Emperor Cole at the end of the Power Loyalist Arc...

I have a question:

I went looking through some badges and souvenirs from Praetoria, and I couldn't find anything that absolutely confirms the presence of sedatives/drugs in Enriche. Everything I've read (in-game) so far has been inconclusive. Did I miss something?


Now I have a comment:

It's unsettling that some people on this forum have taken the Resistance vs. Loyalist thing as personal war to be carried out of the game and into the forum space, and into every Going Rogue thread, regardless of the topic. Personally, I've played all four flavors and I've enjoyed each one. I'm able to change my hats when playing a game and engage in pretendy fun time. I guess some people might consider the feud to be a credit to the writers, but honestly a lot of these one-line morality police posts really come across as thinly-veiled personal attacks and (real-life)character judgements... and just a handful of people are making this forum really unenjoyable to read.

So far my favorite storyline has been Power Loyalist, just because it's hilariously vain. It's fun! But I also have hero characters who are dedicated to doing the right thing, no matter what, and I enjoy playing them too. See what I did there? I changed my hat.


Now I have another comment (and slightly back to the original topic):

Earlier in the thread someone mentioned something about Draco in Leather Hotpants or some such... Basically wondering why some people were so adamant about defending Cole, despite all the evidence against him.

I can only speak for myself, but I think it's the failure to deliver the moral ambiguity that the concept called for with a title like "Shades of Gray". There are moments when the writers do a good job of blurring the line between heroism and villainy, but in the end most of the evidence is stacked against against the State, regardless of how a person might try to rationalize things. The best rationale I could come up with was that Responsible Loyalists, like Kang, are sort of like good cops caught in an extraordinarily bad situation. They're doing their best to protect people, and maybe they see the ugly truth, but they're just not strong enough to stand up against Cole. And I can't fault them for that. At least no more than you could fault a cop in Iraq many years ago for not calling out Saddam and his sons.

The game pushes you to pick a side, and (at least in early stages) gives you plenty of reason to believe that your side is right*, but gradually takes that away if you choose Loyalist. This is really frustrating if you want to play a genuine protector of peace, public servant character. The storyline just doesn't really allow it. So I find myself feeling sympathetic to Loyalists even though the game canon conflicts with how I see my character. To that extent, I also -want- to like Cole. I liked his speech, and I can see his point that people are bunch of violent monkeys that need to be babysat, at least until they can evolve out of their diapers. He's kind of right. But one well-put speech doesn't exactly make up for the rest of his paradise machine... and I guess that's the problem. I -wish- that the writers had written Cole and his buddies to be less insane, I suppose because I thought that's what I was going to get. Instead I got heroes vs. villains all over again.

I guess my long-winded point is that maybe it's just a case of people wishing the game was written just a little bit different to allow both sides to have real heroes. I have yet to come across any player who actually considers their Loyalist character a lock-stepping stormtrooper.

*I was unaware that the Devs had previously confirmed Cole and Company to be villains when I purchased Going Rogue, so my naive little mind was free to believe that there was a way for a Loyalist to be a hero.

"There's villainy ... and then there's supervillainy. The difference is performance."
-Doc_Reverend

Toxa, there are few, if any, people who will seriously claim that Cole is the good guy here and that the Loyalists are straight up heroes. However, what the big argument seems to be is whether the Praetors' crimes warrant the Resistance's actions. That's the real heart of this debate. I, personally, believe that even with the government being corrupt, the Resistance's actions are not such as to make them Heroes, but instead make them an entirely different type of threat. The game pushes you to pick a side, yes, but in the long run you learn that ALL sides are evil, and Power is the side that's the most /fun./

Yeah, the thing, Toxa, with every evil thing that's on Loyalists and Cole's hand, he's keeping the people alive. The Resistance are pretty much going to make the world burn if they win, because most of the Resistance is Crusaders (At least, that's what I gathered)

So you're character is pretty much stuck between an evil guy gone mad over the stupidity of people, or an evil psychopath gone mad over a woman and willing to make the world burn to get 'er back. Is it any wonder your character jumps ship to Primal the first chance he or she gets?

Well, the original idea was for Praetoria to be a straight Heroes vs Villains fight - but at some point further down the line, they tried to add more "shades of gray" to the setting - and for some reason, they decided to do that by trying to make the Crusaders as bad as the loyalists, rather than dialing back the loyalists' evil.
Clues in the closed beta seem to point to the alpha build having the original Resistance heroes vs loyalist villains idea in it, as during the closed beta, there were some weird things showing up, like the loyalists had the red side mission completion music and could only pick red side titles, and the Resistance were only able to pick Hero titles and had the blue side mission completion music - so if the attempt to add "shades of gray" was done that late in the development process, then it was probably easier for them to add evil stuff to the Resistance, rather than totally rewrite the whole loyalist side to be less evil, as that might have meant delaying the launch date.

Another big clue is aslo how much of the evil stuff the loyalists do isn't really for any reason, except to add flavor and fill in the check-list requirements for an evil dictatorship - if they were genuine shades of gray, then there'd be a reason for the slavery, the thought police the mass-murder, the torture, the "disappearances", the drugged citizens and so on, rather than just being there to add a few extra twirls to the moustacheometer - and the Praetors also wouldn't be written as such evil psychos.

