Doc Quantum and the Uncomfortable Mutterings (Wild Speculation!)

-----
I recently did the Rogue/Vigilante Mission featuring Doc Quantum. The mission is about his kidnapping a young lady and saying that he'll release her if Portal Corps. destroys some of their technology. I went Rogue and stole the technology myself. Or something like that.

As I walked through the mission, I heard a lot of various conversations. Two caught my eye.

One was some Arachnos soldiers murmuring rumors that some of the mind-controlled soldiers (I can't remember which soldiers of Arachnos have their wills broken) were starting to think freely and sneak off the reservation. The other soldier replied that a certain operative was keeping things under control.

Next, I walked in on an exchange with two Arachnos soldiers.

A: Hey, you ever wonder what life is like outside of Arachnos?
B: That's dangerous thinking, you know.
A: ... I know. Sorry. My head got fuzzy for a second.


So, here's what we know.

• Recently, Tyrant tried to take over Paragon City. He failed because "we" defeated him. I really don't think he's going to stop.
  
• His most powerful resource is his vast array of mental manipulation tricks that range from controlling the media to literal mind control.
  
• Tyrant needs new tricks to take over Paragon City.
  
• Tyrant would never work with Recluse. They're beneath him. He would, however, be interested in killing them. All of them. In masse.
  
• The two conversations I overheard were both based on Arachnos soldiers doubting Recluse due to a "stray thought that came out of nowhere".

My theory: Emperor Cole is subverting Arachnos to his own ends that may involve using them as an army against Paragon City.

Thoughts? Theories? Ways to tell me I'm stupid?


Disclaimer: I do not really know the lore of City of Heroes. I don't have a Blueside character above level 26 and have missed most Task Force related storylines. Please be forgiving if I'm repeating something that's already been stated.

Sounds like my kind of guy.

Also, please show the proper respect and call him Emperor Cole. Not Tyrant. Silly codenames are beneath Primal Earth's future ruler.

It's more of a description rather than a codename

I am really glad that I did not do any missions for Westin Phipps. One of my characters is going to turn vigilante doing nothing but "Beat Westin Phipps" missions now.

Sig worthy.

Lies of the resistance!

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was a reference to that arc. A lot of the tip missions oddly enough seem to reference Westin Phipps' arcs. For example, the Freakshow school tips heroside? Why that's blatantly Phipps'... Freakshow school arc.

I think Westin Phipps arcs being(to me) the most morally polarizing in the game is probably the basis for using their aspects in morality missions.

From the Merriam-Webster online dictionary:

Now, it is beyond doubt that people within Emperor Cole's government are corrupt and abusive. However, it is quite easily arguable that Cole does not fall into the second definition, and the argument that he's excluded from the first definition is easier, still.

I'm given to understand it was the other way around, actually. Tyrants were, originally, leaders who simply weren't elected. They tended to show up during times of high stress because that's when you tend to need a guy to make snap decisions, as opposed to bureaucracy. And, ya know, during war, leaders need the power necessary to save country, and over time people began wondering, why bother giving it up? Thus, language drift.

Please. He's a legally and democratically elected official. The first definition doesn't apply. If we jump back to the possibility that people in his government are corrupt, but he, personally, is not, then he's not an abusive ruler, either, just an authoritarian one. Which means that second definition doesn't fit.

If we're rocking the Greek definition of the word... well, you're right. But, well...

So, GG, I'm sure you've got some snappy answer for me, which may or may not have come from a fortune cookie, but on the off-chance that I'm wrong, or perhaps the decent chance that a different forumite is interested in discourse, let discussion continue, hmm?

He's no longer elected, otherwise there wouldn't need to be any resistance movement to his dictatorship - they'd just vote him out.
The things he says to ex-loyalists when they escaspe to Primal Earth shows him to be an extremly abusive ruler - he says that humans have no right to free will, even though free will is the basic right that every other human right comes from.
Murdering, torturing, brainwashing and drugging his people also marks him out as an evil person.
Launching a genocidal war against Primal Earth, with plans to murder millions of people also shows him to be quite abusive towards other worlds, not just his own.
Tyrant is one of the most evil people in the game, because his crimes affect entire worlds - Reclsue doens't even get close to him in terms of suffering caused.

Fallacious. Dissent does not equal a majority dissent.

No, it makes him a ******. He's not an abusive ruler until he actually uses his political power to enforce these things.

Again, while there's plenty of evidence that people in his government do these things, there's less that he, himself, participates, or condones.

