What do you consider to be 'Praetorian'?

Meaning, what do you consider to be a praetorian version? The complete opposite of someone, or only a few, minor differences?

Example: Unhearted is a stern, pink-haired woman who frowns a lot. She has tattoos. Would her Praetorian version be flighty and quick to smile? Would she have pink hair? Tattoos?

Or would she pretty much be the same but maybe with different powersets, a different background, with different interests?

I consider "Praetorian" anyone who starts in Praetoria, much like I consider Canadian someone from Canada. There's no reason for any differences - or no reason not to have as many differences as you want.

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My general guideline is that the character should usually be the opposite faction-wise than they are in Earth Prime (so villains become Resistance, heroes to Loyalists), but everything else is open-ended.

In short, Praetoria is not "opposite world" it's "what if the heroes were villains and vice versa?" world. It's rather fun seeing exactly how you can twist your characters towards the other side.

Plus, if you want to really strive for authenticity, you have to keep in mind that Praetoria's backstory is massively different from Earth Prime's. Lots of things that happened in Paragon didn't in Praetoria, as well as the reverse. This could lead a character to being incredibly different or incredibly similar.

A Praetorian version of Primal Earth characters should be vastly different, but eerily similar.

That's pretty much it!

For example, my brother has a Kinetics/Electric Defender. His mutant abilities gave him Kinetics, but he got the Electric powers from the secret organization he joined. I made a Praetorian version of him, a Kinetics/Electric Brute. Powers have the same origin, for the same reason...but a vastly different character.

Start at point zero: The world wanting someone that will take their freedoms away for this vague idea of "The greater good". Ripple it out and see where it would logically take your character. There's your Praetorian.

My main villain is viciously insane. A psychopath (Rather, a sociopath with incurable boredom and a case full of guns. Anyway...)

In Praetoria, his psychotic tendencies could have been fixed via Seers very early on. As such, his skills would have been reallocated to something more productive. Hence, he is a Loyalist.

Praetorian damz likes cofee and to "break other hand" *hint hint*

Castle chimed in on a discussion about this once... If I recall correctly, he commented on how Praetoria isn't an opposite/bizarro type of dimension, but just one where things and characters are harsher (possibly meaner).

For whatever that is worth.

Since we have the background of Praetoria now, we can see how and why this is the case and can basically use that to see how characters may have (or may have not) developed.

My approach is basically like what Marcian said.

I just use the world's events and the life in which they'd live (If they survived or were even born) to paint them anew.
Still, I think a good comicbook approach keeps with the spirit of it, somewhat. So, I'd like to try and keep the harsher universe / harsher version of the character idea in mind.

I actually have not yet plotted out any of my characters.
My main villain, Malfaz, though... I think he was freed from being taken (because he is a psychic), but he is still utterly wrought by his physical and mental illnesses, so he has a protective helmet device on his head preventing his psychic maelstrom from affecting others, but some resistance members believe he might be some sort of hope in their fight.

The Electric-Knight may never have gotten his powers. He only got them from being struck by lightning as a child, which merged with his undiscovered mutant genes that required such an incident. He may actually have had his mutant genes initiated in some other way... Maybe he'd have some sort of plant or earth powers from an incident in a Devouring Earth attack.

But yeah... I'd say, no set rule at all... Just a different background to alter the character's birth, upbringing, experiences and mental-makeup.

It's a fun question.

To me, it's yet another dimension. That's all.

Portal Corp's missions give some insight: there are an infinity of worlds out there, many with stunning similarities. I have run with that since the first time I played this game way back when. My main character is STILL the same character, only thousands of years in her future, still playing through each different world as she gets bored of the last. This Praetoria is different from the one which used to be gone through in Jenkins' arc, is different from one that someone creates in the AE, etc.

It's not the "evil goatee" universe. It's just another version of what we think we already know.

