Trying to wrap my head around Soldiers being Natural instead of Tech

Cause they use power armor and stuff. It's driving me crazy because it throws off my whole notion of what is natural and what is tech. I can't figure out how to draw the lines anymore.

I can see how a soldier's training probably matters more than their gadgets. That's kind of like Batman. He's got nice toys, but at the core he's a ninja master of some kind.


*mild movie spoiler alert*!!!


At the same time.... what is tech then? Does your character have to be a robot entirely? Is Tony Stark tech? What about Rhodey, his new sidekick? Rhodey didn't invent any power armor, and he's definitely a trained soldier.

I think it all comes down to being a Villain without Super powers. During the Origins of Power arc you are sent to talk to Marshall Brass, the only Arachnos rep you chat with, and he covers the Natural powers just like Manticore covers them hero side. Sure our Soldiers wear armor, brandish weapons, etc but they HAVE to because aside from the physical training they go through to toughen them its all they have. Golden Roller and Positron cover the Technology briefs during those talk to missions. When you come down to it an SoA sort of combines a little tech (armor and weapons), some Science (Serum), and Natural (conditioning) so as you mentioned your a lot like an evil Batman LOL Years of training your body to be in peak condition and as the Joker put it "Where does he get all those fabulous toys?"

Now the one that sort of stumps me is, and I may be wrong, but Widows are considered natural too I think. Considering a Widow can become a Fortunata with Telekentic and Psychic attacks it seems more like they'd be Mutants like Sister Psyche on the Hero side. Night Widows have less of these powers but even they have attacks available that do PSI damage. My guess here is like the Warshades and Peacebringers hero side they wanted BOTH to have the same origin so the Soldier origin won out since obviously they have no mutant powers.

You take Rhodey out of the armour, he's not a hero. He's just a soldier. So he's tech.

You put an Arachnos Soldier in armour, he's not a hero either, he's still just a minion. But he's still natural! :P

And in City of, psionics users can be natural too. Mutants have only been around since the first nuclear tests, but psionics have been around for much longer (or so Sister Psyche says, meaning the Cimeroran Sybils, I'd guess).

Origin is really a matter of preference, and can be pretty loose in what it describes, so I don't think it matters all that much.

Origin can be about what you are, how you got your powers, what you're recognized as, whatever works for you. Batman is the quintessential 'Natural' hero to many, but he clearly makes use of a lot of technology. Superman is Natural as well, at least to me, because it's just a function of his alien physiology. The same could apply to Power Girl, but as a clone she could also be Science.

If you really want a headache, try coming up with an Origin that makes sense for Brainiac. I think he's been everything but Magic, in one incarnation or another.

It seems like technology origin starts when you surpass the Paragon City world's concept of a "gadget". Like, Batman has military grade high tech weapons, but nothing that exceeds the technological capacity of his time (or at least not by much.)

So, one needs to have an idea of what is "advanced" in Paragon City. Half the weapons and tools we see Long Bow or an Arachnos Crab use are surely beyond what's technologically feasible in the real world today, but I guess they're just "gadgets" to them.

I'm just at a loss for what I should call a "tech origin"....

Whatever seems Tech to you? It's not like there's hard and fast rules about this stuff.

Robots and androids are obviously tech, but it's not always that cut and dried. As mentioned, War Machine could be Natural (if your focus is on Rhodey himself) or Tech (if the focus is more on War Machine). The truth is, it's probably both, but the game doesn't allow you to pick both.

It's not as if your Origin actually does anything substantial for you in-game.

I always say this during origin questions but; Your origin is meant to help define your character, not restrict him.

For example, I have a BS/Regen who is of magic origin. He uses spells to heal himself, but his sword training is all natural talent and training. He could have just as easily been a natural origin character who learned some magic.

My AR/Dev could almost be classified as an android at this point with the amount of high tech prosthetic limbs he has installed, and in addition he's flinging around bombs, grenades, and a giant omni-gun. On top of that he recently learned how to cast some magic when he took an epic pool. Yet he's still natural because he had to train himself to use all of that stuff. He could have very easily been tech or even magic, however.

