Let's talk Rularuu (spoilers)
By
Anti_Proton,
Posted on: 2009-10-16 04:49 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Well, I'm sure Jack had quite a bit of input in the design process.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
that brings up an interesting possibility - what if it IS the mind of a god?
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@Golden Girl
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There's a portal to Firebase Zulu on PI -it's in the Portal Corp building, and it's marked on your map.|
Originally Posted by SteelMountain
I've been playing since Oct 2004, but I have yet to find my way to the Shard. (OK, I admit I haven't tried really hard!) I see from this thread that some TF's take you there, but is there any other way to get there? Thanks.
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From Firebase Zule you can access the Chantry, the Storm Palace, and the Cascade Archipelago - all of which are very big zones, but also very empty right now
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And yet still incredibly fun learning to get around.
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Originally Posted by Golden Girl
There's a portal to Firebase Zulu on PI -it's in the Portal Corp building, and it's marked on your map.
From Firebase Zule you can access the Chantry, the Storm Palace, and the Cascade Archipelago - all of which are very big zones, but also very empty right now |
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If I were to venture a guess on the Aspects--and venturing guesses is about all we have left to do in this matter--I would guess that they are incarnations of the original Rularuu from different dimensions he has consumed. That is, somewhere in the ancient past, there were many dimensions, each with its own version of a single powerful being; one version was Rularuu the Ravager, who possessed (or somehow gained) the power to consume dimensions. As he did so, he subsumed each incarnation he found, incorporating them into himself--though obviously not perfectly.|
Originally Posted by Calash
We do know that the aspects of Rularuu were once mortals like us. This is quoted during one of the task forces. That would suggest that the worlds he consumes survive in some form.
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Venturing even further into tenuous supposition, I would suggest that the Paragon Prime dimension's incarnation of Rularuu was the Dream Doctor.
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I tend to look at the aspects of Rularuu as I look at the Shadow Shard reflections - they are images of creatures that once lived or still live somewhere else, but there is no certainty that those images are the continuation of these creatures. In fact, it's very possible that they are constructs of Rularuu made to resemble these creatures, flanderizing one particular aspect of their personality and adopting it as an avatar of an aspect of Rularuu's own personality. For instance, if Faatim was an honest man with honour, in the mind of Rularuu he would turn into an incarnation of kindness, always trying to do good, save people and feel bad about all the wrong in the world. Or if Ruladak was a charismatic, stubborn individual, in Rularuu's mind he would be exaggerated into the personification of unyielding strength and fierce determination.|
Originally Posted by Calash
We do know that the aspects of Rularuu were once mortals like us. This is quoted during one of the task forces. That would suggest that the worlds he consumes survive in some form.
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I mean, obviously, that's all just speculation, but I'm trying to see how far I can push the idea of "Shadow Shard as the mind of a god" and still make at least some sense. Of all the possibilities, this one I like the most because it's just so unusual for our game where everything ultimately falls into one big boss to beat up. I just enjoy that particular twist.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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There is no TF that takes you to the Shard. There are several TFs which begin in the Shard. (Some of them bring you back to Paragon for a couple missions, too)|
Originally Posted by SteelMountain
I've been playing since Oct 2004, but I have yet to find my way to the Shard. (OK, I admit I haven't tried really hard!) I see from this thread that some TF's take you there, but is there any other way to get there? Thanks.
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The TFs are very long, the zones are very big, and the Soldiers of Rularuu enemy faction generally contains an Achilles's heel for everyone.
To access the Shard, hit Peregrine Island, the Portal Corporation. There's an access point to the Shard on your map, or alternatively you can just enter the middle building in Portal Corporation (the one surrounded by sandbags and barbed wire...). Go up the elevators, and turn right, and go in the portal there.
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt
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If the Shadow Shard had Neomah in it, I don't think I'd ever leave |
Originally Posted by KaliMagdalene
All this talk reminds me of Malfeas in Exalted (yay, bringing another IP in!)
