His rage allowed him to break free of his cell, and try to escape. The rescuing heroes from our dimension saw him, and mistook him for Infinitron, assuming he had come to help, and then taking him back through the portal with them.

Dunno if that is a viable enough solution.

Heroes come through to defeat some praetorian baddies, your praetorian versions jump them and steal the return teleport devices and away they go.

Meh,

Inf.

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Well i have already created a praetorian version of Infinitron, unfortunately he is also a hero. Story was that Tyrant wanted him originally to build his army, but Infinus (Infinitron's name is Joseph Infinus btw) refused to help him. This ended up with Infinus being locked away by tyrant.
When tyrant captured statesman, and heroes attacked to save him, Infinus saw that he didnt have to use his powers for evil. His rage allowed him to break free of his cell, and try to escape. The rescuing heroes from our dimension saw him, and mistook him for Infinitron, assuming he had come to help, and then taking him back through the portal with them.


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I certainly have no desire to tell you how to play your own characters, but doesn't that kinda defeat the whole point of the Praetorian universe? The people there are meant to be polar opposites to those in our universe, so having a good guy Praetorian copy of a good guy over here is kind of a waste...

Of course, he's your char and play him how you like, but it really does defeat the purpose...

Actually thinking about it, if we have other people playing the Praetorian villain version of our heroes, then in a way it does improve the whole point of it, since as Hates said it has the added bonus of we can meet each other on the battlefield, plus it comes with the element that you're not playing your opposites in the extreme, if you catch my drift.

The whole Praetorian thing is not really a 'What would Statesman do if he decided to be his opposite' but rather 'What would Statesman do if he had gone down a different path at one point in his lifetime'. So if we try to play our own opposites it comes with the added penalty that we're viewing it out of our own views on our characters, and means that subconciously we could just try to oppose our characters as much as possible.

So perhaps it would be better (And much more interesting) if we see how other people would play our characters in opposites.

So, I think I'll have this team that if you fancy playing your own opposite, then you can (Though that comes with the penatly that they can't meet each other (Unless you make things tricky with two computers and two accounts ) or, you can play the opposite of someone else that is willing to have their hero done as a Praetorian villain version, though you may want to consult them first if you don't know much about their character and to make sure we don't get four mirror versions of the same hero.

Personally, I'm happy to have someone make a mirror version of Longshot Lorrie if they want to.

The problem I've had with remaking my Heroes as Villains is that I'm already bored with their Power-Set choice and I want to change them radically so that I can find something I actually want to play. (Which resulted in "Mirrorverse" which promotes people to remake their characters as polar opposites.)

Swapping characters would fix that nicely.

I like being able to meet your opposites, but it's a pretty big thing to RP someone else's toon.. It requires total insight in the persona and understanding of how they think, act, react and all that. Besides, everyone has their own distinct RP style, so if it IS gonna be done, then everyone would need to find someone they're comfortable lending their evil alter-egos to.

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I certainly have no desire to tell you how to play your own characters, but doesn't that kinda defeat the whole point of the Praetorian universe? The people there are meant to be polar opposites to those in our universe, so having a good guy Praetorian copy of a good guy over here is kind of a waste...

Of course, he's your char and play him how you like, but it really does defeat the purpose...

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I dont think it does at all. I dont see the praetorian universe as a 'polar opposite' of ours. I see it as a world where right and wrong is blurred. People dont have a sense of what they should do, merely what they Can do. The super powered ones have power, therefore they can take charge, therefore they do. My character just wanted to help himself, so he didnt want to aid Tyrant - as it would be counterproductive. But he didnt expect Tyrant to turn on him so suddenly. The arrival of the heroes from our world showed him that things can be different. Life doesnt always have to be about fighting to survive and be top dog, but that the powers can be used to help.

I know it may not fit your idea of it, but I like it for several reasons:
a) the main one being i dont enjoy villains really. Simple as that.
b) i didnt want to make an energy brute, energy stalker or an AR corruptor. I have 2 evil clones already, one is an energy brute, one an energy stalker, so i've done that path. Dont want an AR corruptor, as iv done AR for 50 levels, im not bored of it, just cant stand not having all my powers - nothing new to look forward to.
c) Wanted a tank, never played one. Energy/willpower looked, and is, great fun.

Kind of long winded in the end, for a pretty pointless explanation of my own opinion, which makes no difference to anyone else.

What i was actually trying to originally put across was the method of getting the praetorian characters to our world.
But i think that got bypassed. Ah well.

Inf.

Right, well, if someone wants to make a Pretorian version of one of my heroes, the list is as follows:

Crozius: Demon summoned from the 64th level of Hell and forced to preform 100,000 heroic acts before he can return
High Burn: Girl caught in a League weapons test, and is now radioactive
Ling Sho-chi: Blind asian archer who channels Chi energy to make her shots count
Harrietta: Genetically altered cat
Mad-Cat: English female crimefighter with a love of big guns
Alice Springs: mutant rock-chick who can break things with her voice

Well, those are the ones I can remember. Want any furthur info on them, just ask me

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I like being able to meet your opposites, but it's a pretty big thing to RP someone else's toon.. It requires total insight in the persona and understanding of how they think, act, react and all that.

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I don't agree with that. After-all, Praetorian versions of a character would be different people, you would at most need a very good understanding of the characters history and motivations. Then the missing information can be extrapolated and improvised by a good Role Player. Unless you want your character to be portrayed perfectly as you portray them of course, in which case you should probably play them because no one else is going to recreate that perfectly.

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I know it may not fit your idea of it, but I like it for several reasons:
a) the main one being i dont enjoy villains really. Simple as that.
b) i didnt want to make an energy brute, energy stalker or an AR corruptor. I have 2 evil clones already, one is an energy brute, one an energy stalker, so i've done that path. Dont want an AR corruptor, as iv done AR for 50 levels, im not bored of it, just cant stand not having all my powers - nothing new to look forward to.
c) Wanted a tank, never played one. Energy/willpower looked, and is, great fun.

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Okay Infinitron all good points, but then why are you here if you don't want to make a villain? You're not going to be able to play with the other Praetorians if you just make a Hero, so what's the point in that? (What I think FFM was trying to say.)

It's just a fact, if you want to make an alternate version of your hero... as a hero... you'll have to play with a group seperate from this one, because it's impossible to play together. If you've done the dark clone story, then this maybe isn't for you?

Hehe, i think i've still been misunderstood. The point i was originally making was an explanation for the 'how do these praetorians get to our world?' question. I wasn't saying that my character was going to be part of this team, merely trying to help out on some of the conceptual problems you seemed to be having by saying how i'd got round it.
Sorry if this was misunderstood.

Inf.

I'm interested in this group, largely because i have had no luck playing villains solo. I would really want to play my own hero, and as i assume this group would be on union, my hero isn't there anyway, at the moment. I also might have some difficulty making a regular group, but assuming that none of this is a problem I would be happy to join a villainous group.

Good point Hates I surrender to your superior argument :P I guess since they're supposed to be very different from the real thing, you're right.