Issue 19.5

What... No picture??

It's like we don't even know who you are anymore, Techbot...

The Electric-Knight ______ Malfaz _____ Zox'Oculox

@Zethustra

"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan

www.pauldamonthomas.com - Original Music

1) Because "any two Rares" means you can combine any of the four Rares to make either of the Very Rares. The in-game chart may be more aligned with the crafting requirements, while the chart on the website may be more aligned with the effects. As a result, all of the things that can be used to make a Very Rare run together in the in-game chart before splitting back out to the final boosts.

2) Perhaps because it affords the player more flexibility in the boosts they have available during the (potentially quite long) process of assembling the parts for their Very Rare. There seems to be little point in having both a Cardiac Total Core Revamp and a Cardiac Boost or Cardiac Core Boost. On the other hand, having a Cardiac Total Core Revamp and a Musculature Radial Boost could provide a useful degree of flexibility--you might use the Cardiac to cover your endurance while running solo, and switch to the Musculature when you team up with an Empath or Kin who can provide you with unlimited endurance. Most people might not bother to switch, but having the option beats having a useless lesser boost sitting there while you gather bits for the next upgrade.

3) We don't even know that there will be rare components, though it's certainly possible. However, the ability cost is specifically listed as "Any 2 Rare", not "Any 2 Rare, plus some other stuff". Moreover, it's listed that way in a chart that doesn't include components at all, but which does contain boosts labeled as "Rare". Granting that this is all speculation, it makes more sense to ground our speculation on things that are actually included in the chart rather than hypothetical things that may be added later.

Again, it's all guesswork. We don't know what the Rare boosts will cost--they might require rare components, for example--so any estimates of the total cost of a Very Rare are quite shaky. The numbers and reasoning I offered are simply what I used to set a goal for my main; hopefully, it will at least put me within striking distance of my Very Rare boost when the rest of the Alpha Slot goes live.

Actually, that's what I said: Sister Psyche says there's a deeper cause to the origin of abilities that we normally classify as mutation, which means there's a deeper cause than just genetic mutation. Genetic mutation is the trigger for such abilities, but something changed in the world that made those genetic mutations work that way. It still doesn't change the definition of the Mutant origin, because even if mutation works with some other fundamental cause of powers, that doesn't alter the question of given the five current origins as we understand them, how should we classify the origin of a particular person's power.

Of course its possible that what we call origins is somewhat artificial, and in the past or on other worlds or in other dimensions the source of powers is defined to have different origin types arbitrarily. But of course, if the origins are somewhat arbitrary or there are even potentially more (than just Incarnate), we still can't use them in the game now, which means they aren't currently relevant to the question of either which origin to classify something as, or alternatively which method do the writers of the game tend to use, which could contradict some other alternate interpretation by the players. As mentioned, the Peacebringers are Natural. We're not guessing they're natural and we could be wrong. They are canonically natural. The writers could, in the future, introduce a storyline that changes that. But because that has actual gameplay impact - on the enhancement types that Peacebringers can use, for example - that seems unlikely to me.

Unfortunately, origin exists in a funny twilight where the devs don't want to leverage it too much in gameplay, because they want it to be a "free option" for the players. But gameplay and lore is sufficiently entangled with origin that its not a completely free choice in the sense that some things depend on it (enhancements, stores, etc) and some storylines imply particular aspects of origins canonically. That makes it difficult to integrate more than it is now, and difficult to disentangle any more than it is now. Its sort of painted into a corner at the moment.

Part of the problem, I think, is that it's split between actual origin and bureaucratic "Origin".

The actual origin is what plays into your backstory, enhancements, and some mission dialog--it's where the character's powers really come from.

Bureaucratic "Origin", on the other hand, is just a pigeonhole. Like most other bacteria, bureaucracies fission when they get big enough. The FBSA, for example, split into the "Origin" departments, and now some paper-pusher has the job of shoehorning each new super into one department or another--no matter how much lube is required. They probably just go by keywords; a regular guy with an ax gets the Natural form to fill out in triplicate, but a regular guy with a magic ax gets the Magic form, even if he can't spell "spell".

The problem is that only the bureaucratic Origin can be used as a trigger in the game, so when you base in-game stuff on it, you sometimes get conflicts. Not every Magic character can talk to lightning elementals, for example--and just how many of Iron-Crutch Li's earrings can one person wear at a time, anyway*?

You can usually handwave your way around these things, fortunately, but the devs need to be very careful when adding Origin-specific material. The bureaucratic Origins are just too broad to be reliably used as story hooks.

*(Seriously, that's a big hoop.)

The Electric-Knight ______ Malfaz _____ Zox'Oculox

@Zethustra

"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan

www.pauldamonthomas.com - Original Music

I'm insulted!

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

The little blue book that came with the game when it was first released said that aliens were science origin. But who is what origin is entirely based on what the player selects. Superman isn't any origin because he isn't a PC.

Regarding the Turtles, maybe they are mutant origin. Perhaps the toxic sludge only accelerated a natural mutation that was going to happen as soon as they hit turtle puberty. IT COULD HAPPEN! And maybe they actually suck at martial arts but they are able to use their mutant ability of "telekinesis - limitation: only works on self" to telekineticly move their arms and legs into MA appropriate positions. All that training they did didn't really teach them to be good at MA but it helped them develop an ability to focus and their hidden mutant TK abilities took over.

Everyone has the ability to become a MA/WP scrapper? I think even within the realm of "Natural" potential still comes into play. People may have the ability to become better at fighting through training but I don't think everyone could become the kind of seemingly super-human elite warrior that a scrapper represents.

*I'm not suggesting that the second and third paragraph have anything to do with Eiko-Chan's post. Sorry for the confusion.

If it helps, I recall there's at least one Praetorian mish which has origin-specific dialog lines when disarming a bomb. I recall magic spoke to a fire demon or some such, natural cut the correct wires..

Also, technically the mish lines which delves to specific origin enhancements are supposedly origin-themed; which is why you get the magic origin contacts at Croatoa..

You might not have noticed, but there's a tiny bit of origin customization in the Incarnate arc. The power that you take from Trapdoor takes on an appearance suitable for your origin. There may be other touches further on in the storyline, I'm not sure.

The little blue book that came with the game when it was first released doesn't say that. And while you're technically correct that NPCs don't have an origin in the same way we do, they do have one conceptually to determine what they drop.

I think the superman reference was more just a joke- hinting that he and all other Kryptonians would be generic'ed in THIS game.