Hey GG, I didn't know you were a Rowan Atkinson fan.
Alyssa--if it helps, many of us despise the Primal Earth Marcus Cole also.
There are no words for what this community, and the friends I have made here mean to me. Please know that I care for all of you, yes, even you. If you Twitter, I'm MrThan. If you're Unleashed, I'm dumps. I'll try and get registered on the Titan Forums as well. Peace, and thanks for the best nine years anyone could ever ask for.
Excellent, GG. Just excellent.
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Like Fusionette.
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Originally Posted by DumpleBerry
many of us despise the Primal Earth Marcus Cole also.
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Now see, why couldn't they have added a big ol' neon sign in the beginning stating "This is an alternate reality. Don't panic." and then a calm silky voice a la Morgan Freeman explains all I need to know.
I'm not sure if that was supposed to be a question or a statement. I got lost thinking about Morgan Freeman's voice.
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Arkham Redemption.
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Originally Posted by alyssa_jones
Now see, why couldn't they have added a big ol' neon sign in the beginning stating "This is an alternate reality. Don't panic." and then a calm silky voice a la Morgan Freeman explains all I need to know.
I'm not sure if that was supposed to be a question or a statement. I got lost thinking about Morgan Freeman's voice. |
Global name: @k26dp
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But I just saw him in Fort Trident!
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Originally Posted by TrueGentleman
Emperor Marcus Cole is the one true incarnation, the savoir of his world while all his inferior counterparts have failed theirs. Accept no extra-dimensional substitutes, citizen!
Perhaps your faith in Emperor Cole has been shaken after your sacrifices necessary to do your duty defending our utopian metropolis; perhaps your curiosity has been piqued about a world in which another version permits its inhabitants the "freedom" of choice. If you turn your back on Praetoria now and travel to Paragon City, you will witness firsthand what happens when a people have free will: They selfishly choose to destroy everything good and pure, or stand by and allow others to do so, since they are incapable of the superhuman sacrifice that is Emperor Cole's burden. Only the Emperor can be trusted with the choice of destruction because we can be certain that he will use it only to protect Praetoria and defeat its enemies, wherever they are to be found. Paragon's self-styled Statesman just stands around by a dock at the crime-ridden Independence Port, naively entreating lesser heroes to fight his battles for him. Honestly, he might as well be fishing.  |
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection
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Right. If you watched the old Star Trek series, Tyrant started out as the Mirror universe Evil Kirk, from the reality where all good people in the "real" world are evil and walk around with goatees and mustaches. It's a little more complicated than that now, but it's simplest to think of Tyrant and Reichsman as Evil Clones. Some other big differences between the two settings are that many of the other factions from the original game are either missing or have a different alignment. Circle of Thorns, Hellions and Skulls don't seem to exist, and the Kheldians either don't exist, were wiped out in the Hamidon War, or are doing a very good job of keeping out of sight. The 5th Column and Arachnos were both presumably wiped out in the Hamidon War, or got eaten by Devouring Earth monsters after Tyrant locked them out of his little utopia.|
Originally Posted by alyssa_jones
So when I leave Praetorian Earth I'm going to Primal Earth, yes?
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If the devs wanted to get really crazy, they could add quite a few more worlds just by playing around with the "What If..." machine. Like a version of Earth where Statesman and the Freedom Phalanx went on the suicide mission, and Hero 1 is the leader of the surviving Supers on Earth. Or an "Apocalypse Earth" where Lord Recluse is the leader of the last surviving group of humans fighting against something so evil that it makes him look like a good guy.
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You can do the "right thing" and seriously dislike the-poster-boy-for-doing-the-"right thing".|
Originally Posted by alyssa_jones
Fact 1 - I just read the history timeline on the CoH website that says Marcus Cole is Statesman
Fact 2 - I have two toons in the GR content which were both planned out to be Heroes when leaving While leveling through Praetoria, I have come to dislike Marcus Cole. Even my Loyalist toon dislikes him. But with decision time fast approaching, how do I reconcile the fact that Marcus Cole (evil bad bad man!) is also Statesman (awesome Superhero)? I really don't want to be a villain, but unless I can pull some justification outta my tush, I'll be forced to do it. Help me! |
Personally, I don't think both halves of the Resistance are heroes. The Crusaders don't seem very heroic to me. The Wardens, on the other hand, do.
Same goes for the Power and Responsibility halves for the Loyalists. Do you uphold the government for personal power, or in an attempt to help the citizens?
The way I see it, The Resistance shows the extremes of the Hero/Villain scale. Wardens are Heroes, Crusaders are villains. The Loyalists are the gray area; Vigilantes and Rogues. That's just my personal opinion on the matter.
Now, as a loyalist, you could easily justify becoming a Hero. You'll uphold the laws of the government despite that guy that looks just like Emperor Cole being such a public figure for good.
In case you didn't know, many heroes don't really like Marcus Cole. Regardless of what dimension he comes from. He's too preachy and arrogant.
