Nemesis, Silmon and Silos: OH MY!

You may want to have your Khelds visit Twilight's Son in the Ouroboros headquarters. If nothing else, he can probably tell you what junk food to eat to be less fuel efficient when the time comes.

Probably, although I find anything the Menders say to be at least a little suspect.

LEGION OF VALOR - Be a part of the Legend!

True, they are lying to you. But every good lie has a kernel of truth in it somewhere.

My first guess would be from the same place that the Menders got theirs from. The I11 trailer has Mender Silos saying there are 11 methods of time travel, and the Pillar of Ice and Flame is just one of them. Considering Silos claims to be from merely 1,000,000 years in the future and the Pillar of Ice and Flame is supposed to be from the end of the universe, Silos would have to have use some other method of time travel to retrieve the Pillar in the first place. Why couldn't the Midnighters do the same?

True enough. The intriguing part is always sorting out which is which.

LEGION OF VALOR - Be a part of the Legend!

Hmm...I thought I read somewhere that they'd stolen their aspect of the Pillar from Ouroboros. Can't find it in the wiki anywhere, though, so it's distinctly possible that I'm wrong.

Actually... I thought I remember that as well. I want to say that it is in some of the "Ask about this contact" information from Darrin Wade or perhaps Montague, but I feel like I could just be imagining it.

rofl

From Montague's Fedex mission sending you to Cimerora at 35:

To get to Cimerora, we're going to, er, 'bypass' Ouroboros. I'd prefer them not to be involved in this particular mission. I've procured an Aspect of the Pillar myself.

Ashley's equivalent for villains has exactly the same language:

To get to Cimerora, we're going to 'bypass' Ouroboros. We'd prefer them not to be involved in this particular mission.

We've procured an Aspect of the Pillar.

Definite hint they're keeping this a secret from Mender Silos, but it doesn't specify how exactly they got their magic crystal. Note that it is an Aspect of the Pillar, the Pillar itself being the giant one in the middle of the Ouroboros citadel, so they are at the very least doing the mystical time-travel equivalent of borrowing your neighbour's Wi-Fi access.

I've only played the hero arcs so far.....

Heh, so I wasn't totally right, but I wasn't crazy either. Thanks for that!

Ah, that was it. I guess I'd just assumed that the Aspect was stolen from Ouroboros since the Midnighters are trying pretty hard to keep the Menders out of the Cimerora business. It does raise the question of where they got the Aspect, and why the Menders are allowing its use when they could, presumably, cut it off from the main Pillar. I would guess that the Menders can keep track of how the Midnighters' Aspect is being used and who is using it, and that fits into their plans somehow.

There may indeed be some connection here, but I'm not sure whether Silmon/Thomas Mane should be identified with Nemesis or Dr. Aeon. For the latter, remembering all the rampant speculation that i11 would be about the 5th Column because the rivets in the Ouroboros symbol looked "Germanic," I'm hesitant to say characters are linked purely on visuals, like Silmon's gloves.

For the former, while both Nemesis and the Mane types seem overly fond of anagrams, "Leonard Silmon" works out to "Lord Lion's Mane," which doesn't suggest Nemesis to me. It does, however, suggest that there's a lot more to this "Mane Corp." business than is revealed in his arc. They could be a new threat, agents of another faction (possibilities range from the Blood of the Black Stream to the Coming Storm and everything in between), or simply another lore dead end.

It's in the cut scene in the ITF now, it changes angles and there's a nictus puff-ball floating that enters Roms body through that beam that hits him in the chest when he becomes nictus. A common theory is that whoever his actual master is is talking through the nictus that merges with him.

Well, Leonard doesn't have a cloning lab. Protean posing as him working with the fifth column has a cloning lab.

I'd say Mane Corp and its story are pretty cut and dried. Couple of guys and a body guard start a tech company, it's overshadowed by Crey et al., they have a surplus of funds that Protean takes, enter the story arc.

Furthermore, Protean's working with the Praetorians, and the I17 arcs seem to have more to do with GR than anything else, and I think it's fairly evident that the Coming Storm is from our own dimension, not the Praetorian world.


Cimerora's letter, for me anyways, was indeed like Nightblade said: "hey, you're time traveling, here's a letter."


The invasion could be Shiva, but the wiki description seems to indicate that Shiva itself was destroyed, and the Bloody Bay meteors are remnants. Perhaps a stronger force of life sucking aliens was able to harness the other remnants, along with, eventually, Kheldians?

Whatever it is, it's my opinion that the division between Rikti and humans caused the invasion/Storm to be successful - and since Nemesis caused the Rikti wars, he feels responsible. And without a world to command, he was forced to prevent the invasion from being successful, in order to rule it through all time. Of course, I prefer to believe he's reformed, and actually feels bad that he helped cause the destruction of the world, but that's just me.


Dr. Aeon certainly seems to be reformed, as Professor Echo clearly wants to stop the world from being destroyed. But that seems to have more to do with Aeon's use of a demon as the heart of the PTS than anything else. Then again, he does mention Shivans with control implants, and cloning armies of them, so there is a connection there...


A note on Leonard: I also noticed his gloves changing color. Glad I wasn't going crazy. I'm sure it's significant, but how? If they were one color at first, then changed when you freed the real Leonard, that would make sense... but I think they start black, don't they?

Though I never want to say it... Lord at Nemesis' wang area.

Leonard Silmon is Lord Nemesis's belt buckle, codpiece, or rogue steam-powered member.

Originally Posted by Deus_Otiosus This entire post should receive some kind of award for being both hysterical and fantastic. Well done.

I can still see this fitting my theory. It is a 'temporal invasion'. Forces from across time sent to 'present-day' Paragon / Rogue Isles, a crucial juncture in the timeline to wreak havoc. Imagine that somebody / something is trying to change the timeline, they start with altering where the Shivans land, instead of relatively containable Bloody Bay they land in Atlas Park, Paragon Central. That would have massive causal flow-on effects. Of course who has the power to alter the trajectory of a meteor? Shiva itself maybe.

As for Leonard Silmon, personally I think he's an example of that classic comic book staple, the high-profile businessman who takes on the alter-ego of his super-powered bodyguard to conceal his identity. Somebody mentioned an anagram for his name is Lord Lions Mane or somesuch...well gee, they spelt it out for us.

Oh the Letter Sender is creepy as hell, and I wouldn't trust him/her anymore than I would the Menders. The Sender just is as cryptic as the Menders, just as stingy with information, and is just as manipulative. Plus, all of the letters have a "side with me or else" undercurrent, cloaked in the illusion of a free choice between the Menders and the Sender when the time comes.


The main thing I'm curious about in this whole Coming Storm affair is whether we'll have a choice between siding with the Menders and the Sender, or whether we'll be joining the Sender by default.

Fix't

From in-game canon, Shiva was simply a meteor that broke up and landed in Bloody Bay. And... something in the meteor animated skeletons turning them into goo monsters.

The question remains: where did Shiva come from, and how exactly is it reanimating the corpses?

Also fix't

It doesn't?!?!


That looks like a lion to me... which is what is on Nemmy's belt buckle.

Therefore:
Thomas Mane --> Mane Corp. --> Silmon --> Nemesis

(--> = Is related to, though I am not sure how)

Nemesis also has a lion theme going on with the rest of his armor - like the lion toe and claw patterns on his boots.