Personally, I think of it as examining my characters' stories, finding a moment in there and tweaking it. Instead of fighting the muggers, she ran away. Instead of the experiment being a failure, he found a mistake in his notes and corrected them making it a success. Some characters might end up with a radically different personality, some might just be a little different and some would never become heroes/villains at all.

Praetorian characters don't have to be the opposite of their Primal counterparts, though they certainly can be. Take Belladonna Vetrano, for instance - in Praetoria, there is no Arachnos, and she never died. That alone doesn't make her seem "opposite" to me, though, and as a character she doesn't seem to be wildly different. I went a similar route with the Praetorian version of my "radiation tank" (really a stone/energy tank with powers colored to look as nuclear as possible) - his backstory is that he used to be a stone/SS tank, but a respec trial gone awry changed him. Since neither the Sky Raiders nor Terra Volta Reactor exist in Praetoria, Atomsmash the radiation tank never existed, and instead there is his non-irradiated former self, Fissure Strike, who is a responsible loyalist. Same guy, different history.

On the other hand, my first 50 is a heavily evil dom whose powers come from forbidden knowledge found in ancient, dusty tomes... you know the kind of stuff. Her Praetorian version is a warden of the resistance, playing up on the knowledge being power theme: the Praetorian version was too busy fighting for knowledge to be free and never had the chance to go bad like her Primal self, who hoarded more and more for herself in a world where free knowledge is already abundant. Eldrix (the evil one) dresses in black leather and fishnet, while Beata wears white silk and lace - though their costume structures are still the same general shape. Think Ms. Liberty as opposed to Dominatrix... something like that.

Praetoria isn't an absurd Planet of Hats, unlike most of the other alternate dimensions.

In fact, the assumption by much of Longbow, the Freedom Phalanx, and half of Portal Corp leads to most of the troubles between the two, which I think is actually a brilliantly-played way of integrating the older Opposite-Land view of Praetoria in the missions into the new, actually-morally-indistinct Praetoria. First contact, and they see Evil Freedom Phalanx and assume it's another one of those damned Evil-Universe Earths, which instantly leaves every assumption they make about the world dangerously flawed. Even though they have strong doubts about what they're doing when they see that the police are actually a damned sight nicer than them, and the people are oppressed but contented, they assume that there must be a sinister reason because, duh, it's an Evil Earth. Hell, they assume that everyone on Primal Earth must have an evil analogue outright. Notice that when you play missions against you, they refer to you as 'a Praetorian'? To them, you're just another one of these superpowered analogues, because how else could you have superpowers, and are therefore evil and must be defeated. They don't even call you a super-Praetorian, they just assume that Praetorians are generally like this.

This is why Longbow is taking such drastic actions to fight Praetoria long before they find of Cole's plot. They look into Praetoria and see an Evil-Earth filled with superpowerful beings, and that is obviously a catastrophic threat to Primal Earth. Nobody notices that Primal Earth would never have come under threat if not for Longbow's aggression.


As for good and bad guys, that's the sort of oversimplification that Praetoria doesn't really need. Each side has its reasonable aspects and dangerous beliefs, albeit that each turns out to be the right one to make in the end because it's necessary for the game.

The Wardens believe that Cole's empire has become an unacceptable source of suffering to humanity. Regardless of whether or not most of the people are content, enough are so far from it that his governance cannot be allowed to continue. They, however, believe that their revolution should be as bloodless as possible, because the only people who suffer in a violent rebellion are the common folk. However, by doing this, they are allowing Cole to remain in-power for far longer, and possibly ensuring they will never actually be able to end his rule. They have essentially decided it's better for the people to suffer indefinetly than it is for them to suffer worse for a brief time, even though the former inherently results in much more suffering. This legitimation is inherently albeit subconsciously selfish, in not wanting blood to be on YOUR hands, and tends to weaken their argument for removing Cole in the first place.