* Malfeas is both prisoner and prison * The prisoners (Yozi princes) are composed of multiple souls, each with their own personalities and to some extent, agendas * The lesser inhabitants are all basically a part of the Yozis themselves |
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt
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Actually, not all of them seem to be this long. I did the Justin Augustine TF a while back, and though we spent a lot of time wandering around the islands (I have my reveal power now, so that won't happen again) and we still completed it in 2 hours and 4 minutes, failing our 2-hour challenge. Given that last time I did Fattim the Kind's TF (some time January 2005) it took me 8 hours on the clock, I'd say most aren't that bad.
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Originally Posted by Fleeting Whisper
The TFs are very long, the zones are very big, and the Soldiers of Rularuu enemy faction generally contains an Achilles's heel for everyone.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Ha, pick an irrelevant detail! Just because Rularuu's various minds are organized in a fashion similar to a Yozi's souls, and just because - if the Shadow Shard is Rularuu's mind, that makes him both prison and prisoner doesn't mean there's anything comparable between Malfeas and the Shard. It's all about making babies with demonic genetic engineers! |
Originally Posted by Fleeting Whisper
If the Shadow Shard had Neomah in it, I don't think I'd ever leave
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If the aspects were once mortal, it could very well be because Rularuu himself was once mortal. He doesn't need to be an extra-dimensional equivalent of the Dream Doctor (although I do like this theory, I've always thought it had a certain symmetry), but rather someone who was once like him; the Recluse to his Statesman. Rather than being intrinsically supernatural, he's just a very very powerful mortal who managed to increase his power to the point where for all intents and purposes he is a god.
As for the CoT, they've been working on dimensional travel for millennia. The Shard was created by magical means, so magic would be the easiest way to get in. And binding an aspect of a god isn't really that different from binding a powerful demon, since in CoH lore "hell" is just another dimension.
Now as for the "architecture" of the shard: we have rivers of blood, mysterious plant life, and the soldiers of Rularuu themselves. How much of that was there before the breaking, and how much came after? what about that giant head, and the throne? It could be that Rularuu's power was great enough to form the Shard to his will; after all if he can devour whole realities certainly he can manage to redecorate his own...right down to the people. I think the Brutes and Wisps at least, and possibly the eyeballs, have a more-or-less human origin, twisted so they can better serve Rularuu.
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I'm fairly certain that Firebase Zulu is just a normal military base, they just have some quite powerful psychotropic substances loose in the portal room. There is no Shadow Shard.
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There was an episode of Teen Titans, where Beast Boy and Cyborg, enter Raven's mind through a mirror.
Once in her mind, they meet all the different aspects of her personality.
Then Raven comes in, you see her with all the different aspects of her personality.
Maybe it's no different for Rularuu?
The Midnighters managed to suck him into his own mind. Then Portal Corp, found a way in through other means.
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Nemesis built his base in the Shadow Shard as part of one of his backup plans, in case his designs on the Rikti failed. Or perhaps he needed to spread his consciousness among every Rikti in their homeworld as a first step. His intentions are to replace Rularuu's aspects with his own automatons, and then later replace Rularuu with himself.
If he hasn't already done it. Remember when he tried to sign a non-aggression pact with the CoT?
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Hmm, any citation of that? I'm doing some research for a potential AE arc and was kicking that idea around.
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Originally Posted by Calash
We do know that the aspects of Rularuu were once mortals like us. This is quoted during one of the task forces. That would suggest that the worlds he consumes survive in some form.
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Nemesis+Interdimensional world eater= I smell plot.
Could anyone post some back info on the Dream Doctor?
I mostly do PuGs and cant solo well so I'm lost on who this is.
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Well to that question, Rularuu is prisoned. By his own mind or... by the Dream Doctors sacrifice? By removing some of his "own" (slicing it off), could this perhaps be the counterpart he is referring to?|
Originally Posted by Obsidius
Hmmm... that's an interesting corralary, given recent Canon Fodder:
Edit: And what does the Dream Doctor mean by saying the Rularuu is his "counterpart?" Are they contractually tied to each other? Is Rularuu part of the Dream Doctor? Or are they different version of the same being from different dimensions? Are we talking about Counterpart Theory? Is Rularuu really a Dream Doctor from another dimension, but empowered by devoured dimensions? |
That part of the Doctor through the powers of dream is what keeps Rularuu unsure on things, locking him in.
