USTREAM Transcript

Technically the Preatorians could have come to Primal Earth first, but Primal Earth fired the perverbial shot heard throughout the multiverse.

Praetoria has always been at war with Prime.

At this point we don't plan on making an official transcript, although if any body out there wants to take the time to type on up, we'd certainly be happy to link to it.

These UStream casts actually take quite a bit of preparation, so unfortunately we won't be able provide transcription. That being said, we will continue with this format, with the next cast being planned around the 7 year anniversary.

And of course I'll be popping in during the week for more low key check ins.

What prompted me to ask the question is that it needed, not a retcon, but a retro-active clarification of which of two conflicting stories is the official one. In the in-game pre-i19 arcs, we're told that the Praetorians had bases in Paragon City before Portal Corp found them; in the comic books, we're told that the Praetorians didn't have inter-dimensional travel until they stole it from us.

SPOILERS BEGIN HERE

Frankly, "Primals fired first" is, of those two stories, the only one that makes sense once we were told that, in Praetorian Earth, Nemesis never developed superpowers. In Primal Earth, the conspiracy goes like this: Nemesis became obsessed with one of the supers who foiled his 1930 attack on the US, Dark Watcher, because of his plane-walking ability, but that same ability made Dark Watcher impossible to capture for study. So Nemesis invented and released Superadine to produce a mass outbreak of new supers, in hopes that his spies would identify a new plane-walker before that person mastered their abilities. The Nemesis Army did find and capture a plane-walker. Nemesis concluded, unfortunately for him, that artificial plane-walking would require electronics and/or nuclear technology, two technologies he finds personally distasteful, so he leaked his research findings to one of the two founders of Portal Corp, then stole the portals from them once they built them.

And that's why, in issues 16 and 18 of the Top Cow comic books, Antimatter has to reverse-engineer portal technology from telemetry readings taken when Freedom Phalanx kidnapped Dominatrix. Until then, they couldn't have put agents, let alone supers, into Primal Earth.

(Unresolved issue: is there a Praetorian equivalent of Dark Watcher?)

END SPOILERS

When the comic book medium is all about retcons and clarifications about seemingly conflicting accounts, why is it so hard to accept that a game that's based on a comic book-type universe can't follow the same "rules?"

If you don't like retcons on principle, that's one thing. If you don't think a game is allowed to use them (if they actually did), that's another. Every story supported feature we've received since day 1 is a form of retconning. The game evolves. There's no reason why the story can't do some evolving along with it. Different writers, different ideas, changes in plans for the future of the game, all these things can force the lore to alter in varying degrees. There's nothing wrong with that if the end result makes more sense.

The biggest "what" of the whole thing is Tina's arc.

Tina: Ohnoes, someone is attacking the Portal Corps offices, halp!
Player: Okay... There, I stopped them.
Tina: Thanks! But they stole the technology anyway, so now they have the knowledge for Portal Technology!
Player: That's terrible. Here, let me help... Okay, so that's the invaders stopped, who were they?
Tina: They were invaders from another dimension.
Player: So why were they trying to steal our technology?
Tina: To be able to travel to our dimension of course!
Player: But... But...
Tina: Go along now; find an italian plumber and go talk with Maria Jenkins, she has a job for you.

Hang on...

Who's saying Primal Earth fired first?

If it's the Praetors and Emperor Cole, isn't that information a little, I don't know, SUSPECT!?

Maria Jenkins sure as Hell talks as if the previous capture of Statesman happened in her new arc. She even hangs a lampshade on the prior reasoning as to why he was captured and detained so easily.

I'm not so certain that the new Praetorian stuff is so much "retcon" as the people of Praetoria may be drinking a wee bit too much Enriche.

Teach the doped-up masses wrong enough, and you'll get them to believe anything. There are certainly enough opiates in that water, too.

I wouldn't be surprised if part of the reason why Tyrant's pushing his invasion so hard is that the drugs aren't working as effectively anymore. The people may have developed a tolerance for the stuff and are starting to see things as they are and not how they're told they should be. Now, granted, Praetoria is a beautiful place, but things are obviously more than a little whacked. Get them embroiled in an interdimensional war with no end ANYWHERE in sight, however, and bam, they've GOT to follow.

Just remember, though, the story is coming to us in tiny bits and pieces. There's no reason to declare anything as retcon or whatever yet (save the Fifth Column to Council conversion, which had its reasons for it that apparently didn't pan out, hence the Fifth's return).

I feel similarly about City of Heroes as I do about the comic books I read. I'm interested, engaged, invested. So I can understand some peoples frustrations who have been playing the game for years and are more familiar with every nook and cranny of the lore (I don't even have my two year badge yet). "Tacked on" (other peoples words) content like S.A.M. doesn't bother me, because I consider it to be light drama. It broadens the story superficially, but not at the expense of fancy new villains and game mechanics. S.A.M. is like the "villains of the week" that appear in The Amazing Spider-Man comics between more serious story threads. I find those arcs very enjoyable.

However, multiverse-shaking lore like the Going Rogue storyline should not be approached superficially by writers. Of course, the "first shot" debacle could be explained easily by subterfuge (I mean HELLO, Protean's involved). In such case, getting this across in the context of the game should be achieved with clarity--but undoubtedly there will be twists and turns in the story throughout. I saw this spaghetti-like tangle of new story-lines coming when Going Rogue was first announced, and begged on the forums for Paragon Studios to create a few new comics for Going Rogue, to help illustrate and explain everything coming down the pipeline (I don't think that post got any replies from anybody ).

Heh... I was going to try my hand at transcribing the video because I type fairly fast, but it's over an hour long. Definitely not a project for tonight.

Quote:

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.