Trying to wrap my head around Soldiers being Natural instead of Tech
I think another key point for Tech origin is the question "Are my gadgets unique?" The tech used by the SoA are generic, in as much as they get mass-produced for Arachnos forces.
Similarly, the Iron Man suit is unique in that only Tony Stark has the know-how to make it. Batmans gadgets aren't unique in that way. |
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"Hmm, I guess I'm not as omniscient as I thought" -Gavin Runeblade.
I can be found, outside of paragon city here.
Thank you everyone at Paragon and on Virtue. When the lights go out in November, you'll find me on Razor Bunny.
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.
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Or another way to put it is this. Is Superman a mutant, science, tech, magic, or natural hero? He's a Natural, because every member of his race has the same abilities. If he was the only one from his race that could have them, he might be a mutant. If he relied on tech to do what he does he'd be tech. But he does them innately. It took training to control his abilities, but he has them naturally.
The natural origin doesn't preclude having powers. It just means everything that you do is something you could do naturally. Winged flight might be a mutant power for a human, but if your an alien who's race has winged flight then it's natural for you.
"The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern." Lord Acton
Madam Enigma's History
I'm going to give some brief bios for a few characters I roleplay in my gaming group or play in City of Heroes. These will demonstrate my views of the origins.
Natural
She's known as Moth. For ten years she's protected the earth. She first crash landed after events unknown. Known abilities are winged flight and the ability to control gravity to various effects. To earth's populations, she is a meta. She has powers above and beyond what normal people do. To Moth however these abilities are not superhuman. They are a natural part of her.
You see, Moth's people hail from a planet with extremely high gravity. In this environment, animals had to evolve differently to survive. And her race is evolved from a moth like insect. To survive, her people developed the ability to control gravity. For most of her race, it's instinctive. It's something that is always turned on. As long as her people are awake, they are reducing gravity by roughly 100 G's. The ability doesn't work while sleeping, and there's a deep rooted social conditioning and fear of sleeping with no one near them who's awake.
When Moth left her homeworld, she joined an intergalactic police force. There she trained long and hard. She learned to control her natural abilities. She is a Natural hero. An alien perhaps, but her abilities are not unusual.
Tech:
Cree hails from a jungle planet. Everyone from his planet has what earth considered super-human agility. They need it to survive. Villages are in the treetops, because the forest floor is too dangerous. They are a simple people who deliberately avoid galactic civilization and high technology. They know of it, and do some trading. But the people tend to distrust technology.
Cree however is different. He loves technology, and has a knack for building weapons. He traveled the universe for several years selling his services as a mercenary. This gave him the funds to work on inventions, and a chance to field test them. When he crashed on earth, Cree just continued his work.
While he has superhuman agility, Cree isn't a mutant or science experiment. His origin is Tech because that is what he deals in. Sure he's a skilled warrior, but if you take away his toys he's not that dangerous. Unless you fail to take his tools too.
Science:
Amy 'lost' Mason, also known as the black angel is a tragic soul. From the day she was born she was subjected to cruel experiments in genetic splicing. Now she is more animal then man. She once was human, but not any longer. She is a freak, a monster. She is also the first of a new race. Pray this fledgling race learns compassion.
"The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern." Lord Acton
Madam Enigma's History
The Fantastic 4 like I said I don't care how their bodies mutated they did.
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TL;DR version: Even Marvel says that the Fantastic Four would be of a Science origin in CoH terms.
Now, you wanna talk about a convoluted origin? My Crab Spider started out as a low-ranking Freakshow member who joined Arachnos, underwent strenuous physical and mental training to become a Wolf Spider, was subjected to various scientific experiments and alterations in order to become a Crab Spider, then gradually replaced most of his organic body with advanced cybernetics and robotics. PLUS, he also makes use of a few magical artifacts!
Positron: "There are no bugs [in City of Heroes], just varying degrees of features."
Now, you wanna talk about a convoluted origin? My Crab Spider started out as a low-ranking Freakshow member who joined Arachnos, underwent strenuous physical and mental training to become a Wolf Spider, was subjected to various scientific experiments and alterations in order to become a Crab Spider, then gradually replaced most of his organic body with advanced cybernetics and robotics. PLUS, he also makes use of a few magical artifacts!
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The cybernetic replacement later on is the interesting bit. Per banes and crabs it seems they're still natural. Anyone know what the official take on Tarantula Mistress/Queens is? They are natural as fortunatas then replace their whole body. If they are still natural, then that's pretty convincing your dude would be natural per cannon (but you are absolutely 100% free to run any how you want).
I also wonder about Burkeholder. But that's just one arm, not a lot of cybernetics.
"Hmm, I guess I'm not as omniscient as I thought" -Gavin Runeblade.
I can be found, outside of paragon city here.
Thank you everyone at Paragon and on Virtue. When the lights go out in November, you'll find me on Razor Bunny.
I think it's mostly about integration or how the tech functions without a trained pilot. Integration meaning that the character has the tech as part of him (I'd say scorp falls into this catagory given it seems his suit is tied to his neruology). As to functioning, most of the spider tech still works fairly well if you're just a random bunk when you start out with it as a Wolf or Widow. Admittedly when you hit the secondaries this kinda goes out the window a bit, but Banes and Night's both could still fall into naturals, but Crabs and Fortunatas, maybe not.
By the catapillars hooka you WILL smile!
Here's my take on origins. It goes back to if they were left naked, how would they fare? (sorry about this small text)
Kung Ru - 50++ MA/Regen Scrapper
Kalleesta - 50 Necro/Dark MM
Hidden Justice - 44 Kin/Psy Defender
Altaholic