I doubt Rularuu is a counterpart like hero/villain from another dimension. But then.. i'd love to see more info about the shard
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Originally Posted by Shadowclone
Could anyone post some back info on the Dream Doctor?
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Yeah, that's kind of what I had in mind when I was describing it. Raven's Mind is a LOT like the Storm Palace, only hers is more of a floating path, rather than a group of floating islands. Still, it's a good representation of what "the inside of a mind" would look like, both in terms of the shifting, floating ground and in terms of Raven interacting with her emotions. Now, Rularuu the Ravager himself has never been in the game, but we've seen pics of the model there is for him, and he looks like one of his aspect, only much taller. It is, therefore, an easy correlation between that and the Teen Titans episode - Rularuu looks like himself while his aspects look like exaggerated, colour-coded versions of himself.|
Originally Posted by BrandX
There was an episode of Teen Titans, where Beast Boy and Cyborg, enter Raven's mind through a mirror.
Once in her mind, they meet all the different aspects of her personality. Then Raven comes in, you see her with all the different aspects of her personality. Maybe it's no different for Rularuu? The Midnighters managed to suck him into his own mind. Then Portal Corp, found a way in through other means. |
It could work!
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Also the demon tree created by Gumela, the Jeweled Auditor. Tit flowers that secrete a mix of honey, blood, and heroin? Sign me up! |
Originally Posted by KaliMagdalene
It's all about making babies with demonic genetic engineers!
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Oh, and I want a pet Gethin, Harvester of Rarities. It's like a cross between an otter and a salamander. With feathers. It's so ****ing cute, I just want to cuddle with it
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt
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Here's where I'm going to draw another parallel, this time with Dragonball Z (no jokes, please). Dragonball Z has, err... Well, literally God, who is a green space alien of tremendous power. To rid himself of evil, he actually splits his body in half. He regenerates, so he produces two distinct entities - the green God of Earth, and Piccolo Daimao, which translated from the language of MadeUpLand means "demon from another world." Essentially, this was a very powerful being (who gets reduced to a wimp in the next power-up, but oh well) who split himself in two in order to cleanse himself from evil.|
Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
If the aspects were once mortal, it could very well be because Rularuu himself was once mortal. He doesn't need to be an extra-dimensional equivalent of the Dream Doctor (although I do like this theory, I've always thought it had a certain symmetry), but rather someone who was once like him; the Recluse to his Statesman. Rather than being intrinsically supernatural, he's just a very very powerful mortal who managed to increase his power to the point where for all intents and purposes he is a god.
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Where the parallel with City of Heroes materialises is between the Dream Doctor and Rularuu the Ravager. If they are indeed counterparts, it's quite possible for them to be two parts of the same whole. We've already seen Rularuu depicted as a reality bender, and the Dream Doctor is strongly implied to be a dream bender, which could translate into bending the inner world - that of thought and self. As such, they COULD be painted as two halves of the same whole, and would explain what he means by shaving a part of himself off.
Of course, like most other things I've said here, this is completely baseless altogether, but it sounds neat, no?
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Sounds solid to me. The Dream Doctor's comments regarding Rularuu always reminded me of Professor X and Onslaught (although I'd stopped reading X-Men by the time that storyline happened, and my knowledge of it is secondhand, so forgive me if I get the details wrong). A typically comic-bookish (and therefore medically improbable) case of multiple personality disorder occurs in a superbeing with enough mojo to give the split personality its own body. Or maybe it takes over the main body sometimes. Whatever. The Dream Doctor eventually abandons hope of re-integrating his divided self, and figures out a way to purge the split entirely... but at the cost of his own mojo being taken out of him with the split, tied up forever in keeping the psychic manifestation body of the split sealed away. The split, already from a mind apparently prone to fracture, responds to this profoundly intense trauma by shattering into several further subsidiary aspects, who in turn act through a host of custom-built lesser proxies in the form of the actual Soldiers of Rularuu, each of a "breed" subservient to and presumably descended from/created by one of the greater fractures.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Here's where I'm going to draw another parallel, this time with Dragonball Z (no jokes, please). Dragonball Z has, err... Well, literally God, who is a green space alien of tremendous power. To rid himself of evil, he actually splits his body in half. He regenerates, so he produces two distinct entities - the green God of Earth, and Piccolo Daimao, which translated from the language of MadeUpLand means "demon from another world." Essentially, this was a very powerful being (who gets reduced to a wimp in the next power-up, but oh well) who split himself in two in order to cleanse himself from evil.
