Letter writing, wells, menders and more

Anybody reading this thread ought to know they are reading spoilers, but just in case: ************SPOILERS AHOY******************

The biggest argument against the Letter Writer being someone contemporary hero or villain is that LW appears to be a contemporary of Mender Silos. S/he knows who or what the Coming Storm is and s/he is able to determine at one point that Silos' futzing around with the time-space continuum is having some real effect on the outcome. Even the menders under Silos have a difficult time with figuring that sort of thing out.

Then there's this passage, from the Twilight's Son letter:
"Again, be cautious of those you speak to about this; the Menders are aware of my existence, but not my time or location and they would not take kindly to you associating with me. All I ask of you now is to do your duty, pursue the truth and look for more of my letters."

That doesn't sound like someone who would be easily located by simply walking into the Vanguard DPO.

Honestly, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if LW is Nemesis himself, or one of his self-aware duplicates. Given the way he's replicated his mind/brain around, and we even know of several alternate-universe versions of him, a second Lord Nemesis running around our space-time is no huge leap of logic to make.

Here's the thing about Mender Silos - if he's truly our version of Lord Nemesis then he lives for eons past the actual event that he calls The Coming Storm, given that it's "coming" in the near future and he's already delayed it slightly.

Yet, he somehow regrets his part in the arrival of this Coming Storm. So, he somehow survives it and manages to live for hundreds of thousands of years. Meanwhile, some theoretically post-apocalyptic future exists where Tess would be a fearsome warlord, implying the sort of future where Khan had succeeded in ruling the Star Trek Earth.

So, the Coming Storm does not immediately destroy the world, regardless of whether it destroys Ouroboros. Or, alternatively, it destroys the planet or destroys civilization but does not completely destroy humanity.

Nemesis plays some part in the whole thing that somehow contributes to the damage they do. The real question is - What part did he play? How is he attempting to undo it? IS he attempting to undo it or is he attempting to change things to some alternate future where he has a world to rule?

LW knows the answers to these questions and is opposing Silos' agenda, whatever he perceives it to be. I just don't see how that could be someone from our time. I suppose it could be a future version of someone we know, just like Silos, but somehow I don't get that feeling.

If LW really is someone from the 20th/21st century then it's someone who discovered time travel independently of the Menders, traveled to the future and saw what Silos had left behind, and is now opposing him on principle. I don't believe that it's anyone we know unless it turns out to be someone completely unexpected.

Holsten is pretty well convinced that the Coming Storm is a new Rikti invasion, so I don't really expect to find out that he is behind it. He doesn't strike me as the Temporal General type anyway.

If this Battalion is the Coming Storm then I'd expect that Silo's mistake is that Lord Nemesis willingly joins up with them or even summons them in the first place. For whatever reason, Silos is avoiding acting directly against his earlier self. LW appears to be unshackled by such considerations, an argument in favor of LW being someone who is NOT an alternate Nemesis.

I'd also count LW's untracability (yeah, I made that word up) as evidence of LW being a person from a possible future also. Whether LW cares about preventing the Coming Storm or even believes in it is an open question. S/he appears to be all about disrupting Silos' agenda rather than "saving the world" in the sense that we would normally think of that phrase.

Letter Writer is future us. Calling it now.

I will note (sort of in response to your rather nice elaboration, Riptide), that the Letter Writer does really need to be someone we know and have met and interacted with, and not, to quote Tami Baker, "something boring, like, 'Oh, it was random person A who was the leader all along'. That would be very unfortunate." When you have a good mystery story, all your valid suspects need to be around before the mystery part begins.

Hence, why I like the Vanguard folks, am rather less keen on Prometheus (he's shown up before the reveal, but is way later than the actual letters started appearing), and, to be frank, think the idea of some Nemesis clone we don't know or a time-traveler from the future would both be sorta anti-climactic.

Speaking of red herrings, does anyone have a cite for where the LW says that he gave the Midnighters their crystal. The only reference I see is in the ITF letter, where he asks if you've thought about where Montague got the crystal, implying but not actually stating that he was the source.

As far as the LW's identitiy, I'm going to go with DJ Zero; an Incarnate with trans-dimensional abilities, history of getting heroes and villains to work together, and Nemesis hair.

It's DJ Zero.

You heard it here first, folks.










Maybe.


Edit: Dammit Jasra.

Is "DJ Zero" an anagram of "Lord Nemesis"? *calculates* ..... No. Huh, I was sure on that one (actually DJ Zero is a neat idea)

Personally I don't buy the "Silos is future Nemesis who wants to redeem himself for something" angle. There's just something fishy about it. Silos isn't who he appears to be, and he certainly isn't who it says in the "Ask about this contact" window.

The idea I always liked is that it's Faathim the Kind. Admittedly this isn't a perfect solution, the letters seem a bit odd in their wording if it is him (such as the phrase "What about the version of Mender Silos from Faathim's reality?") but I think he does work as a possibility.

That being said I think the most likely solution is that we have not let encountered the letter writer in game. In Silos's SF he says "While you have not yet met me face to face" and in Silos's TF he says "Again, I apologize for my inability to meet with you in person." Given that both of these are level 46-50 that tends to imply that he isn't anyone we've met in the level 1-50 content. Admittedly the wording is a bit vague and does allow for the possibility that we've met an older version of him but not actually met the letter writing version the implication seems to be that he is not involved in level 1-50 content. He could, potentially be involved with the Incarnate content but as others have said I hope it's not Prometheus.

Could be an aspect of Rularru or better yet Rularru himself writing the letters. He is trying to stop Silos and break free of the Shadow Shard. Giving the Midnighters a pillar to pit them against each other until he can claim the Malleus Mundi to basically control reality and stop anyone from binding him again. Which ties in the Circle of Thorns and Nemisis' presence in the Shadow Shard, or something like that.

It would be interesting if Future Lord Nemesis is actually some kind of fractured personality ala Rularuu, and Nemesis, Silos, and DJ Zero are all aspects of the original "Lord Nemesis". That would even allow for LW to actually be "Lord Nemesis" himself without it being a contradiction.

What about the simple possibility of the LW being enemy action? SPOILERS AHEAD!!

I want to toss out the Battalion as a possibility. JUST did the 1st mish in the Oro into arc and read the letter again. Something odd that struck me is the LW didn't use the phrase "the coming storm". In fact the LW claimed not to specifically know the phrase used. That strikes me as odd.

The Battalion's motive would be misdirection and reducing enemy morale. Every moment you spend doubting Ouroboros and questioning it's leaders is a moment spent not fighting the coming storm.