Wait... What Carnival of Light?
By
Arilou,
Posted on: 2010-12-06 13:49 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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That's a good way to put it. Having read the official Carnival of Shadows backstory (which I didn't know was there), it seems that I was half-right about the Primal Earth Vanessa DeVore. She started out with noble intentions, fielding vigilantes, but ended up a figurative vampire, ruling over an entire empire built around the sole purpose of feeding her hunger for psychic energy, decadent entertainment and honest-to-God power and control. This is only partly the result of Giovanna Scaldi's decadence, and in perhaps equal part to Vanessa's own greed.|
Originally Posted by Lord_Apollon
In many ways, Vanessa is their worlds Sister Psyche, and Mother Mayhem is their worlds CoS Vanessa. In theirs, Vanessa is the benevolent, caring psychic protecting the people. And Mother, she is the soul-sucking leech.
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Interestingly, bringing Mother Mayhem into the story draws a good parallel. On Praetorian Earth, it is Mother Mayhem who has built herself an empire of decadence, if one more appropriate to a totalitarian world. She exists amid an army of psychics whom she recruits, trains, controls and eventually feeds on, and given their state and fates, apparently eventually kills, though perhaps indirectly.
Primal Earth's Vanessa DeVore's motivations and characterisation correspond very closely to those of Mother Mayhem, and because Vanessa's true self was formed by choice and conscious effort, she does indeed appear to be the counterpart not of Praetorian Earth's Vanessa, but to Mother Mayhem, herself. I don't know enough about Sister Psyche to draw a cross parallel, but I could write it off, either.
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I'm still not sure where the Carnival of Light figures into this, however. Praetorian Vanessa is essentially the brood mother of the Resistance, apparently more than second in command to Calvin Scott. She already has a "carnival" in the face of all the Resistance Fighters. This begs the very legitimate question of why she would need another group of followers, why those would be harlequins who'd stand out like a sore thumb, and what would happen to the Resistance without her considerable power to hide them.
Those are not actually criticisms of the lore, as there appears to be more lore to be revealed. I'm just interested to know these things. And any story, be it in a game, movie or book which can make me want to know more gets my support. I'm still largely dubious of the details, and largely because I know why they exist, but I can see how they could be cleaned up. Will they be? My magic 8-ball says "Don't count on it."
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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My theory for the Carnival of Light has to do with "what the heck do we do with these freed Seers?" They are powerful psychics, honed by their time with Mother into weapons. They would be dangerous for the Resistance to keep amongst their own troops, so they would be seperated into some kind of organization.
As it is now, they're being turned into Bombs, but with the elimination of Beholder, they need a new use for them.
As Vanessa is the lead Psychic, she would be the natural head of such an origanization, their own Longbow so to say. They would organize around her template, and I could easily see the masks they wear as ties to Vanessa for shielding. So, I'd easily imagine the Carnival of Light fitting into this model, being organized around levels 20-30, and being a full force on their own after 30.
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I'm not certain we should be making the assumption Giovanna is connected to the Praetorian Vanessa mask. Pranessa (yes I just made that word up for Praetorian Vanessa) may just have the mask as part of her costume since the Devs wanted there to be such a strong visual recognition between both Devores. When you walk into the Resistance base (Underground Nova Praetoria) for the first time you know that trainer is the the Praetorian version of Vanessa Devore. It's the costume that let's the player suspect this npc is Vanessa Devore.|
Originally Posted by Shadow State
Giovanna is the only reason for Vanessa to be wearing a porcelain mask.
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Take Belladonna Vetrano, the only women to have animated hair in this game are Belladonna and Ghost Widow. There exists no ingame lore for why Belladonna has animated hair, but the fact that Ghost Widow does have animated hair makes it almost certain that any CoH vet playing through Going Rogue for the first time is going to take one look at Belladonna Vetrano and identify her as Praetorian Ghost Widow.
I don't know for a fact that Giovanna isn't involved in Praetoria at all, but the fact Pranessa has a mask can, possibly be nothing more then a design decision by Noble Savage or Sexy Jay.
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Now that's an interesting possibility: redesign the Carnival of Light to have *female* Strongmen (err, Strongwomen). That way, the giant helmet would serve the purpose of hiding their partially dismantled cybernetics. Sadly, that would require new art assets, so it probably won't happen.|
Originally Posted by Lord_Apollon
My theory for the Carnival of Light has to do with "what the heck do we do with these freed Seers?" They are powerful psychics, honed by their time with Mother into weapons. They would be dangerous for the Resistance to keep amongst their own troops, so they would be seperated into some kind of organization.
As it is now, they're being turned into Bombs, but with the elimination of Beholder, they need a new use for them. As Vanessa is the lead Psychic, she would be the natural head of such an origanization, their own Longbow so to say. They would organize around her template, and I could easily see the masks they wear as ties to Vanessa for shielding. So, I'd easily imagine the Carnival of Light fitting into this model, being organized around levels 20-30, and being a full force on their own after 30. |
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Honestly I was a little disappointed to find no Carnival of Light in Praetoria, since it was strongly hinted at that that they would be in the New Praetoria. Back when new salvage from praetoria showed up on the market, the info stated they dropped from Praetorian DE or Praetorian Clockwork or Praetorian Carnival of Light.
Plus some one brought it up at Hero Con 2 and it was more or less confirmed IIRC.
I have a feeling they will show up in future Praetorian content some where, Devore's presence in Praetoria makes me think the devs have something in mind for it.
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If it's just an old relic from those days, then why did the Devs put references to the Carnival of Light in the New Tina arc? If they didn't want to do something with that gorup they could have easily left it out. |
Originally Posted by Kasoh
If the Carnival of Light comes in the 21-45 gap of Praetoria, it requires a schism between Vanessa and the rest of the Resistance and a complete loss of sanity to try to put something as non sequitor as an army of mask wearing psychic carnies in a place as McGrimDark as Praetoria.
Its a relic from when Praetoria was a goatee mirror universe and rather than rework the concept as DeVore's elite cadre of resistance troops or something, we have what it is: a single reference or two in a mission or three. |
Praetoria isn't all McGrimDark, since Nova Praetoria and much of Imperial city are rather bright and lightly colored. Also the whole bit about Praetoria being shades of gray, nothing is what it seems etc. The Carnies of light, a bunch of lightly colored mask wearing psychics isn't all that out of place, since we already have an army of mask wearing psychics in praetoria, they are called Seers.
The Carnival could simply be Ex-Seers or people who went underground to avoid becoming seers etc. Or hell maybe Seers are recruited from captured carnival of light soldiers, as well as civilians etc.
And Speaking of... You're assumption that having the Carnival of Light would require some sort of schism between the resistance and Devore, is based on what?
Devore could be the secret leader of the carnival, she could communicate with them psychically without anyone knowing. The Carnival could be the psychic branch of the resistance. The Carnival could have some sort of alliance with the resistance while operating independantly and Devore could work for both. I mean the resistance is all about taking down cole, if the Carnival of Light is also about taking down Cole, (And from what we know it seems that way.) They could easily team up with the resistance.
Also, we know that by level 20, Devore is with the resistance. But who is to say that Primal Earth's Tina Arc is happening at the same time as the Praetorian arcs. Tina's arc could be well after the events in the praetorian arcs, and some time between the end of those arcs and the start of Tina's arcs, her Carnival of Light is formed.
So no, it doesn't have to be a relic of the old arcs, and I'd bet it probably isnt.
"Where does he get those wonderful toys?" - The Joker
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Vanessa DeVore has no psychic powers of her own, she gains her tremendous powers from the porcelain mask that has Giovanna Scaldi locked inside it. To redesign her character with inherent psychics and no Giovanna is a very, very, VERY abrupt re-write for what is ostensibly a signature character, and I just don't see that happening. That said, it's quite possible that Praetorian Earth Giovanna wasn't such a jerkass and is actually a kind soul helping Vanessa do good.|
Originally Posted by warden_de_dios
I'm not certain we should be making the assumption Giovanna is connected to the Praetorian Vanessa mask. Pranessa (yes I just made that word up for Praetorian Vanessa) may just have the mask as part of her costume since the Devs wanted there to be such a strong visual recognition between both Devores. When you walk into the Resistance base (Underground Nova Praetoria) for the first time you know that trainer is the the Praetorian version of Vanessa Devore. It's the costume that let's the player suspect this npc is Vanessa Devore.
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Originally Posted by Ice_Wall
If it's just an old relic from those days, then why did the Devs put references to the Carnival of Light in the New Tina arc? If they didn't want to do something with that gorup they could have easily left it out.
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Originally Posted by Ice_Wall
Also, we know that by level 20, Devore is with the resistance. But who is to say that Primal Earth's Tina Arc is happening at the same time as the Praetorian arcs. Tina's arc could be well after the events in the praetorian arcs, and some time between the end of those arcs and the start of Tina's arcs, her Carnival of Light is formed.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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This sounds convincing. It still seems that a "carnival" of psychics would stand out far too much, while we already know there is a whole network of clandestine operatives, but it's not like the Crusaders don't stand out like a sore thumb already.|
Originally Posted by Lord_Apollon
My theory for the Carnival of Light has to do with "what the heck do we do with these freed Seers?" They are powerful psychics, honed by their time with Mother into weapons. They would be dangerous for the Resistance to keep amongst their own troops, so they would be seperated into some kind of organization.
As it is now, they're being turned into Bombs, but with the elimination of Beholder, they need a new use for them. As Vanessa is the lead Psychic, she would be the natural head of such an origanization, their own Longbow so to say. They would organize around her template, and I could easily see the masks they wear as ties to Vanessa for shielding. So, I'd easily imagine the Carnival of Light fitting into this model, being organized around levels 20-30, and being a full force on their own after 30. |
It does make sense that Vanessa would be the leader of whatever these psychics are organised as, however, this much I agree.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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If I may butt in, (And I shall, so nyah!), perhaps threads like this could be more productive if, when considering the subject, the poster was to keep in mind the phrase,
"Devs, I noticed there might be some inconsistencies in one of the storyline elements - let me point them out so either there can be some clarification, or you can be made aware of these problems so they can be fixed before they cause more inconsistencies in other parts of the game..."
instead of
"DEVS! YOU UTTER ******! WHAT IN THE NAME OF **** and **** is GOING ON WITH YOU PEOPLE! CAN'T YOU GET THIS STUFF RIGHT! I'M RICK JAMES, *****! LOLCATS! THE END OF THE WORLD IS NIGH BECAUSE THIS STORY MAKES NO SENSE WHEN YOU CONSIDER THE TRANSDIMENSIONAL IMPLICATIONS OF TIME TRAVEL IN A EUCLIDEAN-GEOMETRY UNIVERSE! OMGWT*BBQ321FIRE!"
I'm not saying that's what you said, it just feels like that's what was in the mind of the original poster. I'm just sayin'.
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Sorry about all the genitals.
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Originally Posted by galadiman
Second. I spent my first day on Chatroulette.
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No, sir (or madam). I do not believe that you are sorry. Not even a little bit.|
Originally Posted by Nalrok_AthZim
Sorry about all the genitals.
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Speaking of little bits...
Nevermind.
Arc #6015 - Coming Unglued
"A good n00b-sauce is based on a good n00b-roux." - The Masque
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Then you misread. What was in the mind of the original poster was "If I'm reading this right, this is incredibly stupid. Please tell me I'm reading this wrong because I hope the developers are better than this."|
Originally Posted by galadiman
If I may butt in, (And I shall, so nyah!), perhaps threads like this could be more productive if, when considering the subject, the poster was to keep in mind the phrase,
"Devs, I noticed there might be some inconsistencies in one of the storyline elements - let me point them out so either there can be some clarification, or you can be made aware of these problems so they can be fixed before they cause more inconsistencies in other parts of the game..." instead of "DEVS! YOU UTTER ******! WHAT IN THE NAME OF **** and **** is GOING ON WITH YOU PEOPLE! CAN'T YOU GET THIS STUFF RIGHT! I'M RICK JAMES, *****! LOLCATS! THE END OF THE WORLD IS NIGH BECAUSE THIS STORY MAKES NO SENSE WHEN YOU CONSIDER THE TRANSDIMENSIONAL IMPLICATIONS OF TIME TRAVEL IN A EUCLIDEAN-GEOMETRY UNIVERSE! OMGWT*BBQ321FIRE!" I'm not saying that's what you said, it just feels like that's what was in the mind of the original poster. I'm just sayin'. |
Pointing out storyline inconsistencies works about as well as pointing out text errors - no-one cares, no-one does anything about it. The Khaan TF still exists, does it not? I have no illusions that I can affect any lore contradictions in the game, at least not before I die of old age, so my only hope is that the lore, as stated, is actually correct and there's just something I don't get. Because it won't get fixed either way.
I really don't know why that is. Text changes do not take long to make. A few days ago I decided to resurrect an old arc of mine, and I went through what was probably 20KB of text in the form of briefings, clues, system text and objectives in the span of around half an hour, and that spanned a huge 5-mission arc. When I /bug, say, Maria Jenkins' "Ask about this contact" bio because it makes no sense and is riddled with typos, that is a change doable in five minutes, yet those are five minutes which have not been spared in SIX YEARS.
Forgive me if I hold no hope of anything I say affecting existing missions in any way whatsoever.
And I still don't understand why we were surprised that Praetorians wanted to invade us when we knew that at level 20.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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The color of the paint does not set the tone. Praetoria is a dark place that demands harsh sacrifices from those who would uphold the status quo and those who seek to change it. Before you step out of Nova you've either committed atrocities, murdered your contact, or wallowed in your ineffectualness. |
Originally Posted by Ice_Wall
Praetoria isn't all McGrimDark, since Nova Praetoria and much of Imperial city are rather bright and lightly colored. Also the whole bit about Praetoria being shades of gray, nothing is what it seems etc.
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They might as well issue a Fedora and a hard boiled narration with each character.
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"that is a change doable in five minutes, yet those are five minutes which have not been spared in SIX YEARS."
Five minutes to make the change, the push it through QA, make sure it doesen't break something somewhere, check out so it coheres with everything else...
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And I still don't understand why we were surprised that Praetorians wanted to invade us when we knew that at level 20. "
Because half the praetorian arcs ends with you stopping the invasion.
"Men strunt �r strunt och snus �r snus
om ock i gyllne dosor.
Och rosor i ett sprucket krus
�r st�ndigt alltid rosor."
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You're overdramatising. Text errors are not hard to fix if text is all you change, and especially if they're typos. That's what I've been doing for the past few days on my arcs and none of them have become unplayable or broken.|
Originally Posted by Arilou
"that is a change doable in five minutes, yet those are five minutes which have not been spared in SIX YEARS."
Five minutes to make the change, the push it through QA, make sure it doesen't break something somewhere, check out so it coheres with everything else... |
But even if we went with what you're saying - are you honestly telling me that the process is so long and arduous that it takes them SIX YEARS to fix a typo in a text box? Because that's how long Maria Jenkins' bio has had its typos.
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"And I still don't understand why we were surprised that Praetorians wanted to invade us when we knew that at level 20. " Because half the praetorian arcs ends with you stopping the invasion. |
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Praetoria is a nice example of a flawed utopia. It's a world that looks and feels perfect, but requires some pretty unpleasant sacrifices to keep it looking and smelling well, which makes it rotten at the core.
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Originally Posted by Kasoh
The color of the paint does not set the tone. Praetoria is a dark place that demands harsh sacrifices from those who would uphold the status quo and those who seek to change it. Before you step out of Nova you've either committed atrocities, murdered your contact, or wallowed in your ineffectualness.
They might as well issue a Fedora and a hard boiled narration with each character. |
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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"t ends with you LEARNING about the invasion as it's being planned."
The Warden arc ends with you destroying the portal, presumably ending the threat for the foreseeable future (IE: until the 50's)
"Men strunt �r strunt och snus �r snus
om ock i gyllne dosor.
Och rosor i ett sprucket krus
�r st�ndigt alltid rosor."
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You're explicitly told that you've done nothing but delay their plans until they can build a new portal. Explicitly. The exact line is "Neuron's tower has been disabled, preventing Cole from launching his attack before we're ready for it." You bought Primal Earth time, and you know it's nothing but that.
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Originally Posted by Arilou
The Warden arc ends with you destroying the portal, presumably ending the threat for the foreseeable future (IE: until the 50's)
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Do you remember back when we didn't even find out about Oranbega until the late 20s and didn't actually go there until level 30-35? Now we can go to Oranbega at level 10 in the new Positron TF. A bit of a waste if you ask me. But perhaps the devs think that it's better to throw the cool stuff at the few new players right away so they will be more interested in sticking around. For my first playthrough 1-50 I remember getting to see the tech labs was a huge deal, and Oranbega was just amazing. Now we get to see all that stuff and even cooler maps right from the start.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
The Oranbegans' true identity? We know.
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| I hope I'm wrong about this, but... Can someone please explain all of that stuff to me, because from where I'm sitting, it looks like a gigantic mess. |
Winner of Players' Choice Best Villainous Arc 2010: Fear and Loathing on Striga; ID #350522
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And that's what keeps me up at night.
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Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
You're explicitly told that you've done nothing but delay their plans until they can build a new portal. Explicitly. The exact line is "Neuron's tower has been disabled, preventing Cole from launching his attack before we're ready for it." You bought Primal Earth time, and you know it's nothing but that.
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Saying a place is nothing but GrimMcDark seems to be painting it as a place where there is nothing pleasant and no bright side. Now the aesthetics of Praeotoria, Color, palette etc absolutely set a tone. |
Originally Posted by Kasoh
The color of the paint does not set the tone. Praetoria is a dark place that demands harsh sacrifices from those who would uphold the status quo and those who seek to change it. Before you step out of Nova you've either committed atrocities, murdered your contact, or wallowed in your ineffectualness.
They might as well issue a Fedora and a hard boiled narration with each character. |
Nova Praetoria is bright, pretty, lush, a visual reminder of the promise of paradise and utopia.
Nuetropolis is dark, gray, indsutrial, filled with smoke, this is the harsh reality , the behind the curtain, of the "utopia."
The aesthetics of Praetoria absolutely set a tone. There is other substance beneath the aesthetics, absolutely but that doesn't mean they don't set a tone.
As for the subtance, well yes, Praetoria is a flawed society with issues, but every so society has flaws and issues. There are 4 paths in Praetoria, and the Responsibility and Warden paths aren't anti-heroic, in fact they are meant to be the struggle for ideals without hurting innocents, compromising values etc while Power and Crusader are the more wreckless and irresponsible stories.
Do the stories have happy endings? Not really, but they don't really have endings either, they have "to be continueds" and not all of it is bad. Praetoria is filled with examples of people willing to fight the good fight or sacrifice themselves for higher ideals, many would consider that noble, heroic or even bright spots in a turmoiled area.
The main point is that Praetoria is not all one way or another, it's shades of gray, not all dark gray not all light gray.
The point of my statement was, some one was mentioning how out of place something like the "Carnival of Light" would be in a place that is completely "McGrimDark". This doesn't hold up since Praetoria isn't all "McGrimDark", it's a lot of things, and it's complicated, painting it with one color or brush is an overly simplified way of looking at things, and in such a complicated place, in a superheroic setting, carnival themed pshychics wouldn't be all that out of place, certainly not any more so than yellow skinned super steroided gangsters and mindless zombiefied lab experiments.
"Where does he get those wonderful toys?" - The Joker
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As pointed out earlier, that was already intruded upon by the Hollows arcs.
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Originally Posted by FredrikSvanberg
Do you remember back when we didn't even find out about Oranbega until the late 20s and didn't actually go there until level 30-35? Now we can go to Oranbega at level 10 in the new Positron TF.
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Yeah I hadn't read the whole thread by then.
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Originally Posted by Scythus
As pointed out earlier, that was already intruded upon by the Hollows arcs.
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Winner of Players' Choice Best Villainous Arc 2010: Fear and Loathing on Striga; ID #350522
A bit of insight is to compare the origin of each world. In ours, the Rikti invaded. In theirs, Hamidon broke loose sooner.
I highly suspect that Vanessa was a soldier against Hamidon, until she retired to raise a family, putting the mask down. But when Penelope was taken from her, she struck a deal with Giovanna, and put on the Mask again.
In many ways, Vanessa is their worlds Sister Psyche, and Mother Mayhem is their worlds CoS Vanessa. In theirs, Vanessa is the benevolent, caring psychic protecting the people. And Mother, she is the soul-sucking leech.