Careful how you throw around the g-word there, missy. Even if we suppose that the war is purely Tyrant's doing, I see no evidence whatsoever that he's deliberately targeting a specific racial, ethnic, whatever, group for elimination.

As to the war claim, I suggest cautious skepticism. It's not a mystery why there's that saying, "The only thing worse than a war won is a war lost." War is costly, inefficient, and destructive. Emperor Cole strikes me as potentially many things, but stupid is certainly not one of them. So, if this war is his doing, and I agree, it would seem to be, I submit that there must be a very, very good reason for it, because were Praetorian society subject to that level of whimsical tomfoolery, it simply would not function to the degree it currently does.

Furthermore, the effort required to sustain a war is tremendous. Cole could not disguise this, which means he has the agreement of his government counterparts, which means he's still operating within his rights and abilities as a leader, which means he's still not a tyrant.

Your actions and continued condemnations of Emperor Cole are detrimental to his ability to function as a chief of state. You have certainly contributed to at least one person joining the Resistance, which means you've committed slander on this world and terrorism/treason on his (You can pick which one you prefer more.)

Worse, by bolstering the Resistance, you perpetuate the Praetorian conflict, which in turn leads to further militarization and expansion- the very things you decry in Cole. If Tyrant is evil because his actions affect many worlds, you, madam, are worse, because your actions affect just as many worlds as his in the exact same way, but at least he doesn't have the gall to put a smiley face at the end of the sentence that dooms untold millions.

From the Tyrant bio:

That's not a legal, democratic election. I only have our UN Security Council to go by, but they don't have the power to elect a Consul of the Earth on this Earth, no matter the circumstances, and they certainly don't speak with the full authority of the governments that they represent, nor the authority of the people of those nations, in nations where the leaders are democratically-elected. Most of them aren't even elected from their nations, but rather appointed to the position.

Now, the people later did put pressure on their governments to follow him, but it says nothing about elections. Mobs can be very persuasive, but they may or may not represent the views of the majority.

Of course it's not a legal, democratic election. It's a damned dramatization. Regardless of what kindergarten teachers might lead you to believe, people are not in power based solely on the fact that they can shout loudly.

True, the UN doesn't have the right to elect a Consul of the Earth, but societies are constructs. They are, on a very fundamental level, subject to the will of the people within them. Cole was empowered. He didn't seize it; it was given to him. And the fact that the reconstruction that happened did, in fact, happen only speaks to the popularity of this decision.

Cole did not stage a coup, and he did not act without the consent of the world around him. Thus, he did not usurp. Perhaps not legal, but only in the sense that there was not yet a law for the occasion. Perhaps not democratic, but only in the sense that he did not campaign. Perhaps not a good ruler, but also, not a tyrant.

Well, when the state is murdering, torturing, brianwashing and drugging the people, it does make it harder for people to voice dissent - which is kinda the whole point why Tyrant and his stormtroopers do it.

Which he does - his dictatorship is carrying out crimes against humanity 24/7, year after year - his entire rule is based on them - he's well aware of what his thugs are doing.

He intend to wipemout every single powered person on primal Earth, and murder any non-power person who has potentially "dangerous" thoughts.

So first you say he mightn't know about the crimes against humanity his minions are carrying out every day at all levels of society, and then you say is isn't dumb?

A quote for you:

"They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power."

Tyrant is an immortal god-emperor who can survive a direct hit from a nuke and defeat the Hamidon in single combat - his word is law, and anyone who opposes him "disappears" - he doesn't need to co-operate with anyone - he'll always have plenty of willing slaves to replace anyone who tries to stop his will being carried out.

That is the general idea, yes

It's only salder if it's untrue, and laws created by a dictatorship are invalid

Actaully, the only one perpetuating the civil war is Tyrant - if he and his evil system were gone, there wouldnt be any horrible injuistices to resist against - Tyrant and his dictatorship created the Resistance through their crimes - proper societies, like on Primal Earth, don't have armed resistance movements because they have the freedom to express themselves and change how their governed.

The only doom that freedom brings is to evil dictatorships, their rulers, and their stormtrooper thugs

You mean Praetorian Stefan Richter who Tyrant murdered?

There's also the fact that after 25 years of dictatorship, an entire generation exists who haven't been given a say on how they're governed - they're enslaved by a dictatorship that their parents and grandparents voted for.

Well, yes, though I think that isn't exactly accurate either. (My personal tinfoil theory is that Praetorian Cole is fully under control by the Well, and it's the well which did Stefan in)