The Crusaders have embarked on a bloody rebellion, embarking to destroy Cole's reign by any means necessary. If that means causing untold suffering and death, then so be it. Since Cole's reign is cruel and ruthless, the people are suffering, and suffering in a way that will never end. Breaking that iron grip now will cause far more suffering, but it will only be for a moment, with less net suffering overall. In fact, since Cole is likely immortal and his reign would be indefinite, there is literally no one specific act the Resistance can perform that is not acceptable, and even laudable. So long as they are aware of the horror of their works, they don't run the danger of becoming as bad as Cole. Their weakness is that this is how you run a coup, not a revolution. If their victory costs them popular support, they will have to choose between tyranny, and becoming Cole, or anarchy, and potentially the destruction of humanity itself.

Responsibility is much the same as the Warden angle, save that you don't believe that keeping Cole in power is unacceptable. Cole may be ruthless, but he is the right kind of ruthless in a world that came within a hair's breadth of human extinction with billions of deaths and the loss of nearly all of the earth's surface to the Hamidon, a threat that is still very real. The Syndicate seeks to take over, and they have the means to do it if the Praetorian authority is weakened, and there are so many threats that seek to harm the citizens. Cole's rule may be harsh, but it is fair to most, and most people are happy. You will uphold his rule, but also uphold the standards of the rule, allowing neither enemies of the state nor the state itself to needlessly harm its citizens. However, in doing so, you are compromising the strength of the state. When so many threats exist, due process can become a danger. By doing things by the book, you are allowing the Resistance, the Syndicate, and many more do do far more harm than you would have, and to innocent civilians at that. You may not have blood on your hands, but now there is blood on the street.

The Power loyalists believe that Cole's empire is the only thing that stands between humanity and extinction, and that Cole is the only man with the strength to lead it. Nobody else could then, and nobody else can now. If Cole falls, then there is anarchy, and no dictatorship, no matter how cruel, causes more suffering to more people than anarchy. Worse, the Devouring Earth are still a catastrophic threat, albeit held back by the power of Cole's empire. If the empire no longer functions, then sooner or later the protections will fail, and humanity will face the united force of the Hamidon as a billion individuals. Humanity will be extinct. Therefore, Cole's empire must hold. There is nothing that he can do, nothing his empire can do, that will cause more suffering than his removal, so his empire must be defended, whatever the cost. And if that means becoming a monster yourself, so be the price of power.

Oh? It seemed to me that with the older arcs that the first contact between Primal and Praetorian was the Portal Corps mission that went wrong and hand Longbow sent in to fix it. Soem guys just suddenly appearing in a secure lab, being arrested, and then having what is basically a military force attacking in full to retrieve them doesn't seem very nice.

It's actually kind of hard to tell now, with the changes and the advance in time.

The Devouring Earth still control almost all of the earth's surface. Praetoria is, as an island, safe only because they've basically built a superweapon around the entire mainland. There are a handful of reclaimed patches of land just now starting to be built, and are barely inhabitable as of yet. There's no farmland or anything outside these cities, and without the massively complex and technologically advanced food production mechanisms in place everybody would starve.

Praetoria has, being generous, a population of maybe seven million, including Resistance, assuming that there's high-density living somewhere sufficient to keep running the industries that exist there. Maybe underground houses or something. A few tens of thousands each rebuilding the handful of other cities, all of whom came from Praetoria anyway.

Assuming comparable population growth, the population of Earth before the Hamidon Wars would have been in the region of five billion.

I daresay that constitutes a threat.

Tyrant's bio is also comical propaganda.

The things the mobs say in-game, most notably the Syndicate whose entire stock-in-trade is primarily information, very strongly suggest that Praetoria is the only city that actually exists in the sense that it can sustain its own existence. The Syndicate arcs suggest that the other cities are just approaching livable but are still unsustainable, whereas the Resistance suggests they're still having basic services built. The times they're mentioned by Loyalists are from unreliable narrators, but suggest either that the cities outside are failing or that they're suspiciously successful, and neither are very believable.

It is possible that sustainable cities exist outside Praetoria, but very unlikely they do so as anything other than vassal states over which Cole exercises control through dominance of crucial resource.