Where the parallel with City of Heroes materialises is between the Dream Doctor and Rularuu the Ravager. If they are indeed counterparts, it's quite possible for them to be two parts of the same whole. We've already seen Rularuu depicted as a reality bender, and the Dream Doctor is strongly implied to be a dream bender, which could translate into bending the inner world - that of thought and self. As such, they COULD be painted as two halves of the same whole, and would explain what he means by shaving a part of himself off. Of course, like most other things I've said here, this is completely baseless altogether, but it sounds neat, no? |
Rularuu was the broken part of the Dream Doctor's mind, cut off and cast into a prison dimension (which may or may not be its own inverted psychic landscape), and in response it's continuing to grind itself into dust. At least, that's my take on it.
However it works out in the official version, the Shard has a lot of potential. It and the Rikti Homeworld are the two remaining setting elements I'd really love to see further fleshed out and expanded apon (especially villain side, where we only get a brief glimpse of the Shard), now that GR is covering Praetoria, the alternate dimension frontrunner for my interest.
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That would actually also make sense of his comments about how he's still among us, but we can't see him. If the Dream Doctor lost the physical half of his, err... Being? Let's go with that. If he lost the physical half of his being, he would very much remain back on Earth as only a thought, existing in the purely technical sense, but non-existent for the purposes of interacting with anything in the physical world. A living memory in the most literal sense of the expression. He can see us, and he likely still has some power to interact with Rularuu, his counterpart, but he cannot interact with any of us. So, for us, he's been dead (or is that "gone?") for years, whereas he just shaved a part of his own being.|
Originally Posted by Eisenzahn
Sounds solid to me. The Dream Doctor's comments regarding Rularuu always reminded me of Professor X and Onslaught (although I'd stopped reading X-Men by the time that storyline happened, and my knowledge of it is secondhand, so forgive me if I get the details wrong). A typically comic-bookish (and therefore medically improbable) case of multiple personality disorder occurs in a superbeing with enough mojo to give the split personality its own body. Or maybe it takes over the main body sometimes. Whatever. The Dream Doctor eventually abandons hope of re-integrating his divided self, and figures out a way to purge the split entirely... but at the cost of his own mojo being taken out of him with the split, tied up forever in keeping the psychic manifestation body of the split sealed away. The split, already from a mind apparently prone to fracture, responds to this profoundly intense trauma by shattering into several further subsidiary aspects, who in turn act through a host of custom-built lesser proxies in the form of the actual Soldiers of Rularuu, each of a "breed" subservient to and presumably descended from/created by one of the greater fractures.
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I love it!
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| However it works out in the official version, the Shard has a lot of potential. It and the Rikti Homeworld are the two remaining setting elements I'd really love to see further fleshed out and expanded apon (especially villain side, where we only get a brief glimpse of the Shard), now that GR is covering Praetoria, the alternate dimension frontrunner for my interest. |
And, yeah Praetoria is an interesting place, as well. If they can manage to make it compelling and different enough for it to feel like a new experience, rather than just an evil Paragon City, that would probably cement the game's future in my eyes.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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From what I've seen in the GR trailer, the Preatoria Paragon is definitely taking a different tone than just "evil Paragon", especially since the Rogue Isles already kinda have the base evil counterpart thing covered (in a more metaphorical sense, I guess).
But yes, Shard needs a big revamp. This thread has been a great source of info, and I may (maybe) finish up my arc detailing an alternate earth being besieged by warlike alien (actual alien, not alternate human a la Rikti) refugees from one of the dimensions that Rularuu omnomnom'ed.
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Best description of Rularuu yet :P|
Originally Posted by Morac_Ex_Machina
one of the dimensions that Rularuu omnomnom'ed.
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Ok, I love good storyline and speculation. How do I get/ what arcs do I do to learn of the Dream Doctor.
I've been playing since Oct 2004, but I have yet to find my way to the Shard. (OK, I admit I haven't tried really hard!) I see from this thread that some TF's take you there, but is there any other way to get there? Thanks.