There I was between a rock and a hard place. Then I thought, "What am I doing on this side of the rock?"
Alyssa, I highly recommend that you peruse issues 4-6 of the Top Cow City of Heroes run (free downloads here -- but the page layout is strange; the issue you want first shows Sister Psyche stopping bullets with a force field, and the next two are actually to the left).
These issues contain the "Smoke and Mirrors" arc written by Troy Hickman (Whose Twilight Guardian #3 is currently hitting the stands--mandatory plug for ol' Troy 
).
Not only is that the best depiction of Statesman in the comics, it also explains the origin of the statue in front of the train station in Kings Row, which is pretty awesome. Usually Statesman is depicted as impossibly arrogant and a jerk. Troy's depiction attempted to segue that into an interesting, human but noble Statesman, and I liked it a lot.
(The Blue King run of the comics did not feature Statesman so much.)
I like playing Heroes. Stick with the good guys!
"How do you know you are on the side of good?" a Paragon citizen asked him. "How can we even know what is 'good'?"
"The Most High has spoken, even with His own blood," Melancton replied. "Surely we know."
Although to be accurate, it's not different dimensions but rather different universes.
The Alt Alphabet ~ OPC: Other People's Characters ~ Terrific Screenshots of Cool ~ Superhero Fiction
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You mean skulking in an underground bunker, naively entreating lesser heroes to fight his battles for him?|
Originally Posted by BrandX
But I just saw him in Fort Trident!
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Originally Posted by ShadowsBetween
Tyrant started out as the Mirror universe Evil Kirk, from the reality where all good people in the "real" world are evil and walk around with goatees and mustaches.
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But Rooster Cogburn has an eyepatch in the Prime dimension, too...|
Originally Posted by TrueGentleman
While goatees are a classic look, eyepatches are in this year for all the cool parallel dimensions. |
(Granted, on the other eye, but I'm just sayin'
)
"How do you know you are on the side of good?" a Paragon citizen asked him. "How can we even know what is 'good'?"
"The Most High has spoken, even with His own blood," Melancton replied. "Surely we know."
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The John Wayne Rooster Cogburn or the Jeff Bridges Rooster Cogburn?|
Originally Posted by Melancton
But Rooster Cogburn has an eyepatch in the Prime dimension, too...
(Granted, on the other eye, but I'm just sayin' ) |
Granted, they both have an eye patch, but only one of them is from Earth Prime. The other one is from Earth remake.
There I was between a rock and a hard place. Then I thought, "What am I doing on this side of the rock?"
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Wouldn't it technically be an alternate reality? I'm thinking along the lines of Sliders...and SeaLab 2021 with their Bizarro Twins.
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Originally Posted by Ironik
Although to be accurate, it's not different dimensions but rather different universes.
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I'm sure there's a complicated technical reason why "alternate dimension," "alternate reality," "alternate universe" and "alternate timeline" aren't actually interchangeable terms. However, in most fiction they are usually used in more or less the same way most of the time, correctly or not. The only ones that tend to stick out are "alternate dimension" and "alternate reality," since I've seen both used to indicate that the "other" place actually operates under vastly different rules than we would consider normal.
The biggest reason to stick with "reality" and "universe" (which are basically the same thing) instead of "dimension" is because a dimension is something like length, width, depth, and the other theoretical dimensions that String Theory suggests.
Unfortunately, since sci-fi uses "dimension" so often it makes discussion about String Theory and additional dimensions difficult because people get confused. Like people will suggest stuff like "Oh, well maybe since we don't see the 6th dimension that's where God lives!" because they're thinking about the wrong use of the word.
My Going Rogue Trailer
Virtue (blue) - Wes The Mess
Virtue (red) - Jess The Best
@Razoras
Alternate Dimension is appropriate since one of the theories about reality is that it is just like a book where each page is a universe. Just because we can't see the 4th dimension doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Alternate Reality and Alternate Universe are interchangeable since you can't have a reality without a universe. Alternate Dimension and Alternate Timeline define the relationship between the two or more alternate realities being compared.
Other people would claim that God is on another planet orbiting a star. There was a recent Futurama episode where the Professor releases nanobots into pond scum and that started robotic evolution on a planet where their entire civilization lasted only a week or two since robots do everything fast. To that culture, the Professor is God. It is one of those topics that is nice to talk about, but ultimately futile until a)God personally claims responsibility which is unlikely or b)All is revealed in the afterlife.
The first step in being sane is to admit that you are insane.
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"Alternate reality" is usually used interchangeably with "alternate universe" (as is the incorrect "alternate dimension"), but "alternate reality" doesn't really mean "alternate universe." It could just as easily refer to a timeline that's been changed by a time traveler, a la movies like Back to the Future or The Butterfly Effect.|
Originally Posted by alyssa_jones
Wouldn't it technically be an alternate reality? I'm thinking along the lines of Sliders...and SeaLab 2021 with their Bizarro Twins.