The line between Natural and Tech can be a fine one. The best example is probably Batman. Is he Natural, due to all his training, skills, and experience, or is he Tech due to his "super power" being enough money to fund his wonderful toys?

Personally, I see most SoA as being combination Natural/Tech, but the game doesn't support that so they went with the origin that covers the most aspects. Yes, they have Tech, but it's only to back up the massive training they all go through. Like Batman.

If you start with wolfspider, all there primary powers is just using a gun. For the secondary, 6 are training, one is a very crappy armor that any human can wear, and one is the summon. Considering they didn't invente the arachnobot, can't upgrade or repair them, i'd say they are natural that just borrow reinforcement.

For banes, all there primary powers is just using the mace. Wich is pretty much just a mace shaped energy gun. It might seem very technological, but considering how a tommygun can shot fire and grenades as well as bullets. (assault rifle) It's just the little non-realistic part of CoH. For there primary, one is the upgrade of the armor, the other is another mace power. Wich just leave two little gadgets, surveillance and the cloak.

For the crab, they use the backpack so it seems tech origine. But it still just a big gun shaped in 4 legs. Considering they need to be a wolfspider first, they are just as gun with normal guns. The melee attacks seems a bit much, but they could already pummel and bayonet For the secondary, one is the armor upgrade, the other the trainning upgrade, one a science gadget and one is another reinforcement of borrowed tech.

For the bloodwidows, all there primary powers are just claws/darts attack. Just as natural as using dagger or any other melee weapon. For the secondary, 6 are trainning, and one is slight psionic power (wich can also be said to be traning)

Then you jump into the whole "psionic" powers for fortunata and night widow. For that, we just have to accept that psionic is natural in the world of CoH. o_o

Makes sense? =D

To me the tech origin has always implied that the character created the technology in question. So Tony Stark is definitely a tech origin hero, but Punisher isn't, even though they both use technology. Batman would still inhabit kind of a grey area, though.

If a character is just using technology that they got from somewhere, I'm a lot more inclined to call them natural origin, particularly if the tech involved is fairly ordinary (as most of the stuff SoAs use supposedly is.)

I think one of the problems, sort of, in COH is the limits origins place on defining a character. You can ONLY have one origin while in comic books and movies obviously this is not the case. let's use Batman since he's a favorite of mine. He's Natural since his fighting skills come simply from years of training. He's also Science since we have seen, in both comics and movies, him personally develop antidotes for the Jokers poisons. At the same time he's Tech since some of his gadgets come straight from the minds of his staff at Wayne Enterprise while others he's designed and built himself.

Okay the Fantastic 4 are obviously mostly mutant since exposure to radiation in space gave them thier powers but Reed Richards is still a Scientist (Science) and builds and designs any number of devises to aid the four in battling crime .. so he's also Tech!

Even Superman .. okay tecnically he's natural since his powers come strictly from the way his body is and how it reacts to our environment here on Earth. Unfortunately COH didn't chose to include an Alien origin but technically THAT is where he belongs. IF Krypton had never blown up would he be here on Earth battling crime or back home on Krypton working 9-5 and going home at night to the wife and kids? T

he X-men who are quite obviously mutants but have some Tech and Science mixed in. LOOK at that base they operate out of! Someone had to design and build all that and I seriously doubt Xavier called an Archetect and said "Hey listen me and the other Mutant here need a secret lair with tons of technology and science labs. Can you throw together some plans and lets us look them over. Oh and by the way most people are scared to death of us as is so I trust you won't tell anyone your doing this or where its being built." LOL

In game dual or even triple origins simply wasn't possible so all our characters got thrown into one or another based on whatever happened to be the predominant one.. and realistically since WE pick which the final decision is ours. The HEAT and VEAT characters are the only ones with a set origin and a Tank can be anything from Magical to Mutant and all the others in between.