For example, the whole drugged water/Enriche thing is not a shade of gray thing - it's a flat-out evil thing - it's there to show the players that any support for the dictatorship by the citizens could be down to the happy drugs, when a shade of gray would have normal drinking water, and the citizens genuinely supporting the dictatorship.
Or there's also the details about the Seers - the whole thing of them being slaves who lose their memories and personalities is totally un-needed, except to show just how horrific the dictatorship is - a shade of gray would have the Seers being an elite voulnteer unit, not enslaved drones.
And then there are the badges in the Underground, helpfully pointing out just where the dictatorship secretly tortures and slaughters its victims on a daily basis - and again, there's no need for those, except to show just how vile the loyalists are - a shade of gray wouldn't have the slaughter rooms and torture chambers - Tyrant wouldn't be murdering unknown numbers of people every day, and torture wouldn't be standard procedure amongst the PPD.

The attempt to add "shades fo gray" to Praetoria is also the reason why the exit mission at 20 can be kinda weird

GR is still a totally amazing addition to the game, but because of the late-ish attempt to add some "shades of gray" to the setting without actually reducing the level of the loyalaists' evil, there are parts of it that just don't quite mesh together in a way that would actaully show a genuine shade of gray.

Paragon Wiki's finally gotten the text posted, so I don't have to wait until I get a Crusader back up to the right point to copy it, so I'm now going to point this out, and post the proof of it:

The State did not create the Ghouls.

Ghouls were created by a man, much like Dr. Hetzfeld, that desperately wanted to prove he was smarter and better than Praetor Berry. From Helix's mission chain, upon curing the Ghoul King so he can think clearly, he tells you the whole story.

It shocks me that Golden Girl can, on occasion, be so insightful and still be as dense as a brick...

Yes. the original design was "Loyalists bad, Resistance good" but it changed.

However writing up the entire Responsible and Crusader arcs to better highlight how there are good and bad people on both sides probably took more time than it would have taken to rewrite what became the Power and Warden arcs (Previously the Loyalist and Resistance arcs). As it is, both arcs had a makeover to reflect the changes bringing the other arcs into existence required (The Crusaders becoming an organized group in the resistance, rather than a bunch of independent cells acting against the groups core ideals)

When the Devs put in the "Shades of Gray" they wound up added a "Heroic" group to the Loyalists and a "Villainous" group to the Resistance. If the Resistance wins the day in Praetoria, two nuclear disasters will wipe out Nova Praetoria and Neutropolis. If the Loyalists win, nothing changes. There's still bloodshed and horrible horrible stuff going on.... but it's not a complete wipe of two freaking cities.

Somehow I think, in the end game content eventually to be released, the Devs will have to err on all sides having "Won". Which means that Nova Praetoria and Neutropolis will be green-glowing craters pretty much negating the Loyalist and the Warden "Success" situations.

While I agree that Cole is evil, and the Oligarchs are corrupt (and have since the argument began) I don't think letting the Crusaders win is a good thing. And the Wardens won't be able to stop the Crusaders, any more than they could stop Cole in a one on one fight.

-Rachel-

I think for now, I will scoot Resistance into the wrong scales, if only because they should, in theory, be able to set up a safe colony outside of Praetoria since they could do so with the Marino family, but they don't, it might either be because as a whole, they're too stubborn to leave (definitely their fault), it never occurred to them (more and 'oops' moment), or it could be possible that Calvin Scott is doing everything in his power to prevent the Resistance Wardens from realizing this and thus leave him missing a good chunk of his staff and/or executes those that dare suggest or attempt it. Depending on if this is open or not, it would create a painful hypocrisy on part of the Resistance to try to "liberate" people from one tyrant and into another. I'd bring up Calvin deserves blame but its established he's every bit the monster Cole is.

Though the final possibility with this is that they or others have tried it in the past only for Cole to crush such an audacious secession from the established state. Plus, in theory, since he is the Emperor of mankind, that would indeed mean attempts to form a sovereign state of one's own without consent or permission from the Government would be treason and treated as such. (And we know how the state deals with treason...)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.

Also, Divus, somehow I don't think nuking Neutropolis with the city's only power reactors, thus bringing down the sonic generators and letting Hamidon in, would leave many pieces to pick up.

You seem to think the Crusaders would just sit down and tweedle their thumbs once Cole is down and out, yeah, the anarchists are suddenly going to stop with all the chaos and anarchy once they have the upperhand... somehow I doubt that.

Plus, as I've said before, Arachnos and Longbow are likely to go to war (And it's possible Longbow could even attack Vanguard too if they arrived--since they already highly distrust Vanguard for their membership and that Vanguard would be arriving to help the people Longbow deems horrible villains)

If the Resistance wins, the Resistance will fracture into a civil war between the Crusaders and the Wardens, and a Arachnos v Longbow (and possibly v Vanguard, even though that would be up to 6 months later) battle will break out in the already vastly destabilized city, causing essentially mass death, chaos, and anarchy.

Cole's evil, sure, but those in the Resistance that aren't outright evil are naive and blinded by their own ideals to see the truth before them--the Resistance can't win, even if it does, Humanity itself loses.

It's going to be up to Primal Earth Heroes (Or Ex-Praetorian Earth Heroes who left for Primal Earth) to save the day as a third party, pretty much, which is obvious.

Oh, and, the Resistance oppresses people's freedom too--I've said it before and I'll say it again.

"Rebel or die" means about the same as "Serve or die" when it comes to tyranny