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"Alternate universe" is the correct terminology. Parallel universes, the many-worlds theory, branching universes -- all of these can be handily covered by the catch-all word "multiverse."
In reality, if there are other universes we probably wouldn't be able to see them, let alone visit them. But that's no fun for superheroes. The really cool -- and somewhat mind-bending -- thing about doppelgangers is that quantum theory says there is finite information... yet the universe we inhabit is infinite. Which means that the information which makes us up eventually gets repeated somewhere out there. In our universe there are exact copies of us doing stuff. Stephen Hawking once said in jest there's probably a singularity out in the universe that's spewing out identical copies of our cars, fridges and iPads.
The Alt Alphabet ~ OPC: Other People's Characters ~ Terrific Screenshots of Cool ~ Superhero Fiction
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The 4th dimension exists, but you can't visit it. Ergo, "alternate dimension" being used to mean "alternate universe" doesn't work. That's akin to conflating "alternate minute" with "alternate planet." You can't visit a minute, but you can visit a planet. Same thing here: you can't visit a dimension but you can visit a universe.|
Originally Posted by starphoenix
Alternate Dimension is appropriate since one of the theories about reality is that it is just like a book where each page is a universe. Just because we can't see the 4th dimension doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
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There are actually two versions of the 4th dimension: the Euclidean 4th dimension which is the usual 3 dimensions (height, length, width) plus time. Then there's the mathematical 4th dimension which makes my brain hurt just trying to conceptualize it. It's usually shown as the tesseract.
This is a tesseract:
The Alt Alphabet ~ OPC: Other People's Characters ~ Terrific Screenshots of Cool ~ Superhero Fiction
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SPOILERZ!!!!!!!|
Originally Posted by Lothic
If you want your characters to be heroes when they go to Primal Earth then it makes the most sense for them to be playing through the Resistance arcs in Praetoria first. There's no real right or wrong way to do it, but as far as the game is organized Loyalist=Villain and Resistance=Hero. You can tell that via many hints in the game not the least of which is the artwork used by the Agent of Praetoria and True to the Last badges - Loyalists get the red arachnos symbol and Resistance gets the blue star. But if you want a Loyalist to become a Primal hero just come up with a good RP reason why that's the case. Like I said there's no real right or wrong way to play it.
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Because Responsibility Loyalists who save people, keep the 1 shred of humanity left alive, and stop hospital bombing plots are villains.
Also, I guess Resistance Crusaders who kill people, try to nuke 1/4 of humanity, and start hospital bombing plots are heroes.
The badge artwork means nothing, I always thought it was just left over from when it was mandatory that Loyalists were the villains, and Resistance were heroes.
@Blaze Moon, Blaze Moon the 2nd
This is where something more interesting than my global and this sentence would be.
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This is all gobbeldy-**** and pseudoscience.
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Originally Posted by starphoenix
Alternate Dimension is appropriate since one of the theories about reality is that it is just like a book where each page is a universe. Just because we can't see the 4th dimension doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
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My Going Rogue Trailer
Virtue (blue) - Wes The Mess
Virtue (red) - Jess The Best
@Razoras
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But he reminds him of him!|
Originally Posted by Twisted Toon
The John Wayne Rooster Cogburn or the Jeff Bridges Rooster Cogburn?
Granted, they both have an eye patch, but only one of them is from Earth Prime. The other one is from Earth remake. |
Alyssa going back to your original point, there's something that's not really been touched on: Whichever destiny you choose for yourself once leaving Praetoria, you are an autonomous person following your own path (within the constraints of the game.)
Whatever you think about any of the signature characters, at no point are you ever serving them. You may find yourself working along side them but you are not a lackey to any of them. You're a hero or villain in your own right.
Thus, from that PoV, it doesn't matter what you think of Statesman Marcus Cole; if you're a hero you're there to protect the people of Paragon regardless of whether or not the big chief is a complete twit or not. Sometimes that can almost be more heroic... subsuming your own ego for the greater good etc.
Hope that helps.
Thelonious Monk
Perhaps your faith in Emperor Cole has been shaken after your sacrifices necessary to do your duty defending our utopian metropolis; perhaps your curiosity has been piqued about a world in which another version permits its inhabitants the "freedom" of choice. If you turn your back on Praetoria now and travel to Paragon City, you will witness firsthand what happens when a people have free will: They selfishly choose to destroy everything good and pure, or stand by and allow others to do so, since they are incapable of the superhuman sacrifice that is Emperor Cole's burden. Only the Emperor can be trusted with the choice of destruction because we can be certain that he will use it only to protect Praetoria and defeat its enemies, wherever they are to be found.
Paragon's self-styled Statesman just stands around by a dock at the crime-ridden Independence Port, naively entreating lesser heroes to fight his battles for him. Honestly, he might as well be fishing.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork